Dynamic Glyphs: Appropriating Causality Perception in Multivariate Visual Analysis

We investigate how to co-opt the perception of causality to aid the analysis of multivariate data. We propose Dynamic Glyphs (DyGs), an animated extension to traditional glyphs. DyGs encode data relations through seemingly physical interactions between glyph parts. We hypothesize that this representation gives rise to impressions of causality, enabling observers to reason intuitively about complex, multivariate dynamics. In a crowdsourced experiment, participants' accuracy with DyGs exceeded or was comparable to non-animated alternatives. Moreover, participants showed a propensity to infer higher-dimensional relations with DyGs. Our findings suggest that visual causality can be an effective 'channel' for communicating complex data relations that are otherwise difficult to think about. We discuss the implications and highlight future research opportunities

Concept-Driven Visual Analytics: an Exploratory Study of Model- and Hypothesis-Based Reasoning with Visualizations

Visualization tools facilitate exploratory data analysis, but fall short at supporting hypothesis-based reasoning. We conducted an exploratory study to investigate how visualizations might support a concept-driven analysis style, where users can optionally share their hypotheses and conceptual models in natural language, and receive customized plots depicting the fit of their models to the data. We report on how participants leveraged these unique affordances for visual analysis. We found that a majority of participants articulated meaningful models and predictions, utilizing them as entry points to sensemaking. We contribute an abstract typology representing the types of models participants held and externalized as data expectations. Our findings suggest ways for rearchitecting visual analytics tools to better support hypothesis- and model-based reasoning, in addition to their traditional role in exploratory analysis. We discuss the design implications and reflect on the potential benefits and challenges involved.National Science Foundation award #175561

Towards Concept-Driven Visual Analytics

Visualizations of data provide a proven method for analysts to explore and make data-driven discoveries. However, current visualization tools provide only limited support for hypothesis-driven analyses, and often lack capabilities that would allow users to visually test the fit of their conceptual models against the data. This imbalance could bias users to overly rely on exploratory visual analysis as the principal mode of inquiry, which can be detrimental to discovery. To address this gap, we propose a new paradigm for 'concept-driven' visual analysis. In this style of analysis, analysts share their conceptual models and hypotheses with the system. The system then uses those inputs to drive the generation of visualizations, while providing plots and interactions to explore places where models and data disagree. We discuss key characteristics and design considerations for concept-driven visualizations, and report preliminary findings from a formative study.National Science Foundation award #175561

Efficient phase-space generation for hadron collider event simulation

We present a simple yet efficient algorithm for phase-space integration at hadron colliders. Individual mappings consist of a single t-channel combined with any number of s-channel decays, and are constructed using diagrammatic information. The factorial growth in the number of channels is tamed by providing an option to limit the number of s-channel topologies. We provide a publicly available, parallelized code in C++ and test its performance in typical LHC scenarios.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Efficient precision simulation of processes with many-jet final states at the LHC

We present a scalable technique for the simulation of collider events with multi-jet final states, based on an improved parton-level event file format. The method is implemented for both leading- and next-to-leading order QCD calculations. We perform a comprehensive analysis of the I/O performance and validate our new framework using Higgs-boson plus multi-jet production with up to seven jets. We make the resulting code base available for public use.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Speeding up Madgraph5 aMC@NLO through CPU vectorization and GPU offloading: towards a first alpha release

The matrix element (ME) calculation in any Monte Carlo physics event generator is an ideal fit for implementing data parallelism with lockstep processing on GPUs and vector CPUs. For complex physics processes where the ME calculation is the computational bottleneck of event generation workflows, this can lead to large overall speedups by efficiently exploiting these hardware architectures, which are now largely underutilized in HEP. In this paper, we present the status of our work on the reengineering of the Madgraph5_aMC@NLO event generator at the time of the ACAT2022 conference. The progress achieved since our previous publication in the ICHEP2022 proceedings is discussed, for our implementations of the ME calculations in vectorized C++, in CUDA and in the SYCL framework, as well as in their integration into the existing MadEvent framework. The outlook towards a first alpha release of the software supporting QCD LO processes usable by the LHC experiments is also discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables; submitted to ACAT 2022 proceedings in IO

Evaluating Portable Parallelization Strategies for Heterogeneous Architectures in High Energy Physics

High-energy physics (HEP) experiments have developed millions of lines of code over decades that are optimized to run on traditional x86 CPU systems. However, we are seeing a rapidly increasing fraction of floating point computing power in leadership-class computing facilities and traditional data centers coming from new accelerator architectures, such as GPUs. HEP experiments are now faced with the untenable prospect of rewriting millions of lines of x86 CPU code, for the increasingly dominant architectures found in these computational accelerators. This task is made more challenging by the architecture-specific languages and APIs promoted by manufacturers such as NVIDIA, Intel and AMD. Producing multiple, architecture-specific implementations is not a viable scenario, given the available person power and code maintenance issues. The Portable Parallelization Strategies team of the HEP Center for Computational Excellence is investigating the use of Kokkos, SYCL, OpenMP, std::execution::parallel and alpaka as potential portability solutions that promise to execute on multiple architectures from the same source code, using representative use cases from major HEP experiments, including the DUNE experiment of the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility, and the ATLAS and CMS experiments of the Large Hadron Collider. This cross-cutting evaluation of portability solutions using real applications will help inform and guide the HEP community when choosing their software and hardware suites for the next generation of experimental frameworks. We present the outcomes of our studies, including performance metrics, porting challenges, API evaluations, and build system integration.Comment: 18 pages, 9 Figures, 2 Table

Localisation and Function of the Endocannabinoid System in the Human Ovary

Although anandamide (AEA) had been measured in human follicular fluid and is suggested to play a role in ovarian follicle and oocyte maturity, its exact source and role in the human ovary remains unclear.Immunohistochemical examination of normal human ovaries indicated that the endocannabinoid system was present and widely expressed in the ovarian medulla and cortex with more intense cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) than CB1 immunoreactivity in the granulosa cells of primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary follicles, corpus luteum and corpus albicans. The enzymes, fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and N-acyclphosphatidylethanolamine-phospholipase D (NAPE-PLD), were only found in growing secondary and tertiary follicles and corpora lutea and albicantes. The follicular fluid (FF) AEA concentrations of 260 FF samples, taken from 37 infertile women undergoing controlled ovarian hyperstimulation for in vitro fertilisation and intracytoplasmic sperm injection with embryo transfer, were correlated with ovarian follicle size (P = 0.03). Significantly higher FF AEA concentrations were also observed in mature follicles (1.43+/-0.04 nM; mean+/-SEM) compared to immature follicles (1.26+/-0.06 nM), P = 0.0142 and from follicles containing morphologically assessed mature oocytes (1.56+/-0.11 nM) compared to that containing immature oocytes (0.99+/-0.09 nM), P = 0.0011. ROC analysis indicated that a FF AEA level of 1.09 nM could discriminate between mature and immature oocytes with 72.2% sensitivity and 77.14% specificity, whilst plasma AEA levels and FF AEA levels on oocyte retrieval day were not significantly different (P = 0.23).These data suggest that AEA is produced in the ovary, is under hormonal control and plays a role in folliculogenesis, preovulatory follicle maturation, oocyte maturity and ovulation