Parle 94 Parallel Architectures And Languages Europe

Motivation It is now possible to build powerful single-processor and multiprocessor systems and use them efficiently for data processing, which has seen an explosive ex­ pansion in many areas of computer science and engineering. One approach to meeting the performance requirements of the applications has been to utilize the most powerful single-processor system that is available. When such a system does not provide the performance requirements, pipelined and parallel process­ ing structures can be employed.

Transformational programming and parallel computation are two emerging fields that may ultimately depend on each other for success. Perhaps because ad hoc programming on sequential machines is so straightforward, sequential programming methodology has had little impact outside the academic community, and transformational methodology has had little impact at all. However, because ad hoc programming for parallel machines is so hard, and because progress in software construction has lagged behind architectural advances for such machines, there is a much greater need to develop parallel programming and transformational methodologies. Parallel Algorithm Derivation and Program Transformation stimulates the investigation of formal ways to overcome problems of parallel computation, with respect to both software development and algorithm design. It represents perspectives from two different communities: transformational programming and parallel algorithm design, to discuss programming, transformational, and compiler methodologies for parallel architectures, and algorithmic paradigms, techniques, and tools for parallel machine models. Parallel Algorithm Derivation and Program Transformation is an excellent reference for graduate students and researchers in parallel programming and transformational methodology. Each chapter contains a few initial sections in the style of a first-year, graduate textbook with many illustrative examples. The book may also be used as the text for a graduate seminar course or as a reference book for courses in software engineering, parallel programming or formal methods in program development.

With this book, Onn Shehory and Arnon Sturm, together with further contributors, introduce the reader to various facets of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE). They provide a selected collection of state-of-the-art findings, which combines research from information systems, artificial intelligence, distributed systems, and software engineering and covers essential development aspects of agent-based systems.