ACM MemberNet - March 26, 2009

Welcome to the March edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read current and past issues of MemberNet online at http://membernet.acm.org/. Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email mn-editor at acm.org.

Read TechNews, ACM's digest of news and information for IT professionals published three times a week.

Washington Update, a monthly newsletter from USACM reporting on activities in Washington.

Published biweekly, ACM CareerNews provides summaries of articles on career-related topics in the computing field.

ACM-W newsletter (pdf) from ACM's Women's Council


TOP STORIES
  • Barbara Liskov, Creator of Influential Innovations in Computer Software Design, Receives ACM Turing Award
  • ACM Awards Recognize Innovators in Computer Science
  • David Patterson to Speak at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in April
  • New acmqueue Web Site Launches

    Awards
  • Call for Nominations for New ACM - IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
  • ACM Fellow Larry Constantine Receives Stevens Award
  • ACM-W Athena Lecturer Deborah Estrin Elected to National Academy of Engineering

    Member Recognition
  • Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations

    SIG Awards
  • ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields

    Conferences and Events
  • Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Offers Networking Opportunities
  • CHI 2009 Explores Digital Life
  • CPSWeek 2009 Incorporates Workshops on Real-Time, Sensor Network, and Hybrid Systems Technologies
  • STOC 2009 Symposium on Theory of Computing to Feature Athena Lecturer
  • Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference Now Accepting Submissions
  • Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Now Accepting Scholarship Applications
  • SC09 Technical Program to Focus on Bio-computing, Environment, 3D Internet
  • SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Call for Participation

    Public Policy
  • ACM Joins CRA, NCWIT in Urging Congress to Broaden Program Aimed at Improving IT Education, R&D

    Member Programs
  • ACM Member-Get-A-Member 2008–2009 Campaign
  • ACM Adds Four Offerings to Insurance Program
  • Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan

    Online Books & Courses
  • ACM Online Courses Program Moves to New Vendor March 30

    Career & Job Center
  • Revamped ACM Career & Job Center Launches

    Student News
  • New ACM Student Academic Initiative Program Offers Student Members Free Access to Software and Courseware
  • Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
  • ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
  • Student Volunteers Needed to Help Train High School CS Teachers
  • Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate

    Chapters News
  • Welcome New ACM Chapters

    ACM-W News
  • Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing Draws Record Crowd
  • ACM-W Ambassador's Report: Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day

    Publications News
  • ACM Transactions on Computation Theory Debuts
  • First issue of ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality to Offer Free Access to Articles
  • Seeking Editors-in-Chief: ACM Transactions on Computational Logic and
    ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage
  • Communications of the ACM Reports: The Changing Human Relationship with Computers
  • First ACM Queue Case Study Section Focuses on Rich Internet Application Using AJAX
  • interactions Reports: Who Can You Trust in the Digital Age?

    ACM in the News
  • "Experts See Shortfall in Cybersecurity Research"
  • "Survey Suggests Economy Could Lead to Cybercrime Increase"
  • "Tech to Cure Crop Failure and Look Inside Einstein's Mind?"
     
    TOP STORIES

    Barbara Liskov, Creator of Influential Innovations in Computer Software Design, Receives ACM Turing Award
    ACM has named Barbara Liskov of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the winner of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award. The award cites Liskov for her foundational innovations to designing and building the pervasive computer system designs that power daily life. Her achievements in programming language design have made software more reliable and easier to maintain. They are now the basis of every important programming language since 1975, including Ada, C++, Java, and C#. The Turing Award, widely considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing," is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing. The award carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc. For more information, please visit the Turing Award page. Listen to an interview with Liskov on National Public Radio's Science Friday program.

    ACM Awards Recognize Innovators in Computer Science
    ACM has announced the winners of five prestigious awards honoring innovations in computing technology that benefit society through their profound impact on the way we live and work. The awards reflect outstanding achievements that have led to advances in constructing intelligent machines, more efficient database management, interdisciplinary applications of Computer Science, more reliable software, and field-defining textbooks. The 2008 ACM awards honor practiced innovators as well as promising newcomers in the computing arena:
    • Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award: Corinna Cortes and Vladimir Vapnik
    • Software System Award: The Gamma Parallel Database System
    • ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award: Barbara Grosz and Joseph Y. Halpern
    • Grace Murray Hopper Award: Dawson Engler
    • Karl V. Karlstom Outstanding Educator Award: John Hopcroft
    Read the press release.

