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At least 1,693 records · Page 94

Adaptive job and resource management for the growing quantum cloud

As the popularity of quantum computing continues to grow, efficient quantum machine access over the cloud is critical to both academic and industry researchers across the globe. And as cloud quantum computing demands increase exponentially, the analysis of resource consumption and execution characteristics are key to efficient management of jobs and resources at both the vendor-end as well as the client-end. While the analysis and optimization of job / resource consumption and management are popular in the classical HPC domain, it is severely lacking for more nascent technology like quantum computing.This paper proposes optimized adaptive job scheduling to the quantum cloud taking note of primary characteristics such as queuing times and fidelity trends across machines, as well as other characteristics such as quality of service guarantees and machine calibration constraints. Key components of the proposal include a) a prediction model which predicts fidelity trends across machine based on compiled circuit features such as circuit depth and different forms of errors, as well as b) queuing time prediction for each machine based on execution time estimations. Altogether, this proposal is evaluated on simulated IBM machines across a diverse set of quantum applications and system loading scenarios, and is able to reduce wait times by over 3x and improve fidelity by over 40% on specific usecases, when compared to traditional job schedulers.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Molecular Symmetry in VQE: A Dual Approach for Trapped-Ion Simulations of Benzene

Understanding complex chemical systems—such as biomolecules, catalysts, and novel materials—is a central goal of quantum simulations. Near-term strategies hinge on the use of variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithms combined with a suitable ansatz. However, straightforward application of many chemically-inspired ansatze yields prohibitively deep circuits. In this work, we employ several circuit optimization methods tailored for trapped-ion quantum devices to enhance the feasibility of intricate chemical simulations. The techniques aim to lessen the depth of the unitary coupled cluster with singles and doubles (uCCSD) ansatz's circuit compilation, a considerable challenge on current noisy quantum devices. Furthermore, we use symmetry-inspired classical post-selection methods to further refine the outcomes and minimize errors in energy measurements, without adding quantum overhead. Our strategies encompass optimal mapping from orbital to qubit, term reordering to minimize entangling gates, and the exploitation of molecular spin and point group symmetry to eliminate redundant parameters. The inclusion of error mitigation via post-selection based on known molecular symmetries improves the results to near milli-Hartree accuracy. These methods, when applied to a benzene molecule simulation, enabled the construction of an 8-qubit circuit with 69 two-qubit entangling operations, pushing the limits for variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) circuits executed on quantum hardware to date. 1 1 This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-000R22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The publisher acknowledges the US government license to provide public access under the DOE Public Access Plan(https://energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan).

Goings, Joshua↗

Real-time performance of commercial Intel-based VME Controllers for the CODA data acquisition system

We have evaluated the performance of several Intel-based VME Controllers for the use in the data acquisition systems (DAQs) at Jefferson Lab. For the 12 GeV upgrade, PPC-based VME controllers running vxWorks will be replaced with those that are Intel-based running Linux. Their task will be facilitated by the use of FPGAs on the VME modules to perform trigger logic and communicating trigger information over serial and fiber connections through the DAQ. The need for a hard realtime operating system on the VME controller is removed from the equation as the readout of the digitized data from the VME modules (using VME-2eSST) is done in a threaded environment with multiple CPU cores while digitization takes place in the buffered, pipelined system. In this paper we brief discuss the 12 GeV Hall D DAQ and the requirements of the VME Controller. We present results from baseline testing of various models from different vendors using different Linux kernels, including results from a kernel compiled with the CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT patch.

Moffit, Bryan↗

Global Data Re-allocation via Communication Aggregation in Chapel

Chapel is a parallel programming language designed to improve the productivity and ease of use of conventional and parallel computers. This language currently delivers sub optimal performance when executing codes that perform global data re-allocation operations on distributed memory architectures. This is mainly due to data communication that is done without aggregation (one message for each remote array element). In this work, we analyze Chapel's standard Block and Cyclic distribution modules and optimize the communication routines for array assignments by performing aggregation. Thanks to the expressive power of Chapel, the compiler and runtime have enough information to do communication aggregation without user intervention. The runtime relies on the low-level GAS Net networking layer, whose versions of one-sided bulk put/get routines that support strides are particularly useful for us. Experimental results conducted on Hector (a Cray XE6) and Jaguar (Cray XK6)reveal that the implemented techniques can lead to significant reductions in communication time.

