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At least 1,063 records · Page 59

A Data-Driven Democratized Control Architecture for Regional Transmission Operators

As probably the most complicated and critical infrastructure system, U.S. power grids become increasingly vulnerable to extreme events such as cyber-attacks and severe weather, as well as higher DER penetrations and growing information mismatch among system operators, utilities (transmission or generation owners), and end-users. This paper proposes a data-driven democratized control architecture considering two democratization pathways to assist transmission system operators, with a targeted use case of developing online proactive islanding strategies. Detailed discussions on load capability profiling at transmission buses and disaggregation of DER generations are provided and illustrated with real-world utility data. By Combining network and operational constraints, transmission system operators can be equipped with new tools built on top of this architecture, to derive accurate, proactive, and strategic islanding decisions to incorporate the wide range of dynamic portfolios and needs when facing extreme events or unseen grid contingencies.

Power System Reliability, Islanding, Democratized ↗

Accelerated Architectures Create Programming Opportunities

In the early 2000s, industry switched to multicore microprocessors to address semiconductors' speed and power limits. However, the change was unsuccessful, leading to dire claims that “Moore's law is ending.” In conclusion, this column suggests that while the approach was sound, it needed a deeper architectural transformation. Industry has since discovered a suitable architecture, but work remains on software to support it.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Accelerating Scientific Applications With SambaNova Reconfigurable Dataflow Architecture

Here, our exploratory work finds that the SambaNova Reconfigurable Dataflow Architecture (RDA) along with the SambaFlow software stack provides for an attractive system and solution to accelerate AI for science workloads. We have observed the efficacy of using the system with a diverse set of science applications and reasoned their suitability for performance gains over traditional hardware. As the Data-Scale system provides for a very large memory capacity, the system can be used to train models that typically do not fit in a GPU. The architecture also provides for deeper integration with upcoming supercomputers at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a US Department of Energy Office of Science user facility, to help advance science insights.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Grid Architecture: A Core Discipline for Grid Modernization

Grid Architecture not only provides valuable new insights into grid modernization planning and design, but also provides the means to future-proof technological investments and to reduce integration costs – two issues that concern regulators and utility executives alike. Proper structure creates intrinsic grid characteristics that bolster resilience, capability, and affordability, and help safeguard investments by limiting change effects. Well-planned grid structure simplifies downstream decisions and frees up architects and engineers working on individual components or systems to employ creativity with assurance that unintended consequences will not crop up to hamper or even invalidate their work. For these reasons, it is not just important, but crucial, that the structural issues addressed by Grid Architecture be considered before other aspects of grid modernization are undertaken.

grid modernization, gmlc, DER, distribution automa↗

Binary Analysis with Architecture and Code Section Detection using Supervised Machine Learning

When presented with an unknown binary, which may or may not be complete, having the ability to determine information about it is critical to future reverse engineering, particularly in discovering the binary’s intended use and potentially malicious nature. This paper details techniques to both identify the machine architecture of the binary, as well as to locate the important code segments within the file. This identification of unknown binaries makes use of a technique called byte histogram in addition to various machine learning (ML) techniques, which we call “What is it Binary” or WiiBin. Benefits of byte histograms reflect the simplicity of calculation and do not rely on file headers or metadata, allowing for acceptable results when only a small portion of the original file is available. Utilizing WiiBin, we were able to accurately (>80%) determine the architecture of test binaries with as little as a 20% contagious portion of the file present. We were also able to determine the location of code sections within a binary by utilizing the WiiBin framework. Ultimately, the more information that can be gleaned from a binary file, the easier it is to successfully reverse engineer.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

PANTHER: A Programmable Architecture for Neural Network Training Harnessing Energy-Efficient ReRAM

The wide adoption of deep neural networks has been accompanied by ever-increasing energy and performance demands due to the expensive nature of training them. Additionally, numerous special-purpose architectures have been proposed to accelerate training: both digital and hybrid digital-analog using resistive RAM (ReRAM) crossbars. ReRAM-based accelerators have demonstrated the effectiveness of ReRAM crossbars at performing matrix-vector multiplication operations that are prevalent in training. However, they still suffer from inefficiency due to the use of serial reads and writes for performing the weight gradient and update step. A few works have demonstrated the possibility of performing outer products in crossbars, which can be used to realize the weight gradient and update step without the use of serial reads and writes. However, these works have been limited to low precision operations which are not sufficient for typical training workloads. Moreover, they have been confined to a limited set of training algorithms for fully-connected layers only. To address these limitations, we propose a bit-slicing technique for enhancing the precision of ReRAM-based outer products, which is substantially different from bit-slicing for matrix-vector multiplication only. We incorporate this technique into a crossbar architecture with three variants catered to different training algorithms. To evaluate our design on different types of layers in neural networks (fully-connected, convolutional, etc.) and training algorithms, we develop PANTHER, an ISA-programmable training accelerator with compiler support. Our design can also be integrated into other accelerators in the literature to enhance their efficiency. Our evaluation shows that PANTHER achieves up to 8.02×, 54.21×, and 103× energy reductions as well as 7.16×, 4.02×, and 16× execution time reductions compared to digital accelerators, ReRAM-based accelerators, and GPUs, respectively.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A Power Take-Off (PTO) for Wave Energy Converters Based on the Hybrid Hydraulic-Electric Architecture (HHEA)

