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Euro Par 2014 Parallel Processing

Workshops Euro Par 2014 International


Workshops Porto Portugal August 25
26 2014 Revised Selected Papers Part I
1st Edition Luís Lopes
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Luís Lopes et al. (Eds.)

Euro-Par 2014:
LNCS 8805

Parallel Processing
Workshops
Euro-Par 2014 International Workshops
Porto, Portugal, August 25–26, 2014
Revised Selected Papers, Part I

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8805
Commenced Publication in 1973
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen

Editorial Board
David Hutchison
Lancaster University, UK
Takeo Kanade
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Josef Kittler
University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Jon M. Kleinberg
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Friedemann Mattern
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
John C. Mitchell
Stanford University, CA, USA
Moni Naor
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
C. Pandu Rangan
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
Bernhard Steffen
TU Dortmund University, Germany
Demetri Terzopoulos
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Doug Tygar
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Gerhard Weikum
Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Saarbruecken, Germany
Luís Lopes et al. (Eds.)

Euro-Par 2014:
Parallel Processing
Workshops
Euro-Par 2014 International Workshops
Porto, Portugal, August 25-26, 2014
Revised Selected Papers, Part I

13
Volume Editor
Luís Lopes
University of Porto
CRACS/INESC-TEC and FCUP
Rua do Campo Alegre, 1021, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal
E-mail: lblopes@dcc.fc.up.pt

Workshop Editors see next page

ISSN 0302-9743 e-ISSN 1611-3349


ISBN 978-3-319-14324-8 e-ISBN 978-3-319-14325-5
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14325-5
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957415

LNCS Sublibrary: SL 1 – Theoretical Computer Science and General Issues


© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
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Workshop Editors

APCI&E MuCoCoS
Julius Žilinskas Siegfried Benkner
Vilnius University, Lithuania University of Vienna, Austria
julius.zilinskas@mii.vu.lt siegfried.benkner@univie.ac.at

BigDataCloud OHMI
Alexandru Costan Salvador Petit
Inria Rennes, France University of Valencia, Spain
alexandru.costan@inria.fr spetit@disca.upv.es

PADABS
DIHC Vittorio Scarano
Roberto G. Cascella University of Salerno, Italy
Inria Rennes, France vitsca@dia.unisa.it
roberto.cascella@inria.fr
PROPER
FedICI José Gracia
Gabor Kecskemeti High Performance Computing Center
MTA SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary Stuttgart (HLRS), Germany
kecskemeti.gabor@sztaki.mta.hu gracia@hlrs.de

REPPAR
HeteroPar Sascha Hunold
Emmanuel Jeannot Vienna University of Technology,
Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France Austria
emmanuel.jeannot@inria.fr hunold@par.tuwien.ac.at

HiBB Resilience
Mario Cannataro Stephen L. Scott
University Magna, Catanzaro, Italy Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville,
cannataro@unicz.it USA
sscott@tntech.edu
LSDVE
Laura Ricci ROME
Stefan Lankes
University of Pisa, Italy
RWTH Aachen, Germany
ricci@di.unipi.it
SLankes@eonerc.rwth-aachen.de
VI Workshop Editors

SPPEXA UCHPC
Christian Lengauer Jens Breitbart
University of Passau, Germany Technical University Munich, Germany
lengauer@fim.uni-passau.de j.breitbart@tum.de

VHPC
TASUS
Michael Alexander
Jesus Carretero
Vienna University of Technology,
University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
Austria
jesus.carretero@uc3m.es
michael.alexander@tuwien.ac.at
Preface

Euro-Par is an annual series of international conferences dedicated to the pro-


motion and advancement of all aspects of parallel and distributed computing.
Euro-Par 2014, held in Porto, Portugal, was the 20th edition of the series. The
conference covers a wide spectrum of topics from algorithms and theory to soft-
ware technology and hardware-related issues, with application areas ranging from
scientific to mobile and cloud computing. Euro-Par conferences host a set of tech-
nical workshops, with the goal of providing a space for communities within the
field to meet and discuss more focused research topics. The coordination of the
workshops was in the hands of Workshop Chairs Luc Bougé, also with the Euro-
Par Steering Committee, and Luı́s Lopes, with the local organization. In the
coordination process, we were kindly assisted by Dieter an Mey, one of the work-
shop chairs for the Euro-Par 2013 event at Aachen, to whom we wish to express
our warm thanks for his availability, expertise, and advice. In early January
2014, a call for workshop proposals was issued, and the proposals were reviewed
by the co-chairs, with 18 workshops being selected for the 2-day program:
APCI&E – First Workshop on Applications of Parallel Computation in Industry
and Engineering
BigDataCloud – Third Workshop on Big Data Management in Clouds
DIHC – Second Workshop on Dependability and Interoperability in Heteroge-
neous Clouds
FedICI – Second Workshop on Federative and Interoperable Cloud Infrastruc-
tures
HeteroPar – 12th International Workshop on Algorithms, Models and Tools for
Parallel Computing on Heterogeneous Platforms
HiBB – 5th Workshop on High-Performance Bioinformatics and Biomedicine
LSDVE – Second Workshop on Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments
on Clouds and P2P
MuCoCoS – 7th International Workshop on Multi-/Many-Core Computing
Systems
OMHI – Third Workshop on On-chip Memory Hierarchies and Interconnects:
Organization, Management and Implementation
PADABS – Second Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Agent-Based Simu-
lations
PROPER – 7th Workshop on Productivity and Performance – Tools for HPC
Application Development
Resilience – 7th Workshop on Resiliency in High-Performance Computing with
Clouds, Grids, and Clusters
REPPAR – First International Workshop on Reproducibility in Parallel
Computing
ROME – Second Workshop on Runtime and Operating Systems for the
Many-Core Era
VIII Preface

SPPEXA – Workshop on Software for Exascale Computing - Project Workshop


TASUS – First Workshop on Techniques and Applications for Sustainable
Ultrascale Computing Systems
UCHPC – 7th Workshop on UnConventional High-Performance Computing
VHPC – 9th Workshop on Virtualization in High-Performance Cloud
Computing

Furthermore, collocated with this intensive workshop program, two tutorials


were also included:

Heterogeneous Memory Models – Benedict R. Gaster (Qualcomm, Inc.)


High-Performance Parallel Graph Analytics – Keshav Pingali
(UT Austin) and Manoj Kumar (IBM)

Paper submission deadlines, notification dates, and camera-ready submission


deadlines were synchronized between all workshops. The new workshop coor-
dination procedures, established with the 2012 edition, turned out to be very
helpful for putting together a high-quality workshop program. After the confer-
ence, the workshop organizers delivered a workshop management report on the
key performance indicators to the Workshop Advisory Board and the Steering
Committee. These reports will help to improve the procedures for, and the qual-
ity of, the workshop program of future Euro-Par conferences. Special thanks are
due to the authors of all the submitted papers, the members of the Program
Committees, the reviewers, and the workshop organizers. We had 173 paper
submissions, with 100 papers being accepted for publication in the proceedings.
Given the high number of papers, the workshops proceedings were divided into
two volumes with the following distribution:

LNCS 8805 – APCI&E, BigDataCloud, HeteroPar, HiBB, LSDVE, PADABS,


REPPAR, Resilience
LNCS 8806 – DIHC, FedICI, MuCoCoS, OMHI, PROPER, ROME, TASUS,
UCHPC, VHPC, SPPEXA

We are grateful to the Euro-Par general chairs and the members of the Euro-
Par Steering Committee for their support and advice regarding the coordination
of workshops. We would like to thank Springer for its continuous support in
publishing the workshop proceedings.
It was a great pleasure and honor to organize and host the Euro-Par 2014
workshops in Porto. We hope all the participants enjoyed the workshop program
and benefited from the ample opportunities for fruitful exchange of ideas.

October 2014 Luı́s Lopes


Organization

Euro-Par Steering Committee


Chair
Christian Lengauer University of Passau, Germany

Vice-Chair
Luc Bougé ENS Rennes, France

European Representatives
Marco Danelutto University of Pisa, Italy
Emmanuel Jeannot LaBRI-Inria, Bordeaux, France
Christos Kaklamanis Computer Technology Institute, Greece
Paul Kelly Imperial College, UK
Thomas Ludwig University of Hamburg, Germany
Emilio Luque Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
Tomàs Margalef Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
Wolfgang Nagel Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Rizos Sakellariou University of Manchester, UK
Henk Sips Delft University of Technology,
The Netherlands
Domenico Talia University of Calabria, Italy
Felix Wolf GRS and RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Honorary Members
Ron Perrott Oxford e-Research Centre, UK
Karl Dieter Reinartz University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

Observers
Fernando Silva University of Porto, Portugal
Jesper Larsson Träff Vienna University of Technology, Austria

Euro-Par 2014 Organization


Conference Co-chairs
Fernando Silva University of Porto, Portugal
Inês Dutra University of Porto, Portugal
Vı́tor Santos Costa University of Porto, Portugal
X Organization

Local Organizing Committee


Luı́s Lopes University of Porto, Portugal
Pedro Ribeiro University of Porto, Portugal

Workshop Co-chairs
Luc Bougé ENS Rennes, France
Luı́s Lopes University of Porto, Portugal
Workshop Introduction and Organization

First Workshop on Applications of Parallel Computation


in Industry and Engineering (APCI&E 2014)
Workshop Description
The APCI&E minisymposium/workshop series started in 2008 at the Work-
shop on State of the Art in Scientific and Parallel Computing (PARA) and
continued at the International Conference on Parallel Processing and Applied
Mathematics (PPAM). Since PARA was held on even years and PPAM on
odd years, the APCI&E minisymposium alternated between these two con-
ference series on parallel computing. The minisymposium was held at PARA
2008 in Trondheim (Norway), PPAM 2009 in Wroclaw (Poland), PPAM 2011
in Torun (Poland), PARA 2012 in Helsinki (Finland), and PPAM 2013 in War-
saw (Poland). This year the minisymposium was renamed as workshop and was
held at the International European Conference on Parallel Processing
(Euro-Par).
The Workshop APCI&E provided a forum for researchers and practitioners
using parallel computations for the solution of complex industrial and engineer-
ing applied problems. Topics discussed included application of parallel numerical
methods to engineering and industrial problems, scientific computation, parallel
algorithms for the solution of systems of PDEs, parallel algorithms for opti-
mization, solution of data and computation-intensive real-world problems, and
others.

