In parallel algorithms, the list ranking problem involves determining the position, or rank, of each item in a linked list. That is, the first item in the list should be assigned the number 1, the second item in the list should be assigned the number 2, etc. Although it is straightforward to solve this problem efficiently on a sequential computer, by traversing the list in order, it is more complicated to solve in parallel. As Anderson & Miller (1990) wrote, the problem was viewed as important in the parallel algorithms community both for its many applications and because solving it led to many important ideas that could be applied in parallel algorithms more generally.
The list ranking problem was posed by Wyllie (1979), who solved it with a parallel algorithm using logarithmic time and O(n log n) total steps (that is, O(n) processors). Over a sequence of many subsequent papers, this was eventually improved to linearly many steps (O(n/log n) processors), on the most restrictive model of synchronous shared-memory parallel computation, the exclusive read exclusive write PRAM (Vishkin 1984; Cole & Vishkin 1989;Anderson & Miller 1990). This number of steps matches the sequential algorithm.
List ranking can equivalently be viewed as performing a prefix sum operation on the given list, in which the values to be summed are all equal to one. The list ranking problem can be used to solve many problems on trees via an Euler tour technique, in which one forms a linked list that includes two copies of each edge of the tree, one in each direction, places the nodes of this list into an ordered array using list ranking, and then performs prefix sum computations on the ordered array ( Tarjan & Vishkin 1985 ). For instance, the height of each node in the tree may be computed by an algorithm of this type in which the prefix sum adds 1 for each downward edge and subtracts 1 for each upward edge.
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers.
A minimum spanning tree (MST) or minimum weight spanning tree is a subset of the edges of a connected, edge-weighted undirected graph that connects all the vertices together, without any cycles and with the minimum possible total edge weight. That is, it is a spanning tree whose sum of edge weights is as small as possible. More generally, any edge-weighted undirected graph has a minimum spanning forest, which is a union of the minimum spanning trees for its connected components.
In the mathematical theory of directed graphs, a graph is said to be strongly connected if every vertex is reachable from every other vertex. The strongly connected components of a directed graph form a partition into subgraphs that are themselves strongly connected. It is possible to test the strong connectivity of a graph, or to find its strongly connected components, in linear time (that is, Θ(V + E )).
In computer science, a topological sort or topological ordering of a directed graph is a linear ordering of its vertices such that for every directed edge (u,v) from vertex u to vertex v, u comes before v in the ordering. For instance, the vertices of the graph may represent tasks to be performed, and the edges may represent constraints that one task must be performed before another; in this application, a topological ordering is just a valid sequence for the tasks. Precisely, a topological sort is a graph traversal in which each node v is visited only after all its dependencies are visited. A topological ordering is possible if and only if the graph has no directed cycles, that is, if it is a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Any DAG has at least one topological ordering, and algorithms are known for constructing a topological ordering of any DAG in linear time. Topological sorting has many applications, especially in ranking problems such as feedback arc set. Topological sorting is possible even when the DAG has disconnected components.
In computer science, a parallel random-access machine is a shared-memory abstract machine. As its name indicates, the PRAM is intended as the parallel-computing analogy to the random-access machine (RAM). In the same way that the RAM is used by sequential-algorithm designers to model algorithmic performance, the PRAM is used by parallel-algorithm designers to model parallel algorithmic performance. Similar to the way in which the RAM model neglects practical issues, such as access time to cache memory versus main memory, the PRAM model neglects such issues as synchronization and communication, but provides any (problem-size-dependent) number of processors. Algorithm cost, for instance, is estimated using two parameters O(time) and O(time × processor_number).
In graph theory, a maximal independent set (MIS) or maximal stable set is an independent set that is not a subset of any other independent set. In other words, there is no vertex outside the independent set that may join it because it is maximal with respect to the independent set property.
In mathematical optimization, the push–relabel algorithm is an algorithm for computing maximum flows in a flow network. The name "push–relabel" comes from the two basic operations used in the algorithm. Throughout its execution, the algorithm maintains a "preflow" and gradually converts it into a maximum flow by moving flow locally between neighboring nodes using push operations under the guidance of an admissible network maintained by relabel operations. In comparison, the Ford–Fulkerson algorithm performs global augmentations that send flow following paths from the source all the way to the sink.
In graph theory, a biconnected component is a maximal biconnected subgraph. Any connected graph decomposes into a tree of biconnected components called the block-cut tree of the graph. The blocks are attached to each other at shared vertices called cut vertices or separating vertices or articulation points. Specifically, a cut vertex is any vertex whose removal increases the number of connected components.
