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At least 865 records · Page 48

Implementing Access to Data Distributed on Many Processors

A reference architecture is defined for an object-oriented implementation of domains, arrays, and distributions written in the programming language Chapel. This technology primarily addresses domains that contain arrays that have regular index sets with the low-level implementation details being beyond the scope of this discussion. What is defined is a complete set of object-oriented operators that allows one to perform data distributions for domain arrays involving regular arithmetic index sets. What is unique is that these operators allow for the arbitrary regions of the arrays to be fragmented and distributed across multiple processors with a single point of access giving the programmer the illusion that all the elements are collocated on a single processor. Today's massively parallel High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) are characterized by a modular structure, with a large number of processing and memory units connected by a high-speed network. Locality of access as well as load balancing are primary concerns in these systems that are typically used for high-performance scientific computation. Data distributions address these issues by providing a range of methods for spreading large data sets across the components of a system. Over the past two decades, many languages, systems, tools, and libraries have been developed for the support of distributions. Since the performance of data parallel applications is directly influenced by the distribution strategy, users often resort to low-level programming models that allow fine-tuning of the distribution aspects affecting performance, but, at the same time, are tedious and error-prone. This technology presents a reusable design of a data-distribution framework for data parallel high-performance applications. Distributions are a means to express locality in systems composed of large numbers of processor and memory components connected by a network. Since distributions have a great effect on the performance of applications, it is important that the distribution strategy is flexible, so its behavior can change depending on the needs of the application. At the same time, high productivity concerns require that the user be shielded from error-prone, tedious details such as communication and synchronization.

James, Mark↗

Flexible User-Defined Domain Decomposition in Kilometer-Scale E3SM Land Model Simulation

The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model (ELM) has been extended to kilometer-scale (km-ELM) resolutions, enabling high-fidelity simulations of terrestrial processes at 1 km x 1 km grid spacing. In ELM, domain decomposition partitions the computational domain across processors, ensuring efficient parallel execution. Currently, round-robin decomposition is applied, providing a straightforward way to distribute computational workload. As ELM continues evolving at the kilometer-scale (km-scale), particularly with integrating lateral flow modeling, decomposition strategies must also account for the increased workload and data movement. This paper introduces a flexible user-defined domain decomposition framework, allowing users to customize domain partitioning based on application requirements. The impact of different decomposition strategies is evaluated across various applications concerning computation, communication, and I/O. Results demonstrate that while 1D partitioning yields superior I/O performance, k-nearest neighbors (KNN) clustering effectively reduces inter-process communication overhead. This study lays the groundwork for scalable partitioning in large-scale land surface simulations, enhancing next-generation Earth system modeling.

Wang, Dali [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000168065108)↗

ExaSGD: 2022 Kernel Thrust Activities

The Kernel Thrust milestone ADSE22-407 covers the development of device-capable optimization algorithms and solvers technologies required by the ExaSGD project’s software stack in order to solve security-constrained alternating current optimal power flow (SC-ACOPF) problems on emerging exascale architectures. To this extent, in FY22 the main objective of the Kernel Thrust was (i) provide sparse optimization solver that runs efficiently on hardware accelerator devices (i.e., NVIDIA and AMD GPUs) to perform intra-node computations, (ii) strengthen the reliability and increase the performance of the mixed-dense sparse (MDS) solver of HiOp for deployment on the FY22 target architectures, Summit and Crusher, and (iii) increase performance by improving the mathematical algorithm and refining the parallel MPI-based implementation of the coarse-grain parallel solver HiOp-PriDec for capabilities deployment on the FY22 target architectures, Summit and Crusher. This document presents the developments and contributions done by the Kernels Thrust Team in FY22 toward completion of the above-mentioned objectives. These contributions progressed along four main development (sub)thrusts: (1) Design and implementation of a sparse optimization solver for use on hardware accelerators; (2) Improvement of the mathematical algorithm and of the parallel implementation of HiOp-PriDec to ensure readiness and efficient coarse-grain parallelism for FY23 target exascale machine; and (3) Support Software and Application Development Thrusts of the exaSGD project in their deployment of the project’s software stack on AMD- and NVIDIA-based architectures. The development of the sparse optimization solver (thrust 1 above) was new in FY22 and resulted in a new sparse solver in HiOp (available as of version 0.6). The second development thrust was a continuation of the efforts from FY21 and improved the mathematical algorithm and the communication strategy of the HiOp-PriDec solver. The last developement thrust is a large collaborative effort. Namely, the project’s teams from multiple labs (LLNL, PNNL, ORNL, and NREL) performed large-scale demonstration of the ExaSGD software stack, namely the optimization solvers of HiOp interfaced with the modeling front-end ExaGO and the stochastic sampler PowerScenarios. These demonstration efforts solved large-scale instances of the SC-ACOPF challenge problem of medium network sizes (10, 000-bus system) and large number of contingencies on Summit (NVIDIA accelerators) and Crusher (AMD accelerators) systems at ORNL.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

