An efficient parallel algorithm for finding the largest and the second largest elements from a list of elements

Abstract

This paper first presents two sequential algorithms following a new approach for finding the largest and the second largest elements from a list of n elements assuming n is multiple of 3. Another contribution of this paper is an EREW P-RAM(exclusive read and exclusive write-parallel random access machine) version of this sequential approach, runs in time O(logn) using only n/3 processors. This problem is useful to rank the winner and the runner in any event from many individuals.