Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “High Performance Networking”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,009 records · Page 56

Merlin - Massively parallel heterogeneous computing

Hardware and software for Merlin, a new kind of massively parallel computing system, are described. Eight computers are linked as a 300-MIPS prototype to develop system software for a larger Merlin network with 16 to 64 nodes, totaling 600 to 3000 MIPS. These working prototypes help refine a mapped reflective memory technique that offers a new, very general way of linking many types of computer to form supercomputers. Processors share data selectively and rapidly on a word-by-word basis. Fast firmware virtual circuits are reconfigured to match topological needs of individual application programs. Merlin's low-latency memory-sharing interfaces solve many problems in the design of high-performance computing systems. The Merlin prototypes are intended to run parallel programs for scientific applications and to determine hardware and software needs for a future Teraflops Merlin network.

Wittie, Larry↗

A mathematical discussion concerning the performance of multilayer perceptron-type artificial neural networks through use of orthogonal bipolar vectors

This work proposes the use of orthogonal bipolar vectors (OBV) as targets for multilayer perceptron (MLP) Artificial neural networks pertaining to the pattern recognition field. Implications involving this proposal are supported by a proper mathematical discussion. This study shows that the use of OBV as targets improves the class identification performance of MLP networks for pattern recognition with more than two classes when compared to the widely used conventional target bipolar vector (CBV). In addition to the overall performance improvement, it is possible to obtain high recognition rates with fewer training epochs, while keeping a feasible generalization with other data. This behavior is related to the Euclidean distance of the points in the output space, which is much higher in the case of OBVs. Therefore, with a greater distance between the points in the output space, the MLP network becomes less prone to associate trained outputs with incorrect targets. The mathematical discussion in this study is based on the backpropagation training algorithm. In addition to the mathematical discussion, results from experiments with real data are presented. These results follow those obtained by mathematical derivations. Real data sets used in the experiments are available from: (a) the Semeion Handwritten Digit of Machine Learning Repository, international repository; (b) Iris Image Database from the Chinese Academy of Sciences—CASIA; (c) Australian Sign Language, signs of Machine Learning Repository, international repository. Experiments were conducted to measure the mean Euclidean distance between the MLP network output subjected to a given input pattern and outputs related to other pattern classifications. Experimental results show that MLP networks trained with OBVs were able to ensure a Euclidean distance between the output and incorrect targets greater than MLP networks trained with CBVs (by up to 4 times for handwritten, by up to 12 times for iris images and by up to 10 times for Auslan signs language). As such, the adoption of OBVs as target vectors for MLPs reduces the computational effort for training the network.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Solving high-dimensional partial integral differential equations: The finite expression method

Partial integro-differential equations (PIDEs) have broad applications in the sciences, from electro-magnetism to options pricing. Here, in this paper, we introduce a new finite expression method (FEX) to solve PIDEs. This approach builds upon the original FEX and its inherent advantages with new advances: 1) A novel method of parameter grouping is proposed to reduce the number of coefficients in high-dimensional function approximation; 2) A Taylor series approximation method is implemented to significantly improve the computational efficiency and accuracy of the evaluation of the integral terms of PIDEs. The new FEX based method, denoted FEX-PG to indicate the addition of the parameter grouping (PG) step to the algorithm, provides both high accuracy and interpretable numerical solutions, with the outcome being an explicit equation that facilitates intuitive understanding of the underlying solution structures. These features are often absent in traditional methods, such as finite element methods (FEM) and finite difference methods, as well as in deep learning-based approaches. To benchmark our method against recent advances, we apply the new FEX-PG to solve benchmark PIDEs in the literature. In high-dimensional settings, FEX-PG exhibits strong and robust performance, achieving relative errors on the order of single precision machine epsilon, significantly outperforming existing approaches based on neural networks.