HipBone: A performance-portable graphics processing unit-accelerated C++ version of the NekBone benchmark

We present hipBone, an open-source performance-portable proxy application for the Nek5000 (and NekRS) computational fluid dynamics applications. HipBone is a fully GPU-accelerated C++ implementation of the original NekBone CPU proxy application with several novel algorithmic and implementation improvements which optimize its performance on modern fine-grain parallel GPU accelerators. Our optimizations include a conversion to store the degrees of freedom of the problem in assembled form in order to reduce the amount of data moved during the main iteration and a portable implementation of the main Poisson operator kernel. We demonstrate near-roofline performance of the operator kernel on three different modern GPU accelerators from two different vendors. We present a novel algorithm for splitting the application of the Poisson operator on GPUs which aggressively hides MPI communication required for both halo exchange and assembly. Our implementation of nearest-neighbor MPI communication then leverages several different routing algorithms and GPU-Direct RDMA capabilities, when available, which improves scalability of the benchmark. We demonstrate the performance of hipBone on three different clusters housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, namely, the Summit supercomputer and the Frontier early-access clusters, Spock and Crusher. Our tests demonstrate both portability across different clusters and very good scaling efficiency, especially on large problems.

Computer Science↗

Surface Processes of Faceted Growth

Atomic force microscopy and high precision optical interferometry allow to analyze the processes that are in the core of our present understanding of faceted crystal growth. Some of these processes will be reviewed. Recent experiments suggest that the Gibbs-Thomson Law (GTL) may not be applicable to the weakly fluctuating strongly polygonized steps, with low kink density. Propagation rate of a straight short step segment changes with the segment length much steeper than predicted by GTL. If the step fluctuations are still well developed, the typical transition length may be determined just by the radius of rounded comers of the polygonized step. If fluctuations do not have enough time to develop, the kinetic effects may be essential. Indeed, 'communications' between comers of a short straight step segment may occur and, thus, the GTL may be implemented only via kink exchange. E.g., dissolutions of this short segment at macroscopic equilibrium occurs as follows: The kinks are split from one comer as a result of fluctuations, and annihilate with kinks of the opposite sign generated by another comer. Similarly, an exchange via chain of kinks on a rough step is the mechanism to implement the GT Law. If there is a supersaturation with respect to a large crystal, the kinks not only diffuse along the step, but move back the generating comers. This 'wind' prevents communication between the comers and places upper limit supersaturation only below which GTL is applicable. Steps replace kinks in the 3D case, though, of course, another dimensionality brings about another physics. Another specific problem to think about is if fluctuations are always fast enough to provide enough kinks for linear dependence of step rate on supersaturation. Increasing azimuthal polygonization of growth hillocks is a sign of insufficient fluctuation rate. Morphological stability of vicinal faces is usually considered on the basis of mutually parallel steps. Azimuthal anisotropy and interlacing of step bunches inducing the well known bunch splitting is another challenge. Among other challenging problems are: existence of surface diffusion on the crystal/so1ution interface, step interaction in solutions, achievement of step flow modes from liquids, impurity effects. New phenomena essential in biomacromolecular crystallization is another interesting area.

