ACM MemberNet - January 24, 2019

Welcome to the January 2019 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 past issues of MemberNet online at https://www.acm.org/membership/acm-membernet-archive.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

January 24, 2019

TOP STORIES

AWARDS

MEMBER RECOGNITION

SIG AWARDS

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

PUBLIC POLICY

MEMBER PROGRAMS

LEARNING CENTER

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

STUDENT NEWS

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

CHAPTERS NEWS

ACM-W NEWS

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

TOP STORIES

ACM 2019 SIG Elections Candidate Slate

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in April 2019: SIGAI, SIGAPP, SIGARCH, SIGBED, SIGCSE, SIGDOC, SIGecom, SIGEVO, ACM SIGGRAPH*, SIGHPC, SIGIR, SIGLOG, SIGMETRICS, SIGOPS, and SIGWEB.

ACM's Policy and Procedures on SIG Elections require that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. To see the slate of candidates, please visit the 2019 ACM SIG Elections site.

In accordance with the ACM SIG Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be ACM Professional Members, as well as members of the SIG. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters, Pat Ryan ([email protected]) and the Secretary of the SIG of their intent to petition by 15 March 2019. Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by 2 April 2019.

* ACM SIGGRAPH’s election will commence on 14 June 2019.

AWARDS

ACM Award Nomination Submission Procedures

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and society at large. ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments. The nominations deadline for general ACM awards has passed. The remaining award nominations deadlines are: the ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award (March 30), Gordon Bell (April 15), ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial Fellowship (May 1) ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award (July 1), SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering (July 31), and Doctoral Dissertation Award (October 31).

Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of 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. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 3.

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

ISEC 2019, February 14 to 16, Pune, India

The 12th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference provides a forum for researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry to meet and share cutting-edge advancements in the field of software engineering. Holger Giese (Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering) and Yvonne Dittrich (IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark) will keynote. Fredrik Kjolstad (MIT) and Ting Su of (NTU Singapore) will deliver invited talks.

SIGCSE 2019, February 27 to March 2, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The SIGCSE Technical Symposium is the largest computing education conference worldwide organized by ACM SIGCSE, attracting researchers, educators, and others interested in improving computing education in K-12 and higher education. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III (President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County) will deliver the opening keynote, and Blair Taylor (Clinical Associate Professor, Towson University) will deliver the closing keynote.

IUI 2019, March 17 to 20, Los Angeles, California

The 24th Annual Meeting of the Intelligent User Interfaces Community is where the human-computer interaction community meets the AI community, with contributions from related fields such as psychology, behavioral science, cognitive science, computer graphics, design, the arts, and more. Scheduled keynote speakers are Ashwin Ram (Google Cloud), Dave Gunning (DARPA) and Michelle Zhou (Juji).

DATE 2019, March 25 to 29, Florence, Italy

The Design, Automation and Test in Europe conference is an international venue for system-level hardware and software implementation down to integrated circuit design. Scheduled keynote speakers are Jürgen Bortolazzi (Porsche), Claudio Giorgione,(Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci), David Pellerin (Amazon), and Edward A. Lee (University of California, Berkeley).

L@S 2019, June 24 to 25, Chicago, Illinois (CFP)

Learning @ Scale is co-located with and immediately precedes the 2019 International Conference on AI in Education. L@S investigates large-scale, technology-mediated learning environments, such as massive open online courses, intelligent tutoring systems, open learning courseware, learning games, and communities of citizen scientists, collaborative programmers, tutorial systems, shared critiques, and more. Paper submissions are invited; deadline is February 1.

PUBLIC POLICY

ACM USTPC Submits Comments on Export Control Regulations, NIST Privacy Framework

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs

If the first two weeks of January are any indication (and that seems likely), it's going to be a busy year for ACM's US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC). Government shutdown notwithstanding, USTPC already has filed Comments in 2019 with two federal agencies in disparate proceedings. Both filings are now available online, as all such submissions will be going forward.

Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry Security Export Controls:
The first filing was jointly submitted by USTPC with the Computing Research Association on January 10 to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry Security (BIS). It responded to a November 19, 2018 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking information on whether and how to structure new export control regulations for a series of "emerging technologies," including AI and quantum computing. USTPC's comments were informed by the early (and much appreciated) guidance of ACM members Matt Blaze and Steve Bellovin.

Not surprisingly, as detailed in the ANPRM, the proceeding implicates many potential aspects of computing. The ANPRM also indicated that public comments will be solicited later this year on any resulting proposed new rules themselves, as well as in a separate proceeding to be opened to address similar controls on better-established “foundational technologies.” Many organizations, trade associations and companies requested and received a three-week extension of the original December 19 deadline to submit comments to BIS in this docket. As widely reported, the docket is of intense interest and concern to many parties. See, e.g., "Curbs on A.I. Exports? Silicon Valley Fears Losing Its Edge," New York Times (January 1, 2019). Additional details of the docket’s implications may be found in this analysis by the law firm of Akin Gump.

