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At least 1,711 records · Page 95

FINAL REPORT DE-FG02-04ER41317 Advanced Computation and Chaotic Dynamics for Beams and Accelerators

During the year ending in August 2013, we continued to investigate the potential of photonic crystal (PhC) materials for acceleration purposes. We worked to characterize acceleration ability of simple PhC accelerator structures, as well as to characterize PhC materials to determine whether current fabrication techniques can meet the needs of future accelerating structures. We have also continued to design and optimize PhC accelerator structures, with the ultimate goal of finding a new kind of accelerator structure that could offer significant advantages over current RF acceleration technology. This design and optimization of these requires high performance computation, and we continue to work on methods to make such computation faster and more efficient.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

The VTK-m Users' Guide (V.2.0)

High-performance computing relies on ever finer threading. Advances in processor technology include ever greater numbers of cores, hyperthreading, accelerators with integrated blocks of cores, and special vectorized instructions, all of which require more software parallelism to achieve peak performance. Traditional visualization solutions cannot support this extreme level of concurrency. Extreme scale systems require a new programming model and a fundamental change in how we design algorithms. To address these issues we created VTK-m: the visualization toolkit for multi-/many-core architectures. VTK-m supports a number of algorithms and the ability to design further algorithms through a top-down design with an emphasis on extreme parallelism. VTK-m also provides support for finding and building links across topologies, making it possible to perform operations that determine manifold surfaces, interpolate generated values, and find adjacencies. Although VTK-m provides a simplified high-level interface for programming, its template-based code removes the overhead of abstraction. VTK-m simplifies the development of parallel scientific visualization algorithms by providing a framework of supporting functionality that allows developers to focus on visualization operations. Consider the listings in Figure 1.1 that compares the size of the implementation for the Marching Cubes algorithm in VTK-m with the equivalent reference implementation in the CUDA software development kit. Because VTK-m internally manages the parallel distribution of work and data, the VTK-m implementation is shorter and easier to maintain. Additionally, VTK-m provides data abstractions not provided by other libraries that make code written in VTK-m more versatile.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Status of DUNE Offline Computing

We summarize the status of Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Offline Software and Computing program. We describe plans for the computing infrastructure needed to acquire, catalog, reconstruct, simulate and analyze the data from the DUNE experiment and its prototypes in pursuit of the experiment's physics goals of precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters, detection of astrophysical neutrinos, measurement of neutrino interaction properties and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. In contrast to traditional HEP computational problems, DUNE's Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber data consist of simple but very large (many GB) data objects which share many characteristics with astrophysical images. We have successfully reconstructed and simulated data from 4% prototype detector runs at CERN. The data volume from the full DUNE detector, when it starts commissioning late in this decade will present memory management challenges in conventional processing but significant opportunities to use advances in machine learning and pattern recognition as a frontier user of High Performance Computing facilities capable of massively parallel processing. Our goal is to develop infrastructure resources that are flexible and accessible enough to support creative software solutions as HEP computing evolves.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Implementation of Feldman-Cousins Corrections and Oscillation Calculations in the HPC Environment for the NOvA Experiment

Analysis of neutrino oscillation data involves a combination of complex fitting procedures and statistical correction techniques that are used to determine the full three-flavor PMNS parameters and constraint contours. These techniques rely on computationally intensive “multi-universe” stochastic modeling. The process of calculating these contours and corrections can dominate final stages of the data analysis and become a bottleneck for examining the ef-fect of systematic variations on the final results. As part of the DOE SciDAC-4 sponsored research program, we present a new implementation of a neutrino oscillation fitting and framework to carry out calculations of Feldman-Cousins corrections. This implementation is specifically designed and optimized to operate on modern High-Performance Computing (HPC) facilities. We present the performance of the system in calculating allowed regions for the NOvA experiment based on 8.9 x 1020 and 6.9 x 1020 protons-on-target (POT) neutrino and antineutrino datasets, and compare the performance of this new implementation run at the NERSC supercomputing facility with that from methods used previously by the NOvA collaboration running on grid computing facilities.

