7,194 research outputs found
On the design and implementation of broadcast and global combine operations using the postal model
There are a number of models that were proposed in recent years for message passing parallel systems. Examples are the postal model and its generalization the LogP model. In the postal model a parameter λ is used to model the communication latency of the message-passing system. Each node during each round can send a fixed-size message and, simultaneously, receive a message of the same size. Furthermore, a message sent out during round r will incur a latency of hand will arrive at the receiving node at round r + λ - 1.
Our goal in this paper is to bridge the gap between the theoretical modeling and the practical implementation. In particular, we investigate a number of practical issues related to the design and implementation of two collective communication operations, namely, the broadcast operation and the global combine operation. Those practical issues include, for example, 1) techniques for measurement of the value of λ on a given machine, 2) creating efficient broadcast algorithms that get the latency hand the number of nodes n as parameters and 3) creating efficient global combine algorithms for parallel machines with λ which is not an integer. We propose solutions that address those practical issues and present results of an experimental study of the new algorithms on the Intel Delta machine. Our main conclusion is that the postal model can help in performance prediction and tuning, for example, a properly tuned broadcast improves the known implementation by more than 20%
Randomized Initialization of a Wireless Multihop Network
Address autoconfiguration is an important mechanism required to set the IP
address of a node automatically in a wireless network. The address
autoconfiguration, also known as initialization or naming, consists to give a
unique identifier ranging from 1 to for a set of indistinguishable
nodes. We consider a wireless network where nodes (processors) are randomly
thrown in a square , uniformly and independently. We assume that the network
is synchronous and two nodes are able to communicate if they are within
distance at most of of each other ( is the transmitting/receiving
range). The model of this paper concerns nodes without the collision detection
ability: if two or more neighbors of a processor transmit concurrently at
the same time, then would not receive either messages. We suppose also that
nodes know neither the topology of the network nor the number of nodes in the
network. Moreover, they start indistinguishable, anonymous and unnamed. Under
this extremal scenario, we design and analyze a fully distributed protocol to
achieve the initialization task for a wireless multihop network of nodes
uniformly scattered in a square . We show how the transmitting range of the
deployed stations can affect the typical characteristics such as the degrees
and the diameter of the network. By allowing the nodes to transmit at a range
r= \sqrt{\frac{(1+\ell) \ln{n} \SIZE}{\pi n}} (slightly greater than the one
required to have a connected network), we show how to design a randomized
protocol running in expected time in order to assign a
unique number ranging from 1 to to each of the participating nodes
Optimal Control of Wireless Computing Networks
Augmented information (AgI) services allow users to consume information that
results from the execution of a chain of service functions that process source
information to create real-time augmented value. Applications include real-time
analysis of remote sensing data, real-time computer vision, personalized video
streaming, and augmented reality, among others. We consider the problem of
optimal distribution of AgI services over a wireless computing network, in
which nodes are equipped with both communication and computing resources. We
characterize the wireless computing network capacity region and design a joint
flow scheduling and resource allocation algorithm that stabilizes the
underlying queuing system while achieving a network cost arbitrarily close to
the minimum, with a tradeoff in network delay. Our solution captures the unique
chaining and flow scaling aspects of AgI services, while exploiting the use of
the broadcast approach coding scheme over the wireless channel.Comment: 30 pages, journa
Formal Modeling of Connectionism using Concurrency Theory, an Approach Based on Automata and Model Checking
This paper illustrates a framework for applying formal methods techniques, which are symbolic in nature, to specifying and verifying neural networks, which are sub-symbolic in nature. The paper describes a communicating automata [Bowman & Gomez, 2006] model of neural networks. We also implement the model using timed automata [Alur & Dill, 1994] and then undertake a verification of these models using the model checker Uppaal [Pettersson, 2000] in order to evaluate the performance of learning algorithms. This paper also presents discussion of a number of broad issues concerning cognitive neuroscience and the debate as to whether symbolic processing or connectionism is a suitable representation of cognitive systems. Additionally, the issue of integrating symbolic techniques, such as formal methods, with complex neural networks is discussed. We then argue that symbolic verifications may give theoretically well-founded ways to evaluate and justify neural learning systems in the field of both theoretical research and real world applications
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Distributed Algorithms in Synchronous Broadcasting Networks
In this paper we consider a synchronous broadcasting network, a distributed computation model which represents communication networks that are used extensively in practice. This is the first work we know of that deals with this model in a theoretical context. The problem we consider is a basic problem of information sharing, the computation of the multiple identification function. That is, given a network of p processors, each of which contains an n-bit string of information, the question is how every processor can compute the subset of processors which have the same information as itself. The problem was suggested by Yao in his classical paper in communication complexity [17], as a generalization of the two-processor case studied in that paper. The immediate algorithm which solves this problem takes O(np) time (time = communication time in bits, which is our complexity measure). We present the following algorithms: - a. An algorithm which takes advantage of properties of strings, uses a very simple scheduling policy, and does not use arithmetic operations. (In fact, the processor can be a Turing machine). 'the algorithm's complexity is O(nlog2p+p). - b. An algorithm which uses a simulation of sorting networks by the distributed system. If t(p) is the depth of the sorting network of p processors, then our algorithm takes O( n t(p) + p) time. Using recent results on sorting networks we get an O(nlogp+p) (impractical) algorithm. The algorithm also uses addition and subtraction operations. -c. By letting the processor use modular arithmetic operations as well, we can use Yao's probabilistic version, modify our algorithms and get probabilistic algorithms (with small error) where logn replaces n in the complexity expressions. To prove lower bounds for the problem we use Yao's result to get an fl(n) bound, and we also show an fl(p) bound. We suggest open problems concerning new techniques for proving lower bounds in the presence of broadcasting, as well as other problems about efficient use of the model and comparisons between different models of distributed computation
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