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At least 487 records · Page 27

FPGAs-as-a-Service Toolkit (FaaST)

Computing needs for high energy physics are already intensive and are expected to increase drastically in the coming years. In this context, heterogeneous computing, specifically as-a-service computing, has the potential for significant gains over traditional computing models. Although previous studies and packages in the field of heterogeneous computing have focused on GPUs as accelerators, FPGAs are an extremely promising option as well. A series of workflows are developed to establish the performance capabilities of FPGAs as a service. Multiple different devices and a range of algorithms for use in high energy physics are studied. For a small, dense network, the throughput can be improved by an order of magnitude with respect to GPUs as a service. For large convolutional networks, the throughput is found to be comparable to GPUs as a service. This work represents the first open-source FPGAs-as-a-service toolkit.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Enabling Modular Autonomous Feedback‐Loops in Materials Science through Hierarchical Experimental Laboratory Automation and Orchestration

Abstract Materials acceleration platforms (MAPs) operate on the paradigm of integrating combinatorial synthesis, high‐throughput characterization, automatic analysis, and machine learning. Within a MAP, one or multiple autonomous feedback loops may aim to optimize materials for certain functional properties or to generate new insights. The scope of a given experiment campaign is defined by the range of experiment and analysis actions that are integrated into the experiment framework. Herein, the authors present a method for integrating many actions within a hierarchical experimental laboratory automation and orchestration (HELAO) framework. They demonstrate the capability of orchestrating distributed research instruments that can incorporate data from experiments, simulations, and databases. HELAO interfaces laboratory hardware and software distributed across several computers and operating systems for executing experiments, data analysis, provenance tracking, and autonomous planning. Parallelization is an effective approach for accelerating knowledge generation provided that multiple instruments can be effectively coordinated, which the authors demonstrate with parallel electrochemistry experiments orchestrated by HELAO. Efficient implementation of autonomous research strategies requires device sharing, asynchronous multithreading, and full integration of data management in experimental orchestration, which to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is demonstrated for the first time herein.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

An algorithm for resolving intragranular orientation fields using coupled far-field and near-field high energy $\mathrm{X}$-ray diffraction microscopy

Here, we present a novel algorithm for reconstructing spatial intragranular lattice orientation fields using both far-field and near-field high energy X-ray diffraction microscopy (HEDM) measurements. An established far-field indexing algorithm is modified to include lattice orientation distribution information (grain orientation envelopes) in addition to average grain orientations. The near-field data reduction algorithm utilizes this enriched far-field orientation data as a seed for reconstructing intragranular spatial maps of lattice orientation from the diffraction images. The primary benefit of the new algorithm is a significant decrease in the number of trial calculations that must be performed in the reconstruction process compared to existing methodologies while maintaining scalability. The resulting gains in efficiency facilitate the use of relatively modest computational resources and improve throughput at the point of measurement. We provide two example applications: volumetric orientation field reconstructions for a Ti-Al alloy both before and after the application of 3% uniaxial strain. The results showcase the efficiency of the new method and the ability to resolve subtle changes in microstructure, which are associated with incipient plastic deformation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Moving small files in a networked environment

Globally distributed computing infrastructures, such as clouds and supercomputers, are currently used to manage data that is generated with an unprecedented speed from a variety of resources. Coping with this trend, the volume of data exchanged across distant sites increases substantially. To accelerate data transfer, high-speed networks are provided to connect remote sites. Most existing data movement solutions are optimized for moving large files. However, it is still challenging to transfer a large number of small files across networks. This disadvantage not only lowers data transfer performance, but also decreases overall system utilization. Here, we identify that moving small files is mainly constrained by degraded file system throughput, not just network performance as might be suspected. We have built a data transfer pipeline model to analyze the impact of small network I/O and storage I/O on data movement. Extending one of the widely used open source data movement solutions, GridFTP, we demonstrate several appropriate engineering approaches that mitigate the bottleneck and increase data transfer efficiency. We show optimizations that improve data transfer performance more than 5 times. In comparison to existing solutions, our approaches can save a significant amount of system resources for moving lots of small files.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Rahasak—Scalable blockchain architecture for enterprise applications

Blockchain-based decentralized infrastructure has been adapted in various industries to handle the sensitive data in a privacy-preserving manner without trusting third parties. However, integrating state-of-the-art blockchain platforms with the scalable, enterprise-level applications result in several challenges. Current blockchain platforms do not support high transaction throughput, lack high scalability, and cannot provide real-time transaction processing and back-pressure operation handling in high transaction throughput applications(e.g Big data, IoT). In this paper, we propose a novel permissioned blockchain platform “Rahasak” for highly scalable, enterprise applications. Rahasak blockchain adopts the Apache Kafka-based consensus on top of a “Validate-Execute-Group” blockchain architecture to handle realtime transaction execution on the blockchain. The architecture is equipped with a functional programming and actor-based smart contract platform that enables concurrent execution of transactions in the blockchain. Rahasak supports high transaction throughput, high scalability, concurrent transaction execution, data analytics features. Finally, with Rahasak, we make blockchain more scalable, secure, structured and meaningful for further data analytics.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Raspberry Pi–powered temperature monitoring of growth chamber microclimates