Chernov, A.↗

Scaling Out a Combinatorial Algorithm for Discovering Carcinogenic Gene Combinations to Thousands of GPUs

Cancer is a leading cause of death in the US, second only to heart disease. It is primarily a result of a combination of an estimated two-nine genetic mutations (multi-hit combinations). Although a body of research has identified hundreds of cancer-causing genetic mutations, we don’t know the specific combination of mutations responsible for specific instances of cancer for most cancer types. An approximate algorithm for solving the weighted set cover problem was previously adapted to identify combinations of genes with mutations that may be responsible for individual instances of cancer. However, the algorithm’s computational requirement scales exponentially with the number of genes, making it impractical for identifying more than three-hit combinations, even after the algorithm was parallelized and scaled up to a V100 GPU. Since most cancers have been estimated to require more than three hits, we scaled out the algorithm to identify combinations of four or more hits using 1000 nodes (6000 V100 GPUs with ≈48×106 processing cores) on the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Efficiently scaling out the algorithm required a series of algorithmic innovations and optimizations for balancing an exponentially divergent workload across processors and for minimizing memory latency and inter-node communication. We achieved an average strong scaling efficiency of 90.14% (80.96%–97.96% for 200 to 1000 nodes), compared to a 100 node run, with 84.18% scaling efficiency for 1000 nodes. With experimental validation, the multi-hit combinations identified here could provide further insight into the etiology of different cancer subtypes and provide a rational basis for targeted combination therapy.

Dash, Sajal↗

Review of hybrid HVDC systems combining line communicated converter and voltage source converter

Hybrid HVDC system, which consists of the advantages of line commutated converter (LCC) and voltage source converter (VSC), is an emerging power transmission system. This paper presents a review of four LCC-VSC hybrid HVDC topologies. The first topology is the pole-hybrid HVDC system, in which the LCC and VSC form the positive- and negative-pole respectively. The second one is the terminal-hybrid HVDC system; in this topology one terminal adopts LCC and the other terminal adopts VSC. The series converter-hybrid HVDC system is the third topology wherein each terminal is formed by LCC and VSC in series. The fourth hybrid topology under consideration is a parallel converter-hybrid HVDC system with LCC and VSC connected in parallel in each terminal. Here, the main contribution of this paper is a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the four mentioned hybrid topologies in terms of PQ operating zone, power flow reversal method, and DC fault ride-through strategy.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Development of a Grid-Independent Geos-Chem Chemical Transport Model (v9-02) as an Atmospheric Chemistry Module for Earth System Models

The GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model (CTM), used by a large atmospheric chemistry research community, has been re-engineered to also serve as an atmospheric chemistry module for Earth system models (ESMs). This was done using an Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) interface that operates independently of the GEOSChem scientific code, permitting the exact same GEOSChem code to be used as an ESM module or as a standalone CTM. In this manner, the continual stream of updates contributed by the CTM user community is automatically passed on to the ESM module, which remains state of science and referenced to the latest version of the standard GEOS-Chem CTM. A major step in this re-engineering was to make GEOS-Chem grid independent, i.e., capable of using any geophysical grid specified at run time. GEOS-Chem data sockets were also created for communication between modules and with external ESM code. The grid-independent, ESMF-compatible GEOS-Chem is now the standard version of the GEOS-Chem CTM. It has been implemented as an atmospheric chemistry module into the NASA GEOS- 5 ESM. The coupled GEOS-5-GEOS-Chem system was tested for scalability and performance with a tropospheric oxidant-aerosol simulation (120 coupled species, 66 transported tracers) using 48-240 cores and message-passing interface (MPI) distributed-memory parallelization. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the GEOS-Chem chemistry module scales efficiently for the number of cores tested, with no degradation as the number of cores increases. Although inclusion of atmospheric chemistry in ESMs is computationally expensive, the excellent scalability of the chemistry module means that the relative cost goes down with increasing number of cores in a massively parallel environment.

