Concurrent Computations

The 1987 Princeton Workshop on Algorithm, Architecture and Technology Issues for Models of Concurrent Computation was organized as an interdisciplinary work- shop emphasizing current research directions toward concurrent computing systems. With participants from several different fields of specialization, the workshop cov- ered a wide variety of topics, though by no means a complete cross section of issues in this rapidly moving field. The papers included in this book were prepared for the workshop and, taken together, provide a view of the broad range of issues and alternative directions being explored. To organize the various papers, the book has been divided into five parts. Part I considers new technology directions. Part II emphasizes underlying theoretical issues. Communication issues, which are ad- dressed in the majority of papers, are specifically highlighted in Part III. Part IV includes papers stressing the fault tolerance and reliability of systems. Finally, Part V includes systems-oriented papers, where the system ranges from VLSI circuits through powerful parallel computers. Much of the initial planning of the workshop was completed through an informal AT&T Bell Laboratories group consisting of Mehdi Hatamian, Vijay Kumar, Adri- aan Ligtenberg, Sailesh Rao, P. Subrahmanyam and myself. We are grateful to Stuart Schwartz, both for the support of Princeton University and for his orga- nizing local arrangements for the workshop, and to the members of the organizing committee, whose recommendations for participants and discussion topics were par- ticularly helpful. A. Rosenberg, and A. T.