APPLICATIONS

Beta release of AERMOD-HPCS: HiPERiSM Consulting, LLC, (Durham, North Carolina) has linked with AS1MET Services (Blanco, Texas) to form a joint venture, HiCLAS1, dedicated to bringing High Performance Computing (HPC) capability to Environmental Modeling. The HiCLAS1 mission is to develop (or enhance) software and improve performance on current and future computers for legacy Air Quality Models (AQM). This joint venture brings half a century of unique experience in regulatory modeling and high performance computing to focus on issues that will meet the needs of the AQM community. There is a latent (and suppressed) need for reduced time to solution in computer models of environmental phenomena as model complexity has increased and regional scope has expanded to meet ever-increasing demands from legislative and policy requirements in support of legislation such as the Clean Air Act (www.epa.gov/oar/oaq_caa.html). It is in response to this requirement that HiCLAS1 is motivated to attack the causes of performance limitations in legacy code currently in use by modelers and regulatory personnel. George Delic, Ph.D., CEO of HiPERiSM Consulting, LLC, said that “after a decade as a contractor to the U.S. EPA, and a similar period as an independent consultant, I am very excited to be working with AS1MET Services to develop what we hope will be a succession of products to enhance productivity of the AQM community. We are combining our experience of models, software, and computer architecture to make AQM’s run faster.” Arney Srackangast, founder of AS1MET Services, said, “My career has been predicated on finding ways to perform and manage complex regulatory AQM analyses in order to meet strenuous time lines. Linking with HiPERiSM provides an exciting opportunity to utilize emerging computer technology to boost model performance, thereby assisting the scientific community in regaining some of the time lost waiting on these applications to run.” The scope of the HiCLAS1 joint venture will embrace modification of existing 3rd party (or publicly available) software to develop derivative products and/or services, brand them as proprietary, and market them to the Air Quality Modeling community. None of the performance enhancement work so far performed by HiCLAS1 has been sponsored by any government agency. Therefore, of necessity, as a commercial venture, the cost-recovery model will be to charge customers a license fee for the performance enhanced HPC code (and offer an optional support contract). A key guiding principle of the HiCLAS1 mission is not to modify in any way the scientific basis of the models chosen for enhancement. Proprietary methods are used to modify algorithms in the computer code to enhance performance on current and emerging commodity computing platforms. Such modifications are motivated by several factors. First of all computer platforms and their processors are changing in capability at a rate faster than model developers are able to assimilate into their coding styles. Furthermore, most model developers are more focused on developing and testing the scientific basis of their models than on HPC. In addition, because of the lengthy development cycle and a multiplicity of authors, environmental models accumulate legacy computer coding styles by a process of accretion. In such cases the key to enhanced performance lies in computer code restructuring with a view to streamlining for a tighter coupling between coding practice and computer processor capability. The first model chosen for performance enhancement by HiCLAS1 is the U.S. EPA's AERMOD developed by the U.S. EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), Emissions Monitoring and Analysis Division (EMAD), at the U.S. EPA in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, U.S.A. This version of AERMOD is available from the U.S. EPA portal at its Web site as either the model source code, or a portable (precompiled) runtime model. This model was chosen for performance enhancement by HiCLAS1 because both the regulatory model user community and the AERMOD developer team have acknowledged the necessity for a performance enhanced version of AERMOD. On December 9, 2006, AERMOD became the regulatory model of choice, replacing the Industrial Source Complex Version 3 model (ISC3). While AERMOD introduced improved science and accuracy into the model estimations, it came at the expense of greater computational requirements. The user community, familiar with the time required to conduct analyses with ISC3, lamented the substantial increase in the time required to conduct equivalent scenarios using AERMOD. Thus, the first product offered by HiCLAS1 is AERMOD-HPCS. This is a performance enhanced version of the U.S. EPA’s AERMOD and it is designed to deliver results faster on commodity computer platforms with a single processor core. In-house Quality Assurance testing shows that the value the AERMOD-HPCS version offers includes features such as: * no changes in the science behind the AERMOD model, * performance that is 2 to 3 times faster (depending on the data and platform) when compared to the model distributed by the U.S. EPA, and * numerical results that are within the tolerance of constants used in the EPA AERMOD source code (for the cases we have used in the QA study). It is HiCLAS1 policy not to redistribute the source code for AERMOD-HPCS because * the HiCLAS1 performance modifications of the EPA AERMOD source are treated as proprietary, and * it is deemed to be the business of the EPA to determine model content and act as sole arbiter of the model content of the computer source code. The AERMOD-HPCS product is issued as a runtime module and is license-managed with the Reprise License Manager (its Web site) to protect product integrity. The HiCLAS1 joint venture has benefited from the full support of sales and technical staff at Reprise Software, Inc., President, Matt Christiano told us that "Reprise Software helps companies of all sizes, but especially smaller startups, to maximize their revenue by providing protection against unlicensed overuse, revenue-producing conversion of evaluations, and efficient pricing to address the various usage patterns of their users. We are pleased that HiPERiSM Consulting, LLC, has chosen the Reprise License Manager to help achieve these objectives." AERMOD-HPCS is currently in Beta release with a select group of Beta Testers. The U.S. EPA has also been invited to participate in the AERMOD-HPCS Beta Test; however, it is U.S. EPA policy that any statements made by the U.S. EPA Agency cannot be viewed as constituting an endorsement of a particular vendor product. Once the results of the Beta test have been evaluated a release date will be announced. The current projection is that the first release will be available for purchase before the end of the second quarter of CY2007. Further details of HiCLAS1 products and services are available at its Web site. This site is under construction and will be updated regularly to bring information on Windows and Linux platform performance, quality assurance issues, and ordering procedures. AS1MET Services and HiPERiSM Consulting, LLC, look forward to developing their relationship with the AERMOD user community and welcome their feed-back and suggestions on our products and services. Organizations (or individuals) interested in purchasing the AERMOD-HPCS product may also send Email directly to sales@hiclas1.com.