    David Patterson to Speak at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in April
    Former ACM President David Patterson will give a lecture on "The Parallel Revolution Has Started: Are You Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on April 8. Patterson is Director of University of California, Berkeley's Parallel Computing Laboratory (Par Lab) and of the UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory (RAD Lab). A live video stream will be activated at the time of the event. For more information, please visit the Parallel@Illinois Distinguished Lecture Series web site.

    New acmqueue Web Site Launches
    ACM's renowned acmqueue magazine has now moved completely online with expanded content (print, audio, video, RSS), increased frequency of fresh content and more direct engagement with the experts behind the issues. By asking the right questions, acmqueue is the only publication that identifies and analyzes the opportunities and challenges presented by new and current technologies. acmqueue is guided and written by distinguished and widely known industry experts. The expanded web site offers more content and unique features such as: planet queue blogs by queue authors who "unlock" important content from the ACM Digital Library and provide commentary; videos; downloadable audio content; CTO Roundtable discussions; plus unique acmqueue Case Studies. Additionally, starting with the May issue of Communications of the ACM (CACM), a selection of some of the best acmqueue articles will be printed in the Practice Section there.
     
    Awards

    Call for Nominations for New ACM - IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
    The new ACM - IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award recognizes substantial contributions to programmability and productivity in computing and substantial community service or mentoring contributions. The award honors the substantial research, service, and mentoring contributions of the late Ken Kennedy, the founder of Rice University's computer science program and one of the world's foremost experts on high-performance computing. The first presentation of this award will be in November 2009 at the SC 09 conference. The award is open to contributors at all stages of their careers. The winner of the award should be someone who has made an outstanding, innovative contribution or contributions to programming and productivity in computing, and has also contributed to computing through teaching, mentoring, or community service. Anyone may nominate. The award includes a $5,000 honorarium. The recipient will give a presentation, normally technical, at the SC conference at which it is announced, or at an ACM or IEEE conference of the winner's choosing during the year following the announcement. The deadline for nominations is July 1. Nominations that follow the guidelines on the Award Nominations page should be sent to the attention of the Kennedy Award Chair (see contact information under heading, "2008 Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members").

    ACM Fellow Larry Constantine Receives Stevens Award
    ACM Fellow and Distinguished Engineer Larry Constantine has received the Stevens Award. The award, managed by the Reengineering Forum (REF), recognizes "outstanding contributions to the literature or practice of methods for software and systems development," and is named in memory of Wayne Stevens (1944–1993), a highly-respected consultant, author, pioneer, and advocate of the practical application of software methods and tools. Constantine is Chief Scientist with Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd., the international design consultancy he co-founded, and Director of the Laboratory for Usage-centered Software Engineering (LabUSE) a research and development initiative at the University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal, where he is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Engineering. He will deliver the Stevens Lecture on Software Development Methods at the Systems & Software Technology Conference on April 21.

    ACM-W Athena Lecturer Deborah Estrin Elected to National Academy of Engineering
    Deborah Estrin, the first ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award recipient, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Estrin is a professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Estrin, the founding director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing at UCLA, is the first female faculty member from UCLA to be elected to the academy. She was one of four women elected this year, making her one of only 104 female academy members. The National Academy of Engineering includes 2,246 U.S. members and 197 foreign associates. Academy membership recognizes those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education.
    UCLA press release
     
    Member Recognition

    Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations
    The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated performance and accomplishment that set them apart from their peers. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is June 1.


    SIG Awards

    ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
    ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in more than 30 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at recent conferences:
    Conferences and Events

    Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Offers Networking Opportunities
    The Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing (Tapia 2009) will focus on the four "I"s: Intellect, Initiatives, Insight, and Innovations. The conference, scheduled for April 1 to 4 in Portland, Oregon, aims to provide a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure. Rice University professor Richard Tapia, for whom the conference is named, is the director of the Empowering Leadership (EL) Alliance, an organization that aims to provide minority students with a community of support as they pursue their degrees. Students especially are encouraged to attend and interact with national leaders in computing from business and academia. Papers, panels, workshops, birds-of-a-feather sessions, a doctoral consortium, a robotics competition, and a Student Research Compeition will address technical issues as well as topics related to diversity.

