Ali HeydariGorji

Ali HeydariGorji, Siavash Rezaei, Mahdi Torabzadehkashi et al.

Distributed training is a novel approach to accelerate Deep Neural Networks (DNN) training, but common training libraries fall short of addressing the distributed cases with heterogeneous processors or the cases where the processing nodes get interrupted by other workloads. This paper describes distributed training of DNN on computational storage devices (CSD), which are NAND flash-based, high capacity data storage with internal processing engines. A CSD-based distributed architecture incorporates the advantages of federated learning in terms of performance scalability, resiliency, and data privacy by eliminating the unnecessary data movement between the storage device and the host processor. The paper also describes Stannis, a DNN training framework that improves on the shortcomings of existing distributed training frameworks by dynamically tuning the training hyperparameters in heterogeneous systems to maintain the maximum overall processing speed in term of processed images per second and energy efficiency. Experimental results on image classification training benchmarks show up to 3.1x improvement in performance and 2.45x reduction in energy consumption when using Stannis plus CSD compare to the generic systems.

Ali HeydariGorji, Seyede Mahya Safavi, Cheng-Ting Lee et al.

This paper describes a wearable wireless mouse-cursor controller that optically tracks the degree of tilt of the user's head to move the mouse relative distances and therefore the degrees of tilt. The raw data can be processed locally on the wearable device before wirelessly transmitting the mouse-movement reports over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol to the host computer; but for exploration of algorithms, the raw data can also be processed on the host. The use of standard Human-Interface Device (HID) profile enables plug-and-play of the proposed mouse device on modern computers without requiring separate driver installation. It can be used in two different modes to move the cursor, the joystick mode and the direct mapped mode. Experimental results show that this head-controlled mouse to be intuitive and effective in operating the mouse cursor with fine-grained control of the cursor even by untrained users.

Ali HeydariGorji, Mahdi Torabzadehkashi, Siavash Rezaei et al.

This paper proposes a framework for distributed, in-storage training of neural networks on clusters of computational storage devices. Such devices not only contain hardware accelerators but also eliminate data movement between the host and storage, resulting in both improved performance and power savings. More importantly, this in-storage processing style of training ensures that private data never leaves the storage while fully controlling the sharing of public data. Experimental results show up to 2.7x speedup and 69% reduction in energy consumption and no significant loss in accuracy.