Combinatorial optimization↗

Study and Simulation of Enhancements for TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) Performance Over Noisy, High-Latency Links

The designers of the TCP/IP protocol suite explicitly included support of satellites in their design goals. The goal of the Internet Project was to design a protocol which could be layered over different networking technologies to allow them to be concatenated into an internet. The results of this project included two protocols, IP and TCP. IP is the protocol used by all elements in the network and it defines the standard packet format for IP datagrams. TCP is the end-to-end transport protocol commonly used between end systems on the Internet to derive a reliable bi-directional byte-pipe service from the underlying unreliable IP datagram service. Satellite links are explicitly mentioned in Vint Cerf's 2-page article which appeared in 1980 in CCR [2] to introduce the specifications for IP and TCP. In the past fifteen years, TCP has been demonstrated to work over many differing networking technologies, including over paths including satellites links. So if satellite links were in the minds of the designers from the beginning, what is the problem? The problem is that the performance of TCP has in some cases been disappointing. A goal of the authors of the original specification of TCP was to specify only enough behavior to ensure interoperability. The specification left a number of important decisions, in particular how much data is to be sent when, to the implementor. This was deliberately' done. By leaving performance-related decisions to the implementor, this would allow the protocol TCP to be tuned and adapted to different networks and situations in the future without the need to revise the specification of the protocol, or break interoperability. Interoperability would continue while future implementations would be allowed flexibility to adapt to needs which could not be anticipated at the time of the original protocol design.

Shepard, Timothy J.↗

Zero-Power Analog Optical Processing

The motivation behind this research is the growing challenge of handling the massive amounts of data generated by modern imaging systems. Conventional digital image processing techniques are struggling to keep pace with the demands of high-resolution and high-speed imaging systems for remote sensing due to their high-power consumption and data storage requirements. We present a novel approach based on analog photonics to address this challenge. The proposed system utilizes a silicon-photonics-based image encoder positioned after image formation and initial optical-to-electrical conversion. The photonic encoder compresses image data using a passive disordered photonic structure to perform kernel-type random projections of the raw data. The compressed data is then processed by a back-end neural network, which reconstructs the original image with high fidelity (structural similarity exceeding 90%). Our proposed approach has the potential to compress images with ~ 1000X lower power consumption compared to digital approaches with data rates exceeding 1 terapixel/second.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Revealing Fundamental Physics from the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment Using Deep Neural Networks

Experiments in particle physics produce enormous quantities of data that must be analyzed and interpreted by teams of physicists. This analysis is often exploratory, where scientists are unable to enumerate the possible types of signal prior to performing the experiment. Thus, tools for summarizing, clustering, visualizing and classifying high-dimensional data are essential. Here in this work, we show that meaningful physical content can be revealed by transforming the raw data into a learned high-level representation using deep neural networks, with measurements taken at the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment as a case study. We further show how convolutional deep neural networks can provide an effective classification filter with greater than 97% accuracy across different classes of physics events, significantly better than other machine learning approaches.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

MLPF: efficient machine-learned particle-flow reconstruction using graph neural networks

In general-purpose particle detectors, the particle-flow algorithm may be used to reconstruct a comprehensive particle-level view of the event by combining information from the calorimeters and the trackers, significantly improving the detector resolution for jets and the missing transverse momentum. In view of the planned high-luminosity upgrade of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it is necessary to revisit existing reconstruction algorithms and ensure that both the physics and computational performance are sufficient in an environment with many simultaneous proton–proton interactions (pileup). Machine learning may offer a prospect for computationally efficient event reconstruction that is well-suited to heterogeneous computing platforms, while significantly improving the reconstruction quality over rule-based algorithms for granular detectors. We introduce MLPF, a novel, end-to-end trainable, machine-learned particle-flow algorithm based on parallelizable, computationally efficient, and scalable graph neural network optimized using a multi-task objective on simulated events. We report the physics and computational performance of the MLPF algorithm on a Monte Carlo dataset of top quark–antiquark pairs produced in proton–proton collisions in conditions similar to those expected for the high-luminosity LHC. The MLPF algorithm improves the physics response with respect to a rule-based benchmark algorithm and demonstrates computationally scalable particle-flow reconstruction in a high-pileup environment.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Implementing direct, spatially isolated problems on transputer networks

