A set equations in the quantities
a
i
(
p
), where
i
= 1, 2, · · ·,
m
and
p
ranges over a set
R
of lattice points in
n
-space, is called a
system of uniform recurrence equations
if the following property holds: If
p
and
q
are in
R
and
w
is an integer
n
-vector, then
a
i
(
p
) depends directly on
a
j
(
p
-
w
) if and only if
a
i
(
q
) depends directly on
a
j
(
q
-
w
). Finite-difference approximations to systems of partial differential equations typically lead to such recurrence equations. The structure of such a system is specified by a
dependence graph G
having
m
vertices, in which the directed edges are labeled with integer
n
-vectors. For certain choices of the set
R
, necessary and sufficient conditions on
G
are given for the existence of a schedule to compute all the quantities
a
i
(
p
) explicitly from their defining equations. Properties of such schedules, such as the degree to which computation can proceed “in parallel,” are characterized. These characterizations depend on a certain iterative decomposition of a dependence graph into subgraphs. Analogous results concerning implicit schedules are also given.
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