Organizers
Raimondas Čiegis Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Lithuania
Julius Žilinskas Vilnius University, Lithuania

Program Committee
Jesus Carretero Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain
Raimondas Čiegis Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Lithuania
Francisco Gaspar University of Zaragoza, Spain
Jacek Gondzio University of Edinburgh, UK
Mario Guarracino CNR, Italy
Pilar Martı́nez Ortigosa University of Almerı́a, Spain
Antonio J. Plaza University of Extremadura, Spain
Mindaugas Radziunas Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and
Stochastics, Germany
XII Workshop Introduction and Organization

Vadimas Starikovičius Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,


Lithuania
Roman Wyrzykowski Czestochova University of Technology, Poland
Julius Žilinskas Vilnius University, Lithuania

Additional Reviewers
Algirdas Lančinskas Vilnius University, Lithuania
Natalija Tumanova Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Lithuania

Third Workshop on Big Data Management in Clouds


(BigDataCloud 2014)
Workshop Description
The Workshop on Big Data Management in Clouds was created to provide a
platform for the dissemination of recent research efforts that explicitly aim at
addressing the challenges related to executing big data applications on the cloud.
Initially designed for powerful and expensive supercomputers, such applications
have seen an increasing adoption on clouds, exploiting their elasticity and eco-
nomical model. While Map/Reduce covers a large fraction of the development
space, there are still many applications that are better served by other models
and systems. In such a context, we need to embrace new programming models,
scheduling schemes, hybrid infrastructures and scale out of single data centers
to geographically distributed deployments in order to cope with these new chal-
lenges effectively.
In this context, the BigDataCloud workshop aims to provide a venue for
researchers to present and discuss results on all aspects of data management
in clouds, as well as new development and deployment efforts in running data-
intensive computing workloads. In particular, we are interested in how the use
of cloud-based technologies can meet the data-intensive scientific challenges of
HPC applications that are not well served by the current supercomputers or
grids, and are being ported to cloud platforms. The goal of the workshop is
to support the assessment of the current state, introduce future directions, and
present architectures and services for future clouds supporting data-intensive
computing.
BigDataCloud 2014 followed the previous editions and the successful series
of BDMC / CGWS workshops held in conjunction with EuroPar since 2009. Its
goal is to aggregate the data management and clouds/grids/p2p communities
built around these workshops in order to complement the data-handling issues
with a comprehensive system / infrastructure perspective. This year’s edition
was held on August 25 and gathered around 40 enthusiastic researchers from
academia and industry. We received a total of ten papers, out of which four
were selected for presentation. The big data theme was strongly reflected in
Workshop Introduction and Organization XIII

the keynote given this year by Dr. Toni Cortes from Barcelona Supercomputing
Center. The talk introduced the idea of self-contained objects and showed how
third party enrichment of such objects can offer an environment where the data
providers keep full control over data while service designers get the maximum
flexibility.
We wish to thank all the authors, the keynote speaker, the Program Com-
mittee members and the workshop chairs of EuroPar 2014 for their contribution
to the success of this edition of BigDataCloud.

Program Chairs
Alexandru Costan IRISA/INSA Rennes, France
Frédéric Desprez Inria ENS Lyon, France

Program Committee
Gabriel Antoniu Inria, France
Luc Bougé ENS Rennes, France
Toni Cortes Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain
Kate Keahey University of Chicago/ANL, USA
Dries Kimpe Argonne National Laboratory, USA
Olivier Nano Microsoft Research ATLE, Germany
Bogdan Nicolae IBM Research, Ireland
Maria S. Pérez Universidad Politecnica De Madrid, Spain
Leonardo Querzoni University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy
Domenico Talia University of Calabria, Italy
Osamu Tatebe University of Tsukuba, Japan
Cristian Zamfir EPFL, Switzerland

Second Workshop on Dependability and Interoperability


in Heterogeneous Clouds (DIHC 2014)
Workshop Description
The DIHC workshop series started in 2013 with the aim of bringing together
researchers from academia and industry and PhD students interested in the de-
sign, implementation, and evaluation of services and mechanisms for dependable
cloud computing in a multi-cloud environment. The cloud computing market
is in rapid expansion due to the opportunities to dynamically allocate a large
amount of resources when needed and to pay only for their effective usage. How-
ever, many challenges, in terms of interoperability, performance guarantee, and
dependability, still need to be addressed to make cloud computing the right
solution for companies, research organizations, and universities.
This year’s edition consisted of three sessions and focused on heterogeneous
cloud platforms and aspects to make cloud computing a trustworthy environment
XIV Workshop Introduction and Organization

addressing security, privacy, and high availability in clouds. The accepted papers
address issues to manage complex applications and facilitate the seamless and
transparent use of cloud platform services, including computing and storages
services, provisioned by multiple cloud platforms. The workshop also covered
HPC applications with the need of a new generation of data storage, management
services and heterogeneity-agnostic programming models for a better utilization
of heterogeneous cloud resources for scientific and data-intensive applications
while dealing with performance and elasticity issues. Privacy and security aspects
in cloud computing from theory to practical implementations were presented and
discussed.
In addition to the presentation of peer-reviewed papers, the 2014 edition
of the DIHC workshop includes a presentation on “Identities and Rights in e-
Infrastructures” by the invited keynote speaker Jens Jensen. The keynote pre-
sented lessons from the state-of-the-art technology used to identify management
in clouds and took a look into standards and the future solutions for federated
identity management.
Program Chairs
Roberto G. Cascella Inria, France
Miguel Correia INESC-ID/IST, Portugal
Elisabetta Di Nitto Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Christine Morin Inria, France
Program Committee
Vasilios Andrikopoulos University of Stuttgart, Germany
Alvaro Arenas IE Business School, Spain
Alysson Bessani University of Lisbon, Portugal
Lorenzo Blasi HP, Italy
Paolo Costa Imperial College London, UK
Beniamino Di Martino University of Naples, Italy
Federico Facca Create-Net, Italy
Franz Hauck University of Ulm, Germany
Yvon Jégou Inria, France
Jens Jensen STFC, UK
Paolo Mori CNR, Italy
Dana Petcu West University of Timisoara, Romania
Paolo Romano INESC-ID/IST, Portugal
Louis Rilling DGA-MI, France
Michael Schöttner University of Düsseldorf, Germany
Thorsten Schütt ZIB Berlin, Germany
Stephen Scott ORNL/Tennessee Technological University,
USA
Gianluigi Zavattaro University of Bologna, Italy

Additional Reviewer
Ferrol Aderholdt Tennessee Technological University, USA
Workshop Introduction and Organization XV

Second Workshop on Federative and Interoperable Cloud


Infrastructures (FedICI 2014)
Workshop Description
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud systems allow the dynamic creation, de-
struction, and management of virtual machines (VM) on virtualized clusters.
IaaS clouds provide a high level of abstraction to the end user that allows the
creation of on-demand services through a pay-as-you-go infrastructure combined
with elasticity. As a result, many academic infrastructure service providers have
started transitions to add cloud resources to their previously existing campus and
shared grid deployments. To complete such solutions, they should also support
the unification of multiple cloud and/or cloud and grid solutions in a seamless,
preferably interoperable way. Hybrid, community, or multi-clouds may utilize
more than one cloud system, which are also called cloud federations. The man-
agement of such federations raises several challenges and open issues that require
significant research work in this area.
The Second Workshop on Federative and Interoperable Cloud Infrastruc-
tures (FedICI 2014) aimed at bringing together scientists in the fields of high-
performance computing and cloud computing to provide a dedicated forum for
sharing the latest results, exchanging ideas and experiences, presenting new re-
search, development, and management of interoperable, federated IaaS cloud
systems. The goal of the workshop was to help the community define the current
state, determine further goals, and present architectures and service frameworks
to achieve highly interoperable federated cloud infrastructures. Priority was given
to submissions that focus on presenting solutions to interoperability and efficient
management challenges faced by current and future infrastructure clouds.
The call for papers for the FedICI workshop was launched early in 2014, and
by the submission deadline we had received six submissions, which were of good
quality and generally relevant to the theme of the workshop. The papers were
swiftly and expertly reviewed by the Program Committee, each of them receiving
at least three qualified reviews. The program chair thanks the whole Program
Committee and the additional reviewers for the time and expertise they put into
the reviewing work, and for getting it all done within the rather strict time limit.
Final decision on acceptance was made by the program chair and co-chairs based
on the recommendations from the Program Committee. Being half-day event,
there was room for only four of the contributions, resulting in an acceptance
ratio of 66%. All the accepted contributions were presented at the workshop
yielding an interesting discussion on the role that federated management may
play in the broad research field of cloud computing. Presentations were organized
in two sessions: in the former, two papers discussed performance analysis issues
of interoperating clouds, while in the later session, two papers were presented on
the topic of elastic management of generic IaaS and MapReduce-based systems in
interoperable and federated clouds. These proceedings include the final versions
of the presented FedICI papers, taking the feedback from the reviewers and
workshop audience into account.
XVI Workshop Introduction and Organization

