Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “COMPUTING NETWORK”

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 1,567 records · Page 87

Neural Networks for Nuclear Reactions in MAESTROeX

We demonstrate the use of neural networks to accelerate the reaction steps in the MAESTROeX stellar hydrodynamics code. A traditional MAESTROeX simulation uses a stiff ODE integrator for the reactions; here, we employ a ResNet architecture and describe details relating to the architecture, training, and validation of our networks. Our customized approach includes options for the form of the loss functions, a demonstration that the use of parallel neural networks leads to increased accuracy, and a description of a perturbational approach in the training step that robustifies the model. We test our approach on millimeter-scale flames using a single-step, 3-isotope network describing the first stages of carbon fusion occurring in Type Ia supernovae. We train the neural networks using simulation data from a standard MAESTROeX simulation, and show that the resulting model can be effectively applied to different flame configurations. This work lays the groundwork for more complex networks, and iterative time-integration strategies that can leverage the efficiency of the neural networks.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Snowmass Computational Frontier: Topical Group Report on Quantum Computing

Quantum computing will play a pivotal role in the High Energy Physics (HEP) science program over the early parts of the 21$^{st}$ Century, both as a major expansion of our capabilities across the Computational Frontier, and in synthesis with quantum sensing and quantum networks. This report outlines how Quantum Information Science (QIS) and HEP are deeply intertwined endeavors that benefit enormously from a strong engagement together. Quantum computers do not represent a detour for HEP, rather they are set to become an integral part of our discovery toolkit. Problems ranging from simulating quantum field theories, to fully leveraging the most sensitive sensor suites for new particle searches, and even data analysis will run into limiting bottlenecks if constrained to our current computing paradigms. Easy access to quantum computers is needed to build a deeper understanding of these opportunities. In turn, HEP brings crucial expertise to the national quantum ecosystem in quantum domain knowledge, superconducting technology, cryogenic and fast microelectronics, and massive-scale project management. The role of quantum technologies across the entire economy is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade, so it is important to establish the role of HEP in the efforts surrounding QIS. Fully delivering on the promise of quantum technologies in the HEP science program requires robust support. It is important to both invest in the co-design opportunities afforded by the broader quantum computing ecosystem and leverage HEP strengths with the goal of designing quantum computers tailored to HEP science.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Metabolic Network Discovery by Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches and Paths for Reconciliation

The primary focus in the network-centric analysis of cellular metabolism by systems biology approaches is to identify the active metabolic network for the condition of interest. Two major approaches are available for the discovery of the condition-specific metabolic networks. One approach starts from genome-scale metabolic networks, which cover all possible reactions known to occur in the related organism in a condition-independent manner, and applies methods such as the optimization-based Flux-Balance Analysis to elucidate the active network. The other approach starts from the condition-specific metabolome data, and processes the data with statistical or optimization-based methods to extract information content of the data such that the active network is inferred. These approaches, termed bottom-up and top-down, respectively, are currently employed independently. However, considering that both approaches have the same goal, they can both benefit from each other paving the way for the novel integrative analysis methods of metabolome data- and flux-analysis approaches in the post-genomic era. This study reviews the strengths of constraint-based analysis and network inference methods reported in the metabolic systems biology field; then elaborates on the potential paths to reconcile the two approaches to shed better light on how the metabolism functions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Robust and scalable uncertainty estimation with conformal prediction for machine-learned interatomic potentials

Abstract Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is important to machine learning (ML) force fields to assess the level of confidence during prediction, as ML models are not inherently physical and can therefore yield catastrophically incorrect predictions. Established a-posteriori UQ methods, including ensemble methods, the dropout method, the delta method, and various heuristic distance metrics, have limitations such as being computationally challenging for large models due to model re-training. In addition, the uncertainty estimates are often not rigorously calibrated. In this work, we propose combining the distribution-free UQ method, known as conformal prediction (CP), with the distances in the neural network’s latent space to estimate the uncertainty of energies predicted by neural network force fields. We evaluate this method (CP+latent) along with other UQ methods on two essential aspects, calibration, and sharpness, and find this method to be both calibrated and sharp under the assumption of independent and identically-distributed (i.i.d.) data. We show that the method is relatively insensitive to hyperparameters selected, and test the limitations of the method when the i.i.d. assumption is violated. Finally, we demonstrate that this method can be readily applied to trained neural network force fields with traditional and graph neural network architectures to obtain estimates of uncertainty with low computational costs on a training dataset of 1 million images to showcase its scalability and portability. Incorporating the CP method with latent distances offers a calibrated, sharp and efficient strategy to estimate the uncertainty of neural network force fields. In addition, the CP approach can also function as a promising strategy for calibrating uncertainty estimated by other approaches.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Segmental Refinement: A Multigrid Technique for Data Locality