    CHI 2009 Explores Digital Life
    CHI 2009, the conference on Computer-Human Interaction sponsored by ACM SIGCHI, will bring together the Design, Engineering and User Experience communities in Boston April 4 to 9. CHI will explore the technologies, designs and ideas that will form the new world of digital life, and the many ways computing can improve life throughout the world. Judith Olson of the University of California at Irvine will deliver the opening plenary. Courses, paper presentations and panels will cover topics as diverse as "Giving Children a Voice in the Design of Technology"; "User Experience in Open Source"; social networking; "Classifying and Recommending Content"; and "Mobile Applications for the Developing World". The closing plenary will be "Dreaming of the Impossible," by Kees Overbeeke, of Eindhoven University of Technology.

    CPSWeek 2009 Incorporates Workshops on Real-Time, Sensor Network, and Hybrid Systems Technologies
    CPSWeek 2009 is scheduled for April 13 to 15 in San Francisco, California, with workshops and tutorials following on April 16. CPSWeek brings together three leading conferences: the IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN) and the Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC). In addition, several workshops and tutorials on various aspects of research and development of cyber-physical systems will take place. Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) integrate computation, communication and storage capabilities with the monitoring and/or control of the physical and engineering systems. Such systems must be operated safely, dependably, securely, efficiently and in real-time. It has been well-recognized that CPS will have great technical, economic and societal impacts in the near future.

    STOC 2009 Symposium on Theory of Computing to Feature Athena Lecturer
    The 41st ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2009), sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), will be held in Bethesda, Maryland May 31 to June 2, with a welcome reception and a celebration/workshop in honor of Prof. Leslie Valiant's 60th birthday on May 30. The Athena Lecture by 2008/09 winner Shafi Goldwasser will also be presented at STOC, the premier ACM conference on the foundations of Computer Science.

    2009 Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference Now Accepting Submissions
    The 19th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, slated for June 1 to 4, 2009 in Washington, DC, is the leading policy conference exploring the impact of the internet, computers, and communications technologies on society. For more than a decade, CFP has anticipated policy trends and issues and has shaped the public debate on the future of privacy and freedom in an ever more technology-filled world. CFP focuses on topics such as freedom of speech, privacy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, telecommunications, electronic democracy, digital rights and responsibilities, and the future of technologies and their implications. Panels, workshop sessions, and other events will address topics including:
    • National security and privacy: what's next?
    • The future of medical records
    • The future of Moore's aw and its implications
    • The Crypto Wars revisited: lessons for tomorrow
    • Global companies, local laws: EU and US privacy
    • Artificial intelligence and privacy
    • Online ads and behavioral targeting
    Acceptance of submissions will close at 5 p.m. EDT April 3. For more information please visit the CFP Research Showcase page.

    Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Now Accepting Scholarship Applications
    The 9th Annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI), is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The 2009 Grace Hopper Celebration will take place from September 30 to October 3, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona. This year's theme, "Creating Technology for Social Good," recognizes the significant role women play in defining technology used to solve social issues. Scholarship applications are now being accepted; the deadline is May 27. Registration opens June 1, and online hotel reservations are now available.

    SC09 Technical Program to Focus on Bio-computing, Environment, 3D Internet
    The SC09 Conference, scheduled for November 14 to 20 in Portland, Oregon, will focus on the role of high-performance computing (HPC) in biological sciences, environmental sustainability, and the emerging three-dimensional Internet. The Bio-Computing Focus Area will examine research that uses HPC to solve problems in the behaviors of genes and proteins that can trigger cancers or other serious diseases. The Sustainability Focus Area will explore how to maintain environmental quality, how to develop and deploy renewable and clean energy, and how to improve the energy efficiency of businesses, data centers, and homes. The 3D Internet Focus Area will examine how 3D visualization and immersive environments such as Second Life are changing how people communicate, share information, educate students, and explore scientific problems. Technical papers, exhibits, tutorials, panels, and discussion forums will comprise SC09, the premier international conference on High Performance Computing (HPC), networking, storage and analysis. Submissions for papers, tutorials, workshops and panels are due April 6. For more deadlines and information on participation, please visit the Call for Papers page (pdf) for the conference.

    SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Call for Participation
    The second SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 conference follows a very successful inaugural conference last year, where researchers, developers, producers, and providers of computer graphics and interactive techniques found a new international venue in which to newtork and share ideas. The 2009 conference, which will take place December 16 to 19 in Yokohama, Japan, is accepting proposals for its Art Gallery; Computer Animation Festival; Courses; Educators, Emerging Techologies, and Student Internship programs; sketches and posters; and papers. Most submission deadlines are in May and June; visit the SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 web site for more information.
     
    Public Policy

    ACM Joins CRA, NCWIT in Urging Congress to Broaden Program Aimed at Improving IT Education, R&D
    ACM, the Computing Research Association (CRA), and National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) are working to improve the profile of Computer Science education efforts as part of the federal government's Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program. NITRD spans several government agencies to coordinate investments in information technology (IT) research and development. ACM, CRA, and NCWIT sent a letter to Congress earlier this month commenting on the draft of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2009, making specific recommendations on how the bill can be improved, and suggestions on how NITRD can be used to address Computer Science education issues, specifically at the K–12 level. The letter aims to strengthen the pipeline by expanding, better utilizing, and coordinating existing education efforts within the NITRD program.
     
    Member Programs

    ACM Member-Get-A-Member 2008–2009 Campaign
    ACM recently launched its new 2008–2009 Member-Get-A-Member Recruitment Drive, with new prizes added to our already great selection, and an Apple iPhone grand prize! Current members are the ideal ambassadors to communicate the advantages of joining ACM to prospective members, and those who participate by telling friends and colleagues about ACM may be eligible for valuable gifts and special recognition. ACM's Online Member-Get-A-Member program is interactive, easy to use, and rewards members for helping to recruit new members. The drive ends June 30, 2009. For referral forms, recruitment tips and tools, prizes and rewards, and bonus gifts, visit the Member-Get-a-Member drive page.

    ACM Adds Four Offerings to Insurance Program
    ACM has added four plans to the ACM Insurance Program. The new offerings are Group 10 or 20 Year Level Term Life Insurance, Long Term Care, and Group Dental Insurance. ACM members living in the US are eligible. Visit the insurance page to learn more about these programs, and all of ACM's Insurance Program plans.

    Take Advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership Plan
    ACM Professional Members can enjoy the convenience of making a single payment for their entire tenure as an ACM Member, and also be protected from future price increases by taking advantage of ACM's Lifetime Membership option. Pricing for ACM Lifetime Membership is based on age and current dues rates, and the option to include the ACM Digital Library is also available. ACM Lifetime Membership dues may be tax deductible under certain circumstances (please consult with your tax advisor). Lifetime Members will receive a certificate of recognition suitable for framing, and enjoy all of the benefits of ACM Professional Membership.
     
    Online Books & Courses

    ACM Online Courses Program Moves to New Vendor March 30
    On March 30, ACM will change to our new course vendor. If you are planning to take any SkillSoft courses and/or use any reference material from the SkillSoft Learning Management System (LMS), please note that the SkillSoft LMS will be available through March 29th, 2009. As we are changing course providers, your current course history unfortunately cannot be saved, so please print out all certificates of completion that you may need. For more information, please visit the ACM Online Courses Page.
     
    Career & Job Center

    Revamped ACM Career & Job Center Launches
    ACM's Career & Job Center now has a new look. ACM's Job Board re-launches March 27 with new and updated graphics and easier-to-navigate categories for both job seekers and employers. In an effort to provide the most up-to-date functionality to job seekers, the site includes an advanced resumé data parsing system that allows users to simply upload their resumé as a Word or PDF document. Whether you are an active job seeker or just like to keep abreast of what's available in the computing industry and academia, be sure to visit ACM's Job Board to post your resumé in the Resumé Bank and view job openings. For more information, please contact Jennifer Ruzicka.
     
