ACM TechBriefs is a series of short technical bulletins by ACM’s Technology Policy Council that present scientifically-grounded perspectives on the impact of specific developments or applications of technology. Designed to complement ACM’s activities in the policy arena, the primary goal is to inform rather than advocate for specific policies. The new edition states that the ubiquity of algorithmic systems creates serious risks that are not being adequately addressed. A recurring theme of the TechBrief is that while perfectly safe algorithmic systems are not possible, achievable steps can be taken to make them safer. To that end, it recommends that enabling safer algorithmic systems must be a high research and policy priority of governments and all stakeholders.

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) hosted a HotTopics webinar session, "With Liberty and Web Accessibility for All: Getting the DOJ’s Upcoming Rulemaking Right"—now available on demand. The panel of ACM experts discussed what the new rules should look like, whether they can be crafted to well serve both user and business interests, what assistive technologies must they enable, if the new rules fully meet the needs of the one in four Americans affected by some form of disability, and how accessible websites should be designed to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee has released a Statement on Principles for the Development and Deployment of Equitable, Private, and Secure Remote Proctoring Systems. The statement provides a framework to guide those developing and deploying remote proctoring systems to ensure that these systems are private, secure, fair, and accessible for all users. The statement refines and expands upon principles first developed and published in August of 2021 as the COVID pandemic increased the use of, but not necessarily the adoption of, adequate policies and practices to govern such systems.

To highlight and encourage more research focused on modelling the devastating impact of climate change, ACM has established the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling. The new award aims to recognize innovative parallel computing contributions toward solving the global climate crisis. Climate scientists and software engineers will be evaluated for the award based on the performance and innovation in their computational methods. The deadline to apply for the inaugural award is April 15, 2023.

ACM has named 57 members ACM Fellows for significant contributions in areas including cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, mobile computing, and recommender systems among many other areas. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community. In keeping with ACM’s global reach, the 2022 Fellows represent universities, corporations, and research centers in Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in 2023: SIGAPP, SIGARCH, SIGCAS, SIGDOC, SIGEnergy, SIGEVO, SIGMETRICS, SIGMICRO, SIGOPS, SIGSPATIAL, and SIGWEB. 

ACM’s Policy and Procedure on SIG Elections requires that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices.

You can view the candidate slate here.

*ACM SIGGRAPH’s election will commence on 15 June 2023.

Marlene Mhangami is a software engineer and developer advocate at Voltron Data, based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Voltron Data is a company that is working to develop open-source standards for data. Earlier in her career, Mhangami served as the Director and Vice Chair of the Python Software Foundation (PSF). Mhangami was recently named Vice Chair of the ACM Practitioner Board, which is responsible for developing programs that support the professional needs of ACM members. In her interview, Mhangami discusses the Python programming language, developing open-source standards, and more.

ACM has opened the articles published during the first 50 years of its publishing program, from 1951 through the end of 2000, These articles are now open and freely available to view and download via the ACM Digital Library. ACM’s first 50 years backfile contains more than 117,500 articles on a wide range of computing topics. In addition to articles published between 1951 and 2000, ACM has also opened related and supplemental materials including data sets, software, slides, audio recordings, and videos. Read the news release.

Dong Yu is a Distinguished Scientist and Vice General Manager at Tencent AI Lab. He has published more than 300 papers on topics including automatic speech recognition, speech processing, and natural language processing. Yu has received many Best Paper Awards, including the prestigious IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award in 2013, 2016, 2020, and 2022. He was recently named an ACM Fellow for contributions in speech processing and deep learning applications. In his interview, he discusses voice processing advances, natural language understanding, and more.

The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction attracts researchers from around the world to present and exchange ideas about the latest theories, technology, data, and videos furthering the state of the art in human-robot interaction. The conference theme for HRI 2023 is “HRI for All.” Workshops include "Human-Robot Conversational Interaction," "Perspectives on Moral Agency in Human-Robot Interaction," and more. Keynote speakers will be Chieko Asakawa (IBM Fellow), Ericka Johnson (Linköping University), and Andrea Thomaz (Diligent Robotics). The event is being held in Stockholm, Sweden.

