(CLOSED) DE-FOA-0002460 - X-Stack: Programming Environments for Scientific Computing

Sponsor Name: 
DOE Office of Science
Description of the Award: 

The DOE SC program in Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) hereby announces its interest in basic research in computer science exploring innovative approaches to creating, verifying, validating, optimizing, maintaining, and executing scientific software targeting distributed, heterogeneous, high-performance computing platforms.

Institutional Limit: No more than two pre-applications or applications as the lead institution in a multi-institutional team.

Research Areas

Each pre-application and application must address at least one of two research areas:
1. Automated test synthesis: Innovative methods for automatically generating tests for scientific applications to ensure that, within scientifically-relevant regimes, their behavior meets user-defined requirements and they function with the required level of equivalence across different distributed, heterogeneous, HPC platforms. All aspects of program behavior can be considered, including performance. Additional considerations may include, but are not limited to, the following objectives and the tradeoffs between them:

  • How to best interact with human programmers to obtain otherwise-unavailable information and/or present results.
  • How to minimize the number, size, and/or complexity of the generated tests.
  • How to minimize the execution time and/or usage of expensive/large-scale resources for testing.
  • How to maximize the likelihood of discovering defects and/or the determinism of the testing process.
  • How to provide information helpful to isolating the causes of failures.

2. Parallel-programming-model translation: Innovative methods enabling the transformation of scientific applications that make use of one parallel-programming model into applications that target heterogeneous systems using a different parallel programming model. Additional considerations may include, but are not limited to, the following objectives and the tradeoffs between them:

  • How, and to what extent, can behavioral equivalence be preserved by the translation process.
  • How to minimize the size and/or complexity of the generated code.
  • How to maximize the performance, readability, and/or naturalness (e.g., similarity to idiomatic usage of language constructs) of the generated code.
  • How to enable the continued maintenance of the transformed application.

These methods should use any techniques that might be necessary to accomplish their goals, including, but not limited to, machine learning, natural-language processing, formal reasoning, instrumentation, and compiler technology. The sustainability and explainability of scientific software is critically important to the scientific process, and as a result, particular consideration should be given to maximizing the extent to which human programmers understand the outputs of these methods.

Limit (Number of applicants permitted per institution): 
2
Sponsor LOI Deadline: 
Mar 01, 2021
Sponsor Final Deadline: 
Apr 12, 2021
OSVPR Application or NOI Instructions: 

Interested applicants should upload the following documents in sequence in one PDF file (File name: Last name_DE-FOA-0002460_2021 no later than 4:00 p.m. on the internal submission deadline:

1. Cover Letter (1 page, pdf):

  • Descriptive title of proposed activity
  • PI name, departmental affiliations(s) and contact information
  • Co-PI's names and departmental affiliation(s)
  • Names of other key personnel
  • Participating institution(s)
  • Number and title of this funding opportunity

2. Project Description (no more than two pages, pdf) identifying the project scope that addresses the key aspects and elements of the sponsor's solicitation, principal investigators, collaborators, and partner organizations.

3. 2-page CV's of Investigators

Formatting Guidelines:

Font/size: Times New Roman (12 pt.)
Document margins: 1.0” (top, bottom, left and right)
Standard paper size (8 ½” x 11)

To be considered as a Penn State institutional nominee, please submit a notice of intent by the date provided directly below.
This limited submission is in downselect: 
Penn State may only submit a specific number of proposals to this funding opportunity. The number of NOIs received require that an internal competition take place, thus, a downselect process has commenced. No Penn State researchers may apply to this opportunity outside of this downselect process. To apply for this limited submission, please use this link:
OSVPR Downselect Deadline: 
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - 4:00pm
Notes: 
No Applicants