Mapping a weak hypercube on an optical slab waveguide

The communication fabric of a parallel processing system is represented as a directed graph. In a weak topology a processor uses at most one incoming edge or one outgoing edge for communication at any given point in time. Currently, the data rate that can be supported on electronic interconnects is reaching its limits. Optical interconnects have been identified as one of the most promising approaches to the growing demands for today\u27s systems. The “medium bandwidth” of an optical waveguide is huge (order of petabits per second for a 1mm2 cross-section optical slab). The challenge lies in utilizing as much of this medium bandwidth as possible. We address this problem by exploiting knowledge of the communication patterns. Key to our approach is a method to map communications to optical channels. This thesis deals with the mapping of a d-dimensional weak hypercube on to an optical slab waveguide. The weak topology helps reduce the cost of optical components used by allowing component reuse across different channels. We present two mappings, the dense and sparse mappings. The dense mapping for a d-dimensional weak hypercube packs all communication channels into a d X 2d array of optical channels and uses (d-2)2d+4 lasers and 2d detectors (or vice-versa). The sparse mapping uses a 2d-1X 2d channel array, but does not use all channels to map hypercube edges. We show that this mapping requires 2d lasers and 2d detectors. We also define a supergraph of the hypercube, called the extended hypercube, that maximally utilizes the empty channels in a sparse mapping. We establish that the extended hypercube is the largest supergraph of the hypercube that utilizes all available channels, without increasing the number of lasers and detectors used. The mappings defined for both these sparse cases are optimal. They use N lasers and N detectors, where N is the number of nodes in the topology. We also derive lower bounds on the number of lasers and detectors needed for a “standard mapping of a hypercube to an optical slab waveguide. We show that the costs of all the dense and sparse mappings proposed in this thesis match these lower bounds

Optimizing the Performance of Directive-based Programming Model for GPGPUs

Accelerators have been deployed on most major HPC systems. They are considered to improve the performance of many applications. Accelerators such as GPUs have an immense potential in terms of high compute capacity but programming these devices is a challenge. OpenCL, CUDA and other vendor-specific models for accelerator programming definitely offer high performance, but these are low-level models that demand excellent programming skills; moreover, they are time consuming to write and debug. In order to simplify GPU programming, several directive-based programming models have been proposed, including HMPP, PGI accelerator model and OpenACC. OpenACC has now become established as the de facto standard. We evaluate and compare these models involving several scientific applications. To study the implementation challenges and the principles and techniques of directive- based models, we built an open source OpenACC compiler on top of a main stream compiler framework (OpenUH as a branch of Open64). In this dissertation, we present the required techniques to parallelize and optimize the applications ported with OpenACC programming model. We apply both user-level optimizations in the applications and compiler and runtime-driven optimizations. The compiler optimization focuses on the parallelization of reduction operations inside nested parallel loops. To fully utilize all GPU resources, we also extend the OpenACC model to support multiple GPUs in a single node. Our application porting experience also revealed the challenge of choosing good loop schedules. The default loop schedule chosen by the compiler may not produce the best performance, so the user has to manually try different loop schedules to improve the performance. To solve this issue, we developed a locality-aware auto-tuning framework which is based on the proposed memory access cost model to help the compiler choose optimal loop schedules and guide the user to choose appropriate loop schedules.Computer Science, Department o

IIT teams use plant extract, heat to kill skin cancer cells

“Uptake of the nanoformulation is nearly the same by normal and cancerous cells. But the extract produces elevated levels of ROS only in cancerous cells. Right now we don’t know the precise mechanism by which higher ROS is generated inside cancer cells,” says Dr. Aravind Kumar Rengan from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and one of the corresponding authors of the paper. The levels of ROS inside normal cells were insignificant

Can we predict reactivity for aromatic nucleophilic substitution with [ 18 F]fluoride ion?

