MICDE/RadLab/IEEE Seminar: Levent Gürel, ABAKUS Computing Technologies
2016-12-02 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Detroit) | 3427 EECS, 1301 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States
Bio: Prof. Levent Gürel (Fellow of IEEE, ACES, and EMA) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1988 and 1991, respectively, in electrical and computer engineering. He worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, in 1991-94. During his 20 years with Bilkent University, he served as the Founding Director of the Computational Electromagnetics Research Center (BiLCEM) and a professor of electrical engineering. He is also an Adjunct Professor at UIUC. Prof. Gürel is the Founder and CEO of ABAKUS Computing Technologies, a company that is geared towards advancing the use of cutting-edge computing technologies for solving difficult scientific problems with important real-life applications and societal benefits. He is conferred the UIUC ECE Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013 and the IEEE Harrington-Mittra Award in Computational Electromagnetics in 2015. He is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. He was invited to address the 2011 and 2017 ACES Conferences as a Plenary Speaker and a TEDx Conference in 2014. Among other recognitions of Prof. Gürel’s accomplishments, the two prestigious awards from the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA) in 2002 and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) in 2003 are the most notable. Since 2003, Prof. Gürel has been serving as an associate editor for Radio Science, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation, JEMWA, PIER, ACES Journal, and ACES Express.
Solution of Extremely Large Forward and Inverse Problems in Computational Electromagnetics: BIG DATA Aspects
As we solve some of the largest problems in the interdisciplinary domain of computational electromagnetics, we have to deal with various aspects of big-data issues routinely. Most recently, we have achieved the solutions of larger than 1,500,000,000×1,500,000,000 (1.5 billion!) dense matrix equations! This achievement is an outcome of a multidisciplinary effort involving physical understanding of electromagnetics problems, novel parallelization strategies (computer science), constructing parallel clusters (computer architecture), advanced mathematical methods for integral equations, fast solvers, iterative methods, preconditioners, linear algebra, and big data. Solving such large problems on a regular basis requires the generation, representation, storage, processing, analysis, transfer and communication, visualization and interpretation of extremely large data sets in the order of multiple terabytes.
Accurate formulations of real-life electromagnetics problems with integral equations necessitate the solution of extremely large dense matrix equations. Solutions of such tremendously challenging problems cannot be achieved easily, even when using the most powerful computers with state-of-the-art petascale computing capabilities. Instead, we have been solving some of the world’s largest integral-equation problems in computational electromagnetics by employing fast algorithms implemented on parallel computers. To achieve optimal management of multiple large data sets, we design and implement the handling of data in various levels of cache, memory, and disk, leading to meticulously designed out-of-core (OoC) schemes. That way, we enable the solution of unprecedentedly large problems with limited amounts of DRAM. In order to avoid decelerating the solution, we optimize communications among CPU cores, among processors, among nodes, from CPU to disk (and back), and in the case of heterogeneous architectures, we carefully control the data traffic to/from GPUs. Furthermore, we employ MPI and OpenMP simultaneously in a parallelization strategy designed to reduce data duplications among processes so that vast numbers of cores can be efficiently utilized without requiring extra memory.
I will present fast and accurate solutions of large-scale electromagnetic forward and inverse problems involving three-dimensional geometries that are larger than 1000 wavelengths using the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) and parallel MLFMA. Solving the world’s largest computational electromagnetics problems has important implications in terms of obtaining the solutions of future grand-challenge problems in imaging, (subsurface), optics, nanotechnology, bio-electromagnetics, metamaterials, remote sensing, as well as plethora of other disciplines of science, e.g., acoustics, elastics, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, molecular dynamics, electro-statics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics. For more information: http://captains.of.computing.technology/.

Claude E. Shannon Centennial Symposium
2016-09-16 08:00 - 19:00 (America/Detroit) | Rackham Building, 4th Floor, 915 E. Washington, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States
Claude E. Shannon was born in Petoskey, MI and grew up in Gaylord, MI. After graduating from the University of Michigan with degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1936, he went on to publish a series of papers that laid the foundation for modern information theory. The University of Michigan is celebrating the 100th birthday of Claude E. Shannon, widely recognized as the father of information theory with a Shannon Centennial Symposium on Sept. 16, 2016.
The symposium will consist of two poster sessions and four plenary talks by eminent leaders in the field of information theory. (Promotional poster can be downloaded here.)
Registration is required; to register and to sign up to participate in the poster session, please fill out this form.
Space is limited, so please register early! The deadline for poster submission is Sept. 9. Posters will be selected based on submitted title, abstract and relevance to Shannon’s scientific contributions.
Plenary speakers are:

ABBAS EL GAMAL, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
EMMANUEL CANDES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
MICHELLE EFFROS, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
ROBERT CALDERBANK, DUKE UNIVERSITY

The Shannon Centennial Celebration is supported by the U-M College of Engineering, the ECE division of the U-M EECS Department, the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS), and the IEEE Information Theory Society.
The co-organizers are Hye Won Chung, Al Hero, David Neuhoff and Sandeep Pradhan.

CoE Endowed Professorship Recognition: Eric Michielssen, The Future of Scientific Computing
2016-05-12 15:30 - 17:00 UTC | Johnson Rooms, Lurie Engineering Center, 3rd Floor, 1221 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Abstract:
For decades, high-end computer-aided simulations have helped researchers gain new insights into the nature of the physical world. But only relatively recently has computational science developed the ability to quantitatively predict the behavior of physical phenomena, and taken its place next to theory and physical experimentation as the third pillar of scientific inquiry. In this talk, I will explain the mathematical algorithms and computing hardware that fueled this transformation. I will also discuss what the future of scientific computing holds, given the demise of Moore’s law, using computational electromagnetics as an example. Finally, I will argue that U-M is ideally positioned to become a national leader in research computing, giving researchers in its 19 schools and colleges a competitive advantage in their pursuit of engineering, scientific, and medical discoveries.
Bio:
Eric Michielssen is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Associate Vice President for Advanced Research Computing. He was also the founding director of the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE). Eric is an international leader in the field of computational electromagnetics (CEM), which involves the development and application of computer algorithms to simulate the generation, propagation, and interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter. He has applied his techniques to the characterization of semiconductor and microelectronic devices, photonic crystals and optical phenomena, aircraft scattering, and terrain detection, to name a few.
Prof. Michielssen’s research on fundamental algorithms is found in the codes and simulations of countless other researchers as well as commercially available simulators. His more than 500 journal and conference publications have been cited more than 10,500 times, with an h-index of 43. Eric serves as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Numerical Modeling, and served on the National Academy’s Committee on Mathematical Foundations of Uncertainty Quantification, Validation, and Verification. He is an IEEE Fellow.
