An Algorithm Template for Domain-Based Parallel Irregular Algorithms

[Abstract] The parallelization of irregular algorithms has not been as widely studied as the one of regular codes. In particular, while there are many proposals of parallel skeletons and libraries very well suited to regular algorithms, this is not the case for irregular ones. This is probably due to the complexity of finding common patterns, behaviors and semantics in these algorithms. This is unfortunate, as the parallelization of irregular algorithms would benefit even more than that of regular codes from the higher degree of abstraction provided by skeletons. This work proposes to exploit the concept of domain defined on some property of the elements to process in order to enable the simple and effective parallelization of irregular applications. Namely, we propose to use such domains both to decompose the computations in parallel tasks and to detect and avoid conflicts between these tasks. A generic C++ library providing a skeleton for multicore systems built on this idea is described and evaluated. Our experimental results show that this library is a very practical tool for the parallelization of irregular algorithms with little programming effort.Xunta de Galicia; INCITE08PXIB105161PRMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación; TIN2010-16735Ministerio de Educación; AP2009-475

A general and efficient divide-and-conquer algorithm framework for multi-core clusters

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Cluster Computing. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-017-0766-y[Abstract]Divide-and-conquer is one of the most important patterns of parallelism, being applicable to a large variety of problems. In addition, the most powerful parallel systems available nowadays are computer clusters composed of distributed-memory nodes that contain an increasing number of cores that share a common memory. The optimal exploitation of these systems often requires resorting to a hybrid model that mimics the underlying hardware by combining a distributed and a shared memory parallel programming model. This results in longer development times and increased maintenance costs. In this paper we present a very general skeleton library that allows to parallelize any divide-and-conquer problem in hybrid distributed-shared memory systems with little effort while providing much flexibility and good performance. Our proposal combines a message-passing paradigm at the process level and a threaded model inside each process, hiding the related complexity from the user. The evaluation shows that this skeleton provides performance comparable, and often better than that of manually optimized codes while requiring considerably less effort when parallelizing applications on multi-core clusters.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2013-42148-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2016-75845-PXunta de Galicia; GRC2013/05

A framework for argument-based task synchronization with automatic detection of dependencies

[Abstract] Synchronization in parallel applications can be achieved either implicitly or explicitly. Implicit synchronization is typical of programming environments that provide predefined, and often simple, patterns of parallelism such as data-parallel libraries and languages and skeletal operations. Nevertheless, more flexible approaches that allow to express arbitrary task-level parallel computations without a predefined structure request in turn that the user explicitly specifies the synchronization needed among the parallel tasks. In this paper we present a library-based approach that enables arbitrary patterns of parallelism with minimal effort for the user. Our proposal is the first generic approach to express parallelism we know of that requires neither explicit synchronizations nor a detail of the dependencies of the parallel tasks. Our strategy relies on expressing the parallel tasks as functions that convey their dependencies implicitly by means of their arguments. These function arguments are analyzed by our library, called DepSpawn, when a parallel task is spawned in order to enforce its dependencies. Our experiments indicate that DepSpawn is very competitive, both in terms of performance and programmability, with respect to a widespread high-level approach like OpenMP.Xunta de Galicia; INCITE08PXIB105161PRMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación; TIN2010-16735Ministerio de Educación de España; AP2009-475

VLT/SPHERE robust astrometry of the HR8799 planets at milliarcsecond-level accuracy Orbital architecture analysis with PyAstrOFit

HR8799 is orbited by at least four giant planets, making it a prime target for the recently commissioned Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (VLT/SPHERE). As such, it was observed on five consecutive nights during the SPHERE science verification in December 2014. We aim to take full advantage of the SPHERE capabilities to derive accurate astrometric measurements based on H-band images acquired with the Infra-Red Dual-band Imaging and Spectroscopy (IRDIS) subsystem, and to explore the ultimate astrometric performance of SPHERE in this observing mode. We also aim to present a detailed analysis of the orbital parameters for the four planets. We report the astrometric positions for epoch 2014.93 with an accuracy down to 2.0 mas, mainly limited by the astrometric calibration of IRDIS. For each planet, we derive the posterior probability density functions for the six Keplerian elements and identify sets of highly probable orbits. For planet d, there is clear evidence for nonzero eccentricity ($e \simeq 0.35$), without completely excluding solutions with smaller eccentricities. The three other planets are consistent with circular orbits, although their probability distributions spread beyond $e = 0.2$, and show a peak at $e \simeq 0.1$ for planet e. The four planets have consistent inclinations of about $30\deg$ with respect to the sky plane, but the confidence intervals for the longitude of ascending node are disjoint for planets b and c, and we find tentative evidence for non-coplanarity between planets b and c at the $2 \sigma$ level.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figure

Maximum gravitational recoil

Recent calculations of gravitational radiation recoil generated during black-hole binary mergers have reopened the possibility that a merged binary can be ejected even from the nucleus of a massive host galaxy. Here we report the first systematic study of gravitational recoil of equal-mass binaries with equal, but anti-aligned, spins parallel to the orbital plane. Such an orientation of the spins is expected to maximize the recoil. We find that recoil velocity (which is perpendicular to the orbital plane) varies sinusoidally with the angle that the initial spin directions make with the initial linear momenta of each hole and scales up to a maximum of ~4000 km/s for maximally-rotating holes. Our results show that the amplitude of the recoil velocity can depend sensitively on spin orientations of the black holes prior to merger.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figs, revtex

