被隱藏的聯繫性：《四庫全書總目》唐代別集提要的文學史敘述

本文寫作期間，正值台灣及中國兩方面的學界，針對「台灣文學史」的論述方式，有著諸多意識型態上的矛盾與磨擦。為了解此間問題根源，有必要從歷史及現實等方面，進行兩方的論述考察與批判。本文首先追究「台灣文學」此一觀念的發生，再說明台灣與中國在「台灣文學史」的寫作實踐上的歷史情境，及釐清隱藏於情境背後的意識型態限制。最後再針對重要的文學史作家進行批判、檢驗並從中思考他們所未辨析的文學史難題。「台灣文學」一名之提出，源自於日本時期的文學和文化思考。將思考落實成文字，則起自1943年的黃得時。歷經戰爭及戒嚴的偏廢和禁錮，「台灣文學」暫被歸類於中國文學之一個支流，並不受重視。及至1970年代，台灣意識甦醒，再有陳少廷等人開始還原「台灣文學史」在日本時期的歷史面貌，並經1980年代的葉石濤等人之努力，終於建立了一脈無需依附中國文學體系與價值的「台灣文學史」。中國的台灣文學史書寫，則起於1980年代的的統戰政策，造成數十本「台灣文學史」皆具有論述上的盲點。特別值得注意的是2000年後由陳映真及呂正惠等台籍作家和學者，他們儼然成為現下中國在建立台灣文學史論述時的新血。兩人皆視野廣泛，論述有據，卻仍甘於將台灣文學史的書寫，視為中國對台政治行動的一部份。不過他們對於文學史書寫的思考，雖有意識型態上的重大疑慮，但仍有值得延申再議的空間。

Keeping Faith with Literature

借用比較文學的流傳學研究方法，檢閱吳濁流小說《亞細亞的孤兒》在中國大陸的文本旅行，三十年間的出版、評論和文學史敘述表明，政治意識形態在學術探討中的結構性影響在遞減，跨越海峽的文學接受已從誤解走向理解、從一元走向多元。

顧愷之是東晉著名的畫家，世稱「才絕」、「畫絕」、「癡絕」。除了對藝術的熱愛之外，他博學有才，雅好文學，個性好諧謔，並擁有多方面的興趣。從史家評議中可見，對他的評論是｢矜能過實，譚諧取容，而才多逸氣，故有三絶之目。｣現代人對顧愷之的認識多在其繪畫理論上的影響，然而在晉書的史臣筆下，他的文章｢縟藻霞煥｣、｢才多逸氣｣，可見他的文筆之美；從｢矜能過實，譚諧取容｣更可以初步得到一個有自信滿溢而又幽默的印象，這又是他博學多才之餘，表現出「癡絕」的另一面。他的「癡」同他的人格聯繫在一起，而這樣的精神人格與魏晉時期的社會風尚、人物才性、品藻標準等都密切相關。 作為山水畫創始時期的代表作家之一、也身為傑出的早期肖像畫與人物畫家，顧愷之在藝術史上的作用與影響都是極其深遠的。顧愷之的維摩詰壁畫與戴逵雕塑的文殊菩薩像以及從獅子國傳來玉像，被當時稱為瓦官寺｢三絕」。顧愷之撰有《魏晉勝流畫贊》、《論畫》和《畫雲臺山記》等三本重要論著，在繪畫理論上也有許多前所未有的觀點，如傳神寫照、遷想妙得的藝術理念，東晉顧愷之在總結前人觀點的基礎上，第一次系統的闡述了人物畫中的形神關係。從顧愷之到謝赫、宗炳、王微，從人物畫論到山水畫論，從側重於對象之神的傳達到越來越重視主體精神意趣的融入，我們可以清楚地看到六朝畫論中傳神論的發展演化。顧愷之的畫論對後世影響深遠。顧愷之從創作實踐和理論建樹兩方面，把我國古代的繪畫推向了第一個高峰。 以往學術界對顧愷之的研究，總是側重於其繪畫方面的傑出成就，而對其在書法、藝術理論及文學創作諸多方面的成就未加以深入研究。因此，本文將以｢才、癡、畫三絕｣為主軸，嘗試從他的時代背景、家族門風、宗教信仰剖析東晉的顧愷之，並且多元延伸觸角來解讀顧愷之，甚至探討出顧愷之對後世的影響。期盼能在「畫絕」之餘，更深入的描繪出顧愷之「才絕」與「癡絕」的文人形象。

Although much has been written about the art of the famous synagogue at Dura-Europos, its rootedness in Mesopotamia has gone largely unexplored. This study looks south along the local trade routes to Iranian Babylonia and examines evidence available about the religious function of Durian Jewish and Sasanian Manichaean pictorial art as part of a shared regional development of techniques of instruction. It reveals that the distinctly different forms of pictorial art used by these two communities in mid-third-century Mesopotamia are nevertheless comparable based on their didactic function. They both: (1) displayed a visual library of doctrinal subjects, that is, they captured, in pictorial form, a large sample of core tenets which were also recorded in the respective sacred texts of these religions; (2) fulfilled a primarily didactic function, that is, their pictorial genres (narrative scenes, didactic portraits, and diagrams in the Manichaean case) played a dominantly instructional role; and (3) effectively supplemented oral instruction, that is, the paintings were sermonized about and discussed in light of living interpretations. I argue that these correlations result not from direct influence between the two communities, but rather from a shared approach to what images can do for a religion. The Jewish and Manichaean paintings in question emerged simultaneously and in relative closeness to one another. While the Jewish archeological records of the painted synagogue are all but silent, various characteristics of the mid-third-century Manichaean paintings are noted in literary records, including what they portrayed and, most importantly for this study, the pedagogical reasons for how and why they were used. As evidenced by Iranian, Coptic, and Syriac textual sources from between the mid-third and the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the founding prophet of Manichaeism, Mani (active from 240 to 274/277 CE), not only wrote down his own teachings, but also created visual representations of them on a solely pictorial scroll—the Book of Pictures—that he and his highest-ranking elects used in the course of oral instructions while missionizing across greater West Asia and the East Mediterranean region.

