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Current Issue: Feb. 25, 2010 [Past Issues]
Welcome to the February edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read current and past issues of MemberNet online at http://membernet.acm.org/. Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email mn-editor at acm.org. Read more ACM newsletters: TechNews, ACM's digest of news and information for IT professionals published three times a week. Washington Update, a monthly newsletter from USACM reporting on activities in Washington. ACM CareerNews, published twice a month, provides summaries of articles on career-related topics in the computing field. ACM-W newsletter (pdf) from ACM Women's Council. TOP STORIES Awards Member Recognition SIG Awards Conferences and Events Public Policy Member Programs Online Books & Courses Career & Job Center Student News Chapters News ACM-W News Publications News ACM in the News TOP STORIES Chinese, Russian Universities Claim Top Spots in ACM International Programming Competition Four Chinese teams and four Russian teams dominated the top 10 rankings of the 2010 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC). Shanghai Jiaotong University took first place followed by Moscow State University in second place, and National Taiwan University in third place. In fourth place was Ukraine's Taras Shevchenko Kiev National University. Petrozavodsk State University finished in fifth place. The remaining top slots were won by Tsinghua University, Saratove State University, Poland's University of Warsaw, St. Petersburg State University, and Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) University in tenth place. This international competition, now in its 34th year, has been run by ACM mid-1970s as the premiere programming competition. Financial and systems support for the competition is provided by IBM. Read the press release. Check out the New Beta Version of the Digital Library! The redesign of the ACM Digital Library is well underway and is the product of extensive study, testing, and user feedback. You can view the new design by clicking on the "beta version" link at the top of any citation page. We've made several improvements, including:
Computing Pioneer Herbert Grosch Dies Herbert R. J. Grosch, a computing pioneer who served as ACM president from 1976 to 1978, died on January 18 at the age of 91. Grosch is best known for discovering the relationship between speed and cost in the early 1950s; the resulting Grosch's Law became an aphorism for "economy is the square root of speed." Born in Canada in 1918, Grosch moved to the US and received a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Michigan in 1942. He was hired by IBM in 1945 to do backup calculations for the Manhattan Project. Read more in CACM... 2010 ACM SIG Election Candidate Slate Announced In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in 2010: SIGART, SIGCSE, SIGGRAPH, SIGIR and SIGSIM. ACM Policy and Procedures require that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. To see their slate of candidates, please visit the 2010 ACM SIG Election site. In accordance with the SIG Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be Professional Members of ACM, as well as members of the SIG. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters (Pat Ryan, ACM, 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, NY, NY 10121) and the SIG Secretary of their intent to petition by March 15. Awards Call for 2010 ACM Award Nominations Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. And annually, ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments. You and your colleagues are invited to nominate candidates for ACM awards, including:
Refer to http://www.acm.org/nominations for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of 2010 Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members. Member Recognition Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations The Senior Member advanced grade of membership 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 deadline for nominations is March 1. 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 Exhibit at Elmer Andersen Library Explores ACM's Impact on Computing through March 5 "The Machine that Changed the World," an exhibit at the Elmer Andersen Library in Minneapolis, will explore the impact and importance of the ACM in an arena that has had a profound impact on modern life and society. The exhibit runs through Friday, March 5. SIGCSE 2010 Aims to Unite CS Educator Community SIGCSE 2010, the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, continues the long tradition of bringing together colleagues from around the world to make contact via paper, panel, poster and special sessions, as well as workshops, birds-of-a-feather, and informal settings. The conference, taking place March 10 to 13, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will give educators and all those interested in educational topics an opportunity to address the challenges of developing, implementing and/or evaluating computing programs, curricula, and courses. The symposium provides a forum for sharing new ideas for syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy, at all levels of instruction. Social networking, diversity, NSF