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Tools and techniques for locating and steering parallel simulations through bifurcation points

Bennett, Daniel M.

Abstract Details

2010, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Computer Science.

This dissertation involved two distinct, yet complementary goals. The primary focus is on steering parallel computations, and, in particular, on providing tools to simplify the task of creating user interfaces, when employing a steering and visualization package. We then apply these tools to create a complex customized interface which enables a user to detect, classify, and steer a sample parallel simulation of liquid crystal materials through a bifurcation point.

Steering and visualization (STV) packages such as CUMULVS have been developed to allow user interaction with parallel programs. These packages tend to concentrate on data extraction and transportation, but ignore the problem of allowing scientists to easily build customized user interfaces to perform the actual steering. We believe that customized user interfaces are essential for monitoring and steering any complex computation, and that any STV environment should be accompanied by a set of tools which allow users to construct such an interface without detailed knowledge of the STV library.

The principle result of this work is the creation of such a set of tools. These include a toolkit to simplify common tasks, when constructing such a user interface; a library of objects, which combine graphical display of data with the ability to steer that data; and a generic user interface framework, which requires minimal customization to deploy. The use, and usefulness of each of these tools is demonstrated by producing interfaces for a number of parallel numerical simulations. The utility of these tools for a large scale application is ultimately demonstrated by creating a complex custom interface to steer a large three dimensional parallel numerical simulation through the process of locating, classifying and following distinct paths out of a bifurcation point.

The implementation of this latter application required the development further software. In particular, locating bifurcation points in the class of problems under investigation involves determining the geometric multiplicity of the minimum eigenvalue of the Jacobian as that eigenvalue approaches zero. To accomplish this, a parallel library, PCIRBLEIGS, was created. This library, based upon the irbleigs algorithm, can determine a few eigenvalues of a large, sparse, symmetric, Hermitian matrix distributed across multiple processes. This library is presented along with several examples and performance information.

Paul A. Farrell, PhD (Advisor)
Arden G. Ruttan, PhD (Advisor)
Johnnie W. Baker, PhD (Committee Member)
John J. Portman, PhD (Committee Member)
Lothar Reichel, PhD (Committee Member)
223 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bennett, D. M. (2010). Tools and techniques for locating and steering parallel simulations through bifurcation points [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1290788730

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bennett, Daniel. Tools and techniques for locating and steering parallel simulations through bifurcation points. 2010. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1290788730.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bennett, Daniel. "Tools and techniques for locating and steering parallel simulations through bifurcation points." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1290788730

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)