A new National Science and Technology Council report released Monday — titled A Policy Framework for 21st Century Grid — describes ways to speed development of a smart grid that reduces energy consumption, efficiently delivers power from renewable sources, and decreases the frequency and length of blackouts. What’s most interesting — to us, anyway — is how the report calls attention to the need for fundamental research in several areas of computer science. Notably, “the four essential pillars that will enable the U.S. to transition to a smarter grid” all feature aspects of IT R&D prominently: Enable Cost-Effective Smart Grid Investments: Smart grid technology can drive improvements in system efficiency, resiliency, and […]
Computing Community Consortium Blog
The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.
“A Policy Framework for 21st Century Grid”
June 16th, 2011 / in policy, research horizons / by Erwin Gianchandani“Computer Science’s ‘Sputnik Moment’?”
June 15th, 2011 / in pipeline, policy, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniFollowing up on an article about rising enrollments in computer science this past Saturday, The New York Times has just published a fabulous Room for Debate essay series titled “Computer Science’s ‘Sputnik Moment’?“: Computer science is a hot major again. It had been in the doldrums after the dot-com bust a decade ago, but with the social media gold rush and the success of “The Social Network,” computer science departments are transforming themselves to meet the demand. At Harvard, the size of the introductory computer science class has nearly quadrupled in five years. The spike has raised hopes of a ripple effect throughout the American education system — so much so […]
AHRQ Calling for Health IT Research Proposals
June 15th, 2011 / in research horizons, resources / by Erwin GianchandaniThe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued several solicitations in recent weeks focused on health information technology R&D. AHRQ appears to be taking a fairly broad view of health IT: Health IT is broadly defined as the use of information and communication technology in health care to support the delivery of patient or population care or to support patient self-management. Health IT can support patient care related activities such as order communications, results reporting, care planning and clinical or health documentation (Shortliffe EH and JJ Cimino, “Biomedical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine.” Third Edition. 2006). […]
100,000 Views… And Counting
June 14th, 2011 / in CCC / by Erwin GianchandaniA quick break from the usual sorts of posts in this space: The Computing Community Consortium launched this blog three years ago as a way to promote discussion — about research directions, funding programs, etc. — throughout the computing research community. Today — 234 posts later — the blog has been seen at least 100,000 times. Thanks to everyone who’s visited this website over the past several years! In the very first post on this blog, Peter Lee and Andrew McCallum described the objective — derived from the goals of the CCC: Brainstorming, discussing and driving “longer range, audacious research challenges” is the job of the entire community, and the CCC is […]
“Your Cool Research Videos”: Exploring Photobios
June 14th, 2011 / in videos / by Erwin Gianchandani(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) Back in late April, the CCC announced a call for short videos describing exciting research and results in computer science — with the goal of communicating to undergraduates what computing research is all about. Today I’m pleased to present the first of these videos — called Exploring Photobios — in what I hope will become a continuing feature on this blog. This video comes from Steven Seitz’s group in the Graphics and Imaging Laboratory at University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering. All of us are photographed thousands of times over our lifetimes. Taken together, these photos form a visual record for each of […]
“Precision Twister Tracking”
June 13th, 2011 / in research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniUpdated Friday, June 17, 9:03am EDT: NPR has picked up this story, reporting on today’s “Morning Edition” how the research being pursued by Michael Zink et al. at UMass-Amherst could lead to advanced warning systems that reduce the numbers of deaths arising from severe weather outbreaks. Check out the NPR feature (which includes audio): “Advanced Tornado Technology Could Reduce Deaths.” The original blog entry from earlier this week appears below… … There’s a very timely story in today’s Boston Globe featuring the work of Michael Zink and his colleagues at UMass-Amherst, who are developing — with funding from the NSF — a better severe weather warning system that gives geographically […]