The SIGCSE Technical Symposium provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of computing programs, curricula, and courses, as well as syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy. Panel topics include "Accessibility and Disability in CS Education," "Computing for Social Good Mentor and Mentee Training," and more. Keynote speakers are astronaut Robert Thirsk, Renée McCauley (College of Charleston), Susan Rodger (Duke University) and Nichole Pinkard (Northwestern University). The event is being held in Toronto, Canada.

The ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval invites submissions focused on user-centered approaches to the design and evaluation of systems for information access, seeking, retrieval, and use. Contributions may explore improvements to existing systems and interfaces; propose novel theories, models, and systems; or focus on understanding individual and group interactions with information and information systems. Keynote speakers are Elizabeth Churchill (Google) and J. Stephen Downie (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). The conference is being held in Austin, Texas, USA.

ACM Queue’s “Research for Practice” serves up expert-curated guides to the best of computing research, and relates these breakthroughs to the challenges that software engineers face every day. In this installment, "Crash Consistency," we asked Ram Alagappan, an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, to survey recent research on crash consistency—the guarantee that application data will survive system crashes. Unlike memory consistency, crash consistency is an end-to-end concern, requiring not only that the lower levels of the system are implemented correctly, but also that their interfaces are used correctly by applications.

Whether you are a student or an experienced engineering leader, a robust network, an opportunity for peer learning, the prospects of mentorship, and a crowd-sourced catalog of career opportunities, are vital for your personal and professional progression. In this episode of "ACM-W Celebrating Technology Leaders" with host Bushra Anjum, you will hear from senior women technologists who have devoted decades of their lives, either as full-time careers or as passionate volunteers, to creating and nurturing empowering communities for technical women.

ACM recently updated its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The revised Code of Ethics addresses the significant advances in computing technology since the 1992 version, as well as the growing pervasiveness of computing in all aspects of society. To promote the Code throughout the computing community, ACM created a booklet, which includes the Code, case studies that illustrate how the Code can be applied to situations that arise in everyday practice and suggestions on how the Code can be used in educational settings and in companies and organizations. Download a PDF of the ACM Code booklet.

Games: Research and Practice (Games) offers a lighthouse for games research that defines the state of the art on games and playable media across academic research and industry practice. Inclusive in community, discipline, method, and game form, it publishes major reviews, tutorials, and advances on games and playable media that are both practically useful and grounded in robust evidence and argument, alongside case studies, opinions, and dialogues on new developments that will change games. For more information and to submit your work, visit the homepage.

Proceedings of the ACM on Networking (PACMNET) is a journal for research relevant to multiple aspects of the area of computer networking. We seek papers presenting significant and novel research results on emerging computer networks and its applications. We especially encourage submissions that present new technologies, novel experimentation, creative use of networking technologies, and new insights made possible using analysis. We are also looking for papers on network properties such as policy and economics, security and privacy, reliability and availability, performance, energy efficiency, etc.

The inaugural issue of ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice (DLT) is now available for download. DLT is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes high quality, interdisciplinary research on the research and development, real-world deployment, and/or evaluation of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) such as blockchain, cryptocurrency, and smart contracts. DLT offers a blend of original research work and innovative practice-driven advancements by internationally distinguished DLT experts and researchers from academia, and public and private sector organizations. For more information and to submit your work, visit the journal homepage.

ACM Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems (JATS) aims to cover the topics in design, analysis, and control of autonomous transportation systems. The area of autonomous transportation systems is at a critical point where issues related to data, models, computation, and scale are increasingly important. Similarly, multiple disciplines including computer science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, etc., are approaching these problems with a significant growth in research activity. For further information and to submit your manuscript, please visit the journal homepage.

The ACM Journal on Responsible Computing (JRC) will publish high-quality original research at the intersection of computing, ethics, information, law, policy, responsible innovation, and social responsibility from a wide range of convergent, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives. Editor-in-Chief Kenneth R. Fleischmann is a Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Texas at Austin School of Information. Read the ACM news release and visit the journal homepage.

ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems (TORS) will publish high quality papers that address various aspects of recommender systems research, from algorithms to the user experience, to questions of the impact and value of such systems. The journal takes a holistic view on the field and calls for contributions from different subfields of computer science and information systems, such as machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, web-based systems, data science and big data, and human-computer interaction. The new quarterly journal is now accepting submissions. Read the ACM news release and visit the journal homepage.

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