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Agents: An undistorted representation of problem structure

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Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (LCPC 1995)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1033))

Abstract

It has been observed that data-parallel languages are only suited to problems with “regular” structures. This observation prompts a question: to what extent are other parallel programming languages specialized to specific problem structures, and are there any truly general-purpose parallel programming languages, suited to all problem structures? In this paper, we define our concept of “problem structure”. Given this definition, we describe what it means for a language construct to “directly reflect” a problem structure, and we argue the importance of using a language construct which reflects the problem structure. We describe the difficulties that arise when the language construct and the problem structure do not fit each other. We consider existing language constructs to identify the structures they fit, and we note that language constructs are often designed with little regard for such generality. Finally, we describe a parallel language construct which is designed specifically with the goal of being able to reflect arbitrary problem structures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois, 61801, Urbana, Illinois

    J. Yelon & L. V. Kalé

Authors
  1. J. Yelon
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  2. L. V. Kalé
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Editor information

Chua-Huang Huang Ponnuswamy Sadayappan Utpal Banerjee David Gelernter Alex Nicolau David Padua

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Yelon, J., Kalé, L.V. (1996). Agents: An undistorted representation of problem structure. In: Huang, CH., Sadayappan, P., Banerjee, U., Gelernter, D., Nicolau, A., Padua, D. (eds) Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing. LCPC 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1033. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014223

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014223

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60765-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49446-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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