Evaluating New Architectural Features Of The Intel(R) Xeon(R) 7500 Processor For Hpc Workloads

In this paper we take a look at what the Intel Xeon Processor 7500 family, code namedNehalem-EX, brings to high performance computing. We compare two families of Intel Xeonbased systems (Intel Xeon 7500 and Intel Xeon 5600) and present a performance evolutionof 16 node clusters based on these CPUs. We compare CPU generations utilizing dual socketplatforms and a cluster across a number of HPC benchmarks and focused on differentperformance field and aspect. We will evaluate also technologies and features like Intels HyperThreading Technology (HT) and Intel Turbo Boost Technology (Turbo Mode) and theperformance implication of these technologies for HPC

Are molecular target therapies limited by cardiotoxicity — causes and symptoms of cardiovascular damage

Since the introduction of new drugs, (commonly referred to as ‘Molecular Target Therapies’), into oncological clinical practice both the number of objective indicators/endpoints of achieved treatment response and cancer survival duration have increased. Nevertheless, the risk of cardiovascular complications has also risen. Optimistic reports on the relatively low cardiotoxicity of these drugs have been verified through experience. Routine clinical practice has witnessed growing numbers of new drug groups that have different molecular target points and also a varied cardiotoxicity.This paper presents the most important cardiovascular complications associated with the use of molecularly targeted drugs and includes their mechanisms of development

Are molecular target therapies limited by cardiotoxicity — causes and symptoms of cardiovascular damage

  Since the introduction of new drugs, (commonly referred to as ‘Molecular Target Therapies’), into oncological clinical practice both the number of objective indicators/endpoints of achieved treatment response and cancer survival duration have increased. Nevertheless, the risk of cardiovascular complications has also risen. Optimistic reports on the relatively low cardiotoxicity of these drugs have been verified through experience. Routine clinical practice has witnessed growing numbers of new drug groups that have different molecular target points and also a varied cardiotoxicity. This paper presents the most important cardiovascular complications associated with the use of molecularly targeted drugs and includes their mechanisms of development

Energy Consumption in a Distributional Warehouse: A Practical Case Study for Different Warehouse Technologies

Energy consumption by distribution warehouses has become an essential component of green warehousing and research on reducing the carbon footprint of supply chains. Energy consumption in warehousing is a complex and multilayered problem, which is generally considered in the literature in relation to its detailed components, not as part of comparative studies. In this article, the authors consider six cross-sectional variants of warehouse technology, from manual to fully automatic, and analyze the energy consumption of a warehouse in various configurations. A methodology for estimating storage space and determining energy consumption is proposed. The energy balance of the warehouse variants includes energy for material handling equipment operation, energy consumption for building maintenance (heating, cooling, lighting, etc.), and energy generated by the photovoltaic system on the roof. Then, the operational costs of the variants are estimated and, on their basis, an automation index is determined. The index allows for a comparative analysis of energy consumption and the mechanization and automation of a warehouse. It is shown that a significant part of the energy is spent on maintaining a warehouse building, especially in the case of facilities with a low degree of automation

Adaptation of AI-Accelerated CFD Simulations to the IPU Platform

Intelligence Processing Units (IPU) have proven useful for many AI applications. In this paper, we evaluate them within the emerging field of AI for simulation, where traditional numerical simulations are supported by artificial intelligence approaches. We focus specifically on a program for training machine learning models supporting a computational fluid dynamics application. We use custom TensorFlow provided by the Poplar SDK to adapt the program for the IPU-POD16 platform and investigate its ease of use and performance scalability. Training a model on data from OpenFOAM simulations allows us to get accurate simulation state predictions in test time. We show how to utilize the popdist library to overcome a performance bottleneck in feeding training data to the IPU on the host side, achieving up to 34{\%} speedup. Due to communication overheads, using data parallelism to utilize two IPUs instead of one does not improve the throughput. However, once the intra-IPU costs have been paid, the hardware capabilities for inter-IPU communication allow for good scalability. Increasing the number of IPUs from 2 to 16 improves the throughput from 560.8 to 2805.8 samples/s.The authors would like to thank Grzegorz Andrejczuk for his ideas and help with investigating data loading overheads. Big thanks to Charis Fisher for her support and valuable comments. Researcher Sergio Iserte was supported by the postdoctoral fellowship APOSTD/2020/026 from Valencian Region Government (GVA) and European Social Funds (ESF). CFD Simulations were executed on Tirant III cluster of the Servei d’Informàtica of the University of Valencia (UV).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Power Function Algorithms Implemented in Microcontrollers and FPGAs

