Productivity and Software Development Effort Estimation in High-Performance Computing

Ever increasing demands for computational power are concomitant with rising electrical power needs and complexity in hardware and software designs. According increasing expenses for hardware, electrical power and programming tighten the rein on available budgets. Hence, an informed decision making on how to invest available budgets is more important than ever. Especially for procurements, a quantitative metric is needed to predict the cost effectiveness of an HPC center.In this work, I set up models and methodologies to support the HPC procurement process of German HPC centers. I model cost effectiveness as a productivity figure of merit of HPC centers by defining a ratio of scientific outcome generated over the lifetime of the HPC system to its total costs of ownership (TCO). I further define scientific outcome as number of scientific-application runs to embrace the multi-job nature of an HPC system in a meaningful way. I investigate the predictability of the productivity model's parameters and show their robustnesstowards errors in various real-world HPC setups. Case studies further verify the model's applicability, e.g., to compare hardware setups or optimize system lifetime.I continue to investigate total ownership costs of HPC centers as part of the productivity metric. I model TCO by splitting expenses into one-time and annual costs, node-based and node-type-based costs, as well as, system-dependent and application-dependent costs. Furthermore, I discuss quantification and predictability capabilities of all TCO components.I tackle the challenge of estimating HPC software development effort as TCO component with increasing importance. For that, I establish a methodology that is based on a so-called performance life-cycle describing the relationship of effort to performance achieved by spending the respective effort. To identify further impactfactors on application development effort, I apply ranking surveys that reveal priorities for quantifying effects. Such an effect is the developer's pre-knowledge in HPC whose quantification is addressed by confidence ratings in so-called knowledge surveys. I also examine the quantification of impacts of the parallel programming model by proposing a pattern-based approach. Since meaningful quantifications rely on sufficient and appropriate data sets, I broaden previous human-subject based data collections by introducing tools and methods for a community effort. Finally, I present the applicability of my methodologies and models in a case study that covers a real-world application from aeroacoustics simulation

Entwicklung einer Software zur Bestimmung morphologischer Informationen von Wurzelsystemen mit Virtual Reality Techniken

Fruchtbare Böden und sauberes Trinkwasser sind weltweit knappe Ressourcen. Zur ressourcenschonenden Boden- und Wassernutzung wird u.a. der Wasserfluss im Boden und die Wasseraufnahme durch Pflanzenwurzeln erforscht. Die unterirdischen Boden-Wurzel- Wechselwirkungen können seit einigen Jahren mit Hilfe von nicht-invasiven 3D Magnetresonanztomographie-Messungen (MRT) untersucht werden. Ausserdem wurde kürzlich ein dreidimensionales Simulationsmodell zur Beschreibung der Bodenwasseraufnahme entwickelt. Dieses basiert auf hierarchisch strukturierten morphologischen Informationen von Wurzelsystemen, die bisher jedoch nur durch Wachstumssimulationen erzeugt werden konnten. Um nun real gemessene Wurzelstrukturen mit dem Simulationsprogramm zu verknüpfen, müssen die entsprechenden morphologischen Daten aus dem MRT-Datensatz strukturiert extrahiert werden. Diese Aufgabe übernimmt die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwickelte Software mit Hilfe von Virtual Reality (VR) Techniken. Die entwickelte Software visualisiert den MRT-Datensatz der Wurzeln im dreidimensionalen Raum mittels stereoskopischer Projektion. Zusätzlich stellt sie dem Benutzer Funktionalitäten zur Verfügung, um das dargestellte Wurzelsystem manuell und interaktiv zu rekonstruieren. Die Interaktion im Raum wird durch optisches Tracking, das die Bewegungen von Kopf und 3D Maus wahrnimmt, realisiert. Aus einer vollständigen Wurzelrekonstruktion können alle für die Simulation benötigten morphologischen Daten bestimmt werden. In dieser Arbeit werden Rekonstruktionsschritte und entsprechende Simulationsergebnisse der Bodenwasseraufnahme beispielhaft anhand der Nutzpflanze Lupine diskutiert

