The ATLAS experiment software on ARM

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run 3 of the LHC at CERN and the even larger expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the ATLAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data processing model in terms of traditional CPU resources based on x86_64 architectures and an extensive program for software upgrades towards the HL-LHC has been set up. The ARM architecture is becoming a competitive and energy efficient alternative. Some surveys indicate its increased presence in HPCs and commercial clouds, and some WLCG sites have expressed their interest. Chip makers are also developing their next generation solutions on ARM architectures, sometimes combining ARM and GPU processors in the same chip. Consequently it is important that the ATLAS software embraces the change and is able to successfully exploit this architecture. We report on the successful porting to ARM of the Athena software framework, which is used by ATLAS for both online and offline computing operations. Furthermore we report on the successful validation of simulation workflows running on ARM resources. For this we have set up an ATLAS Grid site using ARM compatible middleware and containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ARM resources. The ARM version of Athena is fully integrated in the regular software build system and distributed in the same way as other software releases. In addition, the workflows have been integrated into the HEPscore benchmark suite which is the planned WLCG wide replacement of the HepSpec06 benchmark used for Grid site pledges. In the overall porting process we have used resources on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and CERN. A performance comparison of different architectures and resources will be discussed

Cy Twombly. Bild, Text, Paratext

Die Bildwerke des US-amerikanischen Künstlers Cy Twombly (1928–2011) gelten als hermetisch und schwer zugänglich. Bleistiftgekritzel, Farbballungen, taumelnde Linien, einander überlagernde Farbschichten und Einschreibungen, geometrische Figuren, Zahlen, Zahlenreihen, Wörter, Zitatfragmente und rätselhafte Bildtitel stellen Forscher wie Betrachter vor ganz besondere Herausforderungen. Gemäß der interdisziplinär-transkulturellen Forschungsmethode des Internationalen Kollegs Morphomata an der Universität zu Köln versammelte im Juni 2012 ein Kongress neben Kunsthistorikern auch namhafte Fachleute aus den Bereichen Ägyptologie, Archäologie, Germanistik, Gräzistik, Anglistik, Japanologie und Romanistik, d.h. all jenen Fachgebieten und Kulturkreisen, die eine Inspirationsquelle für das OEuvre Cy Twomblys darstellten. Befragen diese den Bezug zwischen Werktitel, Werk und eingeschriebenen Zitaten, so legen führende Vertreter der Twomblyforschung den Fokus auf Bildsprache und Schriftbildlichkeit bei Cy Twombly. Durch umfassende Deutungen berühmter Einzelwerke und Werkgruppen in sämtlichen von Twombly angewandten künstlerischen Medien erschließt der Band in einem fächerübergreifenden Blick einen Zugang zur assoziativ-referentiellen Bildsprache Cy Twomblys

Cy Twombly. Image, Text, Paratext

The artworks of the US artist Cy Twombly (1928–2011) are considered to be hermetic and inaccessible. Pencil scribblings, explosions of paint, tumbling lines, overlapping layers of color, and inscriptions, geometrical figures, numerals, rows of numbers, words, fragments of quotations, and enigmatic work-titles present very special challenges to both researchers and viewers. In the interdisciplinary and transcultural research method of the Morphomata International Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Cologne, a conference was held in June 2012 that brought art historians together with renowned scholars of Egyptology, Archaeology, German, Greek, English, Japanese, and the Romance languages, i.e. all the fields and cultural spheres that were a source of inspiration for the œuvre of Cy Twombly. While these scholars inquire into the relation between title, work, and inscribed quotations, leading representatives of research on Twombly focus on the visual language and scriptural-imagistic quality of Cy Twombly’s work. Through comprehensive interpretations of famous single works and groups in all the artistic media employed by Twombly, the volume’s cross-disciplinary view opens up a route into the associative-referential visual language of Cy Twombly

Practical whole-system provenance capture

Data provenance describes how data came to be in its present form. It includes data sources and the transformations that have been applied to them. Data provenance has many uses, from forensics and security to aiding the reproducibility of scientific experiments. We present CamFlow, a whole-system provenance capture mechanism that integrates easily into a PaaS offering. While there have been several prior whole-system provenance systems that captured a comprehensive, systemic and ubiquitous record of a system’s behavior, none have been widely adopted. They either A) impose too much overhead, B) are designed for long-outdated kernel releases and are hard to port to current systems, C) generate too much data, or D) are designed for a single system. CamFlow addresses these shortcoming by: 1) leveraging the latest kernel design advances to achieve efficiency; 2) using a self-contained, easily maintainable implementation relying on a Linux Security Module, NetFilter, and other existing kernel facilities; 3) providing a mechanism to tailor the captured provenance data to the needs of the application; and 4) making it easy to integrate provenance across distributed systems. The provenance we capture is streamed and consumed by tenant-built auditor applications. We illustrate the usability of our implementation by describing three such applications: demonstrating compliance with data regulations; performing fault/intrusion detection; and implementing data loss prevention. We also show how CamFlow can be leveraged to capture meaningful provenance without modifying existing applications.Engineering and Applied Science

An Evolutionary Approach to Multilaterally Secure Services

Data protection and data security become more significant since telecommunication services and innovative applications based on these services handle an increasing amount of sensitive data. Modern services, e.g. call forwarding, tele-conferencing, and voice mail services use or store personal data to implement individual services. Sensitive data include personal identities or calling numbers, location information of the communicating parties, service indicators, number translation tables, reachability information, and time and duration of communication events. Generally usable open security services interfaces are proposed, that promote security services implemented in user terminals or Trusted Third Parties in order to satisfy currently ignored and evolving security requirements in a more flexible and scalable way. This approach will both save the huge investments in today’s telecommunication infrastructure and promote open security services that are independent of the underlying network infrastructure.

Prima: policy-reduced integrity measurement architecture

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