Computing Reviews News

Featured in Five: Robert Wójcik

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our March featured reviewer, Robert Wójcik.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: The appearance and development of the smartphone is the most life-changing “application” that we all use today. During the past 10 years, the development in this field is tremendous. Ten years ago, the first touchscreen devices started to appear and they quickly conquered the market. This device transformed from providing calling and texting functions to a complete handheld computer, providing more CPU power and storage than a lower-end PC. Now, we have a complete tool to assist us whenever a full-size PC in unavailable. Remarkable.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: One of the most critical advances in the near future will relate to autonomous vehicles, in which computer science plays a major role. Currently, we can observe the first instances of this trend; however, there is a lot to improve. I believe that there will come a time (during our lifetime) that people will be banned from driving cars, as they make fatal mistakes, which can be avoided by machines. At first, self-driving cars will also make mistakes; however, software bugs will be resolved in time, leading to completely safe travel. There is also a possibility that humans will be allowed to drive cars for fun; however, computer-assisted driving will turn on automatically if one drives recklessly.

Currently, I work in the field of computer networks. Robust, resilient, reliable, and always-available networks will allow this to happen. Cars will have to communicate with each other to create a truly safe ecosystem.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: I prefer to look to the future, rather than the past, so I do not dwell on history too much. If I had to choose, I would go for Ramses II, the greatest ruler of ancient Egypt, for his accomplishments, and especially for building the most beautiful temple in Abu Simbel.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would be either a doctor or a lawyer. The first option would be easy as both my parents are accomplished doctors. My father is a general surgeon and my mother is a neurologist. I would choose the second option because I enjoy logical thinking and moral dilemmas. I think that I would have been a good lawyer.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I listen to all kinds of music, with slight preference to rock.

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Featured in Five: Robert Lynch

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our March featured reviewer, Robert Lynch.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: First is artificial intelligence and its growing impact on healthcare and astrophysics. I believe the future holds much better diagnostic health procedures and improved space exploration through AI applications. Second to AI has been improved imaging for health diagnostics and interstellar exploration. The detail and scope has become substantially greater than where we were just a few years ago.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: I am at the end of my career, but I have lots of new interests I am pursuing: automated trading systems, the marathon, and new grandkids. It's the way life goes - a good balance.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: In recent history, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman. Both had the strength to stand by their beliefs and the willingness to make the difficult decisions that needed to be made.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I'd be a radiologist or an astrophysicist. Both are at the cusp of making great gains in their disciplines.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: Big Band (though it was before my time) and modern jazz.  And occasionally elevator music!

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Featured in Five: Fjodor Ruzic

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our December featured reviewer, Fjodor Ruzic.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: From its beginning, computing has been a field of constant development. Each decade shows new power and possibilities from hardware and software as well as in communications. Hence, it is difficult to distinguish communications from computing since they are interdependent—the development process brings changes to both. The last decade has undoubtedly been an era of cloud computing, accompanied by solutions for big data in the cloud and new developments in scalable computing. Further, we have seen the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), which uses the power of networking within TCP/IP v6. It also marks an extraordinary increase in nomadic and wireless mobile computing and communications, providing the basis for ubiquitous and pervasive computing (including wearable computing) in business, industrial, and consumer activities. In addition, the creation of the innovative reprogrammable quantum computer is changing computers as we know them; it is opening new horizons in computing since quantum computers are noticeably more powerful than today's computers.


Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: In past decades, we witnessed the convergence and finally the integration of computers and communications. In the next decade, human participation in this integration process will not only involve using computers and communications—humans will be an integral part of the technology. For example, wearable computing will be more sophisticated, with technology integrated into clothing fabrics and even human bodies. The human body consists of cells and atoms and can be thought of as a kind of biological computer. With the new bottom-up approaches to computing using individual atoms or molecules, we will see more advances in nanotechnology needed for specialized system-on-a-chip solutions. The prediction that computers will be able to successfully imitate humans will be the reality, especially when talking about artificial intelligence that will prosper through virtual and augmented reality systems. This process also includes the further development of natural language (and voice) conversations with computers and technology including wider development of affective computing. Some forms of deep learning that we know today will be additionally improved with feature learning, creating the algorithms that together with artificial neural networks will shape computers to function as a human brain. The future will bring new forms of quantum computers and big data systems that will help build large neural networks. The increasing inclusion of computing into all aspects of our lives will be so dominant that it will demand serious attention. Changes in computing are happening so quickly that it is unclear what computing will look like in the next decade. Thus, I am conscious of my role in increasing a sense of responsibility on the part of those in information technology to ensure that its development is for the greater good.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Although Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein are great historical figures that changed science, as well as the ways we are living today, most of today's paradigms within science, technology, and society are integrated into the personality of Galileo Galilei. He was a glorious reformer and the founder of modern science. He presumably can be seen as a pioneer of the scientific method with his systematic development, implementation, and description of a scientific method predicated on evidence-based research. He constantly followed his own individual sense of rightness, in the face of the disapproval of others.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I think I would be involved in an activity that is still within the science field involving computing, no matter the level of involvement.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I am always inclined to listen to classical music, jazz, and blues/soul.

