Zeljko Vrba successfully defended his PhD thesis
On Thursday 26 November, Zeljko Vrba successfully defended his PhD thesis Implementation and performance aspects of Kahn process networks. Vrba's thesis contributes to the understanding of how regular computer programs may be adapted to run more effectively on modern multi-core systems.
Zeljko Vrba defends his thesis
To save energy and reduce heating, modern CPUs are running at lower frequencies than their predecessors. The producers compensate for performance loss by putting multiple cores into one chip, which can then run multiple programs in parallel. Even though multi-core CPUs have greater total computing power than earlier CPUs, most programs nevertheless run slower because they are unable to make use of multiple cores. To make a program use multiple cores, it usually has to be rewritten from scratch, which is a slow and expensive process, also because the developers must learn a new way of thinking.
In Vrba's work, which has been performed in the period 2005-2009 at IfI and Simula, he has investigated how development of programs using multiple cores can be simplified. He has investigated the mathematical framework of Kahn process networks, first devised in 1970ies, and implemented a library which makes it easier to extend existing programs with support for multiple cores. By using this library, programs can automatically use all available cores, without requiring any changes. The experiments have also shown that adapting existing programs requires minimal changes in the existing program code.
Vrba is employed at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, but Simula has been his main workplace. He defended his thesis Thursday 26 November. Prior to the defence, Vrba presented his trial lecture Languages for Parallel Programming: State-of-the-Art and their Potential for Parallel Programming by Everybody.
The adjudication committee
Professor Prashant Shenoy, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts.
Professor Lasse Natvig, Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Professor Tor Skeie, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.
Chair of the disputation
Professor Annik Myhre
Supervisors
Pål Halvorsen og Carsten Griwodz
Read More:
Announcement of the PhD defence at the University of Oslo's web pages (in Norwegian).
