Subject:
C518 review
From:
"David W Walker" <David.W.Walker@cs.cf.ac.uk>
Date:
Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:40:58 +0100
To:
"\"Geoffrey Fox(CandC:PandE Referee Report)\"" <gcf@indiana.edu>
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Resent-To:
Geoffrey Fox <gcfpc@csit.fsu.edu>
Resent-Date:
Sun, 14 Oct 2001 21:45:28 -0400
Resent-From:
Geoffrey Fox <fox@mailer.csit.fsu.edu>
Geoffrey
I have reviewed the paper by Valsalam and Skjellum. It is basically about getting the best possible performance for sequential matrix multiplication so I am not sure if it is suitable for the journal. In other respects it is pretty much OK, but rather long.
I hope this helps
David
Prof David W Walker
Department of Computer Science
Cardiff University
PO Box 916
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http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/User/David.W.Walker/
CandC:PandE Referee Report Form -- Electronic Transimission to "Geoffrey Fox(CandC:PandE Referee Report)" <gcf@indiana.edu>strongly preferred
Referees Home Page: http://aspen.csit.fsu.edu/CandCPandE/
Email "Geoffrey Fox(CandC:PandE Referee Report)" <gcf@indiana.edu>for URL of full paper to be reviewed
<CandCPandE Referee Report Form_files/wiley.gif>
WILEY Journal Home Page
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REFEREE'S REPORT
Concurrency and Computation:Practice and Experience
A: General Information
Please return to:
Geoffrey C. Fox
Electronically Preferred "Geoffrey Fox(CandC:PandE Referee Report)" <gcf@indiana.edu>
Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience
Computational Science and Information Technology
Florida State University
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Office FAX 850-644-0098
Office Phone 850-644-4587 but best is cell phone 3152546387
Please fill in Summary Conclusions (Sec. C) and details as appropriate in Secs. D, E and F.
B: Refereeing Philosophy
We encourage a broad range of readers and contributors. Please judge papers on their technical merit and separate comments on this from those on style and approach. Keep in mind the strong practical orientation that we are trying to give the journal. Note that the forms attached provide separate paper for comments that you wish only the editor to see and those that both the editor and author receive. Your identity will of course not be revealed to the author.
C: Paper and Referee Metadata
* Paper Number: C518
* Date: 18 September 2001
* Paper Title: A framework for high-performance matrix multiplication based on hierarchical abstractions, algorithms and optimized low-level kernels
* Author(s): Vinod Valsalam and Anthony Skjellum
* Referee: David Walker
* Address: Cardiff University
Referee Recommendations. Please indicate overall recommendations here, and details in following sections.
1. publish as is
2. accepted provided changes suggested are made X
3. reject X if it is decided not appropriate for the journal
D: Referee Comments (For Editor Only)
I am not sure if CandC:PandE is the most suitable journal for this paper as it is mostly about ways to improve the performance of matrix multiplication on sequential computers through the use of storage formats and algorithmic techniques that result in efficient use of cache. Extending these ideas to hierarchical memory in general it would be expected that the same approach could lead to a better parallel algorithm but this is not discussed in the paper. The paper is also rather long.
E: Referee Comments (For Author and Editor)
This is a careful piece of work that presents new results on sequential matrix multiplication algorithms. Have the authors tried to come up with an analytical model of the performance of the various algorithms discussed? It would be useful to develop such a model that reflects the costs of data movement and computation, and to compare it with the results given in the paper. Similarly it should be possible to model the cost of converting between different storage schemes (e.g., between hierarchical and row-major or column-major). This would confirm the relatively small cost of conversion. It would also be interesting to extend the approach to parallel algorithms for matrix multiplication.
F: Presentation Changes
The authors might like to consider splitting the paper into 2 separate papers. One giving an overview of matrix multiplication algorithms, including the new approaches presented in the original paper, and a second presenting the results, analysis and interpretation.