Developing High Performance Computing Resources for Teaching Cluster and Grid Computing courses

High-Performance Computing (HPC) and the ability to process large amounts of data are of paramount importance for UK business and economy as outlined by Rt Hon David Willetts MP at the HPC and Big Data conference in February 2014. However there is a shortage of skills and available training in HPC to prepare and expand the workforce for the HPC and Big Data research and development. Currently, HPC skills are acquired mainly by students and staff taking part in HPC-related research projects, MSc courses, and at the dedicated training centres such as Edinburgh University’s EPCC. There are few UK universities teaching the HPC, Clusters and Grid Computing courses at the undergraduate level. To address the issue of skills shortages in the HPC it is essential to provide teaching and training as part of both postgraduate and undergraduate courses. The design and development of such courses is challenging since the technologies and software in the fields of large scale distributed systems such as Cluster, Cloud and Grid computing are undergoing continuous change. The students completing the HPC courses should be proficient in these evolving technologies and equipped with practical and theoretical skills for future jobs in this fast developing area. In this paper we present our experience in developing the HPC, Cluster and Grid modules including a review of existing HPC courses offered at the UK universities. The topics covered in the modules are described, as well as the coursework projects based on practical laboratory work. We conclude with an evaluation based on our experience over the last ten years in developing and delivering the HPC modules on the undergraduate courses, with suggestions for future work

Extremely low frequency based communication link

The paper discusses the literature review and the possibility of using the ground itself as transmission medium for various users’ transceivers and an administrator transceiver using Multi-Carrier-Direct Sequence-Code Division Multiple Access (MC-DS-CDMA), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM),16-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (16-QAM), Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) band for the applications of Oil Well Telemetry, remote control of power substations or any system that its responding time is not critical

Accelerating High-Throughput Computing through OpenCL

This paper presents the implementation of a HTCondor pool with GPU execution capabilities through OpenCL. Implementation is discussed from both the system setup and the software design standpoint. The GPU landscape is investigated and the efficiency of the system is evaluated via Fast- Fourier Transform computations. Experimental results show that HTCondor GPU performance matches a dedicated GPU cluster

Effect of micro cracks on photovoltaic output power: case study based on real time long term data measurements

This study analyses the impact of micro cracks on photovoltaic (PV) module output power performance and energy production. Electroluminescence imaging technique was used to detect micro cracks affecting PV modules. The experiment was carried out on ten different PV modules installed at the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom. The examined PV modules which contain micro cracks shows large loss in the output power comparing with the theoretical output power predictions, where the maximum power loss is equal to 80.73%. LabVIEW software was used to simulate the theoretical output power of the examined PV modules under real time long term data measurements

Evaluation of the ‘Be Innovative’ Design and Electronic Engineering Challenge 2014 and Chinese students’ response

UK and global economies need innovative graduates with cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills. In order to promote innovation and creativity among Chinese students ‘Be Innovative!’, an electronic engineering and design themed educational challenge, was created by the British Council in China. Partnering for this project were six UK universities: University of Central Lancashire, Coventry University, University of Huddersfield, Kingston University, Royal College of Art and Sheffield Hallam University. Additional partners included the National Institute of Education Sciences and a media partner YouKu.com. http://bcchallenge2014.wix.com/beinnovative The 2014 Challenge focused on interdisciplinary practices between electronic engineering and design. It aimed to encourage the development of independent research, problem-solving, teamwork and project management skills amongst Chinese students, while simultaneously fostering recognition of the UK as an excellent provider of interdisciplinary education. The objectives were to: • Give Chinese students a chance to experience the innovative and exciting nature of UK education, • Promote the UK as a top study destination in a creative and interactive way, • Demonstrate the academic and research excellence of UK universities, and • Interact with Chinese schools and universities to nurture strategic partnerships. The Challenge was issued to Chinese Middle Schools and Universities in April 2014. Interdisciplinary teams were asked to combine innovative elements of electronic engineering and design to develop proposals for future products that would support people's wellbeing. The response was excellent: 189 teams from 19 middle schools and 66 teams from 26 universities successfully registered. Over 1000 participants from 16 cities entered the competition, and more than 3000 students from 5 middle schools attended promotional presentations. 416, 381 public votes were received for uploaded videos produced by participating teams during the preliminary stage (15 July – 18 Aug 2014). The best 50 teams from middle schools and 30 teams from universities qualified for the second, online stage (September-October 2014), when the teams worked closely with UK academics and postgraduates to further develop their ideas. Ten teams were selected by the UK staff and by Chinese voting public to compete in the “Be Innovative” final in Beijing on 29 November 2014, streamed live to millions of Chinese viewers http://edu.163.com/special/liuxue/beinnovative.html. The winning teams will visit UK partner universities in 2015. This presentation will take the form of a brief overview of the ‘Be Innovative’ Challenge by staff from three of the UK institutions involved, followed by an interactive Q&A session where a number of research questions arising from the experience will be addressed, including: • What are the main challenges in running international projects at this scale? • What are the limitations of Virtual Learning Environments (in this case OpenMoodle) in encouraging interaction with overseas students, and what are the implication for (long) distance learning? • To what extent does the success of such interdisciplinary initiatives rely on academic goodwill and close collaboration between partners? • The project relied heavily on the experience of UK partners involved in earlier incarnations of similar international interdisciplinary projects between Design and Science. To what extent does the nature of the disciplines involved change the interdisciplinary experience? • Do the same differences and similarities between disciplines occurring in the UK appear on a global platform? • How can the learning from this initiative be applied to different interdisciplinary projects currently taking place in the UK institutions involved

