Introducing graphical access to IU's supercomputers with Karst Desktop Beta

Abhinav Thota is a Principal Engineer in the Research Technologies division of UITS/PTI. He is part of the Scientific Applications and Performance Tuning (SciAPT) team and helps users efficiently use HPC resources at IU.Supercomputers are designed to use a command line interface and batch processing system. This means users accustomed to modern graphical interfaces must overcome a steep learning curve when switching to supercomputers. Learn how UITS Research Technologies is tackling this problem using a new graphical interface for the Karst supercomputer. Participants will have the opportunity to test the service after the presentation on their laptop/desktop devices

Efficient replica-exchange across distributed production infrastructure

Replica-Exchange (RE) methods represent a class of algorithms that involve a large number of loosely-coupled ensembles and are used to understand physical phenomena -- ranging from protein folding dynamics to binding affinity calculations. We develop a framework for RE that supports different replica pairing and coordination mechanisms, that can use a wide range of production cyberinfrastructure concurrently. Additionally, our framework uses a flexible pilot-job implementation, which enables effective resource allocation for multiple replicas. We characterize the performance of two different RE algorithms - synchronous and asynchronous - at unprecedented scales on production distributed infrastructure (Teragrid and LONI). The synchronous RE algorithm is implemented with a centralized master, while the asynchronous RE algorithm is implemented with both centralized and decentralized replica management schemes. We evaluate the performance of the different algorithms and implementations when we scale-up the number of replicas (up to 256) on a single machine and when we scale-out across 2 and 4 machines. Both the synchronous and asynchronous algorithms perform similarly when the number of replicas is small. But as the number of replicas increase, in the synchronous RE, the synchronization cost increases the total time to completion. In the centralized asynchronous RE, the cost of managing many replicas in a centralized manner increases the time to completion but not as much as in the synchronous RE. The decentralized asynchronous RE scales much better with increasing number of replicas. When scaled-out across many machines, the performance of synchronous RE depends on whether the machines are homogeneous or heterogeneous. A heterogeneous infrastructure means increased synchronization costs. We also run tests to see if one of the algorithms is better suited to achieve more crosswalks and temperature mixing -- better sampling

White Paper: Lustre WAN over 100Gbps

This work is an international collaboration with Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany (RWTH) and the Center of Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany to analyze the effect of a high-bandwidth high-latency link on the I/O patterns of scientific applications using the 100Gbps transatlantic link.NSF Grant: America Connects to Europe (ACE) (Award #0962973

Correlative study of dyslipidemia among hypothyroidism and type-2 Diabetes Mellitus of Telangana Rural Population - Retrospective Study

Background: Diabetes and thyroid dysfunctions are commonly associated with cardiovascular disorder which results in morbidity and mortality. Methods: out of 120, forty were type-II DM, forty Hypothyroid and forty had both DM and Hypothyroidism. These patients were compared with healthy volunteers (controlled) group of same number (40), Every patient underwent Biochemical study including plasma glucose, lipid profile and thyroid profile. Results: All the parameters of Biochemistry Glucose and lipid profile were higher in type DM with Hypothyroidism patients except HDL which is at lower side. Conclusion: This pragmatic correlative study having low thyroid function profile is positively associated with lipid dysregulation in patients with DM and hypothyroidism. These findings will be a tool for clinicians to treat such patients efficiently to avoid morbidity and mortality