What are acceptable acronymes/terminology for the S@h main forum?

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Profile Stubbles
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Message 1805062 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 3:02:59 UTC

...as opposed to the S@h Beta forum.

The reason I'm asking is because I was corrected in a post I made in another thread...and I didn't want to start a totally unrelated tangent.
Fyi, to me this is also part of "The big picture" that I asked others to comment on.

So to put all in context, the reply to one of my lines (also included) was as follows:
- the nonVLARs shorties: <1mins use about 75-90% of core

These are called VHARs or shorties, adding nonVLAR is not necessary. Just fyi

From what I understand from my 3 months in this forum,
    VHAR stands for: Very High Actual Range; and
    VLAR stands for: Very Low Actual Range.

Since that terminology and those acronyms are pretty meaningless to most SETIzens in this forum (who are not also in the S@h Beta forum), I choose to use terminology that doesn't require guru knowledge.
If I had been posting in S@h Beta forum, I'd refer to them as VHARs with (nonVLARs) in brackets especially if the SETIzen was fairly new to the Beta forum.

Even if we had a S@h wiki with a VHAR entry to link to, what should we name the few shorties (that I sometimes find on the CPU) that are: blc...guppi...vlar ?
What are those called by the devs: VHAR_VLARs?!?
I refer to them as guppi_shorties to differentiate them from the nonVLAR shorties that don't have VLAR in their file name.

Imho, I think obscure tech-talk like VHAR has almost no place in the main forum and should be restricted to the S@h Beta forum...at least until there is a S@h wiki that can explain such concepts and their importance.
So for me, nonVLAR (or some variant) is necessary
...and even Mr Kevvy used a similar variant (non-GUPPI, non-VLAR) in his post explaining his Guppi Rescheduler script.

Please let us keep the S@h main forum friendly for all SETIzens, including all those that just want to run something a bit better than stock but don't want to be bogged down having to learn all the techno-mombo-jumbo.
Cheers,
Rob :-)

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Message 1805066 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 3:08:34 UTC - in response to Message 1805062.  
Last modified: 27 Jul 2016, 3:14:06 UTC

Very High Angle Range

Very Low Angle Range

The angle indicates the satellite's relative position to the night sky. A mnemonic Ageless told to me years ago was to remember:

Very High [Speed] Angle Range
Very [S]Low Angle Range

This is in terms of host fast they process. In other words, low angle ranges process much slower because they tend to pickup nearby terrestrial noise (e.g. military radar) and thus require a lot of blanking. High angle ranges are relatively cleaner and thus can process faster without the need for blanking.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong on the angle ranges, but I know I'm right on the acronyms.
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Message 1805092 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 11:34:51 UTC

I've also been wondering what SoG and GUPPI mean (I've seen SaH as well and I assume it means S@H).
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Message 1805099 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 12:58:10 UTC - in response to Message 1805092.  

I've also been wondering what SoG and GUPPI mean (I've seen SaH as well and I assume it means S@H).



SoG means Signals on GPU (meaning most of the data is crunched on the GPU rather than switching back and forth to the CPU)

GUPPI
blc3_2bit_guppi_57451_19304_HIP62472_0003

blc3: Breakthrough Listen
2bit: bits per real sample (4 bit per complex sample)
guppi: File format (Greenbank Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrument)
57451: Modified Julian Date
19304: Seconds past midnight
HIP62472: Object Name
0003: Observation sequence number
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Message 1805101 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 13:04:16 UTC - in response to Message 1805092.  

I've also been wondering what SoG and GUPPI mean (I've seen SaH as well and I assume it means S@H).

SoG    >  Message 56479

GUPPI  >  Message 1778453
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Message 1805112 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 14:08:49 UTC

Thank you! Need to sticky a post with a glossary
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Message 1805118 - Posted: 27 Jul 2016, 14:52:46 UTC - in response to Message 1805112.  

Thank you! Need to sticky a post with a glossary

Ask and ye shall receive:  BOINC FAQ Service
Scroll to section 4.
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Message 1805409 - Posted: 28 Jul 2016, 19:47:00 UTC - in response to Message 1805112.  
Last modified: 28 Jul 2016, 19:47:49 UTC

Thank you! Need to sticky a post with a glossary

... and this ...