While controlled environments are desirable for growing and measuring plants, growth chambers and greenhouses typically have microclimates that impact plant growth, development, and stress responses. Furthermore, opening and closing the doors of a controlled environment introduces variation in the environment, especially at temperature extremes, affecting both the measurements and the organisms within. Using multiple temperature data loggers to normalize results can be cost-prohibitive and rarely offers real-time feedback on temperature status. We used low-cost single-board computers, cameras, and temperature sensors to manage and capture growth chamber temperatures while acquiring plant image data. Detailed here are methods to document microclimates within a growth chamber so that data can be normalized to measured temperature information. This protocol describes a low-cost method for automated temperature monitoring, which enables both high-throughput measurements of temperature along with plant growth and stress responses via plant imaging.

Plant Sciences↗

High-Throughput Screening for Boride Superconductors

A high-throughput screening using density functional calculations is performed to search for stable boride superconductors from the existing materials database. The workflow employs the fast frozen-phonon method as the descriptor to evaluate the superconducting properties quickly. Twenty-three stable candidates were identified during the screening. The superconductivity was obtained earlier experimentally or computationally for almost all found binary compounds. Previous studies on ternary borides are very limited. Here our extensive search among ternary systems confirmed superconductivity in known systems and found several new compounds. Among these discovered superconducting ternary borides, TaMo 2 B 2 shows the highest superconducting temperature of ∼12 K. Most predicted compounds were synthesized previously; therefore, our predictions can be examined experimentally. Our work also demonstrates that the boride systems can have diverse structural motifs that lead to superconductivity.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Automated Adsorption Workflow for Semiconductor Surfaces and the Application to Zinc Telluride

Surface adsorption is a crucial step in numerous processes, including heterogeneous catalysis, where the adsorption of key species is often used as a descriptor of efficiency. We present here an automated adsorption workflow for semiconductors which employs density functional theory calculations to generate adsorption data in a high-throughput manner. Starting from a bulk structure, the workflow performs an exhaustive surface search, followed by an adsorption structure construction step, which generates a minimal energy landscape to determine the optimal adsorbate-surface distance. An extensive set of energy-based, charge-based, geometric, and electronic descriptors tailored toward catalysis research are computed and saved to a personal user database. Finally, the application of the workflow to zinc telluride, a promising CO 2 reduction photocatalyst, is presented as a case study to illustrate the capabilities of this method and its potential as a material discovery tool.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

tomoCAM : fast model-based iterative reconstruction via GPU acceleration and non-uniform fast Fourier transforms

X-ray-based computed tomography is a well established technique for determining the three-dimensional structure of an object from its two-dimensional projections. In the past few decades, there have been significant advancements in the brightness and detector technology of tomography instruments at synchrotron sources. These advancements have led to the emergence of new observations and discoveries, with improved capabilities such as faster frame rates, larger fields of view, higher resolution and higher dimensionality. These advancements have enabled the material science community to expand the scope of tomographic measurements towards increasingly in situ and in operando measurements. In these new experiments, samples can be rapidly evolving, have complex geometries and restrictions on the field of view, limiting the number of projections that can be collected. In such cases, standard filtered back-projection often results in poor quality reconstructions. Iterative reconstruction algorithms, such as model-based iterative reconstructions (MBIR), have demonstrated considerable success in producing high-quality reconstructions under such restrictions, but typically require high-performance computing resources with hundreds of compute nodes to solve the problem in a reasonable time. Here, tomoCAM , is introduced, a new GPU-accelerated implementation of model-based iterative reconstruction that leverages non-uniform fast Fourier transforms to efficiently compute Radon and back-projection operators and asynchronous memory transfers to maximize the throughput to the GPU memory. The resulting code is significantly faster than traditional MBIR codes and delivers the reconstructive improvement offered by MBIR with affordable computing time and resources. tomoCAM has a Python front-end, allowing access from Jupyter -based frameworks, providing straightforward integration into existing workflows at synchrotron facilities.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