CTM↗

Unique Challenges Testing SDRs for Space

This paper describes the approach used by the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed team to qualify three Software Defined Radios (SDR) for operation in space and the characterization of the platform to enable upgrades on-orbit. The three SDRs represent a significant portion of the new technologies being studied on board the SCAN Testbed, which is operating on an external truss on the International Space Station (ISS). The SCaN Testbed provides experimenters an opportunity to develop and demonstrate experimental waveforms and applications for communication, networking, and navigation concepts and advance the understanding of developing and operating SDRs in space. Qualifying a Software Defined Radio for the space environment requires additional consideration versus a hardware radio. Tests that incorporate characterization of the platform to provide information necessary for future waveforms, which might exercise extended capabilities of the hardware, are needed. The development life cycle for the radio follows the software development life cycle, where changes can be incorporated at various stages of development and test. It also enables flexibility to be added with minor additional effort. Although this provides tremendous advantages, managing the complexity inherent in a software implementation requires a testing beyond the traditional hardware radio test plan. Due to schedule and resource limitations and parallel development activities, the subsystem testing of the SDRs at the vendor sites was primarily limited to typical fixed transceiver type of testing. NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) was responsible for the integration and testing of the SDRs into the SCaN Testbed system and conducting the investigation of the SDR to advance the technology to be accepted by missions. This paper will describe the unique tests that were conducted at both the subsystem and system level, including environmental testing, and present results. For example, test waveforms were developed to measure the gain of the transmit system across the tunable frequency band. These were used during thermal vacuum testing to enable characterization of the integrated system in the wide operational temperature range of space. Receive power indicators were used for Electromagnetic Interference tests (EMI) to understand the platform's susceptibility to external interferers independent of the waveform. Additional approaches and lessons learned during the SCaN Testbed subsystem and system level testing will be discussed that may help future SDR integrators.

transmitters receivers↗

FLYING SERVING: On-the-Fly Parallelism Switching for Large Language Model Serving

Production LLM serving must simultaneously deliver high throughput, low latency, and sufficient context capacity under non-stationary traffic and mixed request requirements. Data parallelism (DP) maximizes throughput by running independent replicas, while tensor parallelism (TP) reduces per-request latency and pools memory for long-context inference. However, existing serving stacks typically commit to a static parallelism configuration at deployment; adapting to bursts, priorities, or long-context requests is often disruptive and slow. We present Flying Serving, a vLLM-based system that enables online DP-TP switching without restarting engine workers. Flying Serving makes reconfiguration practical by virtualizing the state that would otherwise force data movement: (i) a zero-copy Model Weights Manager that exposes TP shard views on demand, (ii) a KV Cache Adaptor that preserves request KV state across DP/TP layouts, (iii) an eagerly initialized Communicator Pool to amortize collective setup, and (iv) a deadlock-free scheduler that coordinates safe transitions under execution skew. Across three popular LLMs and realistic serving scenarios, Flying Serving improves performance by up to 4.79 × under high load and 3.47 × under low load while supporting latency- and memory-driven requests.

Gao, Shouwei [ORNL]↗

The specification-based validation of reliable multicast protocol: Problem Report

Reliable Multicast Protocol (RMP) is a communication protocol that provides an atomic, totally ordered, reliable multicast service on top of unreliable IP multicasting. In this report, we develop formal models for RMP using existing automated verification systems, and perform validation on the formal RMP specifications. The validation analysis help identifies some minor specification and design problems. We also use the formal models of RMP to generate a test suite for conformance testing of the implementation. Throughout the process of RMP development, we follow an iterative, interactive approach that emphasizes concurrent and parallel progress of implementation and verification processes. Through this approach, we incorporate formal techniques into our development process, promote a common understanding for the protocol, increase the reliability of our software, and maintain high fidelity between the specifications of RMP and its implementation.