National Institute of Standards and Technology Privacy Framework:
The second filing, made on January 14, responded to a November 14, 2018 request for information (RFI) from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) for comments on "developing a framework that can be used to improve organizations' management of privacy risk for individuals arising from the collection, storage, use, and sharing of their information." The RFI notes that, "NIST expects that the Privacy Framework development process will involve several iterations to allow for continuing engagement with interested stakeholders. This will include interactive workshops, along with other forms of outreach." USTPC's comments, which highlighted the Committee's March 2018 "Statement on the Importance of Preserving Personal Privacy" were spearheaded by USTPC Privacy Subcommittee Chair Brian Dean, Secretariat members Lorraine Kisselburgh and Stuart Shapiro, and member Arnon Rosenthal.

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. The 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. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

ACM's Discounts and Special Offers Program is our way of saying "Thanks!" to our members by providing you with discounts on the goods and services you need, want and use. Save on insurance, software/hardware, careers and conferences, magazines, books and journals, travel, financial products, and general consumer products.

ACM Academic Membership Option

The ACM Academic Department Membership option allows universities and colleges to provide ACM Professional Membership to their faculty at a greatly reduced collective cost. ACM offers a membership for academic department faculty at the cost of $49 per person, more than half off the standard ACM professional membership fee of $99 per year. Through this program, each faculty member will receive all the benefits of individual professional ACM membership, including Communications of the ACM, member rates to ACM Special Interest Group conferences, member subscription rates to ACM journals, and much more. To learn more, visit the ACM Academic Department Membership page or contact Cindy Ryan.

ACM and SocialCoder Team Up for Positive Impact through Computing

You can use your technical skills for social good and offer volunteer support on software development projects to organizations who could not otherwise afford it. SocialCoder connects volunteer programmers/software developers with registered charities and helps match them to suitable projects based on their skills, experience, and the causes they care about. Learn more about ACM's partnership with SocialCoder, and how you can get involved.

LEARNING CENTER

Watch January 23 Talk with Grace Huang on Designing Real-World Machine Learning Products and Systems

Watch the free ACM TechTalk, Designing an ML-Minded Product and a Product-Minded ML System, presented on January 23 by Grace Huang, head of the Discovery data science team at Pinterest. Learn more about this topic on the ACM Discourse page.

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

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

ACM Career & Job Center Connects You with Career Opportunities

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. Thankfully, the world's leading companies, colleges and universities come to the ACM Career & Job Center to find the best candidates. By creating an account on the ACM Career and Job Center, you'll gain access to a wide range of tools to help you find the perfect job:

  • Finding a Job - Use the job search tools to find a job that matches your search criteria.
  • Create and Manage Email Alerts - Stay on top of the latest job openings. Receive an email when new jobs match your search criteria.
  • Create/Post Resumes - Get noticed by employers. Create or upload a resume with our easy-to-use tools so employer can get in touch with you.
  • View Saved Jobs - Save jobs that interest you, add notes, share with friends, and track your applies to keep on top of your job search.

For any assistance with the ACM Career and Job Center, please contact ACM's Advertising Sales Manager, Ilia Rodriguez.

STUDENT NEWS

Young Researchers: Apply for Next Heidelberg Laureate Forum, September 22-27, 2019

ACM encourages young computer scientists and mathematicians from all over the world to apply for one of the 200 coveted spots to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual event. The HLF offers all accepted young researchers the great opportunity to personally meet the winners of the most prestigious prizes in their fields. For one week, recipients of the ACM A.M. Turing Award and the ACM Prize in Computing (Computer Science), the Abel Prize (Mathematics), the Fields Medal (Mathematics), and the Nevanlinna Prize (Mathematical Aspects of Information Science) will engage in a cross-generational scientific dialogue with young researchers in Heidelberg, Germany.

The seventh HLF will take place September 22 to 27, 2019. This high-profile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in an informal atmosphere, and is fueled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration. Applications must be submitted online at https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org by February 15, 2019. Read more about how to apply in the FAQ. You can also nominate a candidate (on the registration form, you will need to enter ACM’s organization number; please email [email protected] to request this number). Successful candidates will be selected by an international committee of experts to ensure that only the most qualified candidates are invited. Those who are accepted will be notified in April.

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

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 SC18. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn more about competitions on the SRC submissions page and SRC guidelines for students.

ACM Scholarships for Women Computing Students to Attend 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). 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

About the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program

Book the speaker for your next event through the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) and deliver compelling and insightful content to your audience. ACM will cover the cost of transportation for the speaker to travel to your event. Our program features renowned thought leaders in academia, industry and government speaking about the most important topics in the computing and IT world today. Our booking process is simple and convenient.
See ACM Distinguished Speakers in action on our flickr page.

