ACM MemberNet - May 27, 2014

Welcome to the May 2014 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 27, 2014

TOP STORIES

ACM Elects Alex Wolf as President

ACM has elected Alexander L. Wolf as President for a two-year term beginning July 1. Wolf, who is Professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, UK, said his vision as President is to position ACM to better meet the challenges posed by the rapidly-evolving computing community in the age of computer-mediated, cost-free, dynamic social networks.

Also elected to two-year terms were Vice President Vicki L. Hanson, Professor and Chair of Inclusive Technologies in the School of Computing at the University of Dundee, Scotland and Distinguished Professor of Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York; and Secretary/Treasurer Erik Altman, Manager of the Dynamic Optimization Group at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.

President, Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer serve two-year terms from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016.

In addition, Members-at-Large elected to four-year terms are Cherri Pancake, Professor and Intel Faculty Fellow at the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Oregon State University; and Per Stenström, Professor of Computer Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, Goteborg, Sweden. They will serve four-year terms from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2018.

The new officers elected by ACM professional members represent the more than 100,000 computing professionals and students who comprise ACM's international membership.

Read the ACM news release.

Innovator of Breakthrough Cryptography Technology Wins ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award

Sanjam Garg has won the 2013 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for developing tools that enable the first secure solution to the problem of making computer program code "unintelligible" while preserving its functionality. This problem, known as software obfuscation, conceals the program's purpose or its logic in order to prevent tampering, deter reverse engineering, or as a challenge to readers of the source code. His approach makes it impossible to reverse-engineer the obfuscated software without solving mathematical problems that could take hundreds of years to work out on today's computers. Garg, a Josef Raviv Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, completed his dissertation at the University of California, Los Angeles, which nominated him. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he will receive the Doctoral Dissertation Award and its $20,000 prize at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on June 21 in San Francisco. Financial sponsorship of the award is provided by Google Inc.

Honorable Mention for the 2013 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award went to Grey Ballard of Sandia National Laboratories and Shayan Oveis Gharan of the University of California, Berkeley. They will share a $10,000 prize, with financial sponsorship provided by Google Inc.

Read the ACM news release and visit Garg's ACM Awards citation page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Tap Computer Architecture Innovator for Eckert-Mauchly Award

ACM and the IEEE Computer Society will jointly present the 2014 Eckert-Mauchly Award to Trevor Mudge of the University of Michigan for contributions to low-power computer architecture for high-performance microprocessors. Mudge's inventive approaches have led to new technologies that reduce energy consumption of microprocessors while maintaining acceptable performance in an era of exponential growth in embedded processors and system-on-chip designs. His contributions greatly influenced both the research literature and the actual products made possible by his research. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community's most prestigious award. Mudge will receive the 2014 Eckert-Mauchly Award at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2014), June 16, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Read the ACM news release.

New ACM Special Interest Group on Logic and Computation Debuts

SIGLOG, a new ACM Special Interest Group, is dedicated to the advancement of logic and computation, and formal methods in computer science. Its activities will include a flagship conference, the ACM-IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science; a quarterly newsletter; advocating for the importance of logic in the undergraduate computer science curriculum; and prizes to recognize the outstanding contributions made by leading members of the community. SIGLOG will collaborate closely with the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), the European Association for Computer Science Logic (EACSL), and the Kurt Gödel Society, and will maintain close ties with ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL). The upcoming Federated Logic Conferences in Vienna (part of the Vienna Summer of Logic) will feature a SIGLOG launch event.

AWARDS

Ken Kennedy Award Nominations 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 Senior and Distinguished 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 June 3. Please read Advice to Those Seeking ACM Senior Members by Senior Member Committee Chair Susan Rodger on how to submit a strong nomination package.

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 2014, June 22 to 27, Snowbird, Utah

SIGMOD/PODS 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. Scheduled SIGMOD keynotes are Maurice Herlihy, computer science professor at Brown University, on "Fun with Hardware Transactional Memory," and Eric Sedlar, Technical Director of Oracle Labs, on "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Compilers." Scheduled PODS keynote will be Leonid Libkin, professor of Foundations of Data Management, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, on "Incomplete Data: What Went Wrong, and How to Fix It." A tutorial on "Model-Data Ecosystems: Problems, Tools, and Trends" will be led by Peter Haas, a research staff member at the IBM Almaden Research Center. A second tutorial, "Database Principles in Information Extraction," will be led by LogicBlox computer scientist Benny Kimelfeld. Workshops will address a range of issues from Semantic Web Information Management to Data Analytics in the Cloud.