From SETI'S home page, click "About".  Next page, click "Glossary of terms."
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Message 1805455 - Posted: 28 Jul 2016, 23:05:39 UTC
Last modified: 28 Jul 2016, 23:12:07 UTC

I'm not sure if the VHAR & VLAR terms came from the staff or if they were terms we started using first to refer to the angle range of specific tasks. Either way the terms refer to the angle range of the work we are doing. The project has currently defined VLAR(Very Low Angle Range) tasks to be a task with angle range of <0.12, it was once <0.013, & adds to .vlar the workunit/task names.
VHAR(Very High Angle Range) tasks, aka "shorties", may not have a strict definition by the project, but an angle range >1.0 is often referred to as a VHAR.
I believe one of the lunatics has generated a time/AR chart several years ago. Which showed a pretty clear change in runtime based on the AR.
It more or less looking something like this:
\
 ---
    \
With time going up and AR going from low to high.
Everything between a VLAR & VHAR is often referred to as mid-range. I think we should be calling them MAR myself. Then when we use the plural form it would be MARs. However saying "you have a bunch of MARs tasks" might be confusing to some. As they might thing we are looking for radio signals from the planet Mars instead of from distance stars.

I believe the AR that the classic project used, when they were paying for the telescope time, was ~0.42. So 0.40-0.44 AR tasks I normally refer to as "normal AR". Which are ideally what you want to use for baseline comparisons, but with the GBT data they will likely be rare.

VHARs >1.0 (aka "Shorties")
Mid-range (0.12 - 0.99) (aka "MARs"?)
VLARs <0.12 (aka "OMG Why are these SO SLOW!")
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Message 1805470 - Posted: 28 Jul 2016, 23:56:24 UTC - in response to Message 1805455.  


I believe one of the lunatics has generated a time/AR chart several years ago. Which showed a pretty clear change in runtime based on the AR.

Yep. Here, for example:http://lunatics.kwsn.info/index.php/topic,1806.0.html
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Message 1805543 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 7:48:44 UTC

And a lot more in Estimates and Deadlines revisited. That thread dates from before general purpose GPUs had been invented, and from a much simpler SETI search (about v6, I think).

Unfortunately, most of my graphs have been deleted by a hosting company that got greedy (I still have the originals), but Joe's post number 698744 gives a clear idea of the relative frequency of tasks (Arecibo only) at different Angle Ranges.

Technically, VLAR was used to denote AR 0.05 and below, and VHAR for AR 1.1275 and above. When GPUs came along, we extended VLAR to a somewhat arbitrary AR 0.12
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Message 1805561 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 10:12:23 UTC - in response to Message 1805543.  

And a lot more in Estimates and Deadlines revisited. That thread dates from before general purpose GPUs had been invented, and from a much simpler SETI search (about v6, I think).

Interesting that midAR took more time than VLAR on Joe's hardware those times.
Picture quite changed in this area now.
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Message 1805562 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 10:27:09 UTC - in response to Message 1805561.  
Last modified: 29 Jul 2016, 10:33:40 UTC

And a lot more in Estimates and Deadlines revisited. That thread dates from before general purpose GPUs had been invented, and from a much simpler SETI search (about v6, I think).

Interesting that midAR took more time than VLAR on Joe's hardware those times.
Picture quite changed in this area now.

I think it's unchanged for CPUs...

Edit - or maybe not. Valid tasks for computer 7118033. That's with your AVX/64 - I forget (*) what CPU apps we were using in early 2008.

Interesting: I wonder whether the general signal finding at mid-AR has become more optimal, or something has slowed down (relatively speaking) the pulsefinding at VLAR?

* (but I could probably look it up)
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Message 1805563 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 10:43:56 UTC - in response to Message 1805562.  
Last modified: 29 Jul 2016, 10:47:02 UTC


Interesting: I wonder whether the general signal finding at mid-AR has become more optimal, or something has slowed down (relatively speaking) the pulsefinding at VLAR?

For our opt builds (and i measured SSSE3 mostly with Q9450 host) VLAR always was harder. And this inspite of Alex Kan's and Ko swarm of pulsefind codelets in CPU code.
Maybe worth to build more modern, v8-based, curves for CPU-only build opt vs stock. We know that opt in whole faster but this still allows some inefficiencies in some parts...
[though we usually test versus PG set and there is separate VLAR and VLAR is mostly Pulsefind]... Well, maybe worth to test opt vs stock CPU on set of PulseFind test modules and FFT sizes test modules Joe supplied to us some time ago.. To get more precise picture if opt faster always or there are some hidden inefficiency for some of WUs.
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Message 1805566 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 11:07:38 UTC - in response to Message 1805563.  

