itaps-parallel definition for 'neighbors of a part'

[Carl Ollivier-Gooch]

Onkar Sahni wrote:
> Tim and I have come with two definitions for 'neighbors of a part' (the
> definitions imply same thing but wordings in each are different). Please
> provide us your feedback and we can choose one (or keep both).
> 
> Two (or more) parts are neighbors, if at least one object in each of the
> parts (i.e., the objects in the partition owned by each part) have a
> common lower- or higher-dimensional adjacent entity of specified type(s).
> (Common higher-dimensional adjacent entity of type REGION will satisfy
> need for vertex-based partition, where mesh vertices are
> partition-objects, used in mesh smoothing).
> 
> OR
> 
> Two (or more)  parts are neighbors, if any entity of specified type(s) at
> least have one adjacent object in each of the parts (i.e., the objects in
> the partition owned by each part). (Again, for a vertex-based partition,
> specified type can be REGION and objects are vertices, so regions that
> have objects (i.e., vertices) on two parts make the parts neighbor to each
> other).

I'm personally okay with either variation of wording on the bits that 
differ; if pressed, I'd lean towards the second, at least at present.

The thing that I still can't get past --- and I know I keep coming back 
to this --- is the implication that there might be objects that -aren't- 
in the partition.  This may well be just a semantic thing, where 
"objects in the partition" is being used as an abbreviation for "objects 
that were used to define the division into parts", and I'm 
misinterpreting that as "objects for which ownership (right to modify) 
is clearly defined".  The latter interpretation has to be, in my 
opinion, a covering of all the entities.  I suppose I'd be willing to 
relax that to "a covering of all the entities that might be modified", 
but then queries like getNumOfTypePar are either going to return 
something other than the total number of entities for which ownership is 
clearly defined, or have behavior that is counter-intuitive (my 
intuition, at least, expects that call to give a count for the global 
parallel mesh).

Carl

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