Sanz, Alberto↗

IRIS-GNN: Leveraging Graph Neural Networks for Scheduling on Truly Heterogeneous Runtime Systems

The diversity of accelerators in computer systems poses significant challenges for software developers, such as managing vendor-specific compiler toolchains, code fragmentation requiring different kernel implementations, and performance portability issues. To address these, the Intelligent Runtime System (IRIS) was developed. IRIS works across various systems, from smartphones to supercomputers, enabling automatic performance scaling based on available accelerators. It introduces abstract tasks for seamless execution transitions between accelerators while ensuring memory consistency and task dependencies. Although IRIS simplifies system details, optimal dynamic scheduling still requires user input to understand workload structures. To address this, we introduce a new scheduling policy for IRIS, termed IRIS-GNN, which is the first IRIS hybrid policy that operates in conjunction with the dynamic policies. This policy employs a Graph-Neural Network (GNN) to conduct Graph Classification of any task graphs submitted to IRIS. This GNN analyzes the structure and attributes of the task graph, categorizing it as either locality, concurrency, or mixed. This classification subsequently guides the selection of the dynamic policy used by IRIS. We provide a comparison of the performance of IRIS-GNN against the complete spectrum of IRIS’s dynamic policies, assess the overhead introduced by the GNN within this scheduling framework, and ultimately explore its practical application in real-world scenarios.

Johnston, Beau↗

A Dynamically Reconfigurable System for Closed-Loop Measurements of Network Traffic

Streaming network traffic measurement and analysis is critical for detecting and preventing any real-time anomalies in the network. The high speeds and complexity of today's networks, coupled with ever evolving threats, necessitate closing of the loop between measurements and their analysis in real time. The ensuing system demands high levels of programmability and processing where streaming measurements adapt to the changing network behavior in a goal-oriented manner. In this work, we exploit the features and requirements of the problem and develop an application-specific FPGA-based closed-loop measurement (CLM) system. We make novel use of fine-grained partial dynamic reconfiguration (PDR) as underlying reprogramming paradigm, performing low-latency just-in-time compiled logic changes in FPGA fabric corresponding to the dynamic measurement requirements. Our innovative dynamically reconfigurable socket offers 3× logic savings over conventional static solutions, while offering much reduced reconfiguration latencies over conventional PDR mechanisms. Here, we integrate multiple sockets in a highly parallel CLM framework and demonstrate its effectiveness in identifying heavy flows in streaming network traffic. The results using an FPGA prototype offer 100 percent detection accuracy while sustaining increasing link speeds.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

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↗

MaGe-a Geant4-Based Monte Carlo Application Framework for Low-Background Germanium Experiments

We describe a physics simulation software framework, MAGE, that is based on the GEANT4 simulation toolkit. MAGE is used to simulate the response of ultra-low radioactive background radiation detectors to ionizing radiation, specifically the MAJ ORANA and GE RDA neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. MAJ ORANA and GERDA use high-purity germanium technology to search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of the 76 Ge isotope, and MAGE is jointly developed between these two collaborations. The MAGE framework contains simulated geometries of common objects, prototypes, test stands, and the actual experiments. It also implements customized event generators, GE ANT 4 physics lists, and output formats. All of these features are available as class libraries that are typically compiled into a single executable. The user selects the particular experimental setup implementation at run-time via macros. The combination of all these common classes into one framework reduces duplication of efforts, eases comparison between simulated data and experiment, and simplifies the addition of new detectors to be simulated. This paper focuses on the software framework, custom event generators, and physics list.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NSTX-U Advances in Real-Time C++11 on Linux