The translation is an important matter in cross-fertilization between peoples, cultures, and societies, and it is the most important means for foreign civilization learning. The translation aims at the intellectual, scientific, and cultural activity. If we briefly mention that translation is an integral part of development in general, by mediating between self-development that enriches identity with the creativity of others while protecting it from emotional reception thanks to the protective mediation. The book that we will analyze is the poet's book and Al-Manfaluthi has little poetry, as well as written for school students and collected information on Al- Manfaluthi Anthology. This research aims to find literary creativity in translating the poet’s book. This research results that literary creativity in translating the poet’s book was found by it is meanings with his taste and starts with words on the correct analogy, its ease and soundness from strangeness, ambiguity in composition, verbal or moral complexity, and the integrity of the composition abounds throughout the length of the book. Al-Manfaluthi created this novel from the representative template to the narrative template, in the style of the poet and his attractive poetic emotions so that the reader could enjoy the pages.

The purpose of the study was to explore the effects of self-regulated strategy development（SRSD）plus peer-mediated instruction on the writing performances of the fourth-grade students with learning disabilities and their peers with writing difficulties. Further comparison of the effects of instruction between all participants was conducted. The research method of this study was alternating subjects design adapted from alternating treatment design. Three students with learning disabilities and three peers with writing difficulties were selected for participating this study. The assessment was conducted immediately after instruction for obtaining the data of length of articles and the scores at narrative elements analysis scale. Overall, the major findings were summarized as follows: 1.The results of the study indicated that the SRSD plus peer-mediated instruction could improve participants’ writing performance. All participants wrote longer and more narrative elements after instruction. The length of writing products in the three peers was greater than the students with learning disabilities. 2.Students with learning disabilities needed more practice and guidance to effectively use the strategy. The students who learned how to use the strategy fastest evidenced more progress. 3.Peers with writing difficulties also evidenced progress in total words and narrative elements after writing intervention. The students wrote worst in baseline was most progress. Finally, some recommendations based on the results were provided for future teachings and researches.

