Read TechNews, ACM's digest of news and information for IT professionals published three times a week.
Published biweekly, ACM CareerNews provides summaries of articles on career-related topics in the computing field.
New! ACM-W newsletter (pdf) from ACM's Committee on Women in Computing
TOP STORIES
Letter to Members from ACM CEO John R. White
ACM Elects New Leaders Committed to International Initiatives
CACM Launches New Editorial Scope, Format
Special issue of SIGMOD Record Includes Video Proceedings of Jim Gray Tribute
Awards
Gödel Prize Honors Research Team for Helping Computers Solve Practical Problems
ACM Presidential Award Honors Unique Contributions to Computing Community
Lawler Award Goes to Digital Study Hall Team
Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners (See story under "Student News")
Call for 2008 ACM Award Nominations
Member Recognition
Call for ACM Fellows and Advanced Member Level Nominations
SIG Awards
ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
Conferences and Events
Robotics Expert Takeo Kanade Featured Speaker at SIGGRAPH 2008
SIGCOMM 2008 Explore Network Technologies
Grace Hopper Celebration Introduces Hardware Track
Member Programs
Awards Brochure Mailed to Professional Members
2008–2009 Membership, Products and Services Catalog Now Available
2007–2008 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive Closes June 30th
ACM Adds Four New Offerings to Insurance Program
Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan
Online Books & Courses
Users Would Recommend ACM's Online Courses
Educational Activities
Computing Educators Investigate Influences that Drive CS as Career Path
ACM Education Policy Group Applauds Use of Computing Course to Meet Math Requirement
Student News
ACM Honors Top Students at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
SC08 Broader Engagement Program Offers Mentoring, Travel Grants
High Performance Computing Ph.D. Fellowship
Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners
Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate
ACM-W News
New ACM-W Newsletter Inaugural Issue Now Available
ACM-W Ambassador's Report: Status of Women in Computing in the US
Publications News
Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Transactions on Accessible Computing Debut
Object-Relational Mapping Technologies Decoded in ACM Queue
ACM Transactions on Computation Theory Call for Papers
ACM Transactions on the Web Call for Papers on Recommender Systems
ACM in the News
"Richard Karp, Renowned Computer Theorist, Wins 2008 Kyoto Prize"
"Google Sponsors Scholarships for Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference"
"Technical Impact Award in Honor of Richard Newton's Legacy Announced Today at Design Automation Conference"
TOP STORIES
Letter to Members from ACM CEO John R. White
ACM CEO John White summarizes ACM's activities for the past year and
outlines future directions.
ACM Elects New Leaders Committed to International Initiatives
ACM has elected new officers to serve as President, Vice President, and Secretary/Treasurer
from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2010. Wendy Hall, professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK,
said her goal as president is to help ACM reach its full potential by expanding international initiatives and increasing
gender diversity in all aspects of computing. Vice president Alain Chesnais, chief technical officer for SceneCaster.com,
has targeted the international arena as a key challenge for ACM, and is committed to helping ACM expand its role as an
international organization. He also advocates the expansion of ACM's online presence to better serve the needs of young
researchers and practitioners. ACM's new secretary/treasurer Barbara Ryder hailed initial efforts at internationalization of
ACM with India and China, and said they must be strengthened and widened to include Russia and Eastern Europe as well as
South Asia. She also advocated additional support for the Special Interest Groups and more meetings outside of North
America with sister societies. Read more about these officers and ACM's five Members-at-Large in the
press release.
CACM Launches New Editorial Scope, Format
The July 2008 issue of Communications of the ACM marks the inaugural
edition of ACM's flagship publication featuring an expanded
editorial scope and a completely redesigned format. Targeted to a substantial cross-section of computing professionals,
the new CACM contains content that analyzes news, probes emerging technology challenges, presents peer-reviewed research,
and offers opinions and viewpoints from distinguished columnists and industry luminaries. The redesign of the CACM print
edition will be joined later this year by an interactive, searchable web site with web-only content and networking and
career tools. With these changes, CACM, an ACM membership benefit, offers readers access to this generation's most
significant leaders and innovators in computing and information technology. It also provides a critical outlet for
researchers and practitioners to showcase their concepts and contributions.