Programming languages like C and Ada combined with proprietary embedded operating systems have dominated the real-time application space for decades. The new C++11standard includes native, language-level support for concurrency, a required feature for any nontrivial event-oriented real-time software. Threads, Locks, and Atomics now exist to provide the necessary tools to build the structures that make up the foundation of a complex real-time system. The National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is breaking new ground with the language as applied to the needs of fusion devices. A new Digital Coil Protection System (DCPS) will serve as the main protection mechanism for the magnetic coils, and it is written entirely in C++11 running on Concurrent Computer Corporation's real-time operating system, RedHawk Linux. It runs over 600 algorithms in a 5 kHz control loop that determine whether or not to shut down operations before physical damage occurs. To accomplish this, NSTX-U engineers developed software tools that do not currently exist elsewhere, including real-time atomic synchronization, real-time containers, and a real-time logging framework. Together with a recent (and carefully configured) version of the GCC compiler, these tools enable data acquisition, processing, and output using a conventional operating system to meet a hard real-time deadline (that is, missing one periodic is a failure) of 200 microseconds.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

A Global Analysis of Light and Charge Yields in Liquid Xenon

Here, we present an updated model of light and charge yields from nuclear recoils in liquid xenon with a simultaneously constrained parameter set. A global analysis is performed using measurements of electron and photon yields compiled from all available historical data, as well as measurements of the ratio of the two. These data sweep over energies from keV and external applied electric fields from V/cm. The model is constrained by constructing global cost functions and using a simulated annealing algorithm and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach to optimize and find confidence intervals on all free parameters in the model. This analysis contrasts with previous work in that we do not unnecessarily exclude datasets nor impose artificially conservative assumptions, do not use spline functions, and reduce the number of parameters used in NEST v 0.98. Here, we report our results and the calculated best-fit charge and light yields. These quantities are crucial to understanding the response of liquid xenon detectors in the energy regime important for rare event searches such as the direct detection of dark matter particles.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Using benchmarks for radiation testing of microprocessors and FPGAs

Performance benchmarks have been used over the years to compare different systems. These benchmarks can be useful for researchers trying to determine how changes to the technology, architecture, or compiler affect the system's performance. No such standard exists for systems deployed into high radiation environments, making it difficult to assess whether changes in the fabrication process, circuitry, architecture, or software affect reliability or radiation sensitivity. In this paper, we propose a benchmark suite for high-reliability systems that is designed for field-programmable gate arrays and microprocessors. As a result, we describe the development process and report neutron test data for the hardware and software benchmarks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A performance model for GPUs with caches

To exploit the abundant computational power of the world's fastest supercomputers, an even workload distribution to the typically heterogeneous compute devices is necessary. While relatively accurate performance models exist for conventional CPUs, accurate performance estimation models for modern GPUs do not exist. This paper presents two accurate models for modern GPUs: a sampling-based linear model, and a model based on machine-learning (ML) techniques which improves the accuracy of the linear model and is applicable to modern GPUs with and without caches. We first construct the sampling-based linear model to predict the runtime of an arbitrary OpenCL kernel. Based on an analysis of NVIDIA GPUs' scheduling policies we determine the earliest sampling points that allow an accurate estimation. The linear model cannot capture well the significant effects that memory coalescing or caching as implemented in modern GPUs have on performance. We therefore propose a model based on ML techniques that takes several compiler-generated statistics about the kernel as well as the GPU's hardware performance counters as additional inputs to obtain a more accurate runtime performance estimation for modern GPUs. We demonstrate the effectiveness and broad applicability of the model by applying it to three different NVIDIA GPU architectures and one AMD GPU architecture. On an extensive set of OpenCL benchmarks, on average, the proposed model estimates the runtime performance with less than 7 percent error for a second-generation GTX 280 with no on-chip caches and less than 5 percent for the Fermi-based GTX 580 with hardware caches. On the Kepler-based GTX 680, the linear model has an error of less than 10 percent. On an AMD GPU architecture, Radeon HD 6970, the model estimates with 8 percent of error rates. As a result, the proposed technique outperforms existing models by a factor of 5 to 6 in terms of accuracy.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Interactive Exploration and Analysis of Large-Scale Simulations Using Topology-Based Data Segmentation

