CERN openlab Whitepaper on Future IT Challenges in Scientific Research

This whitepaper describes the major IT challenges in scientific research at CERN and several other European and international research laboratories and projects. Each challenge is exemplified through a set of concrete use cases drawn from the requirements of large-scale scientific programs. The paper is based on contributions from many researchers and IT experts of the participating laboratories and also input from the existing CERN openlab industrial sponsors. The views expressed in this document are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the view of their organisations and/or affiliates

NDE: An effective approach to improved reliability and safety. A technology survey

Technical abstracts are presented for about 100 significant documents relating to nondestructive testing of aircraft structures or related structural testing and the reliability of the more commonly used evaluation methods. Particular attention is directed toward acoustic emission; liquid penetrant; magnetic particle; ultrasonics; eddy current; and radiography. The introduction of the report includes an overview of the state-of-the-art represented in the documents that have been abstracted

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Big Data Testing Techniques: Taxonomy, Challenges and Future Trends

Big Data is reforming many industrial domains by providing decision support through analyzing large data volumes. Big Data testing aims to ensure that Big Data systems run smoothly and error-free while maintaining the performance and quality of data. However, because of the diversity and complexity of data, testing Big Data is challenging. Though numerous research efforts deal with Big Data testing, a comprehensive review to address testing techniques and challenges of Big Data is not available as yet. Therefore, we have systematically reviewed the Big Data testing techniques evidence occurring in the period 2010-2021. This paper discusses testing data processing by highlighting the techniques used in every processing phase. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges and future directions. Our findings show that diverse functional, non-functional and combined (functional and non-functional) testing techniques have been used to solve specific problems related to Big Data. At the same time, most of the testing challenges have been faced during the MapReduce validation phase. In addition, the combinatorial testing technique is one of the most applied techniques in combination with other techniques (i.e., random testing, mutation testing, input space partitioning and equivalence testing) to find various functional faults through Big Data testing.Comment: 32 page

Manual and Automatic Translation From Sequential to Parallel Programming On Cloud Systems

Cloud computing has gradually evolved into an infrastructural tool for a variety of scientific research and computing applications. It has become a trend for many institutions and organizations to migrate their products from local servers to the cloud. One of the current challenges in cloud computing is running software efficiently on cloud platforms since many legacy codes cannot be executed in parallel in cloud contexts, which is a waste of the cloud’s computing power. To solve this problem, we have researched ways to translate code from sequential to parallel cloud computing using three categories of translation methods: manual, automatic, and semi-automatic. The performance of manual translation result is better than the other two types of translation’s. However, it is costly to manually redesign and convert current sequential codes into cloud codes. Thus, the automatic translation of sequential codes to parallel cloud applications is one approach that could be taken to resolve the problem of code migration to a cloud infrastructure. During this research, two automatic code translators, Java to MapReduce (J2M) and Java to Spark (J2S), are developed to translate code automatically from sequential Java to MapReduce and Spark applications. A semi-automatic translation method is proposed, which is the combination of manual and automatic translation and performs well on large amounts of data with small fragment sizes. This dissertation provides details about our sequential to parallel cloud code translation research in last four years. The experimental results not only indicate that translators can precisely translate a sequential Java program into parallel cloud applications but also show that it can speed up performance. We expect that an almost linear rate of speedup is possible when processing large datasets. However, some constraints still need to be overcome so more features can be implemented in future work. It is believed that our translators are the ideal models for code migration and will play an important role in the transition era of cloud computing

Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Spacecraft: Independent Technical Assessment

CALIPSO is a joint science mission between the CNES, LaRC and GSFC. It was selected as an Earth System Science Pathfinder satellite mission in December 1998 to address the role of clouds and aerosols in the Earth's radiation budget. The spacecraft includes a NASA light detecting and ranging (LIDAR) instrument, a NASA wide-field camera and a CNES imaging infrared radiometer. The scope of this effort was a review of the Proteus propulsion bus design and an assessment of the potential for personnel exposure to hydrazine propellant