Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Multiple Objective Task Scheduling
for Scalable High Performance Computing

Tyler A. Simon

12:30-2:30 Friday, 8 November 2013, ITE 325b

Individual processor frequencies have reached an upper physical and practical limit. Processor designs now involve adding multiple processing elements to a single chip to enable increased performance. It is expected that all future processor designs will have multiple cores with a focus on reducing frequencies and adding more individual processing elements (cores) while having to balance power consumption, reliability and maintain high performance.

Due to the increased complexity as well as increased heterogeneity of parallel architectures, petascale and future exascale systems, with the number of processors on the order of 10^8-10^9, must incorporate more intelligent software tools that help manage parallel execution for the user. I demonstrate that by managing the parallel execution environment at runtime, we can satisfy performance tradeoffs for a particular application or application domain for a set of common HPC architectures. It is expected that future exascale computing systems will have to execute programs on many individual and potentially low powered processing elements. These processors need to be fed data efficiently and reliably through the duration of a parallel computation.

In this thesis I provide a performance analysis of two common graph algorithms for finding a minimum spanning tree and evaluate the multicore performance of a common high performance computing (HPC) benchmark on multicore processors. I also develop a novel autonomic execution model and adaptive runtime system (ARRIA) Adaptive Runtime Resource for Intensive Applications. ARRIA is designed with the intent of improving application programmability, scalability and performance while freeing the programmer from explicit message passing and thread management. Experiments are conducted that evaluate ARRIA’s capabilities on data intensive applications, those where the majority of execution time is spent reading and writing either to local or remote memory locations. In my approach, I focus on developing task schedules that satisfy multiple objectives for clusters of compute nodes during runtime. This approach is novel in that it can control application performance and satisfy constraints that are solved using multi objective optimization techniques as the program runs. The development and implementation of the ARRIA runtime system and subsequent optimization criteria likely provide reasonable models for the exascale computing era.

The results of this dissertation demonstrate, experimentally, that for high performance computing systems, a dynamic, task based, parallel programming environment and scheduler can provide lower total workload runtimes and high utilization compared with commonly used static scheduling policies.

Story from: http://www.youtern.com/thesavvyintern/index.php/2011/10/04/5-steps-to-improve-your-online-profile-get-noticed/

5 Steps To Improve Your Online Profile & Get Noticed

While the good old resume is in no danger of disappearing, you’d better have your online profiles in shape.

Something like 80% of all employers check you out online when you apply for a job. Assuming that you’re smart enough to have tailored your Facebook profile during the job hunt, you need tofocus on the things that will get you noticed, examined and hired.

While it used to be true that LinkedIn was THE place to host your professional profile, upstarts like BeKnown (from Monster) are making headway in the social job hunt. You’ll want to test out the new sites by building a profile and watching the results. It’s worth noting that the newer entrants have more reason to work for your success. After all, like you, they are trying to make a name for themselves.

When you post a profile or resume somewhere, you only have one goal: to get noticed by the right recruiter for the right job. Once your resume is on the list, it needs to grab the recruiter’s attention with data points that highlight your success and effectiveness in jobs like the one you want. Your profile needs to scream “Pick me! pick me! pick me! Hey, look over here and pick me.”

Here are five steps to improve your profile to get the attention you want.

• Study the descriptions of jobs you’d like to have. Read the job descriptions and learn the jargon. Print out 20. Prioritize them (from 1 to 20) by the degree of their appeal to you. Go over them line by line with the person who is your job hunt sounding board. Be able to explain why you prefer one over the other.

• Now that you have a very clear picture of which words recruiters are using to define the jobs you want, make a list of the 30 most commonly used words in those job descriptions.This is a critical step. These are the words that recruiters are searching for when you want them to find you.

• With the list in hand, rewrite your profile to make sure that you use each of those keywords at least 3 times in your profile. Be careful to make sure that your language flows gracefully. If it appears that you’ve simply stuffed the profile with key words, you are going to get ignored.

• Look for services that use your profile to match you to jobs. See if your profile matches you to the jobs you want. If it doesn’t, tweak it and watch what happens. The best profiles are tested and retested and you learn about what the market is currently offering.

