Previous Related Work - Syracuse

Fox has worked in this general area for 15 years at both Caltech and Syracuse. Recently his relevant related work includes the DARPA contract F19628-94-C-0057 "Common Runtime Support for High Performance Parallel Languages" (PCRC) which is a collaboration including Syracuse, Maryland, Cooperating Systems, Florida, Indiana, Rochester and Texas. This is building common runtime to support Fortran C++ and Java (originally we had intended ADA as third language) parallel compilers. This includes support for both regular applications (Syracuse) and irregular cases (Maryland where the interoperable Meta-Chaos system was developed). This PCRC activity has also continued the development of the Syracuse HPF compiler which was supported on a previous DARPA grant. This was probably the first HPF compiler to demonstrate the viability of the language and key technology ideas needed. This research prototype was licensed by the Portland Group whose commercial product is highly regarded. We intend to build some of application emulator activity directly on the PCRC runtime. Other relevant Syracuse activity is in applications which has always been Fox's focus. The book "Parallel Computing Works" which essentially described Fox's work at Caltech highlighted 50 separate significant parallel applications. The most relevant current Syracuse application project is an NSF funded Grand Challenge studying the collision of two black holes where they are playing a major role in both physics and computer science parts of the activity. We will use this as an adaptive mesh application emulator and expect Syracuse to be involved in other important applications during the period of this proposal.