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Encyclopedia > Granularity

Granularity is a measure of the size of the components, or descriptions of components, that make up a system. Granularity is the relative size, scale, level of detail or depth of penetration that characterizes an object or activity. It is the "extent to which a larger entity is subdivided. For example, a yard broken into inches has finer granularity than a yard broken into feet."[1] System (from Latin systēma, in turn from Greek systēma) is a set of entities, real or abstract, comprising a whole where each component interacts with or is related to at least one other component and they all serve a common objective. ...


Systems of, or description in terms of, large components are called coarse-grained, and systems of small components are called fine-grained; here coarse and fine are descriptions of the granularity of the system, or the granularity of description of the system.


An example of increasingly fine granularity: a list of nations in the United Nations, a list of all states/provinces in those nations, a list of all counties in those states, etc. The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ...


The terms "fine" and "coarse" are used consistently across fields; but the term "granularity" itself is not. For example, in investing, "more granularity" refers to more positions of smaller size, while photographic film that is "more granular" has fewer and larger chemical "grains". Investment is a term with several closely related meanings in finance and economics. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Contents

In physics

A fine-grained description of a system is a detailed, low-level model of it. A coarse-grained description is a model where some of this fine detail has been smoothed over or averaged out. The replacement of a fine-grained description with a lower-resolution coarse-grained model is called coarse graining. (See for example the view of the second law of thermodynamics in the article Maximum entropy thermodynamics) The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the universal law of increasing entropy. ... In physics the Maximum entropy school of thermodynamics (or more colloquially, the MaxEnt school of thermodynamics), initiated with two papers published in the Physical Review by Edwin T. Jaynes in 1957, views statistical mechanics as an inference process: a specific application of inference techniques rooted in information theory, which relate...


In computing

In parallel computing, granularity means the amount of computation in relation to communication, i.e., the ratio of computation to the amount of communication. Parallel computing is the simultaneous execution of the same task (split up and specially adapted) on multiple processors in order to obtain results faster. ... Look up computation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...


Fine-grained, or "tightly coupled", parallelism means individual tasks are relatively small in terms of code size and execution time. The data are transferred among processors frequently in amounts of one or a few memory words. Coarse-grained, or "loosely coupled", is the opposite: data are communicated infrequently, after larger amounts of computation.


The smaller the granularity, the greater the potential for parallelism and hence speed-up, but the greater the overheads of synchronization and communication. (The last two paragraphs are based on FOLDOC.)


In Reconfigurable Computing and Supercomputing

In Reconfigurable Computing and in Supercomputing these terms refer to the data path width. The use of about one bit wide processing elements like the configurable logic blocks (CLBs) in an FPGA is called Fine-grained computing or Fine-grained reconfigurability, whereas using wide data paths, such as, for instance 32 bits wide resources, like microprocessor CPUs or data-stream-driven data path units (DPUs) like in a reconfigurable datapath array (rDPA) is called Coarse-grained computing Coarse-grained reconfigurability. Reconfigurable computing is computer processing with highly flexible computing fabrics. ... A supercomputer is a device for turning compute-bound problems into I/O-bound problems. ... A field-programmable gate array or FPGA is a gate array that can be reprogrammed after it is manufactured, rather than having its programming fixed during the manufacturing — a programmable logic device. ... A microprocessor is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). ... CPU can stand for: in computing: Central processing unit in journalism: Commonwealth Press Union in law enforcement: Crime prevention unit in software: Critical patch update, a type of software patch distributed by Oracle Corporation in Macleans College is often known as Ash Lim. ... DPU can stand for: in computing: Data Path Unit in quality management: Defects per Unit. ... rDPA can stand for: in computing: reconfigurable Data Path Array in computing: reconfigurable DPA. rDPA is a TLA, a type of initialism. ...


In credit portfolio risk management

In credit portfolio risk modeling, granularity refers to the number of the exposures in the portfolio. The higher the granularity, the more positions are in a credit portfolio, providing a higher degree of size diversification, which in turn reduces concentration risk. This is colloquially known as "not putting all your eggs in one basket". Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...


In photographic film

In photography, granularity is a measure of film grain. It is measured using a particular standard procedure but in general a larger number means the grains of silver are larger and there are fewer grains in a given area. Film grain or granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film due to the presence of small grains of a metallic silver developed from silver halide that have received enough photons. ...


General examples

At a September 2006 White House press briefing, presidential press secretary Tony Snow responded to a question about an asserted link that had existed between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Snow said that Bush indicated there was "no operational relationship" between Zarqawi and Saddam but added, "we just don’t have that kind of granularity in terms of the relationship. And, therefore, we’re not going to outrun the facts."[2] A press secretary is a senior advisor (usually to a politician) who provides advice on how to deal with the media and, using news management techniques, helps them to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. ... Robert Anthony Tony Snow (born June 1, 1955) is the current White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush. ... Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq and Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council from 1979 until his overthrow by US forces in 2003. ... Al-Qaeda (also al-Qaida or al-Qaida) (Arabic: ‎ , translation: The Base) is an international alliance of militant jihadist organizations established by Osama bin Laden and others around the time of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. ... Wikinews has news related to: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in airstrike Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic: , , Abu Musab from Zarqa)) (October 20, 1966 – June 7, 2006) was a Jordanian who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden. ...


References

  1. ^ http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/UserInfo/Resources/Hardware/IBMp690/IBM/usr/share/man/info/en_US/a_doc_lib/aixuser/glossary/G.htm
  2. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/14/snow-hussein-zarqawi/

See also


  Results from FactBites:
 
Date and Time Formats (692 words)
As different standards have their own requirements regarding granularity and flexibility, this profile offers a number of options.
Different standards may need different levels of granularity in the date and time, so this profile defines six levels.
If a given standard allows more than one granularity, it should specify the meaning of the dates and times with reduced precision, for example, the result of comparing two dates with different precisions.
Multiple granularity locking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (252 words)
In computer science, multiple granularity locking (MGL), sometimes called the John Rayner locking method, is a locking method used in database management systems (DBMS) and relational databases.
Multiple granularity locking is usually used with Non-strict two-phase locking to guarantee serializability.
MGL uses lock escalation to determine granularity lock on a node and its ancestors.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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