ACM MemberNet - May 30, 2013

Welcome to the May 2013 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.

May 30, 2013

Gollakota Wins ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for Converting Wireless Interference into Beneficial Phenomenon

ACM has named Shyamnath Gollakota the recipient of its 2012 Doctoral Dissertation Award for designing practical systems that transform wireless systems by embracing the phenomenon of interference and rendering it harmless. Instead of trying to hide the interference that severely limits wireless systems, he used an alternate approach that successfully reconstructed the traditional packets of transmitted information. He then manipulated the interfering signals using innovative receiver designs that decode the WiFi collisions and improve security. Gollakota, an assistant professor at the University of Washington, completed the dissertation, "Embracing Interference in Wireless Systems," at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which nominated him. He will receive the Doctoral Dissertation Award and its $20,000 prize at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on June 15 in San Francisco, CA. Financial sponsorship of the award is provided by Google Inc.

Honorable Mentions went to went to Peter Hawkins (nominated by Stanford University) for his dissertation, "Data Representation Synthesis," and Gregory Valiant (nominated by the University of California, Berkeley) for his dissertation, "Algorithmic Approaches to Statistical Questions." Hawkins and Valiant will share a $10,000 prize, with financial sponsorship provided by Google Inc.
Read the ACM press release.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Honor Pioneer of High Performance Computer Memory Systems

ACM and IEEE Computer Society will jointly present the Eckert-Mauchly Award to James R. Goodman for contributions to the hardware/software interface of computer architecture. His innovations led to the development of hybrid approaches to high-performance computer memory systems that can achieve nearly the performance of hardware but with the flexibility of software. Goodman spent much of his career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he and his students extensively researched computer memory systems. He is currently a computer science professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The Eckert-Mauchly award is known as the computer architecture community's most prestigious award. Goodman will receive the 2013 Eckert-Mauchly Award at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2013), June 26, in Tel Aviv, Israel. See also IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award site.
Read the ACM press release.

AWARDS

Nominations for Ken Kennedy Award due July 1

Established in memory of Ken Kennedy, the founder of Rice University's nationally ranked computer science program and one of the world's foremost experts on high-performance computing, this award, consisting of a certificate and $5,000 honorarium, is awarded jointly by the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society for outstanding contributions to programmability or productivity in high-performance computing together with significant community service or mentoring contributions. Nominations are due July 1.

ACM Presents Special Awards to 2013 Intel Science Fair Finalists (see Student News)

ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners (see Student News)

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Distinguished Member Nominations

The Distinguished 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 August 1. Please read Advice to Members Seeking ACM Distinction, by past Committee Co-chairs Marc Snir and Telle Whitney.

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 35 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at recent conferences:

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

SIGMOD/PODS 2013, June 22 to 27, New York, New York

The SIGMOD/PODS Conference is a leading international forum for database researchers, practitioners, developers, and users to explore cutting-edge ideas and results, and to exchange techniques, tools, and experiences. Demos, tutorials, and research and industry papers address topics such as multicore systems, crowdsourcing, information retrieval, data mining, and SQL, and there will be a PODS Colloquium on Theory Challenges in Big Data. Scheduled keynote speakers are Alex Nazarud and Michael Rauchman of Middle Lake Partners, LLC, on "Big Data in Capital Markets"; Paul Yaron of J. P. Morgan Chase, on "Managing Database Technology at Enterprise Scale"; and PODS keynote speakera Diego Calvanese of Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Giuseppe de Giacomo of Sapienza University of Rome, and Marco Montali of Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, on "Foundations of Data Aware Process Analysis: A Database Theory Perspective."

ISCA 2013, June 23 to 27, Tel Aviv, Israel

The 40th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture is the premier forum for new ideas and experimental results in computer architecture. Sessions on cutting-edge topics will include Emerging Technologies and Architectures, Virtualization, Big Data, and Heterogeneous and Fine-Grained Architectures, as well as Memory and Storage. Scheduled keynote talks are "My 40-Year Journey from Mainframes to Smart Phones," by Dileep Bhandarkar, Vice President of Technology, Qualcomm Technologies; and "The Next Frontier in Computer Architecture—Heterogeneous and Memory Intensive Architecture," by Uri Weiser, Electrical Engineering professor at Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. The ACM/IEEE Computer Society 2013 Eckert-Mauchly Award will be presented on June 26.

