Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2019
From BLOG@CACM
The African Enigma: Who Knows More?
Tally sticks and notched bones are among the oldest digital data carriers.
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Explainability 360 Toolkit
From today's talk:
http://cognitive-science.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AIX360-CSIG-V1-2019-09-05.pdf (Slides)
http://cognitive-science.info/community/weekly-update/ (Recording Will follow here shortly)
http://aix360.mybluemix…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Passing integers by reference can be expensive…
In languages like C++, you can pass values to functions in two ways. You can pass by value: the value is semantically “copied” before being passed to the function. Any change you made to the value within the function will beContinue…
From BLOG@CACM
Dynamic Analysis in the Browser
Autopsy of a Google Query.
From Computational Complexity
Transitioning
You may have noticed, or not, that I haven't posted or tweeted much in the last month. I've had a busy time moving back to Chicago and starting my new position as Dean of the College of Science at Illinois Tech.
Part of that…
From insideHPC
NetApp looks to BeeGFS for High Speed Storage
ThinkParQ is expanding its global reach of BeeGFS by partnering with NetApp. The new partnership will provide an easy to deploy, cost effective and easy-to-manage high performance turnkey solution, that incorporates the NetApp…
From insideHPC
Podcast: ECP Team Achieves Huge Performance Gain on Materials Simulation Code
The Exascale Atomistics for Accuracy, Length, and Time (EXAALT) project within the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has made a big step forward by delivering a five-fold performance advance in addressing…
From insideHPC
CSC Finland powers AI to help predict hybrid nanoparticle structures
Researchers in Finland have achieved a significant step forward in predicting atomic structures of hybrid nanoparticles. The work was carried out using supercomputing resources at CSC and the Barcelona supercomputing center,
…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing and the Scientist: How HPC and Analytics are transforming experimental science
In this video from DataTech19, Debbie Bard from NERSC presents: Supercomputing and the scientist: How HPC and large-scale data analytics are transforming experimental science. "Debbie Bard leads the Data Science Engagement Group…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shipping Containers as IoT
Used to deal with lots of shipping containers that contained valuable perishable items. So saw the need for this early on. Tests were already underway then, and makes sense that they have progressed. See also the Maersk…
From insideHPC
Thermoplastic Connectors Grow in Popularity Along with Liquid Cooling
As liquid cooling becomes more and more prevalent, new technology and types of connectors are becoming water cooler topics for those in the data and computing industries. According to a new report from CPC, long-term, leak-free…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blockchain Testing to Secure Power Grid
Interesting example of how to use chains for securing data. Here it appears primarily IOT examples.
US Energy Department Funds Trial of Factom Blockchain to Secure Power Grid in CoinDesk
Factom, one of the earliest companies to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
McCormick Uses AI to Test Spices
Been impressed with what McCormick has done in emerging tech spaces.
McCormick using AI to test recipes
McCormick has been using artificial intelligence to develop recipes that tap into its 40 years of data, said CEO Lawrence Kurzius…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing
This is a great program for high school girls interested in technology. I have had several students get awards at the state level and they all say it has been a good thing for them.
Hello Educators! Applications for the NCWITWhen…
From Schneier on Security
The Doghouse: Crown Sterling
A decade ago, the Doghouse was a regular feature in both my email newsletter Crypto-Gram and my blog. In it, I would call out particularly egregious -- and amusing -- examples of cryptographic "snake oil." I dropped it both because…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Six Sigma Out of Fashion?
We did training using Six Sigma in its early days. We joined with GE regionally to do advanced training with them. Though in later connects with GE the term was not mentioned. Agile was more in fashion. It had been a…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Computing and Verifiable Knowledge
Another little piece of the puzzle, how will quantum computing be fundamentally be different than the computing we have known for so long?
Quantum Information Theory
Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Upcoming NSF Funding Opportunities
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a number of upcoming funding opportunities. Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (CDS&E) (PD 12-8084) Full Proposal Window: September 30, 2019 Advanced computational…
From The Eponymous Pickle
W. Daniel Hillis on Intelligent Emergences
Continued looks at Intelligence in The Edge, here from W. Daniell Hillis
Emergences
My perspective is closest to George Dyson's. I liked his introducing himself as being interested in intelligence in the wild. I will copy George…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing Post-Wildfire Water Availability
A new study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) uses a numerical model of an important watershed in California to shed light on how wildfires can affect large-scale hydrological processes, such…
From insideHPC
Call for Papers: ISC 2020 in Frankfurt
The ISC 2020 conference has issued its Call for Papers. The event takes place June 21-25, 2020 in Frankfurt, Germany. "The ISC research paper sessions provide world-class opportunities for engineers and scientists in academia…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Combining RPA and AI: Automationhero
Brought to my attention, the basic claim is good, once you understand your process well enough you should be able to do both. The effective definition of both methods is key.
AI that works for you.
Combining RPA and AI for next…
From The Noisy Channel
Dances with HiPPOs
Decision making, especially at technology companies, is supposed to be data-driven. Unfortunately, even in this wondrous age of science, decisions often depends on what Avinash Kaushik and Ronny Kohavi call the Highest Paid Person…
From insideHPC
Podcast: Inside TACC’s Frontera Supercomputer
In this Intel Chip Chat podcast, Dan Stanzione from TACC discusses the architecture and capabilities of Frontera, TACC’s newest HPC cluster. "Frontera’s architecture includes 8,000 servers, each powered by 2nd Generation Intel…
From insideHPC
The ABCI Supercomputer: World’s First Open AI Computing Infrastructure
Shinichiro Takizawa from AIST gave this talk at the MVAPICH User Group. "ABCI is the world's first large-scale Open AI Computing Infrastructure, constructed and operated by AIST, Japan. It delivers 19.9 petaflops of HPL performance…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Scratch Course For Teachers
This looks like a valuable free professional development course for teachers interested in incorporating Scratch into their curriculum.
"The Scratch Course" is a free, six week, online workshop style course for teachers interested…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Scoop and Conversaton Analytics
Remembering having this idea for interacting with people conversationally on a chatbot, but the technology was not even close then. And then also using the conversation to route to the write human or machine resource. It was…
From insideHPC
7 Ways HPC Software Developers Can Benefit from Intel Software Investments
Intel has long focused on supporting HPC software. But, as the years have gone by, much has changed — and the company's offerings have grown and evolved. A chapter from a recent edition of Parallel Universe Magazine, from this…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Can AI Answer Toughest HR Questions?
A Podcast addressing tough questions, research from Wharton:
Can Artificial Intelligence Help Answer HR’s Toughest Questions?
Aug 30, 2019 Human Resources Podcasts Research North America using AI in human resources
MIC LISTEN TO…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Self-Play Is Key?
Self-play and Ramsey numbers [ Talking about worst case ] Avrim Blum is the CAO for TTIC. That is he is the Chief Academic Officer at the Toyota Technological Institute of Chicago. Avrim has and continues to make key contributions…