ACM MemberNet - May 31, 2007
Welcome to the May 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 MemberNet online at http://membernet.acm.org/
Member Benefits
- ACM's New Online Books and Courses Program: What's Inside
- Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan
- Sharing Value of ACM Membership Has Its Rewards
Conferences and Events - Automotive Theme Drives Design Automation Conference
- Special Sessions at FCRC to Focus on Long-Term Research and Ethics
Public Policy - ACM, Microsoft Hold Capitol Hill Briefing on Botnets
- Bar Association and ACM to Host Conference on Computing and the Law
Publications News - New Oral History Interview in Digital Library: Jean Sammet, ACM President, 1974 to 1976
- Special ACM 60th Anniversary Section in Communications
- ACM Transactions on the Web Now in Digital Library
- ACM Queue Taps Two Open Source Thought Leaders for Queuecast
- ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage Call for Papers
- ACM Seeks Missing SIG Newsletters for Digital Library
Education - Call for Community Review of Computing Curricula 2001: Computer Science
Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) News - CSTA/ISTE Computer Science & IT Symposium, June 28
- Careers Brochure Highlights Computing Opportunities for Middle School Students
- New CSTA Database on Teacher Certification Requirements
Student News - Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate
- Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
- ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
- Apply for Scholarships to Attend Tapia Conference
- Student Volunteers Needed to Help Teach High School CS Teachers
- Career Options Bright for 2007 ACM ICPC Winners
Awards - Student Research Competition Grand Finals winners
- Call for ACM Senior Member, Distinguished Engineer/Scientist/Member, Fellows Nominations
- ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
Chapters News - Welcome New ACM Chapters
ACM in the News - "DAC Survey Results: A New Perspective on EDA?"
- "USACM Urges Revisions to National Identification Policy"
Member Benefits
ACM's New Online Books and Courses Program: What's Inside
ACM is now offering 2,200 online technology and business courses from SkillSoft, and ACM Professional and Student Members are responding enthusiastically. The most popular ACM Online Courses in the technology area thus far are:- Linux and Unix
- Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with UML
- Security
- Oracle 10g
- Microsoft technologies, including Vista and C#
600 Free Online Books from Safari; 500 Books from Books24x7
ACM has thoroughly updated its e-book offerings. ACM Professional Members now have access to 600 selections from Safari® Books Online. Safari includes a large collection of quality tutorial/reference book classics and bestsellers, from O'Reilly, Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall PTR, Sams, Que, New Riders, Microsoft Press, and other publishers. The e-book collection includes more recent Safari books, and some of the most widely-used references, such as:- O'Reilly's popular Head First and Nutshell series
- Addison Wesley classics, such as Software Architecture by Bass and Clements; UML Distilled by Fowler; and Extreme/Agile Programming books by Beck and Robert Martin
- The Prentice Hall bestseller Applying UML by Craig Larman
Student Members as well as Professional Members also have access to 500 online books from Books24x7®, including titles by leading authors from key publishers Wiley, Wrox, McGraw-Hill, Microsoft Press, and Jossey Bass.
Visit the Online Books and Courses home page for more information.
Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan
ACM Professional Members can enjoy the convenience of making a single payment for their entire tenure as an ACM Member, and also be protected from future price increases by taking advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership option. Pricing for ACM Lifetime Membership is based on age and current dues rates, and the option to include the ACM Digital Library is also available. ACM Lifetime Membership dues may be tax deductible under certain circumstances (please consult with your tax advisor).
Sharing Value of ACM Membership Has Its Rewards
ACM's 2006/2007 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive runs through June 30, 2007. For referral forms, recruitment tips and tools, prizes and rewards, and bonus gifts, visit the Member-Get-A-Member Drive page.
Conferences and Events
Automotive Theme Drives Design Automation Conference
The Design Automation Conference (DAC), the premier conference for electronic design automation, will take place June 4 to 8 in San Diego, California. A special session will focus on automotive electronics, and keynote speaker Lawrence Burns of GM will give a talk on "Designing a New Automotive DNA." Another keynote will be given by Samsung Semiconductor System LSI Division President Oh-hyun Kwon, who will talk about the challenges facing the semiconductor industry as prices fall and costs rise. University of California, Berkeley electrical engineering and computer science professor Jan M. Rabaey will give a keynote on "Design without Borders--A Tribute to the Legacy of A. Richard Newton." The conference includes paper presentations, tutorials, panels, exhibits, and a Wild and Crazy Ideas session, and is sponsored in part by SIGDA, ACM’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation.
