Alexandria ACM Student Chapter

Google Glass Picks up early Signal

US vs CHINA
Trading Accusations Over Cyberattacks

CANCER Networks
Memory Battery One Device

Algorithms Find Genetic

&

Quantum Internet Really !!!

INTERNET Vint Cerf Interview

CONTINUING THE AMAZING ITW13

Interplanetary

COPYRIGHTED

SIGNAL
Keep Out !

Google Glass Picks up early

Trade Accusations over Cyberattacks

US& China

Algorithms

Find Genetic

Cancer Networks

7
Older/Wiser
Developers skills improve over time

10
Battery & Memory

12

Are going to be one device

Revolutionizing

PREDICTION

TORNADO

14
Online Crowds & Teaching innovation

15
Robots and Vehicles
collaborate with humans

17
Analyzing Genomic Data

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Index | 1/4

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INTERNET
PAGE 22

Interplanetary
Vint Cerf

Index | 2/4

INDEX EXCLUSIVE (II)

ITW13
PAGE 27

The Amazing

Alexandria ACM Chapter | Chairman is writing about ITW ............... 28

ITW13 Project Managers Interview | Mustafa El Oreeby .......... 29

What do old AlexSBians say about ITW . 34

New photos of the Castle of ITW13. 38

Index | 3/4

Quantum Internet

TOWARDS

FLOWERS TWITTER

Get More

Algorithms Tracking

Find Genetic

GUNFIRE by Cancer smartphones Networks

on

42

43

44

Index | 4/4

Googles wearable computer, the most anticipated piece of electronic wizardry since the iPad and iPhone, will not go on sale for many months. But the resistance is already under way. The glasseslike device, which allows users to access the Internet, take photos and film short snippets, has been pre-emptively banned by a Seattle bar. Large parts of Las Vegas will not welcome wearers. West Virginia legislators tried to make it illegal to use the gadget, known as Google Glass, while driving. This is just the beginning, said Timothy We are all now going to be both the paparazzi Toohey, a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in and the paparazzis target, said Karen L. privacy issues. Google Glass is going to cause Stevenson, a lawyer with Buchalter Nemer in quite a brawl. Los Angeles. As personal technology becomes increasingly Google stresses that Glass is a work in progress, nimble and invisible, Glass is prompting with test versions now being released to 2,000 questions of whether it will distract drivers, developers. Another 8,000 explorers, people upend relationships and strip people of what handpicked by Google, will soon get a pair. little privacy they still have in public. Among the safeguards to make it less intrusive: A pair of lens-less frames with a tiny computer you have to speak or touch it to activate it, and attached to the right earpiece, Glass is you have to look directly at someone to take a promoted by Google as seamless and photograph or video of them. empowering. It will have the ability to capture We are thinking very carefully about how we any chance encounter, from a celebrity sighting design Glass because new technology always to a grumpy salesclerk, and broadcast it to raises new issues, said Courtney Hohne, a millions in seconds. Google spokeswoman.

EARLY SIGNAL

Google Glass Picks Up

8
Developers, however, are already cracking the limits of Glass. One created a small sensation in tech circles last week with a program that eliminated the need for gestures or voice commands. To snap a picture, all the user needs to do is wink. The 5 Point Cafe, a Seattle dive bar, was apparently the first to explicitly ban Glass. In part it was a publicity stunt extremely successful, too, as it garnered worldwide attention but the bars owner, Dave Meinert, said there was a serious side. The bar, he said, was kind of a private place. The legislators in West Virginia were not joking at all. The state banned texting while driving last year but hands-free devices are permitted. That left a loophole for Google Glass. The legislation was introduced too late to gain traction before the most recent session ended, but its sponsor says he is likely to try again. In Las Vegas, a Caesars Entertainment spokesman noted that computers and recording devices were prohibited in casinos. We will not allow people to wear Glass while gambling or attending our shows, he said.

Google Glass will test the right to privacy versus the First Amendment, said Bradley Shear, a social media expert at George Washington University. Google has often been at the forefront of privacy issues. In 2004, it began a free e-mail service, making money by generating ads against the content. Two dozen privacy groups protested. Regulators were urged to investigate whether eavesdropping laws were being violated. For better or worse, people got used to the idea, and the protests quickly dissipated. Gmail now has over 425 million users. In a more recent episode, the companys unauthorized data collection during its Street View mapping project prompted government investigations in a dozen countries. Like many Silicon Valley companies, Google takes the attitude that people should have nothing to hide from intrusive technology. If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place, said Eric Schmidt, then Googles chief executive, in 2009.

Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren famously noted in 1890 that numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops. Glass is arriving just as the courts, politicians, privacy advocates, regulators, law enforcement and tech companies are once again arguing over the boundaries of technology in every walk of life. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted last month to require law enforcement to have a warrant to access e-mail, not just a subpoena. The Federal Bureau of Investigations use of devices that mimic cell phone towers to track down criminals is being challenged in an Arizona case. A California district court recently ruled that private messages on social media were protected without a warrant.

Glass is a major step in Googles efforts to diversify beyond search, and potentially an extremely lucrative move. Piper Jaffray, an analyst firm, estimates that wearable technology and another major initiative, self-driving cars, could ultimately be a $500 billion opportunity for the company. In the shorter term, IHS, a forecasting firm, estimates that shipments of smart glasses, led by Google Glass, could be as high as 6.6 million in three years. Thad Starner, a pioneer of wearable computing who is a technical adviser to the Glass team, says he thinks concerns about disruption are overblown. Asocial people will be able to find a way to do asocial things with this technology, but on average people like to maintain the social contract, Mr. Starner said.

9
He added that he and colleagues had experimented with Glass-type devices for years, and I cant think of a single instance where something bad has happened. An incident at a Silicon Valley event shows, however, the way the increasing ease in capturing a moment can lead to problems even if unintentionally. Adria Richards, who worked for the Colorado e-mail company SendGrid, was offended by the jokes two men were cracking behind her at the PyCon developers conference. She posted a picture of them on Twitter with the mildly reproving comment, Not cool. One of the men, who has not been identified, was immediately fired by his employer, PlayHaven. There is another side to this story, he wrote on a hacking site, saying it was barely one lame sexual joke. She gave me no warning, she smiled while she snapped the pic and sealed my fate, he complained. Critics lashed out at Ms. Richards, using language much more offensive than the two men used. SendGrid was hacked. The company dismissed Ms. Richards, saying there was such an uproar over her conduct, it put our business in danger. I dont think anyone who was part of what happened at PyCon that day could possibly have imagined how this issue would have exploded into the public consciousness, Ms. Richards reflected later. She has not posted on Twitter since.

DAVID STREITFELD
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/technology/personaltech/ google-glass-picks-up-early-signal-keep-out.html?_r=1&

US and China
Trade Accusations Over

10

Cyberattacks

The Obama administration on Monday explicitly accused Chinas military of mounting attacks on American government computer systems and defense contractors, saying one motive could be to map military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.
While some recent estimates have more than 90 percent of cyberespionage in the United States originating in China, the accusations relayed in the Pentagons annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness. Until now the administration avoided directly accusing both the Chinese government and the Peoples Liberation Army of using cyberweapons against the United States in a deliberate, government-developed strategy to steal intellectual property and gain strategic advantage. In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military, the nearly 100-page report said. The report, released Monday, described Chinas primary goal as stealing industrial technology, but said many intrusions also seemed aimed at obtaining insights into American policy makers thinking. It warned that the same informationgathering could easily be used for building a picture of U.S. network defence networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis. It was unclear why the administration chose the Pentagon report to make assertions that it has long declined to make at the White House. A White House official declined to say at what level the report was cleared. A senior defensce official said this was a thoroughly coordinated report, but did not elaborate. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, criticized the report. China has repeatedly said that we resolutely oppose all forms of hacker attacks, she said.