The program chairs sincerely thank the Euro-Par organizers for providing
the opportunity to arrange the FedICI workshop in conjunction with the 2014
conference. The program chairs also warmly thank MTA SZTAKI for its financial
support making it possible to organize the workshop. Finally, the program chairs
thank all attendees at the workshop, who contributed to a successful scientific
day. Based on the mostly positive feedback, the program chairs and organizers
plan to continue the FedICI workshop in conjunction with Euro-Par 2015.

Program Chairs
Gabor Kecskemeti MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
Attila Kertesz MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
Attila Marosi MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
Radu Prodan University of Innsbruck, Austria

Program Committee
Jameela Al-Jaroodi United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Salvatore Distefano Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Eduardo Huedo Cuesta Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Philipp Leitner University of Zurich, Switzerland
Daniele Lezzi Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain
Nader Mohamed United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Zsolt Nemeth MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
Ariel Oleksiak Poznan Supercomputer and Networking
Center, Poland
Anne-Cecile Orgerie CNRS, Myriads, IRISA, France
Simon Ostermann University of Innsbruck, Austria
Dana Petcu Western University of Timisoara, Romania
Ivan Rodero Rutgers the State University of New Jersey,
USA
Matthias Schmidt 1&1 Internet AG, Germany
Alan Sill Texas Tech University, USA
Gergely Sipos European Grid Infrastructure, The Netherlands
Massimo Villari University of Messina, Italy

Additional Reviewers
Matthias Janetschek University of Innsbruck, Austria
Weiwei Chen University of Southern California, USA
Workshop Introduction and Organization XVII

12th International Workshop on Algorithms, Models and


Tools for Parallel Computing on Heterogeneous Platforms
(HeteroPar 2014)
Workshop Description
Heterogeneity is emerging as one of the most profound and challenging charac-
teristics of today’s parallel environments. From the macro level, where networks
of distributed computers, composed by diverse node architectures, are intercon-
nected with potentially heterogeneous networks, to the micro level, where deeper
memory hierarchies and various accelerator architectures are increasingly com-
mon, the impact of heterogeneity on all computing tasks is increasing rapidly.
Traditional parallel algorithms, programming environments, and tools, designed
for legacy homogeneous multiprocessors, will at best achieve a small fraction of
the efficiency and the potential performance that we should expect from parallel
computing in tomorrow’s highly diversified and mixed environments. New ideas,
innovative algorithms, and specialized programming environments and tools are
needed to efficiently use these new and multifarious parallel architectures. The
workshop is intended to be a forum for researchers working on algorithms, pro-
gramming languages, tools, and theoretical models aimed at efficiently solving
problems on heterogeneous platforms.

Program Chair
Emmanuel Jeannot Inria, France

Steering Committee
Domingo Giménez University of Murcia, Spain
Alexey Kalinov Cadence Design Systems, Russia
Alexey Lastovetsky University College Dublin, Ireland
Yves Robert Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
Leonel Sousa INESC-ID/IST, Technical University of
Lisbon, Portugal
Denis Trystram LIG, Grenoble, France

Program Committee
Rosa M. Badia BSC, Spain
Jorge Barbosa University of Porto, Portugal
Olivier Beaumont Inria, France
Paolo Bientinesi RWTH Aachen, Germany
Cristina Boeres Fluminense Federal University, Brazil
George Bosilca University of Tennessee, USA
Louis-Claude Canon Université de Franche-Comté, France
Alexandre Denis Inria, France
Toshio Endo Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Edgar Gabriel University of Houston, USA
XVIII Workshop Introduction and Organization

Rafael Mayo Gual Jaume I University, Spain


Toshihiro Hanawa University of Tokyo, Japan
Shuichi Ichikawa Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan
Helen Karatza Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Hatem Ltaief KAUST, Saudi Arabia
Pierre Manneback University of Mons, Belgium
Loris Marchal CNRS, France
Ivan Milentijevič University of Nis, Serbia
Satoshi Matsuoka Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Wahid Nasri ESST de Tunis, Tunisia
Dana Petcu West University of Timisoara, Romania
Antonio Plaza University of Extremadura, Spain
Enrique S. Quintana-Ortı́ Jaume I University, Spain
Thomas Rauber University of Bayreuth, Germany
Vladimir Rychkov University College Dublin, Ireland
Erik Saule University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
H. J. Siegel Colorado State University, USA
Pedro Tomás INESC-ID/IST, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Jon Weissman University of Minnesota, USA

Additional Reviewers
Jose Antonio Belloch Jaume I University, Spain
Adrián Castelló Jaume I University, Spain
Ali Charara KAUST, Saudi Arabia
Vladimir Ciric University of Nis, Serbia
Diego Fabregat-Traver RWTH Aachen, Germany
João Guerreiro University of Lisbon, Portugal
Francisco D. Igual Jaume I University, Spain
Samuel Kortas KAUST, Saudi Arabia
Lı́dia Kuan University of Lisbon, Portugal
Emina Milovanovic University of Nis, Serbia
Aline Nascimento Fluminense Federal University, Brazil
Elmar Peise RWTH Aachen, Germany
Alexandre Sena Fluminense Federal University, Brazil
Paul Springer RWTH Aachen, Germany
François Tessier University of Bordeaux, France
Workshop Introduction and Organization XIX

5th International Workshop on High-Performance


Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (HiBB 2014)
Workshop Description
The HiBB workshop series started in 2010 and its first edition was held at Is-
chia (Italy) in conjunction with the Euro-Par conference. Since then, the work-
shop has been held, always in conjunction with Euro-Par, at Bordeaux (France),
Rhodes (Greece), Aachen (Germany), and Porto (Portugal), respectively, in
2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.
Since 2010, the HiBB workshop series has included 25 regular papers, two
invited talks, two panels, and one tutorial on several aspects of parallel and dis-
tributed computing applied to bioinformatics, health informatics, biomedicine,
and systems biology.
The main motivation for the HiBB workshop is the increasing production of
experimental and clinical data in biology and medicine, and the needs to provide
efficient storage, preprocessing, and analysis of these data to support biomedical
research.
In fact, the availability and large diffusion of high-throughput experimental
platforms, such as next-generation sequencing, microarray, and mass spectrom-
etry, as well as the improved resolution and coverage of clinical diagnostic tools,
such as magnetic resonance imaging, are becoming the major sources of data in
biomedical research, and the storage, preprocessing, and analysis of these data
are becoming the main bottleneck of the biomedical analysis pipeline.
Parallel computing and high-performance infrastructures are increasingly used
in all phases of life sciences research, e.g., for storing and preprocessing large ex-
perimental data, for the simulation of biological systems, for data exploration
and visualization, for data integration, and for knowledge discovery.
The current bioinformatics scenario is characterized by the application of
well-established techniques, such as parallel computing on multicore architec-
tures and grid computing, as well as by the application of emerging compu-
tational models such as graphics processing and cloud computing. Large-scale
infrastructures such as grids or clouds are mainly used to store in an efficient
manner and to share in an easy way the huge amount of experimental data pro-
duced in life sciences, while parallel computing allows the efficient analysis of
huge data. In particular, novel parallel architectures such as GPUs and emerg-
ing programming models such as MapReduce may overcome the limits posed by
conventional computers to the analysis of large amounts of data.
The fifth edition of the HiBB workshop aimed to bring together scientists
in the fields of high-performance computing, bioinformatics, and life sciences,
to discuss the parallel implementation of bioinformatics algorithms, the deploy-
ment of biomedical applications on high-performance infrastructures, and the
organization of large-scale databases in biology and medicine.
These proceedings include the final revised versions of the HiBB papers
taking the feedback from the reviewers and workshop audience into account.
The program chair sincerely thanks the Program Committee members and the
XX Workshop Introduction and Organization

additional reviewers, for the time and expertise they put into the reviewing
work, the Euro-Par organization, for providing the opportunity to arrange the
HiBB workshop in conjunction with the Euro-Par 2014 conference, and all the
workshop attendees who contributed to a lively day.

