9,664 research outputs found
Electron omnidirectional intensity contours in the earth's outer radiation zone at the magnetic equator
Omnidirectional electron intensities in the outer belt at earths magnetic equato
Dynamic Graphs on the GPU
We present a fast dynamic graph data structure for the GPU. Our dynamic graph structure uses one hash table per vertex to store adjacency lists and achieves 3.4–14.8x faster insertion rates over the state of the art across a diverse set of large datasets, as well as deletion speedups up to 7.8x. The data structure supports queries and dynamic updates through both edge and vertex insertion and deletion. In addition, we define a comprehensive evaluation strategy based on operations, workloads, and applications that we believe better characterize and evaluate dynamic graph data structures
A GPU Implementation for Two-Dimensional Shallow Water Modeling
In this paper, we present a GPU implementation of a two-dimensional shallow
water model. Water simulations are useful for modeling floods, river/reservoir
behavior, and dam break scenarios. Our GPU implementation shows vast
performance improvements over the original Fortran implementation. By taking
advantage of the GPU, researchers and engineers will be able to study water
systems more efficiently and in greater detail.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Evidence for a Molecular Cloud Origin for Gamma-Ray Bursts: Implications for the Nature of Star Formation in the Universe
It appears that the majority of rapidly-, well-localized gamma-ray bursts
with undetected, or dark, optical afterglows, or `dark bursts' for short, occur
in clouds of size R > 10L_{49}^{1/2} pc and mass M > 3x10^5L_{49} M_{sun},
where L is the isotropic-equivalent peak luminosity of the optical flash. We
show that clouds of this size and mass cannot be modeled as a gas that is bound
by pressure equilibrium with a warm or hot phase of the interstellar medium
(i.e., a diffuse cloud): Such a cloud would be unstable to gravitational
collapse, resulting in the collapse and fragmentation of the cloud until a
burst of star formation re-establishes pressure equilibrium within the
fragments, and the fragments are bound by self-gravity (i.e., a molecular
cloud). Consequently, dark bursts probably occur in molecular clouds, in which
case dark bursts are probably a byproduct of this burst of star formation if
the molecular cloud formed recently, and/or the result of lingering or latter
generation star formation if the molecular cloud formed some time ago. We then
show that if bursts occur in Galactic-like molecular clouds, the column
densities of which might be universal, the number of dark bursts can be
comparable to the number of bursts with detected optical afterglows: This is
what is observed, which suggests that the bursts with detected optical
afterglows might also occur in molecular clouds. We confirm this by modeling
and constraining the distribution of column densities, measured from absorption
of the X-ray afterglow, of the bursts with detected optical afterglows: We find
that this distribution is consistent with the expectation for bursts that occur
in molecular clouds, and is not consistent with the expectation for bursts that
occur in diffuse clouds. More...Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal, 22 pages, 6 figures, LaTe
A microgravity isolation mount
The design and preliminary testing of a system for isolating microgravity sensitive payloads from spacecraft vibrational and impulsive disturbances is discussed. The Microgravity Isolation Mount (MGIM) concept consists of a platform which floats almost freely within a limited volume inside the spacecraft, but which is constrained to follow the spacecraft in the long term by means of very weak springs. The springs are realized magnetically and form part of a six degree of freedom active magnetic suspension system. The latter operates without any physical contact between the spacecraft and the platform itself. Power and data transfer is also performed by contactless means. Specifications are given for the expected level of input disturbances and the tolerable level of platform acceleration. The structural configuration of the mount is discussed and the design of the principal elements, i.e., actuators, sensors, control loops and power/data transfer devices are described. Finally, the construction of a hardware model that is being used to verify the predicted performance of the MGIM is described
Registration of retinal images from Public Health by minimising an error between vessels using an affine model with radial distortions
In order to estimate a registration model of eye fundus images made of an
affinity and two radial distortions, we introduce an estimation criterion based
on an error between the vessels. In [1], we estimated this model by minimising
the error between characteristics points. In this paper, the detected vessels