funding opportunities, and student projects for organizations in need, are just some of the topics covered by the sessions. Scheduled keynote speakers are Sally Fincher, Professor of Computing Education at the University of Kent; Carl E. Wieman, Director of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative and Professor of Physics, University of British Columbia; and Michael Wrinn, Manager of Innovative Software Education at Intel. ACM Education Council member Peter Denning will also speak at the first-timers' lunch on Thursday, March 11. SIGCSE will also host the ACM Student Research Competition. CHI 2010 Embraces Diversity The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), taking place in Atlanta April 10 to 15, offers a highly varied program of papers, courses, and keynote speeches, all focused on the theme of embracing the wide diversity of computing experiences in the world. Social networking, international development, the performing arts, privacy, and patient care are just a few of the topics covered in the program. Genevieve Bell, Intel Fellow and Director of User Experience, will deliver the opening plenary, and Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and of Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield, will deliver the closing plenary. Other events are CHI Madness, a fast-paced experience offering a condensed preview of many of the upcoming sessions, and the ACM Student Research Competition. ACM, British Computer Society Team Up for Visions of Computer Science 2010 The joint ACM-BCS 2010 Visions of Computer Science conference will take place April 13 to 16, 2010 at the Informatics Forum, Edinburgh University, Scotland. This flagship event, a joint effort of ACM and the British Computer Society, aims to energize the computing community and bring it together around some positive and inspiring visions of our discipline and follows the highly successful Visions of Computer Science conference in 2008. Papers will address all areas of research covering the broad field of Computer Science and Engineering, including computer architectures, programming methods and languages, networks, artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, and much more. Scheduled keynote speakers include 2008 ACM Turing Award winner Barbara Liskov, and Jon Kleinberg, winner of the 2008 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences. Registration is now open, and a discounted rate is available to ACM member attendees. A special session on Grand Challenges in Computing Research will be held the last day of the conference. ACM President Dame Wendy Hall is heading up the steering group for this event. Early Registration Now Available for SIGUCCS 2010 Management Symposium SIGUCCS, the ACM Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services, has scheduled its Spring Management Symposium for April 19 to 21, 2010 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Sessions will focus on topics relevant to IT decision-makers: CIOs, directors, managers, project and team leaders, and staff on leadership tracks. The Symposium consists of three tracks: Strategic Planning, Collaborations and Enriching Services; Innovation: Options, Implementations, and Technical Solutions; and Leadership, Management, and Professional Development Strategies. Early registration is available until March 19. DAC 2010 Planning Technical Program ACM's 47th Design Automation Conference (DAC 2010), which takes place June 13 to 18, in Anaheim, California, is planning a strong technical program that will reflect all aspects of Design Automation. Research papers will focus on multicore/many core architectures, system prototyping technology, and embedded software design and debug, while Wild and Crazy Ideas (WACI) papers will give industry professionals and researchers an opportunity to cover more unconventional technical ideas. Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2010 Call for Proposals The 20th annual ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference (CFP 2010) will take place June 15 to 18 in San Jose, California. With the theme "Computers, Freedom, and Privacy in the Networked Society," the conference seeks to address how constant connection in social, communication, information, and physical environments impacts freedom and privacy, and how computers can be used to improve freedom and privacy. A diverse set of panelists and new voices will offer a number of perspectives on challenging issues, and explore cutting-edge technology, legal, and policy issues. Possible topics include social networks, cloud computing, surveillance networks, anonymity in a networked world, ethics and computing, accessibility, open source, and media concentration, advertising, and political campaigning on the Internet. The final program will be assembled partly from the proposals. Grace Hopper Celebration Opens Call for Participation The 10th Annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) has opened its Call for Participation. The annual conference is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The Grace Hopper Celebration will take place from September 29 to October 2 in Atlanta, Georgia. This year's theme, "Collaborating Across Boundaries," recognizes the significant role women play in using technology