Frontiers of Computing Systems Research Essays on Emerging Technologies, Architectures, and Theories

Computing systems researchers confront two serious problems. (1) The increasingly monolithic, or pseudo-monolithic, integration of complex com puting functions and systems imposes an environment which integrates ad vanced principles and techniques from a broad variety of fields. Researchers not only must confront the increased complexity of topics in their specialty field but also must develop a deeper general understanding of a broadening number of fields. (2) There has been a proliferation of journals, books, workshops and conferences through which research results are reported. Remaining familiar with recent advances in our specific fields is a major challenge. Casually browsing through journals and conference proceedings to remain aware of developments in areas outside our specialization has become an even greater challenge. Frontiers of Computing Systems Research has been established to ad dress these two issues. With the assistance of an advisory board of experts from a wide variety of specialized areas, we hope to provide roughly annual volumes of invited chapters on a broad range of topics and designed for an interdisciplinary research audience. No single volume can cover all the rel evant topics and no single article can convey the full set of directions being pursued within a given topic. For this reason, a chapter listing technical reports available from universities is also included. Often, such unpub lished reports are designed for a general research audience and provide a good, informal look at trends in specialized research topics.