Yerba mate, Agrobiodiversity and Sustainability. Case Study in Serra dos Tapes

Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) is an essential socio-cultural asset in Latin American countries. In Brazil, it is mainly rooted in the southern portion, reached with expressiveness the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, the latter being its most significant consumer. It is vital to the economy of several municipalities in the Rio Grande do Sul, which has been exploring it economically for a long time. The present work aimed to investigate the recent historical past and the prospects of the yerba mate plant in the Serra dos Tapes region, including the colonies of the municipalities of Canguçu, Pelotas, Arroio do Padre and São Lourenço do Sul. The plant is an element of the rural area biodiversity of those places and one of the first local products exploited by immigrants. Through qualitative research methodology, we tried to understand, through direct contact with farmers, institutional and industrial representatives, the aspects about the production and extractive exploitation of the plant in the past, the interest in the activity return, and the manufacturers' perception about the herb present on that region. This investigation was done through semi-structured interviews in 2018 and 2019. Regional species distribution mapping was made, and the physicochemical characterization of the plants was also performed. The conclusions indicate that the trees develop ideally, with vigorous appearance and a high volume of leaves, although the georeferenced points indicate soils of restricted or inapt fitness for the development of that species. Therefore, it is pertinent to expand the studies aiming to create sustainable strategies, leading to yerba mate conservation and use as an integral part of biodiversity in natural or managed environments. Regarding the physicochemical characteristics analyzed, it was found that the variables moisture, ash and crude fiber, except fat content, had results compatible with those obtained by researchers in other regions, with fresh leaves. The difference in results may be due to environmental characteristics such as soil type, altitude and relief on each tree analyzed. About the answers obtained in the interviews, it can be affirmed that there is little interest in leaves acquisition by the herbal industries located in other regions. On the other hand, the general opinion of the rural population and the social actors belonging to the territory converges towards the revaluation of this culture and linked activities. This fact can favor biodiversity conservation, the productive matrix diversification and the rescue of an element that conforms to the regional cultural identity, constituting a factor to sustainable rural development.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPESA erva-mate (Ilex paraguariensis) é um importante ativo sociocultural em países latino-americanos. No Brasil está especialmente enraizada na porção meridional estendendo-se pelos estados do Paraná, Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul, sendo este último o seu maior consumidor. Ela é muito importante para a economia de vários municípios gaúchos. O presente trabalho buscou investigar o passado histórico e as perspectivas futuras desse cultivo na região da Serra dos Tapes, incluindo os municípios de Canguçu, Pelotas, Arroio do Padre e São Lourenço do Sul. A planta constitui-se em elemento da biodiversidade regional, sendo um dos primeiros produtos explorados pelos imigrantes. Através de metodologia de pesquisa qualitativa, mediante uso de entrevistas em profundidade e com roteiro semiestruturado, procurou-se compreender, por meio de contato direto com os atores sociais (agricultores, representantes institucionais e industriais ervateiros), diversos aspectos relacionados com essa cultura, seu passado histórico, o interesse pelo retorno da atividade e a percepção dos indivíduos sobre as características dos ervais existentes. As entrevistas ocorreram entre os anos de 2018 e 2019, período no qual fez-se também um mapeamento da distribuição da espécie na região e uma caracterização físico-química das plantas encontradas. As conclusões apontam que as árvores se desenvolvem adequadamente, com aparência vigorosa e com denso enfolhamento, embora os pontos georreferenciados indicarem solos de aptidão restrita ou inapta para o desenvolvimento da espécie. Por isso é pertinente ampliar os estudos para a criação de estratégias sustentáveis de conservação e uso desta espécie como parte integrante da biodiversidade, em ambientes naturais ou manejados em diferentes sistemas de produção da cultura. Sobre as características físico-químicas analisadas, constatou-se que as variáveis umidade, cinza e fibra bruta, exceto teor de gordura, tiveram resultados compatíveis com aqueles obtidos por pesquisadores em outras regiões, com folhas in natura. A diferença nos resultados do teor de gordura pode ser decorrente da influência de características ambientais como tipo de solo, altitude e relevo sobre cada árvore analisada. Quanto às respostas obtidas nas entrevistas, pode-se afirmar que há pouco interesse de indústrias ervateiras de outras regiões no sentido da aquisição produção da Serra dos Tapes. Por outro lado, a opinião geral da população rural e dos atores sociais do território converge para a revalorização desta cultura e das atividades a ela ligadas. Este fato pode favorecer a conservação da biodiversidade, a diversificação da matriz produtiva e o resgate de um elemento que conforma a identidade cultural da região, o qual pode constituir-se em um fator de contribuição ao desenvolvimento rural sustentável

Performance Portability Analysis for Real-Time Simulations of Smoke Propagation Using OpenACC

Real-time simulations of smoke propagation during fires in complex geometries challenge engineers, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists due to the complexity of fluid dynamics and the large number of involved physical and chemical processes. Recently, several application scenarios emerged that require real-time predictions during an incident to support the rescue teams. Therefore, we develop the CFD-based simulation software JuROr aiming to run in real-time by leveraging parallel computer architectures like CPUs and GPUs. For that, we parallelize the code with OpenACC directives that promise maintenance of a single source base by delegating some architecture-agnostic optimizations to the compiler. We investigate the performance portability of JuROr using PGI’s OpenACC implementation across four Intel CPUs and three NVIDIA GPUs. We present the achieved performance shares as part of a roofline model where we focus on traditionally-computed arithmetic code intensities, as well as on a measurement approach based on performance counters