In the JINR Laboratories

Brilliant defense as one of the results of the year

On 20 December, at the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies, Head of the MLIT Sector Sergey Belov successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Technology. The topic of the thesis was Big Data techniques and technologies for meeting issues of high energy physics in distributed computing environments.

The supervisor of the thesis was MLIT Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov; the scientific consultant was Head of the Laboratory of Electroweak and New Interactions of the Department of Experimental High Energy Physics of the MSU Institute of Nuclear Physics Lev Dudko; the opponents were Head of the Distributed Computing Centre of the IITP RAS Alexander Afanasev and a highly qualified research engineer at the Marseille Centre for Particle Physics of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics of the National Centre for Scientific Research (Marseille, France) Andrey Tsaregorodtsev.

"Sergey Belov's thesis is of great scientific, technological and practical significance, as he has participated in numerous novel investigations of developing large computer system monitoring, control of distributed data of major scientific projects, development of Big Data analytics platforms and the JINR Digital Ecosystem," Vladimir Korenkov emphasized in his commentary on the results of the defense.

In large scientific experiments in the field of high energy physics, key tasks include physical simulation, data storage and access engineering, and distributed computing. Sergey Belov proposed an approach to automating some stages of simulating physical events in high energy physics based on describing metainformation about events to transfer it between processing stages and using a knowledge base in a distributed computing environment. He has developed new techniques, prototypes, algorithms and software tools for the system for storage and access of simulated physical data for experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Within the framework of the thesis, he developed a specialized knowledge base of simulated MCDB events for distributed computing environments. The developed Monte Carlo simulation event database and simulating metadata description tools were used to increase the automation of the official simulation chain of the CMS Experiment in 2010-2013 and the developed HepML markup language is used by the CompHEP and CalcHEP Generator Programmes.

As Vladimir Korenkov highlighted, Sergey Belov has widely participated in novel investigations of the LHC to develop the Worlwide LHC Computing Grid monitoring system on a new technological platform, to develop the ProdSys2 physical simulation and analysis support system, as well as to develop the ATLAS Grid Information System for distributed computing and to support for data transmission monitoring within the Dashboard project.

Sergey Belov proposed an approach to developing major monitoring of the ATLAS experimental data transmission in a distributed computing environment. Software packages based on this approach are used in ATLAS, namely in CERN's new MONIT Data Transmission Monitoring System. In addition, Sergey Belov developed tools for analyzing statistics on access to data from the ATLAS Experiment. In these investigations, he first introduced techniques and technologies of Big Data analytics.

In addition, as part of the thesis, a software package for analyzing the demand for data sets in the globally distributed repositories of the ATLAS physics experiment was developed that is currently used to estimate the efficiency of data management strategies and their optimization.

Vladimir Korenkov emphasized the huge task carried out by Sergey Belov on the way to defending his thesis and his ability to implement major tasks that no one had previously undertaken. Sergey Belov started working at MLIT in 2003 as a student at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). At that time, the Large Hadron Collider started extensively implementing computing projects, including LCG (LHC Computing GRID) and EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE projects). A Russian grid segment (RDIG, Russian Data-Intensive Grid Consortium) was in development as well. "Sergey Belov was extensively engaged in this activity and in a short time, together with another MIPT Master Igor Tkachev, they developed a system for monitoring and accounting for the use of RDIG resources. Later, Sergey Belov participated in many projects and showed extraordinary abilities and talent in implementing the most daring and promising ideas, only some of which were included in his thesis," Vladimir Korenkov said.

Sergey Belov was the main contractor for the development and modernization of a grid monitoring system for the SKIF-GRID Scientific and Technical Programme of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, a system for monitoring and accounting for resource use of the GridNNS Project (development of a grid infrastructure for the national nanotechnology network), coordinated the development of a data management system for the Russian Grid Network.

Summarizing the techniques of meeting the tasks in high energy physics, aimed at carrying out efficient research in various fields of science using Big Data technologies, Sergey Belov developed an architecture and a prototype of a digital platform for analyzing complex social and economic systems. On the basis of this prototype, applied research of the Russian labour market and the topics of publications in scientific journals were carried out.

"Since 2016, Sergey has been involved in the project to develop a Big Data platform for a wide range of major tasks and has been developing techniques for intelligent analysis of natural language texts. He was one of the leaders of the project "Development of an information and analytical system for monitoring and analyzing the labor market's needs for university graduates based on Big Data analytics", the results of which are of great practical significance and are used in the social navigator for professions and salaries in the regions of Russia - a joint project of the MIA "Russia Today" and the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, in research by the Federal State Budgetary Institution "All-Russian Research Institute of Labor" of the Ministry of Labor of Russia. As one of the main executors, he widely participated in the project to develop technologies and platforms for meeting issues of the digital economy and mega-science scientific projects based on the synthesis of Big Data technologies, supercomputer technologies, data lakes and machine learning," Vladimir Korenkov said.

Currently, at MLIT, Sergey Belov heads the Sector for Development and Maintenance of the Centralized Economic System in the Scientific and Technological Department of External Communications and Distributed Information Systems, where he leads a large project to develop the JINR Digital Ecosystem and participates in the development of a Big Data analytics platform and currently works in the field of computing physical experiments, including the SPD experiment in the NICA megascience project.

"I would like to express my gratitude to my permanent scientific supervisor Vladimir Korenkov. I saw how the Laboratory developed under him, it was both a high motivation and an example for me. I am very grateful to the Dissertation Council of the Laboratory and of course, to Secretary Elena Zemlyanaya for the enormous help in preparing for the defense of my thesis, as well as for her comprehensive support. My scientific life since my student days has been bound up with the Laboratory of Information Technologies. This is a unique place not only due to the traditionally high, worldwide scientific research, powerful computing infrastructure, but above all the atmosphere of benevolence and scientific research typical of the laboratory staff," Sergey Belov highlighted.

The general opinion voiced at Sergey Belov's defense by both opponents and experts was that the paper significantly exceeds the level required for awarding a candidate of science degree in its relevance, the major work carried out and the pioneering nature of research.

As reported by MLIT