Ok so what exactly Google Wave is can be confusing, because there are three parts: the protocol, the server, and the client. A lot of people are really going to miss the boat here if they don't keep the distinction between the three in mind, because I see a lot of people focusing on the wrong parts.
Protocol Buffers allow you to define simple data structures in a special definition language, then compile them to produce classes to represent those structures in the language of your choice. These classes come complete with heavily-optimized code to par
Research Papers from Globus Alliance Members The Globus Alliance has produced a broad collection of papers on the Grid, distributed computing, applied computer science, and related topics.