Regular Paper Optimization Techniques for Parallel Biophysical Simulations Generated by insilico IDE

Recent work in biophysical science increasingly focuses on modeling and simulating human biophysical systems to better understand the human physiome. One program to generate such models is insilicoIDE. These models may consist of thousands or millions of components with complex relations. Simulations of such models can require millions of time steps and take hours or days to run on a single machine. To improve the speed of biophysical simulations generated by insilicoIDE, we propose techniques for augmenting the simulations to support parallel execution in an MPI-enabled environment. In this paper we discuss the methods involved in efficient parallelization of such simulations, including classification and identification of model component relationships and work division among multiple machines. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the augmented simulation code in a parallel computing environment by performing simulations of large scale neuron and cardiac models.

[1]  D. McCrea,et al.  Modelling spinal circuitry involved in locomotor pattern generation: insights from the effects of afferent stimulation , 2006, The Journal of physiology.

[2]  Carsten Kutzner,et al.  GROMACS 4:  Algorithms for Highly Efficient, Load-Balanced, and Scalable Molecular Simulation. , 2008, Journal of chemical theory and computation.

[3]  Nicolas Le Novère,et al.  STOCHSIM: modelling of stochastic biomolecular processes , 2001, Bioinform..

[4]  Yoshiyuki Asai,et al.  A platform for in silico modeling of physiological systems II. CellML compatibility and other extended capabilities , 2008, 2008 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[5]  Örjan Ekeberg,et al.  Brain-scale simulation of the neocortex on the IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer , 2008, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[6]  P J Hunter,et al.  The IUPS Physiome Project: a framework for computational physiology. , 2004, Progress in biophysics and molecular biology.

[7]  D. Noble Computational models of the heart and their use in assessing the actions of drugs. , 2008, Journal of pharmacological sciences.

[8]  Semahat S. Demir,et al.  Interactive Cell Modeling Web-Resource, iCell, as a Simulation-Based Teaching and Learning Tool to Supplement Electrophysiology Education , 2006, Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

[9]  Samik Ghosh,et al.  iSimBioSys: a discrete event simulation platform for 'in silico' study of biological systems , 2006, 39th Annual Simulation Symposium (ANSS'06).

[10]  Dharmendra S. Modha,et al.  Anatomy of a cortical simulator , 2007, Proceedings of the 2007 ACM/IEEE Conference on Supercomputing (SC '07).

[11]  Masaru Tomita,et al.  Toward large-scale modeling of the microbial cell for computer simulation. , 2004, Journal of biotechnology.

[12]  L. F. Perrone,et al.  SBW – A MODULAR FRAMEWORK FOR SYSTEMS BIOLOGY , 2006 .

[13]  M L Hines,et al.  Neuron: A Tool for Neuroscientists , 2001, The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

[14]  Andrew D McCulloch,et al.  Integrative biological modelling in silico. , 2002, Novartis Foundation symposium.

[15]  James B. Bassingthwaighte,et al.  Strategies for the Physiome Project , 2000, Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

[16]  Adelinde M. Uhrmacher,et al.  A parallel and distributed discrete event approach for spatial cell-biological simulations , 2008, PERV.

[17]  Peter J. Hunter,et al.  Computational multiscale modeling in the IUPS Physiome Project: Modeling cardiac electromechanics , 2006, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[18]  Y. Suzuki,et al.  A Platform for in silico Modeling of Physiological Systems , 2007, 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[19]  P Mendes,et al.  Biochemistry by numbers: simulation of biochemical pathways with Gepasi 3. , 1997, Trends in biochemical sciences.

[20]  Ilya A. Rybak,et al.  Modeling neural mechanisms for genesis of respiratory rhythm and pattern. I. Models of respiratory neurons. , 1997, Journal of neurophysiology.

[21]  Satoshi Matsuoka,et al.  simBio: a Java package for the development of detailed cell models. , 2006, Progress in biophysics and molecular biology.

[22]  Aoxiang Xu,et al.  Two forms of spiral-wave reentry in an ionic model of ischemic ventricular myocardium. , 1998, Chaos.

[23]  A. Hodgkin,et al.  A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve , 1990 .

[24]  L. Loew,et al.  The Virtual Cell: a software environment for computational cell biology. , 2001, Trends in biotechnology.

[25]  N. Kikuchi,et al.  CellDesigner 3.5: A Versatile Modeling Tool for Biochemical Networks , 2008, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[26]  Taishin Nomura Challenges of Physiome Projects , 2007 .

[27]  Marc-Oliver Gewaltig,et al.  Efficient Parallel Simulation of Large-Scale Neuronal Networks on Clusters of Multiprocessor Computers , 2007, Euro-Par.

[28]  Vipin Kumar,et al.  A Fast and High Quality Multilevel Scheme for Partitioning Irregular Graphs , 1998, SIAM J. Sci. Comput..