Do you need faster/bigger simulations?

Thu May 28 11:39:29 EDT 1992

The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) encourages applications for
grants of supercomputing resources from researchers using neural
networks.  Our Cray YMP is running the NeuralShell, Aspirin and PlaNet
simulators.  The CM-2 (32k nodes) currently runs two neural network
simulators, one being a data-parallel version of the Mclelland and
Rumelhart PDP simulator.  These simulators are also available on the
256 node CM-5 installed at the PSC (currently without vector units).
Users can run their own simulation code or modify our simulators;
there is some support for porting code.

PSC is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation and there
is no explicit charge to U.S.-based academic researchers for use of
its facilities.  International collaboration is encouraged, but each
proposal must include a co-principal investigator from a U.S.
institution.  Both academic and industry researchers are encouraged to
apply.

The following numbers give an idea of the scale of experiment that can
be run using PSC resources.  The bottom line is that in a day one can
obtain results that would have required months on a workstation.  For
a large backpropagation network (200-200-200) the Cray simulators
reach approximately 20 million online connection-weight updates per
second (MCUPS) on a single CPU.  This is about 100 times the speed of
a DecStation 5000/120 and about 30 times the speed of an IBM 730 on
the same problem.  It could be increased by a factor of 8 if all of
the Cray YMP's 8 CPUS were dedicated to the task.  The McClelland &
Rumelhart simulator on the CM-2 achieves about 20 MCUPS (batch) using
8k processors or about 80 MCUPS using 32k processors.  The Zhang CM-2
backpropagation simulator has been benchmarked at about 150 MCUPS
using all 32k processors.  Current CM-5 performance is around 35 MCUPS
(batch) per 128-node partition for the McClelland & Rumelhart
simulator.  CM-5 performance should improve dramatically once vector
units are installed.

A service unit on the Cray YMP corresponds to approximately 40 minutes
of CPU time using 2 MW of memory; on the CM2 it is one hour's
exclusive use of 8k processors.  Grants of up to 100 service units are
awarded every two weeks; larger grants are awarded quarterly.
Descriptions of the types of grants available and the application form
can be obtained as described below.

NeuralShell, Aspirin and PlaNet run on various platforms including
workstations and are available by anonymous ftp as described below.
The McClelland & Rumelhart simulator is availible with their book
"Explorations in Parallel Distributed Processing", 1988.
Documentation outlining the facilities provided by each simulator is
included in the sources.  The suitability of the supercomputer version
of each simulator for different types of network sizes and topologies
is discussed briefly in PSC documentation that can be obtained by
anonymous ftp as described below.  It should be possible to develop a
neural network model on a workstation and later conduct full scale
testing on the PSC's supercomputers without substantial changes.

Instructions for how to use the anonymous ftp facility appear at the
end of this message.  Further inquiries concerning the Neural and
Connectionist Modeling program should be sent to Nigel Goddard at
ngoddard at psc.edu (Internet) or ngoddard at cpwpsca (Bitnet) or the
address below.

How to get PSC grant information and application materials
----------------------------------------------------------

A shortened form of the application materials in printer-ready
postscript can be obtained via anonymous ftp from ftp.psc.edu
(128.182.62.148).  The files are in "pub/grants".  The file INDEX
describes what is in each of the other files.  More detailed
descriptions of PSC facilities and services are only available
in hardcopy.  The basic document is the Facilities and Services
Guide.

Hardcopy materials can be requested from:

	grants at psc.edu
or
	(412) 268 4960       - ask for the Allocations Coordinator
or
	Allocations Coordinator
	Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
	4400 Fifth Avenue
	Pittsburgh, PA 15213

How to get Aspirin/MIGRAINES
----------------------------

The software is available from two FTP sites, CMU's simulator
collection (pt.cs.cmu.edu or 128.2.254.155 in directory
/afs/cs/project/connect/code) and from UCLA's cognitive science machines
(polaris.cognet.ucla.edu or 128.97.50.3 in directory "alexis").
The compressed tar file is a little less than 2 megabytes and is
called "am5.tar.Z".

How to get PlaNet
-----------------

The software is availible from FTP site boulder.colorado.edu
(128.138.240.1) in directory "pub/generic-sources", filename
PlaNet.5.6.tar.Z

How to get NeuralShell
----------------------

The software is availible from FTP site quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu
(128.146.35.1) in directory "pub/NeuralShell", filename
"NeuralShell.tar".

Generic Anonymous FTP instructions.
------------------------------------

1. Create an FTP connection to the ftp server.  For example, you
   would connect to the PSC ftp server "ftp.psc.edu" (128.182.62.148)
   with the command "ftp ftp.psc.edu" or "ftp 128.182.62.148".

2. Log in as user "anonymous" with password your username at your-site.

3. Change to the requisite directory, usually /pub/somedir, by
   typing the command "cd pub/somedir"

4. Set binary mode by typing the command "binary"  ** THIS IS IMPORTANT **

5. Optionally look around by typing the command "ls".

6. Get the files you want using the command "get filename" or
   "mget *" if you want to get all the files.

7. Terminate the ftp connection using the command "quit".

8. If the file ends in .Z, uncompress it with the command
   "uncompress filename.Z" or "zcat filename.Z > filename".
   This uncompresses the file and removes the .Z from the filename

9. If the files end in .tar, extract the tar'ed files with
   the command "tar xvf filename.tar".

10. If a file ends in .ps, you can print it on a Postscript printer
    using the command "lpr -s -Pprintername filename.ps"