    Student News

    New ACM Student Academic Initiative Program Offers Student Members Free Access to Software and Courseware
    ACM has developed relationships with several partners to offer valuable tools specifically for ACM Student Members. At no additional cost, Student Members can access free software and courseware from leading technology companies. Participating partners include Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and CA. The program offers the unique opportunity for Student Members to access top resources, while also becoming part of the larger computing community. Program highlights include: the Microsoft Developer Academic Alliance with unlimited access to 100+ software packages and the Developer AA Public Forum; the Sun Academic Initiative eLearning Portal, offering a full compliment of free courseware; and the CA Academic Initiative, which includes access to complimentary CA software, including the CA ERwin Data Modeler Community Edition. For more information, please visit the ACM Student Academic Initiatives (SAI) page.

    Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions Call for Submissions
    ACM Student Research Competitions take place at ACM-sponsored conferences throughout the year. Students present their papers in poster sessions to compete for the Grand Finals prizes, and network with luminaries from academia and industry. Hypertext 2009 is the next conference accepting submissions. The deadline is April 30. Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

    ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
    A program launched by the ACM Women's Council (ACM-W) provides support for undergraduate or graduate women students in Computer Science programs who are interested in attending research conferences. It is not required that the student present a paper at the conference she attends. High school students will also be considered for conference support. Initially, up to 12 scholarships of up to $500 each will be awarded annually. ACM-W also encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within her department. Applications will be evaluated in four groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences, with two to three awards given each quarter. For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

    Student Volunteers Needed to Help Teach High School CS Teachers
    The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is seeking Computer Science college students proficient in Java and other new programming languages and environments to train high school CS teachers in these technologies. Java Engagement for Teacher Training (JETT) and Teacher Enrichment in Computer Science (TECS) are one- and two-day workshops for high school teachers, hosted by college and university CS students and faculty. Hosting a JETT or TECS workshop is a great volunteer experience for individual student ACM members, as well as student chapters. For more information please contact Gail Chapman, the JETT and TECS workshop coordinator.

    Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate
    ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including free online books and courses and access to ACM's Career & Job Center. This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special transition offer through ACM's convenient online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.
     
    Chapters News

    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 December 2008:

    ACM Student Chapters:
    • Colby College, Maine
    • Florida State University ACM-W, Tallahassee
    • Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, Georgia
    • Seattle University, Washington
    • Texas State University, San Marcos
    • The College of New Jersey, Ewing
    • University of Maryland, Baltimore County
    • University of Richmond, Virginia
    • William Mason High School, Mason, Ohio
    • UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
    • Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
    • COMSATS Institute of Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
    • FAST-NUCES, Islamabad, Pakistan
    • UET, Lahore, Pakistan
    • Vardhaman College of Engineering, Hyderabad, India
    • Instituto Technologico de Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico
    • MUST, Mbarara, Uganda
    • Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia
    ACM Professional Chapters:
    • Beijing SIGMM Chapter
    • Timisoara, Romania

    ACM-W News

    Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing Draws Record Crowd
    A record 115 attendees (including more than 80 students) converged on the third biennial Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing last month at the Mohican Resort in Perrysville, Ohio. Faculty and professionals from around the state also took advantage of this opportunity to network at a smaller regional conference patterned after the successful Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). Featured speakers included Tracy Camp of the Colorado School of Mines; Deanna Kosaraju of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI); Mary E. Bradford, CIO of Aviation Systems Information Management at GE Aviation; and Patty Morrisson, former CIO of Motorola. Other sessions included parallel panels on graduate school and careers in industry, a very well-attended poster session, a lightning talk session, and two sessions of contributed talks by recent graduates, graduate students and faculty on their research and outreach activities. Breakout sessions included Alice programming, resume reviews, and an opportunity to see the latest developments from Microsoft Research. Attendees were also inspired not only by the accomplishments of the presenters, but by the interesting "crooked paths" by which they had found their way toward their current careers in computing. The complete program and resources for participants are available on the OCWIC website. Watch that site over time for announcements about OCWIC 2011. Read a longer report on the conference in the "Communities" section of the Spring 2009 ACM-W newsletter.