Sousa, Alexandre↗

DIRAC current, upcoming and planned capabilities and technologies

DIRAC is the interware for building and operating large scale distributed computing systems. It is adopted by multiple collaborations from various scientific domains for implementing their computing models. DIRAC provides a framework and a rich set of ready-to-use services for Workload, Data and Production Management tasks of small, medium and large scientific communities having different computing requirements. The base functionality can be easily extended by custom components supporting community specific workflows. DIRAC is at the same time an aging project, and a new DiracX project is taking shape for replacing DIRAC in the long term. This contribution will highlight DIRAC’s current, upcoming and planned capabilities and technologies, and how the transition to DiracX will take place. Examples include, but are not limited to, adoption of security tokens and interactions with Identity Provider services, integration of Clouds and High Performance Computers, interface with Rucio, improved monitoring and deployment procedures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Advances in Geologic Disposal System Modeling and Application to Crystalline Rock

The Used Fuel Disposition Campaign (UFDC) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Office of Fuel Cycle Technology (OFCT) is conducting research and development (R&D) on geologic disposal of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and high-level nuclear waste (HLW). Two of the high priorities for UFDC disposal R&D are design concept development and disposal system modeling (DOE 2011). These priorities are directly addressed in the UFDC Generic Disposal Systems Analysis (GDSA) work package, which is charged with developing a disposal system modeling and analysis capability for evaluating disposal system performance for nuclear waste in geologic media (e.g., salt, granite, clay, and deep borehole disposal). This report describes specific GDSA activities in fiscal year 2016 (FY 2016) toward the development of the enhanced disposal system modeling and analysis capability for geologic disposal of nuclear waste. The GDSA framework employs the PFLOTRAN thermal-hydrologic-chemical multi-physics code and the Dakota uncertainty sampling and propagation code. Each code is designed for massively-parallel processing in a high-performance computing (HPC) environment. Multi-physics representations in PFLOTRAN are used to simulate various coupled processes including heat flow, fluid flow, waste dissolution, radionuclide release, radionuclide decay and ingrowth, precipitation and dissolution of secondary phases, and radionuclide transport through engineered barriers and natural geologic barriers to the biosphere. Dakota is used to generate sets of representative realizations and to analyze parameter sensitivity.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Advanced Simulation and Computing FY17 Implementation Plan, Version 0

The Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) is an integrated technical program for maintaining the safety, surety, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The SSP uses nuclear test data, computational modeling and simulation, and experimental facilities to advance understanding of nuclear weapons. It includes stockpile surveillance, experimental research, development and engineering programs, and an appropriately scaled production capability to support stockpile requirements. This integrated national program requires the continued use of experimental facilities and programs, and the computational capabilities to support these programs. The Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (ASC) is a cornerstone of the SSP, providing simulation capabilities and computational resources that support annual stockpile assessment and certification, study advanced nuclear weapons design and manufacturing processes, analyze accident scenarios and weapons aging, and provide the tools to enable stockpile Life Extension Programs (LEPs) and the resolution of Significant Finding Investigations (SFIs). This requires a balance of resource, including technical staff, hardware, simulation software, and computer science solutions. ASC is now focused on increasing predictive capabilities in a three-dimensional (3D) simulation environment while maintaining support to the SSP. The program continues to improve its unique tools for solving progressively more difficult stockpile problems (sufficient resolution, dimensionality, and scientific details), and quantifying critical margins and uncertainties. Resolving each issue requires increasingly difficult analyses because the aging process has progressively moved the stockpile further away from the original test base. Where possible, the program also enables the use of high performance computing (HPC) and simulation tools to address broader national security needs, such as foreign nuclear weapon assessments and counter nuclear terrorism.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Nucleosynthesis for Science and Security: Preparing for a Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Program at FRIB

Nuclear reactions are vital to nuclear science and its many applications: they are the mechanism for forging elements in the cosmos, the source of energy for both stars and nuclear weapons, the principal probes used to study nuclear properties, and the primary diagnostic signatures for stockpile stewardship and nuclear forensics. Yet, most reaction experiments have been confined to the small fraction of all nuclei that are stable, and a theoretical foundation for reactions with a true predictive capability is lacking. The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), the flagship U.S. facility in low-energy nuclear science, will offer the opportunity to rectify the long-standing gap in understanding reactions on radioactive nuclei. The work performed in this LDRD project brought together the experimental nuclear physics, radiochemistry, nuclear theory, and high-performance computing expertise of the Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division to develop new techniques that will be needed to exploit FRIB beams to better understand nuclear reactions. Novel isotope-harvesting techniques were developed to demonstrate that samples could be collected at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University (the facility which FRIB builds upon) for direct measurements of long-lived radioisotopes. For isotopes too short lived for direct measurements, indirect approaches were developed that would ultimately be used with high-intensity FRIB radioactive beams. Finally, to better interpret experimental results and reliably extend predictions beyond the available data, a foundation was established for a fully microscopic and unified description of the structure, interactions, and dynamics of two reacting nuclei that moves beyond empirical models. This work has positioned the team for a leadership role at FRIB, enabling LLNL to maintain a world-class nuclear science program and to compete for future talent and funding, both of which are vital for continuing support of the laboratory’s stockpile stewardship mission.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Living on the Edge of Stability, the Limits of the Nuclear Landscape