Were willing to carry out an even-tempered and constructive dialogue with the U.S. on the issue of Internet security. But we are firmly opposed to any groundless accusations and speculations, since they will only damage the cooperation efforts and atmosphere between the two sides to strengthen dialogue and cooperation. Missing from the Pentagon report was any acknowledgment of the similar abilities being developed in the United States, where billions of dollars are spent each year on cyberdefense and constructing increasingly sophisticated cyberweapons. Recently the director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, who is also commander of the militarys fastgrowing Cyber Command, told Congress that he was creating more than a dozen offensive cyberunits, designed to mount attacks, when necessary, at foreign computer networks. When the United States mounted its cyberattacks on Irans nuclear facilities early in President Obamas first term, Mr Obama expressed concern to aides that China and other states might use the American operations to justify their own intrusions. But the Pentagon report describes something far more sophisticated: a China that has now leapt into the first ranks of offensive cybertechnologies. It is investing in electronic warfare capabilities in an effort to blind American satellites and other space assets, and hopes to use electronic and traditional weapons systems to gradually push the United States military presence into the midPacific nearly 2,000 miles from Chinas coast. The report argues that Chinas first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, commissioned last September, is the first of several carriers the country plans to deploy over the next 15 years

11
It said the carrier would not reach operational effectiveness for three or four years, but is already set to operate in the East and South China Seas, the site of Chinas territorial disputes with several neighbors, including Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The report notes a new carrier base under construction in Yuchi. The report also detailed Chinas progress in developing its stealth aircraft, first tested in January 2011. Three months ago the Obama administration would not officially confirm reports in The New York Times, based in large part on a detailed study by the computer security firm Mandiant, that identified P.L.A. Unit 61398 near Shanghai as the likely source of many of the biggest thefts of data from American companies and some government institutions. Until Monday, the strongest critique of China had come from Thomas E. Donilon, the presidents national security adviser, who said in a speech at the Asia Society in March that American companies were increasingly concerned about cyberintrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale, and that the international community cannot tolerate such activity from any country. He stopped short of blaming the Chinese government for the espionage. But government officials said the overall issue of cyberintrusions would move to the center of the United States-China relationship, and it was raised on recent trips to Beijing by Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. To bolster its case, the report argues that cyberweapons have become integral to Chinese military strategy. It cites two major public works of military doctrine, Science of Strategy and Science of Campaigns, saying they identify information warfare (I.W.) as integral to achieving information superiority and an effective means for countering a stronger foe. But it notes that neither document identifies the specific criteria for employing a computer network attack against an adversary, though they advocate developing capabilities to compete in this medium. It is a critique the Chinese could easily level at the United States, where the Pentagon has declined to describe the conditions under which it would use offensive cyberweapons. The Iran operation was considered a covert action, run by intelligence agencies, though many techniques used to manipulate Irans computer controllers would be common to a military program. The Pentagon report also explicitly states that Chinas investments in the United States aim to bolster its own military technology. China continues to leverage foreign investments, commercial joint ventures, academic exchanges, the experience of repatriated Chinese students and researchers, and state-sponsored industrial and technical espionage to increase the level of technologies and expertise available to support military research, development and acquisition. But the report does not address how the Obama administration should deal with that problem in an economically interconnected world where the United States encourages those investments, and its own in China, to create jobs and deepen the relationship between the worlds No. 1 and No. 2 economies. Some experts have argued that the threat from China has been exaggerated. They point out that the Chinese government unlike, say, Iran or North Korea has such deep investments in the United States that it cannot afford to mount a crippling cyberstrike on the country. The report estimates that Chinas defense budget is $135 billion to $215 billion, a large range attributable in part to the opaqueness of Chinese budgeting. While the figure is huge in Asia, the top estimate would still be less than a third of what the United States spends every year. Some of the reports most interesting elements examine the debate inside China over whether this is a moment for the country to bide its time, focusing on internal challenges, or to directly challenge the United States and other powers in the Pacific. But it said that proponents of a more active and assertive Chinese role on the world stage a group whose members it did not name have suggested that China would be better served by a firm stance in the face of U.S. or other regional pressure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/world/asi a/us-accuses-chinas-military-incyberattacks.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3

DAVID E. SANGER

12

Find Genetic Cancer Networks

Researchers at Washington University in St., Louis, using powerful algorithms developed by computer scientists at Brown University, have assembled the most complete genetic profile yet of acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer. Findings are reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Powerful data-sifting algorithms developed by computer scientists at Brown University are helping to untangle the profoundly complex genetics of cancer. In a study reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis used two algorithms developed at Brown to assemble the most complete genetic profile yet of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer. The researchers hope the work will lead to new AML treatments based on the genetics of each patients disease. The algorithms, developed by Ben Raphael, Eli Upfal, and Fabio Vandin from the Department of Computer Science and the Centre for Computational Molecular Biology (CCMB), played a key role in making sense of the giant datasets required for the study. The work was part of The Cancer Genome Atlas project, which aims to catalogue the genetic mutations that cause cells to become cancerous. Doing that requires sequencing the entire genome of cancer cells and comparing it to the genome of healthy cells. Without computational tools like the ones the Brown team has developed, analysing those data would be impossible. The AML study used two algorithms developed by the Brown team: HotNet and Dendrix. Both aim to find networks of genes that are important in creating cancerous cells. To understand how they work and why they are important, it helps to know a little about the genetics of cancer. Genes dont usually act on their own, but instead act together in pathways or networks, said Raphael, associate professor computer science. Cancer-causing mutations often target these networks and pathways. This presents a problem for researchers trying to find important mutations, because these mutations are often spread across the network and hidden in the genetic data. imagine a cellular pathway containing five genes. If any one of those genes acquires a mutation, the pathway fails and the cell becomes cancerous. That means five patients with the same cancer can have any one of five different mutations. That makes life difficult for researchers trying to find the mutations that cancer cells have in common. The algorithms developed by Raphael and his team are designed to connect those dots and identify the important pathways, rather than looking only at individual genes. The HotNet algorithm works by plotting mutation data from patients onto a map of known gene interactions and looking for connected networks that are mutated more often than would be expected by chance. The program represents frequently mutated genes as heat sources. By looking at the way heat is distributed and clustered across the map, the program finds the hot networks involved in cancer. HotNet picked out several networks that seem to be active in the AML genome. In a study published in 2011, HotNet identified networks important to ovarian cancer as well. Dendrix, the newest algorithm developed at Brown, takes the power of HotNet one step further. HotNet works by looking for mutations in networks that are already known to researchers. However, there are countless gene networks that researchers have not yet identified. Dendrix is designed to look for mutations in those previously unknown networks. To find new networks, Dendrix takes advantage of the fact that cancer-causing mutations are relatively rare. A patient with a mutation in one gene in a network is unlikely to have a concurrent mutation in another gene in that network. Dendrix looks for combinations of mutations that happen frequently across patients but rarely happen together in a single patient. Put another way: Imagine that a substantial number patients with a given cancer have a mutation in gene X.

