How do we gather stories about ACM's past before it's too late? The charter of the ACM History Committee is "to foster preservation and interpretation of the history of the ACM and its role in the development of computing."
December 2012 - Vol. 55 No. 12
Features
Opinion From the president
In a recent column, I questioned whether there was any "science" in computer science. This provoked a great many responses that provided some very valuable perspective. I have come away from this foray into computer 'science' with several conclusions.
Opinion Letters to the Editor
Concerning the proposed Research Works Act, introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2011, Moshe Y. Vardi's "Editor's Letter" "Why ACM?" (Sept. 2012) left me a little confused as to Vardi's own position on both the law and open access.
Levels of Abstraction; Pre-Teens and Career Choices
Mark Guzdial writes about the need for programming languages to support multimedia at all levels. Judy Robertson shares insights about 12-year-old students' lack of understanding about computer science.
Three breakthrough experiments involving photons have extended coherence times and indicated scalable production.
Drilling down to more detail on a computer screen, or moving out to see the context, is basic. But it's hardly simple and, after 20 years, innovations are still occurring.
In the Year of Disruptive Education
As college tuitions soar, various online models vie to educate college students worldwide — at no cost.
Opinion Emerging markets
IT Innovation For the Bottom of the Pyramid
New ways to develop technologies for the emerging growth markets.
Opinion Historical reflections
Reflections on the legalities and economics of preserving animations and games in Europe.
Opinion Broadening participation
Why We Need an ACM Special Interest Group For Broadening Participation
A proposal for an international group focused on broadening participation.
Opinion Viewpoint
A unique firsthand account of formative experiences with Alan Turing.
The Essence of Software Engineering: The SEMAT Kernel
A thinking framework in the form of an actionable kernel.
Sender-Side Buffers and the Case For Multimedia Adaptation
A proposal to improve the performance and availability of streaming video and other time-sensitive media.
Anatomy of a Solid-State Drive
While the ubiquitous SSD shares many features with the hard-disk drive, under the surface they are completely different.
Research and Advances Contributed articles
Improved performance and a proven deployment strategy make SPDY a potential successor to HTTP.
Research and Advances Contributed articles
Computers interacting with, not imitating, humans is the way forward.
Research and Advances Review articles
Theory of Algorithmic Self-Assembly
The challenge of programming molecules to manipulate themselves.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Technical Perspective: High-Level Data Structures
This lifting of data structure thinking to the relational level has long inspired computer scientists. In "An Introduction to Data Representation Synthesis," the authors aim at elevating data structure programming to the relational realm.
Research and Advances Research highlights
An Introduction to Data Representation Synthesis
We consider the problem of specifying combinations of data structures with complex sharing in a manner that is declarative and results in provably correct code.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Technical Perspective: Natural Algorithms in a Networked World
How do birds flock and fish school? How do individuals in a social network reach agreement, even though they are often only influenced by other like-minded individuals? How can one engineer a swarm of robots to behave like bird flocks?
Research and Advances Research highlights
Natural Algorithms and Influence Systems
Algorithms lay the grounds for numerical simulations and, crucially, provide a powerful framework for their analysis. The new area of natural algorithms may reprise in the life sciences the role differential equations have long played in the physical sciences.
Opinion Last byte
Puzzled: Solutions and Sources
Last month (November 2012) we posted a
trio of brainteasers
concerning the use of a balance scale to determine the weight of various numbers of coins. Here, we offer solutions to all three. How did you do?
Opinion Last byte
Sanjeev Arora talks about proof, intractability, and finding the best way to approximate problems.