HPDR: High-Performance Portable Scientific Data Reduction Framework

The rapid growth in scientific data generation is outpacing advancements in computing systems necessary for efficient storage, transfer, and analysis, particularly in the context of exascale computing. With the deployment of first-generation exascale computing systems and next-generation experimental facilities, this gap is widening and necessitates effective data reduction techniques to manage enormous data volumes. Over the past decade, various data reduction methods, including lossless compression, error-controlled lossy compression, and data refactoring, have been developed to accelerate I/O in scientific workflows. Despite significant reductions in data volume, these methods introduce considerable computational overhead, which can become the new bottleneck in data processing. To mitigate this, GPU-accelerated data reduction algorithms have been introduced. However, challenges remain in their integration into exascale workflows, including limited portability across different GPU architectures, substantial memory transfer overhead, and reduced scalability on dense multi-GPU systems. To address these challenges, we propose HPDR, a high-performance and portable data reduction framework. HPDR is designed to enable the execution of state-of-the-art reduction algorithms across diverse processor architectures while reducing memory transfer overhead to 2.3 % of the original, resulting in up to 3.5× faster throughput compared to existing solutions. It also achieves up to 96% of the theoretical speedup in multi-GPU settings. In addition, evaluations on accelerating I/O operations at scale up to 1,024 nodes of the Frontier supercomputer demonstrate that HPDR can achieve up to 103 TB/s reduction throughput, providing up to 4× acceleration in parallel I/O performance compared to existing data reduction routines. This work highlights the potential of HPDR to significantly enhance data reduction efficiency in exascale computing environments.

Chen, Jieyang [University of Oregon]↗

Exploring the Structural, Dynamic, and Functional Properties of Metal–Organic Frameworks through Molecular Modeling

This review spotlights the role of atomic-level modeling in research on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), especially the key methodologies of density functional theory (DFT), Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The discussion focuses on how periodic and cluster-based DFT calculations can provide novel insights into MOF properties, with a focus on predicting structural transformations, understanding thermodynamic properties and catalysis, and providing information or properties that are fed into classical simulations such as force field parameters or partial charges. Classical simulation methods, highlighting force field selection, databases of MOFs for high-throughput screening, and the synergistic nature of MC and MD simulations, are described. By predicting equilibrium thermodynamic and dynamic properties, these methods offer a wide perspective on MOF behavior and mechanisms. Additionally, the incorporation of machine learning (ML) techniques into quantum and classical simulations is discussed. These methods can enhance accuracy, expedite simulation setup, reduce computational costs, as well as predict key parameters, optimize geometries, and estimate MOF stability. By charting the growth and promise of computational research in the MOF field, the aim is to provide insights and recommendations to facilitate the incorporation of computational modeling more broadly into MOF research.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

EnZymClass: Substrate specificity prediction tool of plant acyl-ACP thioesterases based on ensemble learning

Characterizing the functional properties of plant acyl-ACP thioesterases (TEs), a key enzyme class used in the production of renewable oleochemicals in microbial hosts, experimentally, can be an expensive and time consuming process since it requires manual screening of thousands of candidates in a database. Using amino acid sequence to computationally predict an enzyme’s function might accelerate this process; however obtaining the necessary amount of information on previously characterized enzymes and their respective sequences required by standard Machine Learning (ML) based approaches to accurately infer sequence-function relationships can be prohibitive, especially with a low-throughput testing cycle. Experimental noise, unbalanced dataset where high sequence similarity does not always imply identical functional properties will further prevent robust prediction performance. Herein we present a ML method, Ensemble method for enZyme Classification (EnZymClass), that is specifically designed to address these issues. We used EnZymClass to classify TEs into short, long and mixed free fatty acid substrate specificity categories. While general guidelines for inferring substrate specificity have been proposed before, prediction of chain-length preference from primary sequence has remained elusive for plant acyl-ACP TEs. By applying EnZymClass to a subset of TEs in the ThYme database, we identified two medium chain TEs, ClFatB3 and CwFatB2, with previously uncharacterized activity in E. coli fatty acid production hosts.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

SetBERT: the deep learning platform for contextualized embeddings and explainable predictions from high-throughput sequencing

MOTIVATION: High-throughput sequencing (HTS) is a modern sequencing technology used to profile microbiomes by sequencing thousands of short genomic fragments from the microorganisms within a given sample. This technology presents a unique opportunity for artificial intelligence to comprehend the underlying functional relationships of microbial communities. However, due to the unstructured nature of HTS data, nearly all computational models are limited to processing DNA sequences individually. This limitation causes them to miss out on key interactions between microorganisms, significantly hindering our understanding of how these interactions influence the microbial communities as a whole. Furthermore, most computational methods rely on post-processing of samples which could inadvertently introduce unintentional protocol-specific bias. RESULTS: Addressing these concerns, we present SetBERT, a robust pre-training methodology for creating generalized deep learning models for processing HTS data to produce contextualized embeddings and be fine-tuned for downstream tasks with explainable predictions. By leveraging sequence interactions, we show that SetBERT significantly outperforms other models in taxonomic classification with genus-level classification accuracy of 95%. Furthermore, we demonstrate that SetBERT is able to accurately explain its predictions autonomously by confirming the biological-relevance of taxa identified by the model. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: All source code is available at https://github.com/DLii-Research/setbert. SetBERT may be used through the q2-deepdna QIIME 2 plugin whose source code is available at https://github.com/DLii-Research/q2-deepdna.