Large-scale simulations are increasingly being used to study complex scientific and engineering phenomena. As a result, advanced visualization and data analysis are also becoming an integral part of the scientific process. Often, a key step in extracting insight from these large simulations involves the definition, extraction, and evaluation of features in the space and time coordinates of the solution. However, in many applications, these features involve a range of parameters and decisions that will affect the quality and direction of the analysis. Examples include particular level sets of a specific scalar field, or local inequalities between derived quantities. A critical step in the analysis is to understand how these arbitrary parameters/decisions impact the statistical properties of the features, since such a characterization will help to evaluate the conclusions of the analysis as a whole. We present a new topological framework that in a single-pass extracts and encodes entire families of possible features definitions as well as their statistical properties. For each time step we construct a hierarchical merge tree a highly compact, yet flexible feature representation. While this data structure is more than two orders of magnitude smaller than the raw simulation data it allows us to extract a set of features for any given parameter selection in a postprocessing step. Furthermore, we augment the trees with additional attributes making it possible to gather a large number of useful global, local, as well as conditional statistic that would otherwise be extremely difficult to compile. We also use this representation to create tracking graphs that describe the temporal evolution of the features over time. Our system provides a linked-view interface to explore the time-evolution of the graph interactively alongside the segmentation, thus making it possible to perform extensive data analysis in a very efficient manner. We demonstrate our framework by extracting and analyzing burning cells from a large-scale turbulent combustion simulation. In particular, we show how the statistical analysis enabled by our techniques provides new insight into the combustion process.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Towards Achieving Performance Portability Using Directives for Accelerators

In this paper we explore the performance portability of directives provided by OpenMP 4 and OpenACC to program various types of node architectures with attached accelerators, both self-hosted multicore and offload multicore/GPU. Our goal is to examine how successful OpenACC and the newer offload features of OpenMP 4.5 are for moving codes between architectures, how much tuning might be required and what lessons we can learn from this experience. To do this, we use examples of algorithms with varying computational intensities for our evaluation, as both compute and data access efficiency are important considerations for overall application performance. We implement these kernels using various methods provided by newer OpenACC and OpenMP implementations, and we evaluate their performance on various platforms including both X86_64 with attached NVIDIA GPUs, self-hosted Intel Xeon Phi KNL, as well as an X86_64 host system with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. In this paper, we explain what factors affected the performance portability such as how to pick the right programming model, its programming style, its availability on different platforms, and how well compilers can optimize and target to multiple platforms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Nutrient foraging by mycorrhizas: From species functional traits to ecosystem processes

1. Plant roots and the associated mycorrhizal fungal hyphae often selectively proliferate into patchily distributed soil nutrient hotspots, but interactions between these two components of a mycorrhizal root system are usually ignored or experimentally isolated in nutrient foraging studies. 2. From studies in which both roots and mycorrhizal hyphae had access to nutrient hotspots, we compiled data on root foraging precision (increase in roots in nutrient hotspots relative to outside hotspots) of plant species from different ecosystems, ranging from temperate grasslands to subtropical forests. We found that root for- aging precision across the wide range of plant species was strongly influenced by root morphology and mycorrhizal type. 3. The precision of root nutrient foraging, as a plant functional trait, may coordinate with other root traits that are related to the economics of nutrient acquisition. High foraging precision is expected to associate with the strategy of fast return on the investment in roots, such as low construction cost, high metabolic rate and rapid turnover. 4. Nutrient foraging by mycorrhizal fungi alone may be influenced by functional traits such as hyphal exploration distance, hyphal turnover, and hyphal uptake capacity and efficiency, but such data are limited to a small portion of mycorrhizal fungal species. 5. We propose a conceptual framework in which to simulate nitrogen and phosphorus acquisition from both nutrient hotspots and outside hotspots in mixed-species plant communities. Simulation outputs suggest that plant species with varying root morphology and mycorrhizal type can be adaptive to a range of nutrient heterogeneity. 6. Although there are still knowledge gaps related to nutrient foraging, as well as many unexplored plant and fungal species, we suggest that scaling nutrient foraging from individual plants to communities would advance understanding of plant species interactions and below-ground ecosystem function.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Climate, soil and plant functional types as drivers of global fine-root trait variation

