Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) have brought potentially game-changing opportunities in accelerating reactive flow simulations. In this study, we introduce an open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework that integrates the strengths of machine learning (ML) and graphics processing unit (GPU) to demonstrate their combined capability. Within this framework, all computational operations are solely executed on GPU, including ML-accelerated chemistry integration, fully-implicit solving of PDEs, and computation of thermal and transport properties, thereby eliminating the CPU-GPU memory copy overhead. Optimisations both within the kernel functions and during the kernel launch process are conducted to enhance computational performance. Strategies such as static data reorganisation and dynamic data allocation are adopted to reduce the GPU memory footprint. The computational performance is evaluated in two turbulent flame benchmarks using quasi-DNS and LES modelling, respectively. Remarkably, while maintaining a similar level of accuracy to the conventional CPU/CVODE-based solver, the GPU/ML-accelerated approach shows an overall speedup of over two orders of magnitude for both cases. This result highlights that high-fidelity turbulent combustion simulation with finite-rate chemistry that requires normally hundreds of CPUs can now be performed on portable devices such as laptops with a medium-end GPU.
The stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA) and the corresponding Monte Carlo (MC) method are among the most common approaches for studying stochastic processes. They rely on knowledge of interevent probability density functions (PDFs) and on information about dependencies between all possible events. Analytical representations of a PDF are difficult to specify in advance, in many real life applications. Knowing the shapes of PDFs, and using experimental data, different optimization schemes can be applied in order to evaluate probability density functions and, therefore, the properties of the studied system. Such methods, however, are computationally demanding, and often not feasible. We show that, in the case where experimentally accessed properties are directly related to the frequencies of events involved, it may be possible to replace the heavy Monte Carlo core of optimization schemes with an analytical solution. Such a replacement not only provides a more accurate estimation of the properties of the process, but also reduces the simulation time by a factor of order of the sample size (at least $\approx 10^4$). The proposed analytical approach is valid for any choice of PDF. The accuracy, computational efficiency, and advantages of the method over MC procedures are demonstrated in the exactly solvable case and in the evaluation of branching fractions in controlled radical polymerization (CRP) of acrylic monomers. This polymerization can be modeled by a constrained stochastic process. Constrained systems are quite common, and this makes the method useful for various applications.
Multi-product formulas (MPF) are linear combinations of Trotter circuits offering high-quality simulation of Hamiltonian time evolution with fewer Trotter steps. Here we report two contributions aimed at making multi-product formulas more viable for near-term quantum simulations. First, we extend the theory of Trotter error with commutator scaling developed by Childs, Su, Tran et al. to multi-product formulas. Our result implies that multi-product formulas can achieve a quadratic reduction of Trotter error in 1-norm (nuclear norm) on arbitrary time intervals compared with the regular product formulas without increasing the required circuit depth or qubit connectivity. The number of circuit repetitions grows only by a constant factor. Second, we introduce dynamic multi-product formulas with time-dependent coefficients chosen to minimize a certain efficiently computable proxy for the Trotter error. We use a minimax estimation method to make dynamic multi-product formulas robust to uncertainty from algorithmic errors, sampling and hardware noise. We call this method Minimax MPF and we provide a rigorous bound on its error.
Many products in engineering are highly reliable with large mean lifetimes to failure. Performing lifetests under normal operations conditions would thus require long experimentation times and high experimentation costs. Alternatively, accelerated lifetests shorten the experimentation time by running the tests at higher than normal stress conditions, thus inducing more failures. Additionally, a log-linear regression model can be used to relate the lifetime distribution of the product to the level of stress it experiences. After estimating the parameters of this relationship, results can be extrapolated to normal operating conditions. On the other hand, censored data is common in reliability analysis. Interval-censored data arise when continuous inspection is difficult or infeasible due to technical or budgetary constraints. In this paper, we develop robust restricted estimators based on the density power divergence for step-stress accelerated life-tests under Weibull distributions with interval-censored data. We present theoretical asymptotic properties of the estimators and develop robust Rao-type test statistics based on the proposed robust estimators for testing composite null hypothesis on the model parameters.
We present a family of policies that, integrated within a runtime task scheduler (Nanox), pursue the goal of improving the energy efficiency of task-parallel executions with no intervention from the programmer. The proposed policies tackle the problem by modifying the core operating frequency via DVFS mechanisms, or by enabling/disabling the mapping of tasks to specific cores at selected execution points, depending on the internal status of the scheduler. Experimental results on an asymmetric SoC (Exynos 5422) and for a specific operation (Cholesky factorization) reveal gains up to 29% in terms of energy efficiency and considerable reductions in average power.
