Rice College pc scientists have gained two grants from the Nationwide Science Basis to discover new data processing applied sciences and functions that mix seamlessly co-designed {hardware} and software program to permit for more practical and environment friendly knowledge stream evaluation utilizing sample matching.
Initiated by a Rice seed grant, the tasks deal with the constraints of present computing infrastructure’s means to course of advanced, unstructured knowledge streams.
A $1.2 million award will help Kaiyuan Yang, Konstantinos Mamouras and Todd Treangen in growing a programmable formal specification-based knowledge stream processor that may analyze enter from bodily, organic and different programs, enabling real-time monitoring and knowledgeable decision-making in different contexts ⎯ from health-monitoring to bioinformatics or cybersecurity functions.
“In a typical central processing unit (CPU), the half that shops the info and the half that does the computing are separate,” mentioned Yang, an affiliate professor {of electrical} and pc engineering who’s principal investigator on the grant. “Each time you wish to compute, you trip between the 2, which works nicely for general-purpose computing.”
Nonetheless, in a high-volume stream processing context, the back-and-forth motion of knowledge in standard CPUs could be time- and energy-consuming, hindering the efficiency of pattern-matching duties, Yang mentioned.
“We’ve got been engaged on a brand new expertise referred to as in-memory computing that shops patterns inside reminiscence, permitting you to do the matching with out studying every sample sequentially,” Yang mentioned. “This can be a very formidable undertaking that pursues a totally new computing system in comparison with something that has been finished earlier than, as a result of we are attempting to revamp the whole computing stack particularly for real-time pattern-matching functions.
“This work cuts throughout the entire vary of experience in electrical and pc engineering and pc science, ranging from circuits and {hardware} all the best way as much as software program programming, formal strategies and functions.”
Treangen, an affiliate professor of pc science whose analysis focuses on computational and software program monitoring strategies for organic, medical and population-health phenomena, will assist Yang and Mamouras determine methods to tailor the brand new processor mannequin to functions in computational biology.
“I’m thrilled to have the chance to contribute to this thrilling interdisciplinary undertaking that may pursue real-time monitoring of bodily and organic programs by software program/{hardware} co-design,” Treangen mentioned. “Specifically, the necessity for progressive approaches for real-time monitoring of pathogen genomes has by no means been clearer. Our crew is able to push past standard analysis horizons to fulfill this urgent want.”
The opposite $749,998, four-year grant to Mamouras and Yang helps the event of a programmable {hardware} monitor to reinforce microchip safety and forestall malfunction due both to unintentional fabrication errors or intentional {hardware} backdoor or Trojan circuit modifications or different bodily assaults.
Mamouras, an assistant professor of pc science who’s the principal investigator on the second grant, mentioned that “using runtime screens that may effectively execute on programmable {hardware} can improve safety and reliability past what is possible with conventional design-time verification and validation.”
“We’re excited to pursue the co-design of a hardware-friendly specification language for runtime screens and a specification-to-hardware compiler, which might be key applied sciences for attaining the targets of this undertaking,” Mamouras mentioned.
Yang mentioned that as an alternative of solely searching for a selected, static sample within the stream, the researchers might be searching for “sign patterns inside pc chips structured by a causal, temporal logic.”
“It permits us to cowl extra suspicious behaviors with an easier definition of the sample,” Yang mentioned. “Our purpose is to comprehend the temporal logic-based sample monitoring by exploring a novel formal specification language together with its particular, extremely environment friendly and compact {hardware} implementations and software program toolchains, making it doable to embed them into any chips that profit from a runtime integrity and safety test.”
The runtime monitor could be programmed to search for particular patterns, and chip manufacturing corporations or distributors can improve the sample they’re trying to find as they acquire extra data about doable vulnerabilities or assaults.
“This doesn’t utterly repair the issue, as a result of one can’t modify the uncooked {hardware} as soon as it’s fabricated,” Yang mentioned. “However we will elevate alarms when there’s a suspicious habits, and we will forestall larger penalties from this assault or malfunction.”
- Award data:
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Environment friendly and Scalable Sample Matching through {Hardware}-Software program Co-Design:
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2313062A Holistic Method In direction of On-line Monitoring of Built-in Circuits and Techniques:
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2319572&HistoricalAwards=false - Picture downloads:
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https://news-network.rice.edu/information/recordsdata/2023/08/DSCF7365.jpg
CAPTION: Kaiyuan Yang is an affiliate professor {of electrical} and pc engineering at Rice College. (Picture by Jeff Fitlow/Rice College)https://news-network.rice.edu/information/recordsdata/2023/09/230922_Konstantinos-Mamouras_Fitlow_7641.jpg
CAPTION: Konstantinos Mamouras is an assistant professor of pc science at Rice College. (Picture by Jeff Fitlow/Rice College)https://news-network.rice.edu/information/recordsdata/2023/09/220722_Treangen_Todd_Fitlow_006.jpg
CAPTION: Todd Treangen is an affiliate professor of pc science at Rice College. (Picture by Jeff Fitlow/Rice College)
- Associated tales:
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Kaiyuan Yang wins NSF CAREER Award:
https://information.rice.edu/information/2022/kaiyuan-yang-wins-nsf-career-awardRice’s Todd Treangen wins NSF CAREER Award:
https://information.rice.edu/information/2023/rice-us-todd-treangen-wins-nsf-career-awardBlood vessels are guides for exciting implants:
https://information.rice.edu/information/2022/blood-vessels-are-guides-stimulating-implantsTiming is every thing in new implant tech:
https://information.rice.edu/information/2021/timing-everything-new-implant-tech - Hyperlinks:
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Mamouras web site: https://kmamouras.github.io/
The lab: https://vlsi.rice.edu/
Treangen lab: https://www.treangenlab.com/
Electrical and pc engineering division: https://eceweb.rice.edu/
Pc science division: https://cs.rice.edu/
George R. Brown College of Engineering: https://engineering.rice.edu/
- About Rice:
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Situated on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice College is constantly ranked among the many nation’s prime 20 universities by U.S. Information & World Report. Rice has extremely revered faculties of Structure, Enterprise, Persevering with Research, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Pure Sciences and Social Sciences and is residence to the Baker Institute for Public Coverage. With 4,552 undergraduates and three,998 graduate college students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is slightly below 6-to-1. Its residential school system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, only one motive why Rice is ranked No. 1 for plenty of race/class interplay and No. 4 for high quality of life by the Princeton Evaluation. Rice can be rated as a greatest worth amongst personal universities by Kiplinger’s Private Finance.
