NEWELL AWARD RECIPIENTS...SCS is pleased to announce that Hesheng Bao (CivE), Jacobo Bielak (CivE), Omar Ghattas (CivE), Thomas Gross, Loukas Kallivokas (CivE), David O'Hallaron, Jonathan Shewchuk and Jifeng Xu (CivE) have been awarded The Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence for their superior work on the Quake Project. The team received their gold medals at the CS Department Meeting in April, "in recognition of their outstanding work and dedication to quality research." Established in 1992, the Newell Award pays tribute to "real science", that is pursued with the integrity, enthusiasm, and drive exemplified by Allen Newell's scientific career. About 700 hundred pats on the back from your colleagues and friends in SCS!

ACCOLADES AND HONORS...Garth Gibson, David Patterson, and Randy Katz, have received the "Test of Time" Award for their 1988 SIGMOD paper, "A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)". The Test of Time award, newly established, will be awarded annually to "the most influential paper from the SIGMOD proceedings 10 years ago." Proving that good ideas are timeless, Garth, David and Randy will be honored during SIGMOD98.

NEW AWARDS...Neil Heffernan has been awarded a 1998 Spencer Dissertation Fellowship for Research Related to Education, made possible by the Spencer Foundation. The fund is dedicated to "investigating ways in which education can be improved, around the world" and supports the outstanding research of students that demonstrate promise in achieving this goal. Congratulations Neil!

PROPOSALS...Andrew Willmott examines "Hierarchical Radiosity with Multiresolution Meshes" at his CS thesis proposal on Tuesday, April 21 at 1:00 pm in Wean 4615A. His committee includes: Paul Heckbert (Chair), David O'Hallaron, Francois Sillion (iMAGIS (INRIA) and Ecole Polytechnique), and Andy Witkin.

SCS DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI LECTURE...Jim Mitchell, Sun Fellow and Vice President of Architecture and Technology, JavaSoft, rejoins us for a look into "Java Hot Spots" at 4:00 pm in Wean 7500. Distinguished donuts at 3:45 pm.

CS FACULTY CANDIDATE...Andrew Myers, Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT, will be "Protecting Privacy with Mostly Static Analysis" on Monday, April 20 at 10:00 am in Wean 4623. His faculty host is Garth Gibson.

HE'S BACK...H.T. Kung, now of Harvard University but always a part of SCS :-) returns on Friday, April 17 for a Special Computer Systems Seminar at 11:00 am in Wean 4601. He will discuss "Enhancing Telecommunications Transport Networks with Internet Protocols." His host is Peter Steenkiste.

ON DISPLAY...On Saturday, April 18, Michael Mateas, in collaboration with interactive-artist Paul Vanouse and documentary film-maker Steffi Domike, will present their original work, "Terminal Time", an AI-based interactive art piece, at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Terminal Time, "utilizing a knowledge base containing historical events and a database containing audio/visual elements, constructs ideologically-biased historical documentaries in response to audience feedback." This interactive "documentary machine" will be part of the public showings, a melding of art and culture studies, offered from April 16-18 at the Center.

BUILDING VIRTUAL WORLDS: AN EXHIBITION...This semester, 50 students from Art, Design, Drama, and Computer Science took part in an experimental course where they worked in small teams to build Interactive Virtual Reality Worlds. On Monday, April 27, the "best of the best" will be offered -- a demonstration of the beauty, cleverness, creativity, humor, and hard work that characterized this unusual course and the uniqueness of the students -- at 6:00 in the McConomy Auditorium. Lasting approximately an hour, the exhibition will highlight a number of short Virtual Reality Worlds and briefly describe the process used in their creation, while displaying how students were able to "reach out across the cut" to combine art, engineering, design, and storytelling. A reception will follow, offering audience members an opportunity to try out the virtual reality worlds first-hand and to speak with the students about their experiences. So stop by and check out what promises to be an exciting program!

REV YOUR MOBOTS...on Friday, April 17 at 12:00 NOON on the Race Course in front of Wean Hall. Mobot teams will participate in the 4th Annual Mobot Slalom Race for prizes of $1,000 - 1st Place, $500 - 2nd Place, and $250 - 3rd Place, with special award categories in the Open Class and Judges Choice. Open to all undergraduates and members of the Carnegie Mellon community, the race showcases the creativity of our students (staff/alumni) in developing self-controlled, self-powered, autonomous vehicles that can successfully (and yes, sometimes miraculously) navigate a slalom course consisting of curves, gates, ambiguous terrain, decision points and diverse climatic conditions. No small effort! Come by and cheer on your favorite team and the hard efforts of all the participants. (Rain date, heavens forbid, is Saturday, April 18 at 12:00 pm).

SCS INVITED TALKS...Raul Valdes-Perez delivered invited talks in February and March at the Data Mining Summit in Beverly Hills, California and the DIMACS Workshop on Discrete Mathematical Chemistry at Rutgers University. He also served as a panel member at the NIH Symposium Bioengineering: Building the Future of Biology and Medicine.

SCS INVITED STUDENT TALKS...Peter Stone presented an invited talk on "Layered Learning in Multiagent Systems", at the Machines that Learn Workshop on April 7 in Snowbird Utah.

IN THE NEWS...How can we say it any better! See http://www.nytimes.com/library/ tech/yr/mo/cyber/articles/10robot.html, for the New York Times story on Pioneer, Redzone, Carnegie Mellon, and our very own (alum) Mark Maimone!

WORDS FOR THOUGHT...
THURSDAY, APRIL 16
**HCI SEMINAR: Andrew F. Monk, Reader in Psychology, University of York and Chair, British HCI Group, and Leon A. Watts, Rsearch Fellow in Psychology, University of York, "Participants, Bystanders, and Eavesdroppers: Overhearing During Video-mediated Communication", 2:30 pm, Wean 4623 (NOTE: Special Date and Time).
**SDI SEMINAR: B.R. Badrinath, Rutgers University, "On Supporting an Internet Cellular Phone Network", 12:00 pn, Wean 8220.
**CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS SEMINAR: Daniel Edelstein, IBM TJ Watson Research Center, "CMOS ULSI Technology with Copper Interconnections", 2:30 pm, Rangos 3, University Center

FRIDAY, APRIL 17
**COMPUTER MUSIC TALK: Yann Orlarey, Centre National de Creation Musicale, "The Elody Music Composition Environment", 11:00 am, Wean Hall 4623. (Elody is a music composition environment based on a visual functional programming language, a direct manipulation user interface and Internet facilities. It is written in Java and available for Mac and Windows.)
**THEORY SEMINAR: Peter N. Yianilos, NEC Research Institute, "Towards an Archival Intermemory", 3:30 pm, Wean 7220.

MONDAY, APRIL 20
**CULTURAL EXCHANGE SEMINAR: Hui Zhang, "Models and Algorithms for Hierarchical Resource Management in Integrated Services Networks", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.

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