We investigate a technique - segmental refinement (SR) - proposed by Brandt in the 1970s as a low memory multigrid method. The technique is attractive for modern computer architectures because it provides high data locality, minimizes network communication, is amenable to loop fusion, and is naturally highly parallel and asynchronous. The network communication minimization property was recognized by Brandt and Diskin in 1994; we continue this work by developing a segmental refinement method for a finite volume discretization of the 3D Laplacian on massively parallel computers. An understanding of the asymptotic complexities, required to maintain textbook multigrid efficiency, are explored experimentally with a simple SR method. A two-level memory model is developed to compare the asymptotic communication complexity of a proposed SR method with traditional parallel multigrid. Performance and scalability are evaluated with a Cray XC30 with up to 64K cores. We achieve modest improvement in scalability from traditional parallel multigrid with a simple SR implementation.

3D Laplacian↗

Sparse Convolutional Neural Networks for particle classification in ProtoDUNE-SP events

Deep Learning (DL) methods and Computer Vision are becoming important tools for event reconstruction in particle physics detectors. In this work, we report on the use of submanifold sparse convolutional neural networks (SparseNets) for the classification of track and shower hits from a DUNE prototype liquid-argon detector at CERN (ProtoDUNE-SP). By taking advantage of the three-dimensional nature of the problem we use a set of nine input features to classify sparse and locally dense hits associated to track or shower particles. The SparseNet has been trained on a test sample and shows promising results: efficiencies and purities greater than 90%. This has also been achieved with a considerable speedup and substantially less resource utilization with respect to other DL networks such as graph neural networks. This method offers great scalability advantages for future large neutrino detectors such as the planned DUNE experiment.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Including Physics-Informed Atomization Constraints in Neural Networks for Reactive Chemistry

Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) have emerged as powerful tools for investigating atomistic systems with high accuracy and a relatively low computational cost. However, a common and unaddressed challenge with many current neural network (NN) MLIP models is their limited ability to accurately predict the relative energies of systems containing isolated or nearly isolated atoms, which appear in various reactive processes. To address this limitation, we present a mathematical technique for modifying any existing atom-centered NN architecture to account for the energies of isolated atoms. The result produces a consistent prediction of the atomization energy (AE) of a system using minimal constraints on the model. Using this technique, we build a model architecture that we call hierarchically interacting particle neural network (HIP-NN)-AE, an AE-constrained version of the HIP-NN, as well as ANI-AE, the AE-constrained version of the accurate NN engine for molecular energies (ANI). Our results demonstrate AE consistency of AE-constrained models, which drastically improves the AE predictions for the models. We compare the AE-constrained approach to unconstrained models as well as models from the literature in other scenarios, such as bond dissociation energies, bond dissociation pathways, and extensibility tests. These results show that the constraints improve the model performance in some of these tasks and do not negatively affect the performance on any tasks. The AE constraint approach thus offers a robust solution to the challenges posed by isolated atoms in energy prediction tasks.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Assessing parallel path cooling tower performance via artificial neural networks