are selected using the circle and ellipse equations of the overlap area
boundaries deduced from our model. Our method successfully registers 96 % of
the 271 pairs in a Public Health dataset acquired mostly with different
cameras. This is better than our previous method [1] and better than three
other state-of-the-art methods. On a publicly available dataset, ours still
better register the images than the reference method
Spectral Transition and Torque Reversal in X-ray Pulsar 4U 1626-67
The accretion-powered, X-ray pulsar 4U 1626-67 has recently shown an abrupt
torque reversal accompanied by a dramatic spectral transition and a relatively
small luminosity change. The time-averaged X-ray spectrum during spin-down is
considerably harder than during spin-up. The observed torque reversal can be
explained by an accretion flow transition triggered by a gradual change in the
mass accretion rate. The sudden transition to spin-down is caused by a change
in the accretion flow rotation from Keplerian to sub-Keplerian. 4U 1626-67 is
estimated to be near spin equilibrium with a mass accretion rate Mdot~2x10**16
g/s, Mdot decreasing at a rate ~6x10**14 g/s/yr, and a polar surface magnetic
field of ~2b_p**{-1/2} 10^**12G where b_p is the magnetic pitch. During
spin-up, the Keplerian flow remains geometrically thin and cool. During
spin-down, the sub-Keplerian flow becomes geometrically thick and hot. Soft
photons from near the stellar surface are Compton up-scattered by the hot
accretion flow during spin-down while during spin-up such scattering is
unlikely due to the small scale-height and low temperature of the flow. This
mechanism accounts for the observed spectral hardening and small luminosity
change. The scattering occurs in a hot radially falling column of material with
a scattering depth ~0.3 and a temperature ~10^9K. The X-ray luminosity at
energies >5keV could be a poor indicator of the mass accretion rate. We briefly
discuss the possible application of this mechanism to GX 1+4, although there
are indications that this system is significantly different from other
torque-reversal systems.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, ApJ
Efficient Synchronization Primitives for GPUs
In this paper, we revisit the design of synchronization
primitives---specifically barriers, mutexes, and semaphores---and how they
apply to the GPU. Previous implementations are insufficient due to the
discrepancies in hardware and programming model of the GPU and CPU. We create
new implementations in CUDA and analyze the performance of spinning on the GPU,
as well as a method of sleeping on the GPU, by running a set of memory-system
benchmarks on two of the most common GPUs in use, the Tesla- and Fermi-class
GPUs from NVIDIA. From our results we define higher-level principles that are
valid for generic many-core processors, the most important of which is to limit
the number of atomic accesses required for a synchronization operation because
atomic accesses are slower than regular memory accesses. We use the results of
the benchmarks to critique existing synchronization algorithms and guide our
new implementations, and then define an abstraction of GPUs to classify any GPU
based on the behavior of the memory system. We use this abstraction to create
suitable implementations of the primitives specifically targeting the GPU, and
analyze the performance of these algorithms on Tesla and Fermi. We then predict
performance on future GPUs based on characteristics of the abstraction. We also
examine the roles of spin waiting and sleep waiting in each primitive and how
their performance varies based on the machine abstraction, then give a set of
guidelines for when each strategy is useful based on the characteristics of the
GPU and expected contention.Comment: 13 pages with appendix, several figures, plans to submit to CompSci
conference in early 201
Suprathermal plasma observed on STS-3 Mission by plasma diagnostics package
Artificially produced electron beams were used extensively during the past decade as a means of probing the magnetosphere, and more recently as a means of actively controlling spacecraft potential. Experimentation in these areas has proven valuable, yet at times confusing, due to the interaction of the electron beam with the ambient plasma. The OSS-1/STS-3 Mission in March 1982 provided a unique opportunity to study beam-plasma interactions at an altitude of 240 km. On board for this mission was a Fast Pulse Electron Generator (FPEG). Measurements made by the Plasma Diagnostics Package (PDP) while extended on the Orbiter RMS show modifications of the ion and electron energy distributions during electron beam injection. Observations made by charged particle detectors are discussed and related to measurements of Orbiter potential. Several of the PDP instruments, the joint PDP/FPEG experiment, and observations made during electron beam injection are described
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