Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2008

Adaptive software becomes more and more important as computing is increasingly context-dependent. Runtime adaptability can be achieved by dynamically selecting and applying context-specific code. Role-oriented programming has been proposed as a paradigm to enable runtime adaptive software by design. Roles change the objects’ behavior at runtime and thus allow adapting the software to a given context. However, this increased variability and expressiveness has a direct impact on performance and memory consumption. We found a high overhead in the steady-state performance of executing compositions of adaptations. This paper presents a new approach to use run-time information to construct a dispatch plan that can be executed efficiently by the JVM. The concept of late binding is extended to dynamic function compositions. We evaluated the implementation with a benchmark for role-oriented programming languages leveraging context-dependent role semantics achieving a mean speedup of 2.79× over the regular implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to supply a summary of library subroutines and functions for parallel MIMD computers. The subroutines have been developed and continously extended at the University of Chemnitz since the end of the eighties. In detail, they are concerned with vector operations, inter-processor communication and simple graphic output to workstations. One of the most valuable features is the machine-independence of the communication subroutines proposed in this paper for a hypercube topology of the parallel processors (excepting a kernel of only two primitive system-dependend operations). They were implemented and tested for different hardware and operating systems including PARIX for transputers and PowerPC, nCube, PVM, MPI. The vector subroutines are optimized by the use of C language and unrolled loops (BLAS1-like). Hardware-optimized BLAS1 routines may be integrated. The paper includes hints for programmers how to use the libraries with both Fortran and C programs.

The diploma thesis with the subject ¨Parallel Genetic Algorithms with Applications¨ deals with the parallelization of Genetic Algorithms for the creation of efficient optimization methods especially for simulation based application problems. First, an introduction to Genetic Algorithms and an overview of possible parallelization approaches as well as already published results of research are given. This is followed by a detailed explanation of the conception and realization of own Parallel Genetic Algorithms. The paper is rounded off by an particularized description of the results of extensive test runs on the Chemnitzer Linux-Cluster (CLiC). / Die Diplomarbeit zum Thema ¨Parallele Genetische Algorithmen mit Anwendungen¨ befasst sich mit der Parallelisierung Genetischer Algorithmen zur Erzeugung effizienter Optimierungsverfahren für insbesondere simulationsbasierte Anwendungsprobleme. Zunächst werden eine Einführung in Genetische Algorithmen sowie ein Überblick über mögliche Parallelisierungsansätze und bereits veröffentlichte Forschungsergebnisse gegeben. Dem schließt sich eine detaillierte Erläuterung der Konzeption und Umsetzung eigener Paralleler Genetischer Algorithmen an. Abgerundet wird die Arbeit durch eine ausführliche Darstellung der Ergebnisse umfangreicher Testläufe auf dem Chemnitzer Linux-Cluster (CLiC).

This paper deals with the visualization of numerical results as a very convenient method to understand and evaluate a solution which has been calculated as a set of millions of numerical values. One of the central research fields of the Chemnitz SFB 393 is the analysis of parallel numerical algorithms for large systems of linear equations arising from differential equations (e.g. in solid and fluid mechanics). Solving large problems on massively parallel computers makes it more and more impossible to store numerical data from the distributed memory of the parallel computer to the disk for later postprocessing. However, the developer of algorithms is interested in an on-line response of his algorithms. Both visual and numerical response of the running program may be evaluated by the user for a decision how to switch or adjust interactively certain parameters that may influence the solution process. The paper gives a survey of current programmer and user interfaces that are used in our various 2D and 3D parallel finite element programs for the visualization of the solution.

The characteristics of irregular algorithms make a parallel implementation difficult, especially for PC clusters or clusters of SMPs. These characteristics may include an unpredictable access behavior to dynamically changing data structures or strong irregular coupling of computations. Problems are an unknown load distribution and expensive irregular communication patterns for data accesses and redistributions. Thus the parallel implementation of irregular algorithms on distributed memory machines and clusters requires a special organizational mechanism for a dynamic load balance while keeping the communication and administration overhead low. We propose task pool teams for implementing irregular algorithms on clusters of PCs or SMPs. A task pool team combines multithreaded programming using task pools on single nodes with explicit message passing between different nodes. The dynamic load balance mechanism of task pools is generalized to a dynamic load balance scheme for all distributed nodes. We have implemented and compared several versions for task pool teams. As application example, we use the hierarchical radiosity algorithm, which is based on dynamically growing quadtree data structures annotated by varying interaction lists expressing the irregular coupling between the quadtrees. Experiments are performed on a PC cluster and a cluster of SMPs.

Eine Zusammenstellung der Blender-Quellfiles, welche zum UNIX-STammtisch "Character-Animation mit Blender" gezeigt wurden.

Der Vortrag zeigt Grundlagen und Möglichkeiten der Programmierung von ATMEL-Mikrocontrollern am Beispiel des ATMega32 (ATMega 644). Der integrierte USART-Baustein wird beispielhaft für Debugging und als Interface für einen Bootloader vorgestellt. Für die Kommunikation im Netz wird ein Ethernetcontroller (ENC28J60) am SPI-Interface angebunden. Am Beispiel der TCP/IP-Implementierung von Ulrich Radig wird die Funktionsweise erläutert. Die Anbindung von Sensoren (z.B. OneWire Temperatursensor) runden den Vortrag ab.

Multi-core processors require a program to be decomposable into independent parts that can execute in parallel in order to scale performance with the number of cores. But parallel programming is hard especially when the program requires state, which many system programs use for optimization, such as for example a cache to reduce disk I/O. Most prevalent parallel programming models do not support a notion of state and require the programmer to synchronize state access manually, i.e., outside the realms of an associated optimizing compiler. This prevents the compiler to introduce parallelism automatically and requires the programmer to optimize the program manually. In this dissertation, we propose a programming language/compiler co-design to provide a new programming model for implicit parallel programming with state and a compiler that can optimize the program for a parallel execution. We define the notion of a stateful function along with their composition and control structures. An example implementation of a highly scalable server shows that stateful functions smoothly integrate into existing programming language concepts, such as object-oriented programming and programming with structs. Our programming model is also highly practical and allows to gradually adapt existing code bases. As a case study, we implemented a new data processing core for the Hadoop Map/Reduce system to overcome existing performance bottlenecks. Our lambda-calculus-based compiler automatically extracts parallelism without changing the program's semantics. We added further domain-specific semantic-preserving transformations that reduce I/O calls for microservice programs. The runtime format of a program is a dataflow graph that can be executed in parallel, performs concurrent I/O and allows for non-blocking live updates.

A constraint is a formula in first-order logic expressing a relation between values of various domains. In order to solve a constraint, constructing a propositional encoding is a successfully applied technique that benefits from substantial progress made in the development of modern SAT solvers. However, propositional encodings are generally created by developing a problem-specific generator program or by crafting them manually, which often is a time-consuming and error-prone process especially for constraints over complex domains. Therefore, the present thesis introduces the constraint solver CO4 that automatically generates propositional encodings for constraints over structured finite domains written in a syntactical subset of the functional programming language Haskell. This subset of Haskell enables the specification of expressive and concise constraints by supporting user-defined algebraic data types, pattern matching, and polymorphic types, as well as higher-order and recursive functions. The constraint solver CO4 transforms a constraint written in this high-level language into a propositional formula. After an external SAT solver determined a satisfying assignment for the variables in the generated formula, a solution in the domain of discourse is derived. This approach is even applicable for finite restrictions of recursively defined algebraic data types. The present thesis describes all aspects of CO4 in detail: the language used for specifying constraints, the solving process and its correctness, as well as exemplary applications of CO4.