Front page (enlarge, 180kB)

Back page (enlarge, 270kB)

    This book is the third of a running series of volumes dedicated to selected topics of information systems theory and application. The objective of the series is to provide a reference source for problem solvers in business, industry, government, and professional researchers and graduate students.
    The first volume, Handbook on Architectures of Information Systems, presents a balanced number of contributions from academia and practitioners. The structure of the material follows a differentiation between modeling languages, tools and methodologies. The second volume, Handbook on Electronic Commerce, examines electronic storefront, on-line business, consumer interface, business-to-business networking, digital payment, legal issues, information product development and electronic business models.
    The present volume is a joint venture of an international board of editors, gathering prominent authors of academia and practice, who are well known specialists in the area of parallel and distributed processing. The intention of the Handbook is to provide practitioners, scientists and graduate students with a good overview of basic methods and paradigms, as well as important issues and trends across the broad spectrum of the above area. In particular, the book covers fundamental topics such as efficient parallel algorithms, languages for parallel processing, parallel operating systems, architecture of parallel and distributed systems, management of resources in parallel systems, tools for parallel computing, parallel database systems and multimedia object servers, and networking aspects of distributed and parallel computing. Three chapters are dedicated to applications: parallel and distributed scientific computing, high-performance computing in molecular sciences, and multimedia applications for parallel and distributed systems.
    Summing up, the Handbook is indispensable for academics and professionals who are interested in learning a leading expert's coherent and individual view of the topic.
    This volume was supported by Project CRIT-2 and KBN Grant No 8T11F02516 Particular thanks are dedicated to Dr. Müller from the Springer Verlag for his encouragement to prepare the volume. Special thanks are addressed to Maciej Drozdowski for his excellent job in careful editing the manuscripts, Anna Błażewicz and Maciej Machowiak for proofreading and corrections, and to many others who helped to prepare the volume.

Jacek Błażewicz
Klaus Ecker
Brigitte Plateau
Denis Trystram

Table of contents

	Foreword
I.	Parallel and Distributed Computing: State-of-the-Art and Emerging Trends
II.	The Design of Efficient Parallel Algorithms
III.	Languages for Parallel Processing\endgraf
IV.	Architecture of Parallel and Distributed Systems
V.	Parallel Operating Systems\endgraf
VI.	Management of Resources in Parallel Systems
VII.	Tools for Parallel Computing: A Performance Evaluation Perspective
VIII.	Parallel Database Systems and Multimedia Object Servers
IX.	Networking Aspects of Distributed and Parallel Computing
X.	Parallel and Distributed Scientific Computing
XI.	High-performance Computing in Molecular Sciences
XII.	Multimedia Applications for Parallel and Distributed Systems
	Index
	List of contributors