SIGGRAPH 2014, August 10-14, Vancouver, Canada

The SIGGRAPH conference and exhibition is a five-day interdisciplinary educational experience including a commercial 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 and emerging technologies, as well as hands-on opportunities for creative collaboration. The international SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival showcases works from the world's most innovative and accomplished digital film and video creators.

GHC 2014, October 8 to 11, Phoenix, Arizona

GHC 2014, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, is the world's largest gathering of women technologists and is a great opportunity to gain professional visibility as a subject matter expert, expand your network and inspire other women in computing. This year's conference will focus on key areas where emerging technologies are having a dramatic impact. Registration opens June 2.

HILT 2014, October 18 to 21, Portland, Oregon

HILT 2014 will provide a forum for experts from academia/research, industry, and government to present the latest findings in designing, implementing, and using language technology for high integrity software. The conference will feature keynote and invited presentations from leading experts in language technology and high-integrity systems. Submissions are invited for technical papers, experience reports (including experience in teaching), and tutorial proposals on a broad range of relevant topics. Deadline is June 7; visit the conference website for more information.

SC 2014, November 16 to 21, New Orleans, Louisiana

SC14 will bring together the high performance computing community of scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, students, programmers, system administrators, and developers to engage in important conversations of how HPC technologies can be used to better the world. Submissions for birds-of-a-feather sesssions, posters, the Student Research Competition, Doctoral Showcase, Emerging Technologies, and most other technical programs, are open until July 31.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2014, December 3 to 6, Shenzhen, China

Submissions are invited for the 7th ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia. The largest conference on computer graphics in Asia is seeking submissions for workshops, technical papers, the Computer Animation Festival, Emerging Technologies, Mobile Graphics Symposium, courses, and more. Visit the submissions page for more information and a complete list of deadlines.

PUBLIC POLICY

USACM Statement on the White House Report on Its Review of Big Data

Excerpt from a statement from Travis Breaux of the USACM Council on the White House review of "Big Data" based on extended comments to the Office of Science and technology Policy:

"The rise of big data highlights tensions that have existed in U.S. efforts to protect consumer privacy and limit government use of data. If big data trends continue as we expect to focus on discovering new knowledge from larger and richer collections of data, new tools and processes for protecting and securing the data and insights gleaned from this information are needed to augment the protections currently available.

"The more that we make decisions which depend on big data, the more important it is that we understand the provenance and accuracy of this data. An important tool for this application is to provide consumers with the ability to check that collected data is indeed accurate, and to allow consumers to correct or dispute inaccuracies....

Travis Breaux is Chair of the U.S. Public Policy Council (USACM) Security and Privacy Committee and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Read the entire statement and USACM's public comments to the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

MEMBER PROGRAMS

ACM Ambassadors Program Ends June 30: Invite Your Colleagues Now to Join!

The 2013-2014 Ambassadors for ACM program ends June 30, so you have just a little more than one month to take advantage of eligibility to earn prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral. The 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. The top ACM Ambassador for April was Tiffany Ya Tang.

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. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

ACM Group Dental Indemnity Insurance Plan

Why risk big dental bills? As an ACM member in good standing, you are eligible to enroll in ACM's Dental Indemnity Plan, administered by Mercer Consumer, a Service of Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC. This new dental plan offers the freedom to choose your dentist and helps insulate your wallet against pricey dental bills. Coverage is available to you, your spouse, and dependent children. More than 150 different types of dental services are covered ranging from preventive services all the way up to major treatments, like root canals, dentures and oral surgeries. Additional savings are available by using a dentist in the SmileMax® Network. Convenience allows you to have payments made directly to you or your dentist. Finally, your acceptance is guaranteed. Your dentist, a payment option that fits your budget and over 150 available services! Click here to learn more or call 1-800-503-9230.
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LEARNING CENTER

Watch May 22 Webcast: "Lessons from the ACM Risks Forum" with Peter Neumann

Watch the the latest free ACM webcast, Lessons from the ACM Risks Forum, presented on May 22 by Peter Neumann. The talk is followed by a live question and answer session moderated by Will Tracz, Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus and Chair of ACM SIGSOFT. Peter Neumann is an ACM Fellow and Principal Scientist at the Software Research Institute (SRI). He has moderated the ACM Risks Forum for almost 30 years.