This dissertation is divided into seven section. The first section is the foreword, and simply describes intellectual develpments in the study of the Classics from the Sung to the mid-Ming. The author notes that this period witnessed a rapid decline in Han studies (”Han-hsueh”), but by the mid-Ming, scholars such as Wang Ao, Yang Shen, and Cheng Hsiao had already begun to emphasize the importance of ”Han-hsueh”. The second section covers Chu's life and writings. Chu was a sixth generation descendant of the Chou-ting King Chu Suh. Chu once held the post of ”chou fan tsong cheng”, and advocated research of the Classics. His own most famous work on the Classics is the ”Shou Jing T'u”. The third section discusses the general form of Chu's text and his motivation in writing it. According to Chu's statements, he wrote the book in order to promote ”Han-hsueh”. The work is divided into five parts, covering the ”Chou I”, ”Shang Shu”, ”Shi Jing”, ”Ch'un-ch'iu”, and the ”Li Jing”. Each part contains four chapters, arranged topically as follows: a general outline, a chart detailing the origin and spread of teachings on the Classic under discussion, a biography of the scholars associated with these teachings, and a list of these scholars' writings pertaining to each Classic. The fourth section discusses the selection of materials in Chu's book. Chu relied on Chang Ru-yu's ”Ch'un Shu K'ao Suo”, revising and expanding Chang's charts detailing the origin and spread of teachings on the Classics mentioned above. Biographical materials were drawn from the biographies of the ”Shi Chi”, the ”Han Shu”, and the ”Later Han Shu”. Chu's list of scholarly writings on the Classics generally relied on Cheng Ch'iao's ”Tong Chih Lue”, supplemented by private collections and catalogs. The fifth section looks at the supplement to Chu's text written by Huang Yu-chi and Kong Hsiang-ling. Huang corrected what he believed were mistakes by Chu regarding other books, chapters, and authors. Huang also added biographical material on 255 ku-uien and chin-wen authors and 741 notes on the Classics. Finally, Huang rearranged biographical materials in the section on the ”Shang Shu”. The sixth section discusses the significance and influence of the ”Shou Jing T'u”. The book had a significant influence on the general form of Chu Yi-tsun's compilation, the ”Jing I K'ao”. The author also notes that, after the Han Dynasty, scholarly compilations on Han teachers of the Classics all followed the conventions set in Chu's ”Shou Jing T'u”. In the concluding section the author discusses the stimulating effect that the ”Shou Jing T'u” had on ”Han-hsueh” after the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

Overview Derrida’s Margins is a website and online research tool for annotations from the Library of Jacques Derrida, housed at Princeton University Library (PUL). Jacques Derrida is one of the major figures of twentieth-century thought, and his library--which bears the traces of decades of close reading--represents a major intellectual archive. The first phase of the project focused on annotations related to Derrida’s landmark 1967 work De la grammatologie ( Of Grammatology ). Data collection methods Works cited by Derrida in De la grammatologie were documented in a private Zotero library using a custom tagging system to indicate the location and kind of references in a particular work. That data was imported by script into a custom database, creating records for books, sections of books, and journal articles. Records were also created for references in De la grammatologie based on information encoded in the Zotero tags. The book and reference data was further cleaned and refined in the database after import; items with digital editions available from PUL were linked via IIIF. Interventions were documented by project researchers using a custom-built annotation solution, linked to digitized page images from PUL digital editions for this collection. The current phase of the project only includes structured data for annotation interventions and not insertions. Data dictionary URIs are used as unique identifiers for references, books, and annotations across all datasets, to allow linking the information. URIs will resolve to the best available representation of that content on the Derrida’s Margins website (in some cases, this is a search result).