Special Sessions at FCRC to Focus on Long-Term Research and Ethics
The 2007 Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC), to be held June 9 to 16 in San Diego, California, brings together 16 affiliated conferences, facilitating communication among researchers in different fields in Computer Science and Engineering. To date, these are:- COLT 2007: 20th Annual Conference on Learning Theory
- CRA-W 2007: CRA-W Mentoring Workshop
- EC 2007: The Eighth ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce
- EXPERIMENTAL CS 2007: Workshop on Experimental Computer Science
- HOPL-III: The Third ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages Conference
- IEEE Complexity 2007: IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity
- ISCA 2007: International Symposium on Computer Architecture
- LCTES 2007: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- PADS 2007: Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation Workshop
- PASTE 2007: ACM SIGPLAN-SIGSOFT Workshop on Program Analysis for Software Tools and Engineering
- PLAS 2007: Programming Languages and Analysis for Security Workshop
- PLDI 2007: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation
- SIGMETRICS 2007: International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems
- SPAA 2007: ACM Annual Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures
- STOC 2007: Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing
- VEE 2007: International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments
Public Policy
ACM, Microsoft Hold Capitol Hill Briefing on Botnets
In April, ACM and Microsoft cosponsored a Capitol Hill briefing about the growing threat of botnets, malicious software installed on computers, which are then under the control of "botmasters" and often used to facilitate Internet fraud and abuse. Senators Mark Pryor (D-Oklahoma) and Bob Bennett(R-Utah) opened the discussion with remarks about how the Internet is increasingly integrated into society and how computer security is an ever-increasing arms race with new exploits that are always circumventing the security upgrades. The three security experts at the briefing included USACM member Ed Felten, who described how botnets form, how they are used and how they can be combated; Phil Reitinger, Director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Department, who described how the industry must constantly deal with short-term patches to address the latest threats; and Scott O'Neal of the FBI's Computer Intrusion unit, who described how the agency combats these networks. For more information, read the Washington Update.
Bar Association and ACM to Host Conference on Computing and the Law
A new conference organized by the American Bar Association and ACM will explore the impact of computing technologies on intellectual property, criminal justice, and business law. The National Institute on Computing and the Law: From Steps to Strides into the New Age will take place June 25 to 26 in San Francisco, California. Topics include privacy protection, government surveillance, computer and Internet crime, DRM and copyright, computer forensics, and the monitoring of employee communications. Panelists and speakers include Ruzena Bajcsy, a University of California, Berkeley professor and winner of ACM’s 2003 Distinguished Service Award; Whitfield Diffie, a Vice President at Sun Microsystems and winner of ACM’s 1996 Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award; Edward Felten, Director of the Center for Information Technology and Policy at Princeton University; Cameron Wilson, Director of ACM’s Public Policy Office, and Barbara Simons, former ACM President. ACM Members will receive the same tuition discount ($700 instead of the regular $875 fee) as ABA Criminal Justice Section members.
Publications News
New Oral History Interview in Digital Library: Jean Sammet, ACM President, 1974 to 1976
The newest in the Digital Library's collection of Oral History Interviews from the ACM History Committee is a series of interviews with Jean Sammet, President of ACM from 1974 to 1976, by Tim Bergin. Sammet recounts her many activities with ACM: forming the Special Interest Group on Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation (SIGSAM); chairing SIGPLAN; her involvement with chapter activities as a regional representative; serving as a member of Council; serving as Vice President; and finally President of ACM. Also of interest is her role as Editor in Chief of Computing Reviews in automating its production and that of the Guide to Computing Literature, as well as updating ACM’s Classification System. The dialogue gives a candid, insightful, and educational picture of ACM’s development during some crucial transitional years. Read the interview in the Digital Library.
Special ACM 60th Anniversary Section in Communications
A special section of the May issue of Communications of the ACM commemorating ACM’s 60th anniversary is freely available online in the ACM Digital Library in both HTML and PDF formats. Share it with your colleagues, so that they can read about ACM’s contributions to the growth and development of computing and its societal impact.
ACM Transactions on the Web Now in Digital Library
Transactions on the Web (TWEB) is a new ACM journal covering research on Web content, applications, use, and related enabling technologies. Topics include browsers and Web interfaces; electronic commerce; electronic publishing; hypertext and hypermedia; semantic Web; Web engineering; Web services; and service-oriented computing XML. In addition, broader technologies relating to the Web are accessibility; knowledge management and representation; mobility and pervasive computing; performance and scalability; recommender systems; searching, indexing, classification, retrieval and querying; data mining and analysis; security and privacy; and user interfaces. To see the debut May issue, visit the home page in the Digital Library.