CFP 2013, June 25 to 26, Washington, DC

The Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference draws advocates, academics, technologists, policymakers, and others to discuss and debate the issues impacting technology, freedom, and privacy in the digital world. The theme of the conference is "Our Computers, Our Freedom: Can You Trust Anyone in the Digital Age?" Plenary sessions will address "Bridging the Divide: US and EU Perspectives on Privacy" and "Whither the NSA Warrantless Internet Surveillance Program?" Other sessions will cover cybersecurity, ebooks, smartphones, drones, social networks, copyright protection, and more. Scheduled keynote speakers are Jan Philipp Albrecht, a member of the European Union Parliament; Matt Blaze, director of the Distributed Systems Lab at the University of Pennsylvania; Julie Brill, Commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission; and Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger. The venue for CFP will be the Newseum, adding to the the fun and intellectual excitement CFP always generates.

MobiSys 2013, June 25 to 28, Taipei, Taiwan

The 11th International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services presents innovative and significant research on the design, implementation, usage, and evaluation of mobile computing and wireless systems, applications, and services. Speakers, videos, posters, demos, and panels will include "Alerting Drowsy, Distracted Drivers via Dual Cameras on Smartphones"; "Self-Updating Maps for Cloud and Personal Use"; "Bringing Contextual Ads to Mobile Apps"; "Retrofitting Android Apps"; "Participatory Sensing and Crowd Management in Public Spaces"; "Secure Password Entry for Touchscreen Devices"; "Local Cellular Network Services in Remote Areas"; and more. Keynote speaker Patrick Baudisch, computer science professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute, will speak on "Natural User Interface Hardware."

SIGGRAPH 2013, July 21 to 25, Anaheim, California

The 40th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques is the premier international event on computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2013 is expected to draw more than 20,000 attendees from five continents. The five-day interdisciplinary educational experience includes a three-day exhibition that attracts hundreds of exhibitors from around the world. SIGGRAPH is widely recognized as the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research. In addition to SIGGRAPH's leading-edge technical program, the conference's installations provide close-up views of the latest in digital art, emerging technologies, and hands-on opportunities for creative collaboration. The conference also hosts the international SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, showcasing works from the world's most innovative and accomplished digital film and video creators. Co-located events include the Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, High-Performance Graphics, Digital Production Symposium, Expressive 2013 (CAe + NPar + SBIM), and Symposium on Spatial User Interaction.

JCDL 2013, July 22 to 26, Indianapolis, Indiana

The Joint Conference on Digital Libraries is a major international forum focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, practical, organizational, and social issues. The theme for JCDL 2013 is "Digital Libraries at the Crossroads," in recognition of the changes forthcoming from the age of mass digitization, big data, and the ever-changing nature of scholarly communications. A retrospective look at the past, present and future of digital libraries will inform the keynote speaker topics. Scheduled speakers are Jill Cousins, Executive Director of the Europeana Foundation; Clifford Lynch, who leads the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI); and David De Roure, professor of e-research and director of the interdisciplinary Oxford e-Research Centre, with a coordinating role in Digital Humanities at Oxford University.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2013, November 19 to 22, Hong Kong

SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 invites you to submit your latest achievements and groundbreaking ideas, solutions as well as technical and creative skills. Meet with industry studio executives, students, researchers, artists and more this November when Asia's leading computer graphics and interactive techniques conference returns to Hong Kong once again. Seize the opportunity to present your best work to the most creative people from the industry and academia. Submission deadlines are in June and July.

PUBLIC POLICY

USACM Encourages Flexibility in Proposed Cybersecurity Framework

In its comments on the Cybersecurity Framework required by the President's Executive Order on Cybersecurity, USACM, the ACM US Public Policy Council, focused on effective privacy controls and the fluidity of cybersecurity. The comments stressed that applying the Fair Information Practice Principles through the Framework helps protect privacy, and supports the reliability and security of systems. The comments also emphasized that while having a single Framework to serve as a source of guidance for cybersecurity has its benefits, there is a risk of becoming too static in preparing for threats, as new challenges to cybersecurity systems can arise quickly.

The ACM US Public Policy Council submitted comments to the US Patent and Trademark Office in response to its request for recommendations on how the USPTO and the software community might "enhance the quality of software-related patents." "This is a wonderful opportunity for the computing community to help the USPTO further understand topics that are particularly relevant to software patent applications and examinations under the American Invents Act," said Paul Hyland, USACM Intellectual Property Chair. USACM would like to see the USPTO continue to host events like the two Software Partnership roundtables in February, which provided an effective forum for stakeholders to exchange ideas, experiences, and insights into the range of issues, concerns, challenges, and opportunities.

