Dr. Jiang publishes first book
Dr. Hai Jiang, Computer Science, recently published his first book, "Computation Checkpointing and Migration," (Nova Publishers, 2010), based upon his PhD dissertation and co-written with his dissertation advisor, Dr. Vipin Chaudhary, University of Buffalo-State University of New York, and Dr. John Paul N. Walters. This book addresses the issue of fault-tolerance via checkpointing. The authors discuss existing strategies to provide rollback recovery to applications - both via MPI at the user level and through application-level techniques. Checkpointing itself has been studied extensively in the literature, including the authors' own works. Here they give a general overview of checkpointing and how it is implemented. More importantly, they describe strategies to improve the performance of checkpointing, particularly in the case of distributed systems. Computational clusters have long provided a mechanism for the acceleration of high performance computing (HPC) applications. With today's supercomputers now exceeding the petaflop scale, however, they are also exhibiting an increase in heterogeneity. This heterogeneity spans a range of technologies, from multiple operating systems to hardware accelerators and novel architectures. Because of the exceptional acceleration some of these heterogeneous architectures provide, they are being embraced as viable tools for HPC applications. Given the scale of today's supercomputers, it is clear that scientists must consider the use of fault-tolerance in their applications. This is particularly true as computational clusters with hundreds and thousands of processors become ubiquitous in large-scale scientific computing, leading to lower mean-times-to-failure. This forces the systems to effectively deal with the possibility of arbitrary and unexpected node failure.

ASU Museum offers HiStory Time June 12
The ASU Museum invites parents and grandparents to bring the little ones to HiStory Time on Saturday, June 12, at 10:30 a.m.  This month’s story is about Leonardo DaVinci’s scientific work, and the hands-on activity integrates with the "Science and Art" exhibition currently open at the museum. This is a great free educational opportunity for the family.  Older brothers and sisters can participate or explore "Science and Art" and "Illusion Confusion," both part of the museum’s "Summer of Science"—thanks to the Arkansas Discovery Network which is funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The ASU  Museum is open to the university community and the general public.  For more information, visit the ASU Museum online, call ext. 2074, or see the NewsPage release.

Communications students present conference papers
A number of students in the College of Communications presented papers at the Western Social Science Association Conference held in Reno, Nevada, in April. Dr. Gil Fowler, associate dean, the Honors College, was the conference's general program chair; Dr. Fowler is also the president-elect of the Western Social Science Association. Khalaf Talat presented “The Impact of New Media on Iranian Street's Public Opinion During the 2009 Presidential Election,” and Roger D. Lamkin presented "On-Demand Media: A Study in Uses and Dependency"both under the supervision of Dr. Lily Zeng, Radio-Television. Husain Abbas Murad presented “Creative Directing: In the Eyes of Arab American Hollywood Directors,” and Charisse D. Hobson presented "An Explanation of the Motives of Women Bloggers,” both under the supervision of Dr. Osa Amienyi, department chair, Radio-Television. Fawaz Mohammed Alajmi presented “New Kuwaiti Press Law’s Influence on the Agenda of Kuwaiti Newspapers,” and Jocelyn Titus presented "Knowledge Gap in Rural Arkansas: Building a Theory to Reduce the Gap," both under the supervision of Dr. Mary Jackson Pitts, Radio-Television.  In addition,  graduate students presented research at the Southern States Communication Association conference in Memphis, Tenn. in April. Graduate student Xiao (Dino) Hu presented "The Assimilation of distinct cultures: American TV programs vs. Chinese young people." Graduate student Alejandro De La Sen presented International students in the United States: Chasing a career or a futile dream?” Graduate student Eric S. Vickery presented "Accrediting council on education in journalism and mass communications accredited web sites." Graduate student Husain Abbas Murad presented "The history of the ASU College of Communications."

Center for Regional Programs launches newsletter
The Center for Regional Programs is launching a newsletter, which will be released at the beginning of each academic term. Check out the center's Summer 2010 newsletter (http://www2.astate.edu/dotAsset/229843.pdf).

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