Parallel computer architectures : theory hardware software applications Parallel computer architectures are now going to real applications! This fact is demonstrated by the large number of application areas covered in this book (see section on applications of parallel computer architectures). The applications range from image analysis to quantum mechanics and data bases. Still the use of parallel architectures poses serious problems and requires the development of new techniques and tools. This book is a collection of best papers presented at the first workshop on two major research activities at the Universitiit Erlangen Niirnberg and Technis­ che Universitiit Miinchen. At both universities more than 100 researchers are working in the field of multiprocessor systems and network configurations and methods and tools for parallel systems. Indeed the German Science Founda­ tion (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) has been sponsoring the projects under grant numbers SFB 182 and SFB 342. Research grants in the form of a Sonder­ forschungsbereich are given to selected German Universities in portions of three years following a thoroughful reviewing process. The overall duration of such a research grant is restricted to 12 years. The initiative at Erlangen Niirnberg was started in 1987 and has been headed since this time by Prof. Dr. H. Wedekind. Work at TU Miinchen began in 1990 head of this initiative is Prof. Dr. A. Bode. The authors of this book are grateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for its continuing support in the field of research on parallel processing. The first section of the book is devoted to hardware aspects of parallel systems. Optoelectronic interconnections MEMSY a modular expandable multiprocessor system Fault tolerance in distributed shared memory multiprocessors Optimal multiprogramming control for parallel computations The distributed hardware monitor ZM4 and its interface to MEMSY Graph models for performance evaluation of parallel programs Load management on multiprocessor systems Randomized shared memory—Concept and efficiency of a scalable shared memory scheme Methods for exploitation of fine grained parallelism Causality based proof of a distributed shared memory system Object and memory management architecture An orthogonal distribution language for uniform object oriented languages Towards the implementation of a uniform object model Focus: A formal design method for distributed systems Parallelism in a semantic network for image understanding Architectures for parallel slicing enumeration in VLSI layout Application of fault parallelism to the automatic test pattern generation for sequential circuits Parallel sorting of large data volumes on distributed memory multiprocessors Quantum mechanical programs for distributed systems: Strategies and results On the parallel solution of 3D PDEs on a network of workstations and on vector computers Numerical simulation of complex fluid flows on MIMD computers.