ACM Learning Webinars are free with registration, available for streaming on all major mobile devices, and are recorded for on-demand viewing.

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.

CSTA JOB BOARD

Computer Science Teachers Association Launches Job Board

The Computer Science Teachers Association has launched its new CSTA Job Board, the career hub for K-12 Computer Science teachers. The new career center provides access to 100% computer science K-12 teaching-related job postings.

The CSTA Job Board will allow you to manage your career:

  • Search and apply to K-12 computer science related jobs
  • Upload your anonymous résumé and allow employers to contact you
  • Set up job alerts specifying your skills, interests, and location to receive email notifications when a job is posted that matches your criteria

or recruit for open positions:

  • put job openings in front of the most qualified group of K-12 computer science-focused professionals
  • Simply create an employer account on the CSTA Job Board and choose from three levels of online job postings options: Basic 30-Day Online Job Posting ($190); Enhanced 30-Day Online Posting ($250); or Premium 30-Day Online Posting ($310).

CSTA Members: be sure to visit the CSTA Job Board directly (or click the Job Board link from the CSTA homepage) to create and upload your résumé to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you, or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in and post your résumé today!

EDUCATION

Computer Science Teachers Association Launches Job Board

(see story under CSTA Launches Job Board)

STUDENT NEWS

ACM Presents Special Awards to 2014 Intel Science Fair Finalists

ACM presented seven Special Awards to finalists in the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's largest high school science research competition, held May 11-16 in Los Angeles, California. More than 1,700 young entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists from more than 70 countries, regions and territories competed to reach the finals. Judges provided by ACM for the event were John (Tim) Korb of Purdue University, Judith Gal-Ezer of The Open University of Israel, and Florence Appel of St. Xavier University. 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:
"Panthera: Caching and Cache-based Scheduling in Distributed Computing Systems"
Dhaivat Nitin Pandya, 16, Appleton North High School, Appleton, Wisconsin
 
Second Award of $500:
"Come Code with Codester: A Novel Educational App that Teaches Computer Science"
Gili Rusak, 17, Shaker High School, Latham, New York
 
Third Award of $300:
"Using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision in Creating an Operating System for Head-Mounted Displays"
Nebras Nabil Djemel, 18, Pioneer High School of Gabes, Gabes, Tunisia
 
Fourth Award of $200:
"Brownian Motion as a Source of Entropy for the Generation of Random Numbers"
Russell Ean Bryan, 18, Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, Hot Springs, Arkansas
 
"Indoor Navigation with Maximum Likelihood Classification of Wi-Fi Fingerprints"
Noah Christian Pritt, 17, Pritt Home School, Walkersville, Maryland
 
"A New Secure Distributed Storage System for Cloud: Mathematical Framework, Design and Applications"
Chih Wei Tan, 17, and Hou Teng Cheong, 17, Pui Ching Middle School, Macau, China, Macao Special Administrative Region

ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners

The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), sponsored by Microsoft Research, has announced its Grand Finals winners. 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: Aadithya Karthik, University of California, Berkeley (ICCAD 2013); Sai Zhang, University of Washington (ICSE 2013); and Ehsan Totoni, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (SC 2013). In the Undergraduate Division the winners are: Bernd Huber, Technical University Munich (CHI 2013); James Bornholt, Australian National University (PLDI 2013); and Carlo Del Mundo, Virginia Tech (SC 2013). The winners are invited, along with their advisors, to attend the annual ACM Awards Banquet in San Francisco, California on June 21, 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 2014. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

Apply for N2Women Fellowship to Attend Conferences

Networking Networking Women (N2 Women) is a discipline-specific community for researchers in the communications and networking research fields, fostering connections among under-represented women in computer networking and related research fields. The group offers fellowships covering travel costs for female graduate students planning to attend premier technical conferences in networking and communications. In exchange, the students help organize the N2 Women meeting at the conferences. Funding is provided by ACM SIGMOBILE, HP Labs, and Microsoft Research, and will partially cover a student's travel cost (up to $500) to an event where an N2 Women meeting is held. Please click on the Fellowships link of the website for a complete listing of opportunities and deadlines.

ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences

The ACM Women's Council (ACM-W) provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. This exposure to the computer science research world can encourage a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position). The student does not have to present a paper at the conference she attends. Students can apply an unlimited number of times; however, once a student receives an award, she is no longer eligible for future ACM-W scholarships.

The ACM-W scholarships are divided between scholarships of up to $600 for intra-continental conference travel, and scholarships of up to $1200 for intercontinental conference travel. Scholarship applications are evaluated in six groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences.

ACM-W encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within their department. In addition, if the award is for attendance at one of several ACM Special Interest Group conferences (SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCHI, SIGCSE, SIGDA, SIGECOM, SIGEVO, SIGGRAPH, SIGHPC, SIGIR, SIGITE, SIGMM, SIGMOBILE, SIGOPS, SIGPLAN, and SIGSOFT), the SIG will provide complimentary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. The number of free registrations available varies from SIG to SIG. The 2013-2014 scholarships are made possible by generous support from Google.

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. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

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 Kenneth De Jong. Kenneth received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1975 and is currently a professor in the Computer Science department and the Associate Director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His research interests include evolutionary computation, adaptive systems and machine learning. He is an active member of the Evolutionary Computation research community with a variety of papers, PhD students, and presentations in this area. He is also responsible for many of the workshops and conferences on Evolutionary Algorithms. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Evolutionary Computation (MIT Press), and a board member of ACM SIGEVO. He is the recipient of an IEEE Pioneer award in the field of Evolutionary Computation and a lifetime achievement award from the Evolutionary Programming Society.

For more information on Kenneth, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
Kenneth De Jong's Digital Library author page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Join to Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

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 on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

ACM Congratulates Student Chapter Excellence Award Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the 2013-2014 Student Chapter Excellence Awards! This program recognizes ACM student chapters worldwide that display considerable initiative during the academic year. Chapters submit applications in five areas: Outstanding Chapter Activity, Outstanding Website, Outstanding Recruitment Program, Outstanding Community Service, and Outstanding School Service. Winning chapters in each of these five areas receive $500 and a "best of" icon to proudly display on their chapter's web page. The winners for 2013-2014 are:

  • Outstanding Chapter Activities: National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences ACM Student Chapter
  • Outstanding Community Service (Tie): Purdue University ACM Student Chapter and Lehigh University ACM Student Chapter
  • Outstanding Website: Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter
  • Outstanding Recruitment Program: IBA ACM Student Chapter
  • Outstanding School Service: Imperial College London ACM Student Chapter

Learn more about what's happening at these schools by reading their winning submissions, and how you can enter your school's chapter in next year's competition, on the Student Chapter Excellence Awards website.

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 12 to May 20:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • University of Salamanca ACM Student Chapter, Salamanca, Spain
  • Ahmedabad University ACM-W Student Chapter, Ahmedabad, India
  • American University ACM Student Chapter, Washington, DC
  • AMU ACM Student Chapter, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
  • DMIETR ACM Student Chapter, Datta Meghe Institute of Engineering, Technology & Research, Wardha, India
  • Dundalk Institute of Technology ACM Student Chapter, Dundalk, Ireland
  • Emory University ACM-W Student Chapter, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Fatih University ACM Student Chapter, Istanbul, Turkey
  • HIT ACM Student Chapter, Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, India
  • IEM ACM Student Chapter, Institute of Engineering & Management, Kolkata, India
  • Indiana State University ACM Student Chapter, Terre Haute
  • ISCTE-IUL ACM Student Chapter, University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal
  • MJCET ACM Student Chapter, Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, India
  • NIT Agartala ACM Student Chapter, National Institute of Technology, Agartala, India
  • NUCES Peshawar ACM Student Chapter, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan
  • Qassim University ACM-W Student Chapter, Almelida, Saudi Arabia
  • Selcuk University ACM Student Chapter, Konya, Turkey
  • Siena College ACM-W Student Chapter, Loudonville, New York
  • University of Dallas ACM Student Chapter, Irving, Texas
  • USC ACM SIGGRAPH Student Chapter, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