Program Chair
Mario Cannataro University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy

Program Committee
Pratul K. Agarwal Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Ignacio Blanquer Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Daniela Calvetti Case Western Reserve University, USA
Werner Dubitzky University of Ulster, UK
Ananth Y. Grama Purdue University, USA
Concettina Guerra Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Pietro H. Guzzi University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
Vicente Hernandez Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Salvatore Orlando University of Venice, Italy
Horacio Perez-Sanchez University of Murcia, Spain
Omer F. Rana Cardiff University, UK
Richard Sinnott University of Melbourne, Australia
Fabrizio Silvestri Yahoo Labs, Barcelona, Spain
Erkki Somersalo Case Western Reserve University, USA
Paolo Trunfio University of Calabria, Italy
Albert Zomaya University of Sydney, Australia

Additional Reviewers
Giuseppe Agapito University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
Barbara Calabrese University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
Nicola Ielpo University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
Alessia Sarica University Magna Græcia of Catanzaro, Italy
Workshop Introduction and Organization XXI

Second Workshop on Large-Scale Distributed Virtual


Environments on Cloud and P2P (LSDVE 2014)
Workshop Description
The LSDVE workshop series started in August 2013, in Aachen, where the first
edition of the workshop was held in conjunction with Europar 2013. LSDVE
2014, the second edition of the workshop, was held in Porto, in August 2014,
again in conjunction with Europar.
The focus of this edition of the workshop was on cooperative distributed
virtual environments. The recent advances in networking have determined an
increasing use of information technology to support distributed cooperative ap-
plications. Several novel applications have emerged in this area, like computer-
supported collaborative work (CSCW), large-scale distributed virtual worlds,
collaborative recommender and learning systems. These applications involve sev-
eral challenges, such as the definition of user interfaces, of coordination protocols,
and of proper middle-ware and architectures supporting distributed cooperation.
Collaborative applications may benefit greatly also from the support of cloud
and P2P architectures. As a matter of fact, with the emergence of readily avail-
able cloud platforms, collaborative applications developers have the opportunity
of deploying their applications in the cloud, or by exploiting hybrid P2P/cloud
architectures with dynamically adapting cloud support. This brings possibilities
to smaller developers that were reserved for the big companies until recently. The
integration of mobile/cloud platforms for collaborative applications is another
challenge for the widespread use of these applications.
The LSDVE 2014 workshop aim was to provide a venue for researchers to
present and discuss important aspects of P2P/cloud collaborative applications
and of the platforms supporting them. The workshop’s goal is to investigate open
challenges for such applications, related to both the application design and to the
definition of proper architectures. Some important challenges are, for instance,
collaborative protocol design, latency reduction/hiding techniques for guaran-
teeing real-time constraints, large-scale processing of user information, privacy
and security issues, state consistency/persistence. The workshop presented as-
sessment of current state of the research in this area and introduced further
directions.
LSDVE 2014 was opened by the invited talk “Decentralization: P2P and Per-
sonal Clouds” by Prof. Pedro Garcia Lopez, Universitat Rovira i Virgili. The
program of the workshop included two sessions, “Cooperative Distributed Envi-
ronments”and “Architectural Supports.” The papers presented in the first session
regard novel cooperative distributed applications, like social networks and mas-
sively multi player games, while those of the second session present architectural
supports, both cloud and P2P based, for these applications.
We remark that the number of submissions to LSDVE 2014 has almost dou-
bled over the previous edition. Finally, the extended version of selected papers
accepted and presented at the workshop will be published in a special issue of
the Springer journal Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications (PPNA).
XXII Workshop Introduction and Organization

We wish to thank all who helped to make this second edition of the workshop
a success: Prof. Pedro Garcia Lopez who accepted our invitation to present
a keynote, authors submitting papers, colleagues who refereed the submitted
papers and attended the sessions, and finally the Euro-Par 2014 organizers whose
invaluable support greatly helped in the organization of this second edition of
the workshop.

Program Chairs
Laura Ricci University of Pisa, Italy
Alexandru Iosup TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands
Radu Prodan Institute of Computer Science, Innsbruck,
Austria

Program Committee
Michele Amoretti University of Parma, Italy
Ranieri Baraglia ISTI CNR, Pisa, Italy
Emanuele Carlini ISTI CNR, Pisa, Italy
Massimo Coppola ISTI CNR, Pisa, Italy
Patrizio Dazzi ISTI CNR, Pisa, Italy
Juan J. Durillo Institute of Computer Science, Innsbruck,
Austria
Kalman Graffi University of Düsseldorf, Germany
Alexandru Iosup TU Delft, The Netherlands
Dana Petcu West University of Timisoara, Romania
Andreas Petlund Simula Research Laboratory, Norway
Radu Prodan Institute of Computer Science, Innsbruck,
Austria
Duan Rubing Institute of High Performance Computing,
Singapore
Laura Ricci University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Alexey Vinel Tampere University of Technology, Finland
Workshop Introduction and Organization XXIII

7th International Workshop on Multi-/Many-Core


Computing Systems (MuCoCos 2014)
Workshop Description
The pervasiveness of homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core and many-core
processors, in a large spectrum of systems from embedded and general-purpose
to high-end computing systems, poses major challenges to the software indus-
try. In general, there is no guarantee that software developed for a particular
architecture will run on another architecture. Furthermore, ensuring that the
software preserves some aspects of performance behavior (such as temporal or
energy efficiency) across these different architectures is an open research issue.
Therefore, a traditional focus of the MuCoCos workshop is on language level,
system software and architectural solutions for performance portability across
different architectures and for automated performance tuning.
The topics of the MuCoCoS workshop include but are not limited to:

– Programming models, languages, libraries and compilation techniques


– Run-time systems and hardware support
– Automatic performance tuning and optimization techniques
– Patterns, algorithms and data structures for multi-/many-core systems
– Performance measurement, modeling, analysis and tuning
– Case studies highlighting performance portability and tuning.

Besides the presentation of selected technical papers, MuCoCos 2014 featured


a keynote talk on “Execution Models for Energy-Efficient Computing Systems”
by Philippas Tsigas, Chalmers University, Sweden.

Previous workshops in the series were: MuCoCoS 2008 (Barcelona, Spain),


MuCoCoS 2009 (Fukuoka, Japan), MuCoCoS 2010 (Krakow, Poland), MuCoCoS
2011 (Seoul, Korea), MuCoCoS 2012 (Salt Lake City, USA), and MuCoCoS 2013
(Edinburgh, UK).

Program Chairs
Siegfried Benkner University of Vienna, Austria
Sabri Pllana Linnaeus University, Sweden

Program Committee
Beverly Bachmayer Intel, Germany
Eduardo Cesar Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Milind Chabbi Rice University, USA
Jiri Dokulil University of Vienna, Austria
Franz Franchetti Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Michael Gerndt TU Munich, Germany
XXIV Workshop Introduction and Organization

Joerg Keller FernUniversität Hagen, Germany


Christoph Kessler Linkoping University, Sweden
Shashi Kumar Jönköping University, Sweden
Erwin Laure KTH, Sweden
Renato Miceli Irish Centre for High-End Computing, Ireland
Lasse Natvig NTNU Trondheim, Norway
Beniamino Di Martino Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy
Samuel Thibault University of Bordeaux, France
Philippas Tsigas Chalmers University, Sweden
Josef Weidendorfer TU Munich, Germany

Additional Reviewers
Pasquale Cantiello Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy
Antonio Esposito Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy
Francesco Moscato Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy
Kameswar Rao Vaddina NTNU Trondheim, Norway
Tomas Margalef Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Tilman Kuestner TU Munich, Germany
Terry Cojean University of Bordeaux, France
Jens Breitbart TU Munich, Germany
Minh Le TU Munich, Germany
Luka Stanisic University of Grenoble, France
Toni Espinosa Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Rocco Aversa Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy

Third International Workshop on On-chip Memory


Hierarchies and Interconnects (OMHI 2014)
Workshop Description
The gap between processor and memory performances has been growing for more
than four decades since the first commercial microprocessor was built by Intel
in 1971. To avoid the memory access times caused by this gap, manufacturers
implemented cache memories on-chip. Moreover, as the memory latency became
larger, more cache levels were added to the on-chip memory hierarchy, and, as a
consequence, on-chip networks were also integrated to interconnect the different
cache structures among the different levels.
Nowadays, commercial microprocessors include up to tens of processors shar-
ing a memory hierarchy with about three or four cache levels. In the lowest lev-
els of the on-chip memory hierarchy, the cache structures can store hundreds of
megabytes, requiring alternative memory technologies (such as eDRAM or STT-
RAM) as well as new microarchitectural techniques to limit energy consumption
and power dissipation. In addition, advanced on-chip networks are needed to cope
with the latency and bandwidth demands of these complex memory hierarchies.
Workshop Introduction and Organization XXV

Finally, new manufacturing techniques, such as 3D integration is considered to


enlarge even more the capacity and complexity of these memory hierarchies and
interconnection networks.
In this context, the synergy between the research on memory organization
and management, interconnection networks, as well as novel implementation
technologies becomes a key strategy to foster further developments. With this
aim, the International Workshop on On-chip Memory Hierarchy and Intercon-
nects (OMHI) started in 2012 and continued with its third edition that was held
in Porto, Portugal. This workshop is organized in conjunction with the Euro-
Par annual series of international conferences dedicated to the promotion and
advancement of all aspects of parallel computing.
The goal of the OMHI workshop is to be a forum for engineers and scientists
to address the aforementioned challenges, and to present new ideas for future
on-chip memory hierarchies and interconnects focusing on organization, manage-
ment and implementation. The specific topics covered by the OMHI workshop
have been kept up to date according to technology advances and industrial and
academia interests.
The chairs of OMHI were proud to present Prof. Manuel E. Acacio as keynote
speaker, who gave an interesting talk focusing on the key topics of the workshop
entitled “Increased Hardware Support for Efficient Communication and Syn-
chronization in Future Manycores,” which jointly with the paper sessions finally
resulted in a nice and very exciting one-day program.
The chairs would like to thank the members of the Program Committee for
their reviews, the Euro-Par organizers, Manuel E. Acacio and the high number of
attendees. Based on the positive feedback from all of them, we plan to continue
the OMHI workshop in conjunction with Euro-Par.

