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...