ALGORITHMS

13
Another large group of patients has a mutation in gene Y. But very few patients have mutations in both X and Y at the same time. Dendrix looks for these patterns of exclusivity and predicts that groups of genes with high exclusivity are probably working together. Where we see those patterns of exclusivity, Raphael said, it suggests a possible pathway. The group has tested Dendrix on cancers in which the pathways were already known, just to see if the program would find them. Indeed, the pathways just fall right out of the data, Raphael said. For the AML paper, Raphaels group developed an improved algorithm Dendrix++ which better handles extremely rare mutations. Dendrix++ picked out three potential new pathways in AML for doctors to investigate. Raphael and Vandin, along with computational biology graduate students Max Leiserson and Hsin-Ta Wu, are continuing to improve their algorithms and to apply them to new datasets. The group recently started putting the algorithms to work on whats called the Pan-Cancer project, which looks for commonalities in mutations across cancer types. For us as computational people, its fun to push these algorithms and apply them to new datasets, Raphael said. At the same time, in analyzing cancer data we hope that the algorithms produce actionable information that is clinically important.

An interactive catalog of genetic mutationsThe genetic profile of a given cancer can involve mutations of different genes in different patients. Dendrix, a powerful algorithm, can search enormous datasets for associations of genetic mutations, any one of might cause disease.Credit: Department of Computer Science | Brown University | US | Prof. Ban Rafael.

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Older is Wiser
There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers arent able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms.
We wanted to explore these perceptions of veteran programmers as being out of step with emerging technologies and see if we could determine whether older programmers are actually keeping up with changes in the field, says Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and coauthor of a paper on the research. And we found that, in some cases, veteran programmers even have a slight edge. The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community that allows users to ask and answer programming questions. The site also allows users to rate the usefulness of other users questions and answers. Users who are rated as asking good questions and providing good answers receive points that are reflected in their reputation score. The higher an individuals reputation score, the more likely it is that the user has a robust understanding of programming issues. For the first part of the study, the researchers compared the age of users with their reputation scores. They found that an individuals reputation increases with age, at least into a users 40s. There wasnt enough data to draw meaningful conclusions for older programmers. The researchers then looked at the number of different subjects that users asked and answered questions about, which reflects the breadth of their programming interests. The researchers found that there is a sharp decline in the number of subjects users weighed in on between the ages of 15 and 30 but that the range of subjects increased steadily through the programmers 30s and into their early 50s. Finally, the researchers evaluated the knowledge of older programmers (ages 37 and older) compared to younger programmers (younger than 37) in regard to relatively recent technologies meaning technologies that have been around for less than 10 years. For two smartphone operating systems, iOS and Windows Phone 7, the veteran programmers had a significant edge in knowledge over their younger counterparts. For every other technology, from Django to Silverlight, there was no statistically significant difference between older and younger programmers. The data doesnt support the bias against older programmers if anything, just the opposite, Murphy-Hill says. The paper, Is Programming Knowledge Related To Age?, will be presented May 18 at the 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, sponsored by IEEE and ACM in San Francisco, Calif. Lead author of the paper is Patrick Morrison, a Ph.D. student at NC State.

Study shows SW developers skills improve over time

Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-murphyhillage-2013/

Battery& Memory
Future nanoelectronic information storage devices are also tiny batteries astounding finding opens up new possibilities
Resistive memory cells (ReRAM) are regarded as a promising solution for future generations of computer memories. They will dramatically reduce the energy consumption of modern IT systems while significantly increasing their performance. Unlike the building blocks of conventional hard disk drives and memories, these novel memory cells are not purely passive components but must be regarded as tiny batteries. This has been demonstrated by researchers of Jlich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), whose findings have now been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications. The new finding radically revises the current theory and opens up possibilities for further applications. The research group has already filed a patent application for their first idea on how to improve data readout with the aid of battery voltage. Conventional data memory works on the basis of electrons that are moved around and stored. However, even by atomic standards, electrons are extremely small. It is very difficult to control them,

15

ARE ONE

for example by means of relatively thick insulator walls, so that information will not be lost over time. This does not only limit storage density, it also costs a great deal of energy. For this reason, researchers are working feverishly all over the world on nanoelectronic components that make use of ions, i.e. charged atoms, for storing data. Ions are some thousands of times heavier that electrons and are therefore much easier to 'hold down'. In this way, the individual storage elements can almost be reduced to atomic dimensions, which enormously improves the storage density. In resistive switching memory cells (ReRAMs), ions behave on the nanometre scale in a similar manner to a battery. The cells have two electrodes, for example made of silver and platinum, at which the ions dissolve and then precipitate again. This changes the electrical resistance, which can be exploited for data storage. Furthermore, the reduction and oxidation processes also have another effect.

Configuration of a resistive storage cell (ReRAM): An electric voltage is built up between the two electrodes so that the storage cells can be regarded as tiny batteries. Filaments formed by deposits during operation may modify the battery's properties. Source: Jlich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)

16
They generate electric voltage. ReRAM cells are therefore not purely passive systems they are also active electrochemical components. Consequently, they can be regarded as tiny batteries whose properties provide the key to the correct modelling and development of future data storage. In complex experiments, the scientists from Forschungszentrum Jlich and RWTH Aachen University determined the battery voltage of typical representatives of ReRAM cells and compared them with theoretical values. This comparison revealed other properties (such as ionic resistance) that were previously neither known nor accessible. "Looking back, the presence of a battery voltage in ReRAMs is selfevident. But during the nine-month review process of the paper now published we had to do a lot of persuading, since the battery voltage in ReRAM cells can have three different basic causes, and the assignment of the correct cause is anything but trivial," says Dr. Ilia Valov, the electrochemist in Prof. Rainer Waser's research group. The new finding is of central significance, in particular, for the theoretical description of the memory components. To date, ReRAM cells have been described with the aid of the concept of memristors a portmanteau word composed of "memory" and "resistor". The theoretical concept of memristors can be traced back to Leon Chua in the 1970s. It was first applied to ReRAM cells by the IT company Hewlett-Packard in 2008. It aims at the permanent storage of information by changing the electrical resistance. The memristor theory leads to an important restriction. It is limited to passive components. "The demonstrated internal battery voltage of ReRAM elements clearly violates the mathematical construct of the memristor theory. This theory must be expanded to a whole new theory to properly describe the ReRAM elements," says Dr. Eike Linn, the specialist for circuit concepts in the group of authors. This also places the development of all micro- and nanoelectronic chips on a completely new footing. "The new findings will help to solve a central puzzle of international ReRAM research," says Prof. Rainer Waser, deputy spokesman of the collaborative research centre SFB 917 'Nanoswitches' established in 2011. In recent years, these puzzling aspects include unexplained long-term drift phenomena or systematic parameter deviations, which had been attributed to fabrication methods. "In the light of this new knowledge, it is possible to specifically optimize the design of the ReRAM cells, and it may be possible to discover new ways of exploiting the cells battery voltage for completely new applications, which were previously beyond the reach of technical possibilities," adds Waser, whose group has been collaborating for years with companies such as Intel and Samsung Electronics in the field of ReRAM elements.
http://www.fzjuelich.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/UK/EN /2013/13-04-23batterie.html