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Featured in Five: Marcelo Finger

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our September featured reviewer, Marcelo Finger.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: There have been many important, fascinating developments in the past few years. Remaining only within the AI field, where most of my work is done, I would like to mention two amazing developments. First, a point that has not received a lot of media attention but is very important on a scientific level is the increase in efficiency of SAT solvers, exploring the fact that most NP-complete problem instances are, in fact, easily solvable; we can effectively solve SAT problems with hundreds of thousands variables while, say, 25 years ago, people still thought that we could solve NP-complete problems with only a few dozens of variables. This success has facilitated the creation of more sophisticated tools, such as SMT-solvers, automated hardware and software verification, and much more. Also, neural networks have finally achieved the ability to process huge amounts of data and to start delivering on the promises of intelligent tasks, in some areas that have been around since the late 1950s.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: Computers have modified the way we lead our lives. I hope that by the end of my career, computers can address important issues that they have created, such as job extinction, attention diversion created by smartphones and tablets, and other issues that didn’t exist before that lifestyle transformation took place.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Albert Einstein is a person that never ceases to fascinate me, not only due to the greatness of his work and the originality of his point of view, but because that work was developed in an extremely chaotic time, going through two World Wars and the Cold War, anti-Semitism, and fascism, among other background political developments. He never lost that human touch with everything he was involved with.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would work on environmentally related topics, such as CO2 emission mitigation, forest replanting, or something similar.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: My favorite kind of music Brazilian popular music, which includes bossa nova, samba, and instrumental music. But I listen to many other forms of music as well.

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Featured in Five: Ernest Hughes

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our July featured reviewer, Ernest Hughes.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: I think the most important thing that’s happened in computing in the past 10 years is the improved, and improving, ability to encode knowledge. I remember working with knowledge-based systems in the '80s at a large northwest aerospace company. We’ve come a long way since then.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: What? Am I already at the end? If we can figure out how to better address the human-systems integration issues, intelligent systems will be our colleagues and companions. I, along with a number of people smarter than me, are exploring what I call knowledge logistics, what some refer to as the “last mile” problem of knowledge. Can we make all that we know available and accessible to everyone? How can someone know what we already know?

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Abraham Lincoln. When I was 10 years old, my family visited Washington, DC. I was awestruck standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That moment began a lifelong curiosity with Lincoln and his accomplishments.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: If I weren’t working the computer science field, I’d likely be working in the field, literally. That was the career path, so to speak, for the young men in my family. My grandfather was a farmer. He took my dog and I out into the fields one day to work with him. Longest day in my life. Inspired me to go to college.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I appreciate opera and classical music the most, but I do admit that enjoyed the songs in the movie, Baby Daddy.

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Featured in Five: Simos Retalis

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our June featured reviewer, Symeon (Simos) Retalis.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: With the rise of social web, users have become co-producers and co-distributors of content rather than passive information consumers. Social applications allow users to interact with each other synchronously or asynchronously, to create and share new forms of audiovisual content (sometimes “homemade”) as well as to label and recommend existing forms of information. Spontaneous self-expression is so easy nowadays. Before booking a hotel or dining at a restaurant, one can read reviews and make a better-informed decision. Of course, with the expansion of social media, it is important to focus on students’ media and information literacy education about the safe use of social media, the disciplines of media analysis, media (co)production and sharing, as well as the opportunities for taking part in civil issues through social media campaigns.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: With high-level speculation, I feel that there is a bright future for virtual and augmented reality (V&AR). New pieces of innovative V&AR technology are coming that will provide astonishing realism, detail and immersion thus changing the way we do things. I sincerely hope that applications that will offer full immersion will become effective and efficient in healthcare, especially for children with disorders, which is an area about which I am highly sensitive.

Currently, I am not doing any significant R&D in this field. Nevertheless, I feel that since I have been working intensively on embodied cognition and learning tools for the benefit of children with learning disabilities, I believe that in few years I will make a transition towards the use of V&AR technology thus trying to help children improve their skills to reach their full potential.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Due to my Greek roots and classical studies, my favorite figure is Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures whose concepts influenced Western thinking. Also, was the founder of formal logic. I often use in my courses on interaction design one of his famous quotes: “The whole is something besides the parts.”