Parametric studies were performed on transputer networks of up to 40 processors to determine how to implement and maximize the performance of the solution of problems where no processor-to-processor data transfer is required for the problem solution (spatially isolated). Two types of problems are investigated a computationally intensive problem where the solution required the transmission of 160 bytes of data through the parallel network, and a communication intensive example that required the transmission of 3 Mbytes of data through the network. This data consists of solutions being sent back to the host processor and not intermediate results for another processor to work on. Studies were performed on both integer and floating-point transputers. The latter features an on-chip floating-point math unit and offers approximately an order of magnitude performance increase over the integer transputer on real valued computations. The results indicate that a minimum amount of work is required on each node per communication to achieve high network speedups (efficiencies). The floating-point processor requires approximately an order of magnitude more work per communication than the integer processor because of the floating-point unit's increased computing capacity.

Ellis, Graham K.↗

Evaluating disease surveillance strategies for early outbreak detection in contact networks with varying community structure

Disease surveillance systems allow public health agencies to respond to emerging diseases before they become widespread. Developing such systems requires identifying optimal ways to monitor in the context of an epidemic outbreak; this problem is known as sensor selection. Contact networks represent the dynamics of interaction in a population and are used to model how a disease spreads in a population and to explore strategies of sensor selection. We evaluated five sensor selection strategies on their ability to provide an early warning of a COVID-like outbreak in synthetic contact networks encapsulated in four network scenarios. Three of these scenarios assessed different aspects of community structure. The fourth scenario employed a contact network representing the population and interactions of 6.8 million people in New York City, constructed from an agent-based simulation using census and transportation data. This scenario exemplifies how sensor selection strategies may perform in a real-world, urban context. Our findings suggest that the choice of the optimal strategy depends heavily on the community structure of the network. Strategies that select highly connected nodes or maximize network coverage are the optimal surveillance strategy for outbreak detection in many network community structures. However, a naive implementation of these strategies may fail to provide an early warning at all—including in the New York City scenario. Moreover, these methods are impractical for real-world use as they require knowledge of the underlying contact network. Instead, a selection strategy that starts with a set of random nodes and then performs a random walk through a chain of neighbors reliably provides early warnings without requiring prior knowledge of the network. We find this method, called “random chain”, to be the most pragmatic for implementation in a real-world disease surveillance context.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Design and Performance of a Smartphone-based Cosmic Ray Observatory

This dissertation examines the feasibility of appropriating the global network of smartphones as an observatory for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. An application and cloud-based data-acquisition system are first proposed for such an observatory, in which heterogenous devices self-calibrate and server feedback optimizes individual device triggers. Methods of monitoring and manually controlling this network are also examined. Detection efficiencies for cosmic muons, MeV-scale gamma rays, and 120 GeV protons are then measured for this trigger, with which a Monte Carlo pixel model is fine-tuned. Extending this model to cosmic ray showers, the effective area of the observatory for super-GZK primaries is shown to equal that of the Pierre Auger Observatory with a global participation rate under 0.1%, far below initial estimates presented in Ref. [83]. A vastly improved sensitivity to photons and more precise modeling of electrons are primarily responsible for this discrepancy, though more refined models of the combinatorial background may yet lead to more stringent requirements.

Swaney, Jeff↗

Detection of Isotopes in Urban Source Search Gamma Spectra Using Hopfield Neural Network

Source search campaigns involve the measurement of consecutive background gamma-ray spectra obtained with a mobile detector-spectrometer, such as tellurium-doped sodium iodide NaI(Tl) scintillator detector-spectrometer. Counts are measured with NaI(Tl) detector in short acquisition intervals, such as one second. Detection of isotopes in search data is challenging because of the low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectral lines and highly varying background due to naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM). In this work, we investigate the performance of the detection of orphan Cs-137, Am-241, and I-131 isotopes in a gamma ray data set obtained in a search survey. Isotopic detection is performed with a Hopfield Neural Network (HNN), which implements an auto-associative memory by matching incoming measurements to the closest one of its memory-stored signature patterns. HNN is trained on examples of spectra of calibrated isotopic sources with well-resolved spectral lines. During testing, HNN processes spectra with partially complete or distorted isotopic lines. The performance of the HNN detection algorithm is benchmarked with Precision, Recall, and F1 scores. Test results demonstrate the potential of HNN to detect the isotope of interest with high accuracy (F1 > 90%) for all isotopes in this study.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Energy-efficient Mott activation neuron for full-hardware implementation of neural networks

