Irregular computations on heterogeneous multi-core architectures

异构多核架构上的不规则计算

• 批准号: 239741-2011
• 负责人: Thulasiraman, Parimala
• 金额: $ 1.02万
• 依托单位: University of Manitoba
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2013-01-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=524629
• 关键词: Irregular; computations; heterogeneous; multi; core

Parallel computing involves using many computers to solve a given problem fast and cooperatively. Problems in medicine, transportation networks and finance produce significant amounts of data that require processing of the information in real-time. Parallel computing becomes fundamental for these applications. These days, general-purpose computers (PC) come with not one CPU (central processing unit or processor) but with 2, 4 or 8 identical processors (or cores), allowing simultaneous execution of many tasks. Recently, graphical processing units (GPUs) have become mainstream in applications such as games, video, and multimedia. There are more than hundreds of processing elements on a single GPU providing lots of data parallelism (for example, each pixel on the video screen can be processed independently). These GPUs come as a single chip and can be installed on any PC. CPU together with GPUs provide massive amount of parallelism and are called multi-core machines. Play Station (PS3) is a typical example of a multi-core machine. The question one asks is what are we going to do with these powerful computers and what applications besides games can be programmed on these machines? One of the applications this research concentrates on is medical imaging. Determining the internal structure of an organism, with sufficient detail to yield diagnostic information of a patient, is a first step before administering any procedure. Medical imaging is the process by which physicians evaluate an area of the patient's body that is not normally visible. There are many imaging techniques. This research focuses on computed tomography and emerging microwave tomography techniques for breast cancer detection. The images in any of the imaging techniques require large amounts of storage space and need to be processed fast to make real-time decisions on the patient. Therefore, the focus of this proposed research will be on the design and performance evaluation of sophisticated algorithms on multi-cores for problems in medical imaging techniques. This research will also focus on computational issues in using the powerful computers for problems in transportation network and finance.

并行计算涉及使用多台计算机快速协作地解决给定问题。医学、交通网络和金融领域的问题产生了大量的数据，这些数据需要实时处理。并行计算成为这些应用程序的基础。如今，通用计算机（PC）不是只有一个CPU（中央处理器），而是有2个、4个或8个相同的处理器（或核心），允许同时执行许多任务。近年来，图形处理器（graphics processing unit, gpu）在游戏、视频、多媒体等应用领域已成为主流。在单个GPU上有超过数百个处理元素，提供了大量的数据并行性（例如，视频屏幕上的每个像素都可以独立处理）。这些gpu是一个单芯片，可以安装在任何个人电脑上。CPU和gpu一起提供了大量的并行性，被称为多核机器。playstation （PS3）是多核机器的典型例子。有人会问，我们要用这些强大的电脑做什么，除了游戏之外，这些机器上还可以编写什么应用程序？这项研究的应用重点之一是医学成像。在进行任何手术之前，确定生物体的内部结构，并提供足够的细节以获得患者的诊断信息是第一步。医学成像是医生评估病人身体正常情况下不可见区域的过程。有很多成像技术。本研究的重点是计算机断层扫描和新兴的微波断层扫描技术用于乳腺癌检测。任何成像技术中的图像都需要大量的存储空间，并且需要快速处理以对患者做出实时决策。因此，本研究的重点将放在多核复杂算法的设计和性能评估上，以解决医学成像技术中的问题。本研究亦将著重于利用强大的电脑解决交通网络及金融问题的计算问题。