Real-time monitoring of a research nuclear reactor, a system in which all generated power is dissipated to the environment, can be performed via analysis of the heat rejection from the cooling system. Given an inlet water temperature and flow rate, the reactor power can be well-approximated from the outlet water temperature; however, the instrumentation to measure outlet conditions may not be robust or accurate. If we know how a cooling tower performs from historical data, but cannot measure the outlet temperature, a mathematical representation of the system can be inverted to obtain the outlet water temperature that describes the cooling capacity. Unfortunately, model inversion processes are computationally expensive. To address this, an artificial neural network (ANN) is implemented to assess the performance of a multi-cell cooling tower for a nuclear reactor. This approach leverages the Merkel model to obtain an extensive data set describing performance of the cooling tower cells throughout a wide array of potential operating conditions. The Merkel model is expressed as a function of four parameters: the inlet and outlet water temperatures, inlet air wet bulb temperature, and ratio of liquid-to-gas mass flow rates (L/G), which together provide a non-dimensional number indicative of cooling tower performance, called the Merkel integral. Computing a 4-dimensional data structure that describes finite combinations of the Merkel integral, an inverse model is then generated using an ANN to determine the cell outlet water temperature from the other three model parameters along with the computed Merkel integral. Compared to traditional model inversion methods, the ANN reduces the computational time by approximately 4 orders of magnitude, with effectively no sacrifice to solution accuracy, and could be applied for different cooling towers in the event the performance curve is known. Finally, three use cases of the ANN are then reviewed: (1) determining the cell outlet water temperatures when gas flow at rated conditions (GFRC) is known, (2) performing the prior case without knowledge of the GRFC, and (3) assessing performance differences between the individual tower cells.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Neuromorphic Photonics Based on Phase Change Materials

Neuromorphic photonics devices based on phase change materials (PCMs) and silicon photonics technology have emerged as promising solutions for addressing the limitations of traditional spiking neural networks in terms of scalability, response delay, and energy consumption. In this review, we provide a comprehensive analysis of various PCMs used in neuromorphic devices, comparing their optical properties and discussing their applications. We explore materials such as GST (Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 ), GeTe-Sb 2 Te 3 , GSST (Ge 2 Sb 2 Se 4 Te 1 ), Sb 2 S 3 /Sb 2 Se 3 , Sc 0.2 Sb 2 Te 3 (SST), and In 2 Se 3 , highlighting their advantages and challenges in terms of erasure power consumption, response rate, material lifetime, and on-chip insertion loss. By investigating the integration of different PCMs with silicon-based optoelectronics, this review aims to identify potential breakthroughs in computational performance and scalability of photonic spiking neural networks. Further research and development are essential to optimize these materials and overcome their limitations, paving the way for more efficient and high-performance photonic neuromorphic devices in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Baylor University Campus-Wide Deep Dive

In January 2020, staff members from the Engagement and Performance Operations Center (EPOC) and the Lonestar Education And Research Network (LEARN) met with researchers and staff at Baylor University for the purpose of a Campus-Wide Deep Dive into research drivers. The goal of this meeting was to help characterize the requirements for five campus research use cases and to enable cyberinfrastructure support staff to better understand the needs of the researchers they support. Profiled scientific use cases included: - Experimental High Energy Physics (HEP) - Proton Computed Tomography (pCT) - Nutrition and Relation to Digestive Microbiome - Baylor University Core Research Facilities - Molecular Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA), and Material Science of Quantum Computing - Modeling and Simulation of Low-Dimensional and Nano-Structured Materials - Computational Fluid Dynamics Material for this event included the written documentation from each of the research areas at Baylor University, documentation about the current state of technology support, and a write-up of the discussion that took place in person. The Case Studies highlighted the ongoing challenges that Baylor University has in supporting a cross-section of established and emerging research use cases. Each Case Study mentioned unique challenges which were summarized into common needs. These included: - Tradeoffs for network/software security, and usability of the resulting infrastructure. Better communication to set expectations and understand realities is required. - Computation use on campus is widespread and healthy. While no major problems were uncovered, upgrades to maintain current usage patterns and encourage growth will be required. - Storage is a critical need for enterprise use cases and research. In particular, a campus wide ‘storage architecture’ to support research use cases (e.g. instruments, data sharing) is required in the 2-5 year time window. - Instrumentation on campus is healthy and expanding. Technology must scale with this in the form of computation and storage. - Working with LEARN to upgrade network capacity (in multiples of 10G, or upgrades to 100G) will be required in the 1-3 year time frame. - Network monitoring and visibility will help to establish external science use cases. - Data sharing via portal systems is not currently a critical need, but growing in scope. EPOC can assist Baylor with options.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Multi-omics approach identifies molecular mechanisms of plant-fungus mycorrhizal interaction