17

University of Oklahoma associate professor Amy McGovern is working to revolutionize tornado and storm prediction. McGovern's ambitious tornado modeling and simulation project seeks to explain why some storms generate tornadoes while others don't. The research is giving birth to new techniques for identifying the likely path of twisters through both space and time.
McGovern's work was recently detailed in an article by Scott Gibson, science writer for the National Institute for Computational Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This latest round of updates adds to an earlier report that was released in May 2011. That NICS article was published after a severe weather event spawned nearly 200 tornadoes, devastating large swaths of the southern United States. The disaster left 315 dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. McGovern says she and the other researchers "hope that with a more accurate prediction and improved lead time on warnings, more people will heed the warnings, and thus loss of life and property will be reduced." Part of the challenge has been devising a realistic and reliable model and coming up with usable input data. A numerical model known as CM1 has proven valuable to researchers allowing them to focus more on the science and less on the workflow. The team has also made strides with regard to storm simulations. Rather than model storms that actually happened, they base their models on the conditions that are required for a tornado to take form. They start with a bubble of warm air, which sets off the storm-building process. Then they introduce equations and parameters that factor into the storm's development. Getting the friction right is especially challenging as even the grass on the ground can affect this variable. The research team is working with the National Weather Service to implement an early storm warning system, called Warn-on-Forecast. The goal of the project is to inform the public of impending storms with 30-60 minutes of lead time. Getting this level of accuracy requires a high-resolution model, and that takes a lot of computing power. The researchers want to figure out "what actually generates the tornado, and the only way you can confirm that is to make the high-resolution simulations," McGovern explains. "Those are not feasible to do all across the U.S. right now on a Warn-on-Forecast basis. We are running on 112 by 112 kilometer domain; now scale that up to the U.S. and ask it to run in real time. We're not quite there yet." They're using the University of Tennessee's Kraken supercomputer to run the simulations and and the UT's Nautilus supercomputer to analyze them. "The biggest thing that Nautilus does for us right now is process the data so that we can mine it, because we're trying to cut these terabytes of data down to something that's usable metadata," McGovern reports. "I am able to reduce one week of computations down to 30 minutes on Nautilus, and post-processing time is reduced from several weeks to several hours." The researchers expect to have a more precise storm prediction system in place by December.

TORNADO PREDICTION

REVOLUTIONIZING

Tiffany Trader
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-0423/revolutionizing_tornado_prediction.html

18

TEACHING INNOVATION
Online crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn't always match the quantity. In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their In the pilot study, they explored the use of crowds classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern with 50 students enrolled in three innovation instructors found that input from social media classes offered by Carnegie Mellon and and other crowdsourcing sites helped the Northwestern. Students worked in groups of 3-4 students identify human needs for products or on projects. services, generate large quantities of ideas, and Students found online forums, such as Reddit, ease some aspects of testing those ideas. were very helpful in discovering unmet needs. A Finding ways to incorporate online crowds into group working on public transit, for instance, coursework is critical for teaching the process of found lots of people talk about transit on social innovation, said Steven Dow, assistant professor media, Dow said. "It also helps them figure out in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer what questions to ask users in more traditional Interaction Institute. He and his co-investigator, interviews," he added. Elizabeth Gerber, the Breed Junior Professor of An attempt to generate ideas through Amazon Design at Northwestern University, will present Mechanical Turk, which pays workers small fees their findings April 29 at CHI 2013, the for performing micro-tasks, produced little of use. Conference on Human Factors in Computing "Understanding context is critical for ideation and Systems, in Paris. this is difficult to do in a micro-task work "Educating students about innovation practices environment," Gerber said. What did work can be difficult in the classroom, where students effectively, she said, was asking people from the typically lack authentic interaction with the real user research site Mindswarms to reflect on world," Dow explained. "Social networks and students' storyboard concepts. other online crowds can provide input that In the final class assignment, to help students students can't get otherwise. Even in project learn how to pitch ideas, the teams created a courses, feedback is limited to a handful of crowd funding campaign through Kick starter or individuals, at most." IndieGoGo. But that made many students At the same time, tapping the power of online uncomfortable. communities has itself become part of the "The main problem with the crowd funding piece innovation process, Gerber said, with many of the class was that few students, as far as I could entrepreneurs turning to sites such as Kickstarter tell, actually wanted to raise the money," one and IndieGoGo to get initial support. student explained. "Most students in the class "The Internet affords access to online have other plans and weren't planning to continue communities to which we might not ever have working on their idea. access," she said. "Future innovators need to "In a strange way, this discomfort validated our know how to find and respectively engage with hypothesis that engaging external crowds would these communities to get the resources they bring the reality of innovation practices into the need." classroom," Dow said. "It was almost too real." Dow and Gerber have received a National Science One solution, Dow and Gerber said, may be to Foundation grant to study the use of crowd have students prepare a crowdfunding campaign, technologies in the classroom. They have created but not launch it. a website, http://crowddriveninnovation.com/, to share ideas and resources regarding the use of crowd-based resources in innovation education. http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/201 3/april/april29_onlinecrowds.html

Engaging online crowds could be a tool for

Byron Spice

19

VEHICLES & ROBOTS

You get into your car and ask it to get you home in time for the start of the big game, stopping off at your favourite Chinese restaurant on the way to grab some takeout. But the car informs you that the road past the Chinese restaurant is closed for repairs, so you will not make it home in 30 minutes unless you choose a different food outlet. You select a nearby Korean restaurant from the options the car suggests, and set off on the chosen route.
Vehicles, robots and other autonomous devices could soon collaborate with humans in this way, thanks to researchers at MIT who are developing systems capable of negotiating with people to determine the best way to achieve their goals. Everything around us is getting smarter In general, everything around us is getting smarter, says Brian Williams, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and leader of the Model-Based Embedded and Robotic Systems group within MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. So were trying to allow people to interact with these increasingly autonomous systems in the same way that they would interact with another human. Ultimately such systems could be used to control autonomous vehicles, such as personal aircraft and driverless cars. But in the short term, Williams and graduate student Peng Yu are developing systems to allow conventional vehicles to work with their drivers to plan routes and schedules. In a paper to be presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Beijing in August, Williams and Yu describe the use of their algorithm in car-sharing networks such as Zipcar. The dilemma for Zipcar users is that they dont want to pay a lot of money, so they only want to reserve the car for as long as they need it, Williams says. But they then run the risk of not reserving it for long enough and so having to pay a penalty. Users must therefore decide how best to fit everything they need to do into the time they have available. And this is where the algorithm comes in. We want to design a car thats smart and really works with the user, Yu says. Diagnosis through collaboration The system, which is equipped with speechrecognition technology, first asks the user what she wants to achieve in the given amount of time. It then uses digital maps to come up with the most time- and energy-efficient plan of action. However, if it determines that the user simply cannot achieve all of her goals within the time available, it analyses the plan to detect which items on the schedule are problematic, such as a restaurant or grocery store that is too far from the Zipcar pickup point. Our technology views the process of collaboration as a diagnostic problem, Williams says. So the algorithm figures out why the travel plan failed, what were the important things that caused it to fail, and explains this back to the user. "The system suggests a set of possible options to eliminate the problem, and the user can either choose one of these or give the algorithm more information about her preferences. Then there is a back-and-forth dialogue until the algorithm finds something that meets the customers needs and that the car knows it can actually do, Williams says.

NEW RESEARCH COULD LET

C O L L A B O R AT E W I T H H U M A N S

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Allaying range anxiety The researchers are also investigating the use of their algorithm in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Despite the greater energy efficiency of plug-in hybrids, some drivers are deterred from buying the cars by concerns about running out of electricity miles from home or the nearest charging point a fear known as range anxiety. Installing the algorithm on these vehicles would allow people to plan their route, and even determine how fast to drive in order to use the batteries as efficiently as possible, while arriving at their destination safely and on time, Williams says. Then, if the driver were to get stuck in traffic on the journey, the algorithm could suggest alternative plans, such as driving faster and using up more energy if time is of the essence, or diverting to a nearby fast charging point if the batteries are running too low. The algorithm could also be used in robots, to allow them to collaborate with people more effectively. To this end, the researchers are working on a project with aircraft manufacturer Boeing to develop systems to improve how industrial robots and human workers cooperate with each other. Richard Camilli, an associate scientist in the Deep Submergence Laboratory at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is interested in applying the technology to the organizations fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The algorithm could allow operators to communicate with the robotic vehicles and instantly alter mission plans if the AUVs happen to meet with interesting science or difficult weather conditions on the way. There are a lot of analogies between the Zipcar example and autonomous vehicles, Camilli says. For example, when there is a lot of science to be done, and a lot of people counting on the quality of the data, and the AUVs cant quite make it to a rendezvous point in time, you need to come up with the optimum solution for all those things simultaneously.