ACM Professional Chapters:

  • BUET ACM Chapter, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Dalian ACM Chapter, Dalian, China
  • Shenzhen ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, Shenzhen, China
  • Indonesia ACM SIGCHI Chapter, Semarang, Indonesia
  • San Francisco Bay Area ACM SIGAI Chapter, Los Altos, California
  • SIGHPC Education ACM Chapter, Columbus, Ohio
  • Tehran ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, Tehran, Iran

ACM-W NEWS

Australasian Women in Computing Celebration Creates Network of Support through Tweets

AWIC 2014, the Australasian Women in Computing Celebration, was held at Auckland University of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand in January as part of Australasian Computer Science Week, a multi-conference event with a collection of some 13 different events. Activities, including a doctoral consortium, workshops, panels, paper and student poster presentations, and career development sessions, drew 55 participants (including a significant number of men!). Keynote speakers included Helen Robinson, a business consultant who serves on the boards of diverse organizations in New Zealand and Annette Irwin, Microsoft Premier Field Engineer for Microsoft New Zealand. Participants provided a steady stream of tweets broadcasting their enthusiasm for the inspiration, encouragement and advice generated by the program.

ACM-W Celebrations showcase female role models, encourage mentoring and networking, supply accurate information about computing careers, and create opportunities for women to to present their research, often for the first time in their careers. The small conferences are run with almost 100% volunteer effort and involve considerable fundraising. If you are interested in working on or supporting any of the celebrations, please contact Valerie Barr or Jodi Tims. We'd love to have you join our conference committees or become a sponsor of this important effort to encourage and increase the participation of women in computing.

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.

Also read the ACM-W Connections newsletter for updates on ACM-W programs (celebrations, scholarships and awards, and chapters); Judy Olson's Ask Judy column (Judy is the 2011 ACM-W Athena Lecturer); and contributed articles and announcements of upcoming events.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Welcomes New Editor-in-Chief

ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES) welcomes its new Editor-in-Chief, Naehyuck Chang, whose term starts June 1. Chang is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at Seoul National University, and has served on technical program committees of many conferences and symposia of ACM, IEEE, and other organizations. He has also served on the editorial boards of several ACM, IEEE and other organizations' publications.

Information Systems Category Editor Needed for Computing Reviews

Computing Reviews, the post-publication review and comment journal of ACM, is seeking a volunteer interested in serving as a category editor for a segment of the information systems area. Please see the Information Systems Category Editor search page for more information.

June Issue of CACM Features 2014 ACM A.M. Turing Award Recipient Leslie Lamport

The June issue of Communications of the ACM features ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Leslie Lamport's work and accomplishments. Honored this year for his fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of distributed and concurrent systems, Lamport is profiled in "General Agreement" by Neil Savage, discussed in "Divide and Conquer," a Q&A by Leah Hoffman, and spotlighted in an original video on the CACM website. Also in this issue are an introduction to Haskell, the premier pure functional programming language; new instruments for testing the effects of cyberattacks; "FUD: A Plea for Intolerance," which describes the computer science community's vital role in confronting the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) that prevent the establishment of security as a more scientific research discipline; and much more.

Read the ACM news release.

New from eLearn Magazine: Knowledge Aggregation, Delivery, and Assessment

It is clear the use of ICT for education has not yet achieved its potential. This article by Igor Schagaev, Brian Kirk, and Liz Bacon addresses the need for the further development and widening of learning through the enhanced use of ICT. In this context, learning is considered as having a framework with several essential and connected processes. Although web semantic methods now enable the monitoring of knowledge and curriculum updates, an understanding of how the human brain manages various channels of information delivery is also necessary.

New from Ubiquity: MOOCs and Technology to Advance Learning and Learning Research

Candace Thille, founding director of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University and at Stanford University, has assembled a veritable Who's Who in digital learning. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have fueled both hope and anxiety about the future of higher education. This latest symposium explores some of the open questions that have arisen in the MOOC debates. Ten authors examine different aspects of MOOCs and technology to advance learning and learning research.

