Parallel Computing on Arrays with Reconfigurable Optical Buses
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		   Yi Pan, University of Cincinnati

			       Abstract
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Fiber optic communications offer a combination of high bandwidth, low
error probability, and gigabit transmission capacity and have been
used extensively in wide-area networks.  Advances in optical and
optoelectronic technologies indicates that they could also be used as
interconnects in parallel computers. Based on the characteristics of
an optical bus and results obtained on arrays with reconfigurable
electronic buses, we recently proposed a new computational model
called linear array with a reconfigurable pipelined bus system
(LARPBS).  In the LARPBS model, messages can be transmitted
concurrently on a pipelined optical bus without partitioning the bus
into several segments, while the time delay between the furthest
processors is only the end-to-end propagation delay of light over a
waveguided bus.  On the other hand, a bus can also be dynamically
segmented into several subsystems, and each subsystem can perform
operations independently.  Hence, many divide-and-conquer algorithms
fit naturally into this model. In this talk, the main features of the
LARPBS model and several basic data movement operations on the model
will be described.  These operations include broadcast, multicast,
compression, split, binary prefix sum, quicksort, integer sort, and
maximum finding.  We show that all the algorithms can be executed
efficiently on the LARPBS model. The scalability issue of the model
will also be discussed.  It is our hope that the LARPBS model can be
used as a new and practical parallel computational model for designing
parallel algorithms.


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Yi Pan was born in Jiangsu, China.  He entered Tsinghua University in
March 1978 with the highest college entrance examination score among
all 1977 high school graduates in Jiangsu Province.  He received his
B.Eng. degree in computer engineering from Tsinghua University, China,
in 1982, and his Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University
of Pittsburgh, USA, in 1991.  Dr. Pan joined the Department of
Computer Science at the University of Dayton, Ohio, USA, in 1991 and
has been an associate professor since 1996.  

His research interests include parallel algorithms and architectures,
optical communication and computing, distributed computing, task
scheduling, and networking.  He has published more than 50 papers in
international journals and conference proceedings. He has received
several awards including NSF Research Opportunity Award, AFOSR Summer
Faculty Fellowship, Andrew Mellon Fellowship from Mellon Foundation,
the best paper award from PDPTA '96, and Summer Research Fellowship
from the Research Council of the University of Dayton. His research
has been supported by NSF, AFOSR, U.S. Air Force, and the state of
Ohio.  

Dr. Pan is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of
Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices and is an associate
editor of the International Journal of Parallel and Distributed
Systems and Networks.  He has served as a guest editor of special
issues for four international journals: Information Sciences, Parallel
Processing Letters, Informatica, and International Journal of Parallel
and Distributed Systems and Networks.  He will be the program chair of
the tenth International Conference on Parallel and Distributed
Computing and Systems and the conference co-chair of the Fourth
International Conference on Computer Science & Informatics.  He has
also served as a session chair or a committee member for various
international conferences.  Dr. Pan is a senior member of IEEE and a
member of the IEEE Computer Society.  Currently, he is the Chairman of
the IEEE Computer Society Student Activities Committee in Region 2
(Mideastern USA) and the Secretary of IEEE Computer Society Dayton
Chapter.  He is listed in Men of Achievement and Marquis Who's Who in
Midwest.  

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