Read the press release.
Special issue of SIGMOD Record Includes Video Proceedings of Jim Gray Tribute
The June issue of ACM SIGMOD Record is devoted to a tribute to Jim Gray, 1998 Turing Award winner, who is best known for
his pioneering work in database and transaction processing research. Gray was lost at sea in January 2007 off the
San Francisco coast, and on May 31, 2008 a special day-long event of remembrances and lectures was held in his honor.
Some of the contributions in this issue include recollections of the large information gathering efforts used by Gray's friends
to help focus the search efforts of the Coast Guard.
Awards
Gödel Prize Honors Research Team for Helping Computers Solve Practical Problems
ACM's Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computing Theory (SIGACT) has recognized the contribution of Daniel A.
Spielman and Shang-Hua Teng for developing a rigorous framework to explain the practical success of algorithms on real
data and real computers that could not be clearly understood through traditional techniques. Their technique, known as
Smoothed Analysis, relies on deep mathematical analysis and insight. Since its appearance in 2001, it has been used as a
basis for considerable research, confirming its importance to scientific computing. SIGACT and the
European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) will present the 2008 Gödel Prize for
outstanding papers in theoretical computer science to Spielman and Teng at the International Colloquium on
Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP) July 6 to 13, in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Read the press release.
ACM Presidential Award Honors Unique Contributions to Computing Community
ACM has recognized Stephen R. Bourne, Patricia Ryan, Barbara Ryder, and Moshe Vardi with
the 2008 ACM Presidential Award for
unique contributions that have advanced the computing profession through vision, resolve, inspiration, and leadership.
The recipients of this honor have each demonstrated their exceptional abilities to advance computing and its impact for
the benefit of society through generosity, creativity and dedication to their respective missions.
- Stephen R. Bourne, chief technology officer at El Dorado Ventures, served as ACM President from 2000 to 2002.
- Patricia Ryan, ACM's Chief Operating Officer, was recognized for her outstanding, fundamental contributions to ACM.
- Barbara Ryder, who moves to the Computer Science Department at Virginia Tech in September, is ACM's newly elected secretary/treasurer.
- Moshe Vardi is director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University and the
Editor-in-Chief of the newly relaunched Communications of the ACM.
The awards were presented at ACM's annual Awards Banquet on June 21, in San Francisco.
Lawler Award Goes to Digital Study Hall Team
ACM will present the 2007 Eugene Lawler Award to Randy Wang and the Digital Study Hall (DSH) team for
innovative use of cost-effective digital technology that helps improve the education of underserved children in South Asia.
Wang's vision, developed while he was an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University, was for a system
that harvested community-generated videos of the best grassroots teachers to help schools in urban slums and rural areas in
India. In 2005, Wang and Dr. Urvashi Sahni of the Study Hall Foundation founded DSH. Wang, currently with Microsoft Research
India, described DSH as "a bit like YouTube meets Netflix in a rural schoolhouse with a dirt floor." The Eugene L. Lawler
Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics carries a $5,000 prize.
Read the press release.
Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners (See story under "Student News")
Call for 2008 ACM Award Nominations
ACM brings broad recognition to outstanding technical and professional achievements within the computing and information
technology community. Each year our award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates spanning a spectrum of
professional and technological accomplishments. Nominations by ACM members of those who deserve recognition for their contributions to the field of computing are welcomed.
This is a great opportunity to recognize some of the many unsung heroes.
The deadline for all ACM awards, including the A.M. Turing Award, is November 30, 2008, with the following exceptions:
The deadline for nominations for the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award and the SIAM/ACM Award in Computational Science and Engineering is September 30, 2008.
Please refer to the ACM Awards page for:
- award descriptions,
- lists containing the names of the previous ACM Award winners and their citations,
- nomination procedures, and
- contact information for the Chairs, and list of members, of the 2008 Award Committees.
Member Recognition
Call for ACM Fellows and Advanced Member Level Nominations
ACM recognizes annually a class of ACM Fellows, our eminent
colleagues that ACM and its members look to for guidance and leadership. ACM also has advanced grade memberships of
Distinguished Engineer/Scientist/Member and Senior Member.