MEMBER PROGRAMS

Become an Ambassador for ACM—You Could Be a Grand Prize Winner!

The Ambassadors for ACM program rewards ACM members like you for encouraging new members to join. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences with prospective members. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM. The top ACM Ambassador for April was Yen Lina Prasetio. The 2012–2013 Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral.

Submit the ACM Referral Form, and your referrals can join ACM at a special discount rate. Our members are our greatest asset. Your support of ACM is critical to our continuing efforts to advance computing as a science and a profession.

MentorNet Matches ACM Students, Professionals for One-on-One Mentoring

ACM partners with MentorNet to promote e-mentoring relationships between students (protégés) and professionals (mentors). MentorNet, founded in 1997, now boasts 30,000 mentor/protégé relationships that encourage and inspire students considering careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Professionals also benefit from the program, practicing skills and gaining insights into their own careers. Above all, they gain satisfaction from knowing that they're helping to diversify the global workforce in these fields. ACM members can participate in this program as protégés if they are undergraduates, graduates, post-doctoral students, or untenured faculty. ACM Professional Members with a college degree and at least two years of professional work experience in engineering, science, technology, mathematics, medicine or related disciplines can qualify as mentors. To learn more, visit MentorNet's site and the introductory ACM MentorNet page. Also check out the short videos for protégés and mentors that will walk you through the steps of creating a profile and connecting with others in the MentorNet community.

Insurance Programs for ACM Members

ACM members are able to take advantage of a variety of comprehensive and affordable insurance programs including Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance, Group Dental Insurance, Group Disability Insurance, Health Insurance, Group Term Life Insurance and Long-Term Care Insurance. Through a partnership between ACM and Marsh U.S. Consumer, a service of Seabury & Smith, Inc., these programs are offered exclusively to ACM members at competitive, group-negotiated rates. To learn more about these and other ACM-sponsored insurance plans, visit the website or call 1-800-503-9230 for more information.

Attention Faculty: Order Complimentary Materials for Your Students

ACM offers the opportunity for faculty members to order complimentary materials for distribution to their students who are interested in the field of computing. Available items include ACM student membership brochures and posters, as well as flyers featuring ACM's Digital Library, Code of Ethics, and student chapters, among others. Place your order using our easy online form and your request will be fulfilled promptly!

LEARNING CENTER

Register Now to Watch June 13 ACM Webcast, "IBM Watson: Beyond Jeopardy!"

The next free webcast in ACM's Learning Webinar series, "IBM Watson: Beyond Jeopardy!" will be presented on Thursday, June 13 at 1 PM ET (12 noon CT/11 AM MT/10 AM PT/5 PM GMT). Join Adam Lally, member of the DeepQA project that built the Watson question answering system, which won the now-famous Jeopady! Man vs. Machine Challenge, and moderator Will Tracz, Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus and Chair of ACM SIGSOFT (the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering). The talk will be followed by a live question and answer session. Register now. ACM Learning Webinars are free with registration, available for streaming on all major mobile devices, and are recorded for on-demand viewing.

View May 8 David Patterson Webcast on Demand

"Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Software Approach," presented by former ACM president David Patterson and moderated by Armando Fox, is now available on demand. Please note that a simple registration is required for on-demand viewing.

Exclusive Interviews with ACM - Infosys Foundation Award Recipients

As part of an ongoing series of exclusive interviews conducted by Stephen Ibaraki, Chair of the ACM Professional Development Committee, 2012 ACM - Infosys Foundation Award recipients Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat of Google's Systems Infrastructure Group discuss their background and past and present work at Google, which includes MapReduce, Big Table, GFS, and Spanner. See the entire list of Ibaraki's podcasts.

Register for Fall 2013 Semester at Stevens WebCampus

Did you know that ACM members receive a 10% discount off regular graduate tuition at Stevens Insitute of Technology's WebCampus? Graduate tracks include Cybersecurity, Information Systems, MBA in Technology Management, and many more. Orientation for the Fall Semester begins August 26. For more information, visit ACM's Stevens WebCampus page.