A first-principles description of nuclear systems along the drip lines presents a substantial theoretical and computational challenge. In this paper, we discuss the nuclear theory roadmap, some of the key theoretical approaches, and present selected results with a focus on long isotopic chains. An important conclusion, which consistently emerges from these theoretical analyses, is that three-nucleon forces are crucial for both global nuclear properties and detailed nuclear structure, and that many-body correlations due to the coupling to the particle continuum are essential as one approaches particle drip lines. In the quest for a comprehensive nuclear theory, high performance computing plays a key role.

Forssén, C.↗

CommBench: Micro-Benchmarking Hierarchical Networks with Multi-GPU, Multi-NIC Nodes

Modern high-performance computing systems have multiple GPUs and network interface cards (NICs) per node. The resulting network architectures have multilevel hierarchies of subnetworks with different interconnect and software technologies. These systems offer multiple vendor-provided communication capabilities and library implementations (IPC, MPI, NCCL, RCCL, OneCCL) with APIs providing varying levels of performance across the different levels. Understanding this performance is currently difficult because of the wide range of architectures and programming models (CUDA, HIP, OneAPI). We present CommBench, a library with cross-system portability and a high-level API that enables developers to easily build microbenchmarks relevant to their use cases and gain insight into the performance (bandwidth & latency) of multiple implementation libraries on different networks. We demonstrate CommBench with three sets of microbenchmarks that profile the performance of six systems. Our experimental results reveal the effect of multiple NICs on optimizing the bandwidth across nodes and also present the performance characteristics of four available communication libraries within and across nodes of NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel GPU networks.

Hidayetoglu, Mert↗

Report of the HPC Correctness Summit, January 25-26, 2017, Washington, DC

Technologies for verification and debugging have made significant strides in the context of general systems software. An investment in such technologies to make them applicable for High Performance Computing (HPC) could lead to substantial improvements in the productivity and sustainability of HPC software development. Such improvements will be essential to fully exploit new exascale computer architectures. Without such investment, there is the possibility of a substantial crisis in our ability to advance the field of HPC, as the complexity of our architectures, algorithms, and applications is moving beyond the ability of our developers. As HPC is of strategic importance to our nation, forming the bedrock of its scientific and technological capabilities, such investment is highly warranted.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Big Data Analaysis and Visualization: What Do LINACS and Tropical Storms Have In Common?

While there is wisdom in the old adage "the two constants in life are death and taxes,'' there are unavoidable truths facing modern experimental and computational science. First is the growing "impedance mismatch'' between our ability to collect and generate data, and our ability to store, manage, and gain understanding from it. The second is the fact that we cannot continue to rely on the same software technologies that have worked well for the past couple of decades for data management, analysis, and visualization. A third is that these complementary activities must be considered in a holistic, rather than Balkanized way. The inseparable interplay between data management, analysis, visualization, and high performance computational infrastructure, are best viewed through the lens of case studies from multiple scientific domains, where teams of computer and scientists combine forces to tackle challenging data understanding problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Experimental Analysis of File Transfer Rates over Wide-Area Dedicated Connections

File transfers over dedicated connections, supported by large parallel file systems, have become increasingly important in high-performance computing and big data workflows. It remains a challenge to achieve peak rates for such transfers due to the complexities of file I/O, host, and network transport subsystems, and equally importantly, their interactions. We present extensive measurements of disk-to-disk file transfers using Lustre and XFS file systems mounted on multi-core servers over a suite of 10 Gbps emulated connections with 0-366 ms round trip times. Our results indicate that large buffer sizes and many parallel flows do not always guarantee high transfer rates. Furthermore, large variations in the measured rates necessitate repeated measurements to ensure confidence in inferences based on them. We propose a new method to efficiently identify the optimal joint file I/O and network transport parameters using a small number of measurements. We show that for XFS and Lustre with direct I/O, this method identifies configurations achieving 97% of the peak transfer rate while probing only 12% of the parameter space.