Senior Member recognizes ACM
members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who
have demonstrated performance and accomplishment that set them
apart from their peers. Nominations are accepted on a
quarterly basis. The next deadline for nominations
is August 31, 2008.
The Distinguished
Engineer/Scientist/Member designation recognizes ACM
members with at least 15 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who
have demonstrated significant accomplishments or made a
significant impact on the computing field. The deadline for
nominations is July 31, 2008.
Fellows are outstanding ACM
members with at least 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who are recognized for their technical, professional
and leadership contributions that advance the objectives of
ACM and the field as a whole. The deadline for nominations
is September 9, 2008.
SIG Awards
ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals
for their contributions in more than 30 distinct technological
fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at recent conferences:
Conferences and Events
Robotics Expert Takeo Kanade Featured Speaker at SIGGRAPH 2008
Takeo Kanade, Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, and the Director of Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research
Center at Carnegie Mellon University, will be one of three featured speakers at
SIGGRAPH 2008, the 35th International Conference and
Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, being held August 11 to 15
in Los Angeles. Kanade will present "My Personal Take on the Last 30 Years in Robotics and Vision." He is also the
director of the Digital Human Research Center in Tokyo, which he founded in 2001. The other speakers featured at SIGGRAPH, which
includes an exhibit, tutorials, workshops, and the Computer Animation Festival, are Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation
Studios, and Catherine Owens, producer of a documentary film on rock band U2.
SIGCOMM 2008 to Explore Network Technologies
SIGCOMM 2008, the annual conference of ACM's Special Interest Group on Data
Communications, will feature workshops, tutorials, posters and demos on network issues. Data center networking, wireless networks,
network management, and security are just some of the topics planned for the technical program. In addition, workshops
on Mobile Technologies, Economics of Networks, Networks for Developing Regions, Programmable Routers, and
Online Social Networks will be held in conjunction with the conference. SIGCOMM 2008 takes place August 17 to 22 in Seattle, Washington.
Grace Hopper Celebration Introduces Hardware Track
A hardware track will be offered for the first time at the
2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing,
taking place at the Keystone Resort in Colorado October 1 to 4. The hardware track will offer a wide range of topics,
including "Using Commercial Hardware in Space Computing Platforms" and "Innovating with Chip Multithreading Technologies."
Compiler expert Fran Allen, IBM Fellow Emerita and ACM's 2006 Turing Award winner, will give the keynote address.
GHC also will offer more than 88 sessions, invited technical speakers, panels, workshops, new investigator technical papers,
Ph.D. forums, technical posters, "birds of a feather" sessions, the ACM Student Research Competition, and an awards celebration.
Registration is now open, and early bird discounts will be available through August 17.
Member Programs
Awards Brochure Mailed to Professional Members
Comprehensive print brochures of the 2008 ACM Awards Banquet, held on June 21, 2008 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco,
California, were mailed to all ACM Professional members this month. An important part of ACM's overarching goal
of advancing computing as a science and profession is to recognize outstanding technical and professional achievements in
computing and computer science through its eminent series of awards. Pdf versions of these brochures are available on the
2008 ACM Awards Presentation site.
2008–2009 Membership, Products and Services Catalog Now Available
ACM offers a variety of member benefits that enhance professional skills with world-class educational, professional
development, and career-enhancement tools that provide a competitive edge in the marketplace. A pdf version of this brochure,
along with many other pdf resources for ACM members and subscribers, is available on
ACM's Membership page, under "Resources for Download in PDF Format."
2007–2008 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive Closes June 30th
ACM's 2007/2008 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive ends June 30, so ACM members have just a few more days
to be eligible for new prizes and an Apple iPhone grand prize, by getting new members to join.
Current members are the ideal ambassadors to communicate the
advantages of joining ACM to prospective members, and those who participate by telling friends and
colleagues about ACM may be eligible for valuable gifts and special recognition. ACM's Online Member-Get-A-Member
program is interactive, easy to use, and rewards members for helping to recruit new members.
For referral forms, recruitment tips and tools, prizes and rewards, and bonus gifts, visit the
Member-Get-a-Member drive page. Look for the 2008–2009
Member-Get-A-Member drive to start soon.
