Frequently Asked Questions !

Cluster Computing Book

Who is the publisher?

The book will be published by Prentice Hall Inc., NJ, USA.

Is the book in a particular series?

Yes. Parallel and Distributed Computing series.

Who is the intended audience for the book?

Researchers and Post graduate students. They need to have good knowledge of operating system and introduction to parallel processing before they start with the book.

What is the estimated size, the chapter should be ?

A single chapter can take as much as 50 pages. I do not want to put much restriction on this.

How the chapter should be organized ?

The chapter should discussed as tutorial chapter so that the book will be of interest to a large number of potential readers. The readability of chapter can be improved by splitting the chapter into
many sections and each section can have many subsections.
The chapter can begin with Introduction and end with Summary. It will be excellent if we can have "Review Questions/Exercises" at the end of each chapter. All contributors are strongly advised to conform to this so that the consistency in the entire book can be maintained.

Who is going to have the copyrights on that materials ?

Publisher will have the copyright. This is followed by the publishers for any book they print.

What is about sharing costs/profit within the project ?

I will bear the cost of preparation. And profit will be shared among all contributors suitably. This depends on Publishers. It can be known only after having written agreement with the pub- lisher. This issue is difficult to answer at this point of time. I hope you will agree with me.

If there is royalty involved, how are they allocated?

Prentice Hall has allocated $2000 as an honorarium for the entire project, which can be shared equally among all contributing authors. When this is equally distributed among all chapters, each chapter gets $28!!! as we have nearly 70 chapter in the book. The cost of distributing this money involves more overhead when compared to the value of this money. I have brought this matter to the notice of the publisher and they have advised me to use the honorarium towards the book preparation expenses, which may include printing of CRC (on special papers), communicating with authors via fax/letter when need arises. (For example, I faxed agreement forms to some authors as they had problems in accessing grantor.ps file on Unix machines; this is probably because I used MS word to create grantor.ps, which is a Microsoft's attitude of making some standard format to their own resulting in incompatible problems on other platforms).

Prentice Hall has also pointed out that it does not make sense to distribute a small honorarium of $28 and suggested me use this towards book preparation cost. I am also having the same opinion as Prentice Hall and I hope you will agree with their suggestion. If you feel that this honorarium ($28) need to be handed over to you instead of using towards the book preparation expenses, please let me know.

Who else is being invited to submit? Your mailing lists make it look like everyone in the world.

Though, the message is sent to many, but I am making best attempt to have chapters from the experts in the field. Most of the contributors who have responded are principal investigators of their respective projects and in fact they have already written books and established themselves in Top Universities.

Is "Call for Contributors for the book" appearing in any journals ?

Yes, it appeared in the following international journals:

We will accept only quality submissions.

Who are the additional partners contributing to the book ?

The participants from the following organizations have agreed to contribute for the book:
(If your organization/affiliation is missing in the above list, please let me know).

Would this be a camera-ready deal or a typeset one?

I would like to hand-over CRC copy to the publisher. Once book is accepted by the publisher, we will decide details on setting and size of book (height, width, etc) and go ahead with the same. Since the project is in its initial stage, I have not concentrat- ed on these aspects. Kindly try to type-set your chapter in MS-WORD preferably.

What is the time frame ?

It is expected that the book will be completed in six months. Kindly submit the following as early as possible:
However, you can delay submission of chapter overview little bit, but submission of Table of Contents (TOC) and Bibliography has to be submitted as early as possible. (Ignore this if you have already done so).

If chapter is updated, do you want me to notify the same?

Yes, and submit updated copy immediately. Please specify which section or subsection is added to the earlier one.

Is it possible to know what others are writing ?

Yes, I would like to circulate TOC of the book among all other contributors for their suggestions and comments for further improvement. We can add some missing portions.

Are there any externals assisting in organization of the book?

Yes, many researchers who are not contributing (due to other commitments) chapter for the book, but volunteered themselves in assisting during the preparation of book. That is, right from book organization to the reviewing of each chapter. This will help us in making the book error free as much as possible.

What format(s) can you accept for the written material? Generally I use FrameMaker (which is great) but realize most people use LaTeX. If LaTeX, is a template being developed?

We have decided to use LaTeX although we planned the following earlier: It is advisable for us to use the one which supports WYSIWYG! So, Page Maker seems to be good in this aspect and more importantly it helps in creating Table of Contents of the entire book automatically with page numbers when organized as book. I have prepared camera-ready copy (CRC) of my two books entirely in Page Maker 5.0. I would like to use this experience in composing cluster computing book also. If you provide me ASCII, I can format it however, it will be better if your do. Please use WMF (windows meta file) format figures (this your can get by converting figures drawn in any package to WMF). I will supply template so that consistency can be maintained.

How repetition of defining few commonly used terms/concepts in every chapter will be addressed as each chapters are written by different individuals ?

The book editor will try to locate such terms and concepts with your's or others assistance. They will be moved to either glossary or Introductory chapter. I hope I am able to clear your doubts to some extent. If you require more clarifications, please email me.

If you are interested in contributing to this book, please email me the Table of Contents of your chapter and your Biography.