Rao, Nageswara S.↗

Multiscale System Modeling of Single-Event-Induced Faults in Advanced Node Processors

Integration-technology feature shrink increases computing-system susceptibility to single-event effects (SEE). While modeling SEE faults will be critical, an integrated processor’s scope makes physically correct modeling computationally intractable. Without useful models, presilicon evaluation of fault-tolerance approaches becomes impossible. To incorporate accurate transistor-level effects at a system scope, we present a multiscale simulation framework. Charge collection at the 1) device level determines 2) circuit-level transient duration and state-upset likelihood. Circuit effects, in turn, impact 3) register-transfer-level architecture-state corruption visible at 4) the system level. Furthermore, the physically accurate effects of SEEs in large-scale systems, executed on a high-performance computing (HPC) simulator, could be used to drive cross-layer radiation hardening by design. We demonstrate the capabilities of this model with two case studies. First, we determine a D flip-flop’s sensitivity at the transistor level on 14-nm FinFet technology, validating the model against published cross sections. Second, we track and estimate faults in a microprocessor without interlocked pipelined stages (MIPS) processor for Adams 90% worst case environment in an isotropic space environment.

42 ENGINEERING↗

VTK-m User's' Guide (V.1.7)

High-performance computing relies on ever finer threading. Advances in processor technology include ever greater numbers of cores, hyperthreading, accelerators with integrated blocks of cores, and special vectorized instructions, all of which require more software parallelism to achieve peak performance. Traditional visualization solutions cannot support this extreme level of concurrency. Extreme scale systems require a new programming model and a fundamental change in how we design algorithms. To address these issues we created VTK-m: the visualization toolkit for multi-/many-core architectures. VTK-m supports a number of algorithms and the ability to design further algorithms through a top-down design with an emphasis on extreme parallelism. VTK-m also provides support for finding and building links across topologies, making it possible to perform operations that determine manifold surfaces, interpolate generated values, and find adjacencies. Although VTK-m provides a simplified high-level interface for programming, its template-based code removes the overhead of abstraction. VTK-m simplifies the development of parallel scientific visualization algorithms by providing a framework of supporting functionality that allows developers to focus on visualization operations. Consider the listings in Figure 1.1 that compares the size of the implementation for the Marching Cubes algorithm in VTK-m with the equivalent reference implementation in the CUDA software development kit. Because VTK-m internally manages the parallel distribution of work and data, the VTK-m implementation is shorter and easier to maintain. Additionally, VTK-m provides data abstractions not provided by other libraries that make code written in VTK-m more versatile.This book includes contributions from the VTK-m community including the VTK-m development team and the user community.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Revisiting Huffman Coding: Toward Extreme Performance on Modern GPU Architectures

Today's high-performance computing (HPC) applications are producing vast volumes of data, which are challenging to store and transfer efficiently during the execution, such that data compression is becoming a critical technique to mitigate the storage burden and data movement cost. Huffman coding is arguably the most efficient Entropy coding algorithm in information theory, such that it could be found as a fundamental step in many modern compression algorithms such as DEFLATE. On the other hand, today's HPC applications are more and more relying on the accelerators such as GPU on supercomputers, while Huffman encoding suffers from low throughput on GPUs, resulting in a significant bottleneck in the entire data processing. In this paper, we propose and implement an efficient Huffman encoding approach based on modern GPU architectures, which addresses two key challenges: (1) how to parallelize the entire Huffman encoding algorithm, including codebook construction, and (2) how to fully utilize the high memory-bandwidth feature of modern GPU architectures. The detailed contribution is fourfold. (1) We develop an efficient parallel codebook construction on GPUs that scales effectively with the number of input symbols. (2) We propose a novel reduction based encoding scheme that can efficiently merge the codewords on GPUs. (3) We optimize the overall GPU performance by leveraging the state-of-the-art CUDA APIs such as Cooperative Groups. (4) We evaluate our Huffman encoder thoroughly using six real-world application datasets on two advanced GPUs and compare with our implemented multi-threaded Huffman encoder. Experiments show that our solution can improve the encoding throughput by up to 5.0x and 6.8x on NVIDIA RTX 5000 and V100, respectively, over the state-of-the-art GPU Huffman encoder, and by up to 3.3x over the multi-thread encoder on two 28-core Xeon Platinum 8280 CPUs.