In mycorrhizal symbiosis, plant roots form close, mutually beneficial interactions with soil fungi. Before this mycorrhizal interaction can be established however, plant roots must be capable of detecting potential beneficial fungal partners and initiating the gene expression patterns necessary to begin symbiosis. To predict a plant root – mycorrhizal fungi sensor systems, we analyzed in vitro experiments of Populus tremuloides (aspen tree) and Laccaria bicolor (mycorrhizal fungi) interaction and leveraged over 200 previously published transcriptomic experimental data sets, 159 experimentally validated plant transcription factor binding motifs, and more than 120-thousand experimentally validated protein-protein interactions to generate models of pre-mycorrhizal sensor systems in aspen root. These sensor mechanisms link extracellular signaling molecules with gene regulation through a network comprised of membrane receptors, signal cascade proteins, transcription factors, and transcription factor biding DNA motifs. Modeling predicted four pre-mycorrhizal sensor complexes in aspen that interact with fifteen transcription factors to regulate the expression of 1184 genes in response to extracellular signals synthesized by Laccaria. Predicted extracellular signaling molecules include common signaling molecules such as phenylpropanoids, salicylate, and, jasmonic acid. Lastly, this multi-omic computational modeling approach for predicting the complex sensory networks yielded specific, testable biological hypotheses for mycorrhizal interaction signaling compounds, sensor complexes, and mechanisms of gene regulation.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Validating quantum-classical programming models with tensor network simulations

The exploration of hybrid quantum-classical algorithms and programming models on noisy near-term quantum hardware has begun. As hybrid programs scale towards classical intractability, validation and benchmarking are critical to understanding the utility of the hybrid computational model. In this paper, we demonstrate a newly developed quantum circuit simulator based on tensor network theory that enables intermediate-scale verification and validation of hybrid quantum-classical computing frameworks and programming models. We present our tensor-network quantum virtual machine (TNQVM) simulator which stores a multi-qubit wavefunction in a compressed (factorized) form as a matrix product state, thus enabling single-node simulations of larger qubit registers, as compared to brute-force statevector simulators. Our simulator is designed to be extensible in both the tensor network form and the classical hardware used to run the simulation (multicore, GPU, distributed). The extensibility of the TNQVM simulator with respect to the simulation hardware type is achieved via a pluggable interface for different numerical backends (e.g., ITensor and ExaTENSOR numerical libraries). We demonstrate the utility of our TNQVM quantum circuit simulator through the verification of randomized quantum circuits and the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm, both expressed within the eXtreme-scale ACCelerator (XACC) programming model.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Resilience and Robustness of Spiking Neural Networks for Neuromorphic Systems

Though robustness and resilience are commonly quoted as features of neuromorphic computing systems, the expected performance of neuromorphic systems in the face of hardware failures is not clear. In this work, we study the effect of failures on the performance of four different training algo-rithms for spiking neural networks on neuromorphic systems: two back-propagation-based training approaches (Whetstone and SLAYER), a liquid state machine or reservoir computing approach, and an evolutionary optimization-based approach (EONS). We show that these four different approaches have very different resilience characteristics with respect to simulated hardware failures. We then analyze an approach for training more resilient spiking neural networks using the evolutionary optimization approach. We show how this approach produces more resilient networks and discuss how it can be extended to other spiking neural network training approaches as well.