to work together across various borders including gender, scientific, social, geographical, racial and political. The submission deadline is March 16. Notifications on the submission status will be sent out by May 18. For more information, please visit the submissions page. OOPSLA to Debut in October with New Name: SPLASH OOPSLA, the object-oriented conference sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN, will debut this fall under a new moniker: SPLASH, for Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications: Software for Humanity. More information on this transition and the call for papers can be found on the SPLASH 2010 web site. SPLASH will take place October 17 to 21 in Reno, Nevada, continuing OOPSLA's mission as an engine for innovation and incubating important new ideas related to objects. OOPSLA has helped spawn multiple technologies and conferences including the Unified Modeling Language (UML) MODELS conference, Agile, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), Onward!, WikiSym, Design Patterns and the Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP) conferences, and the Dynamic Languages Symposium (DLS). The first deadline for most paper submissions is March 25. Onward! papers and essays are due April 23, and Lightning Talks, Posters, Demonstrations, Doctoral Symposium, and Student Volunteers Onward! Film submissions are due June 24. Public Policy Beginning to Rethink CS Education at NSF The Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate (CISE) at the National Science Foundation will launch a new program focused on big ideas and a much-needed research component to address overall Computer Science education and workforce goals. CISE staff announced that it would include specific programs for middle/high school classes to bring computational thinking and Computer Science concepts to this level, and that it would widen the program to reflect the "computing is for everyone" theme. Director of ACM's Office of Public Policy Cameron Wilson examines the challenging issues surrounding this undertaking, and ponders future directions for the program in his blog post. This post also appeared in BLOG@CACM. Member Programs ACM Member-Get-A-Member 2009–2010 Campaign Launched ACM recently launched its new 2009–2010 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive, with new prizes added to our already great selection, and an Amazon Kindle® grand prize! 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. The drive ends June 30, 2010. For referral forms, recruitment tips and tools, prizes and rewards, and bonus gifts, visit the Member-Get-a-Member drive page. 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. Show your exceptional support for ACM and its efforts to advance computing as a science and profession, and join over 900 of your peers by becoming a Lifetime Member! ACM Adds Four Offerings to Insurance Program ACM has added four 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. Online Books & Courses Spring II Semester Registration for Courses at Stevens Online Now Open ACM members are eligible for a 10% discount on courses at the Stevens-WebCampus program of Stevens Institute of Technology. Registration is now open through March 8 for the Stevens-WebCampus Spring II 2010 session. With more than 170 instructor-led courses, the WebCampus program offers a convenient and flexible way to earn an MBA in Technology Management or any of 17 Masters' degrees or 38 Graduate certificates completely online. Students do not have to be accepted into a program in order to take graduate classes. It is possible to take up to three classes as a non-matriculating student while your application is under review. Spring II courses run from March 15 to June 20. You can view the list of courses available for Spring II 2010 here. For more information, visit the WebCampus site, or contact the WebCampus Division at webcampus@stevens.edu or phone 201-216-5092. Career & Job Center New Services Available in the ACM Career & Job Center Be sure to visit ACM's Career & Job Center to update your resumé, or create a new one in the Resumé Bank. ACM members' resumés include an ACM logo on their entry, highlighting their ACM membership to employers. Now available: upgrade to a Preferred Resumé: upgrade your resumé to keep it at the top of the resume bank, highlighted with a star next to it for increased visibility ($25 for 90 days). Browse through the Content Library, with access and links to hundreds of articles and websites in the Resources section, which now includes new services from Live Career & GetInterviews.com. Take a free career test to discover which career matches you best; get a free Resumé Guide; and get a free Resumé Critique from GetInterviews.com. For more information about the Career & Job Center please contact Jennifer Ruzicka. Student News Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs), sponsored by Microsoft Research, offer 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. The most recent SRC winner is Jacqueline R. Addesa of Virginia Tech, who presented at SC09. The next conferences accepting submissions are DAC 2010, taking place June 13 to 18, deadline March 1; PLDI 2010, taking place June5 to June 10, deadline March 15; and SIGGRAPH 2010, taking place July 25 to 29, deadline May 6. Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page. ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences A program launched by the ACM Women's Council (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. The newest recipients of these scholarships are Meg Dickey-Kurdziolek and Shaimaa Lazem of Virginia Tech. For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page. Student Volunteers Needed to Help Teach High School CS Teachers The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is seeking Computer Science college students proficient in Java and other new programming languages and environments to train high school CS teachers in these technologies. Java Engagement for Teacher Training (JETT) and Teacher Enrichment in Computer Science (TECS) are one- and two-day workshops for high school teachers, hosted by college and university CS students and faculty. Hosting a JETT or TECS workshop is a great volunteer experience for individual student ACM members, as well as student chapters. For more information please contact Gail Chapman, the JETT and TECS workshop coordinator. 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. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page. Chapters News Deadline for ACM Student Chapter Excellence Awards Nominations Extended to April 9, 2010 The deadline for the 2009 ACM Student Chapter Excellence Awards applications has been extended to April 9, 2010. The ACM Student Chapter Excellence Awards Program recognizes chapters that display considerable initiative during the academic year. All student chapters in good standing are encouraged to apply for an award in any or all of the following categories:
ACM-W News New ACM-W Web Site Debuts ACM-W, the ACM group dedicated to celebrating, informing and supporting women in computing, has unveiled a new web site at http://women.acm.org. The redesigned site has many new features, including "Women of Distinction," highlighting women leaders; international activities of ACM-W Ambassadors and Regional Councils; and ways you can get involved in attracting more young women to the computing profession. Check out the new site today; ACM-W would love to get your feedback! Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing Boasts Record Attendance A winter storm in early February did not dampen the enthusiasm of the 140 attendees at the Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing (InWIC). It was the largest regional conference for women in computing since the program began about five years ago. A workshop on eTextiles by Kylie Peppler, professor at Indiana University Bloomington, introduced participants to wearable technology by having them add LEDs, switches and small battery packs to articles of clothing using needles and conductive thread. Student poster sessions and lightning talks rounded out the two-day celebration. Following InWIC was MinneWIC, held in Minnesota February 12 to 13. In addition to making possible these regional celebrations, the Grace Hopper Regional Consortium (GHRC), with funding from NSF, provides scholarships so that the undergraduate and graduate poster winners, along with the student coordinator of the conference, can attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), the national conference on which these Regional Celebrations are based. Visit the regional celebrations background page on ACM-W, and email Gloria Townsend for more information on hosting a regional celebration in your area. Join ACM-W's Membership Email List A note from Bettina Bair, ACMW:CIS Newsletter Editor: Did you know that ACM-W also offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is an extremely low volume communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. And to keep you more informed about the activities of ACM-W and its members, we will also sign you up for our quarterly CIS Newsletter notification. The next newsletter will contain an interview with Ruzena Bajcsy, reports from our ACM-W ambassadors, scholarship project updates, new regional celebrations and much more! To join the list: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC Publications News Communications of the ACM Article on Bug-Finding Tool Captures Record Pageviews An article in the February 2010 Communications of the ACM by the developers of a static analysis tool to find real-world bugs registered almost 52,000 pageviews since it was published on January 26. A Few Billion Lines of Code Later: Using Static Analysis to Find Bugs in the Real World recounts the real-life experiences and lessons learned by the developers of the bug-finding tool. The intense interest in this topic tallied more than eight times as many pageviews as any other story on the Communications site over the same time span. It was also the second-most popular story, measured in pageviews, published on the Communications site since its launch in April 2009. Commenting on the article's popularity, Communications Editor-in-Chief Moshe Vardi noted the increasing complexity of software programs that produce billions of lines of code, and the cost-saving advantages of finding and eliminating defects early in the software development process. The considerable feedback that followed publication includes references to the current problems of Toyota and to the insight, humor and candor of the authors, current or former employees of Coverity, Inc., and their technical advisor, Stanford University associate professor Dawson Engler. ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks Seeks Editor-in-Chief ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Deadline for nominations is March 1. For more information please visit the TOSN home page. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems Seeks Editor-in-Chief ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Deadline for nominations is March 15. For more information please visit the TOPLAS EIC search page. ACM Transactions on Storage Seeks Editor-in-Chief ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOS) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Deadline for nominations is March 30. For more information please visit the TOS home page. Communications of the ACM Reports: Using Computational Methods to Chase AIDS Virus In the March Communications of the ACM (CACM), researchers in Germany are pursuing the highly resistant AIDS virus by mining clinical databases that predict the resistance of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) to administered drugs. The team, from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken and the Virological Institute in Köln, is generating statistical models that incorporate interactions between drugs in combination with drug therapies to rank possible therapies. The models also provide a computational test for the expected effectiveness of new drugs capable of blocking viral cell entry. Also in this issue, in an article developed by acmqueue, Kirk McKusick, known for his work on BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) Unix and Sean Quinlan, a principal engineer at Google, discuss the initial designs and subsequent adaptations of the Google File System. Communications, the flagship publication of ACM, offers readers access to this generation's most significant leaders and innovators in computing and information technology, and is available online in digital format. Read the press release. acmqueue Seeks out a Vision for Energy-Efficient Data Centers acmqueue's coverage of energy-efficient computing continues with Toward Energy-Efficient Computing, by David Brown from Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) and Charles Reams from Cambridge University. Their article outlines the key areas that software engineers should focus on to increase energy efficiency in data centers and presents a vision of how this might be accomplished. Although energy-efficient computing is still in its infancy, the article provides a helpful starting point for software engineers to begin thinking about this very important issue. eLearn Magazine Announces New Editor for Higher Education A new addition to eLearn Magazine's masthead is Higher Education Editor Maria H. Andersen, a professor of mathematics at Muskegon Community College in Michigan with a background in biology, chemistry, math, and business. She is an expert on teaching and learning with technology and has recently begun experimenting with the use of "play" and non-linear learning in her classes. Her articles for eLearn include eLearning Tools for STEM and Tips for Effective Webinars. ACM in the News "Frankencamera—a 'whole new visual medium'" New Zealand Herald, February 24, 2010 Refocus Imaging, founded in 2007 by Ren Ng, has spent three years transforming Ng's Stanford Phd work on refocus imaging, which won the ACM Doctoral Dissertation award in 2007, into a viable camera. "A Place to Hack or Just Hang" BU Today, February 24, 2010 Welcome to the Boston University Information Lab & Design Space (BUILDS), a research center built and run by ACM Student Chapter members. "Microsoft Research India to Work on UIDAI" Express Computer, February 12, 2010 Microsoft Research India announced its involvement in the Unique Identification of India (UIDAI) project at TechVista 2010 in Bangalore. The conference also brought together a panel of ACM A.M. Turing award recipients, including Barbara Liskov, Tony Hoare, Butler Lampson, and Tony Hey, to discuss the future of computing. "And the Academy Award Goes to...a Computer Scientist" The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2010 Paul E. Debevec, a leader of ACM SIGGRAPH, may be the only research professor whose laboratory subjects have included Charlize Theron and Will Smith. "China, Russia Claim Top Honors in ACM Collegiate Programming Contest" Dr. Dobb's Journal, February 5, 2010 ACM President Professor Dame Wendy Hall pointed to the importance of computer science education in the competitive global economy, and noted ACM's efforts to help high school students, teachers, and parents better understand the kinds of careers enabled by studying Computer Science. "SIGGRAPH Selects Carnegie Mellon's Don Marinelli as a Keynote Speaker" Computer Graphics Worlde, February 4, 2010 Marinelli's upcoming book recounts the six years he and ACM 2007 Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award recipient Randy Pausch shared an office, creating the center that has become recognized internationally as Carnegie Mellon's Dream Fulfillment Factory. Read more ACM in the News. |
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