August 2018 - Vol. 61 No. 8

Features

News Informatics Europe and ACM Europe Council Aug 1 2018

A group assembled by Informatics Europe and the policy committee of the ACM Europe Council produced a report entitled "When Computers Decide" that makes 10 recommendations to policy leaders regarding automated decision making.

James Larus and Chris Hankin

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Opinion Cerf's up Aug 1 2018

Traceability

A primary topic of consideration at a recent workshop on cybersecurity was how to preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet while protecting against the harmful behaviors that have emerged in this global medium. That this is a significant challenge cannot be overstated.

Vinton G. Cerf

Computing Applications

Opinion Letters to the editor Aug 1 2018

Encourage ACM to Address U.S. Election Integrity

In the spirit of Moshe Y. Vardi's call for ACM to ". . . be more active in addressing social responsibility issues raised by computing technology," we urge the ACM U.S. Public Policy Council to undertake a study of the technological infrastructure for U.S. elections.

CACM Staff

BLOG@CACM Aug 1 2018

Assessing Responsibility for Program Output

We lack an easy way to indicate that algorithms do not make decisions and are not biased; programmers do, and are.

Robin K. Hill

Computing Applications

News Aug 1 2018

Animals Teach Robots to Find Their Way

Navigation research demonstrates bio-machine symbiosis.

Chris Edwards

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Animals Teach Robots to Find Their Way, illustration

News Aug 1 2018

Electronics Are Leaving the Plane

Stacking chips and connecting them vertically increases both speed and functionality.

Don Monroe

Architecture and Hardware

News Aug 1 2018

Broadening the Path for Women in STEM

Organizations work to address 'a notable absence of women in the field.'

Esther Shein

Computing Profession

Broadening the Path for Women in STEM, illustration

Opinion Global computing Aug 1 2018

Designing Sustainable Rural Infrastructure Through the Lens of OpenCellular

Understanding the unique local context, as well as technical considerations, are essential components of successful project deployment.

Kashif Ali and Kurtis Heimerl

Computing Profession

Designing Sustainable Rural Infrastructure Through the Lens of OpenCellular, illustrative photo

Opinion Education Aug 1 2018

Providing Equitable Access to Computing Education

Seeking the best measures to reach advantaged and less-advantaged students equally.

Mark Guzdial and Amy Bruckman

Computing Profession

Providing Equitable Access to Computing Education, illustration

Opinion Kode vicious Aug 1 2018

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Cache is king. And if your cache is cut, you are going to feel it.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Applications

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, illustration

Opinion Point/counterpoint: democracy and e-democracy Aug 1 2018

Point: Foundations of E-Democracy

Considering the possibility of achieving an e-democracy based on long-established foundations that strengthen both real-world democracies and virtual Internet communities.

Ehud Shapiro

Computing Profession

Opinion Point/counterpoint: democracy and e-democracy Aug 1 2018

Counterpoint: E-Democracy Won't Save Democracy. Democracy Will Save Democracy

Increased technology is not the solution to the fundamental issue of declining democratic culture.

Douglas Schuler

Computing Profession

Practice Aug 1 2018

Algorithms Behind Modern Storage Systems

Different uses for read-optimized B-trees and write-optimized LSM-trees.

Alex Petrov

Computing Applications

Algorithms Behind Modern Storage Systems

Practice Aug 1 2018

Research for Practice: Prediction-Serving Systems

What happens when we wish to actually deploy a machine learning model to production?

Dan Crankshaw, Joseph Gonzalez, and Peter Bailis

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Practice Aug 1 2018

Consistently Eventual

For many data items, the work never settles on a value.

Pat Helland

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Aug 1 2018

How to Teach Computer Ethics through Science Fiction

Science fiction in particular offers students a way to cultivate their capacity for moral imagination.

Emanuelle Burton, Judy Goldsmith, and Nicholas Mattei

Computing Applications

How to Teach Computer Ethics through Science Fiction

Research and Advances Contributed articles Aug 1 2018

Amdahl’s Law for Tail Latency

Queueing theoretic models can guide design trade-offs in systems targeting tail latency, not just average performance.

Christina Delimitrou and Christos Kozyrakis

Architecture and Hardware

Amdahl's Law for Tail Latency, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Aug 1 2018

Multiparty Privacy in Social Media

Online privacy is not just about what you disclose about yourself, it is also about what others disclose about you.

Jose M. Such and Natalia Criado

Computing Applications

Multiparty Privacy in Social Media, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Aug 1 2018

Technical Perspective: Graphs, Betweenness Centrality, and the GPU

"Accelerating GPU Betweenness Centrality" by McLaughlin and Bader ably addresses the challenges to authors of efficient graph implementations in the important context of a computation called betweenness centrality.

John D. Owens

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Aug 1 2018

Accelerating GPU Betweenness Centrality

We present a hybrid GPU implementation that provides good performance on graphs of arbitrary structure rather than just scale-free graphs as was done previously.

Adam McLaughlin and David A. Bader

Architecture and Hardware

Accelerating GPU Betweenness Centrality, illustration

Opinion Last byte Aug 1 2018

Deadlock

Upgraded with new instructions, my AI aims to debug its original programmer, along with his home planet.

William Sims Bainbridge

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

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