October 2008 - Vol. 51 No. 10

The Softer Side of Communications

Opinion Publisher's corner Oct 1 2008

Much has already been written about the expanded editorial scope of the new Communications. For most of these changes we have Editor-in-Chief Moshe Y. Vardi and his distinguished Editorial Board to thank.

Scott E. Delman

Letters to the Editor: Prep Students For Irreversible Software Trends

Opinion Letters to the editor Oct 1 2008

Stephen J. Andriole and Eric Roberts debated how to educate the next generation of technology professionals in the Viewpoint Point/Counterpoint "Technology Curriculum for the Early 21st Century" (July 2008). Here, they offer their final words on each other's thoughts, beginning with Andriole.

CACM Staff

Communications Site to Launch in January

Opinion Cacm online Oct 1 2008

The redesigned Communications Web site, slated to launch in January, will post material from this magazine, as well as from other ACM publications, including Computers in Entertainment (cie.acm.org).

David Roman

News Oct 1 2008

Green Computing

Are you ready for a personal energy meter?

Patrick Kurp

News Oct 1 2008

Searching the Deep Web

While the Semantic Web may be a long time coming, Deep Web search strategies offer the promise of a semantic Web.

Alex Wright

News Oct 1 2008

Clean Elections

With end-to-end auditable voting, a voter can verify whether his or her vote was tallied correctly and whether all of the votes were properly tabulated.

Cyrus Farivar

News Oct 1 2008

An Inspiring Legacy

Admired and respected by his students and colleagues, Randy Pausch will be remembered as a devoted teacher and innovative researcher.

Leah Hoffmann

Historical Reflections: Will the Future of Software Be Open Source?

Opinion Viewpoints Oct 1 2008

Tracing the course of influential computing developments and considering possible paths to new paradigms.

Martin Campbell-Kelly

Computer Experts: Guns-For-Hire or Professionals?

Careers Viewpoints Oct 1 2008

Considering the responsibilities of those who build systems fundamental to significant social functions, institutions, and values.

Deborah G. Johnson

From the Front Lines: DOA with SOA

Opinion Viewpoints Oct 1 2008

Diagnosing the symptoms of failing to accommodate critical software architecture properties that often result in the demise of projects.

Alex E. Bell

Point/Counterpoint: The U.S. Should Ban Paperless Electronic Voting Machines

Opinion Viewpoints Oct 1 2008

Debating the public policy issues involved in proposed efforts toward improving voting systems while considering the range of technical and societal challenges.

David L. Dill and Daniel Castro

Practice Oct 1 2008

Code Spelunking Redux

Is it getting any easier to understand other people's code?

George V. Neville-Neil

Illustration of a spelunker in a cave of data

Practice Oct 1 2008

Document Design Matters

How do we apply the concept of resource orientation by designing representations to support interactions?

Erik Wilde and Robert J. Glushko

Practice Oct 1 2008

A Closer Look at GPUs

As the line between GPUs and CPUs begins to blur, it's important to understand what makes GPUs tick.

Kayvon Fatahalian and Mike Houston

The Topology of Dark Networks

Research and Advances Contributed articles Oct 1 2008

Knowing the structure of criminal and terrorist networks could provide the technical insight needed to disrupt their activities.

Jennifer Xu and Hsinchun Chen

Crossroads For Canadian CS Enrollment

Careers Contributed articles Oct 1 2008

What should be done to reverse falling CS enrollment in the Canadian education system?

Jacob Slonim, Sam Scully, and Michael McAllister

The Many Facets of Natural Computing

Research and Advances Review articles Oct 1 2008

Natural computing builds a bridge between computer science and natural sciences.

Lila Kari and Grzegorz Rozenberg

Technical Perspective: Computational Photography on Large Collections of Images

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2008

This paper wil strike a familiar chord with anyone who has ever taken a picture. The problem is easy to understand— replacing unwanted parts of a photograph.

Marc Levoy

Scene Completion Using Millions of Photographs

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2008

What can you do with a million images? In this paper, we present a new image completion algorithm powered by a huge database of photographs gathered from the Web.