ACM Queue Taps Two Open Source Thought Leaders for Queuecast
Recently ACM Queue was lucky enough to sit down with two thought leaders in open source and open content publishing, sci-fi author Cory Doctorow and Sun VP Hal Stern. Doctorow has progressive views on file sharing and copyright, and distributes his books for free online under the Creative Commons license. He is also co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing. Stern has been with Sun for 17 years in a number of leadership roles, including the recent open sourcing of the Solaris operating system. In a lively conversation, the two discuss issues such as open source, identity management, and privacy and trust. The audio of the discussion is available for download as part of Queue's growing library of Queuecasts.
ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage Call for Papers
ACM's new Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH) is seeking papers on the use of information and communications technology in support of Cultural Heritage, such as on-site and remotely sensed data collection; metadata, classification schema, ontologies and semantic processing; and intelligent tools for digital reconstruction. Visit the JOCCH Web site for more information.
ACM Seeks Missing SIG Newsletters for Digital Library
ACM is seeking to complete its Digital Library archive of Special Interest Group (SIG) newsletters. Please review the spreadsheet of missing SIG newsletter issues and, if you have any of the ones on the list, contact Craig Rodkin with your list and for shipping details. Be sure to let Craig know if you'd like the newsletters returned to you.
Education
Call for Community Review of Computing Curricula 2001: Computer Science
The ACM Education Board and the IEEE Computer Society have launched the Interim Review of the 2001 Computing Curriculum for Computer Science (CC2001). A Web site has been created to capture community comments and contributions. The review period extends to June 30, 2007. In 2001 the Computer Science volume was published as the first in a series of five curriculum guidelines that became known as the Computing Curricula Series. To provide timely guidance to the community in the fast-changing computing field, ACM and IEEE-CS directed that an interim review of each volume be conducted after approximately five years.
Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) News
CSTA/ISTE Computer Science & IT Symposium, June 28
The Computer Science and Information Technology Symposium, hosted by CSTA and ISTE, is a professional development opportunity for Computer Science, Information Technology, and Computing Applications teachers who need practical, relevant information to help them prepare their students for the future. The symposium will be held June 28 in Atlanta, Georgia. Speakers will address topics such as robotics-driven learning, troubleshooting the lab, using 3D animation to teach introductory programming, and dynamic Web development.
Careers Brochure Highlights Computing Opportunities for Middle School Students
CSTA has created a new brochure for middle school students and their parents that provides key information about opportunities in computing. The colorful brochure invites students to "Imagine Your Future in Computing" and helps them to make connections between the technologies they use every day and the courses and the career opportunities available to them. It is available for download here.
New CSTA Database on Teacher Certification Requirements
In order to provide CSTA members with easy-to-access information regarding Computer Science teacher certification and endorsement requirements across the US, CSTA has established a database. This information is available only to CSTA members, and login is required with your CSTA member number. Members will have access to a summary table of all state certification information, as well as information for individual states.
Student News
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. 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, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form.
Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
ACM Student Research Competitions take place at ACM-sponsored conferences throughout the year. The following Student Research Competitions have open calls for participation. Undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts by the stated deadlines. Students must have valid ACM membership at the time of submission.- Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, October 14-17
Submission deadline: June 22, 2007 - SIGGRAPH 2007 (Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques), August 5-8
Submission deadline: TBD - OOPSLA 2007 (Object-Oriented Programming), October 21-25
Submission deadline: July 2, 2007 - ASSETS (Computers and Accessibility), October 14-17
Submission deadline: July 13, 2007 - MOBICOM (Mobile Computing and Networking), September 9-14
Submission deadline: August 10
A program launched by ACM's Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W) provides support for undergraduate or graduate women students in Computer Science programs who are interested in attending research conferences. It is not required that the student present a paper at the conference she attends. High school students will also be considered for conference support. Initially, up to 12 scholarships of up to $500 each will be awarded annually. ACM-W also encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within her department. Applications will be evaluated in four groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences, with two to three awards given each quarter. For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.
