Acknowledgments

We could not have successfully pulled this project off without the help, suggestions, constructive criticisms, and resources of many of our friends and colleagues. In particular, we would like to thank Terry Lewis and Doug Johnson from OSC (Ohio Super-Computing) for providing us with complete access to a 32-node Linux-based cluster. To Mark Welton from YSU for his expertise and help with configuring the cluster to support our PVM and MPI programs. To Sal Sanders from YSU for providing us with access to Power-PCs running Mac OSX and Adobe Illustrator. To Brian Nelson from YSU for allowing us to test many of our multithreaded and distributed programs on multiprocessor Sun E-250s and E-450s. We are also indebted to Mary Ann Johnson and Jeffrey Trimble from YSU MAAG for helping us locate and hold on to the technical references we required. Claudio M. Stanziola, Paulette Goldweber, and Jacqueline Hansson from the IEEE Standards and Licensing and Contracts Office for obtaining permission to reprint parts of the new Single-UNIX/POSIX standard; Andrew Josey and Gene Pierce from The Open Group was also helpful in this regard. Thanks to Trevor Watkins of the Z-Group for all his help with the testing of the program examples; his multi-Linux distribution environment was especially important in the testing process. A special thanks to Steve Tarasweki for agreeing to provide a technical review for this book while it was in its roughest form. To Dr. Eugene Santos for pointing us in the right direction as we explored how categorical data structures could be used with PVMs. To Dr. Mike Crescimanno from the Advanced Computing Work Group at YSU for allowing us to present some of the materials from this book at one of the ACWG meetings. Finally, to Paul Petralia and the production team ( especially Gail Cocker-Bogusz) from Prentice Hall who had to put up with all of our missed deadlines and strange UNIX/Linux file formats ”we are extremely indebted to their patience, encouragement, enthusiasm , and professionalism .