ACM Adds Four New Offerings to Insurance Program
ACM is pleased to announce the addition of four new plans to the ACM Insurance Program. The
new offerings are Group 10 or 20 Year Level Term Life Insurance, Long Term Care, and Group
Dental Insurance. ACM members living in the US are eligible. Visit the
insurance page to learn
more about these programs, and all of ACM's Insurance Program plans.
Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan
ACM Professional Members can enjoy the
convenience of making a single payment for their entire tenure
as an ACM Member, and also be protected from future price
increases by taking advantage of
ACM's Lifetime Membership option. Pricing for ACM Lifetime Membership is
based on age and current dues rates, and the option to include
the ACM Digital Library is also available. ACM Lifetime
Membership dues may be tax deductible under certain circumstances (please consult with your tax advisor).
Lifetime Members will receive a certificate of recognition
suitable for framing, and enjoy all of the benefits of ACM Professional Membership.
Online Books & Courses
Users Would Recommend ACM's Online Courses
In a recent survey of ACM members who completed the Skillsoft courses that are offered as part of ACM membership,
79% would recommend the course to their colleagues. With recently added courses, ACM offers more than 3,000 to sharpen your
skills. When you combine the courses with the 1,100 online books from Safari® and Books24x7® (including 110 new offerings from Books24x7®), you have valuable
resources at your fingertips. Go to ACM's Online Books and Courses home page to find these resources.
Educational Activities
Computing Educators Investigate Influences that Drive CS as Career Path
The Computing Educators Oral History Project (CEOHP), a grassroots project to capture computer history
with a special focus on education, is supported by ACM's Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W), ACM's Special Interest
Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), the
National Center for Women in IT (NCWIT), and NSF. The project, which
is led by Barbara Boucher Owens of Southwestern University, began with a Working Group at the 2005 ITiCSE conference,
which established a protocol for conducting interviews to investigate the influences that inspired, supported, or
discouraged individuals who followed this career path. The ultimate goal of CEOHP is a searchable repository of
artifacts that includes items such as digital audio, video, transcripts, and photos. In addition, CEOHP will include
associated instructional materials designed for use at the pre-college and college levels, with a particular eye toward
supporting recruitment and retention of under-represented groups. The goal is to balance the collection with respect to
factors such as gender, ethnicity, geography, institution size, and academic rank. One strategy will be to interview
individuals recognized with awards such as the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award
and the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. To date,
the CEOHP site includes audio files and transcripts for 17 individuals, with additional interviews being
prepared. A new Working Group will convene at the 2008 ITiCSE conference in Madrid
later this month.
ACM Education Policy Group Applauds Use of Computing Course to Meet Math Requirement
As a major endorsement of the importance of computer science education in today's K-12 classrooms, an independent review
conducted by the Dana Center and Achieve, Inc. selected Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science A as meeting its high
standards for a fourth-year, post-Algebra II, mathematics capstone course for high school seniors. ACM's Education Policy
Committee and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) applaud the recommendation for this rigorous computing course
to be offered to high school students to maintain the necessary momentum of their mathematics education in that crucial fourth year.
Read the press release.
Student News
ACM Honors Top Students at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
This year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
was held in Atlanta, Georgia last month. David S. Wise and Cynthia Brown were ACM judges.
All ACM winners will receive complimentary ACM Student Memberships for the duration of their undergraduate education.
First Award of $1,000:David Christopher Williams-King, Argyll Centre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Second Award of $500:Dongyoung Kim, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, South Korea
Third Award of $300:Martin Christoph Maas, Georg Cantor Gymnasium, Halle (Saale), Germany
Fourth Award of $200:
Lucia Mocz, Mililani High School, Mililani, Hawaii
Ken Miura, Mami Inoue, and Mayu Suzuki, Shizuoka-Prefectural Hamamatsu Kita High-School, Shizuoka, Japan
Maxim Gennadievich Gridnev, Andrey Anatolievich Churinov, and Leonid Andreevich Mashinskiy,
Physical and Mathematical Lyceum #30, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
SC08 Broader Engagement Program Offers Mentoring, Travel Grants
SC08, the international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, is seeking to
broaden the engagement of individuals from groups that have traditionally been under-represented in high performance
computing. The SC08 Broader Engagement (BE) initiative will award participation grants to provide travel
assistance to individuals from groups including African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians,
Pacific Islanders, women and physically-challenged people. These grants are available to undergraduate and graduate students who
are enrolled full time for at least one semester during the 2007-2008 academic year and are at least 18 years of age. Faculty and
young professionals also will be considered, with a preference for faculty whose students are receiving SC08 BE grants. The
deadline for applications is August 15.
