  Recent (sub)millimeter continuum surveys of nearby star-forming regions have
revealed a wealth of new, cold cloud fragments. Those which are small-scale
(diameter < 10000 AU), starless, and gravitationally bound are good candidates
for being the direct progenitors of protostars, i.e., the structures within
which individual protostellar collapse is initiated. The mass spectrum of these
protocluster condensations is reminiscent of the stellar initial mass function
(IMF), suggesting the IMF is partly determined by cloud fragmentation at the
pre-stellar stage of star formation.
