Definitions

I have just been given my final year project: Parallel Alorithms for Phylogeny.

What are parallel algorithms?
A parallel algorithm is one that breaks a larger problem into distinct subproblems and then solves them using an array of processing units instead of doing the whole problem on one CPU.

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What is Phylogeny?
Phylogeny is the study of how species relate to each other over time. It is related to paleontology and taxonomy (the grouping of individuals into species and species in to genus, etc). The science of phylogeny is called phylogenetics.

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What is my goal?
To build a fast parallel algorithm to determine the phylogenetic relation between miltiple sets of DNA to determine how closely related they are and to hopefully be able to determine how long ago they split from a common ancestor.