Need some last minute help with your bracket before March Madness tips off? Check out the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Bracketodds, which uses probability theory and statistics to predict and analyze the success of teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament based on seeding. The website was created in 2011 as an educational project with undergraduate computer science students at UIUC and is intended to be used as “a tool to evaluate and compare various seed combinations in later rounds of your bracket and to assess your bracket odds” as the model does not have the accuracy to give probabilities for games before the Sweet Sixteen. If you’re […]

The following is a press release from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine about a recent report that recommends a new research agenda for effective science communication.  A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights the complexity of communicating about science effectively, especially when dealing with contentious issues, and proposes a research agenda to help science communicators and researchers identify effective methods.  The most widely held model of what audiences need from science communication — known as the “deficit model,” which focuses on simply conveying more information — is wrong, the report says. A major research effort is needed to understand the complex factors […]

Researchers from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Trustworthy Health & Wellness project (THaW) will demonstrate transition to practice at the Medical Device Security 101 Conference January 15-17, 2017 at Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club Resorts in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Led by Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member Dr. Kevin Fu, who has spent the last decade working on medical device security, the group has assembled an impressive list of instructors for the two-day training conference.  Speakers include individuals who chaired the development of cybersecurity standards now recognized by FDA; experts from the Mayo Clinic and American Hospital Association; officials from FDA, OCR, and OIG; hospital CISOs; and leaders from manufacturers and […]

National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for the Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) James Kurose has issued the following letter to the community to announce the appointment of Ken Calvert as NSF CISE Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) Division Director.  Dear Colleagues, I’m very pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Kenneth (Ken) Calvert to the position of Division Director for the CISE Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS), effective May 2016. Ken has already begun his service at NSF as an Expert this month. Ken will be joining NSF from the University of Kentucky, where he is Professor of Computer Science. He has served as Chair of […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is pleased to announce a distinguished lecture on Thursday, March 31, 2016 at 2:00pm EST by Dr. Andrew Moore titled Google-tech to CMU-SCS-tech: Strategy around Data, Augmented Humans and Autonomy. Andrew W. Moore PhD, a distinguished computer scientist with expertise in machine learning and robotics, became dean of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science in August 2014. He had previously served as a professor of computer science and robotics before taking a leave of absence to become founding director of Google’s Pittsburgh engineering office in 2006. Moore’s research interests broadly encompass the field of “big data”–applying statistical methods and mathematical formulas to massive quantities […]

The following is a guest blog post by Thyaga Nandagopal, National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director for Computer and Network Systems (CNS).  The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 4, 2016. This workshop will be held at the Westin Arlington. The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs. Attendees will have the opportunity to improve their skills in proposal writing, as well as to interact with NSF program directors from different CISE divisions (ACI, CCF, CNS, and IIS) […]