263-4505-00L  Algorithms for Large-Scale Graph Processing

SemesterSpring Semester 2021
LecturersM. Ghaffari
Periodicityyearly recurring course
Language of instructionEnglish
CommentNumber of participants limited to 12.

The deadline for deregistering expires at the end of the second week of the semester. Students who are still registered after that date, but do not attend the seminar, will officially fail the seminar.


AbstractThis is a theory seminar, where we present and discuss recent algorithmic developments for
processing large-scale graphs. In particular, we focus on Massively Parallel Computation (MPC)
algorithms. MPC is a clean and general theoretical framework that captures the essential aspects
of computational problems in large-scale processing settings such as MapReduce, Hadoop,
Spark, Dryad, etc.
ObjectiveThis seminar familiarizes students with foundational aspects of large-scale graph processing,
and especially the related algorithmic tools and techniques. In particular, we discuss recent
developments in the area of Massively Parallel Computation. This is a mathematical abstraction
of practical large-scale processing settings such as MapReduce, and it has been receiving
significant attention over the past few years.

The seminar assumes no particular familiarity with parallel computation. However, we expect
that all the students are comfortable with basics of algorithms design and analysis, as well as
probability theory.

In the course of the seminar, the students learn how to structure a scientific presentation
(in English) which covers the key ideas of a paper, while omitting the less significant details.
ContentThe seminar will cover a number of the recent papers on Massively Parallel Computation.
As mentioned above, no familiarity with parallel computation is needed and all the relevant
background information will be explain by the instructor in the first lecture.
LiteratureThe papers will be presented in the first session of the seminar.
Prerequisites / NoticePrerequisite: Having passed at least one master's level course in theoretical computer science (ideally Advanced Algorithms and/or Randomized Algorithms).