Search Results (10)

Exponential advances in computational power have fueled advances in many disciplines, and biology is no exception. High-Performance Computing (HPC) is gaining traction as one of the essential tools in scientific research. Further advances to exascale capabilities will necessitate more energy-efficient hardware. In this article, we present our efforts to improve the efficiency of genome assembly on ARM-based HPC systems. We use vectorization to optimize the popular genome assembly pipeline of minimap2, miniasm, and Racon. We compare different implementations using the Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) instruction set architecture and evaluate their performance in different aspects. Additionally, we compare the performance of autovectorization to hand-tuned code with intrinsics. Lastly, we present the design of a CPU dispatcher included in the Racon consensus module that enables the automatic selection of the fastest instruction set supported by the utilized CPU. Our findings provide a promising direction for further optimization of genome assembly on ARM-based HPC systems. Full article

Cyberattacks and cybercriminal activities constitute one of the biggest threats in the modern digital era, and the frequency, efficiency, and severity of attacks have grown over the years. Designers and producers of digital systems try to counteract such issues by exploiting increasingly robust and advanced security mechanisms to provide secure execution environments aimed at preventing cyberattacks or, in the worst case, at containing intrusions by isolation. One of the most significative examples comes from General Purpose Processor (GPP) manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, and ARM, which in the last years adopted the integration of dedicated resources to provide Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) or secure zones. TEEs are built layer by layer on top of an implicitly trusted component, the Root-of-Trust (RoT). Since each security chain is only as strong as its weakest link, each element involved in the construction of a TEE starting from the RoT must be bulletproof as much as possible. In this work, we revise and propose a design methodology to implement in both hardware (HW) and software (SW) highly featured and robust security blocks by highlighting the key points that designers should take care of, and the key metrics that should be used to evaluate the security level of the developed modules. We also include an analysis of the state of the art concerning RoT-based TEEs, and we illustrate a case study that documents the implementation of a cryptographic coprocessor for the secure subsystem of the Rhea GPP from the European Processor Initiative (EPI) project, according to the presented methodology. This work can be used by HW/SW security module designers as a cutting-edge guideline. Full article

Four companies in Europe were chosen as case studies using an information-oriented selection procedure on the basis of their location, processing equipment and size, and through the adoption of a “maximum variation” approach. The purpose was to investigate how legume processors of various sizes and in different locations in the European protein legume market are working to increase their market share within the paradigm of efficiency gains from agricultural specialisation and trade in order to improve both food availability and security. After identifying company typologies and characteristics, the company case studies along the legume value chain were investigated. The analysis revealed that the supply market for grain legumes is expected to grow rapidly, and the various processors are increasing their market shares in terms of product type and geography. Based on the principles of agroecology and levels of food system change, the companies were found to be adopting promising business strategies, but are not disrupting the competitive patterns among existing European legume supply companies and food consumers that dominate the current regime. System change is far from taking place. However, conventional perspectives are being challenged and new ways of operating are being developed, indicating that a significant transition can be initiated that would move legumes away from being a niche sector, demonstrating to legume processors and consumers in the regime that there is an alternative and more sustainable pathway for the future, possibly stimulating larger-scale initiatives. Full article

Despite the tremendous socioeconomic importance of supply chains (SCs), security officers and operators are faced with no easy and integrated way for protecting their critical, and interconnected, infrastructures from cyber-attacks. As a result, solutions and methodologies that support the detection of malicious activity on SCs are constantly researched into and proposed. Hence, this work presents the implementation of a low-cost reconfigurable intrusion detection system (IDS), on the edge, that can be easily integrated into SC networks, thereby elevating the featured levels of security. Specifically, the proposed system offers real-time cybersecurity intrusion detection over high-speed networks and services by offloading elements of the security check workloads on dedicated reconfigurable hardware. Our solution uses a novel framework that implements the Aho–Corasick algorithm on the reconfigurable fabric of a multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC), which supports parallel matching for multiple network packet patterns. The initial performance evaluation of this proof-of-concept shows that it holds the potential to outperform existing software-based solutions while unburdening SC nodes from demanding cybersecurity check workloads. The proposed system performance and its efficiency were evaluated using a real-life environment in the context of European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, i.e., CYRENE. Full article

In the cybersecurity field, the generation of random numbers is extremely important because they are employed in different applications such as the generation/derivation of cryptographic keys, nonces, and initialization vectors. The more unpredictable the random sequence, the higher its quality and the lower the probability of recovering the value of those random numbers for an adversary. Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generators (CSPRNGs) are random number generators (RNGs) with specific properties and whose output sequence has such a degree of randomness that it cannot be distinguished from an ideal random sequence. In this work, we designed an all-digital RNG, which includes a Deterministic Random Bit Generator (DRBG) that meets the security requirements for cryptographic applications as CSPRNG, plus an entropy source that showed high portability and a high level of entropy. The proposed design has been intensively tested against both NIST and BSI suites to assess its entropy and randomness, and it is ready to be integrated into the European Processor Initiative (EPI) chip. Full article

