HPC in linguistic research

Andrew MeadeUniversity Of Readinga.meade@reading.ac.uk

HPC use in linguistic research• Linguistic and biological models• Phylogenies • Linguistic data• Models of evolution• Parallelism• Scaling• Results• On going work• Key challenges

Linguistic and biological systems

Attribute Genetics Linguistics

Discrete units nucleotides, codons, genes, individuals

words, grammar, syntax

Replication transcription teaching, learning,imitation

Dominant mode(s) of inheritance parent-offspring, clonal parent-offspring, peer

groups, teaching

Horizontal transmission many mechanisms borrowing

Mutation many mechanisms SNP’s, mobile DNA,

mistakes, vowel shifts, innovation

Selection fitness differences among alleles ?

Inferring evolutionary histories form linguistic data• Evolutionary histories, phylogenies• Tools for understand evolution• Depicts relationships between languages• Identify groups which share a common ancestor• Calculate timing events • Account for lack of independence in the data

• Inferred from data, taken from different languages • Using an explicate statistical model of evolution • Problem is NP-hard, growth is a double factorial. • Markov chain Monte Carlo search methods, heuristic search,

hill climber • Product of Data + Model

Gre

ek

Ind

o-Ira

nia

n

Sla

vic

Germ

anic

Celtic

Rom

ance

The Data• Swadesh list, Morris Swadesh 1940, onwards

• 200 meaning, present in all languages (all most)

• Chosen to be stable, slowly evolving and resistant to borrowing

• Some what of a language “gene”

Cognate classes• Word with a common evolutionary ancestry and meaning

EnglishFish

DanishFisk

DutchVisch

Fish Ryba

CzechRyba

Russian Ryba

BulgarianRiba

23 other languages34other languages

Data coding, Cognates • Cognates, words and meaning what are derived from a

common ancestor• Languages evolve by a processes of descent with modification

English when water German wann wasser French quand eau Italian quando acqua Greek qote nero Hittite kuwapi watar

English 1 1 0 0

German 1 1 0 0

French 1 0 1 0

Italian 1 0 1 0

Greek 1 0 0 1

Hittite 1 1 0 0

“Water”3 cognates

“When” 1 cognate

Continuous-time Markov Model

Q01

0Non cognate

1Cognate

Q10

Q01 Rate at which cognates are gainedQ10 Rate at which cognates are lost

The Likelihood Model• Calculates the probability of a tree (T), given the data (D) and

model of evolution (M). Fitness / evaluation • Accounts for > 99% of the run time

Product over the model1 – 12 categories

Product over the data200 – 100,000 sites

Level of parallelism

Data – Analysis of multiple datasets (3-5)

Model – Test a range of models (10-20)

Run – Stochastic process multiple runs (5-10)

Code – individual run can still take years

Triv

ially

par

alle

l

The problem• 2003 – 16 taxa, 125 sites, 1 x model

• 2005 – 87 taxa, 2450 sites, 4 x model

• 2007 – 400 taxa, 34,440 sites, 100 x model

• Complexity 700,000x, 5-6 order of magnitude

• 4.8 years per run, typically 5 publication quality runs + 10 model tests

• 4.8 years < attention span of academics• results are required in days

Parallel method 1Distribute the data (MPI)

Cognates

Lang

uage

s

Data

Core 1 Core 2 Core 3

0 1 1

0 1 1

0 1 0

1 1 0

1 1 1

1 0 1

0 0 1

0 0 1

1 0 1

1 0 1

0 0 0

1 0 1

1 0 1

1 0 1

0 0 1

0 0 1

1 1 1

1 0 0

1 0 0

1 0 0

……………………..……………..

……………………..……………..

Parallel method 2 Distribute the model (OpenMP)

Data

Core 1

Pass 1

Data

Core 2

Pass 2

Data

Core 3

Pass 3

Data

Core 4

Pass 4

Distribute the data and the model (MPI + OpenMP)

Data

Core 1

Pass 1

Core 2

Data

Core 3

Pass 2

Core 4

Data

Core 5

Pass 3

Core 6

Data

Core 7

Pass 4

Core 8

Cores

Seco

nds

- log

10

Cores

Effici

ency

Results• Runtime reduced from 4.8 years to

• Good scaling, but not sustainable

• HPC has allowed for the accurate analysis of large complex data sets with statistically justifiable models.

Cores Days60 31.5

150 14.5300 8.5600 6

Current work• Phoneme data• Modelling sound utterances

• Better resolution than cogency data• Relevant linguistics patterns are emerging• 120 phonemes, 2 cogency judgments • Another 3 order of magnitude complexity

• Accelerator implementation CUDA / OpenCL

Language Word Cogency PhonemeEnglish Fish 1 FishDanish Fisk 1 Fisk

Scalable computing• Last 10 years, 5-6 order of magnate increase in complexity

• Reasonably scalable code redesign needed.

• Need to change the how not the what• What – statistical framework, realistic models• How – algorithm, language, parallelisation method, hardware

• Scalable algorithms

Burn inSerial

ConvergenceParallel

Parallel sampling using multiple chains

Key challenges• Computing is a rate limiting step• Trending water / drowning• Widening gap between computing power and data models complexity• Data set size and model complexity restricted• 20-30 year old methods, which are less accurate and non statistical are

returning

• Connecting researchers with results not HPC

• HPC is a nuisance in science• Steep learning curve• High cost. Hardware, running costs and personnel• Access and flexibility• Not one off activity, thousands of data sets are produced each year, 3000+

published in 2011

AcknowledgmentsMark Pagel