Helen Knight
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/vehiclerobot-human-collaboration-0503.html

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GENOMIC DATA
Intel and Oregon Health & Science University are collaborating on a supercomputing project to speed up analysis of human genetic profiles, which could help with personalized treatment for cancer. Intel engineers and OHSU biomedical experts are working on creating a diagram of the human genome to identify the genetic mutations that lead to cancer. The map would provide a better understanding of an individual's genetic makeup, allowing biomedical engineers to develop personalized cancer treatment that kills only the mutating cells that cause cancer rather than also attacking the healthy cellswhich occurs during chemotherapy, OHSU reported. Announced April 22, the agreement calls for the two organizations to develop hardware, software and workflow algorithms to accelerate analysis of genetic abnormalities that cause cancer and other complex diseases. Through the use of supercomputing, Intel and OHSU are looking to analyse patients' genetic profiles with increased speed, precision and cost-effectiveness. OHSU's imaging techniques could act as a Google map for cancer, according to the university. Learning how a disease functions over time within the body is essential for helping cancer patients, noted Joe Gray, associate director for translational research at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and chair of OHSU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. "By combining Intel's computing expertise with what we know about how to analyse genomes and to create images of how cells change over time, we believe we have the capability to develop the right tools to make significant progress in making the promise of personalized cancer medicine a reality for more patients," Gray said in a statement. This process of analyzing genetic abnormalities could take decades, but by studying cancer, researchers can gain insight into other complex diseases, Gray said. Researchers will use Intel's Xeon E5 HPC CPU, which offers Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and Intel Node Manager Server powermanagement technology. "This collaboration combines Intel's strengths in developing energyefficient, extreme-scale computing solutions with OHSU's lead invisualizing and understanding complex biological information," Stephen Pawlowski, Intel's senior fellow and chief technology officer for the Datacentre and Connected Systems, said in a statement. Intel and OHSU aim to develop systems that can reduce the time it takes to analyse a patient's cancer profile from weeks to hours, while at reduced cost and with lower power consumption. Analysing genomic abnormalities and lead to drug development and new diagnostic tests for cancer. Combining computing power with genomic analysis and imaging can show how billions of genetic mutations act in the body over time to create tumours, OHSU reported. During the multiyear effort, Intel and OHSU will create new educational programs in quantitative bioscience. The genomic research expands on past collaboration in areas such as tele-health and remote patient monitoring. "Together, Intel's engineers and OHSU's biomedical experts are optimizing supercomputing clusters and software to isolate the genetic variations that contribute to the root causes of illness," Eric Dishman, general manager for health care at Intel, wrote in a blog post. If scientists succeed in using supercomputing to develop an individual road map of the genome, diagnostic tests for cancer patients could be more precise, Dishman noted. The research could eventually allow biomedical engineers or oncologists to stop cancer cells from spreading, he said. Dishman, who's recovering from a kidney transplant, had his own genome sequenced. "It, too, took weeks of computing and then months upon months of analysis to make sense of my own unique case," he said. "Today, these tools are too slow, too expensive and too rareI want to make sure everyone has access to the kind of customized care that I lucked into."

S U P E R C O M P U T E R S T O A N A LY Z E

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T H E FAT H E R O F T H E I N T E R N E T

VINTON CERF
Google Internet Evangelist

Internet

Interplanetary

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When some future Mars colonist is able to open his browser and watch a cat in a shark suit chasing a duck while riding a Roomba, they will have Vint Cerf to thank.

Interplanetary Internet
In his role as Googles chief internet evangelist, Cerf has spent much of his time thinking about the future of the computer networks that connect us all. And he should know. Along with Bob Kahn, he was responsible for developing the internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, that underlies the workings of the net. Not content with just being a founding father of the internet on this planet, Cerf has spent years taking the world wide web out of this world. Working with NASA and JPL, Cerf has helped develop a new set of protocols that can stand up to the unique environment of space, where orbital mechanics and the speed of light make traditional networking extremely difficult. Though this space-based network is still in its early stages and has few nodes, he said that we are now at the front end of what could be an evolving and expanding interplanetary backbone. Q: Though its been around a while, the concept of an interplanetary internet is probably new to a lot of people. How exactly do you build a space network? Cerf: Right, its actually not new at all this project started in 1998. And it got started because 1997 was very nearly the 25th anniversary of the design of the internet. Bob Kahn and I did that work in 1973. So back in 1997, I asked myself what should I be doing that will be needed 25 years from then. And, after consultation with colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we concluded that we needed much richer networking than was then available to NASA and other space faring agencies. Up until that time and generally speaking, up until now, the entire communications capabilities for space exploration had been point-to-point radio links. So we began looking at the possibilities of TCIP/IP as a protocol for interplanetary communication. We figure it worked on Earth and it ought to work on Mars. The real question was, Would it work between the planets? And the answer turned out to be, No. The reason for this is two-fold: First of all, the speed of light is slow relative to distances in the solar system. A one-way radio signal from Earth to Mars takes between three and half and 20 minutes. So round trip time is of course double that. And then theres the other problem: planetary rotation. If youre communicating with something on the surface of the planet, it goes out of communication as the planet rotates. It breaks the available communications and you have to wait until the planet rotates back around again. So what we have is variable delay and disruption, and TCP does not do terribly well in those kinds of situations.

Googles Chief Internet Evangelist

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One of the things that the TCP/IP protocols assume is that there isnt enough memory in each of the routers to hold anything. So if a packet shows up and its destined for a place for which you have an available path, but there isnt enough room, then typically the packet is discarded. We developed a new suite of protocols that we called the Bundle protocols, which are kind of like internet packets in the sense that theyre chunks of information. They can be quite big and they basically get sent like bundles of information. We do whats called store and forward, which is the way all packet switching works. Its just in this case the interplanetary protocol has the capacity to store quite a bit, and usually for quite a long time before we can get rid of it based on connectivity to the next hop. Q: What are the challenges with working and making a communications network in space as opposed to a ground-based internet? Cerf: Among the hard things, first of all, is that we couldnt use the domain name system in its current form. I can give you a quick illustration why thats the case: Imagine for a moment youre on Mars, and somebody is trying to open up an HTTP web connection to Earth. Theyve given you a URL that contains a domain name in it, but before you can open up a TCP connection you need to have an IP address. So you will have to do a domain name lookup, which can translate the domain name youre trying to lookup into an IP address. Now remember youre on Mars and the domain name youre trying to look up is on Earth. So you send out a DNS lookup. But it may take anywhere from 40 minutes to an unknown amount of time depending on what kind of packet loss you have, whether theres a period of disruption based on planetary rotation, all that kind of stuff before you get an answer back. And then it may be the wrong answer, because by the time it gets back maybe the node has moved and now it has a different IP address. And from there it just gets worse and worse. If youre sitting around Jupiter, and trying to do a lookup, many hours go by and then its just impossible. So we had to break it into a two-phase lookup and use whats called delayed binding. First you figure out which planet youre going to, then you route the traffic to that planet, and only then you do a local lookup, possibly using the domain name. The other thing is when you are trying to manage a network with this physical scope and all the uncertainty delays, the things we typically do for network management dont work very well.

