June 2009 - Vol. 52 No. 6

June 2009 issue cover image

Features

Opinion ACM-W letter

ACM-W Celebrates Women in Computing

Computer science is no longer the hot, high-enrollment field it once was. While many suggestions have been made for increasing enrollments, it is unlikely that computer science will ever be as vibrant as it could be — and should be — as long as a large portion of the talent pool remains underrepresented.
Opinion Letters to the editor

Share the Threats

Othman El Moulat's comment (Apr. 2009) concerning the article "The Topology of Dark Networks"(Oct. 2008) that the views and articles in Communications should have no bearing on or bias toward any agenda, political or religious, is a point well taken.
Opinion CACM online

Making that Connection

The goal of holding readers' attention has made provocation a timeworn editorial strategy. Communications doesn't resort to screaming headlines like most storefront fare, but it does strive to publish eye-catching imagery for its must-read articles. This month's cover story, "One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality," with its title's inherent tension, is a case in point.
News

Micromedicine to the Rescue

Medical researchers have long dreamed of "magic bullets" that go directly where they are needed. Now micromedicine and nanotechnology are making a range of molecules formerly inaccessible as drugs available to be delivered at the right place and time to affect specific actions. 
News

Content Control

Entertainment businesses say digital rights management prevents the theft of their products, but access control technologies have been a uniform failure when it comes to preventing piracy. Fortunately, change is on the way.
Research and Advances Contributed articles

The Claremont Report on Database Research

Database research is expanding, with major efforts in system architecture, new languages, cloud services, mobile and virtual worlds, and interplay between structure and text.
Research and Advances Research highlights

Technical Perspective: Software and Hardware Support For Deterministic Replay of Parallel Programs

Parallel programming has long been recognized as a difficult problem. This problem has recently taken on a sense of urgency: the long march of single-thread performance increases has stopped in its tracks. Due to limitations on power dissipation and decreased return on investments in additional processor complexity, additional transistors provided by Moore’s Law are now […]
Research and Advances Research highlights

Two Hardware-Based Approaches For Deterministic Multiprocessor Replay

Modern computer systems are inherently nondeterministic due to a variety of events that occur during an execution. The lack of repeatability that arises from this nondeterminism can make it difficult to develop and maintain correct software.
Research and Advances Virtual extension

Hyperlinking the Work For Self-Management of Flexible Workflows

Workflows describe business processes as coordinated execution of simple activities carried out by human or software applications. Over the past decade, workflow technology has been widely deployed in the domains with processes that have clear coordination requirements, and it has achieved significant commercial success in automating such routine business processes. However, as business environment becomes […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

Advancing Information Technology in Health Care

The health care industry represents a major part of the U.S. economy. In 2007 total U.S. health care spending comprised 16% of the country’s GDP, amounting to $2.3 trillion.7 According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, approximately 20% of health care expenditure, some $460 billion in 2007, was dedicated to the tasks of […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

Deriving Mutual Benefits From Offshore Outsourcing

The concept of outsourcing has been addressed from different vantage points by various researchers. Many researchers have examined the impact of outsourcing on employment. Wiederhold et al14 looked at intellectual property and tax implications when a software company operates in multiple countries. This article takes an entirely different perspective. What are new computer-based techniques that […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

The Challenge of Epistemic Divergence In IS Development

The organizational environment increasingly demands that computer-based information systems are responsive to change and can work with each other seamlessly (ideally from a dynamic perspective). Given the large investment that organizations have in mission-critical legacy systems, evolutionary maintenance and systems integration now form a very significant part of the cost and effort profile of systems […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

Re-Tuning the Music Industry: Can They Re-Attain Business Resonance?

For more than 50 years, the music industry has dealt with market-shifting technological change. The 1950s marked the end of the 78-rpm shellac disks. In 1951, Columbia began to release records on RCA’s 7-inch 45-rpm format. By 1954, record companies were using this format to deliver new songs to radio stations. In 1958, RCA introduced […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

A Holistic Framework For Knowledge Discovery and Management

The increased interest in knowledge discovery, knowledge management, and knowledge transfer can be attributed to many factors including the advances in information and communication technologies; data explosion and information overload; the expected significant loss in the workforce as the baby boomers retire; and, the need for organizations to better utilize their intellectual capital to stay […]
Research and Advances Virtual extension

Leveraging First-Mover Advantages in Internet-Based Consumer Services

One of the most enduring strategic management concepts is first-mover advantage. The face validity of first mover advantage is highly compelling with a great deal of anecdotal evidence often cited in the popular business press. The means by which first mover success is established are enormously intuitive: high levels of brand identification by being the […]

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