• Be extremely attentive to your current job title and job description. What matters is how the recruiter will think about it, not how you, your boss or your colleagues think about it. Search LinkedIn for people with the same job title and look to see how they’ve described their job and experience. Many companies, maybe even most, have unique and idiosyncratic names for their jobs. The closer yours is to what they’re looking for, the better off you are.

The profile is here to stay. You have to manage it like it was a new puppy. By paying attention to the grooming and feeding of your online profiles, you can increase the chances of finding the job you want.

Story from: http://www.youtern.com/thesavvyintern/index.php/2011/10/04/5-steps-to-improve-your-online-profile-get-noticed/

5 Steps To Improve Your Online Profile & Get Noticed

While the good old resume is in no danger of disappearing, you’d better have your online profiles in shape.

Something like 80% of all employers check you out online when you apply for a job. Assuming that you’re smart enough to have tailored your Facebook profile during the job hunt, you need tofocus on the things that will get you noticed, examined and hired.

While it used to be true that LinkedIn was THE place to host your professional profile, upstarts like BeKnown (from Monster) are making headway in the social job hunt. You’ll want to test out the new sites by building a profile and watching the results. It’s worth noting that the newer entrants have more reason to work for your success. After all, like you, they are trying to make a name for themselves.

When you post a profile or resume somewhere, you only have one goal: to get noticed by the right recruiter for the right job. Once your resume is on the list, it needs to grab the recruiter’s attention with data points that highlight your success and effectiveness in jobs like the one you want. Your profile needs to scream “Pick me! pick me! pick me! Hey, look over here and pick me.”

Here are five steps to improve your profile to get the attention you want.

• Study the descriptions of jobs you’d like to have. Read the job descriptions and learn the jargon. Print out 20. Prioritize them (from 1 to 20) by the degree of their appeal to you. Go over them line by line with the person who is your job hunt sounding board. Be able to explain why you prefer one over the other.

• Now that you have a very clear picture of which words recruiters are using to define the jobs you want, make a list of the 30 most commonly used words in those job descriptions.This is a critical step. These are the words that recruiters are searching for when you want them to find you.

• With the list in hand, rewrite your profile to make sure that you use each of those keywords at least 3 times in your profile. Be careful to make sure that your language flows gracefully. If it appears that you’ve simply stuffed the profile with key words, you are going to get ignored.

• Look for services that use your profile to match you to jobs. See if your profile matches you to the jobs you want. If it doesn’t, tweak it and watch what happens. The best profiles are tested and retested and you learn about what the market is currently offering.

• Be extremely attentive to your current job title and job description. What matters is how the recruiter will think about it, not how you, your boss or your colleagues think about it. Search LinkedIn for people with the same job title and look to see how they’ve described their job and experience. Many companies, maybe even most, have unique and idiosyncratic names for their jobs. The closer yours is to what they’re looking for, the better off you are.

The profile is here to stay. You have to manage it like it was a new puppy. By paying attention to the grooming and feeding of your online profiles, you can increase the chances of finding the job you want.

The DOE Scholars Program offers unique opportunities that introduce students or post-graduates to the agency’s mission and operations. Participants in the DOE Scholars Program gain a competitive edge as they apply their education, talent and skills in a variety of scientific research settings within the DOE complex. Appointments are available in a variety of disciplines at participating DOE facilities nationwide.

Being selected as a DOE Scholar offers the following benefits:

• Career possibilities with the nation’s leading sponsor for scientific research
• Opportunities to learn from top scientists and subject matter experts
• Stipends of up to $650 per week (depending on academic status)
• Travel arrangements to and from appointment site

Applicants must be US Citizens and undergraduates, graduates or post-graduates of an accredited college or university.  The program is open to majors in: Engineering; Physical Sciences; Environmental Sciences; Computer Science and Information Technology; Physics; Business; Policy; Program Management; Mathematics; Statistics; Safety and Health; Accounting and Finance; Law; Communications; and other related areas.

Want to learn more about the DOE Scholars program? E-mail doescholars@orise.orau.gov or visit website.