High Performance Computing: Technology, Methods And Applications

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING: Technology, Methods and Applications ADVANCES IN PARALLEL COMPUTING VOLUME 10 Bookseries Editors: Gerhard R. Joubert (Managing Editor) Aquariuslaan 60 5632 BD Eindhoven, The Netherlands Udo Schendel lnstitut fur Mathematik I Freie Universitat Berlin Germany ELSEVIER Amsterdam - Lausanne - New York - Oxford - Shannon - Tokyo HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING: Technology, Methods and Applications Edited by J.J. Dongarra L. Grandinetti Knoxville, TN U.S.A. Rende (Cosenza) Italy G.R. Joubert J. Kowalik Eindhoven The Netherlands Seattle, WA U.S.A. ELSEVIER Amsterdam - Lausanne - New York - Oxford - Shannon - Tokyo ELSEVIER SCIENCE B.V. Sara Burgerhartstraat 25 P.O. Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands ISBN: 0 444 821635 91995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Elsevier Science B.V., Copyright & Permissions Department P.O. Box 521, 1000 AM Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Special regulations for readers in the U.S.A. - This publication has been registered with the Copyright Clearance Center Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. Information can be obtained from the CCC about conditions under which photocopies of parts of this publication may be made in the U.S.A. All other copyright questions, including photocopying outside of the U.S.A., should be referred to thepuNisher, Eisevier Science B.V. No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in The Netherlands. Editorial Preface The idea of editing this book was conceived at the Advanced Workshop "High Performance Computing: Technology and Applications," held in Cetraro, ItalyonJune 27-29, 1994, and hosted by the Department of Electronics, Informatics and Systems (DEIS) of the University of Calabria. The purpose of the Workshop was to discuss the current status of and trends in high performance computing, and to identify the most critical issues related to this field of computer science. The editors decided that the book would include the best Workshop papers and additional invited contributions by several outstanding specialists in the field who had no opportunity to attend the workshop. The result of the project is this volume containing twenty-five papers arranged in the four major sections" General, Hardware Systems, Programming and Software, and Applications. We define High Performance Computing (HPC) as an integrated computing environment that includes hardware, software, algorithms, programming tools and visualization, and enables solving compute intensive problems. HPC has contributed very significantly to solving large-scale problems in many areas of science and engineering, such as: computational fluid dynamics, structures, electromagnetics, weather forecast and climate evolution, etc. Newly emerging areas of the HPC applications include: medical sciences, transportation, financial operations, advanced humancomputer interface such as virtual reality, collaborative computing and computational chemistry. The Application section of this volume contains papers that present practical uses of HPC in these emerging areas of application. The book is recommended for technical, as well as, management oriented individuals who have a need for or would like to know more about th