Tian, Jiannan↗

Revisiting Huffman Coding: Toward Extreme Performance on Modern GPU Architectures

Today's high-performance computing (HPC) applications are producing vast volumes of data, which are challenging to store and transfer efficiently during the execution, such that data compression is becoming a critical technique to mitigate the storage burden and data movement cost. Huffman coding is arguably the most efficient Entropy coding algorithm in information theory, such that it could be found as a fundamental step in many modern compression algorithms such as DEFLATE. On the other hand, today's HPC applications are more and more relying on the accelerators such as GPU on supercomputers, while Huffman encoding suffers from low throughput on GPUs, resulting in a significant bottleneck in the entire data processing. In this paper, we propose and implement an efficient Huffman encoding approach based on modern GPU architectures, which addresses two key challenges: (1) how to parallelize the entire Huffman encoding algorithm, including codebook construction, and (2) how to fully utilize the high memory-bandwidth feature of modern GPU architectures. The detailed contribution is fourfold. (1) We develop an efficient parallel codebook construction on GPUs that scales effectively with the number of input symbols. (2) We propose a novel reduction based encoding scheme that can efficiently merge the codewords on GPUs. (3) We optimize the overall GPU performance by leveraging the state-of-the-art CUDA APIs such as Cooperative Groups. (4) We evaluate our Huffman encoder thoroughly using six real-world application datasets on two advanced GPUs and compare with our implemented multithreaded Huffman encoder. Experiments show that our solution can improve the encoding throughput by up to 5.0× and 6.8× on NVIDIA RTX 5000 and V100, respectively, over the state-of-the-art GPU Huffman encoder, and by up to 3.3× over the multithread encoder on two 28-core Xeon Platinum 8280 CPUs.

Tian, Jiannan↗

High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project phase 2 (HighResMIP2) towards CMIP7

Abstract. Robust projections and predictions of climate variability and change, particularly at regional scales, rely on the driving processes being represented with fidelity in model simulations. Consequently, the role of enhanced horizontal resolution in improved process representation in all components of the climate system continues to be of great interest. Recent simulations suggest the possibility of significant changes in both large-scale aspects of the ocean and atmospheric circulations and in the regional responses to climate change, as well as improvements in representations of small-scale processes and extremes, when resolution is enhanced. The first phase of the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP1) was successful at producing a baseline multi-model assessment of global simulations with model grid spacings of 25–50 km in the atmosphere and 10–25 km in the ocean, a significant increase when compared to models with standard resolutions on the order of 1° that are typically used as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) experiments. In addition to over 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts using the published HighResMIP1 datasets, the results were widely cited in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and were the basis of a variety of derived datasets, including tracked cyclones (both tropical and extratropical), river discharge, storm surge, and impact studies. There were also suggestions from the few ocean eddy-rich coupled simulations that aspects of climate variability and change might be significantly influenced by improved process representation in such models. The compromises that HighResMIP1 made should now be revisited, given the recent major advances in modelling and computing resources. Aspects that will be reconsidered include experimental design and simulation length, complexity, and resolution. In addition, larger ensemble sizes and a wider range of future scenarios would enhance the applicability of HighResMIP. Therefore, we propose the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project phase 2 (HighResMIP2) to improve and extend the previous work, to address new science questions, and to further advance our understanding of the role of horizontal resolution (and hence process representation) in state-of-the-art climate simulations. With further increases in high-performance computing resources and modelling advances, along with the ability to take full advantage of these computational resources, an enhanced investigation of the drivers and consequences of variability and change in both large- and synoptic-scale weather and climate is now possible. With the arrival of global cloud-resolving models (currently run for relatively short timescales), there is also an opportunity to improve links between such models and more traditional CMIP models, with HighResMIP providing a bridge to link understanding between these domains. HighResMIP also aims to link to other CMIP projects and international efforts such as the World Climate Research Program lighthouse activities and various digital twin initiatives. It also has the potential to be used as training and validation data for the fast-evolving machine learning climate models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