Boost Your Skill Set with Courses from Skillsoft

The week of June 17, ACM is conducting a "Course Exchange" to update its collection of Skillsoft courseware. With this "refresh," heavily based on member input, ACM is adding some cutting-edge content, such as a full suite of project management courses aligned with the latest Project Management Book of Knowledge that will prepare you for PMP and CAPM exams. Other notable courseware to be added includes Certified Ethical Hacker, Certified Information Security Manager, Object-Oriented Programming and Design, Mobile Programming (Android, iOS), Java Programming, Microsoft SQL Server Database Development, Ruby on Rails, and much more. Please note that several current course packages are being removed from the library during the course exchange on June 17. New courses will appear by June 20. See the full list of courses that will be added to and dropped from the collection and get more information on the course exchange. You can also see the full Skillsoft course catalog and leave your course suggestions in the Learning Center Suggestion Box.

ACM Online Books from Morgan Kaufmann and Syngress

More than 150 titles from publishers Morgan Kaufmann and Syngress are available in PDF (and some in ePub) and downloadable to your desktop, laptop, tablet, and any popular e-book reader on your mobile device. All ACM members (Student and Professional) can access them through the ACM Learning Center (click the eBooks link option under the Books & Video tab in the main navigation bar) as well as the ACM Digital Library (the eBooks link under Browse the Special Collections). Morgan Kaufmann is a well-known and respected publisher of computer science titles spanning Artificial Intelligence, Computer Networking, Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics and Game Development, Data Management and Business Intelligence, Software Engineering, and User Experience and Human Computer Interaction. Syngress specializes in books on Digital Forensics, Hacking and Penetration Testing, Certification, IT Security and Administration, and more. See the ACM eBook Catalog for all available titles.

CAREER & JOB CENTER

Import Your LinkedIn Profile in ACM's Career & Job Center

Be sure to visit ACM's Career & Job Center to update your résumé or create a new one in the Résumé Bank. ACM members' résumés include an ACM logo on their entry, highlighting their ACM membership to employers.

Now available when posting a résumé in the Résumé Bank: import your LinkedIn profile. You will be required to sign in to your LinkedIn account. Please note that LinkedIn does not have exactly the same fields as ACM, so you will have to review the imported information and update where necessary. Once you have a résumé created and saved in our system, you can publish it to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you! Or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in to ACM's Job Board and post your résumé today. You can also upgrade to a Preferred Résumé to keep it at the top of the Résumé Bank, highlighted with a star next to it for increased visibility ($25 for 90 days).

In addition, ACM offers CareerNews, which provides summaries of articles on career-related topics of interest to students and professionals in the computing field, in a bi-weekly email alert to ACM members. ACM members can subscribe to the CareerNews email alert service.

For more information about the Career & Job Center please contact Jennifer Ruzicka.

EDUCATION

CSTA Documents Demonstrate Alignment of K-12 Standards

The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) has just released a series of documents that show the alignment between the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards and other existing national standards: the Common Core State Standards, the STEM Cluster Topics, and the Partnership for 21st Century Essential Skills. The CSTA created these documents to demonstrate the extent to which computer science courses and content align with a wide variety of national standards. They can help K-12 educators using CSTA standards demonstrate how their computer science courses, resources, or grant proposals contribute to the teaching of other national standards.

According to CSTA Curriculum Committee Chair Deborah Seehorn, "It is no secret that K-12 education is now completely standards-focused, and our efforts to improve and expand computer science education in K-12 require us to show that we not only have rigorous standards, but that our standards intersect well with the key national standards from other organizations." The downloadable documents are available on the Curriculum web page of the CSTA website.

STUDENT NEWS

ACM Presents Special Awards to 2013 Intel Science Fair Finalists

ACM presented seven Special Awards to finalists in the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's largest high school science research competition, held May 12-17 in Phoenix, Arizona. about 1,600 young entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists competed to reach the finals from 433 affiliate fairs in more than 70 countries, regions and territories. Judges provided by ACM for the event were Robb Cutler, co-founder of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), John (Tim) Korb of Purdue University, and Lynn Andrea Stein of Olin College of Engineering. ACM presents awards of $1,000 for first place, $500 for second place, and $300 for third place, and $200 for fourth place. All winners receive complimentary ACM Student Memberships for the duration of their undergraduate education. Here are ACM's ISEF Special Award winners and their breakthrough research topics:

First Award of $1,000:: "Using Artificial Intelligence to Create a Low Cost Self-driving Car"; Ionut Alexandru Budisteanu, 19, Liceul Tehnologic Oltchim, Ramnicu Valcea, Romania (Budisteanu also received the top prize of the Fair, the Gordon E. Moore Award of $75,000, named in honor of the Intel co-founder and fellow scientist)
Second Award of $500:: "Fish-eye Like Spot Magnifier with Low Cognitive Load for Image Browsing"; Szu-Jung Wu, 18, National Hsinchu Girls' Senior High School, Hsinchu City, Chinese Taipei, and Shiang-Wen Huang, 18, National Hsinchu Girls' Senior High School, Hsinchu City, Chinese Taipei
Third Award of $300:: "Versatile Visual Programming Software for Beginners"; Hyunjun Kim, 16, Sunduck High School, Seoul, South Korea
Fourth Award of $200:: "Pardus: A Statistical Approach to Reduce Perceived Latency in Network Filesystems"; Dhaivat Nitin Pandya, 15, Appleton North High School, Appleton, Wisconsin; "MEye: An Affordable Eye-Tracking System"; Ayush Saraswat, 17, Little Rock Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas

Computing Community Consortium's Site Lists Undergraduate Summer Research Positions

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) offers a website listing undergraduate summer research positions. The listings are linked from the CCC's Computer Science Research Opportunities & Graduate School (CSGS) site, a resource clearinghouse for CS undergraduates. Researchers are able to post their summer research opportunities on the listing site for free. The site enables students to find summer research programs, and enables the CCC to promote a pipeline of young talent for careers in computing research. The CSGS site provides information on summer research opportunities, a Q&A on "why do research," and links to summer programs from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Research Experiences for Undergraduates, the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, and Canadian Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates, among others. Students can also find information and advice on applying to graduate school in computing fields.

ACM 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, which culminates in 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: Heather Underwood, University of Colorado, Boulder (CHI 2012); Tiffany Inglis, University of Waterloo (SIGGRAPH 2012); and Jeyavijayan Rajendran, NYU Polytechnic (DAC 2012). In the Undergraduate Division the winners are: Zack Coker, Auburn University (SPLASH 2012); Olivier Savary-Belanger, McGill University (ICFP 2012); and Mairin Chesney, Michigan State University, Grace Hopper 2012. The winners are invited, along with their advisors, to attend the annual ACM Awards Banquet in San Francisco, California on June 15, where they will receive formal recognition.

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 winners presented at CHI 2013. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

PACT 2013, September 7-11, deadline June 21
ASSETS 2013, October 21-23, deadline June 28
SPLASH 2013, October 26-31, deadline June 28
MobiCom 2013, September 30-October 4, deadline July 3
MODELS 2013, September 29-October 4, deadline July 15
SC13, November 17-22, deadline July 31

Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences

The ACM Women's Council (ACM-W), with funding from Wipro Technologies, provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. The student does not have to present a paper at the conference she attends. High school students will also be considered for conference support. Twenty ACM-W/Wipro scholarships are funded annually: 10 scholarships of up to $600 will be awarded for intra-continental conference travel, and 10 scholarships of up to $1,200 will be awarded for intercontinental conference travel. ACM-W encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within her department. In addition, if the award is for attendance at one of several ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) conferences (SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCHI, SIGCSE, SIGDA, SIGECOM, SIGEVO, SIGGRAPH, SIGIR, SIGITE, SIGMM, SIGMOBILE, SIGOPS, SIGPLAN, and SIGSOFT), the SIG will provide complimentary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. Applications are evaluated in six groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences. For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

Additional scholarship awards for women students to attend research conferences have been made possible by Microsoft Research. Microsoft has given ACM-W $20,000 to support scholarships for women of European citizenship. Under the agreement with Microsoft, these awards will cover conference registration fees and provide an additional $600 if the conference is intracontinental, or $1200 if it is involves intercontinental travel. The student does not have to be attending a European school in order to be eligible, and the amount of the award is based on where she attends school relative to where the conference is. We are delighted to have this additional support for the scholarships, in addition to the funds we already have from Wipro Ltd. In addition, 16 SIGs have thus far signed on to support the scholarships by providing complimentary conference registration to scholarship recipients.

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.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

Featured ACM Distinguished Speaker: Claudia Bauzer Medeiros

The Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) is one of ACM's most valued outreach programs, providing universities, corporations, event and conference planners, and local ACM chapters with direct access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry.