The purpose of this scientific paper is to characterize the page 190v of the manuscript of Jagiellonian Library, cat. number 1297. Th e page in question contains the prayers and commentaries. Hitherto researchers have neglected this page so far, so it has not been fully described and some elements of the layout have not been identified (or misidentified) (see the papers of A. Bruckner, W. R. Rzepka and W. Wydra, C.K. Świecki et al.). The foregoing research has considered the page as a separate item, disregarding the surrounding pages. In this paper the author discusses the page as a whole. Th is allowed her to ask new questions concerning: the writer’s intention, the function of the page, and the possible status of an Old Polish text. In the main part of the paper the author makes an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of writing the elements of the layout (page composition), taking into consideration in particular the relations between the elements. According to the author it is possible to reconstruct the probable sequence of the writer’s actions, and therefore to retrace creative process of the scribe (known as Jakub of Piotrkow, the canon of Plock). Th e author assumes the three hypothetical stages of writer’s work. In the first stage he wrote Polish and Latin texts of Pater noster and Credo on the page. Then the page could have been used to lecture the prayers or to teach how to memorize them. Comparing the page on this stage with other known collections of basic prayers, we can eliminate the function of this record as a compendium or collection of common prayers. On later stages the writer added next elements: commentary on the translation of the prayers into Polish, a few words explanations (e.g. „The Holy Trinity: Th e Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit”, the division of water into snow, rain and ice) , an abridged version of Credo, a Polish version of Ave Maria and a paraphrase of Our Father by Ludolf the Carthusian. In the analysis the author points out the motivation behind the writing of consequent elements and their function (preaching and mnemonic). The last hypothetical stage of the creation of the page is writing down the text of Benedictiones mensae, not related to the elements mentioned before. The applied research procedure (reconstruction of the sequence of writing the texts on the page) allows to reconstruct alleged creative process. The analysis proves that the writer’s intention could have changed as subsequent elements were being written on the page. On the first stage the page could have served as a theological lecture or mnemonic teaching aid of the texts (both Latin and Polish). The receivers could have been the congregation (taught the basic prayers in Polish) or clerical students and the priests preparing to ministration (as the texts of prayers in Polish and Latin indicate). On the second stage the function of the page becomes clear: it serves as the teaching aid during lecturing of the articles of faith and explaining theological and linguistic matters (metatextual and metalinguistic commentary on the translations of prayers into Polish). That’s why we should consider the presumptive receivers not only simple folks (as some of the elements on the page are not applicable in this case) but clergymen or clerical students as well. The elements of the page were selected to use, depending on who was on the receiving end of the lecture and what was the purpose of it. According to the latest research on the distinguishing features and character of Old Polish texts we can assert that linguistic relics like this one, closely bound up with orality of medieval language, are not (were not) the complete texts but texts in statu nascendi. The discussed text is an example of genuine teaching aid, serving the writer, Jakub of Plock in ministering, and aft er that – probably the next clergymen.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate Sun Shen-Xing(1565-1636)’s Confucian thought, based on the text of Kun Si Chao and Shen Du Yi. Hwang Zong-Xi (1610-1695) said in the Ming Ru Xue An, “Sun Shen-Xing epitomized the thought of Donglin School,” which indicated that Sun Shen-Xing’s philosophical thought was significant and representative in the development of Donglin School in late Ming. However, Sun Shen-Xing’s philosophical thought and his writings haven’t been noted and focused on in academic. In view of this, this thesis probes into the origin of Shen-Xing’s problem consciousness and the development of his Confucian thought via document arrangement and textual research. Therefore, chapter II gives a general overview of the version of Kun Si Chao and Shen Du Yi, and separately introduces Sun Shen-Xing’s writing motions and the process of publication. In chapter III, with the context of Kun Si Chao and Shen-Xing’s former problem consciousness, the author analyzed how Shen-Xing interpreted the conception of “human nature(xing),” “destiny(ming),” and “mind(xin)” under his thinking structure that temperament(qi zhi) and righteousness(li yi) are two sides of a coin. In chapter IV, based on Shen Du Yi, the author focused on the change of Shen-Xing’s explanation of self-discipline(shen du), pointed out that Sun Shen-Xing converged moral Kungfu on “extensive study”, “accurate inquiry”, “careful reflection”, “clear discrimination,” “earnest practice,” making a great effort into the way of human instead of only being guided by the way of heaven. In summary, Sun Shen-Xing’s philosophical thought is practical, turning metaphysics into daily human relationships, placing a high value on practice. However, as he re-interpreted the text of classics, the signified he used usually differed from common sense, resulting in his alternative concepts hard to read and understand. Despite the fact that Sun Shen-Xing’s philosophical thought was full of the characteristic of both Li School and Xin School, with the passing of time, Shen-Xing’s kungfu theory was more obviously inclined to Li School and for practical use in his later years, which reflects one aspect of the academic transformation from ming dynasty to qing dynasty.

