CLBlast: A Tuned OpenCL BLAS Library

This work introduces CLBlast, an open-source BLAS library providing optimized OpenCL routines to accelerate dense linear algebra for a wide variety of devices. It is targeted at machine learning and HPC applications and thus provides a fast matrix-multiplication routine (GEMM) to accelerate the core of many applications (e.g. deep learning, iterative solvers, astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics, quantum chemistry). CLBlast has five main advantages over other OpenCL BLAS libraries: 1) it is optimized for and tested on a large variety of OpenCL devices including less commonly used devices such as embedded and low-power GPUs, 2) it can be explicitly tuned for specific problem-sizes on specific hardware platforms, 3) it can perform operations in half-precision floating-point FP16 saving bandwidth, time and energy, 4) it has an optional CUDA back-end, 5) and it can combine multiple operations in a single batched routine, accelerating smaller problems significantly. This paper describes the library and demonstrates the advantages of CLBlast experimentally for different use-cases on a wide variety of OpenCL hardware.Comment: Conference paper in: IWOCL '18, the International Workshop on OpenC

Bare Feet and Sacred Ground:"Visnu was here"

Abstract: The meaning of a symbol is not intrinsic and should best be seen in relation to the symbolic order underlying it. In this article we explore the ritual complexities pertaining to the body’s most lowly and dirty part: the feet. On entering sacred ground persons are admonished to take off their footwear. In many parts of Asia pointing one’s feet in the direction of an altar, one’s teacher or one’s elders is considered disrespectful. Divine feet, however, are in many ways focal points of devotion. By reverently bowing down and touching the feet of a deity’s statue, the believer acts out a specific type of expressive performance. The core of this article consists of a closer look at ritualized behavior in front of a particular type of divine feet: the natural ‘footprint’ (viṣṇupāda) at Gayā, in the state of Bihar, India. By studying its ‘storied’ meaning we aspire to a deepened understanding of the ‘divine footprint’ in both its embodiedness and embeddedness. Through a combination of approaches—textual studies, ritual studies, ethnography—we emplace the ritual object in a setting in which regional, pan-Indian, and even cosmogonic myths are interlocked. We conclude that by an exclusive focus on a single ritual object—as encountered in a particular location—an object lesson about feet, footsteps, foot-soles, and footprints opens up a particular ‘grammar of devotion’ in terms of both absence and presence. Keywords: Hinduism; India; material culture; ritual; Viṣṇu’s footprint; place of pilgrimage; sacred geography; imaginative embodimen