Ecosystem functioning relies heavily on below-ground processes, which are largely regulated by plant fine-roots and their functional traits. However, our knowledge of fine-root trait distribution relies to date on local- and regional-scale studies with limited numbers of species, growth forms and environmental variation. We compiled a world-wide fine-root trait dataset, featuring 1115 species from contrasting climatic areas, phylogeny and growth forms to test a series of hypotheses pertaining to the influence of plant functional types, soil and climate variables, and the degree of manipulation of plant growing conditions on species fine-root trait variation. Most particularly, we tested the competing hypotheses that fine-root traits typical of faster return on investment would be most strongly associated with conditions of limiting versus favourable soil resource availability. We accounted for both data source and species phylogenetic relatedness. We demonstrate that: (i) Climate conditions promoting soil fertility relate negatively to fine-root traits favouring fast soil resource acquisition, with a particularly strong positive effect of temperature on fine-root diameter and negative effect on specific root length (SRL), and a negative effect of rainfall on root nitrogen concentration; (ii) Soil bulk density strongly influences species fine-root morphology, by favouring thicker, denser fine-roots; (iii) Fine-roots from herbaceous species are on average finer and have higher SRL than those of woody species, and N 2 -fixing capacity positively relates to root nitrogen; and (iv) Plants growing in pots have higher SRL than those grown in the field. Synthesis. This study reveals both the large variation in fine-root traits encountered globally and the relevance of several key plant functional types and soil and climate variables for explaining a substantial part of this variation. Climate, particularly temperature, and plant functional types were the two strongest predictors of fine-root trait variation. High trait variation occurred at local scales, suggesting that wide-ranging below-ground resource economics strategies are viable within most climatic areas and soil conditions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

A historical and comparative review of 50 years of root data collection in Puerto Rico

Fine roots play an important role in plant nutrition, as well as in carbon, water, and nutrient cycling. Fine roots account for a third of terrestrial net primary production (NPP), and inclusion of their structure and function in global carbon models should improve predictions of ecosystem responses to climate change. However, studies focusing on underground plant components are much less frequent than those on aboveground structure. This is more marked in the tropics, where one-third of the planet's terrestrial NPP is produced. Some tropical forests have been more represented in the literature than others, as demonstrated in the collective studies in Puerto Rico. This Caribbean island's biodiversity, frequency of natural disturbances, ease of access to forests, and long-term plots have created an ideal place for the study of tropical ecological processes. This review of the literature emphasizes 50 years of root research and patterns revealed around Puerto Rico. The data in this review were compiled from scientific publications, conference reports, symposiums, and raw data shared by some researches. Emergent patterns include the shallow distribution of fine roots, the great variation in root biomass among different forest types, little variation in root phosphorus concentrations, the slow recovery of root biomass after Hurricane Hugo, and the fact that most data on roots come from the wet tropical Luquillo Experimental Forest, causing other habitat types to be underrepresented. This review also shows the gaps in knowledge about fine roots in the island's ecosystems, which should be used to promote and guide future studies. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.

tropics↗

Substrate and environmental controls on microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon: a framework for Earth System Models

Microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon is one of the fundamental processes of global carbon cycling and it determines the magnitude of microbial biomass in soils. Mechanistic understanding of microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon and its controls is important for to improve Earth system models ability to simulate carbon-climate feedbacks. Although microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon is broadly considered to be an important parameter, it really comprises two separate physiological processes: one-time assimilation efficiency and time-dependent microbial maintenance energy. Representing of these two mechanisms is crucial to more accurately simulate carbon cycling in soils. In this study, a simple modeling framework was developed to evaluate the substrate and environmental controls on microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon using a new term: microbial annual active period (the length of microbes remaining active in one year). Substrate quality has a positive effect on microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon: higher substrate quality (lower C:N ratio) leads to higher ratio of microbial carbon to soil organic carbon and vice versa. Increases in microbial annual active period from zero stimulate microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon; however, when microbial annual active period is longer than an optimal threshold, increasing this period decreases microbial biomass. The simulated ratios of soil microbial biomass to soil organic carbon are reasonably consistent with a recently compiled global dataset at the biome-level. The modeling framework of microbial assimilation of soil organic carbon and its controls developed in this study offers an applicable ways to incorporate microbial contributions to the carbon cycling into Earth system models for simulating carbon-climate feedbacks and to explain global patterns of microbial biomass.

Xu, Xiaofeng↗