iCurate: A Research Data Management System

Scientific research activities generate a large amount of data, which varies in format, volume, structure and ownership. Although there are revision control systems and databases developed for data archiving, the traditional data management methods are not suitable for High Performance Computing (HPC) systems. The files in such systems do not have semantic annotations and cannot be archived and managed for public dissemination. We have proposed and developed a Research Data Management (RDM)system, iCurate', which provides easy-to-use RDM facilities with semantic annotations. The system incorporates Metadata Retrieval, Departmental Archiving, Workflow Management System, Meta data Validation and Self Inferencing. The `i' emphasises the user-oriented design. iCurate will support researchers by annotating their data in a clearer and machine readable way from its production to publication for the future reus

Comparison of Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms for FM-TV Broadcasting Antenna Array Null Filling

Broadcasting antenna array null filling is a very challenging problem for antenna design optimization. This paper compares five antenna design optimization algorithms (Differential Evolution, Particle Swarm, Taguchi, Invasive Weed, Adaptive Invasive Weed) as solutions to the antenna array null filling problem. The algorithms compared are evolutionary algorithms which use mechanisms inspired by biological evolution, such as reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. The focus of the comparison is given to the algorithm with the best results, nevertheless, it becomes obvious that the algorithm which produces the best fitness (Invasive Weed Optimization) requires very substantial computational resources due to its random search nature

An Algorithmic Approach for Signal Measurement Using Symbolic Dynamics of Tent Map

Abstract: The symbolic time series generated by a unimodal chaotic map starting from any initial condition creates a binary sequence that contains information about the initial condition. A binary sequence of a given length generated this way has a one-to-one correspondence with a given range of the input signal. This can be used to construct analogue to digital converters (ADC). However, in actual circuit realizations, component imperfections and ambient noise result in deviations in the map function from the ideal, which, in turn, can cause significant error in signal measurement. In this paper, we propose the ways of circumventing these problems through an algorithmic procedure that takes into account the non-idealities. The most common form of non-ideality--reduction in the height of the map function--alters the partitions that correspond to each symbolic sequence. We show that it is possible to define the partitions correctly if the height of the map function is known. We also propose a method to estimate this height from the symbolic sequence obtained. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm with simulation as well as experiment. With this development, practical ADCs utilizing chaotic dynamics may become reality

Solar cells micro crack detection technique using state-of-the-art electroluminescence imaging

In this article, we present the development of a novel technique that is used to enhance the detection of micro cracks in solar cells. Initially, the output image of a conventional electroluminescence (EL) system is determined and reprocessed using the binary and discreet Fourier transform (DFT) image processing models. The binary image is used to enhance the detection of the cracks size, position and orientation, principally using the geometric properties of the EL image. On the other hand, the DFT has been used to analyse the EL image in a two-dimensional spectrum. The output image of the DFT consists of structures of all required frequencies, thus improving the detection of possible cracks present in the solar cell. As a result, the developed technique improves the detection of micro cracks in solar cells compared to conventional EL output images

Software Sustainability: The Modern Tower of Babel

<p>The aim of this paper is to explore the emerging definitions of software sustainability from the field of software engineering in order to contribute to the question, what is software sustainability?</p