Topic 12: Theory and algorithms for parallel computation (Introduction)

Parallelism permeates all levels of current computing systems, from single CPU machines, to large server farms, to geographically dispersed "volunteers" who collaborate over the Internet. The effective use of parallelism depends crucially on the availability of faithful, yet tractable, computational models for algorithm design and analysis and models of efficient strategies for solving key computational problems on prominent classes of computing platforms. Equally important are good algorithmic models of the way the different system components are interconnected. With the development of new genres of computing platforms, such as multicore parallel machines, desktop grids, clouds, and hybrid GPU/CPUbased systems, new computational models and paradigms are needed that will allow parallel programming to advance into mainstream computing. Topic 12 focuses on contributions providing new results on foundational issues regarding parallelism in computing and/or proposing improved approaches to the solution of specific algorithmic problems