Apply for Scholarships to Attend Tapia Conference
Faculty and students have until June 11 to apply for scholarships to attend the 2007 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Organized by the Coalition to Diversify Computing, the conference is scheduled for October 14 to 17 in Orlando, Florida. ACM is a co-sponsor of this year's gathering, which has the theme, "Passion in Computing--Diversity in Innovation." Detailed information about applying can be found on the scholarships page.
Student Volunteers Needed to Help Teach High School CS Teachers
The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is seeking Computer Science college students proficient in Java and other new programming languages and environments to train high school CS teachers in these technologies. Java Engagement for Teacher Training (JETT) and Teacher Enrichment in Computer Science (TECS) are one- and two-day workshops for high school teachers, hosted by college and university CS students and faculty. Hosting a JETT or TECS workshop is a great volunteer experience for individual student ACM members, as well as student chapters. For more information please contact Jennifer Wroblewski, the JETT and TECS workshop coordinator.
Career Options Bright for 2007 ACM ICPC Winners
The coach for Warsaw University, the first place team in this year's ACM Intercollegiate Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), reported that his team members received a variety of promising scientific and business offers from organizations in Poland as well as abroad. In a brief survey of team coaches for selected top finishers in this year's ICPC, Jan Madey noted that members of Warsaw's teams, which have advanced to the ICPC finals every years since 1994, had "no problem" in finding interesting jobs in Poland. He added that "the door is open" for them almost anywhere in the world should they want to go abroad for employment. Similar responses were reported by coaches for two U.S. universities that finished among the leaders in the ICPC World Finals in Tokyo in March. Read more about the winning teams’ strategies and views.
Awards
Student Research Competition Grand Finals Winners
The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), sponsored by Microsoft Research, offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. There are two rounds of competition at each conference hosting an SRC and a Grand Finals competition. All undergraduate and graduate student winners from the SRCs held during the year advance to the SRC Grand Finals, where they are evaluated by a different panel of judges via the Web.
This year’s SRC Grand Finals winners are, in the Graduate Division: Eugene Borodin, Stony Brook University (SUNY), Emerson Murphy-Hill, Portland State University, and Bowen Hui, University of Toronto; and in the Undergraduate Division: Erica Yuan-Ting Huang, University of British Columbia, Anselm Grundhoefer, Bauhaus University, Germany, and Maria Kazandjieva, Princeton University. They are invited, along with their advisors, to the annual ACM Awards Banquet, where they will receive formal recognition.
Call for ACM Senior Member, Distinguished Engineer/Scientist/Member, Fellows Nominations
ACM now has three member grades to recognize achievement:
Senior Member recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated performance and accomplishment that set them apart from their peers. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The next deadline for nominations is August 31, 2007.
The Distinguished Engineer/Scientist/Member designation recognizes ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated significant accomplishments or made a significant impact on the computing field. The deadline for nominations is July 31, 2007.
Fellows are outstanding ACM members with at least 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who are recognized for their technical, professional and leadership contributions that advance the objectives of ACM and the field as a whole. The deadline for nominations is September 9, 2007.
ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in more than 30 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented at recent conferences were:
SIGACT Knuth Prize
SIGACT Gödel Prize
SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award
SIGMETRICS Achievement Award
SIGMIS Magid Igbaria Award
SIGSOFT Outstanding Research and Distinguished Service Awards
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 have been chartered since January 2007:
ACM Professional Chapters:- Moscow, Russia (SIGPLAN chapter)
- Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham-Amirtapuri Campus, Kerala, India
- D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Mumbai, India
- R.V.R & J.C. College of Engineering, Guntur, India
- Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus, Turkey
- PAF - Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology, Pakistan
- Cal Poly Pomona, California
- Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven
- Shorter College, Rome, Georgia
- Saint Xavier University, Chicago, Illinois
- Grove City College, Pennsylvania
- Francis Marion University, Florence, South Carolina
- West Texas A&M University, Canyon
- Tyler Junior College, Tyler, Texas
- ITT Technical Institute/Webster, Texas
- University of Oklahoma, Norman (ACM-W student chapter)
- Norfolk State University, Virginia (ACM-W student chapter)
ACM in the News
"DAC Survey Results: A New Perspective on EDA?"
Electronic Design, May 21, 2007
DAC survey shows increased attendance, exhibitors for past three years of Design Automation Conference, boding well for future of electronic design industry.
"USACM Urges Revisions to National Identification Policy"
AScribe Newswire, May 8, 2007
ACM's U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) issued a series of recommendations on May 8, citing serious flaws in the nation's Real ID Act.
Read more ACM in the News.
Copyright © 2007, ACM, Inc.