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would have become a speech-language pathologist who could deal with speech, language, social communication and cognitive-communication disorders mainly in children. I would have liked to work in a clinical and educational setting, e.g. a children’s hospital, as part of a collaborative, interdisciplinary team, that could include pathologists, special educators, physicians, physical and occupational therapists, etc.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I like lounge easy listening music. I do not prefer pure instrumental pieces but rather smooth jazz.

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Featured in Five: Benjamin Wells

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our May featured reviewer, Benjamin Wells.

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: Practical adiabatic quantum computing (AQC). Even with the collapse of Kieu’s ambitious program and D-Wave’s unproven advantage, AQC appeals as a possibly magic carpet.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: Already there… But I still expect to contribute to the growing knowledge of pseudorecursive varieties of semigroups. I hope to explore more connections between math and computer-mediated art and more applications of art to teach middle-school math. I look forward to seeing the resolution of P vs. NP (without any help from me), although I wonder what impact it will have either way.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: In computing, he’s Alan Turing, the founder of computation theory, computer science, computer engineering, and artificial intelligence; he specified the engineering of the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (built too late to be first), and he came close to founding information theory and several other fields. Augusta Ada Byron King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace, is a second choice because she published the first (and first open-source) computer program, for the Analytical Engine, the first universal computer (Harcke, 2004). In life, because he is the first of all, I choose Avatar Meher Baba.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would continue to be retired, but my first work is in mathematics and logic, promoted by Hartley Rogers and Alfred Tarski. Computer science was a parallel gift from John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky. I was blessed with nearly 30 years of teaching both math and computer science at two universities.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: Soul music, including that of Mischa Rutenberg and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

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Featured in Five: Salvatore F. Pileggi

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our March featured reviewer, Salvatore Flavio Pileggi (University of Queensland, Australia).

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: Looking at computing in a wide context and at its social implications, I guess that enabling online social networks at a global scale has been the real "big thing," especially if they are considered within an always-connected world, where the smart phone is a "must."

Connecting millions of people—able to actively produce and share content anytime/anywhere—has radically changed everyday life. It's much more than a broad channel to express opinions; because of social networks, people have changed behaviors in many aspects of their personal and professional lives. The ways they interact with each other and are involved in politics have changed; the media has changed; the world has changed.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: Tricky question. I hope technology will contribute to a better world. To me, it's not as obvious as it may seem. I'm a computer scientist. I'm currently working on different aspects of computational science and eResearch. My research focuses on knowledge representation, data engineering, and analytics.

I never thought in terms of personal ambition. I'm a researcher because I love research, which is part of me and of my life. Currently, I'm happy to wake up and go to work. Should it be different in the future, then I will leave research immediately and without any regret.

I want to think that at the end of my career—tomorrow, after tomorrow, or whenever it will be—I will have done something useful that will contribute to a better world.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: It’s hard to say. I was born in Italy. My primary and secondary education was based on ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Indeed, I like mythology much more than history. I would have had a good answer about my favorite mythological figure!
 
Reflecting a bit, if I had to choose only one single historical figure, I would say Mahatma Gandhi. Why? That is really easy:

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

Do I really need to explain?

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: Assuming an involvement in another field of science, I would have liked working with nature and animals. Working in marine biology would have been great.

If not involved in science, I very much like sports and the culture that underpins them. I would have enjoyed working in that world.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: It depends on what I'm doing actually: when I'm chilling out, I normally like to hear songs that remind me of something, someone, or some place; while working out, I prefer "motivational" songs. Generally speaking, '80s music sounds really good to me.

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Featured in Five: Xinfei Guo

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our February featured reviewer, Xinfei Guo (University of Virginia).

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: Since my research is mostly on the hardware side, I know more about hardware advances. But I do really appreciate all of the innovations in software that brings all needs into reality. Actually, what I think is the most important thing that happened in computing in the past 10 years is the concept of hardware/software codesign. Maybe 10 years ago, hardware engineers and software engineers didn't talk to each other because they didn't even understand a single word of each other's topics. But during the last decade, there were so many research efforts on bringing hardware and software together, it has become a rule that hardware should be accessible to software, and vice versa. A simple example of hardware/software codesign is hardware accelerators. Consider neural network or machine learning applications, which require lot of computing resources; researchers work hard to accelerate the performance. Software engineers might come up with innovative algorithms to reduce computing loads, but this might be too costly in hardware; to evaluate this, hardware engineers need to either prototype the algorithm on FPGAs or build ASICs for demonstrating efficiency. In the meantime, hardware engineers can bring new IP designs (e.g. fast adders, FFT, and so on) to assist software engineers in achieving the speedup while saving hardware costs. Such examples are widely used in industry. Nowadays, hardware engineers need to understand a lot of software concepts well, and software engineers are required to deliver good codes that have meanings for hardware implementations. All of the tool vendors are making good progress on this aspect. Another example is the concept of high-level synthesize (HLS), which tries to make FPGA hardware transparent to software engineers. Imagine 10 years later, hardware blocks will be like apps in an app store today: people can just assemble whatever they need to achieve their functions with a relatively low cost. I am looking forward to seeing this happen, and believe the boundary between hardware and software is going to become harder to distinguish.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: This is a hard question. Since I am just beginning my career, I am really passionate about the future of the computer science. I believe computer science will be the subject that will fundamentally change people's lives. One issue people are facing now is a lack of time. There is so much information and data to process, and people are busy with their social networks. I think the future of computer science is to save people's time. This could be done with smart devices, self-driving cars, or robots. If it happens that half of the efficiency can be improved, then we can enjoy this half of our time for music, arts, or good movies. I am very positive about this, especially as I see the advances of AI, machine learning and all aspects of “smart” computing.