i»? A. A. Helal, A. A. Heddaya, and B. B. Bhargrava Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1996, 176 pp. ISBN 0-7923-9800-9, $118.50 Computing in the 1990s has reached the state of distributed computing. A basis of this form of computing is a distributed computing system, which is built on the following three components: (a) personal computers, (b) local and fast wide area networks, and (c) system and application software. By amalgamating computers and networks into one single computing system and providing an appropriate system software, a distributed computing system has created the possibility of sharing information and peripheral resources. Furthermore, these systems improved performance of a computing system and individual users through parallel execution of programs, load balancing and sharing, and replication of programs and data. Distributed computing systems are also characterized by enhanced availability, and increased reliability. Replication is the key to providing high availability, fault tolerance, and enhanced performance in a distributed computing system. As companies move toward systems that are more open and distributed, replication is becoming increasingly important in the ability to provide data and services that are current, correct and available, which is a key factor in maintaining a competitive advantage over rivals. However, replication has also generated some serious challenges. For example, when a replica is updated, how do we propagate such an update to other replicas? If multiple replicas are updated simultaneously and some of the updates conflict one another, how do we resolve the conflict? How do we deal with the situation where a replica is down and then subsequently recovered? How do we deal with network partitions? Not surprisingly, considerable research efforts have been directed towards the solution of these challenges. However, most of the research results are scattered among many journals, conference proceedings, theses, and technical reports. The book by Helal, Heddaya and Bhargava has gathered the best material of these research results and formed a coherent collection that includes definitions, theoretical background, algorithms, annotated bibliographies of commercial and experimental prototype systems, and more than 200 references. This book classifies the entities that can be replicated on a distributed computing system into the following categories: (a) data, (b) process, (c) objects, and (d) messages. After the introduction on the goals and main approaches of replication techniques, the book uses individual chapters to describe major methods for each of the above replication categories. The main focus of this part, however, is on the replication of data. The book also contains two chapters on the replication issues in heterogeneous, mobile, and large-scale systems, and on the future of replication techniques. Apart from the normal chapters, the book contains a rich set of appendices that are very useful for further studies of replication techniques. These appendices include brief descriptions of two dozen commercial and experimental systems that use replication techniques, annotated bibliographies of selected literature on various topics of replication, and an introduction on serializability theory. Each annotated bibliography contains an overview of the specific topic and is written by an invited expert in that field. The combination of the normal chapters and appendices cover the entire spectrum of replication, from definitions, concepts, theories, algorithms, techniques, to systems. The book serves as an excellent introduction and roadmap to the issues of replication. Although it does not provide a detailed description of every replication techniques and systems, the book covers most of the fundamental work that allows the reader to understand the roots of these techniques and systems, and to find the ways to search for the details. This book is a valuable reference book for anyone studying replication techniques or implementing replication systems, specifically, it can be very useful to post-graduate students, practitioners, and beginning researchers of this exciting field. Wanlei Zhou, School of Computing and Mathematics, Deakin University

Written from a practice-as-research perspective, this thesis focuses on the use of testimony in creating material for the stage. Designed as a reflexive performance ethnography and action research study, the work is concerned with developing a new performative strategy to address the memory of pain in the aftermath of conflict and to contribute to rebuilding communities dispersed by social and political unrest. Informed by methodologies and performance practices involved with the curation of testimonial content and conceptually inspired by the work of theatre director Augusto Boal, anthropologist Victor Turner and psychiatrist Dori Laub, Memodrome, as I named my technique, resides within the field of Applied Drama. It is intended to facilitate the direct interaction between a testifier and an empathic witness while generating simultaneous narratives based on the memories of the participants and their synergetic experiences. By using testimonial performance to explore aspects of the exilic and diasporic experience of Romanians in the UK and by making reference to the political and social tensions in the aftermath of the 1989 anti-communist revolution, this