ACM Is Built on Volunteers' Shoulders
ACM President Alain Chesnais says the association is largely built on the energy and devotion of its many dedicated volunteers. View this dynamic visual representation of volunteers' involvement with the SIGGRAPH 2010 conference …
Alain Chesnais
Page 5
DEPARTMENT:
Letters to the editor
How to Celebrate Codd's RDBMS Vision
While we were pleased Communications celebrated E.F. Codd's seminal article "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks" (June 1970) in "Happy Birthday, RDBMS!" by Gary Anthes (May 2010), we were also dismayed by …
CACM Staff
Page 7
DEPARTMENT:
[email protected]
In Search of Database Consistency
Michael Stonebraker discusses the implications of the CAP theorem on database management system applications that span multiple processing sites.
Michael Stonebraker
Pages 8-9
DEPARTMENT:
CACM online
The Mobile Road Ahead
ACM is planning to launch a mobile version of the Communications website and a series of mobile applications in the coming months. We have been directly and indirectly collecting …
David Roman
Page 10
COLUMN:
News
Linear Logic
A novel approach to computational logic is reaching maturity, opening up opening up new vistas in programming languages, proof nets, and security applications.
Alex Wright
Pages 11-13
Personal Fabrication
Open source 3D printers could herald the start of a new industrial revolution.
Graeme Stemp-Morlock
Pages 14-15
Should Code Be Released?
Software code can provide important insights into the results of research, but it's up to individual scientists whether their code is released---and many opt not to.
Dennis McCafferty
Pages 16-17
COLUMN:
Historical reflections
Victorian Data Processing
The Victorian world was awash with data and with organizations that processed it; and they usually used nothing more technologically advanced than pen and paper.
Martin Campbell-Kelly
Pages 19-21
COLUMN:
Technology strategy and management
Platforms and Services: Understanding the Resurgence of Apple
Combining new consumer devices and Internet platforms with online services and content is proving to be a successful strategy.
Michael A. Cusumano
Pages 22-24
COLUMN:
Inside Risks
Risks of Undisciplined Development
An illustration of the problems caused by a lack of discipline in software development and our failure to apply what is known in the field.
David L. Parnas
Pages 25-27
COLUMN:
Kode Vicious
Version Aversion
The way you number your releases communicates more than you might think.
George V. Neville-Neil
Pages 28-29
COLUMN:
Viewpoint
Score: Agile Research Group Management
Adapting agile software development methodology toward more efficient management of academic research groups.
Michael Hicks, Jeffrey S. Foster
Pages 30-31
SECTION:
Practice
Photoshop Scalability: Keeping It Simple
Clem Cole and Russell Williams discuss Photoshop's long history with parallelism, and what is now seen as the chief challenge.
ACM Case Study
Pages 32-38
Thinking Clearly About Performance, Part 2
More important principles to keep in mind when designing high-performance software.
Cary Millsap
Pages 39-45
Tackling Architectural Complexity with Modeling
Component models can help diagnose architectural problems in both new and existing systems.
Kevin Montagne
Pages 46-52
SECTION:
Contributed articles
A Neuromorphic Approach to Computer Vision
Neuroscience is beginning to inspire a new generation of seeing machines.
Thomas Serre, Tomaso Poggio
Pages 54-61
How Offshoring Affects IT Workers
IT jobs requiring interpersonal interaction or physical presence in fixed locations are less likely to be sent out of the country.
Prasanna B. Tambe, Lorin M. Hitt
Pages 62-70
SECTION:
Review articles
Peer-to-Peer Systems
Originally invented for music/data sharing and volunteer computing, P2P systems have become an efficient means for delivering content and innovative services.
Rodrigo Rodrigues, Peter Druschel
Pages 72-82
SECTION:
Research highlights
Technical Perspective: A VM 'Engine' That Makes a Difference
The past decade has witnessed a renaissance in server virtualization. Diwaker Gupta et al. present a novel approach for significantly improving the efficiency of virtualized servers.
Carl Waldspurger
Page 84
Difference Engine: Harnessing Memory Redundancy in Virtual Machines
Virtual machine monitors are a popular platform for Internet hosting centers and cloud-based compute services. But main memory is not amenable to multiplexed hardware resources and is often a bottleneck in achieving higher degrees …
Diwaker Gupta, Sangmin Lee, Michael Vrable, Stefan Savage, Alex C. Snoeren, George Varghese, Geoffrey M. Voelker, Amin Vahdat
Pages 85-93
Technical Perspective: Belief Propagation
Nearly every modern tracking system is based on the seminal work of Rudolf Kalman who developed the optimal fusion algorithm for linear dynamics under Gaussian …
Yair Weiss, Judea Pearl
Page 94
Nonparametric Belief Propagation
Probabilistic graphical models and algorithms for approximate inference have proven to be powerful tools in a wide range of applications in statistics and AI. However, applying these methods to models with continuous variables …
Erik B. Sudderth, Alexander T. Ihler, Michael Isard, William T. Freeman, Alan S. Willsky
Pages 95-103
COLUMN:
Last byte
Q&A: Gray's Paradigm
Tony Hey talks about Jim Gray and his vision of a new era of collaborative, data-intensive science.
Leah Hoffmann
Pages 112-ff