Schuman, Catherine↗

Structure-preserving neural networks for the regularized entropy-based closure of a linear, kinetic, radiative transport equation

The main challenge of large-scale numerical simulation of radiation transport is the high memory and computation time requirements of discretization methods for kinetic equations. In this work, we derive and investigate a neural network-based approximation to the entropy-based closure method to accurately compute the solution of the multi-dimensional moment system with a low memory footprint and competitive computational time. We extend methods developed for the standard entropy-based closure to the regularized entropy-based closures. The main idea is to interpret structure-preserving neural network approximations of the regularized entropy-based closure as a two-stage approximation to the original entropy-based closure. We conduct a numerical analysis of this approximation and investigate optimal parameter choices. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the method has a much lower memory footprint than traditional methods with competitive computation times and simulation accuracy. The code and all trained networks are provided on GitHub.

entropy closure↗

Easy-plane spin Hall nano-oscillators as spiking neurons for neuromorphic computing

Here we show analytically using a macrospin approximation that easy-plane spin Hall nano-oscillators excited by a spin current polarized perpendicularly to the easy plane have phase dynamics analogous to that of Josephson junctions. Similarly to Josephson junctions, they can reproduce the spiking behavior of biological neurons that is appropriate for neuromorphic computing. To take advantage of typical spin-orbit torques, we use a nanoconstriction geometry, in which the magnetostatic interaction and magnetocrystalline anisotropy are tuned to create an easy plane that includes the interface normal direction. We perform micromagnetic simulations of such oscillators realized in this geometry and show that the easy-plane spiking dynamics is preserved in this experimentally feasible architecture. Finally we simulate two elementary neural network blocks that implement operations essential for neuromorphic computing. First, we show that output spikes energies from two neurons can be summed and injected into a following layer neuron and second, we demonstrate that outputs can be multiplied by synaptic weights implemented by locally modifying the anisotropy.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The Computational Capacity of Mem-LRC Reservoirs

Reservoir computing has a emerged as a powerful tool in data-driven time series analysis. The possibility of utilizing hardware reservoirs as specialized co-processors has generated interest in the properties of electronic reservoirs, especially those based on memristors as the nonlinearity of these devices should translate to an improved nonlinear computational capacity of the reservoir. However, designing these reservoirs requires a detailed understanding of how memristive networks process information which has thus far been lacking. In this work, we derive an equation for general memristor-inductor-resistor-capacitor (MEM-LRC) reservoirs that includes all network and dynamical constraints explicitly. Utilizing this we undertake a study of the computational capacity of these reservoirs. We demonstrate that hardware reservoirs may be constructed with extensive memory capacity and that the presence of memristors enacts a tradeoff between memory capacity and nonlinear computational capacity. Here, using these principles, we design reservoirs to tackle problems in signal processing, paving the way for applying hardware reservoirs to high-dimensional spatiotemporal systems.

Circuits with memory↗

Utilization of the Critic Subnetwork of a Generative Adversarial Network as Detector of Morphological Material Change in Image Data

The resolution of computed tomography (CT) has become high enough to monitor morphological changes due to aging in materials in long-term applications. For this work, we explored the utility of the critic of a generative adversarial network (GAN) to automatically detect such changes. The GAN was trained with images of pristine Pharmatose, which is used as a surrogate energetic material. It is important to note that images of the material with altered morphology were only used during the test phase. The GAN-generated images reproduced the microstructure of Pharmatose well, although some unrealistic particle fusion was seen. Calculated morphological metrics (volume fraction, interfacial line length, and local thickness) for the synthetic images also showed good agreement with the training data, albeit with signs of mode collapse in the interfacial line length. While the critic exposed changes in particle size, it showed limited ability to distinguish images by particle shape. The detection of shape differences was also a more challenging task for the selected morphological metrics that related to energetic material performance. We further tested the critic with images of aged Pharmatose. Subtle changes due to aging are difficult for the human analyst to detect; but both critic and morphological metrics analysis showed image differentiation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Mean-field entanglement transitions in random tree tensor networks

Entanglement phase transitions in quantum chaotic systems subject to projective measurements and in random tensor networks have emerged as a new class of critical points separating phases with different entanglement scaling. We propose a mean-field theory of such transitions by studying the entanglement properties of random tree tensor networks. As a function of bond dimension, we find a phase transition separating area-law from logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy. Using a mapping onto a replica statistical mechanics model defined on a Cayley tree and the cavity method, we analyze the scaling properties of such transitions. Our approach provides a tractable, mean-field-like example of an entanglement transition. Furthermore, we verify our predictions numerically by computing directly the entanglement of random tree tensor network states.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