Program Chairs
Julio Sahuquillo Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Maria Engracia Gómez Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Salvador Petit Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

Program Committee
Manuel Acacio Universidad de Murcia, Spain
Sandro Bartolini Università di Siena, Italy
João M. P. Cardoso University of Porto, Portugal
Marcello Coppola STMicroelectronics, France
Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos Democritus University of Thrace, Greece
Pierfrancesco Foglia Università di Pisa, Italy
Crispı́n Gómez Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Kees Goossens Eindhoven University of Technology,
The Netherlands
David Kaeli Northeastern University, USA
Sonia López Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Pierre Michaud Inria, France
XXVI Workshop Introduction and Organization

Iakovos Mavroidis Foundation for Research and Technology –


Hellas, Greece
Tor Skeie Simula Research Laboratory, Norway
Rafael Ubal Northeastern University, USA

Second Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Agent-Based


Simulations (PADABS 2014)
Workshop Description
The Parallel and Distributed Agent-Based Simulations workshop series started
in 2013.
Agent-based simulation models are an increasingly popular tool for research
and management in many fields such as ecology, economics, sociology, etc..
In some fields, such as social sciences, these models are seen as a key in-
strument to the generative approach, essential for understanding complex social
phenomena. But also in policy-making, biology, military simulations, control of
mobile robots and economics, the relevance and effectiveness of agent-based sim-
ulation models has been recently recognized.
The computer science community has responded to the need for platforms
that can help the development and testing of new models in each specific field
by providing tools, libraries, and frameworks that speed up and make massive
simulations.
The key objective of the workshop is to bring together researchers who are
interested in getting more performances from their simulations, by using:
– Synchronized, many-core simulations (e.g., GPUs)
– Strongly coupled, parallel simulations (e.g., MPI)
– Loosely coupled, distributed simulations (distributed heterogeneous setting).

Program Chairs
Vittorio Scarano Università di Salerno, Italy
Gennaro Cordasco Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy
Rosario De Chiara Poste Italiane, Italy
Ugo Erra Università della Basilicata, Italy

Program Committee
Maria Chli Aston University, UK
Claudio Cioffi-Revilla George Mason University, USA
Biagio Cosenza University of Innsbruck, Austria
Nick Collier Argonne National Laboratory, USA
Rosaria Conte CNR, Italy
Andrew Evans University of Leeds, UK
Bernardino Frola The MathWorks, Cambridge, UK
Nicola Lettieri Università del Sannio and ISFOL, Italy
Workshop Introduction and Organization XXVII

Sean Luke George Mason University, USA


Michael North Argonne National Laboratory, USA
Mario Paolucci CNR, Italy
Paul Richmond The University of Sheffield, UK
Arnold Rosenberg Northeastern University, USA
Flaminio Squazzoni Università di Brescia, Italy
Michela Taufer University of Delaware, USA
Joanna Kolodziej Cracow University of Technology and
University of Science and Technology,
Poland

Additional Reviewers
Carmine Spagnuolo Università di Salerno, Italy
Luca Vicidomini Università di Salerno, Italy

7th Workshop on Productivity and Performance – Tools


for HPC Application Development (PROPER 2014)
Workshop Description
The PROPER workshop series started at Euro-Par 2008 in Gran Canarias,
Spain. Since than it has been held at every Euro-Par conference. It is orga-
nized by the Virtual Institute – High Productivity Supercomputing (VI-HPS),
an initiative to promote the development and integration of HPC programming
tools.
Writing codes that run correctly and efficiently on HPC computing systems
is extraordinarily challenging. At the same time, applications themselves are
becoming more complex as well, which can be seen in emerging scale-bridging
applications, the integration of fault-tolerance and uncertainty quantification, or
advances in algorithms. Combined, these trends place higher and higher demands
on the application development process and thus require adequate tool support
for debugging and performance analysis. The PROPER workshop serves as a
forum to present novel work on scalable methods and tools for high-performance
computing. It covers parallel program development and analysis, debugging, cor-
rectness checking, and performance measurement and evaluation. Further topics
include the integration of tools with compilers and the overall development envi-
ronment, as well as success stories reporting on application performance, scala-
bility, reliability, power and energy optimization, or productivity improvements
that have been achieved using tools.
This year’s keynote on “Rethinking Productivity and Performance for the
Exascale Era” was given by Prof. Allen D. Malony, Department of Computer
and Information Science, University of Oregon. The talk discussed directions for
parallel performance research and tools that target the scalability, optimization,
and programmability challenges of next-generation HPC platforms with high
productivity as an essential outcome. Further, Prof. Malony stated that it is
XXVIII Workshop Introduction and Organization

becoming more apparent that in order to address the complexity concerns un-
folding in the exascale space, we must think of productivity and performance in
a more connected way and the technology to support them as being more open,
integrated, and intelligent.

Program Chairs
José Gracia High-Performance Computing Center
Stuttgart, Germany

Steering Committee
Andreas Knüpfer (Chair) Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Michael Gerndt Technische Universität München, Germany
Shirley Moore University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Matthias Müller RWTH Aachen, Germany
Martin Schulz Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Felix Wolf German Research School for Simulation
Sciences, Germany

Program Committee
José Gracia (Chair) HLRS, Germany
Denis Barthou Inria, France
David Böhme German Research School for Simulation
Sciences, Germany
Karl Fürlinger LMU München, Germany
Michael Gerndt TU München, Germany
Kevin Huck University of Oregon, USA
Koji Inoue Kyushu University, Japan
Andreas Knüpfer TU Dresden, Germany
Ignacio Laguna Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
John Mellor-Crummey Rice University, USA
Matthias Müller RWTH Aachen, Germany
Shirley Moore University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Martin Schulz Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Nathan Tallent Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA
Jan Treibig RRZE, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Felix Wolf German Research School for Simulation
Sciences, Germany
Brian Wylie Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Germany
Workshop Introduction and Organization XXIX

First International Workshop on Reproducibility in


Parallel Computing (REPPAR)
Workshop Description
The workshop is concerned with experimental practices in parallel computing
research. We are interested in research works that address the statistically rig-
orous analysis of experimental data and visualization techniques of these data.
We also encourage researchers to state best practices to conduct experiments
and papers that report experiences obtained when trying to reproduce or repeat
experiments of others. The workshop also welcomes papers on new tools for ex-
perimental computational sciences, e.g., tools to archive large experimental data
sets and the source code that generated them. This includes (1) workflow sys-
tems for defining the experimental structure of experiments and their automated
execution as well as (2) experimental testbeds, which may serve as underlying
framework for experimental workflows, e.g., deploying personalized operating
system images on clusters.

Program Chairs
Sascha Hunold Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Arnaud Legrand CNRS, LIG Grenoble, France
Lucas Nussbaum CNRS, LORIA, France
Mark Stillwell Cranfield University, UK

Program Committee
Henri Casanova University of Hawai‘i, USA
Olivier Dalle University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis, France
Andrew Davison CNRS, France
Georg Hager University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
James Hetherington University College London, UK
Olivier Richard LIG Grenoble, France
Lucas M. Schnorr Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil
Jesper Larsson Träff Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Jan Vitek Purdue University, USA
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
There are fully eight varieties of American dogs, several of which
are natives of the far North. The lagopus, or isatis, a native of
Spitzbergen and Greenland, extends over all the Arctic regions of
America and Asia, and is found in some of the Kurile Islands. Dogs
are employed to draw sledges in Newfoundland and Canada; and
the Eskimo dogs, used for this purpose by the Arctic explorers, are
famous for their strength, their docility, and power of endurance.
They were mute, until they learned to bark from European dogs on
board the discovery ships.
CHAPTER VI.
ICELAND AND THE ICELANDERS.