Wu, Yunqing↗

The Specification-Based Validation of Reliable Multicast Protocol

Reliable Multicast Protocol (RMP) is a communication protocol that provides an atomic, totally ordered, reliable multicast service on top of unreliable IP multicasting. In this report, we develop formal models for RMP using existing automated verification systems, and perform validation on the formal RMP specifications. The validation analysis help identifies some minor specification and design problems. We also use the formal models of RMP to generate a test suite for conformance testing of the implementation. Throughout the process of RMP development, we follow an iterative, interactive approach that emphasizes concurrent and parallel progress of the implementation and verification processes. Through this approach, we incorporate formal techniques into our development process, promote a common understanding for the protocol, increase the reliability of our software, and maintain high fidelity between the specifications of RMP and its implementation.

Wu, Yunqing↗

Magic-T Junction using Microstrip/Slotline Transitions

An improved broadband planar magic-T junction that incorporates microstrip/slotline transitions has been developed. In comparison with a prior broadband magic-T junction incorporating microstrip/slotline transitions, this junction offers superior broadband performance. In addition, because this junction is geometrically simpler and its performance is less affected by fabrication tolerances, the benefits of the improved design can be realized at lower fabrication cost. There are potential uses for junctions like this one in commercial microwave communication receivers, radar and polarimeter systems, and industrial microwave instrumentation. A magic-T junction is a four-port waveguide junction consisting of a combination of an H-type and an E-type junction. An E-type junction is so named because it includes a junction arm that extends from a main waveguide in the same direction as that of the electric (E) field in the waveguide. An H-type junction is so named because it includes a junction arm parallel to the magnetic (H) field in a main waveguide. A magic-T junction includes two input ports (here labeled 1 and 2, respectively) and two output ports (here labeled E and H, respectively). In an ideal case, (1) a magic-T junction is lossless, (2) the input signals add (that is, they combine in phase with each other) at port H, and (3) the input signals subtract (that is, they combine in opposite phase) at port E. The prior junction over which the present junction is an improvement affords in-phase-combining characterized by a broadband frequency response, and features a small slotline area to minimize in-band loss. However, with respect to isolation between ports 1 and 2 and return loss at port E, it exhibits narrowband frequency responses. In addition, its performance is sensitive to misalignment of microstrip and slotline components: this sensitivity is attributable to a limited number of quarter-wavelength (lambda/4) transmission-line sections for matching impedances among all four ports, and to strong parasitic couplings at the microstrip/slotline T junction, where four microstrip lines and a slotline are combined. The present improved broadband magic-T junction (see figure) includes a microstrip ring structure and two microstrip- to-slotline transitions. One of the microstrip/slotline transitions is a small T junction between the ring and a slotline; the other microstrip/slotline transition effects coupling between the slotline and port E. The smallness of the T junction and the use of minimum-size slotline terminations help to minimize radiation loss. An impedance-transformation network that includes multiple quarter-wavelength sections is used to increase the operating bandwidth and minimize the parasitic coupling around the microstrip/slotline T junction. As a result, the improved junction has greater bandwidth and lower phase imbalance at the sum and difference ports than did the prior junction.

U-yen, Kongpop↗

Methods and Apparatuses for Signaling with Geometric Constellations in a Raleigh Fading Channel

Communication systems are described that use signal constellations, which have unequally spaced (i.e., `geometrically` shaped) points. In many embodiments, the communication systems use specific geometric constellations that are capacity optimized at a specific SNR (signal to noise ratio). In addition, ranges within which the constellation points of a capacity optimized constellation can be perturbed and are still likely to achieve a given percentage of the optimal capacity increase compared to a constellation that maximizes d (sub min) (i.e. minimum distance between constellations) are also described. Capacity measures that are used in the selection of the location of constellation points include, but are not limited to, parallel decode (PD) capacity and joint capacity.