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Theres a protocol called SNMP, the simple network management protocol, and it is based on the idea that you can send a packet out and get an answer back in a few milliseconds, or a few hundreds of milliseconds. If youre familiar with the word ping, youll know what I mean, because you ping something and expect to get an answer back fairly quickly. If you dont get it back in a minute or two, you begin to conclude that there is something wrong and the thing isnt available. But in space, it takes a long time for the signal to even get to the destination let alone get an answer back. So network management turns out to be a lot harder in this environment. Then the other thing we had to worry about was security. The reason for that should be obvious one of the things we wanted to avoid was the possibility of a headline that says: 15-Year-Old Takes Over Mars Net. Against that possibility we put quite a bit of security into the system, including strong authentication, three way handshakes, cryptographic keys, and things of that sort in order to reduce the likelihood that someone would abuse access to the space network. Q: Because it has to communicate across such vast distances, it seems like the interplanetary internet must be huge. Cerf: Well, in purely physical terms that is, in terms of distance its a pretty large network. But the number of nodes is pretty modest. At the moment, the elements participating in it are devices in planet Earth, including the Deep Space Network, which is operated at JPL. That consists of three 70-meter dishes plus a smattering of 35-meter dishes that can reach out into the solar system with point-to-point radio links. Those are part of the TDRSS [tee-driss] system, which is used for a lot of near-Earth communications by NASA. The ISS also has several nodes on board capable of using this particular set of protocols. Two orbiters around Mars are running the prototype versions of this software, and virtually all the information thats coming back from Mars is coming back via these store-forward relays. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers on the planet and the Curiosity rover are using these protocols. And then theres the Phoenix lander, which descended to the north pole of Mars in 2008. It also was using these protocols until the Martian winter shut it down. And finally, theres a spacecraft in orbit around the sun, which is actually quite far away, called EPOXI[the spacecraft was 32 million kilometres from Earth when it tested the interplanetary protocols]. It has been used to rendezvous with two comets in the last decade to determine their mineral makeup. But what we hope will happen over time assuming these protocols are adopted by the Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems, which standardizes space communication protocols then every spacefaring nation launching either robotic or manned missions has the option of using these protocols. And that means that all the spacecraft that have been outfitted with those protocols could be used during the primary mission, and could then be repurposed to become relays in a stored forward network. I fully expect to see these protocols used for both manned and robotic exploration in the future. Q:What are the next steps to expand this? Cerf: We want to complete the standardization with the rest of the spacefaring community. Also, not all pieces are fully validated yet, including our strong authentication system. Then second, we need to know how well we can do flow control in this very, very peculiar and potentially disrupted environment. Third, we need to verify that we can do serious real-time things including chat, video and voice. We will need to learn

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how to go from what Appears to be an interactive real-time chat, like one over the phone, to probably an email-like exchange, where you might have voice and video attached but its not immediately interactive. Delivering the bundle is very much like delivering a piece of email. If theres a problem with email it usually gets retransmitted, and after a while you time out. The bundle protocol has similar characteristics, so you anticipate that you have variable delay that could be very long. Sometimes if youve tried many times and dont get a response, you have to assume the destination is not available. Q: We often talk about how the things we invent for space are being used here on Earth. Are there things about the interplanetary internet that could potentially be used on the ground? Cerf: Absolutely. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded tests with the U.S. Marine Corps on tactical military communication using these highly resilient and disruption-tolerant protocols. We had successful tests that showed in a typical hostile communication environment that we were able to put three to five times more data through this disrupted system than we could with traditional TCP/IP. Part of the reason is that we assume we can store traffic in the network. When theres high activity, we dont have to retransmit from end to end, we can just retransmit from one of the intermediate points in the system. This use of memory in the network turns out to be quite effective. And of course we can afford to do that because memory has gotten so inexpensive. The European Commission has also sponsored a really interesting project using the DTN protocols in northern Sweden. In an area called Lapland, theres a group called the Saami

reindeer herders. Theyve been herding reindeer for 8,000 years up there. And the European Commission sponsored a research project managed by the Lulea University of Technology in northern Sweden to put these protocols on board allterrain vehicles in laptops. This way, you could run a Wi-Fi service in villages in Northern Sweden and drop messages off and pick them up according to the protocols. As you move around, you were basically a data mule carrying information from one village to another. Q: There was also an experiment called Mocup that involved remote controlling a robot on Earth from the space station. These protocols were used, right? Cerf: Yes, we used the DTN protocols for that. We were all really excited for that because, although the protocols were originally designed to deal with very long and uncertain delay, when there is high quality connectivity, we can use it for real-time communication. And thats exactly what they did with the little German rover. I think in general communication will benefit from this. Putting these protocols in mobile phones, for instance, would create a more powerful and resilient communications platform than what we typically have today Q: So if I have poor reception on my cell phone at my house, I could still call my parents? Cerf: Well, actually what might happen is that you could store what you said and they would eventually get it. But it wouldnt be real time. If the disruption lasts for an appreciable length of time, it would arrive later. But at least the information would eventually get there.

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COVERAGE

EXCLUSIVE (II)

ITW13

THE AMAZING

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Why Is It Amazing?
You may have set there one day Impressed by how fascinatingly it is always. You must have been there once and heard something contributed to your life. You may had a moment of change there. However what you may never know is the story behind what changed your life. Some people had been brought up together and decided simply to take you out in a tour that will change the course of your knowledge, thought and actually your life. They know that not everyone is capable of circling the world and see whats new and if they can, it is once not yearly. So they decided simply; if you cant reach the world, which is hard naturally, we will just fetch for you. Now if to circle the world is hard, what may anyone says about fetching it. Yes; IEEE AlexSB made what seems impossible. It brought us the world as it is year by year through ITW. There in this branch, there are people who give value to everything. You see them work for limitless hours day by night and grow in unnaturally way. They make everything meaningful and consequently they know the meaning of everything and thats what they deliver to you inspirationally in ITW annually and once youre that motivated you start your tour to harvest whatever has been planted across the world. If youre never believer in profound faith, ultimate synergy, pungent integrity and consistent pure illimitable voluntary then perhaps you didnt pass by this blue marble, not earth, but IEEE AlexSB booth. If you havent been to ITW there even once you have never seen anything amazing through your life. No one lives alone in the world, go there and interact with it and be amazed with Interact with Todays World, IEEE AlexSB ITW.

Alexandria ACM Chapter | Chairman

Sherif E. Saleh

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interviews

Creating
Wonders

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If you have the force to let people expect things, what would like them to expect about ITW13? I want everyone to expect differently from all aspects even in the abstract description, no one is going to sit as if theyre in a lecture hall and getting out, but it is not just lecturing event. The technical value this year is extremely different, we are creating wonders this year and I wish them to keep wondering about our wonders. Nothing great hasnt actually been faced by many challenges, what challenges youre actually facing or expecting to face ? First of all, the grandest challenge is to form a conference of purely new technologies. What we hope is that everyone can sit there and listen for something very extraordinary new and very crucially important. Second, we would like to omit the feeling some people have that they are coming to a scholar event Its not a series of lectures as much as it is ITW a life event, that is centered on science but it is still serving its main purpose as a life changing conference. Third, and most important which is achieving the vision. Sometimes the different beginning times for some universities might be a challenging matter due to our attendees from international students. Technical content might be more powerful than whats necessary which we fear it to be hard to comprehend roughly.