ACM Queue Presents: The NSA and Snowden: Securing the All-Seeing Eye

In his article for ACM Queue, Bob Toxen, CTO at Horizon Network Security, explains how better security protocols at the NSA could have prevented Edward Snowden from copying and releasing confidential documents. The article describes 11 "islands of security," including the prohibition of unauthorized copying via USB memory stick or writable DVD; two-factor authentication to make account spoofing more difficult; and basic encryption. "Consider that one of Snowden's jobs was copying large amounts of classified data from one computer to a thumb drive and then connecting that thumb drive to another computer and downloading the data. He likely secreted the thumb drive on his person after downloading the data he wanted and took it home. This theft could have been prevented rather easily with the use of public-key encryption."

ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing and ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms Accepting Submissions

ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing (TOPC) is now accepting submissions. TOPC is a forum for novel and innovative work on all aspects of parallel computing, including foundational and theoretical aspects, systems, languages, architectures, tools, and applications. Visit the submissions site for more information.

ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems (TSAS) is now accepting submissions. TSAS is a new scholarly journal that publishes the highest quality papers on all aspects of spatial algorithms and systems and closely related disciplines. Visit the submissions site for more information.

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ACM IN THE NEWS

"Europe Wants a Supercomputer Made From Smartphones"

IEEE Spectrum, May 20, 2014
University of Tennessee professor and ACM Fellow and 2013 ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award recipient Jack Dongarra notes ARM cores are not a universally agreed-upon path to exascale supercomputer architecture. For example, he says, "the Japanese exascale system, which will use commodity processors with an accelerator, will draw about 30 to 40 megawatts of power."

"Experts to Assess NIST Cryptography Program"

GovInfoSecurity.com, May 16, 2014
The US National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently proposed changes in the way it develops cryptographic standards, following allegations the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) meddled with NIST guidance dealing with the generation of random bits. NIST's Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology (VCAT) named seven individuals to a Committee of Visitors, including ACM president Vint Cerf, to examine the NIST Cryptographic Standards and Guidelines Development Process.

"Where the Internet of Things Could Take Society by 2025"

Center for Digital Education, May 14, 2014
People will use coordinated appliances in conjunction with the scannable physical world, says ACM president Vint Cerf, who cautions that these appliances will be vulnerable to hostile takeover.

"Tech Leaders Lobby for Coding Classes in California Schools"

The San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 2014
Educators and technology industry leaders on Wednesday are sending a letter to California Gov. Jerry Brown urging him to improve computer science education in the state's public schools. Hadi Partovi, ACM member and co-founder of Code.org, organized the letter campaign.

"Call for Limits on Web Data of Customers"

The New York Times , May 2, 2014
Princeton University scientist and USACM Co-Vice-Chair Edward W. Felten says both government and industry have a shared responsibility to address the risk of discrimination based on data analysis.

"Science Council Approves Big-Data Privacy Report"

Federal Computer Week , April 30, 2014
The President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) has released "Big Data and Privacy: A Technological Perspective," a report on new ways to build privacy protections into information technology systems. Technology can help reduce privacy risks but policy is needed as well, says report co-author and University of California, Berkeley professor and ACM Fellow Susan Graham.

"Standards for Computer Science Education Need Improvement"

U.S. News & World Report, April 28, 2014
The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) wants "to draw attention to the fact that there is a crisis in computer science education in our country," said CSTA chair Deborah Seehorn.

"Extreme Scale Design Automation"

CCC Blog, April 28, 2014
A group of researchers from various universities recently co-organized and held three workshops on Charting the Future of Electronic Design Automation, co-sponsored by ACM SIGDA.

"Mobile Users May Not Buy Into Instant Gratification Cues"

Penn State News, April 28, 2014
A recent Pennsylvania State University study found that gimmicky contest ads and flashy free-prize messages may be an instant turnoff for mobile Web users. The researchers presented their findings at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems last month.

"Web Conference in Brazil Calls for Multistakeholder Approach"

PhysOrg, April 25, 2014
Internet pioneer and ACM president Vint Cerf says the idea the United States controls the internet is a myth, and notes although the US still plays a dominant role in the domain name system, it is prepared to give it up.

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