This is the home page for our 22st major research exhibit at the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing conference. The exhibit is under the slightly changed title University of Kentucky / Aggregate.Org, but it is still really run by our informal research consortium led by our KAOS (Compilers, Hardware Architectures, and Operating Systems) group here at the University of Kentucky's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. We are booth #2339, at the end of the long aisle near the entrance to the "more exhibits" area.

Our 22st Exhibit

As usual, our research exhibit this year will be showing a lot of different things we have developed or are developing... ranging from supercomputer architecture to 3D printing technology and a new model for imaging sensors.

Handouts

We kept handouts to just four topics:

• A Maze of Twisty Little Passages -- an update to MOG (MIMD on GPU). The MOG core is becoming close to production quality and there are now several system calls implemented (the GPU code can now perform host system calls). We didn't bring the big wooden maze, but did bring a few small plastic ones that made the MIMD-can-run-efficiently-on-SIMD point as well as their giant wooden sibling used to.
• Time Domain Continuous Imaging -- an update to the new imaging sensor model that captures continuous waveforms for pixel light level over time rather than frames. The 3D-printed bronze/black multi-camera prototype for capturing approximate TDCI streams using conventional sensors was also shown.
• Performance-Engineered Computer Networks -- an overview of the many tools and technologies we have developed to improve computer networks, especially those within parallel supercomputers. AFNs, FNNs, KNITT, Netwires, and NodeScape are all briefly described. (Just in the past few months, we have learned that Google has been using our FNN work as the basis for designing much of their network infrastructure.)
• We are currently accepting applications for a new Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: here is an overview of what we're looking for.

Here's what that part of the booth looked like:

3D Printer

3D printing plays a major role in the computational photography work we are doing (for 3D printing custom camera parts), and 3D printing is cool, but we didn't want to risk bringing our MakerGear M2 as airline checked baggage. Thus, we bought and brought a $400 Wanhao I3. Really quite a nice machine... more finished than the M2, and capable of comprable print quality, but at much slower print speeds.

The FNN Puzzle

We've been handing out a little FNN cluster network puzzle. It consists of 6 PCs, each having 3 network ports, and 6 switches, each of which also has just 3 ports. The goal is to assemble the 3D-printed model PCs and switches to build an FNN.

Here's what these puzzles look like:

The end PCs clearly go on the ends, but the order of inner 4 PCs is not obvious. The same is true about the ordering of the 6 switches. Beyond that, each of the switches looks similar on the top and bottom. That yields 4! * 6! * 2^6 = 24 * 720 * 64 = 1,105,920 possible ways they might be assembled. Well, one way works.

Here's how to solve it. Arrange the PCs in the following order. Then simply fill-in the switches. Easy.

More

There will be more posted here shortly....

The only thing set in stone is our name.