On May 15, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will host it’s next Washington Area Trustworthy Computing Hour (WATCH) talk. The talk will be “STAR-Vote – A Secure, Transparent, Auditable and Reliable Voting System.” The speaker will be Dan Wallach, professor in the Department of Computer Science and a Rice Scholar at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas. From the abstract: STAR-Vote is a collaboration between a number of academics and the Travis County (Austin), Texas elections office, which currently uses a DRE voting system and previously used an optical scan voting system. STAR-Vote represents a rare opportunity for a variety of sophisticated technologies, such as end-to-end cryptography and […]

The National Science Foundation has issued a new program solicitation for High Performance Computing System Acquisition: Continuing the Building of a More Inclusive Computing Environment for Science and Engineering. “The intent of this solicitation is to request proposals from organizations willing to serve as Resource Providers within the NSF eXtreme Digital (XD) program.  The current solicitation is intended to complement previous NSF investments in advanced computational infrastructure by exploring new and creative approaches to delivering innovative computational resources to an increasingly diverse community and portfolio of scientific research and education.   NSF’s vision for Advanced Computing Infrastructure, which supports Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21), focuses specifically on ensuring that the science and engineering community has […]

The next WATCH Talk is scheduled for April 17 at noon EST. Deborah Frincke will discuss Education and Training within the National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS). Dr. Frincke  is the NSA/CSS Associate Director for Education and Training, leads the National Cryptologic School (NCS)  titled as the NCS Commandant, and manages a worldwide multiservice military and civilian, corporate-level learning organization to deliver education, training and career development to members of the NSA/CSS workforce.   Abstract Education and Training within the National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a complex, global, mission-driven effort, incorporating essentially every aspect of learning that an employee might require. Whether civilian or military, encompassing a short tour or multiple […]

The use of computer science is making significant contributions on improving the treatment of cancer. A recent New York Times article, highlighted how oncologists are using computer science to increase the scalability of personalized cancer treatments. Thirty years ago, sequencing a piece of DNA took years, now computer software can do the same job in seconds. “The idea is simple. Oncologists will get a tumor biopsy and have its genome sequenced. They will identify the mutations in the cancer cells, and they will draw up a list of drugs to treat each patient’s particular mix of mutations.” Although it’s possible to create personalized treatments, it is not yet scalable. There […]

On April 2, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council kicked off its spring Council meeting with a discussion with Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, on the challenges of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), such as the connection of everyday items like lightbulbs, refrigerators, TVs, and other devices to both the internet and each other. The rapidly increasing numbers of networked devices brings up a number of  issues that the computing community will need to address in the near future. Cerf delivered an engaging presentation on his view of IoT and followed it up with a thought provoking dialogue with the CCC Council about some of the challenges that this […]

Today, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the launch of a new office that will merge biology, engineering, and computer science to harness the power of natural systems for national security. The Biological Technologies Office (BTO), a new division, will explore the increasingly dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences. BTO will expand the work undertaken by DARPA’s Defense Sciences (DSO) and Microsystems Technology (MTO) Offices. From the press release on the DARPA site: The Biological Technologies Office will advance and expand on a number of earlier DARPA programs that made preliminary inroads into the bio-technological frontier,” said Geoff Ling, named by DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar to be the first director of […]