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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/M015750/1
Title: Heterogeneous Parallel and Distributed Computing with Java (HPDCJ)
Principal Investigator: Nikolopoulos, Professor D
Other Investigators:
Vandierendonck, Professor HTK
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Sch of Electronics, Elec Eng & Comp Sci
Organisation: Queen's University of Belfast
Scheme: Standard Research - NR1
Starts: 01 January 2015 Ends: 31 December 2018 Value (£): 221,592
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Computer Sys. & Architecture
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Information Technologies
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Our proposal focuses on the ease of use and programmability of Java for distributed heterogeneous computing in order to make it exploitable by the huge user base of mainstream computing. Based on previous work (PCJ library http://pcj.icm.edu.pl), we will introduce and transparently expose parallelism in Java, with minimal change to the specifics of the language, thus allowing programmers to focus on the application. We have demonstrated power and scalability of the PCJ library for the parallel systems and we will extend it for the cases where communication cost and latency could be higher.

We will extend the existing solution with the capability of running on the heterogeneous systems including GPU and mobile devices. The user will obtain the possibility to execute computational intensive parts of the application on multiple GPUs. Since our solution is based on Java it can be easily run on mobile devices. Within the project we will extend the library capabilities with the optimised communication and scheduling mechanism necessary to fully use such devices.

We will utilise the potential of the parallel Java library to process distributed data. The existing solution benefits from the parallel I/O performed by the multiple JVMs. We will use this solution to optimise the process of data distribution and storage including streaming of the large data sets.

We will address dependability and resilience by adding fault tolerance mechanisms to the parallel Java library including fault detection and rescheduling of the application execution. The mechanism will extend capabilities of the existing PCJ library and will be transparent to the users.

We will show the applicability of our framework for distributed heterogeneous systems by a set of selected, key applications including data-intensive Big Data applications.

Our potential success will create a solution for Java programming that will be very attractive to a wide mainstream user base and will thus have a game-changing influence on the European computing industry.

We assembled a carefully selected team with complementary focuses and the right degree of overlap. Most of the partners have worked in close collaboration in previous (EU) projects with remarkable success. We believe this to become a key pilot project that can open the way for future research, which will have a profound impact on mainstream computing.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.qub.ac.uk