. Currently, many parallel algorithms are defined for sharedmemory architectures. The prefered machine model for designing these algorithms is the PRAM. However, this model does not take into account properties of existing architectures. Recently, Culler et al. defined the LogP machine model which better reflects the behaviour of massively parallel computers. We discuss an important class of programs for sharedmemory architectures and show how they can be mapped to the LogP machine. We define this class and show how to compute the mapping at compile time. For this mapping a constant factor delay with respect to the optimal LogP execution time can be guaranteed. 1 Introduction The PRAM model consists of a shared memory and a number of processors which have a local memory.Processors only communicate via their shared memory. The computation steps are performed in a synchronous lock-step manner. Memory access to different memory locations can be performed at the same time. The PRAMs are d...

Denotational semantics is usually extensional in that it deals only with input/output properties of programs by making the meaning of a program a function. Intensional semantics maps a program into an algorithm, thus enabling one to reason about complexity, order of evaluation, degree of parallelism, efficiency-improving program transformations, etc. I propose to develop intensional models for a number of parallel programming languages. The semantics will be implemented, resulting in a programming language of parallel algorithms, called CDSP. Applications of CDSP will be developed to determine its suitability for actual use. The thesis will hopefully make both theoretical and practical contributions: as a foundational study of parallelism by looking at the expressive power of various constructs, and with the design, implementation, and applications of an intensional parallel programming language. 1 Introduction Denotational semantics has now been around for about 25 years, which makes...