"Our mentorship program plans to provide hands-on learning, while connecting students with leaders in high performance computing
and related fields," said Tony Baylis of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, SC08's Broader Engagement Chair. SC08
takes place November 15 to 21 in Austin, Texas.
High Performance Computing Ph.D. Fellowship
The ACM/IEEE Computer Society High Performance Computing (HPC) Ph.D. Fellowship Program is now accepting nominations for its
second annual competition at https://submissions.supercomputing.org.
The deadline for submissions is September 8.
The ACM/IEEE-CS HPC Ph.D. Fellowship Program honors exceptional Ph.D. students throughout the world with the focus areas of HPC,
networking, storage and analysis. HPC covers the areas of computational sciences, computational engineering, and computer
science using the most powerful computers available at a given time. The Program also supports the sponsors' long-standing
commitment to workforce diversity and encourages nominations of women, minorities and all who contribute to diversity.
The fellowships are awarded with a certificate and a stipend of at least $5,000 (US) for one academic year. All
ACM/IEEE-CS HPC Ph.D. Fellows are invited to attend at least one SC conference (usually the one after one year of receiving
the award). The SC Steering Committee and other conference volunteers are also willing to facilitate, where possible,
internships for Fellows at HPC research or development sites. For more information about the program, see the
web page or
contact the committee.
Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners
The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), sponsored by Microsoft Research, offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate
students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and
attendees. There are two rounds of competition at each conference hosting an SRC and a Grand Finals competition. All undergraduate
and graduate student winners from the SRCs held during the year advance to the SRC Grand Finals, where they are evaluated by a
different panel of judges via the Web.
This year's SRC Grand Finals winners are, in the Graduate Division: Himabindu Pucha,
Purdue University, Lakshminarayanan Renganarayana, Colorado State University, and Junqing Sun,
University of Tennessee at Knoxville;
and in the Undergraduate Division: Jerry Backer, The City College of the City University of
New York, Neha Singh, IIT Bombay, and Matei Zaharia, University of Waterloo.
They are invited, along with their advisors, to the annual ACM Awards Banquet, where they receive
formal recognition.
Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
ACM Student Research Competitions take place at ACM-sponsored conferences
throughout the year. Students present their papers in poster sessions to compete for the Grand Finals prizes, and
network with luminaries from academia and industry. SIGCSE 2009 is the next conference
accepting submissions. The deadline is September 28, 2008. Learn about more competitions on
the SRC submissions page.
ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
A program launched by ACM's Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W) provides support
for undergraduate or graduate women students in Computer Science programs who are interested in attending
research conferences. It is not required that the student present a paper at the conference she attends.
High school students will also be considered for conference support. Initially, up to 12 scholarships of
up to $500 each will be awarded annually. ACM-W also encourages the student's home department to match
the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within her department. Applications
will be evaluated in four groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences,
with two to three awards given each quarter. For application form, notification dates and more information,
please visit the scholarships page.
Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate
ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition
to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including
free online books and courses and access to
ACM's Career & Job Center.
This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a
Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special
transition offer through ACM's convenient
online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the
paper renewal form.
ACM-W News
New ACM-W Newsletter Inaugural Issue Now Available
ACM-W, the ACM Committee on Women in Computing, has recently posted the inaugural issue
of the ACM-W CIS newsletter: Celebrate, Inform, Support (pdf). The first edition features a Spotlight on
Fran Allen, the first woman recipient of the ACM A.M. Turing Award. Other content includes the latest updates on regional
celebrations, student chapters, and ambassadors. Items on the ACM-W Student Scholarships for conferences project, and a
celebration of the accomplishments of some of ACM-W's members, are also included. To subscribe to the ACM-W CIS newsletter,
send an email to acmw-cis-newsletter-sub@acm.org. Newsletter editor
Bettina Bair, welcomes your thoughts, comments, and story ideas for future issues via email to
acmw-cis-editor@acm.org.
