Research and Advances

Apr 1 2009

Roofline: An Insightful Visual Performance Model For Multicore Architectures

The Roofline model offers insight on how to improve the performance of multicore microprocessors whose design diversity exacerbates the jobs of programmers, compiler writers, and architects.

Samuel Williams, Andrew Waterman, and David Patterson

Architecture and Hardware

Apr 1 2009

A Direct Path to Dependable Software

Who could fault an approach that offers greater credibility at reduced cost?

Daniel Jackson

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Technical Perspective: Disk Array Models For Automating Storage Management

Large disk arrays are everywhere. When we shop at an Internet retailer, the product and account data come from a disk array in a data center. Our email, banking, payroll, insurance, and tax data all reside on disk arrays.

Arif Merchant

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Apr 1 2009

Relative Fitness Modeling

Relative fitness is a new approach to modeling the performance of storage devices. In contrast to a conventional model, which predicts the performance of an application's I/O on a given device, a relative fitness model predicts performance differences between devices.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Apr 1 2009

Technical Perspective: Integrating Flash Devices

Flash memory nowadays seems to be in every discussion about system architecture. Sure enough, flash memory boasts multiple qualities and advantages over traditional mass storage. On the other hand, flash memory still suffers from two principal weaknesses.

Goetz Graefe

Architecture and Hardware

Apr 1 2009

Integrating Nand Flash Devices Onto Servers

In this paper, we examine the use of Flash storage in the server domain. Wear-out has the potential to limit the use of Flash in this domain. To seriously consider Flash in the server domain, architectural support must exist to address this lack of reliability.

David Roberts, Taeho Kgil, and Trevor Mudge

Architecture and Hardware

graph of maximum tolerable flash write/erase cycles

Apr 1 2009

Principles For Effective Virtual Teamwork

Vitual teams are becoming ubiquitous. Therefore, it is important to understand how to make virtual teams effective.

Jay F. Nunamaker, Bruce A. Reinig, and Robert O. Briggs

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

How Culture Influences IT-Enabled Organizational Change and Information Systems

The prevailing business culture in the U.S. undoubtedly encouraged the rapid and radical changes prescribed with Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). However, America's egalitarianism and individualism also created a need for strong-armed leadership to complete BPR projects successfully and explicit incentives to facilitate teamwork.

Maris G. Martinsons, Robert M. Davison, and Valdis Martinsons

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Non-Work Related Computing (NWRC)

The internet is becoming a commodity in organizations with an increase in accessibility by professionals from their own work desks. Vault.com conducted a survey in 1999 with 1,244 respondents, and found that 84% of employees sent non-work related emails and almost 90% surfed the Internet for non-work related purposes during office hours. However, the effect of the use of the Internet for non-work purposes is inconclusive.

Gee-Woo Bock and Swee Ling Ho

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Object Language and Impression Management

What does object language communicate about IT professionals? Can the messages conveyed by object language be used to offset the stereotypical image of a "computer geek?"

Kevin P. Scheibe, James C. McElroy, and Paula C. Morrow

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Apr 1 2009

The Impact of the Digital Divide on E-Government Use

Internet use has been growing steadily for the past decade. In a recent report, the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey found that 75% of American adults use the Internet. As more citizens turn to the Internet as a medium for communication and commerce, the importance of e-government is rising.

France Belanger and Lemuria Carter

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Analysis of Industry-Specific Concentration of CPOs in Fortune 500 Companies

In June 2005, a unit of lexis-nexis discovered the theft of 310,000 customer records containing sensitive information such as customer names, addresses, and social security numbers. This incident followed closely on ChoicePoint's disclosure of the theft of personally identifiable information (PII) of hundreds of thousands of customers and Bank of America's declaration that it lost backup tapes containing information on 1.2 million customers. Given the seriousness of the matter, firms are struggling with finding ways to best ensure the privacy of their customer's and employees' sensitive data.

Zeinab Karake Shalhoub

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Mobile Phones in the Classroom: If You Can't Beat Them, Join them

During the past six years the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, particularly cellular phones, has presented an opportunity to develop new interactive classroom systems which have the potential to enhance students' learning experience.

Eusebio Scornavacca, Sid Huff, and Stephen Marshall

Computing Applications

Apr 1 2009

Technical Opinion: Online Auctions Hidden Metrics

The number of online auctions that don't result in valid transactions is astonishing, which leads us to call for a better understanding about unsuccessful auctions. Why are there so many of them and what can be done about it?

Paulo Goes, Yanbin Tu, and Y. Alex Tung

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Mar 1 2009

Reflecting Human Values in the Digital Age

HCI experts must broaden the field's scope and adopt new methods to be useful in 21st-century sociotechnical environments.

Abigail Sellen, Yvonne Rogers, Richard Harper, and Tom Rodden

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Statecharts in the Making: A Personal Account

How avionics work led to a graphical language for reactive systems where the diagrams themselves define the system's behavior.

David Harel

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Probabilistically Checkable Proofs

Can a proof be checked without reading it?

Madhu Sudan

Systems and Networking

Mar 1 2009

Technical Perspective: The Beauty of Error-Correcting Codes

Error-correcting codes are the means by which we compensate for interference in communication, and are essential for the accurate transmission and storage of digital data.

Daniel A. Spielman

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Error Correction Up to the Information-Theoretic Limit

Ever since the birth of coding theory almost 60 years ago, researchers have been pursuing the elusive goal of constructing the "best codes," whose encoding introduces the minimum possible redundancy for the level of noise they can correct.

Venkatesan Guruswami and Atri Rudra

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Technical Perspective: Where Biology Meets Computing

Alan Turing died in 1954 in his laboratory after eating a cyanide-laced apple. During his last years, Turing had become interested in bio-chemical systems. He had proposed a reaction-diffusion model in his 1952 paper entitled "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis," putting forth his hypothesis of biological pattern formation.

Bud Mishra

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Learning and Detecting Emergent Behavior in Networks of Cardiac Myocytes

We address the problem of specifying and detecting emergent behavior in networks of cardiac myocytes, spiral electric waves in particular, a precursor to atrial and ventricular fibrillation.

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Digital Inclusion With the McInternet: Would You Like Fries With That?

Should corporations try to "do good" for society?

Architecture and Hardware

Mar 1 2009

A New Map For Knowledge Dissemination Channels

The landscape for Information Systems (IS) research spreads across a large, diverse, and growing territory with linkages to other fields and traversed by increasing numbers of researchers. There are well over 500 journals for publishing IS-related research.

Clyde W. Holsapple

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Online Privacy Practices in Higher Education: Making the Grade?

In June 2006, the trustees of Ohio University (OU) voted unanimously to spend up to $4 million on enhanced information security. The decision came in the wake of the media coverage about OU's "lax, low-priority attitude toward security," resulting in data breaches, the theft of Social Security numbers, and an unsecured alumni database which was used by hackers for over a year to share music files and launch attacks on other systems.

Mary J. Culnan and Thomas J. Carlin

Computing Applications

Shape the Future of Computing

Communications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.