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At least 1,243 records · Page 69

Distributed out-of-memory NMF on CPU/GPU architectures

We propose an efficient distributed out-of-memory implementation of the non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) algorithm for heterogeneous high-performance-computing systems. The proposed implementation is based on prior work on NMFk, which can perform automatic model selection and extract latent variables and patterns from data. In this work, we extend NMFk by adding support for dense and sparse matrix operation on multi-node, multi-GPU systems. The resulting algorithm is optimized for out-of-memory problems where the memory required to factorize a given matrix is greater than the available GPU memory. Memory complexity is reduced by batching/tiling strategies, and sparse and dense matrix operations are significantly accelerated with GPU cores (or tensor cores when available). Input/output latency associated with batch copies between host and device is hidden using CUDA streams to overlap data transfers and compute asynchronously, and latency associated with collective communications (both intra-node and inter-node) is reduced using optimized NVIDIA Collective Communication Library (NCCL) based communicators. Benchmark results show significant improvement, from 32X to 76x speedup, with the new implementation using GPUs over the CPU-based NMFk. Good weak scaling was demonstrated on up to 4096 multi-GPU cluster nodes with approximately 25,000 GPUs when decomposing a dense 340 Terabyte-size matrix and an 11 Exabyte-size sparse matrix of density 10 -6 .

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Computing the QRPA level density with the finite amplitude method

Here, we describe a new algorithm to calculate the vibrational nuclear level density of an atomic nucleus. Fictitious perturbation operators that probe the response of the system are generated by drawing their matrix elements from some probability distribution function. We use the Finite Amplitude Method to explicitly compute the response for each such sample. With the help of the Kernel Polynomial Method, we build an estimator of the vibrational level density and provide the upper bound of the relative error in the limit of infinitely many random samples. The new algorithm can give accurate estimates of the vibrational level density. Since it is based on drawing multiple samples of perturbation operators, its computational implementation is naturally parallel and scales like the number of available processing units.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Livermore tomography tools: Accurate, fast, and flexible software for tomographic science

Livermore Tomography Tools (LTT) is a customizable scientific software package that enables a broad range of research and development efforts into computed tomography (CT). Here, it was developed to process x-ray and neutron CT data accurately and rapidly from raw detector counts to reconstructed volumes with the flexibility to handle many special cases. LTT fulfills long-term CT software goals to provide quantitatively accurate results reported in physical units (e.g., mm -1 or cm -1 ) while exploiting all available computational advantages to maximize speed. Written in C/C++ with support for multiple CPUs and GPUs, LTT runs on many computing platforms (Linux/Unix, Windows, and Mac; laptops to supercomputers). As a result, LTT can:process data acquired from various custom-built and commercially available CT scanners, model and simulate x-ray and neutron interactions to encourage algorithm prototyping, and allow for rapid insertion of the latest algorithms.We describe LTT’s software architecture, user interfaces, and its 88 algorithms (as of this writing) for pre-processing, reconstruction, post-processing, and simulation that support many scanner geometries (parallel-, fan-, cone-beam, and custom). Several applications are presented that illustrate LTT’s accuracy, speed, and flexibility relative to other solutions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A High-Performance Discrete-Element Framework for Simulating Flow and Jamming of Moisture Bearing Biomass Feedstocks

We developed and verified a high-performance open-source discrete element method (DEM) solver with simultaneously-supported feedstock-specific interaction models, including bonded-sphere, liquid bridge, cohesion, and non-linear contact models. Our solver uses parallel data structures on hybrid central and graphics processing unit (CPU/GPU) architectures, with favorable strong scaling performance observed for large problem sizes comprised of (100 M particles), and 4X single-node GPU speedup. The particles for corn stover feedstock were conceptualized and calibrated based on experimental measurements and results. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate that the mass flow rate from a wedge hopper is governed primarily by moisture content, friction coefficient, and cohesion energy density. The model is used to reproduce experimentally observed hopper jamming results, highlighting that the experimental no-flow trends can only be achieved by using non-spherical particles, liquid bridge and cohesion models, highlighting the importance of using concurrent feedstock specialized models for the effective representation of biomass material handling problems.

bioenergy↗

Electron energization during merging of self-magnetized, high-beta, laser-produced plasmas

Electron energization during merging of magnetized plasmas is studied using the OMEGA and OMEGA EP laser facilities by colliding two plasma plumes, each containing a Biermann-battery self-generated magnetic field. Two neighbouring plasma plumes are produced by intense laser beams, and the anti-parallel Biermann fields merge and reconnect in the process of the plumes’ expansion and collision. To isolate the merging as an acceleration source, the electron energy spectra obtained from two-plume collision shots are compared with the spectra from single-plume shots. Single-plume shots exhibit an energized electron tail with energies up to ${\sim }250\ \textrm {keV}$ . The electrons in merging experiments are additionally accelerated by ${\sim }50\text {--}100$ keV compared to single-plume shots.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Enabling high-throughput enzyme discovery and engineering with a low-cost, robot-assisted pipeline

