Archive of articles published in the 2014 issue.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will hold a BRAIN Workshop to bring together brain researchers and computer scientists for a scientific dialogue aimed at exposing new opportunities for joint research.
On September 10-11, the CCC co-hosted a visioning workshop focused on technologies that will allow older adults and people with disabilities to “age in place,” remain in their homes longer, reduce health care costs and enhance quality of life. CCC partnered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to organize the “Trans-NIH/Interagency Workshop on the Use and Development of Assistive Technology for the Aging Population and People with Chronic Disabilities.” Held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, the engaging workshop brought together a diverse set of experts – computer science researchers, medical practitioners, and government officials from numerous agencies (NIH,NSF, NIDRR, HUD, VA, FDA, CMS), to chart a course for the research agenda needed to advance technologies that will allow seniors to age in place.
In recognition of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we want to highlight some of NSF’s recent activities in this area. The Internet and cyber-enabled systems have become a part of our everyday lives. We surf the web for the day’s news; we use email and social applications like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to stay connected to our family, friends, and colleagues; we go online to access our bank accounts, make purchases, and transfer money; and we depend on cyber-connected physical systems to fly our planes, control the power grid, run medical devices, and so much more.
Despite hopes at the beginning of the year of Congress returning to regular order with regard to appropriation bills, the body has slide back into its old form of passing stopgap Continuing Resolutions (CR) to fund governmental operations. The good news is both chambers learned their lesson from last year and will not play chicken with a shutdown of the government — or at least, not before they stand before the voters in the November midterm elections.
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova recently announced the appointment of James F. Kurose, UMass Amherst Professor and member of CRA’s Board of Directors, to serve as Assistant Director for the agency’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CISE is the “home” for computing research at the agency, which supports over 80 percent of all university-based fundamental computer science research in the U.S. Kurose will take over the position in January 2015. Kurose is currently Distinguished Professor at UMass Amherst’s School of Computer Science, a position he’s held since 2004. He’s been a member of Advisory Committee for CISE, a visiting scientist at a number of industrial research labs, and has served as a member of the CRA Board of Directors for the last seven years.
We asked undergraduate students to indicate the degree to which receiving encouragement from family, friends and teachers led them to pursue a major in computing. Among women, race mattered, p .05. Together, this finding highlights the differential experiences of students in computing as a function of gender as well as race.
In mid-August, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and CRA once again hosted the Knowinnovation (KI) team to run an Ideas Lab, aimed at gathering research and funding proposals in the field of Cyber-Physical Systems security and privacy. But this year was different: for the first time in Ideas Lab history, the NSF partnered with Intel to bring together some of the country’s brightest minds in the field. And after a rigorous application and selection process, the chosen participants gathered for their five-day intensive proposal workshop for the potential to be awarded a grant between $500,000 and $3 million.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Inspired by the traditional Japanese art form of origami, researchers from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have figured out how to take flat sheets of specialized paper and plastic and make it self-fold into a complex machine that can “get-up and go”.
One hundred eighteen graduate students (n = 75 women, n= 143 men) indicated (a) the degree to which they endorse the stereotype that women are less capable in computing that men; (b) how much they felt they “belong” in computing and (c) their self-efficacy in computing. Men endorsed the negative stereotype to a greater degree than women, p < .01. However, among women, stronger endorsement of the negatively stereotype was associated with a lower sense of belonging and lower sense efficacy in computing, ps < .05; men’s stereotype endorsement was unrelated to their belonging and self-efficacy. These results highlight the importance of fostering a stereotype-free training environment so that women’s self-concept in computing is unconstrained by negative cultural beliefs about their ability.
Nancy Amato, Unocal Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, has had a banner year. She is the recipient of two prestigious awards for mentoring, the Habermann and the Harrold/Notkin awards, elected to the CRA Board, and will shortly be CRA-W Co-chair. She exemplifies teaching, research and service excellence in computing.