Wave energy is a promising renewable energy resource for coastal regions around the world, but is not yet an economically competitive source of electricity. More effective power take-off (PTO) designs would help to make wave power a feasible and clean source of energy. To do this, PTOs need to: i) enable controlled actuation, ii) convert absorbed energy into electricity efficiently, and iii) have minimal manufacturing costs. We propose a new PTO architecture that can exert arbitrary control loads on the WEC to maximize energy capture, enabling the downsizing of expensive electrical components while maintaining high efficiency. Our PTO design is based upon a hybrid hydraulic-electric architecture (HHEA). This paper compares the performance of the HHEA PTO against two other PTO designs: 1) a baseline PTO consisting of a system of rectifying check valves and accumulators, and 2) a PTO consisting of an electro-hydraulic actuator (EHA). The HHEA PTO is shown to produce much more power than the check valve PTO and the EHA PTO. Also, the required electric generator sizes for the HHEA are smaller than that of the EHA PTO. The reduced size of these components allows for a WEC which is less expensive to manufacture.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

A modular architecture for multi-channel external cavity quantum cascade laser-based chemical sensors: a systems approach

A multi-channel laser-based chemical sensor platform is presented, in which a modular architecture allows the exchange of complete sensor channels without disruption to overall operation. Each sensor channel contains custom optical and electronics packages, which can be selected to access laser wavelengths, interaction path lengths and modulation techniques optimal for a given application or mission. Although intended primarily to accommodate mid-infrared (MIR) external cavity quantum cascade lasers (ECQCLs)and astigmatic Herriott cells, channels using visible or near infrared (NIR) lasers or other gas cell architectures can also be used, making this a truly versatile platform. Analog and digital resources have been carefully chosen to facilitate small footprint, rapid spectral scanning, ow-noise signal recovery, failsafe autonomous operation, and in-situ chemometric data analysis, storage and transmission. Results from the demonstration of a two-channel version of this platform are also presented.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Embedded ensemble propagation for improving performance, portability, and scalability of uncertainty quantification on emerging computational architectures

In this study, quantifying simulation uncertainties is a critical component of rigorous predictive simulation. A key component of this is forward propagation of uncertainties in simulation input data to output quantities of interest. Typical approaches involve repeated sampling of the simulation over the uncertain input data, and can require numerous samples when accurately propagating uncertainties from large numbers of sources. Often simulation processes from sample to sample are similar and much of the data generated from each sample evaluation could be reused. We explore a new method for implementing sampling methods that simultaneously propagates groups of samples together in an embedded fashion, which we call embedded ensemble propagation. We show how this approach takes advantage of properties of modern computer architectures to improve performance by enabling reuse between samples, reducing memory bandwidth requirements, improving memory access patterns, improving opportunities for fine-grained parallelization, and reducing communication costs. We describe a software technique for implementing embedded ensemble propagation based on the use of C++ templates and describe its integration with various scientific computing libraries within Trilinos. We demonstrate improved performance, portability and scalability for the approach applied to the simulation of partial differential equations on a variety of CPU, GPU, and accelerator architectures, including up to 131,072 cores on a Cray XK7 (Titan).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Trilinos: Enabling Scientific Computing across Diverse Hardware Architectures at Scale

Trilinos is a community-developed, open-source software framework that facilitates building large-scale, complex, multiscale, multiphysics simulation code bases for scientific and engineering problems. Since the Trilinos framework has undergone substantial changes to support new applications and new hardware architectures, this document is an update to “An Overview of the Trilinos project” by Heroux et al. (ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 31(3):397–423, 2005). It describes the design of Trilinos, introduces its new organization in product areas, and highlights established and new features available in Trilinos. Particular focus is put on the modernized software stack based on the Kokkos ecosystem to deliver performance portability across heterogeneous hardware architectures. This article also outlines the organization of the Trilinos community and the contribution model to help onboard interested users and contributors.