Abstract As genomic databases expand and artificial intelligence tools advance, there is a growing demand for efficient characterization of large numbers of proteins. To this end, here we describe a generalizable pipeline for high-throughput protein purification using small-scale expression in E. coli and an affordable liquid-handling robot. This low-cost platform enables the purification of 96 proteins in parallel with minimal waste and is scalable for processing hundreds of proteins weekly per user. We demonstrate the performance of this method with the expression and purification of the leading poly(ethylene terephthalate) hydrolases reported in the literature. Replicate experiments demonstrated reproducibility and enzyme purity and yields (up to 400 µg) sufficient for comprehensive analyses of both thermostability and activity, generating a standardized benchmark dataset for comparing these plastic-degrading enzymes. The cost-effectiveness and ease of implementation of this platform render it broadly applicable to diverse protein characterization challenges in the biological sciences.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The 4D Camera: An 87 kHz Direct Electron Detector for Scanning/Transmission Electron Microscopy

We describe the development, operation, and application of the 4D Camera—a 576 by 576 pixel active pixel sensor for scanning/transmission electron microscopy which operates at 87,000 Hz. The detector generates data at ~480 Gbit/s which is captured by dedicated receiver computers with a parallelized software infrastructure that has been implemented to process the resulting 10–700 Gigabyte-sized raw datasets. The back illuminated detector provides the ability to detect single electron events at accelerating voltages from 30 to 300 kV. Through electron counting, the resulting sparse data sets are reduced in size by 10--300× compared to the raw data, and open-source sparsity-based processing algorithms offer rapid data analysis. The high frame rate allows for large and complex scanning diffraction experiments to be accomplished with typical scanning transmission electron microscopy scanning parameters.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Towards Feature-Preserving 2D and 3D Vector Field Compression

The objective of this work is to develop error-bounded lossy compression methods to preserve topological features in 2D and 3D vector fields. Specifically, we explore the preservation of critical points in piecewise linear vector fields. We define the preservation of critical points as, without any false positive, false negative, or false type change in the decompressed data, (1) keeping each critical point in its original cell and (2) retaining the type of each critical point (e.g., saddle and attracting node). The key to our method is to adapt a vertex-wise error bound for each grid point and to compress input data together with the error bound field using a modified lossy compressor. Our compression algorithm can be also embarrassingly parallelized for large data handling and in situ processing. We benchmark our method by comparing it with existing lossy compressors in terms of false positive/negative/type rates, compression ratio, and various vector field visualizations with several scientific applications.

critical points↗

Optimization Plugin Library

The Optimization Plugin library ("op") is a lightweight general optimization solver interface. The primary purpose of op is to simplify the process of integrating different optimization solvers (serial or parallel) with scalable parallel physics engines. By design it has several features that help make this a reality. The core abstraction interface was developed to encompass a large class of optimization problems in an optimizer-agnostic way. This enables us to describe the optimization problem once and then use a variety of supported "op" optimizers with ideally no code-changes. The abstraction interface is made up of lightweight wrappers that make it easy to integrate with existing simulation codes. This makes integration less intrusive and should minimize changes to existing physics codes. The "op" interface includes an assortment of utility methods that help specify parallel communication patterns as well as methods to convert from optimization-specific interfaces to the more general "op" interface. Lastly a dynamic library linking interface is provided to allow for use of proprietary optimization engines without explicit reference in the source code, along with standard shared library interfaces for opensource engines.

Jekel, CharlesF↗

Scaled up Process Report – Apparatus and Model

Advanced voloxidation with NO 2 is a proposed process for used nuclear fuel head-end reprocessing scheme that converts UO 2 to higher oxides, and it also converts partitioning volatile fission products into the gas phase, thus facilitating fuel dissolution and actinide recovery. NO 2 voloxidation is being studied on small batches of UO 2 Simfuel, but the real test of process feasibility will be when it is scaled up to work with >100 g of irradiated material. This report discusses the aspects of scale-up that must be considered for NO 2 voloxidation, including development of a stirred reactor to promote agitation of the mixture during processing, online process monitoring, and automation controls. Brief details on parallel efforts are also provided in this report, including (a) demonstration of iodine release from Simfuel made by Spark Plasma Sintering, and (b) development of an order-of-magnitude scale-up to react 100 g of UO 2 Simfuel in a metal reactor.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