James Hays and Alexei A. Efros

Technical Perspective: New Developments in Graph Partitioning

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2008

Arora, Rao, and Vazirani discuss the most important developments in approximation algorithms over the last two decades.

Éva Tardos

Systems and Networking

Research and Advances Research highlights Oct 1 2008

Geometry, Flows, and Graph-Partitioning Algorithms

"Graph partitioning" refers to a family of computational problems in which the vertices of a graph have to be partitioned into two (or more) large pieces while minimizing the number of the edges that cross the cut. The goal of this paper is to survey an interesting combination of techniques that have recently led to progress on graph partioning problems.

Sanjeev Arora, Satish Rao, and Umesh Vazirani

Systems and Networking

Opinion Last byte Oct 1 2008

Q&A: A Complex Thinker

Daphne Koller discusses probabilistic relational modeling, artificial intelligence, and her new work with biologists.

Leah Hoffmann

Large Scale Project Team Building: Beyond the Basics

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

Much has been written in the last few years about the success, or usually, failure of enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects. Many guidelines for success have been given including top management commitment, organizational change management initiatives, and comprehensive process mapping. Although these are all important components of an ERP project, little attention is given to the implementation project team itself.

Mary C. Jones

Understanding Evolution in Technology Ecosystems

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

The current environment of information technology can be a complex place for analysts and firms to navigate, especially when making decisions about new product development, technology investment, and technology planning. Many industry analysts recognize that it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately predict future technological advances.

Gediminas Adomavicius, Jesse Bockstedt, Alok Gupta, and Robert J. Kauffman

Understanding the Influence of Network Positions and Knowledge Processing Styles

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

In today's turbulent business environment, an organization's ability to sustain its growth and competitive edge depends on how well it manages its stock of knowledge. Recognizing that knowledge is paramount to the success of the firm, companies are evolving practices to facilitate the creation, acquisition, storage, transfer, and utilization of knowledge assets. Intra-organizational units play a critical role in this process, and it is imperative that organizations understand how the information and knowledge network comprising such units can impact the overall effectiveness of their knowledge management (KM) practices.

Seokwoo Song, Sridhar Nerur, and James T. C. Teng

RFID in the Supply Chain: Panacea or Pandora's Box?

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

Today, it is widely believed that the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology will enable substantive supply chain transformations. RFID can help reduce counterfeiting, theft, and the bullwhip effect; it can improve on-shelf availability, customer service, inventory management, downstream forecasting, warehouse and back room operations.

Brian L. Dos Santos and Lars S. Smith

Switching Between Consumer Technologies

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

Scholars in marketing and consumer behavior have identified several factors that influence consumer switching in general. However, examining switching behavior between technology substitutes, especially in the case of consumer technologies, is salient for several reasons.

Chen Ye, Kevin C. Desouza, Sridhar R. Papagari Sangareddy, and Sanjeev Jha

Governing Diversity in the Digital Ecosystem

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

The concept of ecosystem is about to be brought into the digital age where, instead of plants and animals, the digital species who roam the landscape include software components, applications, services, business models, contractual frameworks and laws. Along with understanding the nature of habitat and the significance of localisation, diversity is one of the key characteristics of a healthy ecosystem. However, encouraging diversity in the context of technology production brings with it significant challenges, and designing a framework for governance that can balance interests, address technology lock-in and enable the co-existence of diverse software production methods quickly becomes a priority, as participants in the Digital Business Ecosystem project have found.

Mary Darking, Edgar A. Whitley, and Paolo Dini

Myths and Paradoxes in Japanese IT Offshoring

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

Nothing captures Japanese offshoring practices better than the old Japanese proverb "Tap the stone bridge before crossing." As global IT offshoring continues to grow at an astounding pace, the seemingly impenetrable Japanese market baffles many offshore IT vendors. On one hand, Japanese industries are among the most software-intensive, yet they appear reluctant when it comes to offshoring.

Technical Opinion: Which Data Warehouse Architecture Is Best?

Research and Advances Virtual extension Oct 1 2008

Over the past 15 years, companies have spent billions of dollars on data marts and warehouses. Despite this experience, there is an important design decision that still causes heated discussion: Which data warehouse architecture is best?

Thilini Ariyachandra and Hugh J. Watson