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1. Bridges-2: A Platform for Rapidly-Evolving and Data Intensive Research

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3437359.3465593  

   Brown, Shawn T.; Buitrago, Paola; Hanna, Edward; Sanielevici, Sergiu; Scibek, Robin; Nystrom, Nicholas A. (July 2021, Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC '21))

   null (Ed.)

   Today’s landscape of computational science is evolving rapidly, with a need for new, flexible, and responsive supercomputing platforms for addressing the growing areas of artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics (DA) and convergent collaborative research. To support this community, we designed and deployed the Bridges-2 platform. Building on our highly successful Bridges supercomputer, which was a high-performance computing resource supporting new communities and complex workflows, Bridges-2 supports traditional and nontraditional research communities and applications; integrates new technologies for converged, scalable high-performance computing (HPC), AI, and data analytics; prioritizes researcher productivity and ease of use; and provides an extensible architecture for interoperation with complementary data intensive projects, campuses, and clouds. In this report, we describe Bridges-2’s hardware and configuration, user environments, and systems support and present the results of the successful Early User Program. 

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2. System Integration of Neocortex, a Unique, Scalable AI Platform

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3437359.3465604  

   Buitrago, Paola A.; Uran, Julian A.; Nystrom, Nicholas A. (July 2021, Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC '21))

   null (Ed.)

   To advance knowledge by enabling unprecedented AI speed and scalability, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint research center of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, in partnership with Cerebras Systems and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), has deployed Neocortex, an innovative computing platform that accelerates scientific discovery by vastly shortening the time required for deep learning training and inference, fosters greater integration of deep AI models with scientific workflows, and provides promising hardware for the development of more efficient algorithms for artificial intelligence and graph analytics. Neocortex advances knowledge by accelerating scientific research, enabling development of more accurate models and use of larger training data, scaling model parallelism to unprecedented levels, and focusing on human productivity by simplifying tuning and hyperparameter optimization to create a transformative hardware and software platform for the exploration of new frontiers. Neocortex has been integrated with PSC’s complementary infrastructure. This papers shares experiences, decisions, and findings made in that process. The system is serving science and engineering users via an early user access program. Valuable artifacts developed during the integration phase have been made available via a public repository and have been consulted by other AI system deployments that have seen Neocortex as an inspiration. 

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3. Automated Integration of Continental-scale Observations in Near-Real Time for Simulation and Analysis of Biosphere–Atmosphere Interaction

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63393-6_14  

   Durden, D.J.; Chu, H; Collier, N.; Davis, K.J.; Desai, A.R.; Kumar, J.; Metzger, S.; Wieder, W.R.; Xu, M.; Hoffman, F.M. (January 2020, Driving Scientific and Engineering Discoveries Through the Convergence of HPC, Big Data and AI. SMC 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1315)

   null; null; null; null; null; null (Ed.)

   The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale observatory with sites across the US collecting standardized ecological observations that will operate for multiple decades. To maximize the utility of NEON data, we envision edge computing systems that gather, calibrate, aggregate, and ingest measurements in an integrated fashion. Edge systems will employ machine learning methods to cross-calibrate, gap-fill and provision data in near-real time to the NEON Data Portal and to High Performance Computing (HPC) systems, running ensembles of Earth system models (ESMs) that assimilate the data. For the first time gridded EC data products and response functions promise to offset pervasive observational biases through evaluating, benchmarking, optimizing parameters, and training new ma- chine learning parameterizations within ESMs all at the same model-grid scale. Leveraging open-source software for EC data analysis, we are al- ready building software infrastructure for integration of near-real time data streams into the International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) package for use by the wider research community. We will present a perspective on the design and integration of end-to-end infrastructure for data acquisition, edge computing, HPC simulation, analysis, and validation, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches are used throughout the distributed workflow to improve accuracy and computational performance. 

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4. SAI: AI-Enabled Speech Assistant Interface for Science Gateways in HPC

   Pouya Kousha, Arpan Jain (May 2023, International Conference on High Performance Computing)

   High-Performance Computing (HPC) is increasingly being used in traditional scientific domains as well as emerging areas like Deep Learning (DL). This has led to a diverse set of professionals who interact with state-of-the-art HPC systems. The deployment of Science Gateways for HPC systems like Open On-Demand has a significant positive impact on these users in migrating their workflows to HPC systems. Although computing capabilities are ubiquitously available (as on-premises or in the cloud HPC infrastructure), significant effort and expertise are required to use them effectively. This is particularly challenging for domain scientists and other users whose primary expertise lies outside of computer science. In this paper, we seek to minimize the steep learning curve and associated complexities of using state-of-the-art high-performance systems by creating SAI: an AI-Enabled Speech Assistant Interface for Science Gateways in High Performance Computing. We use state-of-the-art AI models for speech and text and fine-tune them for the HPC arena by retraining them on a new HPC dataset we create. We use ontologies and knowledge graphs to capture the complex relationships between various components of the HPC ecosystem. We finally show how one can integrate and deploy SAI in Open OnDemand and evaluate its functionality and performance on real HPC systems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first effort aimed at designing and developing an AI-powered speech-assisted interface for science gateways in HPC. 

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5. Enhancing Data Science Courses Pedagogy through GIFT-Enabled Adaptive Learning Pathways

   Anaroua, Fadjimata I; Li, Qing; Liu, Hong (May 2024, GIFTSymp 12)

   Sinatra, Anne; Goldberg, Benjamin (Ed.)

   Over the past decade, the educational landscape has experienced a surge of online learning and instruc-tional platforms (Liu et al., 2020). This remarkable surge can be attributed to a confluence of factors, including the rising demand for higher education opportunities, the shortage of available teaching staff, and the rapid advancements in information technology and artificial intelligence capabilities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) remained a niche area of research with limited practical applications in education for over half a century (Bhutoria, 2022; Chen et al., 2020; Roll & Wylie, 2016) from 1950 to 2010. Howev-er, in recent years, the advent of Big Data and advancements in computing power have propelled AI into the educational mainstream (Alam, 2021; Chen et al., 2020; Hwang et al., 2020). Today, the rise of machine learning, deep learning, automation, together with advances in big data analysis has sparked novel perspectives and explorations around the potential of enhancing personalized learning, a long-term educational vision of technology-enhanced course options to meet student needs (Grant & Basye, 2014). Fostering personalized learning necessitates the development of digital learning environments that dynamically adapt to individual learners' knowledge, prior experiences, and interests, while effectively and efficiently guiding them towards achieving desired learning outcomes (Spector, 2014, 2016). AI-powered technologies have made it possible to analyze data generated by learners and provide instruc-tion that matches their learning performance. Through learning analytics and data mining techniques, large datasets collected are analyzed and processed to uncover learners' unique learning characteristics, often referred to as learner profiling (Tzouveli et al., 2008). Subsequently, leveraging artificial intelli-gence algorithms, the learning content is tailored, and personalized learning paths are designed to align with each learner's identified needs and preferences, thereby facilitating personalized learning experienc-es. 

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