This month's featured speaker is Claudia Bauzer Medeiros. Claudia is full professor of databases at the Institute of Computing, University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. She holds a degree in Electrical Engineering (1976) and an MSc degree in Computer Science (1979) from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada (1985). For the past 20 years, she has been working as a visiting professor at the University Paris-Dauphine, France. She has received Brazilian and international awards for research, teaching, and her work in fostering the participation of women in IT-related activities. Her research centers on the design and development of scientific databases. Her main interests lie in facing the challenges posed by large, real-world applications, which require handling distributed and heterogeneous data sources. She has coordinated large multidisciplinary projects in Brazil, involving applications in agro-environmental planning and biodiversity. She has also coordinated research projects in scientific data management, workflow systems and geographic information, in cooperation with universities and research labs in Brazil, Germany and France. Claudia has given invited tutorials and lectures in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese at many conferences and organizations. She is a member of ACM, IEEE, and the Brazilian Computer Society, and has served in the organization and/or program committees of more than 100 conferences and workshops, mostly involving data management issues. She served as the president of the Brazilian Computer Society from 2003 to 2007, and has served or serves on many permanent scientific evaluation panels in Brazil and Argentina. Claudia has received the Doctor Honoris Causa from Universidad Antenor Orrego, Peru, the Anita Borg Change Agent Award, and Commander of the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit.
For more information on Claudia, please visit her DSP speaker information page.
Claudia Bauzer Medeiros's Digital Library author page.

IEEE-CS and ACM have joined to share their invited speaker programs, to further the dissemination of technical knowledge of computing fields that greatly benefit both memberships. IEEE-CS chapter volunteers can host a speaker from ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP), with access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry, by following the instructions on the DSP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an IEEE Computer Society Chapter.

IEEE-CS provides a popular offering of first-quality speakers serving its professional and student chapters. The Distinguished Visitors Program (DVP) owes its success to the many volunteers and staff members of the Computer Society who generously contribute their time and talent. Organizers of an ACM chapter, conference, or event can host a speaker from IEEE-CS's DVP by following the instructions instructions on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

Welcome New ACM Chapters

Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. ACM welcomes these new chapters that were chartered April 20 to May 23, 2013:

ACM Student Chapters:

Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering ACM Student Chapter, New Delhi, India
Bilkent University ACM-W Student Chapter, Ankara, Turkey
Hunter College ACM Student Chapter, New York, New York
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts ACM Student Chapter, North Adams
Universidad Autonoma de Campeche ACM Student Chapter, Campeche, Mexico
Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria ACM Student Chapter, Huancayo, Peru
USC Beaufort ACM Student Chapter, Bluffton, South Carolina

ACM-W NEWS

Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing Marks Fifth Event with Fun and Supportive Activities

by Jodi Tims, ACM-W Regional Projects Leader and OCWiC General Chair
Like those before it, the fifth Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing (OCWiC 2013) was an inspiring and fun-filled event. The conference, held February 22 to 23 at the Mohican Lodge and Conference Center in Perrysville, Ohio, saw a total attendance of 158, with 88 undergraduate students, 15 graduate students, 30 faculty, and 22 representative from industry.

Conference attendees were honored to hear from two keynote speakers provided by the CRA-W Distinguished Lecture Series. Monica Anderson, associate professor of computer science at the University of Alabama, presented her research on distributed autonomous systems that enable search, rescue and reconnaissance applications in unknown, complex environments. Irene Greif, Director of the IBM Center for Social Software and head of the Collaborative User Experience Group, shared her inspiring story of being a female computer scientist, recounting her experiences in both industry and academia.

In addition to the keynote speakers, refereed presentations, panel discussions, birds-of-a-feather sessions, a job fair, and a poster competition provided numerous opportunities for attendees to learn more about the exciting work that women in computing are doing, gain valuable insight into educational and career opportunities, and learn how women in computing can support one another.

One of the highlights of OCWiC 2013 was a dance party that provided an opportunity to celebrate that this was the fifth OCWiC. Music, dancing, food and fun were plentiful as participants kicked back and enjoyed the party.

The Grace Hopper Regional Consortium, a project of ACM-W, provides programming that showcases female role models, encourages mentoring and networking, supplies accurate information about computing careers and creates opportunities for women to participate in the program, often for the first time in their careers. Visit the Regional Celebrations page to learn more about these events.