The exponential function ax is widespread in many fields of science. Its calculation is a complicated issue for Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), as well as for specialised Digital Signal Processing (DSP) processors, such as Intelligent Processor Units (IPUs), for the needs of neural networks. This article presents some simple and accurate exponential function calculation algorithms in half, single, and double precision that can be prototyped in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). It should be noted that, for the approximation, the use of effective polynomials of the first degree was proposed in most cases. The characteristic feature of such algorithms is that they only contain fast ‘bithack’ operations (‘bit manipulation technique’) and Floating-Point (FP) addition, multiplication, and (if necessary) Fused Multiply-Add (FMA) operations. We published an article on algorithms for this class of function recently, but the focus was on the use of approximations of second-degree polynomials and higher, requiring two multiplications and two additions or more, which poses some complications in FPGA implementation. This article considers algorithms based on piecewise linear approximation, with one multiplication and one addition. Such algorithms of low complexity provide decent accuracy and speed, sufficient for practical applications such as accelerators for neural networks, power electronics, machine learning, computer vision, and intelligent robotic systems. These are FP-oriented algorithms; therefore, we briefly describe the characteristic parameters of such numbers

Original articleCauses of redo procedures in patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator – long-term follow-up results

Wstęp: Automatyczne kardiowertery-defibrylatory (ICD) są uznaną metodą leczenia chorych z wysokim ryzykiem nagłego zgonu sercowego. Coraz szersze wskazania do wszczepienia ICD wiążą się z rosnącą liczbą implantacji, a tym samym większym ryzykiem powikłań. Cel: Ocena częstości i przyczyn reoperacji u chorych z wszczepionym ICD obserwowanych przez co najmniej 4 lata. Metodyka: W latach 1995–2006 wszczepiono ICD u 598 chorych. Do badania włączono pacjentów obserwowanych minimum 4 lata. Analizowano wyłącznie zabiegi, które odbyły się później niż 6 tygodni po zabiegu wszczepienia ICD. Wyniki: Oceniono 174 chorych w średnim wieku 51,0±17,5 roku. Okres obserwacji wyniósł średnio 6±1,7 roku. Chorobę wieńcową (CAD) rozpoznano u 92 (52,8%) chorych, a u 82 (47,2%) niewieńcową kardiomiopatię (non-CAD). Kardiowertery- -defibrylatory wszczepiono w ramach profilaktyki pierwotnej u 11 (6,2%) chorych i u 163 (93,8%) chorych w ramach profilaktyki wtórnej. Zanotowano 10 zgonów: 6 (60%) w grupie CAD i 4 (40%) w non-CAD. Nie stwierdzono żadnego zgonu mogącego być wynikiem reoperacji lub też powikłań będących wskazaniem do zabiegu. Podczas obserwacji wykonano 211 reoperacji u 139 chorych. Przyczyną zabiegów były: wyczerpanie baterii urządzenia (136 zabiegów), uszkodzenie ICD (37), zakażenie układu (5), komplikacje związane z elektrodą (19), upgrade systemu do układu dwujamowego (5) lub resynchronizującego (3), rewizja loży (6). Problemy związane z elektrodą były przyczyną 19 reoperacji i zostały wykryte podczas rutynowej kontroli ICD. Uszkodzenie elektrody najczęściej objawiało się nieadekwatnymi wyładowaniami ICD (11 chorych). W pozostałych przypadkach przyczyną reoperacji był wzrost progu stymulacji (3 chorych), niezadowalające wartości impulsu własnego (3 chorych), stymulacja mięśnia piersiowego (1 chory), nieadekwatne wyładowania związane z nadczułością załamka T (1 chory). W jednym przypadku z powodu