ust within the Arctic region, but nearly on the limits of what
geographers call the Atlantic Ocean, lies an island which,
since its colonization in the ninth century, has not ceased to
excite the interest of the explorer and the man of science.
Iceland—which measures about 300 miles at its greatest length,
from east to west, and about 200 miles at its greatest breadth, from
north to south—is situated in lat. 63° 23’-66° 33’ N., and long. 13°
22’-24° 35’ W.; at a distance of 600 miles from the nearest point of
Norway, 250 from the Faröe Isles, 250 from Greenland, and above
500 miles from the northern extremity of Scotland. As early as the
eighth Christian century it was discovered by some European
emigrants; though, indeed, the Landnana Book, one of the earliest of
the island-records, asserts that they found the memorials of a yet
earlier settlement in various Christian relics, such as wooden
crosses, which appeared to be of Irish origin. At all events, the first
really successful attempt at colonization was made by Ingolf, a
Norwegian, who planted himself and his followers at Reikiavik in
874. In the following century a somewhat extensive immigration took
place of Norwegians who resented the changes of polity introduced
by Harold Haarfager, and all the habitable points on the coast were
occupied by about 950 a.d. Fifty years afterwards, though not
without much opposition, Christianity was legally established, and
the bishoprics of Holar and Skalholt were founded. The government
assumed the character of an aristocratic republic, with a popular
assembly, called the Althing, meeting every summer in the valley of
Thingvalla. Commerce was encouraged, and the Icelanders early
distinguished themselves by the boldness of their maritime
enterprise, and the extent of their ocean fisheries.
About the year 932 they discovered Greenland, and about 986 a
portion of the North American coast, which they called “Vineland.”
They did not confine their voyages to the north, but sent their ships
even as far south as the Mediterranean. From 1150 to 1250 is rightly
considered the most flourishing period of Icelandic literature and
commerce. After the conquest of the island by Haco VI. of Norway,
much of the old spirit seemed to die out. When Norway was united to
Denmark in 1380, Iceland was included in the bond, and it is still
regarded as a dependency of the latter kingdom. In 1540 it
embraced the principles of Lutheran Protestantism. Its population at
one time numbered 100,000, but it gradually diminished until, in
1840, it was reduced to 57,094; but a slow increase has taken place
of late years, and it now amounts to about 70,000. The language
spoken is the old Norse.
Iceland is a fifth part larger than Ireland, and its superficial area is
estimated at 39,207 square miles. Not more than 4000 miles,
however, are habitable, all the rest being ice and lava; for the island
seems to be little more than a mass of trachyte, snow-shrouded and
frost-bound, resting on a sea of fire. It consists of two vast parallel
table-lands, the foundations of ranges of lofty mountains, most of
which are active volcanoes; and these table-lands strike across the
centre of the island, from north-east to south-west, at a distance from
one another of ninety to one hundred miles. Their mountainous
summits are not pyramidal, as is generally the case in Europe, but
rounded like domes, as in the Andes of South America. Their sides,
however, are broken up by precipitous masses of tufa and
conglomerate, intersected by deep ravines of the gloomiest
character. They are covered with a thick shroud of ice and snow, but
in their wombs seethe the fiery elements which ever and anon break
forth into terrible activity. The eastern table-land and its mountain
range is the most extensive, and contains Oërafa, the culminating
point of Iceland. It is visible from a great distance at sea, like a white
cloud suspended above the island. Its height is 6426 feet, and it
springs from a vast mountain-mass; no fewer than 3000 square
miles being perpetually burdened with ice and snow, at an altitude
varying from 3000 to 6000 feet.
AN ICELANDIC LANDSCAPE.
A very considerable portion of the island is occupied by the large
glaciers which descend from the mountains, like frozen torrents,
pushing forward into the lowlands, and even to the margin of the
sea. These act as almost impassable barriers to communication
between the various inhabited districts.
We have spoken of the two ranges of table-lands as about ninety
to one hundred miles apart. The interspace forms a low broad valley,
which opens at either extremity on the sea—an awful waste, a region
of desolation, where man is utterly powerless; where the elements of
fire and frost maintain a perpetual antagonism; where blade of grass
is never seen, nor drop of water; where bird never wings its way, and
no sign of life can be detected. It seems a realization of Dante’s
“circle of ice” in the “Inferno.” The surface consists of lava streams,
fissured by innumerable crevices; of rocks piled on rocks; of dreary
glaciers, relieved by low volcanic cones. It is supposed that some
remote portions of the inaccessible interior are less barren, because
herds of reindeer have been seen feeding on the Iceland moss that
fringes the borders of this dreary region. But there is no reason to
believe that it can ever be inhabited by man.

MOUNT HEKLA, FROM THE VALLEY OF HEVITA.


The extremities of the valleys, where they approach the ocean,
are the principal theatres of volcanic activity. At the northern end the
best-known volcano is that of Hekla, which has attained a sinister
repute from the terrific character of its eruptions. Of these six-and-
twenty are recorded, the last having occurred in 1845–46. One
lasted for six years, spreading devastation over a country which had
formerly been the seat of a prosperous colony, burying the fields
beneath a flood of lava, scoriæ, and ashes. During the eruption of
September 2, 1845, to April 1846, three new craters were formed,
from which columns of fire sprang to the height of 14,000 feet. The
lava accumulated in formidable hills, and fragments of scoriæ and
pumice-stone, weighing two hundredweight, were thrown to a
distance of a league and a half; while the ice and snow which had
lain on the mountain for centuries were liquefied, and poured down
into the plains in devastating torrents.
But the eruption of another of these terrible volcanoes, the
Skaptá Jokul, which broke out on the 8th of May 1783, and lasted
until August, was of a still more awful character. At that time the
volcanic fire under Europe must have raged most violently, for a
tremendous earthquake shattered a wide extent of Calabria in the
same year, and a submarine volcano had flamed fiercely for many
weeks in the ocean, thirty miles from the south-west cape of Iceland.
Its fires ceased suddenly; a series of earthquakes shook the
island; and then Skaptá broke forth into sudden and destructive
activity.
For months the sun was hidden by dense clouds of vapour, and
clouds of volcanic dust were carried many hundreds of miles to sea,
extending even to England and Holland. Sand and ashes, raised to
an enormous height in the atmosphere, spread in all directions, and
overwhelmed thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The
sulphurous exhalations blighted the grass of the field, and tainted the
waters of river, lake, and sea, so that not only the herds and flocks
perished, but the fish died in their poisoned element.
The quantity of matter ejected by the rent and shivered mountain
was computed at fifty or sixty thousand millions of cubic yards. The
molten lava flowed in a stream which in some places was twenty to
thirty miles in breadth, and of enormous thickness; a seething,
hissing torrent, which filled the beds of rivers, poured into the sea
nearly fifty miles from its points of eruption, and destroyed the fishing
on the coast. Some of the island-rivers were heated, it is said, to
ebullition; others were dried up; the condensed vapour fell in whirls
of snow and storms of rain. But dreadful as was the eruption itself,
with its sublime but awful phenomena, far more dreadful were its
consequences. The country within its range was one wide ghastly
desert, a fire-blighted wilderness; and, partly from want of food,
partly owing to the unwholesome condition of the atmosphere, no
fewer than 9336 men,[10] 28,000 horses, 11,461 cattle, and 190,000
sheep, were swept away in the short space of two years. Even yet
Iceland has scarcely recovered from the blow.
At the northern end of the great central valley the focus of
igneous phenomena is found in a semicircle of volcanic heights
which slope towards the eastern shore of the Lake Myvatr. Two of
these are very formidable,—namely, Leirhnukr and Krabla on the
north-east. After years of inaction, they suddenly broke out with
tremendous fury, pouring such a quantity of lava into the Lake
Myvatr, which measures twenty miles in circuit, that the water was in
a state of ebullition for many days. On the sides of Mount Krabla,
and at the base of this group of mountains, are situated various
caldrons of boiling mineral pitch, the ruined craters of ancient
volcanoes; and from their depths are thrown up jets of the molten
matter, enveloped in clouds of steam, and accompanied by loud
explosions at regular intervals.
But the most singular phenomena in this singular country, where
frost and fire are continually disputing the pre-eminence, are the
Geysers, or eruptive boiling springs. These all occur in the trachytic
formation, are characterized by their high temperature, by holding
siliceous matter in solution, which they deposit in the form of
siliceous sinter, and by evolving large quantities of sulphuretted
hydrogen gas.
Upwards of fifty geysers have been counted in the space of a few
acres at the southern end of the great valley. Some are constant,
some periodical, some stagnant, some only slightly agitated. The
grandest and most celebrated are the Great Geyser and Strokr,
thirty-five miles north-west from Hekla. These, at regular intervals,
hurl into the air immense columns of boiling water, to the height of
one hundred feet, accompanied by clouds of steam and deafening
noises. In the case of the Great Geyser, the jet issues from a shaft
about seventy-five feet deep, and ten in diameter, which opens into
the centre of a shallow basin, about one hundred and fifty feet in
circumference. The basin is alternately emptied and filled: when
filled, loud explosions are heard, the ground quivers, and the boiling
water is forced upwards in gigantic columns. Thus the basin is
emptied, and the explosions cease until it is refilled.
Messrs. Descloiseaux and Bunsen, who, according to Mrs.
Somerville, visited Iceland in 1846, found the temperature of the
Great Geyser, at the depth of seventy-two feet, to equal 260° 30’ F.
prior to a great eruption, reduced, after the eruption, to 251° 30’ F.;
an interval of twenty-eight hours passing in silence.

THE GREAT GEYSER.