This month's featured speaker is Tsvi Kuflik. Tsvi is the former head of the Information Systems Department at the University of Haifa in Israel. The focus of his work has been on ubiquitous user modeling. As part of this work, he explored the potential of using graph representation for user modeling. Inspired by component-based software engineering, he suggested a framework for developing component-based reusable user models. A practical aspect of his work is applying these novel ideas to cultural heritage. In the course of his work, a Living Lab was developed at the University of Haifa, and a museum visitors’ guide system was developed for the Hecht Museum, an archeological museum within the university. Another research direction focuses on the use of intelligent user interfaces in ubiquitous computing within the Living Lab. Tsvi has collaborated with local and international researchers, organized the PATCH (Personal Access to Cultural Heritage) and UbiqUM (Ubiquitous User Modeling) workshops series and published over 200 scientific papers. Tsvi was a PC member of numerous conferences and workshops, was the General Chair of ACM IUI 2014 and 2017, is the Chair-Elect of the ACM SIGCHI IUI community, and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist.

For more information on Tsvi, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
Tsvi Kuflik's Digital Library author page

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

IEEE-CS and ACM are sharing 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

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 new chapters that were chartered December 5, 2018 to January 3, 2019:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • PCE ACM Student Chapter, Priyadarshini College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
  • Qarshi University ACM Student Chapter, Lahore, Pakistan
  • SDSU ACM Student Chapter, San Diego State University, California
  • SICSR ACM-W Student Chapter, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Pune, India
  • Southeastern Louisiana University ACM-W Student Chapter, Hammond
  • University of Shumen ACM Student Chapter, Shumen, Bulgaria
  • Vel Tech ACM Student Chapter, Chennai, India
  • VIT Bhopal ACM Student Chapter, Vellore Institute of Technology, Sehore, India

ACM Professional Chapters:

  • Korea ACM SIGAPP Chapter, Seoul
  • Valparaíso ACM SIGCHI Chapter, Valparaíso, Chile

ACM-W NEWS

Ukrainian Celebration of Women in Computing Inspires Tech Girls to Dream

The third Ukrainian Celebration of Women in Computing was held December 1-7, 2018 in Kyiv with various activities taking place during the week. The Celebration began with a STEM Weekend for girls which included the Hour of Code and other coding and mentoring opportunities for the girls. All girls went home with new ideas and big dreams inspired by the female student leaders.

Events later in the week included chat sessions (on-site as well as remote) with successful women in IT, who shared their career and personal experiences thus motivating the participants. Also, a student project contest was held where students took an idea from start to prototype. Attendees enjoyed a visit to the Museum of Popular Science. The theme of the conference was "Yes You Can!" and everyone left inspired and motivated.

If you would like more information on Celebrations or would like to organize an event in your area, please contact Wendy Powley, Chair of the Celebrations Committee. International Celebrations are encouraged and welcomed!

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: local celebrations, scholarships and awards, chapters, and more.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

ACM Books Series Seeking New Editor-in-Chief

Nominations are invited for Editor-in-Chief of ACM Books, to serve for a three-year term beginning May 1, 2019. The ACM Publications Board relies on the EIC to ensure that the content of ACM Books is of high quality and that the editorial process is both timely and fair. Nominations should include a brief statement as to why the nominee should be considered, and a short statement of the candidate's vision for the future development of ACM Books (self-nominations are welcomed). Please send all nominations by January 31 to [email protected] or [email protected]. For more information see the announcement on the ACM Books home page.

ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems Welcomes New Editor-in-Chief

ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS) Welcomes Deming Chen as its new Editor-in-Chief for the term starting March 1, 2019, and ending February 28, 2022. Deming is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as a Research Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory and an Affiliate Professor in the CS department at UIUC.

New Journals ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice, ACM Transactions on Data Science, ACM Transactions on Internet of Things, ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare and Digital Government: Research and Practice Accepting Submissions

ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice (DTRAP) targets the prevention, identification, mitigation, and elimination of digital threats, aiming to bridge the gap between academic research and industry practice. It is accepting submissions on extant digital threats, rather than laboratory models of potential threats.

ACM Transactions on Data Science (TDS) includes cross-disciplinary innovative research ideas, algorithms, systems, theory and applications on data science, including data cleaning, transformation, representation, integration, indexing, modeling, analysis, visualization, and interpretation while retaining privacy, fairness, provenance, transparency, and provision of social benefit, within the context of big data.

ACM Transactions on Internet of Things (TIOT) publishes novel research contributions and experience reports in several research domains whose synergy and interrelations enable the IoT vision. TIOT focuses on system designs, end-to-end architectures, and enabling technologies, and on publishing results and insights corroborated by a strong experimental component.

ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (HEALTH) is a multi-disciplinary journal publishing papers that have scientific and technological results pertaining to how computing is improving healthcare.

Digital Government: Research and Practice (DGOV) is an interdisciplinary journal on the potential and impact of technology on governance innovations and its transformation of public institutions.

ACM Queue Presents: "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Blockchain Universe"

Bitcoin and other digital currencies have made "blockchain" practically a household word, yet most still don't really understand it. In this article for ACM Queue, Jim Waldo of Harvard University explains how blockchain works: the individual components, how those components fit together, problems with blockchain, and what changes might be made to solve some of those problems.

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