Heterogeneous Hardware Architectures↗

Morphological Influence in Lithium-Ion Battery 3D Electrode Architectures

The performance of lithium-ion batteries is limited by suboptimal energy density and power capability. A feasible approach is designing 3D electrode architectures where lithium ion transport in the electrolyte and active material can be optimized for improving the energy/power density. In this study, the influence of active material morphology and 3D electrode configurations is investigated with particular emphasis on solid-state transport and resulting implications on the performance. In this paper, a morphology-detailed computational modeling is presented which simulates lithium transport in disparate 3D electrode configurations. The resulting lithium concentration in the 3D electrode constructs during discharging, relaxation, and charging process reveal a local sate of charge map. This is correlated with the electrode performance. Finally, this study demonstrates the role of active particle morphology and 3D architecture on the electrode relaxation behavior, which determines the resulting concentration gradient and performance.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

From 2D to 4D: a containerized workflow and browser to explore dynamic chromatin architecture

Background Characterizing the physical organization of the genome is essential for understanding long-range gene regulation, chromatin compartmentalization, and epigenetic accessibility. Hi-C experiments generate two-dimensional (2D) genome-wide contact maps of chromatin interactions by capturing the spatial proximity between genomic loci, which reveal interaction frequencies but lack the spatial resolution needed to interpret the three-dimensional (3D) genome structure(s). Emerging evidence suggests that epigenetic regulation is closely linked to 3D genome architecture, and that structural changes over time (4D) drive key biological processes in development, disease, and environmental response. Thus, integrating 3D structure with functional data is critical for a more complete understanding of genome regulation. Previous work, most notably the 4DHiC chromosome modeling framework, has shown that physical multi-dimensional modeling approaches rooted in polymer physics and molecular dynamics can resolve these structures at biologically meaningful resolutions by integrating temporal Hi-C data with physical constraints to uncover dynamic chromosome reorganization. Thus, molecular dynamics simulations, constrained by Hi-C contact matrices, can resolve fine-scale structural changes and reveal functionally significant transitions in chromatin conformation. Results Herein, we present the 4D Genome Browser Workflow (4DGBWorkflow) and the 4D Genome Browser (4DGB). The algorithm is based on the 4DHiC method, and the containerized tool is an end-to-end workflow that can transform, filter, and view 4D epigenomics and chromatin datasets, allowing non-specialists to apply three-dimensional modeling principles to diverse datasets and experimental conditions. The software executes on a laptop running macOS, Linux or Windows. From input Hi-C files (.hic), the 4DGBWorkflow produces 3D reconstructions of chromosomes, integrates the reconstruction with track data (e.g., epigenetic marks, transcriptome profiles), and provides comparative visualization of the results in a single workflow. Conclusions The 4DGBWorkflow and 4D Genome Browser are open-source tools for comparative analysis and visualization of 4D chromosome datasets, including chromatin architecture and epigenomic signals. Automatic integration of Hi-C data with molecular dynamics democratizes the construction of time resolved 3D genome structures, simplifying complex simulations and data integration schemes.

3D Genome Browser↗

Predicting the Electronic Properties of 3D, Million-atom Semiconductor nanostructure Architectures

This final report describes the work done by Jack Dongarra (University Distinguished Professor) and Stanimire Tomov (Research Scientist) related to the DOE project entitled Predicting the Electronic Properties of 3D, Million-Atom Semiconductor Nanostructure Architectures. In this project we addressed the mathematical methodology required to calculate the electronic and transport properties of large nanostructures with comparable accuracy and reliability to that of current ab initio methods. This capability is critical for further developing the field, yet it is missing in all the existing computational methods. Additionally, quantitative comparisons with experiments are often needed for a qualitative understanding of the physics, and for guiding the design of new nanostructures. We focused on the mathematical challenges of the project, in particular on solvers and preconditioners for large scale eigenvalue problems that occur in the computation of electronic states of large nanosystems. Usually, the states of interest lie in the interior of the spectrum and their computation poses great difficulties for existing algorithms. The electronic properties of a semiconductor nanostructure architecture can be predicted/determined by computing its band structure. Of particular importance are the 'band edge states' (electronic states near the energy gap) which can be computed from a properly defined interior eigenvalue problem. Our primary mathematics and computational challenge here has been to develop an efficient solution methodology for finding these interior states for very large systems. Our work has produced excellent results in terms of developing both new and extending current state-of-the-art techniques.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Thrifty: An Exascale Architecture for Energy Proportional Computing