    ACM-W Ambassador's Report: Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day
    Guest blogger Barbara Boucher Owens of Southwestern University provided an interesting background on Ada Lovelace, known as the "world's first programmer," and encouraged her fellow bloggers to post tributes to one of their female technology heroes in her honor on March 24. "Sandy's Story," a personal account of one woman's journey to a career in IT, was written in response to Barbara's "challenge." Read Sandy's entire post on ACM-W's News Blog.
     
    Publications News

    ACM Transactions on Computation Theory Debuts
    The ACM Transactions on Computation Theory (TOCT) debuted in February. TOCT covers theoretical Computer Science complementing the scope of the ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG) and the ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL), including computational complexity, foundations of cryptography, randomness in computing, coding theory, models of computation including parallel, distributed and quantum and other emerging models, computational learning theory, and theoretical computer science aspects of areas such as databases, information retrieval, economic models and networks.

    First issue of ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality to Offer Free Access to Articles
    The new quarterly ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality (JDIQ) grew out of the efforts initiated by the MIT Information Quality Program and the International Conference on Information Quality. The first issue will be published in April and will be freely available to the world through 2009 in the ACM Digital Library. JDIQ's mission is to publish high quality articles that make a significant and novel contribution to the field of data and information quality, including such topics as information quality in the enterprise context; database related technical solutions for information quality; information quality in the context of Computer Science and information technology; and information curation.

    Seeking Editors-in-Chief: ACM Transactions on Computational Logic and
    ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

    The ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL) is accepting nominations for Editor-in-Chief. For more information please visit the TOCL EIC search page.

    The ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH) is also seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. The committee will start evaluating candidates after May 1. For more information please visit the JOCCH home page.

    Communications of the ACM Reports: The Changing Human Relationship with Computers
    In its cover story, the March issue of Communications of the ACM (CACM) examines ways in which humans coexist and cope with computers. The issue also reports on smarter, more powerful scripting languages to improve game performance; how crowdsourcing applications are helping humans transcribe audio files, conduct market research, and label data for work or pleasure; and creating sophisticated prediction markets using advanced computational models. The March issue is available online in digital format.
    Read the press release.

    First ACM Queue Case Study Section Focuses on Rich Internet Application Using AJAX
    Along with a redesigned web site, this month ACM Queue debuts a new content area: case studies. Queue's first case study section focuses on rich internet application (RIA) development using AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML). A central piece recounts one company's experience evaluating AJAX development frameworks. In a featured article on one of AJAX's biggest challenges (debugging), Sun engineer Erick Schrock describes the problems with debugging production JavaScript code and then discusses some techniques for capturing important debugging information in production systems.

    interactions Reports: Who Can You Trust in the Digital Age?
    The March + April issue of interactions magazine investigates the central role of trust in designing interfaces and interactions for today's social technologies. The issue also examines the burgeoning risks to online identity, the challenges of protecting your virtual self, and the potential for creating a digital self-image to foster self-trust. The idea of trust also applies to the need for collaboration in design interaction, and several articles demonstrate the importance of cross-organizational, cross-disciplinary collaboration. interactions, a bimonthly publication of ACM, focuses on the interactions among experiences, people, and technology.
    View the digital edition and read the press release.
     
    ACM in the News

    "Experts See Shortfall in Cybersecurity Research"
    InternetNews.com, March 19, 2009
    US needs more cybersecurity experts, warns USACM Chair Eugene Spafford at recent U.S. Senate Commerce Committee meeting.

    "Survey Suggests Economy Could Lead to Cybercrime Increase"
    Purdue University News, March 18, 2009
    USACM Chair Eugene Spafford cites study by CERIAS group he heads at Purdue: "We are connected around the world in this global economy, but we don't have the rules, the same laws, or the same attitudes about protecting information."

    "Tech to Cure Crop Failure and Look Inside Einstein's Mind?"
    silicon.com, March 12, 2009
    Technology will help solve some of the most pressing issues the world is facing, says ACM President Dame Wendy Hall in a Grand Challenges report she co-authored.
     

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