Current state of knowledge of freshwater malacostracans of Chile

Indexación: ScieloLa fauna de crustáceos malacostráceos limnéticos, en el territorio de Chile continental, está compuesta por seis especies de camarones, i.e., cinco parastácidos de los géneros Parastacus, Samastacus y Virilastacus y un palemónido del género Cryphiops, 18 especies de anomuros del género Aegla, siete especies de anfípodos gamarídeos del género Hyallela y una especie de isópodo aselotano del género Heterias. La distribución conjunta abarca desde Arica a Punta Arenas, pero la mayor parte de las especies tiene rango geográfico restringido. La mayor densidad de taxa ocurre entre las regiones VIII y X, donde el número de taxa por Región varía entre 11 y 15, siendo la X Región la que tiene el número mayor. Índices derivados de un estudio sobre relaciones filogenéticas de las especies chilenas de Aegla, combinados con criterios propuestos por IUCN (2001), calificó a A. concepcionensis y A. expansa como especies Extintas y a A. papudo, A. l. laevis y A. spectabilis como Críticamente Amenazadas. Además, asignó máxima prioridad de conservación a la zona comprendida entre las cuencas del río Tucapel y del río Toltén. El estado de conservación de las especies de Parastacidae fue establecido por Bahamonde et al. (1998) y complementado por Rudolph & Crandall (2005). El estado de conservación de las especies de Hyalella y del isópodo Heterias exul no ha sido determinado. Se percibe que las amenazas a la conservación de las especies de malacostráceos limnéticos en Chile derivan principalmente de perturbaciones antropogénicas de la integridad y salud ambiental de las cuencas hidrográficas, particularmente entre las Regiones IV a VIII. Palabras claves: Malacostráceos, diversidad, conservación, Amphipoda, Isopoda, Decapoda, Chile, limnología. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT The continental Chilean limnetic malacostracan fauna is currently composed of six species of crayfish / shrimp, i.e., five parastacids in the genus Parastacus, Samastacus and Virilastacus, and one palaemonid in the genus Cryphiops, eighteen species of anomuran crabs in the genus Aegla, seven species of gammaridean amphipods in the genus Hyalella, and one species of asellotan isopod in the genus Heterias. The distribution of the set of thirty one species of malacostracans spans from Arica in the north to Magallanes in the far south. However, most species have a restricted geographic range, comprising one or a few hydrographical contiguous basins along the latitudinal gradient. The largest concentration of malacostracan species is found between the VIII and X Administrative Regions of Chile; being the X the largest with fifteen taxa. Indices derived from a phylogenetic study concerning the relationship of the Chilean species of Aegla, and considering the conservation criteria proposed by UICN (2001), qualified A. concepcionensis and A. expansa as Extinct in the Wild, and A. papudo, A. l. laevis and A. spectabilis as Critically Endangered species. Furthermore, it assigned maximum conservation priority to the coastal area between the Tucapel and the Tolten rivers. The conservation status of the species of Parastacidae was established by Bahamonde et al. (1998), and supplemented by Rudolph & Crandall (2005). The conservation status of Hyalella and Heterias species has not yet been determined. It is apparent that threats to the conservation of a large number of limnetic malacostracan species in Chile arise from non quantified anthropogenic perturbations of the limnetic environment, particularly between the IV and VIII Regions. Keywords: Malacostracans, diversity, conservation, Amphipoda, Isopoda, Decapoda, Chile, limnology

Polariton Lasing in a Multilevel Quantum Dot Strongly Coupled To a Single Photon Mode

We present an approximate analytic expression for the photoluminescence spectral function of a model polariton system, which describes a quantum dot, with a finite number of fermionic levels, strongly interacting with the lowest photon mode of a pillar microcavity. Energy eigenvalues and wavefunctions of the electron-hole-photon system are obtained by numerically diagonalizing the Hamiltonian. Pumping and photon losses through the cavity mirrors are described with a master equation, which is solved in order to determine the stationary density matrix. The photon first-order correlation function, from which the spectral function is found, is computed with the help of the Quantum Regression Theorem. The spectral function qualitatively describes the polariton lasing regime in the model, corresponding to pumping rates two orders of magnitude lower than those needed for ordinary (photon) lasing. The second-order coherence functions for the photon and the electron-hole subsystems are computed as functions of the pumping rate.Comment: version accepted in Phys. Rev.

End-point estimates for iterated commutators of multilinear singular integrals

Iterated commutators of multilinear Calder´on-Zygmund operators and pointwise multiplication with functions in BMO are studied in products of Lebesgue spaces. Both strong type and weak end-point estimates are obtained, including weighted results involving the vectors weights of the multilinear Calder´on-Zygmund theory recently introduced in the literature. Some better than expected estimates for certain multilinear operators are presented too.Ministerio de Ciencia e InnovaciónInstituto de Matemática Aplicada del LitoralUniversidad Nacional del LitoralNational Science Foundation (United States