of the different processing units so that the units finish their task roughly at the same time application_number US 263007 A description fig1 depicts a network where a path needs to be established between nodes 31 and 12 illustratively the fig1 network is a telecommunication network where nodes 31 and 12 or more particularly customer terminals a and b that are coupled to nodes 31 and 12 respectively need to be interconnected therefore it is desirable to identify a least cost path between them nodes 31 and 12 in accord with the principles disclosed herein the fig1 network is divided into a number of segments if the pair of nodes 31 12 is viewed to be lying on a latitude line the segmenting is basically along longitude lines illustratively the fig1 network is segmented to form a first network segment that includes customer terminal a a second network segment that includes customer terminal b and a third network segment therebetween the segmenting can be with cuts through network links forming a pair of phantom half nodes at the cut point of each link with one of the phantom half nodes belonging to one of the segments the other of the phantom half nodes belonging to the other the segments and the costs of the links divided up between the two cut segments of the link alternatively the segmenting can be delineated by cuts through nodes creating two half nodes from each u201c cut u201d node with one of the half nodes belonging to one of.