As a hardware researcher, I think I can contribute in several ways. First, we need to deliver good hardware to support application-level innovations. For example, the CPU clock speed needs to be fast enough to process the data, and the large amount of data needs parallel architectures to do the computing. Second, we need to work more closely with system-level researchers to increase the scale of current computing platforms; for example, we could add more IPs for various applications or even make hardware programmable. Last but not least, we need to be able to make sure hardware runs reliably over a long time span, especially for those automobile applications or medical applications, where zero faults are required. Good hardware needs to be able to do a good job all of the time.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: My favorite historical figure is Thomas Jefferson, who is also the founder of our great university. He is such a complete package who is not only good at politics and being a president. He also contributed a lot to the fields of architecture, education, and the arts. I always want to be someone with an open vision of the world instead of being limited to my own field of interest.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I'd like to be a gourmet chef, or at least a good cook. I am a big fan of eating and am always amazed by how culture and food are bonded together. I appreciate how people invented so many ways of eating and so much delicious food around the world. I dream of traveling around the world and tasting local food and exploring different cultures.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I like all types of good music. In particular, I like country music, rock, jazz, and piano songs. I am a big fan of country rock bands like the Eagles. Most of the time, I listened ‘60s and ‘70s music, which might not exactly match my age, but that is the type of music I am into.

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Featured in Five: Feng (George) Yu

Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our October featured reviewer, Feng (George) Yu (Youngstown State Univ.).

 Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: In my humble opinion, the change in “thinking” in computing is the most important thing that has happened in 10 years. What I mean is that the way people are thinking has dramatically changed in this field, and it can be observed in many aspects.

In infrastructure, multicore processors, high-speed large memory chips, high capacity hard drives, fast speed general purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs), high-speed Internet and other high-performance computing hardware have become less costly and more powerful each year. Based on that, we replaced the traditional computing model with virtualization technology, which leads to the birth of cloud computing. We replaced support vector machines (SVM) in machine learning with the deep neural network (DNN), powered by GPGPUs, on pattern recognition for image and speech processing. In addition, we switched from on-disk data management to in-memory data management.

In platforms, cloud computing and big data have transformed from buzzwords to enterprise standards. More than ever, we migrate enterprise services into clouds from physical clusters. We use the MapReduce paradigm to process a much larger volume of data than ever before on commodity hardware, which is made possible by using Hadoop ecosystems.

In human interaction, we have become more open and connected. Open source has benefited countless people. More than ever, enterprises have chosen to use open source solutions and have even made significant contributions. For example, Linux is widely adopted in production. People use Git to collaborate in development remotely. Crowdsourcing springs up, and social networks connect everyone.

Our thinking has changed greatly in the past 10 years. There is no doubt these changes will continue in the next 10 years and even longer. The key is how to predict and govern the dynamics.

Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute to that?
A: We will see computing sprawling into every aspect of life. The Internet of Things (IoT) has already become a symbol. Robotics and AI software will serve people in more households. Programming education will be provided at even earlier ages. In addition, we also expect new trends to keep coming out in software and hardware. For instance, quantum computing has become increasingly popular. FPGA will be utilized more in system-on-chip (SoC). Internet2 will be accessible in more places. Soft robots will be more vivid and friendly.

In less than 50 years, we have achieved so much in computing. These changes will keep going faster and faster. The speed of individual learning has already fallen far behind the speed of knowledge creation. I will keep working and trying to make tiny changes in my current and, possibly, related research fields. More importantly, I will continue working and trying to cultivate new generations toward computing and related disciplines.

Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: I don’t know. No one is perfect, but I believe we are all created equally with special purposes in our lives.

Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I would like to become a mathematician. I like topology and geometry since they are beautiful. I like analytics since it is logical. I like statistics since it is holistic. Many computer science problems are intrinsically math problems, so they would be a natural fit for me. Besides that, there are many math problems waiting for solutions.

Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: I like to listen to soft music when I am working.  On Pandora, my favorite channels are “Instrument Praise Radio” and “Solo Piano Radio.”

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