13,698 research outputs found
MOLNs: A cloud platform for interactive, reproducible and scalable spatial stochastic computational experiments in systems biology using PyURDME
Computational experiments using spatial stochastic simulations have led to
important new biological insights, but they require specialized tools, a
complex software stack, as well as large and scalable compute and data analysis
resources due to the large computational cost associated with Monte Carlo
computational workflows. The complexity of setting up and managing a
large-scale distributed computation environment to support productive and
reproducible modeling can be prohibitive for practitioners in systems biology.
This results in a barrier to the adoption of spatial stochastic simulation
tools, effectively limiting the type of biological questions addressed by
quantitative modeling. In this paper, we present PyURDME, a new, user-friendly
spatial modeling and simulation package, and MOLNs, a cloud computing appliance
for distributed simulation of stochastic reaction-diffusion models. MOLNs is
based on IPython and provides an interactive programming platform for
development of sharable and reproducible distributed parallel computational
experiments
A Comprehensive Workflow for General-Purpose Neural Modeling with Highly Configurable Neuromorphic Hardware Systems
In this paper we present a methodological framework that meets novel
requirements emerging from upcoming types of accelerated and highly
configurable neuromorphic hardware systems. We describe in detail a device with
45 million programmable and dynamic synapses that is currently under
development, and we sketch the conceptual challenges that arise from taking
this platform into operation. More specifically, we aim at the establishment of
this neuromorphic system as a flexible and neuroscientifically valuable
modeling tool that can be used by non-hardware-experts. We consider various
functional aspects to be crucial for this purpose, and we introduce a
consistent workflow with detailed descriptions of all involved modules that
implement the suggested steps: The integration of the hardware interface into
the simulator-independent model description language PyNN; a fully automated
translation between the PyNN domain and appropriate hardware configurations; an
executable specification of the future neuromorphic system that can be
seamlessly integrated into this biology-to-hardware mapping process as a test
bench for all software layers and possible hardware design modifications; an
evaluation scheme that deploys models from a dedicated benchmark library,
compares the results generated by virtual or prototype hardware devices with
reference software simulations and analyzes the differences. The integration of
these components into one hardware-software workflow provides an ecosystem for
ongoing preparative studies that support the hardware design process and
represents the basis for the maturity of the model-to-hardware mapping
software. The functionality and flexibility of the latter is proven with a
variety of experimental results
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A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence
Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches
An empirical learning-based validation procedure for simulation workflow
Simulation workflow is a top-level model for the design and control of
simulation process. It connects multiple simulation components with time and
interaction restrictions to form a complete simulation system. Before the
construction and evaluation of the component models, the validation of
upper-layer simulation workflow is of the most importance in a simulation
system. However, the methods especially for validating simulation workflow is
very limit. Many of the existing validation techniques are domain-dependent
with cumbersome questionnaire design and expert scoring. Therefore, this paper
present an empirical learning-based validation procedure to implement a
semi-automated evaluation for simulation workflow. First, representative
features of general simulation workflow and their relations with validation
indices are proposed. The calculation process of workflow credibility based on
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is then introduced. In order to make full use
of the historical data and implement more efficient validation, four learning
algorithms, including back propagation neural network (BPNN), extreme learning
machine (ELM), evolving new-neuron (eNFN) and fast incremental gaussian mixture
model (FIGMN), are introduced for constructing the empirical relation between
the workflow credibility and its features. A case study on a landing-process
simulation workflow is established to test the feasibility of the proposed
procedure. The experimental results also provide some useful overview of the
state-of-the-art learning algorithms on the credibility evaluation of
simulation models
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