Last year, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) & CRA’s Government Affairs Committee held it’s first Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) to help nurture the next generation of computing research leaders. A total of 35 participants attended the institute, which featured a series of presentations from science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration officials. Topics covered included the mechanics of the legislative process, serving on advisory committees, and interfacing with Federal agencies. Today we are pleased to announce the second Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), which will be held April 11-12, 2013 in Washington, DC. Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would […]

Today, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officially kicked off its newest Grand Challenge, DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). As we’ve blogged previously, the Grand Challenge calls for “a humanoid robot (with a bias toward bipedal designs) that can be used in rough terrain and for industrial disasters.” DARPA also released a video of Pet-Proto, a humanoid robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics. Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA’s Atlas robot, is an example of what the agency envisions for the challenge. Watch Pet-Proto in action, as it navigates obstacles:   More about the challenge from DARPA: The Department of Defense’s strategic plan calls for the Joint Force to conduct humanitarian, disaster relief and related operations.  The plan identifies requirements to extend aid […]

This week, the National Science Foundation issued a solicitation for its new Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program. The program aims to support groundbreaking research leading to a new era of scalable computing. NSF estimates that $15 million in awards will be made in FY 2013 for this program.  As the solicitation notes, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) furnished a white paper earlier this year titled 21st Century Computer Architecture, through which members of the computing research community contributed strategic thinking in this space.  The white paper drew upon a number of earlier efforts, including CCC’s Advancing Computer Architecture Research (ACAR) visioning reports. Here is a synopsis of the Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program from the National Science Foundation: Computing […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Blog, which was created in 2008, has served as a means for exchanging information between the research community and funding agencies. It has provided an immediate online mechanism for community-wide dissemination, discussion, and debate of visioning concepts. Today, we are proud to announce that the blog has reached over 300,000 views!  Much of the blog’s success is due to the dedication of Erwin Gianchandani. When Erwin became Director of the Computing Community Consortium in April of 2010; the blog averaged 83 hits per day, when Erwin departed last month, the blog averaged 571 hits per day – an increase of over 500%. Here are a few of our […]

Last week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $21.6 million to 34 institutions across the country through the foundation’s Campus Cyberinfrastructure-Network Infrastructure and Engineering (CC-NIE) program. The projects will seek to improve U.S. University and college computer networks that are necessary for movement of the large data sets required for data-intensive scientific research. The awards to the 34 institutions across 23 states support two categories of awards: Network Integration and Applied Innovation awards provide support of up to $1 million for up to two years.  These awards address the challenges of achieving end-user network performance across complex, distributed research and education environments.  They seek to integrate existing and new technologies with applied innovations by […]

Technology and society writer Katie Hafner published an article yesterday on the use of technology as clinical tools in The New York Times: Dr. Alvin Rajkomar was doing rounds with his team at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center when he came upon a puzzling case: a frail, elderly patient with a dangerously low sodium level.   As a third-year resident in internal medicine, Dr. Rajkomar was the senior member of the team, and the others looked to him for guidance. An infusion of saline was the answer, but the tricky part lay in the details. Concentration? Volume? Improper treatment could lead to brain swelling, seizures or even death.   Dr. Rajkomar had been on […]