The objective of this project is to design different aspects of a novel exascale architecture called Thrifty. Our goal is to focus on the challenges of power/energy efficiency, performance, and resiliency in exascale systems. The project includes work on computer architecture (Josep Torrellas from University of Illinois), compilation (Daniel Quinlan from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), runtime and applications (Laura Carrington from University of California San Diego), and circuits (Wilfred Pinfold from Intel Corporation). In this report, we focus on the progress at the University of Illinois during the last year of the grant (September 1, 2013 to August 31, 2014). We also point to the progress in the other collaborating institutions when needed.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Sensing and Measurement Architecture for Grid Modernization

This paper addresses architecture for grid sensor networks, with primary emphasis on distribution grids. It describes a forward-looking view of sensor network architecture for advanced distribution grids, and discusses key regulatory, financial, and planning issues.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Digital Architecture Planning Model

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program, the Digital Architecture (DA) Project focuses on providing a model that nuclear utilities can refer to when planning deployment of advanced technologies. The digital architecture planning model (DAPM) is the methodology for mapping power plant operational and support activities into a DA that unifies all data sources needed by the utilities to operate their plants. The DA is defined as a collection of information technology capabilities needed to support and integrate a wide spectrum of real-time digital capabilities for performance improvements of nuclear power plants. DA can be thought of as integration of the separate instrumentation and control and information systems already in place in nuclear power plants, which are brought together for the purpose of creating new levels of automation in plant work activities. A major objective in DAPM development was to survey all key areas that needed to be reviewed in order for a utility to make knowledgeable decisions regarding needs and plans to implement a DA at the plant. The development was done in two steps. First, researchers surveyed the nuclear industry in order to learn their near-term plans for adopting new advanced capabilities and implementing a network (i.e., wireless and wire) infrastructure throughout the plant, including the power block. Secondly, a literature review covering regulatory documents, industry standards, and technical research reports and articles was conducted. The objective of the review was to identify key areas to be covered by the DAPM, which included the following: 1. The need for a DA and its benefits to the plant 2. Resources required to implement the DA 3. Challenges that need to be addressed and resolved to implement the DA 4. Roles and responsibilities of the DA implementation plan. The DAPM was developed based on results from the survey and the literature review. Model development, including the survey results and conclusions made about the key areas during the literature review, are described in this report.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Architectural Basis for Highly Distributed Transactive Power Grids: Frameworks, Networks, and Grid Codes

This paper provides an architectural framework for highly distributed Transactive Energy grids. This framework guides the engineering of transactive distribution systems, informs the necessary interoperability standards, and fills in the gap in the ability of electric distribution utilities to write the Grid Codes that define how prosumer and third party devices plug into such a grid. With this architecture, a major hurdle to Transactive Grid deployment is resolved.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Evaluation of 1950s-Era Architectural Resources in Blocks 10, 11, and 17, Mercury, Area 23, Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada

The U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office (NNSA/NFO) plans to modernize the Mercury town site at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in Nye County, Nevada, to meet current and future National Weapons Science, Global and Homeland Security Programs, and Environmental Management mission requirements. These plans, including anticipated demolitions, consolidations, and rebuilding at Mercury, are considered an undertaking subject to review under Title 54 U.S.C. § 306108, commonly known as Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, Title 54 U.S.C. § 300101, et seq., and its implementing regulations, 36 C.F.R. Part 800. The Desert Research Institute (DRI) completed an architectural survey of Mercury. This effort resulted in the identification, recording, and evaluation of the Mercury Historic District (Nevada State Historic Preservation Office [SHPO] Resource No. D230), including the identification of its contributing components (Reno et al. 2018). This district was recommended eligible to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP or National Register) under Criteria A and C but was unevaluated under Criteria B and D at that time. The Mercury Historic District contains 154 individual landscapes, buildings, and structures. Of these resources, DRI recommends all except one as contributing elements of the historic district during its period of significance corresponding to nuclear testing from 1951 through 1992. During most of the Cold War, the land now called the NNSS was formerly the Nevada Test Site (NTS). This report is concerned with evaluating resources dating to the 1950s in Blocks 10, 11, and 17 in Mercury prior to the proposed demolition of 22 resources in Blocks 10 and 11 as a phase of the larger modernization program mentioned above. Although the Mercury Historic District as a whole is eligible to the National Register, further evaluation of these properties as detailed in this report indicates that none are individually eligible under any of the Secretary of Interior’s Significance Criteria, either at the national or local level. This is one report in the report series "Evaluation, Finding of Effect, and Mitigation Documentation for 1950s-Era Architectural Resources, Mercury, Area 23, Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada".

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