Batch simulations

Array run (Parallel runs) can be set using the curly braces around the target parameter. There are two special characters indicating either an explicit vector of values (ampersand, &) or numpy style range with step as the third value (vertical bar, |).

For instance, to run 3 separate simulationswith scale=1, scale=2 and scale=3, the parameter scale should be set to:

…	scale	…
…	{1&2&3}	…

This parallel run will use the number of processes (threads) that is set using the number_of_process parameter, e.g. if number_of_process=3, then each of the 3 simulations runs in their own threads. However, if number_of_process=2, two processes run first the simulation for scale=1, and scale=2. The third simulation with scale=3 will start when the first of the two simulations are completed.

The array_run could also be set in range with defined step:

…	scale	…
…	{1|5|1}	…

This parallel run will use four simulations with scale=1, scale=2, scale=3 and scale=4. Note the numpy style vector excluding the last index.

When two or more parameters are set to use array runs, CxSystem can run the parallel runs either as multi-dimensional runs or independent runs. For example: suppose a simulation is to be performed for scale {1&2&3} with init_vms set to {0,1}. If multidimension_array_run flag is set to 1, the following 6 simulations will be run separately:

{scale=1, init_vms=0}, {scale=1, init_vms=1}, {scale=2, init_vms=0}, {scale=2, init_vms=1}, {scale=3, init_vms=0}, {scale=3, init_vms=1}

When multidimension_array_run flag is set to 0, however, the array_run pattern is different and 5 simulations will be run in parallel:

{scale=1}, {scale=2}, {scale=3}, {init_vms=0}, {init_vms=1}

One might want to run each of the parallel simulations several times, e.g. to observe an effect of random initialization on a particular parameter set. For this purpose the trials_per_config should be set to the desired number of runs per configuration.