Well, with the renewed interest in multicore (and multi-CPU) Xeons to handle the preponderance of guppi VLARs, devoting more energy to fine-tuning the CPU apps would certainly be worthwhile - they've really been allowed to drop down the precedence list since the abandonment of IPP and Joe's departure from the boards.

But I don't think it's necessary, specifically, to revisit the deadline curve - the main purpose of that exercise was to prove to Eric that the absurd 109-day deadline at AR 0.226 was completely unnecessary and simply clogged the database. Now that we control the database size with task limits, deadlines are hardly relevant any more.
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Message 1805594 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 14:51:55 UTC - in response to Message 1805455.  

VHARs >1.0 (aka "Shorties")
Mid-range (0.12 - 0.99) (aka "MARs"?)
VLARs <0.12 (aka "OMG Why are these SO SLOW!")

@HAL9000
    Would it be safe to say that these #s supersede those given in your Message 1773487 from 4 months ago?  To maintain continuity, VMARs could be referenced.


@Stubbles69

    Here's a description of the AR categories.

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Message 1805599 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 15:16:29 UTC - in response to Message 1805566.  


But I don't think it's necessary, specifically, to revisit the deadline curve - the main purpose of that exercise was to prove to Eric that the absurd 109-day deadline at AR 0.226 was completely unnecessary and simply clogged the database. Now that we control the database size with task limits, deadlines are hardly relevant any more.

Such curves Joe presented there can be used for another purposes and I spoke about them, not about deadlines.
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Message 1805600 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 15:28:15 UTC - in response to Message 1805594.  

Another complication:

The numbers we've been discussing recently (Angle Range in degrees) are actually functions of the 'beam width' of the telescope.

For a moment, reverse the direction, and imagine the telescope as a giant searchlight: a very bright lamp at the focal point, and a beam of light reflected from the bowl and reaching out into the sky. Because Arecibo has a larger reflecting surface than GBT, it can (in theory, assuming perfect optics) send out a narrower beam.

Going back to its normal function as a telescope: our receiver sits at the same focal point as the imaginary lamp, and is most sensitive to sources in the area occupied by the imaginary searchlight beam.

Because the GBT beam/sensitive region is larger than the Arecibo beam, the VLAR/mid-AR/VHAR transition points will be higher for GBT 'guppi' tasks than for Arecibo tasks.
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Message 1805603 - Posted: 29 Jul 2016, 15:47:53 UTC - in response to Message 1805600.  


Because the GBT beam/sensitive region is larger than the Arecibo beam, the VLAR/mid-AR/VHAR transition points will be higher for GBT 'guppi' tasks than for Arecibo tasks.

Agree, there will be differencies. So far we had very little non-VLAR GBT data AFAIK. But what I tried to say is if there is some place in processing chain where stock code faster than Lunatics one building comparative opt + stock performance/AR curves (separately Arecibo/ GBT to account for your warning) could reveal that places.
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Message 1805761 - Posted: 30 Jul 2016, 3:58:31 UTC - in response to Message 1805594.  
Last modified: 30 Jul 2016, 3:59:02 UTC

VHARs >1.0 (aka "Shorties")
Mid-range (0.12 - 0.99) (aka "MARs"?)
VLARs <0.12 (aka "OMG Why are these SO SLOW!")

@HAL9000
    Would it be safe to say that these #s supersede those given in your Message 1773487 from 4 months ago?  To maintain continuity, VMARs could be referenced.


@Stubbles69

    Here's a description of the AR categories.


For my newer post in this thread I was working from memory instead of using my reference sheet. My main goal was showing that the acronyms referred to specific numbers. My older post has a more accurate value for VHARs. As did the post Richard made in this thread with the specif AR value that had been found previously.
Looking at the original graph. I want to run something similar with the current apps/data & see how they compare to the previous findings. Currently I don't have the time to do that.

Does VMAR stand for Very Mid Angle Range? I would think a very mid AR would be a normal AR.
We really we don't need to define everything with a name. I had found it amusing since I noticed an acronym for Mid Angle Range could spell mars when plural.
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Message boards : Number crunching : What are acceptable acronymes/terminology for the S@h main forum?


 
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