To circumvent the von Neumann bottleneck, substantial progress has been made towards in-memory computing with synaptic devices. However, compact nanodevices implementing non-linear activation functions are required for efficient full-hardware implementation of deep neural networks. Here, in this work, we present an energy-efficient and compact Mott activation neuron based on vanadium dioxide and its successful integration with a conductive bridge random access memory (CBRAM) crossbar array in hardware. The Mott activation neuron implements the rectified linear unit function in the analogue domain. The neuron devices consume substantially less energy and occupy two orders of magnitude smaller area than those of analogue complementary metal–oxide semiconductor implementations. The LeNet-5 network with Mott activation neurons achieves 98.38% accuracy on the MNIST dataset, close to the ideal software accuracy. We perform large-scale image edge detection using the Mott activation neurons integrated with a CBRAM crossbar array. Our findings provide a solution towards large-scale, highly parallel and energy-efficient in-memory computing systems for neural networks.

electrical and electronic engineering↗

“Green” Fabrication of High-performance Transparent Conducting Electrodes by Blade Coating and Photonic Curing on PET for Perovskite Solar Cells

This study presents an innovative material processing approach to fabricate transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates using blade coating and photonic curing. The hybrid TCEs consist of a multiscale Ag network, combining silver metal bus lines and nanowires, overcoated by an indium zinc oxide layer, and then photonically cured. Blade coating ensures film uniformity and thickness control over large areas. Photonic curing, a non-thermal processing method with significantly lower carbon emissions, enhances the conductivity and transparency of the coated layers. Our hybrid TCEs achieve an average transmittance of (81 ± 0.4)% referenced to air ((90 ± 0.4)% referenced to the PET substrate) in the visible range, an average sheet resistance of (11 ± 0.5) Ω sq−1, and an average surface roughness of (4.3 ± 0.4) nm. We benchmark these values against commercial PET/TCE substrates. Mechanical durability tests demonstrate <3% change in resistance after 2000 bending cycles at a 1 in radius. The scalable potential of the hybrid TCE fabrication method is demonstrated by high uniformity and excellent properties in 7 in × 8 in large-area samples and by performing the photonic curing process at 11 m min−1. Furthermore, halide perovskite solar cells fabricated on these hybrid TCEs achieve average and champion power conversion efficiencies of (10.5 ± 1.0) % and 12.2%, respectively, and significantly outperform devices made on commercial PET/TCEs. This work showcases our approach as a viable pathway for high-speed “green” manufacturing of high-performance TCEs on PET substrates for flexible optoelectronic devices.

Bonner, Justin C↗

Rapid Annotation of Photosynthetic Systems (RAPS): automated algorithm to generate genome-scale metabolic networks from algal genomes

Algae have mounting potential to serve as platform strains for engineering efforts, but tools for these species lag behind traditional model systems like E. coli and yeast. Metabolic models are one such tool that would enhance our ability to rationally engineer algae but current automated algorithms to build models do not perform well for algal genomes. We introduce a novel software pipeline, Rapid Annotation of Photosynthetic Systems (RAPS), which leverages manual curation efforts of published models to create high quality first draft metabolic networks for new species. We compared models produced by our pipeline to published models and found that these models are able to capture more genes than the published models and are more predictive of experimentally determined growth rate. We used RAPS to automate the creation of 8 first draft metabolic models of new species to enable the further study of metabolism in these species.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Multimodal Data Representation with Deep Learning for Extracting Cancer Characteristics from Clinical Text