A Model for Pair Production Limit Cycles in Pulsar Magnetospheres

Abstract It was recently proposed that the electric field oscillation as a result of self-consistent e ± pair production may be the source of coherent radio emission from pulsars. Direct particle-in-cell simulations of this process have shown that the screening of the parallel electric field by this pair cascade manifests as a limit cycle, as the parallel electric field is recurrently induced when pairs produced in the cascade escape from the gap region. In this work, we develop a simplified time-dependent kinetic model of e ± pair cascades in pulsar magnetospheres that can reproduce the limit-cycle behavior of pair production and electric field screening. This model includes the effects of a magnetospheric current, the escape of e ± , as well as the dynamic dependence of pair production rate on the plasma density and energy. Using this simple theoretical model, we show that the power spectrum of electric field oscillations averaged over many limit cycles is compatible with the observed pulsar radio spectrum.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Portage: A Modular Data Remap Library for Multiphysics Applications on Advanced Architectures

Portage is a scalable and extensible remap library for numerical simulations. It supports state-of-the-art remap schemes for meshes and particles in 2D and 3D up to a second-order accuracy. Portage ensures critical properties such as local/global conservation and bounds preservation for mesh remap. It enables multi-material field remap through a dedicated plugin, and leverages the hybrid parallelism exposed by advanced architectures using multi-processing and multi-threading.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Study of growth of single crystal ribbon in space

The technical feasibility is studied of growing single-crystal silicon ribbon in the space environment. Procedures are described for calculating the electromagnetic fields produced in a silicon ribbon by an rf shaping coil. The forces on the ribbon and the degree of shaping to be expected are determined. The expected steady-state temperature distribution in the ribbon is calculated in the one-dimensional approximation. Calculations on simplified models indicate, that lack of flatness of the shaped ribbon and excessive heating of the melt by the eddy currents induced by the shaping fields may pose problems. An analysis of the relative effects of various kinds of forces other than electromagnetic showed that in the space environment capillarity forces would dominate, and that the shape of the melt is thus principally determined by the shape of any solids with which it comes in contact. This suggests that ribbon may be produced simply by drawing between parallel wires. A concept is developed for a process of off-angle growth, in which the ribbon is pulled at an angle to the solidification front. Such a process promises to offer increased growth rate, better homogeneity, and thinner ribbon.

Wood, V. E.↗

Rapid viscosity measurements of powdered thermosetting resins

A rapid and inexpensive method of obtaining processing-related data on powdered thermosetting resins has been investigated. The method involved viscosity measurements obtained with a small specimen (less than 100 mg) parallel plate plastometer. A data acquisition and reduction system was developed which provided a value of viscosity and strain rate about 12-13 second intervals during a test. The effects of specimen compaction pressure and reduction of adhesion between specimen and parallel plates were examined. The plastometer was used to measure some processing-related viscosity changes of an addition polyimide resin, including changes caused by pre-test heat treatment, test temperature, and strain rate.

Price, H. L.↗

Application of a microprocessor to a spacecraft attitude control

The attitude control system (ACS) microprocessor development work spanned three main design areas: hardware and instruction set, ACS firmware, and hardware firmware verification testing. The processor hardware utilizes two parallel 4 bit microprocessors. The firmware includes data processing for five sensors, four attitude control laws, and telemetry and commands.

Brady, D. H.↗

Free-electron laser simulations on the MPP

Free electron lasers (FELs) are of interest because they provide high power, high efficiency, and broad tunability. FEL simulations can make efficient use of computers of the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) class because most of the processing consists of applying a simple equation to a set of identical particles. A test version of the KMS Fusion FEL simulation, which resides mainly in the MPPs host computer and only partially in the MPP, has run successfully.

Vonlaven, Scott A.↗

The FORCE - A highly portable parallel programming language

This paper explains why the FORCE parallel programming language is easily portable among six different shared-memory multiprocessors, and how a two-level macro preprocessor makes it possible to hide low-level machine dependencies and to build machine-independent high-level constructs on top of them. These FORCE constructs make it possible to write portable parallel programs largely independent of the number of processes and the specific shared-memory multiprocessor executing them.

Jordan, Harry F.↗

The FORCE: A highly portable parallel programming language

Here, it is explained why the FORCE parallel programming language is easily portable among six different shared-memory microprocessors, and how a two-level macro preprocessor makes it possible to hide low level machine dependencies and to build machine-independent high level constructs on top of them. These FORCE constructs make it possible to write portable parallel programs largely independent of the number of processes and the specific shared memory multiprocessor executing them.

Jordan, Harry F.↗