ACM-W Ambassador's Report: Status of Women in Computing in the US
ACM-W's US Ambassador, Mary Anne Egan, writes: "According to the
most recent Taulbee survey for the academic
year 2006–2007, 19.1% of new Ph.D.s and 22.6% of the Master's degrees were awarded to women.
These numbers represent a slight increase in the ratio of women among new Ph.D.s and about the same ratio of Master's
degrees as the previous year. The statistics for Bachelor's degree production is down from 14.2% for 2005–2006
to 11.8% for 2006–2007. The fraction of new female students is reported now to be less than 10% in many Bachelor's
programs. This is a serious problem in achieving our field"s diversity goals." Read her ideas on how to remedy this
problem in ACM-W's News Blog.
Publications News
ACM's Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Transactions on Accessible Computing Debut
ACM's Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH) debuts this month with exciting papers on Research Agendas:
3D models and ontologies; efforts toward achieving a global knowledge network; preservation and virtualization of live
electronics for the performing arts; and the importance of oral histories. "The key to the journal's mission is the intent to address
interdisciplinary issues with innovative computing science and a solid perspective of the needs of cultural heritage professionals," says
Editor-in-Chief David Arnold in his editorial, "Pasteur's Quadrant: Cultural Heritage as Inspiration for Basic Research in
Computer Science." Arnold is Dean of the Faculty of Management and Information Systems and Professor of Computing Science at the
University of Brighton, UK. JOCCH seeks contributions that combine the best of computing science with real attention to
any aspect of the cultural heritage sector.
JOCCH Home Page
JOCCH in the Digital Library
ACM's Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) addresses issues of computing as it impacts the lives of people
with disabilities. The inaugural May issue includes selected papers from the ASSETS 07 conference on American Sign Language generation; use of mice and trackballs by
people with motor impairments; a mobile digital communication application for people with aphasia; and an assistive communication
system that adapts to context and user. "TACCESS will serve as the focal point for research on the accessibility of
information technologies. It will be of particular interest to members of the SIGACCESS community, participants in the annual
ASSETS conference, and attendees of other international accessibility conferences," write co-Editors-in-Chief Andrew Sears
(University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and Vicki Hanson (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) in their introduction.
TACCESS Home Page
TACCESS in the Digital Library
Object-Relational Mapping Technologies Decoded in ACM Queue
Object-relational mapping technologies can simplify data access, but they also add a layer of abstraction that can affect
application performance. In articles such as Exposing the ORM Cache,
the latest issue of ACM Queue explores the challenges of bridging the object-relational divide.
ACM Transactions on Computation Theory Call for Papers
ACM's new Transactions on Computation Theory (ToCT) will cover theoretical computer science complementing the scope of
ACM Transactions on Algorithms and ACM Transactions on Computational Logic including, but not limited to,
computational complexity, foundations of cryptography, randomness in computing, coding theory, models of computation including
parallel, distributed and quantum and other emerging models, computational learning theory, and theoretical computer science aspects
of areas such as databases, information retrieval, economic models and networks. ToCT will include about 8 to 10
articles of about 10 to 25 pages each per issue. TOCT will be primarily an online journal with access via the
ACM Digital Library. ACM SIGACT members will have unlimited online access to ToCT as part of their membership.
Visit the ToCT Web site for more information.
ACM Transactions on the Web Call for Papers on Recommender Systems
Recommender systems are changing the way people interact with the Web. From e-commerce sites like Amazon.com to news and
information sites like digg and slashdot, recommenders help people choose between diverse products and complex information
by providing a more personalized information access experience. ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB)
is planning a special issue on recommender systems. For information on submitting a paper, visit
TWEB's Special Issue page.
ACM in the News
"Richard Karp, Renowned Computer Theorist, Wins 2008 Kyoto Prize"
acm.org.