A survey of the advances in the exploitation of the sparsity in the solution of large problems (Q1099926)

The author gives an interesting survey and discussion on the advance made in recent years in the development of sparse matrix techniques [cf. \textit{D. J. Evans} (ed.), Sparsity and its applications (1985; Zbl 0544.00021)]. One of the aims in using a sparse matrix technique to solve a large-scale problem involving sparse matrices is to reduce the storage space in the computer memory. The author describes the advantages and the limitations of two basic types of storage schemes, namely the static storage schemes and the dynamic storage schemes, for storing the elements of a sparse matrix in the computer memory, and gives in a systematic way the advances achieved after 1980 in the efforts to improve the performances of these storage schemes. The interested reader may greatly benefit from the large number of references included in the paper.