People always have to wonder about the poster of ITW, It is always trying to say something what tale is it encountering this year? Something we live within every day. Last year ITW was encountering the civilizing change from discovering the parchments and now using the tablets and pads. This Year is aging a new trend in technology that we are living within and witnessing every day too you may give it an address, World is not enough. Q: keeping it as a surprise too? A: Normally Yes For Now.

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I know the beginnings have its impact always, what did you feel the impact on the audience after launching ? I touched a great impression especially when they noticed the Hilton and these fans and audience proved maximum loyalty in the early campaign. Q: What is the most impressive thing you heard or read from them about ITW13 once launched? A: Regardless to those who were fascinated by the Open Buffet, one of the really impressive things I have seen is the Protons School kids, boys and girls coming to register. Some of the moving things I heard are from those who are planning their summer and justifying their plans so as they can get to ITW in time. As a project manager, Lets have an eye on how you prepare for the amazing ITW every year As naturally as everything begins; with gathering then working together and brainstorming for the topics in order to be the window of the newest technology in every field for our audience and to keep them also updated of all other fields being encountered next to theirs. Then we begin by lets say UMMM, picking up the fruits. This time we kept our audience aware that their endeared three days are coming sooner than expected which was the kick off by the early campaign. Among many things extraordinary about ITW is the VIPs Who shall we expect this year? One of the people you may expect is someone with a credit in all some of our fields whether nationally or internationally people who changed the course of history from field to another people who made our life easier.

Q: What would the roles of such person. A: Part of them just exists to give the attendees a notion that they can be there together with people of their dreams. Others are coming to extend this role to inspirational and mindblowing speeches and contributions and I give you my word for that. Can we actually say the same about the speakers of ITW13? Still everyone with a profound credit, our every planned speaker is someone achieves and willing to achieve more and more through a certain field, someone can enrich, inspire, and keep it a memorial moments that shall last for long time afterwards. Q: Are there any certain names, sir? A: Names are our gift that is still in the wraping.

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Some audience, most likely youve noticed too, are wondering about the Great Hall, why not this time ? Regardless to reasons, as I told you we would like everyone to feel the way too much difference will be adding in this version. The place is among these changes. ITW will add its flavor now to the Hilton Green Plaza as much as it did several times to the Great Hall. ITW is ITW everywhere and every time. Every year ITW carries something to the next one, what powers youre trying to recover from the previous ones? Every year has its points, the year before the last one was about the publicity that was extremely powerful point that some newspapers spread our news. The last one kept the huge publicity nationally and started to attract insights internationally by the speakers and the conferences. This ITW is going to preserve both privileges along with adding its own values. The comparing theme was applied three years ago too, the contrast it was achieved in comparison between the iOs and Android. That was extremely useful to whom attended. Such contrast we would like to keep it once more. The most vital thing for any conference is the interaction and vitality of the audience all along it how are you going to maintain a solid interaction ? International speakers know how to derive interactions with audience, The difference in language is not a dilemma. Actually people concentrate more when there is a different language on the stage and we experienced this a lot. Also the choice of the speakers with ravishing presentation skills also plays a major role and we aim for the giants always.

Q: Its not an easy thing to keep them in focus for 9 hours, How would you do that? A: Keeping the audience involved and interested in so many different things across time shall keep them firstly motivated, curious and secondly and most importantly renewed. After changing the hosting place what about the privileges of the ITW that was related to the Great Hall? Lets agree on one term here, ITW is always growing. Its privileges never shrunk and will never shrink. You shall hold this question in your mind and have the answer onsite and dont forget to lean and whisper to me that youre fascinated by what you would see.

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It is commonly known that everything an organization does, reflects on it and it actually adds to whatever it is doing, how do you see this between IEEE and ITW? ITW reveals the spirit we are working to present for the entire year. It plants inspiration deep in everyone that serves us providing the best closure of the year, the epic closure we went through everything for. Also ITW serves many scopes of science that is growing yearly and thats widening the reach of the branch too to get deeper and deeper actually everywhere. Here also it is good for you to notice that every ITW is a ground of confidence for the sky of success of the next ITW. You know at the glorious moments there is always tense and fear, what do you fear in your way to ITW13? I fear missing the 0.01% under the running expectations or below the level of our planning. We aim for 100% Perfection 99.9% is not a satisfactory and thats what I fear. We would like to hit the 100% of what we hope to reach, once were there I have nothing to fear. Count to us or describe the map that distributes the audience of ITW13 Mainly the statistics show that the division of communications is the highest tripe aiming for ITW. Next, there are interests from computer and power all at the same level. Then mechanics and then generally you can add everyone else. I think the right question was to be who is not interested in ITW, that is easier to count as it is only one tripe no one.

How do you imagine yourself at the last moments or what would you like to see at the end? The best thing I wish to see is people at the front door flocking out saying I have achieved something through this ITW that wasnt being achieved and may not be else where. Whats the reason you will be standing up there at the end of the event and whisper to yourself that ITW13 Succeeded ? Theoretically, the positive feedback and practically seeing the values we hoped to deliver are being applied in action through everyones life around me. When I see lives shaped and changed by ITW13 then I can rest down and say It worked !

Archii

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OLD
AlexSBians speak about
THE AMAZING

ITW13

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Joyful Adorable

OLA KHALED
I have begun the life of a volunteer in IEEE AlexSB since 2009. At 2012, I was the vice-chairman. This experience got the best out of me, make me realize that I have many strengths, acquired me more confidence than ever before and helped me to carefully my weakness points and recover them. IEEE AlexSB is a my home. The only thing drove and still drive happiness through me. I cant stop being proud to belong to one of its biggest events, ITW, in many versions and in many positions. It is more like as if you look at your most joyful and adorable moments of your life from different ways. As if youre colouring your life in many colours. ITW is a three days conference, but we work on it more than 9 months. It takes a lot of time, effort and preparation to be the same image we want. But in return it gives us joy we may never have in all our life. Every single volunteer has a role in this big event and every small thing anyone of these heroic volunteers does, has a great and indescribable impact on the event. I really would like to thank everyone in IEEE AlexSB for their efforts, time and for trying to make a better future for everyone and for being everything meaningful and happy for me.

OLD IEEE AlexSBians

Ola Khaled| Vice-chairman IEEE AlexSB 2012

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WAY of LIVING

OLD IEEE AlexSBians

Amr Kosba

Let me quote something was said by an IEEE volunteer; "IEEE AlexSB is not just a branch, it's a way of living". Once you are there, you are a newer one, responsible, helpful, active, leader and all the things you never knew about yourself. ITW has always been a remakable evidence of that great spirit within AlexSB volunteers. You see them doing their best to serve the students, trying to achieve a dream we always think of ; "To have a better Egypt". Thanks to everyone who contributed to this organisation. Whatever you do for it, you will see its reflection on your life and career. Amr Kosba | IEEE AlexSb Chairman 2010

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NEW WORLD

Mostafa Mabrouk
October, 2008 ... that was when I was introduced to IEEE by chance. I was passing by and found my friends preparing for their first IEEE meeting, then I decided to join to see what these guys up to. Everything changed in this moment. I didn't know that i was actually redefining myself and my way of living. Here I learnt to dream, plan and make mistakes. Actually, I was introduced to real business life and knowledge of what it takes to dream, rise after failing and success. I even learnt that failing is very important to make a greater success Greater than what you didn't think that it could happen, but it turns by the time to be the nature of life and how life goes ... Ups and downs. The secret of ups lies in your downs, just do your best to rise again. Another Great thing ... Its ITW. An annual conference for challenging everyone including yourself. Because you will be more successful than anyone else ever worked in ITW or any relevant events. That one seems to be true either, every year the volunteers prove this theory to be true. On the personal level, ITW taught me how to plan and have good eye on details and how to represent a brand, this helped me a lot starting my own business after graduation and here I am now planning my own dreams from my office. Last words... Being an IEEE Volunteer opened a new world in front of my eyes and encouraged extra energy I have to dominate to be my life style. Mostafa Mabrouk | IEEE AlexSB Chairman 2011

