Jul

26

PLDI’s “Fun Ideas & Thoughts”: Stimulating New Research Visions

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The Computing Community Consortium is interested in stimulating the development of new research visions and challenges in computing research. Recently, the CCC has begun collaborating with conferences in computer science and sponsoring “crazy-idea” sessions with travel awards for the most exciting submissions. One such example is the Fun Ideas and Thoughts (FIT) session at the PLDI (Programming Languages Design and Implementation) conference, held on June 8, 2010 in Toronto, Canada.

In collaboration with the PLDI organizing commitee, the CCC is happy to announce the winners of the FIT session:

1) Outfoxing the Mammoths, by Marek Olszewski and Saman Amarasinghe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

2) Resource-Based Programming in Plaid, by Jonathan Aldrich, Carnegie Mellon University; and

3) Dualities in Programming Languages, by Martin Hirzel and Priya Nagpurkar.

These three were selected based on an online poll of registered participants of PLDI. Olszewski, Aldrich, and Hirzel will each receive travel grants. Their presentations and papers can be found on the FIT Web page.

Many thanks to the PLDI community! And please check out the presentations and comment about them below.

(Contributed by Frans Kaashoek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Jul

21

DARPA a year later

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Dr. Ken Gabriel, the deputy director of DARPA, delivered a plenary address at CRA’s biannual Snowbird Conference on Monday morning — one day short of the one-year anniversary of the arrival of DARPA’s new leadership, including new DARPA director Dr. Regina Dugan. Gabriel spoke about DARPA’s incredible transformation over the past 12 months, including its renewed commitment to academic research.

Specifically, Gabriel started by highlighting five key changes that have occurred at DARPA in the past year:

- “Go/no-go” is gone.

- Contracting has been simplified. The process is as clear, simple, and fast as the law allows.

- More realistic conflict of interest rules have been applied to people coming to work at DARPA.

- Program managers are once again managing programs.

- Program managers have been reeducated about the need to consider basic research as a critical element of their programs.

He further reeled off three directions moving forward:

- Manufacturing. “One of the biggest challenges we face as a nation is a decline in our ability to make things,” he said. “Americans consume more goods today than ever before – and yet we are less likely to be employed in manufacturing than we have been at any time in the past 100 years. [But] to innovate, we must make. It’s hard to build and field systems needed to protect the nation with a service economy.” Gabriel stated that DARPA is identifying and building on the fundamental challenges in making things.

- Edge-finding. “We often talk of globalization as boundless,” he said. “But sociologists will tell you that as long as there are humans involved there are boundaries. In the cyberworld, our inability to define the edges is a world of peril. This is one of the most technically challenging tasks of our time.” Gabriel challenged us to understand the following: What are the edges of truth in this environment? How do we assess them? How are they relevant?

- Cyber. “In 2010 and 2011, DARPA will invest over $300M in cyber-enabled initiatives,” Gabriel advised. “DARPA-developed technologies are already prevalent in both government and commercial venues. For example, DARPA technology protects DARPA servers again denial-of-service attacks.” DARPA is pursuing several new initiatives, including clean-slate technology on adaptive posts for resilience; safer computing that seeks to create assured confrontations on un-trusted hardware without the traditional performance sacrifices; etc.

Finally, Gabriel called on the computing research community to help by getting to work:

So today, I’d like to call you to action. [It’s] a call to return to the core values of the agency. A call to service. And a call to collectively reach for something bigger – more expansive – and more enduring. This is the time to dig deep and go to the edge – to find the nerve together.

At DARPA, we say you can’t lose your nerve.

The deputy director’s talk underscores the dramatic evolution of DARPA that we have witnessed in just the past year.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)

Jul

18

Friday’s PCAST meeting: Science envoys, health IT, STEM education

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The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) held its July 2010 meeting at the National Academies in Washington, DC, on Friday.

The hearing began with a session on “Science, Technology, and Diplomacy” that featured the three founding members of the Science Envoys program – Bruce Alberts, Elias Zerhouni, and Ahmed Zewail – speaking candidly about their experiences as part of this new diplomatic effort, which places U.S. scientists in foreign nations to promote international relations. The three envoys shared insights they had gleaned while trying to improve diplomatic relations with Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.A.E.

A prevailing sentiment was the urgent need for a “focus on capacity building.” Instead of taking technologies to foreign nations, we need to teach these nations to teach themselves, the envoys reported. Further, they commented that, while STEM education is lacking in the U.S., it is even worse in developing nations. The world currently has an estimated shortage of 10 million teachers, and the science education per capita continues to decrease each year.

Each envoy reported receiving surprisingly warm receptions as a science diplomat – and felt the program should be expanded. The envoys also argued that the role of the “State Department scientist” could not likely be salvaged from its current status as “career-ending.” Instead, they urged science agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, to adopt rotational programs to send experts to various foreign embassies for short periods of time.

All in all, the session presented hope that Science Envoys could be an effective tool in diplomacy in the future.

Later in the day, PCAST heard updates from two previously commissioned efforts:

- A panel on health information technology reported the completion of a draft report (to be made available to the public soon, following a final round of edits) that calls for strengthening the role of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT within the Dept. of Health & Human Services – primarily by advocating and promulgating standards for exchange and privacy of secure electronic health information – in an attempt to improve quality and safety of healthcare, while simultaneously reducing cost. Unfortunately, it appears the report will be fairly narrow in focus, specifically discussing only electronic medical records (EMRs) – and not HIT broadly.

- PCAST members evaluating STEM education described the hope of new technology in advancing education – including the creation of deeply digital materials (e.g., interactive simulations, videos, built-in tutors, etc.) that (a) are increasingly adaptive to what a student is learning, (b) assist in ongoing and cumulative assessments of students, and (c) provide professional development support to teachers; etc. The subcommittee co-chairs, Eric Lander and Jim Gates, signaled very clearly that these issues would be part of the final report – which may be ready by the September PCAST meeting. Lander and Gates again solicited feedback from the public about Ed Tech.

Please view an archived webcast of the hearing (see the PCAST website), and as always comments are greatly appreciated below.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director, & Chase Hensel, CRA/CCC Tisdale Fellow)

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