Editorial Pointers

An article in today’s paper describes Ray Kurzweil’s quest for longevity, noting the distinguished computer scientist’s confidence in the flourishing partnership of medical science and computer science for making his personal ambition a reality. Although the road he’s taken is uncharted—and seriously unconventional—it recognizes the unprecedented potential of recent advancements in medical tools that not only help diagnose and treat illnesses, but may one day prevent them from occurring.

This month’s special section examines current and future tools for medical imaging and modeling that dramatically improve the quality of clinical practice and medical education. Guest editor Dimitris Metaxas explains such tools require innovative and collaborative research among computer scientists, electrical engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, biologists, and physicians. These articles illustrate some the latest results of those multidisciplinary efforts.

The authors here represent an international mix of researchers who straddle the medical and computing sciences. Their articles discuss new computer-based methods and prototypes for examining and learning more about the structure and workings of the human body. Their findings promise to help transform medical and surgical procedures and fuel the scientific acumen of future generations.

Also this month, Evaristo et al. focus on the centralization vs. decentralization debate involving the (hardware) architecture of IT. Detlor argues that mobile communication networks should be deployed within an integrated human-system interaction environment to handle crisis-response situations. Nah et al. contend most organizations do not fully understand the value of mobile applications. And Bodin et al. use the Analytic Hierarchy Process to determine how to optimize limited IT budgets.

Rainer and Miller built a list of the top 50 journals by studying journal ranking studies over the last 15 years and examining how those rankings fare over time and across studies. And Salam et al. present a framework for understanding trust between consumers and online vendors in any industry.

In "Technology Strategy and Management," Michael Cusumano scrutinizes Google’s real strengths and potential future weaknesses. In "Viewpoint," Jon Crowcroft argues that computing occupies a virtual presence in the world, rather than a natural one. We also present two "Technical Opinion" columns: Chenglie Hu argues the benefits of teaching new programmers the value of objects and multiple programming paradigms; Shirley Becker claims governments are stumped over how to offer online services to an aging constituency. And ACM President David Patterson examines the benefits of an ACM membership for two different mind-sets.

Diane Crawford
Editor