Ludwig, David W↗

deeprob/ThioesteraseEnzymeSpecificity: EnZymClass-first-release

Characterizing the functional properties of plant acyl-ACP thioesterases (TEs), a key enzyme class used in the production of renewable oleochemicals in microbial hosts, experimentally, can be an expensive and time consuming process since it requires manual screening of thousands of candidates in a database. Using amino acid sequence to computationally predict an enzyme’s function might accelerate this process; however obtaining the necessary amount of information on previously characterized enzymes and their respective sequences required by standard Machine Learning (ML) based approaches to accurately infer sequence-function relationships can be prohibitive, especially with a low-throughput testing cycle. Experimental noise, unbalanced dataset where high sequence similarity does not always imply identical functional properties will further prevent robust prediction performance. Herein we present a ML method, Ensemble method for enZyme Classification (EnZymClass), that is specifically designed to address these issues. We used EnZymClass to classify TEs into short, long and mixed free fatty acid substrate specificity categories. While general guidelines for inferring substrate specificity have been proposed before, prediction of chain-length preference from primary sequence has remained elusive for plant acyl-ACP TEs. By applying EnZymClass to a subset of TEs in the ThYme database, we identified two medium chain TEs, ClFatB3 and CwFatB2, with previously uncharacterized activity in E. coli fatty acid production hosts.

Banerjee, Deepro↗

Separating Physics and Dynamics Grids for Improved Computational Efficiency in Spectral Element Earth System Models

Previous studies have shown that atmospheric models with a spectral element grid can benefit from putting physics calculations on a relatively coarse finite volume grid. Here we demonstrate an alternative high-order, element-based mapping approach used to implement a quasi-equal-area, finite volume physics grid in E3SM. Unlike similar methods, the new method in E3SM requires topology data purely local to each spectral element, which trivially allows for regional mesh refinement. Simulations with physics grids defined by 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 4 × 4 divisions of each element are shown to verify that the alternative physics grid does not qualitatively alter the model solution. The model performance is substantially affected by the reduction of physics columns when using the 2 × 2 grid, which can increase the throughput of physics calculations by roughly 60%–120% depending on whether the computational resources are configured to maximize throughput or efficiency. A pair of regionally refined cases are also shown to highlight the refinement capability.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Rapid Design of Cost-Effective Refractory High Entropy Alloys Strengthened by Precipitation

Funded by the ARPA-E ULTIMATE program, this project aims to develop cost-effective refractory high entropy alloys (RHEAs) for gas turbine blades applications at 1300 degree Celsius and above. The alloy design focuses on carbides precipitation strengthening in a strong and ductile solid solution BCC matrix. The goal is to achieve balanced mechanical properties including room temperature ductility & fracture toughness and high temperature strength and creep resistance, while maintaining comparable oxidation resistance and densities to Ni-base superalloys. To accelerate alloy design, multiscale modeling including CALPHAD and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations and machine learning are performed. Specifically, high throughput phase diagram calculations and screening are carried out using CALPHAD; DFT calculations are performed to predict intrinsic ductility, grain boundary strengthening potential, coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and temperature-dependent elastic constants. Temperature dependent yield stress, creep strain and CTE are also predicted using machine learning. Down-selected alloys are synthesized in small buttons of about 250g using arc melting for rapid evaluation on microstructure and mechanical properties before employing plasma arc melting and additive manufacturing for producing large ingots. Preliminary computational and experimental results of this project will be presented and future direction in RHEA development will be discussed.

high temperature materials↗

OctoFAS: A Two-Level Fair Scheduler That Increases Fairness in Network-Based Key-Value Storage

We identified a fairness problem in a network-based key-value storage system using Intel Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) in a multitenant environment. In such an environment, each tenant’s I/O service rate is not fairly guaranteed compared to that of other tenants. To address the fairness problem, we propose OctoFAS, a two-level fair scheduler designed to improve overall throughput and fairness among tenants. The two-level scheduler of OctoFAS consists of (i) inter-core scheduling and (ii) intra-core scheduling. Through inter-core scheduling, OctoFAS addresses the load imbalance problem that is inherent in SPDK on the storage server by dynamically migrating I/O requests from overloaded cores to underloaded cores, thereby increasing overall throughput. Intra-core scheduling prioritizes handling requests from starving tenants over well-fed tenants within core-specific event queues to ensure fair I/O services among multiple tenants. OctoFAS is deployed on a Linux cluster with SPDK. Through extensive evaluations, we found that OctoFAS ensures that the total system throughput remains high and balanced, while enhancing fairness by approximately 10% compared to the baseline, when both scheduling levels operate in a hybrid fashion.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