research aims at contributing to the understanding of how the experience of pain can reshape the cultural behaviour of a community and address feelings of belonging. Memodrome: Incubator, Memodrome: Roots and Memodrome: Home, the three performances I have created for the purpose of this PhD research, are experimental laboratories based on the particular and various experiences of life impacted by coercive and oppressive political governance. Memodrome: Incubator presents the testimony of a Romanian refugee artist who escaped a 30 years sentence in a communist prison by fleeing to the UK. Memodrome: Home explores testimonies of four Romanian migrants in the UK while Memodrome: Roots, constructed as a counter performance, captures the testimonies of six Romanians who are still based in their native country but reportedly feel that life under communism affected their feelings of belonging. The three case studies mentioned above constitute the foundation for developing a new performative strategy aimed at supporting communities affected by conflict to claim their past, commemorate painful experiences and celebrate survival. Examining the role of collective memory in the formation of public narratives, my proposal offers an alternative space where tensions can be negotiated through democratic means of spectatorship and collective authorship. This project demonstrates how capturing and performing personal testimonies can bring members of the community together and bridge differences. This work is structured in three main parts, each organised with several chapters and subchapters. In the first part of this thesis, I will provide a brief historical context and discuss how Romanian cultural behaviour has been reshaped in the shadows of the communist oppression. I will explore issues of identity in the aftermath of the anti-communist revolution in 1989 and argue that Romanians formed a new nation, one of people who lost their sense of place and belonging. I will also present my methodological approach articulating my affiliation with the practice of Applied Drama and explain how my academic and cultural background allowed me to engage with this work from a performative ethnographic perspective. In addition, in the first part of the written work, I will reflect on theoretical aspects with reference to memory, trauma, identity and nationhood and show how testimony can provide a powerful and restorative device in negotiating the tensions within communities affected by pain and oppression. In the second part of the research I will illustrate the conceptual framework of how I developed this new performative strategy to address the life of communities affected by painful pasts and to promote routines of reconciliation between its members by using testimony and performance. I will be reflecting on performativity, performance and the making of the self from an experiential perspective. Moreover, I will provide a theoretical framework to locate my practice alongside existing practices including Augusto Boals’s Forum Theatre technique and his concept of simultaneous dramaturgy that has influenced my thinking and technical approach. I will be articulating performative aspects which inform my strategy and establishing in particular how participative performance, as an art of experience, can provide a valuable platform for democratic spectatorship and collaborative authorship. The present study is carried in the form of a practice-as-research PhD and therefore I will describe the process of creating three performances – Memodrome: Incubator, Memodrome: Home and Memodrome: Roots – and using them as investigation tools to design a new performative strategy I have called Memodrome. The third part of this work is concerned with the illustration of the practice and demonstrating how performance art, especially Applied Drama, is defined by the process rather than result. The three case studies that I will be presenting emphasise how performing testimony and the staging of oral histories can respond to questions of belonging and social interaction while driving the negotiation of identities in the public sphere. For example, Memodrome: Incubator – where I staged the story of Mariana Gordan, a Romanian exile living in Britain for the past thirty years and Memodrome: Home – where I staged the testimonies of four Romanian migrants living in London – can both be read as counter narratives to the story of Romanian migration in the UK. They all articulate frames of selfhood that have been only very rarely, if never, represented in the British mainstream public space with connection to the Romanian diaspora: the role of the artist, gender diversity, women activism, otherness versus togetherness. Likewise, Memodrome: Roots, produced in Romania, provides an insightful picture of the struggles concerning the identity of the Romanian self and the contrastive narratives of its cultural embodiment. I will conclude each case study with the learnings and reflections extracted from each performance and describe my decision making based on those findings. A relatively new way of engaging with both research and arts or producing new knowledge1, the practice-as-research model can yet pose some challenges and tensions within different academic frames. As a practitioner at core, my writing will be aiming at capturing the essence of the practice in the making, the process and the experience.

