CS2013-final-report

Learning outcomes:
[Core-Tier1]
1. Explain why synchronization is necessary in a specific parallel program. [Usage]
2. Identify opportunities to partition a serial program into independent parallel modules. [Familiarity]
[Core-Tier2]
3. Write a correct and scalable parallel algorithm. [Usage]
4. Parallelize an algorithm by applying task-based decomposition. [Usage]
5. Parallelize an algorithm by applying data-parallel decomposition. [Usage]
6. Write a program using actors and/or reactive processes. [Usage]
PD/Communication and Coordination
[1 Core-Tier1 hour, 3 Core-Tier2 hours]
Cross-reference OS/Concurrency for mechanism implementation issues.
Topics:
[Core-Tier1]
• Shared Memory
• Consistency, and its role in programming language guarantees for data-race-free programs
[Core-Tier2]
• Message passing
o Point-to-point versus multicast (or event-based) messages
o Blocking versus non-blocking styles for sending and receiving messages
o Message buffering (cross-reference PF/Fundamental Data Structures/Queues)
• Atomicity
o Specifying and testing atomicity and safety requirements
o Granularity of atomic accesses and updates, and the use of constructs such as critical sections or
transactions to describe them
o Mutual Exclusion using locks, semaphores, monitors, or related constructs
• Potential for liveness failures and deadlock (causes, conditions, prevention)
o Composition
• Composing larger granularity atomic actions using synchronization
• Transactions, including optimistic and conservative approaches
[Elective]
• Consensus
o (Cyclic) barriers, counters, or related constructs
• Conditional actions
o Conditional waiting (e.g., using condition variables)
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