OLD IEEE AlexSBians

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The Castle of

ITW13

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QUANTUM INTERNET
A UNSW-led team of researchers has achieved a breakthrough that brings the prospect of a network of ultra-powerful quantum computers connected via a quantum internet closer to reality. The team is the first in the world to have detected the spin, or quantum state, of a single atom using a combined optical and electrical approach. The study is a collaboration between researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology based at UNSW, the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. It is published in the journal Nature. UNSWs Professor Sven Rogge said the technical feat was achieved with a single atom of erbium a rare earth element commonly used in communications embedded in silicon. We have the best of both worlds with our combination of an electrical and optical system. This is a revolutionary new technique, and people had doubts it was possible. It is the first step towards a global quantum internet, Professor Rogge said. Quantum computers promise to deliver an exponential increase in processing power over conventional computers by using a single electron or nucleus of an atom as the basic processing unit a quantum bit, or qubit. Professor Rogge said researchers had previously used either an electrical or an optical method to read the spin of a single atom - where the information would be stored - but not both methods together. Lead author of the study, UNSWs Dr Chunming Yin, said the new approach opens up the possibility of using light to couple the atoms, or qubits, together to form a quantum computer. Using light to transfer information in the quantum state is easier than doing it electrically. Ultimately this will lead to quantum communications over long distances, Dr Yin said. Associate Professor Matthew Sellars, of the Australian National University, said it was a step towards connecting a solid state quantum computer to what will be the quantum internet. The quantum internet will allow separate quantum computers to be integrated and it will enable encrypted communications. Quantum communication systems will become critical for providing secure communications for government, military, defence, finance business and health industries. To make the new quantum device, Associate Professor Jeffrey McCallum at the University of Melbourne used an ion implanter to shoot erbium atoms into a standard industrial silicon transistor. When the atom was in a particular quantum state and laser light was shone on it, an electron was knocked off the atom. This was detected electrically, by the silicon transistor switching on. Professor Rogge said the breakthrough was made possible by combining the expertise of the three groups. The next step would be to control the spin of the erbium atom, which should be relatively straightforward, and also to replicate their results using a phosphorus atom embedded in silicon. The researchers said it will be at least another decade before the potential of quantum computation is fully realised. http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/tow ards-quantum-internet

TOWARDS

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FLOWERS ON TWITTER
What do all Twitter users want? Followers and lots of them. But unless you're a celebrity, it can be difficult to build your Twitter audience (and even some celebs have trouble). Looking at a half-million tweets over 15 months, a first-of-its-kind study from Georgia Tech has revealed a set of reliable predictors for building a Twitter following.
The research was performed by Eric Gilbert, assistant professor in Georgia Techs School of Interactive Computing. Gilbert found that Twitter users can grow their followers by such tactics as: Don't talk about yourself: Informational content attracts followers at a rate 30 times higher than content focused on the tweeter. The study found users talked about themselves in 41 percent of their tweets on average. Be happy: Twitter is mainly based on weak social ties (most followers do not know each other offline), which makes it more important to stay away from negative posts such as death, unemployment and poor health. Cool it on the hashtags: While hashtags are definitely useful tools for expressing emotional commentary or tying tweets to larger events or issues, they can be abused. Researchers found that the higher a Twitter users' "hashtag ratio," the less likely they were to attract new followers. To our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study of follow predictors on Twitter, Gilbert said. For the first time, we were able to explore the relative effects of social behavior, message content and network structure and show which of these factors has more influence on the number of Twitter followers. Working with Ph.D. student C.J. Hutto and Sarita Yardi, now an assistant professor in the University of Michigans School of Information, Gilbert examined the tweets of more than 500 Twitter users. After identifying 2,800 terms that convey positive and negative emotions, the team scored each term based on a sliding scale of positivity. They were then able to determine whether Twitter users who used each term gained or lost followers. The team discovered that certain identifiable strategies in message content and interaction with other Twitter users, as well as the structure of one's Twitter network, have a predictable effect on the number of followers. For example, Twitter "informers" (users who share informational content) consistently attract more followers than "meformers" (users who share information about themselves). Followers are Twitters most basic currency, yet little is understood about how to grow such an audience, said Gilbert. By examining multiple factors that affect tie formation and dissolution over time on Twitter, weve discovered information that could help technologists design and build tools that help users grow their audiences. The teams findings are summarized in the paper, A Longitudinal Study of Follow Predictors on Twitter, which will be presented this week at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris, France. To view research by other Georgia Tech researchers at SIGCHI, visit http://chi.gatech.edu.

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GUNFIRE with SMARTPHONES

You are walking down the street with a friend. A shot is fired. The two of you duck behind the nearest cover and you pull out your smartphone. A map of the neighbourhood pops up on its screen with a large red arrow pointing in the direction the shot came from.
A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt Universitys Institute of Software Integrated Systems has made such a scenario possible by developing an inexpensive hardware module and related software that can transform an Android smartphone into a simple shooter location system. They described the new systems capabilities this month at the 12th Association for Computing Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks in Philadelphia. For the last decade, the Department of Defence has spent millions of dollars to develop sophisticated sniper location systems that are installed in military vehicles and require dedicated sensor arrays. Most of these take advantage of the fact that all but the lowest powered firearms produce unique sonic signatures when they are fired. First, there is the muzzle blast an expanding balloon of sound that spreads out from the muzzle each time the rifle is fired. Second, bullets travel at supersonic velocities so they produce distinctive shockwaves as they travel. As a result, a system that combines an array of sensitive microphones, a precise clock and an off-the-shelf microprocessor can detect these signatures and use them to pinpoint the location from which a shot is fired with remarkable accuracy. Six years ago, the Vanderbilt researchers, headed by Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Science Akos Ledeczi developed a system that turns the soldiers combat helmets into mobile smart nodes in a wireless network that can rapidly identify the location of enemy snipers with a surprising degree of accuracy. In the past few years, the ISIS team has adapted their system so it will work with the increasingly popular smartphone. Like the military version, the smartphone system needs several nodes in order to pinpoint a shooters location. As a result, it is best suited for security teams or similar groups. It would be very valuable for dignitary protection, said Kenneth Pence, a retired SWAT officer and associate professor of the practice of engineering management who participated in the project. Id also love to see a version developed for police squad cars. In addition to the smartphone, the system consists of an external sensor module about the size of a deck of cards that contains the microphones and the processing capability required to detect the acoustic signature of gunshots, log their time and send that information to the smartphone by a Bluetooth connection. The smartphones then transmit that information to the other modules, allowing them to obtain the origin of the gunshot by triangulation. The researchers have developed two versions. One uses a single microphone per module. It uses both the muzzle blast and shockwave to determine the shooter location. It requires six modules to obtain accurate locations. The second version uses a slightly larger module with four microphones and relies solely on the shockwave. It requires only two modules to accurately detect the direction a shot comes from, however, it only provides a rough estimate of the range.

TRACKING

David Salisbury
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/04/trackinggunfire-with-smartphone/

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