fabrycznego uszkodzenia kondensatorów, a w 9 ze względu na wyczerpanie baterii spowodowane nieadekwatnymi wyładowaniami, konieczna była – obok implantacji nowej elektrody – wymiana generatora ICD. Ponadto u 4 chorych w trakcie planowej wymiany ICD stwierdzono uszkodzenie osłonki elektrody (2 chorych) lub elektrody defibrylującej (2 chorych). Uszkodzenie elektrody częściej zdarzało się w układach jednojamowych 11 vs 4,3%, a dyslokacja w dwujamowych 8,6 vs 1,5%. U 4 chorych wystąpiły cechy infekcji loży ICD, a u jednego infekcyjne zapalenie wsierdzia; średnio po 3,7±1,8 roku. U 4 chorych usunięto układ łącznie z elektrodami, a następnie po 3-tygodniowej antybiotykoterapii implantowano nowy układ. U jednej pacjentki usunięto jedynie korpus urządzenia. Nowy układ wszczepiono po przeciwnej stronie. Przyczyną 6 rewizji loży po wszczepieniu ICD były: zagrażająca odleżyna (2 zabiegi), dyslokacja ICD (1) i przetoka (3). W pierwszych 3 przypadkach zmieniono lożę ICD. U pacjentów z przetoką skórną usunięto dotychczasowy układ, łącznie z elektrodami, a następnie implantowano ICD z nowymi elektrodami po stronie przeciwnej. U wszystkich chorych z przetoką uzyskane posiewy były jałowe. Uszkodzenie ICD było przyczyną 37 zabiegów i w większości przypadków było zgłaszane przez firmy produkujące te urządzenia. Wnioski: Reoperacje u chorych z ICD są częste. Najczęstszą przyczyną są niedoskonałości techniczne urządzeń. Poprawa technologii aparatów jest niezbędna, aby wydłużyć czas pracy ICD i zmniejszyć częstość zabiegów. Dokładna i systematyczna kontrola ICD w doświadczonych ośrodkach jest bardzo ważna dla bezpieczeństwa chorych i pozwala wcześnie wykryć nieprawidłowości funkcjonowania tych urządzeń.Background: Implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a well-established method to prevent sudden cardiac death (SCD). Due to the expanding indications for this type of treatment and increasing survival of these patients, the ICD population is growing rapidly. Aim: To assess the rate and causes of reoperations in patients with ICD over a long-term (at least 4 years) follow-up period. Methods: Between 1995 and 2006, an ICD was implanted in 598 patients. This study included all patients with a follow-up duration of at least 4 years and only those who underwent a repeat procedure later than 6 weeks after the index ICD implantation. Results: The study group consisted of 174 patients with a mean age of 51±18 years who were followed for a mean of 6±1.7 years. Coronary artery disease (CAD) was diagnosed in 92 (53%) patients, and non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy in 82 (47%) patients. Prophylactic ICD therapy was instituted in 11 (6%) patients, whereas 163 (94%) patients received ICD for secondary prophylactics. During the follow-up period, 10 deaths occurred: 6 of all deaths (60%) in patients with CAD and 4 of all deaths (40%) in the non--ischaemic group. A total of 211 redo procedures in 139 patients were performed. Indications for repeat procedures included battery depletion in 136 patients, ICD malfunction in 37 cases, infection related to the implanted system in 5 patients, problems with leads in 19 cases, an upgrade to the dual-chamber system in 5 or to the biventricular system in 3 patients, and the revision of an ICD pocket in 6 patients. Conclusions: Repeat procedures in ICD recipients are frequent. The most common cause is battery depletion and ICD replacement indicated by a manufacturer. Improvement in ICD technology is essential to increase ICD longevity and decrease the redo-procedure rates. Patients with ICD should be regularly followed in experienced centres in order to detect ICD system failure early