The following is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) by the Assistant Director for the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) James Kurose.   May 13, 2015 Dear Colleagues: The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) announces its intention to revise the submission windows for its core programs as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program for the 2015-16 academic year. Specifically, the following submission windows are anticipated: Medium and Large proposals: September 2015; and Small proposals: November 2015. Specific dates for these revised submission windows will be announced when the core program solicitations are re-issued […]

Can you imagine a robot delivering your baby or downloading a file from your favorite designer to print clothes at home on your 3D printer? You might not have to imagine these things for much longer. These are just a few of the amazing advances we are likely to see in the next ten years, according to seven top futurists who were recently interviewed by The Huffington Post. The article titled 7 Top Futurists Make Some Pretty Surprising Predictions About What The Next Decade Will Bring describes these advances and more. Dr. Ray Kurzweil, inventor, computer scientist, and Director of Engineering at Google, believes that by 2025, 3D printers will be printing clothing and even […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced the creation of the new Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research, convergence research is the integration of research in two or more of the following disciplines: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biomedicine, biology, astronomy, earth sciences, engineering, and computational science. The inaugural prize will be awarded for convergence research that benefits human health. The prize is made possible through a generous gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation, and will be presented annually beginning this year with an inaugural $400,000 award. Two-thirds of the prize money will be awarded to the selected researcher(s), and the remaining third will […]

The organizing committee for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Human Computation Roadmap Summit have released their Workshop Report. The visioning workshop, hosted by the CCC, explored the design and analysis of information processing systems in which humans participate as computational agents. The workshop included over 60 participants from a variety of disciplines, representing academia, private industry and federal agencies (NSF, NIH, NIST, NITRD, OSTP). The rapid advancement of the human computation field toward repeatable and sustainable success models requires a concerted effort by policy-makers, federal funding agencies, multidisciplinary research institutions, private industry, and the public. This report advocates for a new national initiative in human computation, with policy and funding support […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is releasing its fifth segment in the Computing Research in Action Series.  Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are engaging in a very exciting interdisciplinary activity between computer science and medicine. Professor Eftychios Sifakis, collaborating with Dr. Court Cutting and Dr. Timothy King, has built a computer aided platform that allows surgeons in training to rehearse, plan, and experiment with surgical procedures before actually trying them out on a real patient. The research program is called the Skin Biophysics Surgical Simulator and is funded by the National Science Foundation‘s Smart and Connected Health initiative. My vision is that this product is going to improve the quality of patient care by offering the […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced two five-year, center-scale awards to advance the frontier in cyber-physical systems (CPS). With these two new projects totaling $8.75 million, NSF has now invested more than $250 million since 2008 to build the foundational knowledge underlying all CPS. Extending the efforts of wearable CPS sensors and devices, one project will develop a very realistic cardiac and device model called “Cyberheart.” The CyberHeart platform will be used to test and validate medical devices faster and at a far lower cost than existing methods. CyberHeart could also be used to design safe, patient-specific device therapies, thereby lowering the risk to the patient. This project is highly collaborative. The […]