The comparison of frequency distributions is a common statistical task with broad applications and a long history of methodological development. However, existing measures do not quantify the magnitude and direction by which one distribution is shifted relative to another. In the present study, we define distributional shift (DS) as the concentration of frequencies away from the greatest discrete class, e.g., a histogram's right-most bin. We derive a measure of DS based on the sum of cumulative frequencies, intuitively quantifying shift as a statistical moment. We then define relative distributional shift (RDS) as the difference in DS between distributions. Using simulated random sampling, we demonstrate that RDS is highly related to measures that are popularly used to compare frequency distributions. Focusing on a specific use case, i.e., simulated healthcare Evaluation and Management coding profiles, we show how RDS can be used to examine many pairs of empirical and expected distributions via shift-significance plots. In comparison to other measures, RDS has the unique advantage of being a signed (directional) measure based on a simple difference in an intuitive property.
We introduce a method for computing immediately human interpretable yet accurate classifiers from tabular data. The classifiers obtained are short DNF-formulas, computed via first discretizing the original data to Boolean form and then using feature selection coupled with a very fast algorithm for producing the best possible Boolean classifier for the setting. We demonstrate the approach via 14 experiments, obtaining results with accuracies mainly similar to ones obtained via random forests, XGBoost, and existing results for the same datasets in the literature. In several cases, our approach in fact outperforms the reference results in relation to accuracy, even though the main objective of our study is the immediate interpretability of our classifiers. We also prove a new result on the probability that the classifier we obtain from real-life data corresponds to the ideally best classifier with respect to the background distribution the data comes from.
We perform a quantitative assessment of different strategies to compute the contribution due to surface tension in incompressible two-phase flows using a conservative level set (CLS) method. More specifically, we compare classical approaches, such as the direct computation of the curvature from the level set or the Laplace-Beltrami operator, with an evolution equation for the mean curvature recently proposed in literature. We consider the test case of a static bubble, for which an exact solution for the pressure jump across the interface is available, and the test case of an oscillating bubble, showing pros and cons of the different approaches.
We consider nonparametric Bayesian inference in a multidimensional diffusion model with reflecting boundary conditions based on discrete high-frequency observations. We prove a general posterior contraction rate theorem in $L^2$-loss, which is applied to Gaussian priors. The resulting posteriors, as well as their posterior means, are shown to converge to the ground truth at the minimax optimal rate over H\"older smoothness classes in any dimension. Of independent interest and as part of our proofs, we show that certain frequentist penalized least squares estimators are also minimax optimal.
This study introduces a novel machine learning framework, integrating domain knowledge, to accurately predict the bearing capacity of CFSTs, bridging the gap between traditional engineering and machine learning techniques. Utilizing a comprehensive database of 2621 experimental data points on CFSTs, we developed a Domain Knowledge Enhanced Neural Network (DKNN) model. This model incorporates advanced feature engineering techniques, including Pearson correlation, XGBoost, and Random tree algorithms. The DKNN model demonstrated a marked improvement in prediction accuracy, with a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) reduction of over 50% compared to existing models. Its robustness was confirmed through extensive performance assessments, maintaining high accuracy even in noisy environments. Furthermore, sensitivity and SHAP analysis were conducted to assess the contribution of each effective parameter to axial load capacity and propose design recommendations for the diameter of cross-section, material strength range and material combination. This research advances CFST predictive modelling, showcasing the potential of integrating machine learning with domain expertise in structural engineering. The DKNN model sets a new benchmark for accuracy and reliability in the field.
Artificial neural networks thrive in solving the classification problem for a particular rigid task, acquiring knowledge through generalized learning behaviour from a distinct training phase. The resulting network resembles a static entity of knowledge, with endeavours to extend this knowledge without targeting the original task resulting in a catastrophic forgetting. Continual learning shifts this paradigm towards networks that can continually accumulate knowledge over different tasks without the need to retrain from scratch. We focus on task incremental classification, where tasks arrive sequentially and are delineated by clear boundaries. Our main contributions concern 1) a taxonomy and extensive overview of the state-of-the-art, 2) a novel framework to continually determine the stability-plasticity trade-off of the continual learner, 3) a comprehensive experimental comparison of 11 state-of-the-art continual learning methods and 4 baselines. We empirically scrutinize method strengths and weaknesses on three benchmarks, considering Tiny Imagenet and large-scale unbalanced iNaturalist and a sequence of recognition datasets. We study the influence of model capacity, weight decay and dropout regularization, and the order in which the tasks are presented, and qualitatively compare methods in terms of required memory, computation time, and storage.