In the not too distant future, every researcher and professional in science and engineering fields will have to understand parallel and distributed computing. With hyperthreading in Intel processors, hypertransport links in AMD processors, multi-core silicon in today's high-end microprocessors from IBM and emerging cluster and grid computing, parallel and distributed computers have moved into the mainstream of computing. To fully exploit these advances in computer architectures, researchers and professionals must start to design parallel or distributed software, systems and algorithms for...