Research and Advances

Mar 1 2009

Ensuring Transparency in Computational Modeling

Computational models are of great scientific and societal importance because they are used every day in a wide variety of products and policies. However, computational models are not pure abstractions, but rather they are tools constructed and used by humans.

Kenneth R. Fleischmann and William A. Wallace

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Open Access Publishing in Science

While the evolving information society is freely opening and sharing its diaries, social networks and source codes, it remains to be seen if the same will come true for scientific knowledge. Despite strong sympathy for the idea, scientists balk at Open Access publishing. Here we shed some light on why this is so.

Florian Mann, Benedikt von Walter, Thomas Hess, and Rolf T. Wigand

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Who Captures Value in a Global Innovation Network?: The Case of Apple's iPod

Innovation is often touted as a key driver of economic growth. However, when firms operate within production and innovation networks that span national and firm boundaries, the question arises as to who actually benefits from innovation.

Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraemer, and Jason Dedrick

Computing Applications

Mar 1 2009

Evaluating semantic similarity of concepts is a problem that has been extensively investigated in the literature in different areas, such as Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Databases, and Software Engineering. Currently, it is growing in importance in different settings.

Anna Formica

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Mar 1 2009

Technical Opinion: Security Threats of Smart Phones and Bluetooth

In a recent security experiment, a computer with a Bluetooth sniffing program was hidden in a suitcase that was wheeled around public places. The objective was to ascertain the number of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices that could be infected with viruses wirelessly.

Alfred Loo

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Toward 2w, Beyond Web 2.0

2W is a result of the exponentially growing Web building on itself to move from a Web of content to a Web of applications.

T. V. Raman

Architecture and Hardware

Feb 1 2009

Compiler Research: The Next 50 Years

Four recommendations address the major challenges to keeping compilers and high-level languages vibrant.

Mary Hall, David Padua, and Keshav Pingali

Architecture and Hardware

Feb 1 2009

Women in Computing Take 2

What strategies can employers and educators use to successfully recruit, retain, and inspire women in computing?

Maria Klawe, Telle Whitney, and Caroline Simard

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Technical Perspective: Tools For Information to Flow Securely and Swift-ly

Back in the old days of the Web (before 1995), Web browsers were fairly simple devices. The server's Web interface was simple enough that an auditor could at least look at it and reason about its security. Today, it's a different world.

Dan Wallach

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Feb 1 2009

Building Secure Web Applications With Automatic Partitioning

Swift is a new, principled approach to building Web applications that are secure by construction. Swift automatically partitions application code while providing assurance that the resulting placement is secure and efficient.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Feb 1 2009

Technical Perspective: The Complexity of Computing Nash Equilibrium

Computer science and game theory go back to the same individual, John von Neumann, and both subjects deal with the mathematization of rational decision making. Yet, for many years they continued to work apart. But in the last dozen years we have seen a fusion of the two fields.

Ehud Kalai

Systems and Networking

Feb 1 2009

The Complexity of Computing a Nash Equilibrium

Traditionally, computational problems fall into two classes: those that have a polynomial-time algorithm and those that are NP-hard. However, the concept of NP-hardness cannot be applied to the rare problems where "every instance has a solution."

Constantinos Daskalakis, Paul W. Goldberg, and Christos H. Papadimitriou

Systems and Networking

illustration of Nash's function for the penalty shot game

Feb 1 2009

Networks of Contextualized Data: a Framework For Cyberinfrastructure Data Management

Data, and those who manage it, have received heightened attention in recent years. Data is widely viewed as a valuable organizational resource,5 and those charged with its management have been elevated to executive levels of the organization.9 However, as organizations respond to the ever-increasing demands for information, data management activities have become much more complex.1 […]

Pamela E. Carter and Gina Green

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

For Sale By Owner Online: Who Gets the Saved Commission?

The evolution of the internet in commerce has dramatically reshaped many industries such as security trading, retail banking, and travel agency industry. It had been widely predicted that the Internet would also present a serious threat to real estate agent as a market intermediary. Recent studies show, however, that in spite of growing use of […]

Xiao-Bai Li and Luvai Motiwalla

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Oracle, Where Shall I Submit My Papers?

In April 2005, a group of MIT students pulled prank1 on the conference World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics [WMSCI]10-known for sending unsolicited invitation emails to people in academia. The MIT students used software to generate bogus research papers, complete with context-free grammar, and submitted two of them to the conference. To their […]

Ergin Elmacioglu and Dongwon Lee

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Feb 1 2009

Automatically Profiling the Author of an Anonymous Text

Imagine that you have been given an important text of unknown authorship, and wish to know as much as possible about the unknown author (demographics, personality, cultural background, among others), just by analyzing the given text. This authorship profiling problem is of growing importance in the current global information environment applications abound in forensics, security, […]

Shlomo Argamon, Moshe Koppel, James W. Pennebaker, and Jonathan Schler

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Shadow Systems: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

We know them as shadow systems, workaround systems, and even feral systems. Operating at the fringes of an organization, they covertly replicate the data and functionality of formally sanctioned systems. Because of their duplicative acts, they are often said to have negative consequences for their hosts: undermining official systems,12 sapping valuable resources and corrupting organizational […]

Sandy Behrens

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Why Is Management Is In Trouble and How to Save It: Lessons Learned in the Automotive Industry

CIOS often face difficulties justifying their requests for investment in information systems (IS). Clear, simple, definitive evidence that investment in IS will benefit the total organization is hard to come by, and the evidence that is available requires the kind of knowledge and training that the CIO (and perhaps his or her staff) possess but […]

Arik Ragowsky and David Gefen

Computing Applications

Feb 1 2009

Why File Sharing Networks Are Dangerous?

Peer-to-peer (P2P) software clients have become part of the standard suite of PC applications for many users. With millions of users worldwide sharing music, video, software, and pictures,15 file movement on these networks represent a significant percentage of internet traffic. Beyond the much discussed copyright infringement issues, P2P networks threaten both corporate and individual security. […]

M. Eric Johnson, Dan McGuire, and Nicholas D. Willey

Architecture and Hardware

Feb 1 2009

Technical Opinion: Multitasking With Laptops During Meetings

For what purposes do people use their laptops during meetings? Recent press articles and academic studies describe a pervasive tendency to use computers for multiple purposes during lectures and workplace meetings.2,3,4 Participants may use their laptops to take notes in electronic format, follow presentation slides at their own pace, or look up related information on […]

Raquel Benbunan-Fich and Gregory E. Truman

Architecture and Hardware

Jan 1 2009

Engineering Rural Development

Information systems enable rural development by increasing the accountability of nongovernmental organizations.

Tapan S. Parikh

Architecture and Hardware

Parikh demonstrates a mobile data-collection system to NGO field staff member

Jan 1 2009

wisePad Services For Vision-, Hearing-, and Speech-Impaired Users

The wisePad system is envisioned as a full-service computing platform capable of delivering personalized image, audio, and text services to millions of individuals worldwide with impaired vision or hearing problems.

Dawn N. Jutla and Dimitri Kanevsky

Computing Applications

Jan 1 2009

Computational Challenges in E-Commerce

Economic and social sciences will drive Internet protocols and services into the future.

Joan Feigenbaum, David C. Parkes, and David M. Pennock

Architecture and Hardware

Jan 1 2009

Technical Perspective: Customizing Media to Displays

A mind-boggling array of displays differ greatly in resolutions and aspect ratios. But images and videos are captured at fixed resolutions and aspect ratios, and viewing them properly in a display can be a challenge.

Harry Shum

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Shape the Future of Computing

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