Cybersecurity is a critical issue for Real-Time IoT applications since high performance and low latencies are required, along with security requirements to protect the large number of attack surfaces to which IoT devices are exposed. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is largely adopted in an IoT context to provide security services such as key-exchange and digital signature. For Real-Time IoT applications, hardware acceleration for ECC-based algorithms can be mandatory to meet low-latency and low-power/energy requirements. In this paper, we propose a fast and configurable hardware accelerator for NIST P-256/-521 elliptic curves, developed in the context of the European Processor Initiative. The proposed architecture supports the most used cryptography schemes based on ECC such as Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES), Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV). A modified version of Double-And-Add-Always algorithm for Point Multiplication has been proposed, which allows the execution of Point Addition and Doubling operations concurrently and implements countermeasures against power and timing attacks. A simulated approach to extract power traces has been used to assess the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared to classical algorithms for Point Multiplication. A constant-time version of the Shamir’s Trick has been adopted to speed-up the Double-Point Multiplication and modular inversion is executed using Fermat’s Little Theorem, reusing the internal modular multipliers. The accelerator has been verified on a Xilinx ZCU106 development board and synthesized on both 45 nm and 7 nm Standard-Cell technologies. Full article

The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometers (IASIs) are three instruments flying on board the Metop satellites, launched in 2006 (IASI-A), 2012 (IASI-B), and 2018 (IASI-C). They measure infrared radiance from the Earth and atmosphere system, from which the atmospheric composition and temperature can be retrieved using dedicated algorithms, forming the Level 2 (L2) product. The operational near real-time processing of IASI data is conducted by the EUropean organisation for the exploitation of METeorological SATellites (EUMETSAT). It has improved over time, but due to IASI’s large data flow, the whole dataset has not yet been reprocessed backwards. A necessary step that must be completed before initiating this reprocessing is to uniformize the IASI radiance record (Level 1C), which has also changed with time due to various instrumental and software modifications. In 2019, EUMETSAT released a reprocessed IASI-A 2007–2017 radiance dataset that is consistent with both the L1C product generated after 2017 and with IASI-B. First, this study aimed to assess the changes in radiance associated with this update by comparing the operational and reprocessed datasets. The differences in the brightness temperature ranged from 0.02 K at 700 cm⁻¹ to 0.1 K at 2200 cm⁻¹. Additionally, two major updates in 2010 and 2013 were seen to have the largest impact. Then, we investigated the effects on the retrieved temperatures due to successive upgrades to the Level 2 processing chain. We compared IASI L2 with ERA5 reanalysis temperatures. We found differences of ~5–10 K at the surface and between 1 and 5 K in the atmosphere. These differences decreased abruptly after the release of the IASI L2 processor version 6 in 2014. These results suggest that it is not recommended to use the IASI inhomogeneous temperature products for trend analysis, both for temperature and trace gas trends. Full article

In this paper, we present an overview of the European Processor Initiative (EPI), one of the cornerstones of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, a new European Union strategic entity focused on pooling the Union’s and national resources on HPC to acquire, build and deploy the most powerful supercomputers in the world within Europe. EPI started its activities in December 2018. The first three years drew processor and platform designers, embedded software, middleware, applications and usage experts from 10 EU countries together to co-design Europe’s first HPC Systems on Chip and accelerators with its unique Common Platform (CP) technology. One of EPI’s core activities also takes place in the automotive sector, providing architectural solutions for a novel embedded high-performance computing (eHPC) platform and ensuring the overall economic viability of the initiative. Full article

Flooding is among the most common natural disasters in our planet and one of the main causes of economic and human life loss worldwide. Evidence suggests the increase of floods at European scale with the Mediterranean coast being critically vulnerable to this risk. The devastating event in the West Mediterranean during the second week of September 2019 is a clear case of this risk crystallization, when a record-breaking flood (locally called the “Cold Drop” (Gota Fría)) has swollen into a catastrophe to the southeast of Spain surpassing previous all-time records. By using a straightforward approach with the Sentinel-2 twin satellites from the Copernicus Programme and the ACOLITE atmospheric correction processor, an initial approximation of the delineated flooded zones, including agriculture and urban areas, was accomplished in quasi-real time. The robust and flexible approach requires no ancillary data for rapid implementation. A composite of pre- and post-flood images was obtained to identify change detection and mask water pixels. Sentinel-2 identifies not only impacts on land but also on water ecosystem and its services, providing information on water quality deterioration and concentration of suspended matter in highly sensitive environments. Subsequent water quality deterioration occurred in large portions of Mar Menor, the largest coastal lagoon in the Mediterranean. The present study demonstrates the potentials brought by the free and open-data policy of Sentinel-2, a valuable source of rapid synoptic spatio-temporal information at the local or regional scale to support scientists, managers, stakeholders, and society in general during and after the emergency. Full article

The European Parliament and The Council of the European Union have established the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) for all European Union member states to achieve, at least, “good” ecological status of all water bodies larger than 50 hectares in Europe. The MultiSpectral Instrument onboard European Space Agency satellite Sentinel-2 has suitable 10, 20, 60 m spatial resolution to monitor most of the Estonian lakes as required by the Water Framework Directive. The study aims to analyze the suitability of Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument data to monitor water quality in inland waters. This consists of testing various atmospheric correction processors to remove the influence of atmosphere and comparing and developing chlorophyll a algorithms to estimate the ecological status of water in Estonian lakes. This study shows that the Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument is suitable for estimating chlorophyll a in water bodies and tracking the spatial and temporal dynamics in the lakes. However, atmospheric corrections are sensitive to surrounding land and often fail in narrow and small lakes. Due to that, deriving satellite-based chlorophyll a is not possible in every case, but initial results show the Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument could still provide complementary information to in situ data to support Water Framework Directive monitoring requirements. Full article