<s>
The	O
degree	B-Operating_System
of	I-Operating_System
parallelism	I-Operating_System
(	O
DOP	O
)	O
is	O
a	O
metric	O
which	O
indicates	O
how	O
many	O
operations	O
can	O
be	O
or	O
are	O
being	O
simultaneously	O
executed	O
by	O
a	O
computer	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
It	O
is	O
used	O
as	O
an	O
indicator	O
of	O
the	O
complexity	O
of	O
algorithms	O
,	O
and	O
is	O
especially	O
useful	O
for	O
describing	O
the	O
performance	O
of	O
parallel	B-Operating_System
programs	I-Operating_System
and	O
multi-processor	B-Operating_System
systems	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
A	O
program	O
running	O
on	O
a	O
parallel	B-Operating_System
computer	I-Operating_System
may	O
utilize	O
different	O
numbers	O
of	O
processors	O
at	O
different	O
times	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
For	O
each	O
time	O
period	O
,	O
the	O
number	O
of	O
processors	O
used	O
to	O
execute	O
a	O
program	O
is	O
defined	O
as	O
the	O
degree	B-Operating_System
of	I-Operating_System
parallelism	I-Operating_System
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
plot	O
of	O
the	O
DOP	O
as	O
a	O
function	O
of	O
time	O
for	O
a	O
given	O
program	O
is	O
called	O
the	O
parallelism	B-Operating_System
profile	O
.	O
</s>