Barsoum, Maged F.↗

Massively scalable Kerr comb-driven silicon photonic link

Abstract The growth of computing needs for artificial intelligence and machine learning is critically challenging data communications in today’s data-centre systems. Data movement, dominated by energy costs and limited ‘chip-escape’ bandwidth densities, is perhaps the singular factor determining the scalability of future systems. Using light to send information between compute nodes in such systems can dramatically increase the available bandwidth while simultaneously decreasing energy consumption. Through wavelength-division multiplexing with chip-based microresonator Kerr frequency combs, independent information channels can be encoded onto many distinct colours of light in the same optical fibre for massively parallel data transmission with low energy. Although previous high-bandwidth demonstrations have relied on benchtop equipment for filtering and modulating Kerr comb wavelength channels, data-centre interconnects require a compact on-chip form factor for these operations. Here we demonstrate a massively scalable chip-based silicon photonic data link using a Kerr comb source enabled by a new link architecture and experimentally show aggregate single-fibre data transmission of 512 Gb s −1 across 32 independent wavelength channels. The demonstrated architecture is fundamentally scalable to hundreds of wavelength channels, enabling massively parallel terabit-scale optical interconnects for future green hyperscale data centres.

Rizzo, Anthony (ORCID:000000034752797X)↗

Design Methodologies for Integrated Quantum Frequency Processors

We report frequency-encoded quantum information offers intriguing opportunities for quantum communications and networking, with the quantum frequency processor paradigm—based on electro-optic phase modulators and Fourier-transform pulse shapers—providing a path for scalable construction of quantum gates. Yet all experimental demonstrations to date have relied on discrete fiber-optic components that occupy significant physical space and impart appreciable loss. In this article, we introduce a model for the design of quantum frequency processors comprising microring resonator-based pulse shapers and integrated phase modulators. We estimate the performance of single and parallel frequency-bin Hadamard gates, finding high fidelity values that extend to frequency bins with relatively wide bandwidths. By incorporating multi-order filter designs as well, we explore the limits of tight frequency spacings, a regime extremely difficult to obtain in bulk optics. Overall, our model is general, simple to use, and extendable to other material platforms, providing a much-needed design tool for future frequency processors in integrated photonics.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A Two-Stage Decomposition Approach for AC Optimal Power Flow

The alternating current optimal power flow (AC-OPF) problem is critical to power system operations and planning, but it is generally hard to solve due to its nonconvex and large-scale nature. Furthermore, this paper proposes a scalable decomposition approach in which the power network is decomposed into a master network and a number of subnetworks, where each network has its own AC-OPF subproblem. This formulates a two-stage optimization problem and requires only a small amount of communication between the master and subnetworks. The key contribution is a smoothing technique that renders the response of a subnetwork differentiable with respect to the input from the master problem, utilizing properties of the barrier problem formulation that naturally arises when subproblems are solved by a primal-dual interior-point algorithm. Consequently, existing efficient nonlinear programming solvers can be used for both the master problem and the subproblems. The advantage of this framework is that speedup can be obtained by processing the subnetworks in parallel, and it has convergence guarantees under reasonable assumptions. The formulation is readily extended to instances with stochastic subnetwork loads. Numerical results show favorable performance and illustrate the scalability of the algorithm which is able to solve instances with more than 11 million buses.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

NCC: A Multidisciplinary Design/Analysis Tool for Combustion Systems

A multi-disciplinary design/analysis tool for combustion systems is critical for optimizing the low-emission, high-performance combustor design process. Based on discussions between NASA Lewis Research Center and the jet engine companies, an industry-government team was formed in early 1995 to develop the National Combustion Code (NCC), which is an integrated system of computer codes for the design and analysis of combustion systems. NCC has advanced features that address the need to meet designer's requirements such as "assured accuracy", "fast turnaround", and "acceptable cost". The NCC development team is comprised of Allison Engine Company (Allison), CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC), GE Aircraft Engines (GEAE), NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC), and Pratt & Whitney (P&W). This development team operates under the guidance of the NCC steering committee. The "unstructured mesh" capability and "parallel computing" are fundamental features of NCC from its inception. The NCC system is composed of a set of "elements" which includes grid generator, main flow solver, turbulence module, turbulence and chemistry interaction module, chemistry module, spray module, radiation heat transfer module, data visualization module, and a post-processor for evaluating engine performance parameters. Each element may have contributions from several team members. Such a multi-source multi-element system needs to be integrated in a way that facilitates inter-module data communication, flexibility in module selection, and ease of integration.

Liu, Nan-Suey↗