About one hundred and forty yards distant is the Strokr (from
stroka, to agitate), a circular well, forty-four feet deep, with a tube
eight feet wide at its mouth, diminishing to little more than ten inches
at a depth of twenty-seven feet. The surface of the water is in
constant ebullition, while at the bottom the temperature exceeds that
of boiling water by about twenty-four degrees. It appears, from
experiments made by Donny, that water, long boiled, becomes more
and more free from air, and that thus the cohesion of the particles is
so much increased, that when the heat is sufficiently increased to
overcome that cohesion, the production of steam is so considerable
and so instantaneous as to induce an explosion. In this circumstance
M. Donny finds an explanation of the phenomena of the Geysers,
which are in constant ebullition for many hours, until, being almost
purified from air, the intense internal or subterranean heat
overcomes the cohesion of the particles, and thus an explosion
takes place.
Lord Dufferin describes an eruption which he witnessed on the
occasion of his visit to the Geysers, but for which he waited three
days. Like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, he says, he and his
friends kept patient watch; but the Great Geyser scarcely deigned to
vouchsafe the slightest manifestation of its latent energies. Two or
three times they heard a sound as of subterranean cannonading,
and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet occurred. On the
morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made them start to
their feet, and with one common impulse rush towards the basin.
The usual underground thunder had already commenced. A violent
agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a dome of
water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten feet, then burst, and
fell; immediately after which a shining liquid column, or rather a
sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapour, sprang into the air,
and in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung
their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain
held its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending power.
The unstable waters faltered, drooped, fell, “like a broken purpose,”
back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the
recesses of their pipe.
The spectacle was one of great magnificence; but no description
can give an accurate idea of its most striking features. The
enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power, the illimitable
breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling out in exhaustless profusion,—these
combine to impress the spectator with an almost painful sense of the
stupendous energy of nature’s slightest movements.
The same traveller furnishes a very humorous account of the
Strokr (or “churn”).
It is, he says, an unfortunate Geyser, with so little command over
its temper and stomach, that you can get a rise out of it whenever
you like. Nothing more is necessary than to collect a quantity of sods
and throw them down its funnel. As it has no basin to protect it from
these liberties, you can approach to the very edge of the pipe, which
is about five feet in diameter, and look down at the boiling water
perpetually seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf
just administered begins to disagree with it; it works itself up into “an
awful passion;” tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness, it
groans and hisses, and boils up, and spits at you with malicious
vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, it
throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, carrying with
it all the sods that have been thrown in, and scattering them, scalded
and half-digested, at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing’s
stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that even long
after all foreign matter has been thrown off, it continues retching and
sputtering, until at last nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and
sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den.
The ground around the Geysers, for about a quarter of a mile,
looks as if it had been “honeycombed by disease into numerous
sores and orifices;” not a blade of grass grew on its hot, inflamed
surface, which consisted of unwholesome-looking red livid clay, or
crumpled shreds and shards of slough-like incrustations.

A region, corresponding in character to the desert mountain-


mass we have been describing, stretches westward from it to the
extremity of the ridge of the Snaefield Syssel, and terminates in the
remarkable cone of Snaefield Jokul.
The island coasts exhibit a singularly broken outline, and the
deep lochs or fiords, like those of Norway, only less romantic, dip
into the interior for many miles, and throw off numerous branches.
These fiords are wild and gloomy; dark, still inlets, with precipices on
either side, a thousand feet in height, and the silence unbroken, save
by the occasional wash of the waters, or the scream of a solitary
ocean-bird. Inland, however, they assume a gentler character: they
end in long narrow valleys, watered by pleasant streams, and bright
with pasture. In these bits of Arcadia the inhabitants have built their
towns and villages.
In the valleys on the north coast, which are adorned by clumps of
willow and juniper, the soil is comparatively fertile; but the most
genial scenery is found on the east, where, in some places, the
birch-trees reach a height of twenty feet, and are of sufficient size to
be used in house-building. The fuel used by the Icelanders is the
drift-wood which the Gulf Stream brings from Mexico, the Carolinas,
Virginia, and the River St. Lawrence.
In the south of the island the mean temperature is about 39°; in
the central districts, 36°; in the north it rarely rises above 32°, or
freezing-point. Thunder-storms, though rare in high latitudes, are not
uncommon in Iceland; a circumstance which is due, no doubt, to the
atmospheric disturbances caused by the volcanic phenomena.
Hurricanes are frequent, and the days are few when the island is
free from sea-mists. At the northern end the sun is always above the
horizon in the middle of summer, and under it in the middle of winter;
but absolute darkness does not prevail.
One of the most interesting places in Iceland is Thingvalla, where
of old the “Althing,” or supreme parliament, was wont to hold its
annual assemblies, under the “Logmathurman,” or president of the
republic.
It is nothing more than a broad plain on the bank of the River
Oxerá, near the point where the swift waters, after forming a noble
cascade, sweep into the Lake of Thingvalla. Only a plain; but the
scenery around it is indescribably grand and solemn. On either side
lies a barren plateau, above which rises a range of snowy
mountains, and from the plateaus the plain is cut off by deep
chasms,—that of Almanna Gja on the east, and the Hrafna Gja on
the west. It measures eight miles in breadth, and its surface is
covered by a network of innumerable fissures and crevices of great
depth and breadth. At the foot of the plain lies a lake, about thirty
miles in circumference, in the centre of which two small crater-
islands, the result of some ancient eruption, are situated. The
mountains on its south bank have a romantic aspect, and that their
volcanic fires are not extinct is shown by the clouds of vapour
evolved from the hot springs that pour down their rugged sides. The
actual meeting-place of the Althing was an irregular oval area, about
two hundred feet by fifty, almost entirely surrounded by a crevice so
broad and deep as to be impassable, except where a narrow
causeway connected it with the adjacent plain, and permitted access
to its interior. At one other point, indeed, the encircling chasm is so
narrow that it may possibly be cleared at a leap; and the story runs
that one Flosi, when hotly pursued by his enemies, did in this way
escape them; but as falling an inch short would mean sure death in
the green waters below, the chasm may be regarded as a tolerably
sure barrier against intruders.
The ancient capital of the island was Skalholt, where, in the
eleventh century, was founded the first school; an episcopal seat; the
birthplace of a long line of Norse worthies, Islief the chronicler,
Gissur the linguist, and Finnur Johnson the historian. But its glories
have passed away; its noble cathedral has ceased to exist; and
three or four cottages alone perpetuate the name of the once
flourishing city.
The present capital is Reikiavik, to which, in 1797, were
transferred the united bishoprics of Stoolum and Skalholt. It consists
of a collection of wooden sheds, one story high, rising here and there
into a gable end of greater pretensions, extending along a tract of
dreary lava, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf huts. On
every side of it stretches a dreary lava-plain, and the gloom of the
scorched and ghastly landscape is unrelieved by tree or bush. The
white mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the
buildings, but before the door of each merchant’s house, facing the
sea, streams a bright little pennon; and as the traveller paces the
silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel has ever desecrated,
the rows of flower-pots peeping out of the windows, between white
muslin curtains, at once convince him that, notwithstanding their
unostentatious appearance, within each dwelling reign “the elegance
and comfort of a woman-tended home.”
The prosperity of Reikiavik is chiefly due to its excellent harbour,
and to the fish-banks in its neighbourhood, which supply it with an
important commercial staple. In the summer and early autumn it is
much visited by tourists, who start from thence to admire the
wonders of Hekla, Skapta, and the Geysers; but its busiest time is in
July, when the annual fair draws thither a crowd of fisher-folk and
peasants. From a distance of forty and fifty leagues they come, with
long trains of pack-horses, their stock-fish slung loose across the
animals’ backs, and their other wares packed closely in boxes or
bags of reindeer-skin.