The correlation between the 13 C‐NMR chemical shift of the aromatic ring carbon bearing the leaving group and the yield of nucleophilic aromatic displacement with no‐carrier‐added [ 18 F]fluoride ion was evaluated. In comparison of structurally analogous compounds (fluoro, nitro and trimethylammonium substituted benzaldehydes, benzophenones and benzonitriles), the 13 C‐NMR chemical shift of the reactive aryl ring carbon correlated quite well with the [ 18 F]fluorination yield (r 2 =0.87) for most but not all ring structures. Compounds with trimethylammonium leaving groups or methyl ring substituents were found to not fit the proposed correlation. Kinetic studies indicated clearly different rates of reaction for these compounds, with much higher than expected reactivity for the ccompounds with the cationic leaving group. Competition experiments suggest that low reactivity of methyl‐substituted rings may be due to conversion of [ 18 F]fluoride to an unreactive form. Our results indicate that the correlation between [ 18 F]fluorination yields for nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions and the 13 C NMR chemical shift of the aryl ring carbon bearing the leaving group is applicable to numerous structurally analogous compounds, but cannot be simply generalized to aromatic rings with different leaving groups or ring substituents.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90183/1/2580330702_ftp.pd

An Isothiazolanthrone-Based Self-Assembling Anticancer Color-Changing Dye for Concurrent Imaging and Monitoring of Cell Viability

We report the photophysical properties, self-assembly and biological evaluation of an isothiazolanthrone-based dye, 7-amino-6H-anthra[9,1-cd]isothiazol-6-one (AAT), which reveals anticancer properties and can be potentially used as dye for monitoring cell viability. The solvent-dependent photophysical studies suggest that the emission of AAT is sensitive to environment polarity due to which interesting changes in the colored emission may be observed owing to the charge transfer (CT) processes. AAT also self-assembles to tree-like branched morphologies and produce, a greenish emission inside the cells when imaged after short interval (15 mins) of incubation while a red fluorescence could be noted after 24 h. Interestingly, AAT also produce differential emission inside mouse normal cells as compared to its cancer cell lines since it possess anticancer activity. The experimental observations were also validated theoretically via computational modeling

Green synthesis of multi-functional carbon dots from medicinal plant leaves for antimicrobial, antioxidant, and bioimaging applications

In this research work, carbon dots (CDs) were synthesized from the renewable leaves of an indigenous medicinal plant by the one-pot sand bath method, Azadirachta indica. The synthesized CDs were characterized for its optical properties using UV–Vis, Fluorescence and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrophotometry and for structural properties using dynamic light scattering (DLS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and high resolution Transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). The synthesized CDs exhibited concentration dependent biocompatibility when tested in mouse fibroblast L929 cell line. The EC50 values of biomedical studies, free radical scavenging activity (13.87 μgmL−1), and total antioxidant capacity (38 μgmL−1) proved CDs were exceptionally good. These CDs showed an appreciable zone of inhibition when examined on four bacterial (two gram-positive and gram-negative) and two fungal strains at minimum concentrations. Cellular internalisation studies performed on human breast cancer cells (MCF 7- bioimaging) revealed the applicability of CDs in bioimaging, wherein the inherent fluorescence of CDs were utilised. Thus, the CDs developed are potential as bioimaging, antioxidants and antimicrobial agents

IIT-Hyderabad team develops therapy to treat cancer

Researchers from IIT hyderabad develop combination of photothermal therapy and chemotherapy using naturally derived anticancer agen

Immunomodulatory nanosystems: An emerging strategy to combat viral infections

The viral infection spreads with the assistance of a host. Traditional antiviral therapies cannot provide long-term immunity against emerging and drug-resistant viral infections. Immunotherapy has evolved as an efficient approach for disease prevention and treatment, which include cancer, infections, inflammatory, and immune disorders. Immunomodulatory nanosystems can dramatically enhance therapeutic outcomes by combating many therapeutic challenges, such as poor immune stimulation and off-target adverse effects. Recently, immunomodulatory nanosystems have emerged as a potent antiviral strategy to intercept viral infections effectively. This review introduces major viral infections with their primary symptoms, route of transmission & targeted organ, and different stages of the viral life cycle with respective traditional blockers. The IMNs have an exceptional capacity for precisely modulating the immune system for therapeutic applications. The nano sized immunomodulatory systems permit the immune cells to interact with infectious agents enhancing lymphatic drainage and endocytosis by the over-reactive immune cells in the infected areas. Immune cells that can be modulated upon viral infection via various immunomodulatory nanosystems have been discussed. Advancement in theranostics can yield an accurate diagnosis, adequate treatment, and real-time screening of viral infections. Nanosystem-based drug delivery can continue to thrive in diagnosing, treating, and preventing viral infections. The curative medicine for remerging and drug-resistant viruses remains challenging, though certain systems have expanded our perception and initiated a new research domain in antiviral treatments