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Francesco Biscani

Publications and source records attributed to Francesco Biscani.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Multiplication of sparse Laurent polynomials and Poisson series on modern hardware architectures

In this paper we present two algorithms for the multiplication of sparse Laurent polynomials and Poisson series (the latter being algebraic structures commonly arising in Celestial Mechanics from the application of perturbation theories). Both algorithms first employ the Kronecker substitution technique to reduce multivariate multiplication to univariate multiplication, and then use the schoolbook method to perform the univariate multiplication. The first algorithm, suitable for moderately-sparse multiplication, uses the exponents of the monomials resulting from the univariate multiplication as trivial hash values in a one dimensional lookup array of coefficients. The second algorithm, suitable for highly-sparse multiplication, uses a cache-optimised hash table which stores the coefficient-exponent pairs resulting from the multiplication using the exponents as keys. Both algorithms have been implemented with attention to modern computer hardware architectures. Particular care has been devoted to the efficient exploitation of contemporary memory hierarchies through cache-blocking techniques and cache-friendly term ordering. The first algorithm has been parallelised for shared-memory multicore architectures, whereas the second algorithm is in the process of being parallelised. We present benchmarks comparing our algorithms to the routines of other computer algebra systems, both in sequential and parallel mode.

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A Global Optimisation Toolbox for Massively Parallel Engineering Optimisation

A software platform for global optimisation, called PaGMO, has been developed within the Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) at the European Space Agency, and was recently released as an open-source project. PaGMO is built to tackle high-dimensional global optimisation problems, and it has been successfully used to find solutions to real-life engineering problems among which the preliminary design of interplanetary spacecraft trajectories - both chemical (including multiple flybys and deep-space maneuvers) and low-thrust (limited, at the moment, to single phase trajectories), the inverse design of nano-structured radiators and the design of non-reactive controllers for planetary rovers. Featuring an arsenal of global and local optimisation algorithms (including genetic algorithms, differential evolution, simulated annealing, particle swarm optimisation, compass search, improved harmony search, and various interfaces to libraries for local optimisation such as SNOPT, IPOPT, GSL and NLopt), PaGMO is at its core a C++ library which employs an object-oriented architecture providing a clean and easily-extensible optimisation framework. Adoption of multi-threaded programming ensures the efficient exploitation of modern multi-core architectures and allows for a straightforward implementation of the island model paradigm, in which multiple populations of candidate solutions asynchronously exchange information in order to speed-up and improve the optimisation process. In addition to the C++ interface, PaGMO's capabilities are exposed to the high-level language Python, so that it is possible to easily use PaGMO in an interactive session and take advantage of the numerous scientific Python libraries available.

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The Piranha algebraic manipulator

In this paper we present a specialised algebraic manipulation package devoted to Celestial Mechanics. The system, called Piranha, is built on top of a generic and extensible framework, which allows to treat efficiently and in a unified way the algebraic structures most commonly encountered in Celestial Mechanics (such as multivariate polynomials and Poisson series). In this contribution we explain the architecture of the software, with special focus on the implementation of series arithmetics, show its current capabilities, and present benchmarks indicating that Piranha is competitive, performance-wise, with other specialised manipulators.

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