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Communications of the ACM

Table of Contents


DEPARTMENT: Editor's letter

Five Years as Editor-in-Chief of Communications

This is my last editorial as Editor-in-Chief of Communications, so it is a moment to share learnings and, of course, to reflect on accomplishments.
DEPARTMENT: Editorial

Our ACM Community

As we celebrate ACM's 75th Anniversary this year, it seems a fitting time to consider the community that ACM has fostered.
DEPARTMENT: Cerf's up

Digital Synergy

Inventing an imaginary company helped me imagine how powerful it can be to have data available that permits fact-based analysis of business performance, projections for future business operations, and understanding of the marketplace …
DEPARTMENT: Letters to the editor

More on Computing's Divided Future

Thank you for addressing the danger posed by the current Chinese government's imperialistic ambitions, using every tool at its disposal, including technology and foreign visitors (January 2022 Communications Editor's Letter). …
DEPARTMENT: BLOG@CACM

The Role of Math in IT Education

Andrei Sukhov considers why and how the foundations of teaching mathematics for information technology specialties need to be revised.
COLUMN: News

Always Improving Performance

Jack J. Dongarra is the recipient of the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and libraries that enabled high-performance computational software to keep pace with exponential hardware …

A Deeper Understanding of Deep Learning

Kernel methods clarify why neural networks generalize so well.

Addressing Labor Shortages with Automation

Labor shortages have many companies turning to automation technology, but with mixed outcomes.

Immersion Cooling Heats Up

Depending on climate conditions, the availability of renewables and other factors, immersion cooling can make a profound difference in both energy consumption and costs.
COLUMN: The profession of IT

Involvement and Detachment

How detachment from your community blocks your success at leading innovations, and what to do about it.
COLUMN: Inside risks

Toward Total-System Trustworthiness

Considering how to achieve the long-term goal to systemically reduce risks.
COLUMN: Kode Vicious

The Planning and Care of Data

Rearranging buckets for no good reason.
COLUMN: Viewpoint

Our House Is On Fire: The Climate Emergency and Computing's Responsibility

Efficiencies delivered by computing technology could play a vital role in enabling continued functionality within a resource-constrained future.
SECTION: Practice

The Software Industry Is Still the Problem

The time is (also) way overdue for IT professional liability.

Lamboozling Attackers: A New Generation of Deception

Software engineering teams can exploit attackers' human nature by building deception environments.
SECTION: Contributed articles

Methods Included: Standardizing Computational Reuse and Portability with the Common Workflow Language

The growing popularity of computational workflows is also a cause for concern. How can we enjoy the common benefits of the workflows and eliminate the risks?

Responsible Data Management

Perspectives on the role and responsibility of the data-management research community in designing, developing, using, and overseeing automated decision systems.
SECTION: Review articles

Challenges, Experiments, and Computational Solutions in Peer Review

Improving the peer review process in a scientific manner shows promise.
SECTION: Research highlights

Technical Perspective: The Compression Power of the BWT

"Resolution of the Burrows-Wheeler Transform Conjecture," by Dominik Kempa and Tomasz Kociumaka, finally settles the question of how well r in the BWT captures repetitiveness.

Resolution of the Burrows-Wheeler Transform Conjecture

In this paper, we show that r = cacm6506_bs.gif(z log2 n) holds for every text. This result has numerous implications for text indexing and data compression.

Technical Perspective: Computation Where the (inter)Action Is

"SoundWatch," by Dhruv Jain et al., provides an example of HCI research's vital role in designing architectures that trade off different computational capabilities and latencies.

SoundWatch: Deep Learning for Sound Accessibility on Smartwatches

We present SoundWatch, a smartwatch-based deep learning application to sense, classify, and provide feedback about sounds occurring in the environment.
COLUMN: Last byte

Learning New Things and Avoiding Obstacles

ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Jack Dongarra never intended to work with computers.