When Liu Xie wrote Wenxin Diaolong, the Confucianism was the root of his thoughts. Furthermore, when it comes to the literal origin, the fountainhead of his writing style, as well as his critique on literal creations, the five Classics of Confucianism occupied as the core of his philosophy. In that case, the Book of Rites is herein the major scope of this research to study and analyze the Confucianistic thoughts obtained in Liu's Wenxin Diaolong. The purpose, on the other hand, is to prove the fact that Liu was deeply and firmly influenced by studies of rites that triggered his motives for writing, while such thoughts affected his writing style. Additionally, in the research, Liu's Confucianistic thoughts would be adopted as the basis for discussions on his time backgrounds, purposes, contents, applicable values, as well as his unique understanding and contributions. In the end, such discussions will turn to conclude the meanings for Liu's thoughts to match the developments of Chinese classics, to assist in expanding aesthetics of ethics, to imply and apply these classic works, to follow correct and formal writing styles, as well as to create new writing forms concerning the old.

Dear SCPE Reader, We present a selection of papers which are extensions of papers presented at the 7-th International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing, 1–5 July 2008, in Krakow, Poland. The motivation for publishing the selection in the SCPE Journal was, on the one hand, to present the flavour of the research reported at the conference and on the other hand to present some of the most relevant topics currently focused on the research on parallel and distributed computing in general. The selection contains only 6 papers out of about 60 presented at the conference, and thus, is far from covering all relevant topics represented at the ISPDC 2008. This is because not all of the invited authors were patient enough to accept a fairly long paper publishing process. Nevertheless, we hope that the presented papers will bring you closer to the research covered by the ISPDC conferences and will encourage you to participate in future ISPDC editions. The first paper ``The Impact of Workload Variability on Load Balancing Algorithms'' is by Marta Beltran and Antonio Guzman from King Juan Carlos University in Spain. It concerns an important topic of load balancing in cluster systems, namely adaptativity of the load balancing algorithms to changes of the workload in the system. Adequate accounting for additional load in the hosting system is of great relevance for correct optimization effects. The paper presents a thorough formal analysis of the workload variability metrics and their influence on the quality of load balancing algorithms. Four basic activities appearing in load balancing algorithms are identified, and based on them some algorithmic solutions are proposed to correctly deal with workload variability in system load balancing. The problem of dynamic load balancing algorithms robustness has been discussed. Two different robustness metrics sensitive to the applied type of opimization: local task-oriented or a global one enable selecting task remote execution or migration as load balancing operations. The proposed approach is illustrated with experiments. The second paper ``Model-Driven Engineering and Formal Validation of High-Performance Embedded Systems'' is by Abdoulaye Gamatie, Eric Rutten, Huafeng Yu, Pierre Boulet, Jean-Luc Dekeyser, from University of Lille and INRIA in France. The paper is concerned with a very advanced methodology of designing correct parallel embedded systems for intensive data-parallel computing. In their previous research, the authors of the paper designed the GASPARD embedded system design framework. It is based on the hardware/software co-design approach through model-driven engineering. The framework is based on an UML-like model specification language in which hardware and software elements are modelled using a component approach with special mechanisms for repetitive structures. This paper tries to combine the modelling framework of GASPARD with the mechanisms of synchronous languages to achieve design verifiability provided for such languages. The paper shows how GASPARD models can be translated into synchronous models based on data flow equations in order to formally check their correctness. The proposed approach is illustrated with an example of a video processing system. The third paper ``Relations Between Several Parallel Computational Models'' is by Stephan Bruda and Yuanqiao Zhang from Bishop’s University in Canada. The paper is concerned with theoretical aspects of shared memory systems described by the parallel random access machine PRAM model and aims in studying performance properties of different types of PRAM systems. The attention is focussed on analysing the computational power of two more sophisticated PRAM models (Combining CRCW and Broadcast Selective Reduction), which include data reduction in