# Presentation: 444595

## Supporting Scienceat NIST...

**Scientific Applications and Visualization Group**

**Dr. Judith E. Devaney**
**Group Leader**

- http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/savg

## Central Hardware Facilities: 

** **
**Compute Resources:**
**IBM SP2:**
**  ****- 48 node, 80 CPU and a Scalable POWERparallel Switch, 512MB and**
**    ****2.5GB temporary disk space/node**
**Four SGI Origin 2000 machines:**
**  ****- 8 196 Mhz R10000 CPUs, 8 GB of memory, 120 GB of disk space**
**  ****- 32 250 Mhz R10000 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, 96 GB of disk space**
**  ****- 32 300 Mhz R12000 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, 193 GB of disk space**
**  ****- 32 300 Mhz R12000 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, 193 GB of disk space**
**One SGI Cluster**
**  ****- five dual processor R10000 CPUs, with 4 GB of memory**
**One Linux Clusters**
**  ****- fourty-eight 500Mhz Pentium IIIs connected by a Fast Ethernet **
**    ****network. Each node has 1 cpu with at least 256MB of RAM and **
**    ****6GB of local disk storage.**
** **
**Visualization Resources:**
**  ****- One SGI Onyx with three graphics pipelines, twelve R12K CPUs,**
**    ****7 GB of memory **
**  ****- One Wall immersive environment with Crystal Eyes **
**     ****software/hardware**** ****with head tracking**** **

##     Staying  Ahead

- Visualization
- Informatics

**    ****Staying  Ahead**

##       Staying          Ahead

*Science***+***Computing*

*Parallel Processing*

## Dreams

*             **Impossible Problems*

- Parallel Processing

- Scientist

##   New:  MPI

-   New:  MPI
-   Future:  IMPI

**The Role of ****     Standards**

##                      Interoperable Message Passing Interface (IMPI)

**-  Industrial-led effort to create a standard to enable interoperability of **
**   ****different implementations of the Message Passing Interface (MPI).**
**-  Standard vote passed.**
** **
**-  An IMPI Protocol Conformance Tester has been developed by the **
**    ****NIST/ITL/HPSS/SAVG. It is web based and exercises the whole IMPI **
**    ****Protocol**
**-  LAM 6.4-a2, released November 1999, from the Laboratory for Scientific **
**  ****Computing at the University of Notre Dame supports IMPI. It has passed all **
**   ****NIST tests.**
**- NIST/ITL/HPSS/SAVG has written an SBIR for the development **
**  ****of an IMPI aware algorithm tuner. It has been awarded to a company that **
**  ****specializes in MPI**

## New  computing environment

-  	- run on everything

## Parallel Computing is

-  Physical scientist
-  Computer scientist
-   Mathematician
-   Statistician

**Parallel Computing is**
** ****cross disciplinary:**

##  Our Goal:

- Help NIST computational scientists advance state of the art in scientists' fields

** ****Our Goal:**

- by doing 'impossible’ problems
-   too much memory
-   too much time
-   too many runs

## We supply:

-   MPI libraries:	DparLib	AutoMap/AutoLink
-   Parallel Algorithms

**We supply:**

- Output:
- 	Portable program driven
-  	by input files

## Results:

**Results:**
-   Theory validation
-   Experiment validation
-   New analysis tools
-   New insights
-   Standard reference codes and data
-   New parallel algorithms

## Fluid Flow in Porous Media

**Fluid Flow in Porous Media**
**                  ****Nick Martys BFRL **
**                  **
**  ****-  state of the art code  **
**  ****- papers, invited book chapter **
**    ****on mesoscale modeling**
**  ****- now being used by other**
**    ****researchers in BFRL for**
**     ****other work**
**  ****- also to be used to study flow**
**    ****in cracks**

## Modeling of High Performance Concrete

**Modeling of High Performance Concrete**
**                              ****Nick Martys BFRL**
**   ****- studying wide range of properties:**
**     ****shape, size distribution,**
**     ****interactions between**
**     ****particles**
**   ****- comparison with NIST **
**      ****experiments**
** **
**   **

##       Staying          Ahead

*Science***+***Computing*

*Visualization*

*Visualization*

- Goal:            A full immersive environment (CAVE)
- Currently:    Stereo capability

*Visualization*

##       Staying          Ahead

*Science***+***Computing*

*Informatics*

*Informatics*

- Database

- Data

- Analysis
- Visualization
- Mining

- Experiment
- Computation

*Informatics*

- Dataminer + ENVI + NIST_View + ...
-                          IDL

- ODBC

- mysql

- oracle

- MatLab + ...

## Informatics

**Genetic Programming – the evolution of computer programs**

- Darwinian selection and reproduction evolve a program that solves a problem.
- Probabilistic techniques generate, combine, and modify a population of programs.
- Problem-specific fitness function determines how well any single program in the population solves the target problem.
- Fitness evaluation drives the evolutions of the population toward a solution.
- GP has been found to be good for function finding and optimization, among other applications.

## Evolution of a Generation

- Generation N

- Generation N+1

- fitness
- evaluation

- mutation &
- crossover

## The NIST Generic GP System

- Applicable to a variety of problems.
- Accommodates user-supplied operations and fitness functions
- User control of various operating parameters:
- program structure
- initialization techniques
- reproduction strategies
- Parallelization using MPI and AutoMap / AutoLink
- Currently under development

- NIST Generic GP System: Applications

- Characterization of measurement errors
- Optimization
- mixtures
- Laser parameters
- Data mining algorithms
- Others . . .