Join ACM-W's Membership Email List

Did you know that ACM-W offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is a communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. To join the list: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC. And to keep more informed about the activities of ACM-W and its members, you can sign up for our quarterly CIS Newsletter notification. Be sure to read the current issue for the latest news on ACM-W activities and events on the ACM-W CIS Newsletter issues page.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

New Mobile Apps Available for ACM Inroads, ACM interactions, and XRDS

Mobile apps are now available on iOS, Android, and Kindle platforms for ACM Inroads, ACM interactions, and XRDS magazines. Click on the following links for the app you wish to download:

ACM Inroads:

ACM interactions:

XRDS (Crossroads):

ACM Queue Video Portrait: Kate Matsudaira

In the latest video interview conducted by ACM Queue, the popular practitioner website, Kate Matsudaira discusses key architectural choices in the design of systems and data partitioning. Matsudaira is founder of her own company Pop Forms. Here, she discusses the many real-world scenarios in which data science can help users extract the information they need that's in nontraditional formats, such as Twitter feeds. The ACM Queue video series features today's leading computing innovators who are also members of ACM.

Hot Topics Editor Needed for Computing Reviews

Computing Reviews, the post-publication review and comment journal of ACM, is seeking volunteers interested in serving as a category editor for Hot Topics.

CACM Reports: Cracking the Code with ACM Turing Award Recipients

This year's ACM Turing Award honorees Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali are profiled in the June issue of Communications of the ACM. In a provocative Q&A, they describe how they transformed the scope of cryptography from encrypting private messages to strengthening data security, facilitating financial transactions, and supporting cloud computing. Goldwasser observes the opportunity in mathematics to start with something concrete, then generalize the concept, and end up with a "beautiful theorem" that applies broadly. Micali reveals that while working on zero-knowledge interaction proofs, they transformed proofs, which are not fun to write or read, into a game. In a companion article, Goldwasser advises scientists: "If you come up with something new, and it's yours, stick with it." Micali recommends that young computer scientists cultivate an initial sense of irreverence, a certain lack of respect for what has gone before.

Also in this issue, ACM President Vint Cerf underscores the importance of "honoring our best" as we approach ACM's annual awards celebration. He calls for giving serious thought to nominating colleagues whose work meets the criteria for this recognition, which conveys to the general public the remarkable power of computer science and the value its practitioners and theorists give to the world.
Read the press release.

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 in print, web and digital format.

ACM Queue Presents: There's Just No Getting around It: You're Building a Distributed System

In his article for ACM Queue, Mark Cavage (Joyent, Amazon) takes a brief walk through the reality of building a real-world distributed system. Distributed systems are notoriously difficult to implement, yet ever more engineers are finding themselves creating distributed applications as they move into running modern-day Web or mobile applications. However, without practical experience working on both successful and failed systems, many engineers simply hope for the best and string together off-the-shelf software, ultimately failing to build a resilient, performant system. Building a distributed system requires a methodical approach to requirements along the boundaries of failure domains, latency, throughput, durability, consistency, and desired service-level agreements (SLAs) for the business application at all aspects of the application.

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ACM IN THE NEWS

"OpenGL Developer to Create API for Controlling Smartphone Cameras"

Network World, May 21, 2013
The Khronos Group plans to create an open and royalty-free application programming interface (API) for controlling mobile and embedded cameras and sensors. The Camera working group will discuss the initiative at the SIGGRAPH 2013 conference.

"Three organizations pressing for change in society's approach to computing"

O'Reilly Radar, May 16, 2013
When the notorious SOPA and PIPA bills came up, the USACM (the US Public Policy Council of ACM) didn't issue the kind of blanket condemnation many other groups put out, supported by appeals to vague concepts such as freedom and innovation. Instead, they put the microscope to the bills' provisions and issued brief comments about negative effects on the functioning of the Internet, with a focus on DNS.

Bloomberg Businessweek, May 3, 2013
The next generation of elite software engineers will meet in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 30 through July 4 to compete in the 37th Annual World Finals of the IBM-sponsored ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC).

"Flexible, Networked E-Ink Displays Mimic Physical Documents"

IDG News Service, April 30, 2013
Queens University researchers at the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference unveiled electronic ink displays that can bend as a form of input.

"Engaging Online Crowds in the Classroom Could Be Important Tool for Teaching Innovation"

Carnegie Mellon University, April 29, 2013
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University have presented the findings from a pilot study on online crowds at CHI 2013.