case of concurrent writes. The paper shows that these two models have equivalent computational power, which is a new result comparing the existing literature. The performance of both models applied to reconfigurable multiple bus machines was studied as a possible architectural solution for current VLSI processor implementations. It was shown that in such systems under reasonable assumptions concurrent-write does not enhance performance comparing the exclusive-write model. Another result important for the VLSI technology is that the Combining CRCW PRAM model (in which data of concurrent writes are arthmetically or logically combined before write) and the exclusive-write on directed reconfigurable busses perform in equivalent way under strong real-time requirements. The fourth paper ``Experiences with Mesh-Like Computations Using Prediction Binary Trees'' is by Gennaro Cordasco, Biagio Cosenza, Rosario de Chiara, Ugo Erra and Vittorio Scarano from the University ``degli Studi'' of Salerno and the University ``degli Studi della Biasilicata'' of Potenza in Italy. The paper concerns optimization methods for mesh-like computations in clusters of processors. The computations are perfomed assuming a phase-like program execution control using a tiling approach which reduces inter-processor communication. A temporal coherence is also assumed, which means that task sizes provide similar execution times in consecutive phases. Temporary coherent computations are structured in a Prediction Binary Tree, in which leaves represent computing tiles to be mapped to processors. A phase-by-phase semi-static load balancing is introduced to the scheduling algorithm. The scheduling algorithm is equipped with a predictor, which estimates the computation time of next phase tiles based on previous execution times and modifies the tiles to achieve balanced execution in phases. For this, two heuristics are used to leverage on data locality in processors. The proposed approach is illustrated by the example of interactive rendering with Parallel Ray Tracing algorithm. The fifth paper ``The Influence of the IBM pSeries Servers Virtualization Mechanism on Dynamic Resource Allocation in AIX 5L'' is by Maciej Mlynski from ASpartner Limited in Poland. The paper concerns a very up-to-date problem of system virtualization and presents the results of research carried on IBM pSeries servers. IBM is strongly developing the virtualization technique especially on IBM pSeries servers enabling an improved and flexible sharing of system resources between applications. The paper investigates novel facilities for dynamic resource management such as micro-partitioning and partition load manager. They enable dynamic creation of workload logical partitions of system resources and their dynamic mangement. It includes run-time resource re-alocation between logical partitions including setting of sharing specifications as well as run-time adding/removing/setting parameters of resources in the system. It remains an open question how to properly tune parameters of the operating system using the provided virtualization facilities to obtain the best efficiency for a given application program. The paper presents the results of experiments which study the effects of tuning the disk subsystem parameters under the IBM AIX 5L operating system with the use of the provided virtualization facilities on the resulting application execution performance. The results show that even small deterioration in the resource pool status requires an immediate adaptation of the operating system parameters to maintain the required performance. The sixth paper ``HeteroPBLAS: A Set of Parallel Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms Optimized for Heterogeneous Computational Clusters'' is by Ravi Reddy, Alexey Lastovetsky and Pedro Alonso from University College Dublin in Ireland and Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain. The paper concerns the methodology for parallelization of linear algebra computations for execution in heterogeneous cluster environments. The design of the HeteroPBLAS library (Parallel Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) for heterogeneous computational clusters is presented. The main contribution of the paper is the automation of the parallelization and optimization of the PBLAS, which is done by means of a special user interface and the underlying set of functions. An important element is here a performance model that is based on program code instrumentation, which determines parameters of the application and the executive heterogeneous platform relevant for execution performance of parallel code. The parameter values specified for or returned by execution of the performance model functions are next used for generation and optimal mapping of the parallel code of the library subroutines. The proposed approach is illustrated by experimental results of execution of optimized HeteroPBLAS programs on homogeneous and heterogeneous computing clusters. Marek Tudruj