September 2020 - Vol. 63 No. 9

Features

Opinion Departments Sep 1 2020

Where Have All the Domestic Graduate Students Gone?

U.S. Government actions to restrict immigration could result in a dramatic reduction in the number of international graduate students in U.S. universities, and will have a devastating impact on U.S. graduate programs in computing.

Moshe Y. Vardi

Computing Profession

Opinion Letters to the editor Sep 1 2020

Lost in Translation

Aaron Hertzman's Viewpoint "Computers Do Not Make Art, People Do," makes excellent points as to why it is very unlikely that computers will ever replace artists.

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

BLOG@CACM Sep 1 2020

Teaching CS Undergrads Online to Work With Others Effectively

Orit Hazzan on the challenges of taking a CS soft skills class online after teaching it in a classroom for a decade.

Orit Hazzan

Computing Applications

News Sep 1 2020

It’s Alive!

Scientists and engineers cross the reality gap, transferring simulated evolution into real machines.

Gregory Mone

Architecture and Hardware

News Sep 1 2020

AI on Edge

Shifting artificial intelligence to the "edge" of the network could transform computing . . . and everyday life.

Samuel Greengard

Architecture and Hardware

News Sep 1 2020

Virtual Collaboration in the Age of the Coronavirus

Videoconferencing apps took off during the COVID-19 lockdowns, but more efficient ways to collaborate virtually are waiting in the wings.

Paul Marks

Computing Applications

Suitable Technologies' telepresence robot

Opinion Law and technology Sep 1 2020

A Recent Renaissance in Privacy Law

Considering the recent increased attention to privacy law issues amid the typically slow pace of legal change.

Margot Kaminski

Architecture and Hardware

sharks, surfboard with initials CCPA, illustration

Opinion Security Sep 1 2020

Autonomous Vehicle Safety: Lessons from Aviation

How more than 25years of experience with aviation safety-critical systems can be applied to autonomous vehicle systems.

Jaynarayan H. Lala, Carl E. Landwehr, and John F. Meyer

Architecture and Hardware

woman lounging in autonomous vehicle, illustration

Opinion The profession of IT Sep 1 2020

Avalanches Make Us All Innovators

Avalanches generate enormous breakdowns. The practices of innovation adoption may be just what you need to resolve them.

Peter J. Denning

Computing Applications

'Avalanche Danger' sign on snowy mountaintop

Opinion Viewpoint Sep 1 2020

Integrating Management Science Into the HPC Research Ecosystem

How management science benefits from High Performance Computing.

Guido Schryen

Computing Applications

buildings on a circuit board, illustration

Opinion Viewpoint Sep 1 2020

‘Have You Thought About . . .’: Talking About Ethical Implications of Research

Considering the good and the bad effects of technology.

Amy Bruckman

Computing Applications

Practice Sep 1 2020

Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future

The evolution of tricky user interfaces.

Arvind Narayanan, Arunesh Mathur, Marshini Chetty, and Mihir Kshirsagar

Architecture and Hardware

Practice Sep 1 2020

Is Persistent Memory Persistent?

A simple and inexpensive test of failure-atomic update mechanisms.

Terence Kelly

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Contributed articles Sep 1 2020

Becoming an ‘Adaptive’ Expert

Investigating student knowledge transfer and metacognitive activities at college CS departments and at coding bootcamps.

Quinn Burke and Cinamon Sunrise Bailey

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Sep 1 2020

Improving Social Alignment During Digital Transformation

Exploring what leaders can do to improve and sustain social alignment over time.

Andrew Burton-Jones, Alicia Gilchrist, Peter Green, and Michael Draheim

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

pattern of folders on circuit board, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Sep 1 2020

Keeping CALM: When Distributed Consistency Is Easy

In distributed systems theory, CALM presents a result that delineates the frontier of the possible.

Joseph M. Hellerstein and Peter Alvaro

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Sep 1 2020

Technical Perspective: Computing the Value of Location Data

"Computing Value of Spatiotemporal Information," by Heba Aly et al., describes a technique for computing the monetary value of a person's location data for a potential geo-marketplace.

Cyrus Shahabi

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Sep 1 2020

Computing Value of Spatiotemporal Information

We investigate the intrinsic value of location data in the context of strong privacy, where location information is only available from end users via purchase.

Heba Aly, John Krumm, Gireeja Ranade, and Eric Horvitz

Computing Applications

map location indicator with dollar sign, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Sep 1 2020

Technical Perspective: Progress in Spatial Computing for Flood Prediction

There are few algorithms for multi-flow graphs beyond flow accumulation. The authors of "Flood-Risk Analysis on Terrains" take a big step to fill this knowledge gap.

Shashi Shekhar

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Sep 1 2020

Flood-Risk Analysis on Terrains

In this paper, we study a number of flood-risk related problems, give an overview of efficient algorithms for them, as well as explore the efficacy and efficiency of these algorithms on real terrains.

Aaron Lowe, Pankaj K. Agarwal, and Mathias Rav

Computing Applications

Opinion Last byte Sep 1 2020

Little Green Message

A different kind of first-contact scenario.

Brian Clegg

Computing Applications

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