Foreword -- Foreword to the First Printing -- Preface -- Chapter 1 -- Introduction -- Chapter 2 -- Message Switching Layer -- Chapter 3 -- Deadlock, Livelock, and Starvation -- Chapter 4 -- Routing Algorithms -- Chapter 5 -- CollectiveCommunicationSupport -- Chapter 6 -- Fault-Tolerant Routing -- Chapter 7 -- Network Architectures -- Chapter 8 -- Messaging Layer Software -- Chapter 9 -- Performance Evaluation -- Appendix A -- Formal Definitions for Deadlock Avoidance -- Appendix B -- Acronyms -- References -- Index.

Advances in optical technologies have made it possible to implement optical interconnections in future massively parallel processing systems. Photons are non-charged particles, and do not naturally interact. Consequently, there are many desirable characteristics of optical interconnects, e.g. high speed (speed of light), increased fanout, high bandwidth, high reliability, longer interconnection lengths, low power requirements, and immunity to EMI with reduced crosstalk. Optics can utilize free-space interconnects as well as guided wave technology, neither of which has the problems of VLSI technology mentioned above. Optical interconnections can be built at various levels, providing chip-to-chip, module-to-module, board-to-board, and node-to-node communications. Massively parallel processing using optical interconnections poses new challenges; new system configurations need to be designed, scheduling and data communication schemes based on new resource metrics need to be investigated, algorithms for a wide variety of applications need to be developed under the novel computation models that optical interconnections permit, and so on. Parallel Computing Using Optical Interconnections is a collection of survey articles written by leading and active scientists in the area of parallel computing using optical interconnections. This is the first book which provides current and comprehensive coverage of the field, reflects the state of the art from high-level architecture design and algorithmic points of view, and points out directions for further research and development.

Here, authors from academia and practice provide practitioners, scientists and graduates with basic methods and paradigms, as well as important issues and trends across the spectrum of parallel and distributed processing. In particular, they cover such fundamental topics as efficient parallel algorithms, languages for parallel processing, parallel operating systems, architecture of parallel and distributed systems, management of resources, tools for parallel computing, parallel database systems and multimedia object servers, as well as the relevant networking aspects. A chapter is dedicated to each of parallel and distributed scientific computing, high-performance computing in molecular sciences, and multimedia applications for parallel and distributed systems.

Two methods are used to speed up the execution of a computational task. One is new technology development and the other is the exploitation of parallelism in the computation. To take an advantage of the parallelism in a task requires the utilization of parallel computer architectures. At a certain high level of abstraction a parallel computer system is represented as a graph where the nodes represent processors, memories, or other devices, and the edges represent the communication links. In this thesis the following problems of parallel processing are studied. First is a theoretical study of topological properties of interconnection networks. Second is a case study of a network design for a real-time system. Lastly, the use of SIMD(Single Instruction Stream Multiple Data Stream) networks for performing 'shuffles'. A general model that can be used to describe networks and systems with arbitrary topologies is developed. Based upon the of morphism of groups, the concept of morphism of systems is developed. The morphism of systems is called quasimorphism and allows a method of comparison between topologically arbitrary parallel computer systems. The quasimorphism is used to study the emulation of one system by another.

This volume presents the proceedings of the First Canada-France Conference on Parallel Computing; despite its name, this conference was open to full international contribution and participation, as shown by the list of contributing authors. This volume consists of in total 22 full papers, either invited or accepted and revised after a thorough reviewing process. All together the papers provide a highly competent perspective on research in parallel algorithms and complexity, interconnection networks and distributed computing, algorithms for unstructured problems, and structured communications from the point of view of parallel and distributed computing.