HARBOUR OF REIKIAVIK.
The Icelander is honest, temperate, hospitable, possessed with a
fervent spirit of patriotism, and strongly wedded to the ancient
usages. He is also industrious; and though his industry is but scantily
remunerated, he earns enough to satisfy his simple tastes. In the
interior his chief dependence is on his cattle; and as grass is the
main produce of his farm, his anxiety during the haymaking season
is extreme. A bad crop would be almost ruin. He is, however, wofully
ignorant of agriculture as a science, does but little for the
improvement of the soil, and employs implements of the most
primitive character. The process of haymaking in Iceland is thus
described:—
The best crops are gathered from the “tún,” a kind of home-park
or paddock, comprising the lands contiguous to the farmstead—the
only portion of his demesne to which the owner gives any special
attention, and on the improvement of which he bestows any labour.
This “tún” is enclosed within a wall of stone or turf, and averages an
extent of two or three acres, though sometimes it reaches to ten. Its
surface is usually a series of closely-packed mounds, like an
overcrowded graveyard, with channels or water-runs between, about
two feet deep. Hither every person employed on the farm, or whom
the farmer can engage, resorts, with short-bladed scythe and rake,
and proceeds to cut down the coarse thick grass, and rake it up into
little heaps.
Afterwards the mowers hasten to clear the neighbouring hill sides
and undrained marshes.
This primitive haymaking, so unlike the systematic operation
which bears that name in England, is carried on throughout the
twenty-four hours of the long summer day. The hay, when sufficiently
dried, is made up into bundles, and tied with cords and thongs, and
packed on the back of ponies, which carry it to the clay-built stalls or
sheds prepared for it. And a curious sight it is to see a long string of
hay-laden ponies returning home. Each pony’s halter is made fast to
the tail of his predecessor; and the little animals are so
overshadowed and overwhelmed by their burdens, that their hoofs
and the connecting ropes alone are visible, and they seem like so
many animated haycocks, feeling themselves sufficiently made up,
and leisurely betaking themselves to their resting-places.
During the protracted winter the Icelander, of course, can attend
to no out-of-door labour, and passes his time within his hut, which, in
many parts of the island, is not much superior to an Irish “cabin.”
The lower part is built of rough stones up to a height of four feet,
and between each course a layer of turf is placed, which serves
instead of mortar, and helps to keep out the cold. The roof, made of
any available wood, is covered with turf and sods. On the southern
side the building is ornamented with doors and gable-ends, each of
which is crowned by a weathercock. These doors are the entrances
to the dwelling-rooms and various offices, such as the cow-shed,
store-house, and smithy. The dwelling-rooms are connected by a
long, dark, narrow passage, and are separated from each other by
strong walls of turf. As each apartment has its own roof, the building
is, in effect, an aggregate of several low huts, which receive their
light through small windows in the front, or holes in the roof, covered
with a piece of glass or skin. The floors are of stamped earth; the
fireplace is made of a few stones, rudely packed together, while the
smoke escapes through a hole in the roof, or through a cask or
barrel, with the ends knocked out, which acts as chimney.
In some parts of the island lava is used instead of stones, and
instead of wood the rafters are made of the ribs of whales. A horse’s
skull is the best seat provided for a visitor. Too often the same room
serves as the dining, sitting, and sleeping place for the whole family,
and the beds are merely boxes filled with feathers or sea-weed.
There are, however, a few houses of a superior character, in which
the arrangements are not much unlike those of a good old-fashioned
English farm-house; the walls being wainscotted with deal, and the
doors and staircase of the same material. A few prints and
photographs, some book-shelves, one or two little pictures, decorate
the sitting-room, and a neat iron stove, and massive chests of
drawers, furnish it sufficiently.
From the houses we turn to the churches. In Reikiavik the church
is a stone building, the only stone building in the town; but this is
exceptional: most of the churches are not much better than the
houses. We will be content, therefore, with a visit to the Reikiavik
sanctuary, which is a neat and unpretending erection, capable of
accommodating three or four hundred persons. The Icelanders are
not opposed to a “decent ritual,” and the Lutheran minister wears a
black gown with a ruff round his neck. The majority of the
congregation, here as everywhere else, consists of women; some
few dressed in bonnets, and the rest wearing the national black silk
skull-cap, set jauntily on one side of the head, with a long black
tassel drooping to the shoulder, or else a quaint mitre-like structure
of white linen, almost as imposing as the head-dress of a Normandy
peasant. The remainder of an Icelandic lady’s costume, we may add,
consists of a black bodice, fastened in front with silver clasps, over
which is drawn a cloth jacket, gay with innumerable silver buttons;
round the neck goes a stiff ruff of velvet, embroidered with silver
lace; and a silver belt, often beautifully chased, binds the long dark
wadmal petticoat round the waist. Sometimes the ornaments are of
gold, instead of silver, and very costly.
Towards the end of the Lutheran service, the preacher descends
from the pulpit, and attiring himself in a splendid crimson velvet
cope, turns his back to the congregation, and chants some Latin
sentences.
Though still retaining in their ceremonies, says a recent traveller,
a few vestiges of the old religion, though altars, candles, pictures,
and crucifixes yet remain in many of their churches, the Icelanders
are stanch Protestants, and singularly devout, innocent, and pure-
hearted. Crime, theft, debauchery, cruelty are unknown amongst
them; they have neither prison, gallows, soldiers, nor police; and in
the manner of their lives mingles something of a patriarchal
simplicity, that reminds one of the Old World princes, of whom it has
been said, that they were “upright and perfect, eschewing evil, and in
their hearts no guile.”
In the rural districts, if such a phrase can properly be applied to
any part of Iceland, the church is scarcely distinguishable from any
other building, except by the cross planted on its roof. It measures,
generally, from eight to ten feet in width, and from eighteen to
twenty-four feet in length; but of this space about eight feet are
devoted to the altar, which is divided off by a wooden partition
stretching across the church, just behind the pulpit. The communion-
table is nothing more than a small wooden chest or cupboard, placed
at the end of the building, between two small square windows, each
formed by a single common-sized pane of glass. Over the table is
suspended a sorry daub, on wood, intended to represent the Last
Supper. The walls, which are wainscotted, are about six feet high;
and stout beams of wood stretch from side to side. On these are
carelessly scattered a number of old Bibles, psalters, and loose
leaves of soiled and antiquated manuscripts. The interior of the roof,
the rafters of which rest on the walls, is also lined with wood.
Accommodation, in the shape of a few rough benches, is provided
for a congregation of thirty or forty souls.
Poor as are the churches, the pastors are still poorer. The best
benefice in the island is worth not much more than £40 per annum;
the average value is £10. The bishop himself does not receive more
than £200. The principal support of the clergy, therefore, is derived
from their glebe-land, eked out by the small fees charged for
baptisms, marriages, and funerals.
Such being the case, the reader will not be surprised to learn that
the Icelandic clergy live miserably and work hard. They assist in the
haymaking; they hire themselves out as herdsmen; they act as the
leaders of the caravans of pack-horses which carry the produce of
the island to the ports, and return loaded with domestic necessaries;
and they distinguish themselves as blacksmiths, as veterinarians,
and shoers of horses.
Dr. Henderson gives an interesting and graphic account of a visit
he paid to one of these “poor parsons,” John Thorlukson, who, while
supporting himself by drudgery of this painful kind, translated
Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Pope’s “Essay on Man” into Icelandic.
“Like most of his brethren, at this season of the year,” says Dr.
Henderson, “we found him in the meadow assisting his people at
haymaking. On hearing of our arrival he made all the haste home
which his age and infirmity would allow, and bidding us welcome to
his lowly abode, ushered us into the humble apartment where he
translated my countrymen into Icelandic. The door was not quite four
feet in height, and the room might be about eight feet in length by six
in breadth. At the inner end was the poet’s bed; and close to the
door, over against a small window, not exceeding two feet square,
was a table where he committed to paper the effusions of his muse.
On my telling him that my countrymen would not have forgiven me,
nor could I have forgiven myself, had I passed through this part of
the island without paying him a visit, he replied that the translation of
Milton had yielded him many a pleasant hour, and often given him
occasion to think of England.”
It is true that this passage was written some fifty-five years ago,
but the condition of the clergy of Iceland has not much improved in
the interval.

Travelling in Iceland, even under the more favourable conditions


brought about by a constant influx of tourists, is not to be achieved
without difficulty and discomfort. Not only is the country destitute,
necessarily, of inns and the usual arrangements for the convenience
of travellers, but much, very much, depends upon the weather. With
a bright sky overhead, it is possible to regard as trivial and unworthy
of notice the small désagréments which, in bad weather, develop into
very serious annoyances. The only mode of travelling is on
horseback, for as there are no roads, carriages would be useless;
while the distances between the various points of interest are too
great, the rivers too violent, and the swamps too extensive for
pedestrian tours to be undertaken. Even the most moderate-minded
tourist requires a couple of riding-horses for himself, a couple for his
guide, and a couple of pack-horses; and when a larger company
travels, it expands into a cavalcade of from twenty to thirty horses,
tied head to tail, which slowly pick their way over rugged lava-beds
or dangerous boggy ground.
It is one thing, as Lord Dufferin remarks, to ride forty miles a day
through the most singular scenery in the world, when a glorious sun
brings out every feature of the landscape into startling distinctness,
transmuting the dull tormented earth into towers, domes, and
pinnacles of shining metal, and clothes each peak in a robe of many-
coloured light, such as the “Debatable Mountains” must have been in
Bunyan’s dream; and another to plod over the same forty miles, wet
to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim gray bases of the hills, which
rise you know not how, and care not where. “If, in addition to this,
you have to wait, as very often must be the case, for many hours
after your own arrival, wet, tired, hungry, until the baggage-train, with
the tents and food, shall have come up, with no alternative in the
meantime but to lie shivering inside a grass-roofed house, or to
share the quarters of some farmer’s family, whose domestic
arrangements resemble in every particular those which Macaulay
describes as prevailing among the Scottish Highlanders a hundred
years ago; and if, finally, after vainly waiting for some days to see an
eruption which never takes place, you journey back to Reikiavik
under the same melancholy conditions, it will not be unnatural that,
on returning to your native land, you should proclaim Iceland, with
her geysers, to be a sham, a delusion, and a snare!”
There are no bridges in Iceland; no bridges, except, indeed, a
few planks flung across the Bruera, and a swing-bridge, or kláfe,
which spans the Jokülsa; and, as is still the case in some parts of the
Scottish Highlands, the traveller must ford the streams, which are
always rapid, and sometimes inconveniently deep. The passage of a
river is, therefore, a formidable enterprise, as may be inferred from
the experiences of Mr. Holland and other travellers.
The guide leads the way, and the caravan follow obediently in his
wake, stemming, as best they can, the swift impetuous torrent. Often
the boiling water rises high against the horse’s shoulders, and
dashes clouds of spray in the face of the riders. The stream is so
furiously fast that it is impossible to follow the individual waves as
they sweep by, and to look down at it almost makes one dizzy. Now,
if ever, is the time for a firm hand, a sure seat, and a steady eye: not
only is the current strong, but its bed is full of large stones, which the
horse cannot see through the dark waters; and should he fall, the
torrent will carry you down to the sea, whose white breakers are

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