In computer science, the prefix sum, cumulative sum, inclusive scan, or simply scan of a sequence of numbers x0, x1, x2, ... is a second sequence of numbers y0, y1, y2, ..., the sums of prefixes of the input sequence:
In graph theory and computer science, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two nodes v and w in a tree or directed acyclic graph (DAG) T is the lowest node that has both v and w as descendants, where we define each node to be a descendant of itself.
In computer science, a Cartesian tree is a binary tree derived from a sequence of distinct numbers. To construct the Cartesian tree, set its root to be the minimum number in the sequence, and recursively construct its left and right subtrees from the subsequences before and after this number. It is uniquely defined as a min-heap whose symmetric (in-order) traversal returns the original sequence.
In computer science, a range minimum query (RMQ) solves the problem of finding the minimal value in a sub-array of an array of comparable objects. Range minimum queries have several use cases in computer science, such as the lowest common ancestor problem and the longest common prefix problem (LCP).
Uzi Vishkin is a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). Uzi Vishkin is known for his work in the field of parallel computing. In 1996, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, with the following citation: "One of the pioneers of parallel algorithms research, Dr. Vishkin's seminal contributions played a leading role in forming and shaping what thinking in parallel has come to mean in the fundamental theory of Computer Science."
In computer science, the all nearest smaller values problem is the following task: for each position in a sequence of numbers, search among the previous positions for the last position that contains a smaller value. This problem can be solved efficiently both by parallel and non-parallel algorithms: Berkman, Schieber & Vishkin (1993), who first identified the procedure as a useful subroutine for other parallel programs, developed efficient algorithms to solve it in the Parallel Random Access Machine model; it may also be solved in linear time on a non-parallel computer using a stack-based algorithm. Later researchers have studied algorithms to solve it in other models of parallel computation.
Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT) is a computer science paradigm for building and programming parallel computers designed around the parallel random-access machine (PRAM) parallel computational model. A more direct explanation of XMT starts with the rudimentary abstraction that made serial computing simple: that any single instruction available for execution in a serial program executes immediately. A consequence of this abstraction is a step-by-step (inductive) explication of the instruction available next for execution. The rudimentary parallel abstraction behind XMT, dubbed Immediate Concurrent Execution (ICE) in Vishkin (2011), is that indefinitely many instructions available for concurrent execution execute immediately. A consequence of ICE is a step-by-step (inductive) explication of the instructions available next for concurrent execution. Moving beyond the serial von Neumann computer, the aspiration of XMT is that computer science will again be able to augment mathematical induction with a simple one-line computing abstraction.
The Euler tour technique (ETT), named after Leonhard Euler, is a method in graph theory for representing trees. The tree is viewed as a directed graph that contains two directed edges for each edge in the tree. The tree can then be represented as a Eulerian circuit of the directed graph, known as the Euler tour representation (ETR) of the tree. The ETT allows for efficient, parallel computation of solutions to common problems in algorithmic graph theory. It was introduced by Tarjan and Vishkin in 1984.
In graph theory, a bipolar orientation or st-orientation of an undirected graph is an assignment of a direction to each edge that causes the graph to become a directed acyclic graph with a single source s and a single sink t, and an st-numbering of the graph is a topological ordering of the resulting directed acyclic graph.
Pointer jumping or path doubling is a design technique for parallel algorithms that operate on pointer structures, such as linked lists and directed graphs. Pointer jumping allows an algorithm to follow paths with a time complexity that is logarithmic with respect to the length of the longest path. It does this by "jumping" to the end of the path computed by neighbors.
In computer science, the analysis of parallel algorithms is the process of finding the computational complexity of algorithms executed in parallel – the amount of time, storage, or other resources needed to execute them. In many respects, analysis of parallel algorithms is similar to the analysis of sequential algorithms, but is generally more involved because one must reason about the behavior of multiple cooperating threads of execution. One of the primary goals of parallel analysis is to understand how a parallel algorithm's use of resources changes as the number of processors is changed.
In computer science, parallel tree contraction is a broadly applicable technique for the parallel solution of a large number of tree problems, and is used as an algorithm design technique for the design of a large number of parallel graph algorithms. Parallel tree contraction was introduced by Gary L. Miller and John H. Reif, and has subsequently been modified to improve efficiency by X. He and Y. Yesha, Hillel Gazit, Gary L. Miller and Shang-Hua Teng and many others.