This paper presents a multimodal data representation to improve the performance of deep learning models for extracting cancer key characteristics from unstructured text in pathology reports. Specifically, in addition to using the text as the input to deep learning models, we use concept unique identifiers (CUIs) as another source of information to the models. We analyze the performance of different text and CUI data representations, including word embeddings and bag of embeddings (BOE), with a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a fully connected multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP-NN). The high level document embeddings from text and CUI inputs are combined by concatenating them and then applying a classifier. The model is used for extracting cancer subsite and histology from pathology reports. These two classification tasks have a large number of labels, i.e. 317 for subsite and 556 for histology, with extreme class imbalance. We compare the performance of the developed DL models across the two tasks based on micro- and macro-F1 scores. The evaluation shows that a multi-channel DL model that utilizes text represented by word embeddings and CUIs represented by BOE outperforms other DL models. Also, this approach significantly improves the model performance on low prevalence classes.

Alawad, Mohammed↗

Lithium Oxide Superionic Conductors Inspired by Garnet and NASICON Structures

Abstract The key component in lithium solid‐state batteries (SSBs) is the solid electrolyte composed of lithium superionic conductors (SICs). Lithium oxide SICs offer improved electrochemical and chemical stability compared with sulfides, and their recent advancements have largely been achieved using materials in the garnet‐ and NASICON (sodium superionic conductor)‐ structured families. In this work, using the ion‐conduction mechanisms in garnet and NASICON as inspiration, a common pattern of an “activated diffusion network” and three structural features that are beneficial for superionic conduction: a 3D percolation Li diffusion network, short distances between occupied Li sites, and the “homogeneity” of the transport path are identified. A high‐throughput computational screening is performed to search for new lithium oxide SICs that share these features. From this search, seven candidates are proposed exhibiting high room‐temperature ionic conductivity evaluated using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Their structural frameworks including spinel, oxy‐argyrodite, sodalite, and LiM(SeO 3 ) 2 present new opportunities for enriching the structural families of lithium oxide SICs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Optimal Control of Connected and Automated Vehicles at Roundabouts: An Investigation in a Mixed-Traffic Environment

Connectivity and automation in vehicles provide the most intriguing opportunity for enabling users to better monitor transportation network conditions and make better operating decisions to improve safety and reduce pollution, energy consumption, and travel delays. This paper investigates the implications of optimally coordinating vehicles that are wirelessly connected to each other in roundabouts to achieve a smooth traffic flow. We apply an optimization framework and an analytical solution that allows optimal coordination of vehicles for merging in such traffic scenario. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated through simulation and it is shown that fully coordinated vehicles reduce total travel time by 51% and fuel consumption by 35%. Furthermore, we study the influence of vehicle coordination in a mixed-traffic environment and compare the network performance under different market penetration rates of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). For this particular study with near-capacity demand, high penetration of CAVs is necessary to ensure an efficient and effective control, due to extremely unstable traffic.

Zhao, Liuhui↗

Machine-learning from Pseudomonas putida KT2440 transcriptomes reveals its transcriptional regulatory network

Bacterial gene expression is orchestrated by numerous transcription factors (TFs). Elucidating how gene expression is regulated is fundamental to understanding bacterial physiology and engineering it for practical use. In this study, a machine-learning approach was applied to uncover the genome-scale transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) in Pseudomonas putida KT2440, an important organism for bioproduction. We performed independent component analysis of a compendium of 321 high-quality gene expression profiles, which were previously published or newly generated in this study. We identified 84 groups of independently modulated genes (iModulons) that explain 75.7% of the total variance in the compendium. With these iModulons, we (i) expand our understanding of the regulatory functions of 39 iModulon associated TFs (e.g., HexR, Zur) by systematic comparison with 1993 previously reported TF-gene interactions; (ii) outline transcriptional changes after the transition from the exponential growth to stationary phases; (iii) capture group of genes required for utilizing diverse carbon sources and increased stationary response with slower growth rates; (iv) unveil multiple evolutionary strategies of transcriptome reallocation to achieve fast growth rates; and (v) define an osmotic stimulon, which includes the Type VI secretion system, as coordination of multiple iModulon activity changes. Taken together, this study provides the first quantitative genome-scale TRN for P. putida KT2440 and a basis for a comprehensive understanding of its complex transcriptome changes in a variety of physiological states.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