Prizes and Computing Research

On September 25, 2009, In Computing Community Consortium (CCC), By Peter Harsha

Ran Libeskind-Hadas, a member of the Computing Community Consortium’s Council and a professor at Harvey Mudd College, has an interesting post today on the CCC blog asking, in light of the recent Netflix Prize announcement, whether prizes are a viable mechanism for encouraging research in the computing fields.

From Netflix’s perspective, the answer is almost certainly yes. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted telling the New York Times (probably tongue-in-cheek) “You’re getting Ph.D.’s for a dollar an hour.”

He notes several other examples of prizes that have led to new results and asks:

Are there some major problems in computer science that could be incentivized by prizes – financial or otherwise? What are the potential benefits and risks of this approach? We’re eager to hear your thoughts.

Add your two cents (or more) in the comments section. (No prize for doing it, though.)

 
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Healthcare Robotics Briefing

On July 24, 2009, In Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Events, Policy, By MelissaNorr

Yesterday the Congressional Robotics Caucus, chaired by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), hosted a briefing on healthcare robotics. Four speakers addressed various aspects of robotics in healthcare. They were: Tandy Trower, Microsoft, who spoke on Healthcare Challenges and Robotic Solutions; Maja Mataric, University of Southern California, who spoke on Socially Assistive Robotics for Personalized Care for Stroke, Autism, and Alzheimer’s Disease; Charles Remsberg, Hocoma, Inc., who spoke on Robots in Rehabilitation Medicine; and Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University, who spoke on Same Day Surgery: The Future of Medical Robotic Technology Interventions.
Healthcare is clearly a hot topic on the Hill these days and the speakers emphasized that robotic technologies could lower costs, particularly with a growing senior population. All the speakers called for more research in robotics but showed examples of currently deployed healthcare robotic technology and had demonstrations available before and after the presentations.
Trower pointed out that, outside military robotics, the United States research funding for service robotics is limited. He referenced the CCC funded Roadmap for US Robotics which calls for increased research funding, accelerating commercialization of robotics research, and promoting robotics, among other recommendations.
Remsberg discussed the strides already made by the Department of Veterans Affairs to increase the use of rehabilitative robotics for returning wounded veterans but called for wider adoption of the technologies in light of the costs of physical therapy using human therapists. Remsberg points out that therapy using the various robotic technologies allows more patients to get more therapy and have better outcomes than using human physical therapists alone.
Mataric focused on stroke, autism and Alzheimer’s patients and how they can be assisted with robotics. Many autistic children will interact with, and learn from, robots when they cannot do so with people according to Mataric.
Choset spoke on the need for better surgical robotics to lower the invasiveness of surgery and therefore, decrease recovery and hospital stay time for patients. He also stressed that robotic technology in surgery is not meant to replace human surgeons but to assist them in doing the surgery faster and safer.
The presentations will be available online at the Robotics Caucus web site next week.

 
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CCC Announces New Networking Research Agenda

On July 24, 2009, In Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Research, By MelissaNorr

CCC’s Network Science and Engineering (NetSE) Council, led by Ellen Zegura, released a new agenda for networking research at the GENI Engineering Conference this week. The agenda, version 1.0, is available here (pdf) but the Council stresses that this is a “living document” and as such requests feedback and comments from the community at the CCC NetSE web site.
The agenda is the result of a process initiated in 2008 at the behest of the CCC, who charged the NetSE Council with developing a comprehensive research agenda that would support the development of better networks. Through a series of workshops and much community input, the NetSE council gathered the input to produce this draft, which includes four overarching recommendations:

Recommendation 1: The funding agencies of the United States government must increase investment in research that will lead to a better Internet or risk a marginal future role.
Recommendation 2: Funding agencies should rebuild the experimental capabilities of networking researchers, through funding individual systems-building efforts, providing adequate and persistent shared experimental infrastructure, and supporting research that leads to continued improvements in experimental methodology. Experimental work is expensive and long-term; typical NSF awards are insufficient, therefore either NSF will need to change its award portfolio or other agencies will have to play a significantly increased role.
Recommendation 3: Funding agencies should foster and support research activities relevant to network design within the theoretical computer science community, the new Network Science community, and other theoretical disciplines.
Recommendation 4: Funding agencies should support a broad array of interdisciplinary research activities related to understanding the current Internet and designing future networks to include the Internet.

More information on the NetSE effort and the full version of the report are available at the CCC NetSE web site. Also, feel free to comment on the
CCC Blog.

 
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