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LP30210: Multi-tasking systems

Follow this link for further information on academic years Academic Year: 2013/4
Further information on owning departmentsOwning Department/School: Department of Computer Science (administered by the Learning Partnerships Office)
Further information on credits Credits: 6
Further information on unit levels Level: Honours (FHEQ level 6)
Further information on teaching periods Period: Semester 1 at City of Bath College
Semester 1 at Weston College
Semester 1 at Wiltshire College
Further information on unit assessment Assessment: CW 70%, EX 30%
Further information on supplementary assessment Supplementary Assessment: Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations)
Further information on requisites Requisites:
Further information on descriptions Description: Aims:
To explore the nature of concurrency, parallelism and inter-process communication and their role in practical computing applications.

Learning Outcomes:

* An understanding of the nature of concurrency and parallelism and the theoretical and practical issues associated with each;
* An understanding of inter-process communication in both shared and non-shared memory spaces.

Skills:
Intellectual: (T and A) Develop knowledge for analysing and managing concurrent processing and parallelism.
Professional: (F and A) Gain an insight into the relationship between the needs of systems and the potential problems in coding them leading to an ability to decide on the nature of system problems.
Practical: (T and A) Design and programming for the implementation of concurrent and parallel systems.
Key: (F and A) Planning, designing and communication.
(T: Taught, F: Facilitated, A: Assessed).

Content:

* Process management: the concept of a process and the scheduling of several processes. Operations on processes and the cooperation needed between processes.
* Concurrent threads: programming multithreaded systems.
* Concurrency v parallelism: the differences and similarities.
* Multi-processor, multi-core processors and programming for parallel processes.
* Operating systems and concurrent process. CPU context switching. Scheduling - heavy weight and light weight threads. Scheduling and real time systems. Critical sections and atomic actions.
* Operating systems for multi processors systems and parallel processes.
* Inter-process communication and process synchronization. Shared memory and low level synchronization primitives. High level language synchronization mechanisms. Resource allocation, deadlock and starvation
* Distributed communication (non-shared memory). High level language mechanisms such as sockets and Remote Method Invocation (RMI-Java).
Further information on programme availabilityProgramme availability:

LP30210 is Compulsory on the following programmes:

Programmes administered by the Learning Partnerships Office
  • USCM-DFB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Full-time at City of Bath College) - Year 1
  • USCM-DPB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Part-time at City of Bath College) - Year 2
  • USCM-LFB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Full-time at Weston College) - Year 1
  • USCM-LPB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Part-time at Weston College) - Year 2
  • USCM-WFB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Full-time at Wiltshire College) - Year 1
  • USCM-WPB22 : BSc (hons) Applied Computing (Work-based Learning) (Part-time at Wiltshire College) - Year 2

Notes:
* This unit catalogue is applicable for the 2013/4 academic year only. Students continuing their studies into 2014/15 and beyond should not assume that this unit will be available in future years in the format displayed here for 2013/14.
* Programmes and units are subject to change at any time, in accordance with normal University procedures.
* Availability of units will be subject to constraints such as staff availability, minimum and maximum group sizes, and timetabling factors as well as a student's ability to meet any pre-requisite rules.