NEW NSF HONORS...Sebastian Thrun is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, for his project entitled, "A software development framework that integrates learning, probabilistic reasoning and anytime computation." CAREER awards, which until recent years were known as Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) awards, provide support for a small number of outstanding junior faculty members in their pursuit of "research and education of the highest quality...both components integral to stimulating the discovery and learning process". Thrun notes, "this is a great opportunity to intensify collaboration with CMU's PL faculty, specifically with Frank Pfenning." We note, this is a great accomplishment! Congratulations.

AND DISTINCTIONS...Fay Chang's paper, "Automatic I/O Hint Generation through Speculative Execution," has been awarded best student paper (tied) at the 3rd Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), sponsored by USENIX, IEEE TCOS and ACM SIGOPS, in New Orleans on 23-25 February 1999. Fay was the conference's first speaker, and "did a super job even though her voice threatened to fail at any moment right up to and during her talk." She received compliments from a wide variety of leaders in the field. A sure "hint" of things to come :-)

AND APPOINTMENTS...Roy Maxion has been selected as the US representative to the International Committee for Assuring Dependability of National Critical Computer Infrastructures, an "international team of experts chosen by the the European Union and DARPA to collaborate on assuring the dependability, safety and security of national, computer-based critical infrastructures such as air traffic control, health care, communication, electronic commerce, electric power, etc." The collaboration begins 20-21 April in Venice, where the group explores "A Joint Initiative on Dependability in the Information Society: Defining an Agenda for Collaboration." Roy will present the technical agenda for the combined areas of fault tolerance and intrusion detection for large-scale networks.

EMIGRATION CONTINUES...On Friday, March 12, Michael Shamos, Principal Systems Scientist, Director/University Library Project, and Co-Director, E-commerce Program, and Casey Porto, Senior Licensing Officer, CMU Office of Technology Transfer, will explore "Intellectual Property (Laws) and You", beginning at 1:00 pm in Wean 5409. Topics will include patents, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, royalties, internet and e-commerce specific legal issues, employment contracts, and CMU's IP and technology transfer procedures. Desserts will be served.

STAFF RECOGNITION AWARDS...The deadline for nominations has been extended to Monday, March 15. Why? Because this is an ideal time to recognize co-workers and staff members for their many contributions and value-added efforts to make SCS an exciting and envigorating place to be. Completed nomination forms can be submitted via email to scs-staffawards@cs, followed by recommendation letters obtained by the nominator. Simply drop them off at one of the following locations: Wean Hall (CSD Main Office), Smith Hall (Mailbox); LTI (Main Office). Don't delay!

HCII TOWN HALL...Come ye merry HCII folk to your next Town Hall (Departmental) Meeting on Wednesday, March 10 at 4:15 pm in the Singleton Room, Roberts Hall. Refreshments will be served in the Seagate Atrium (outside the Room) beginning at 4:00 pm.

SCS GRADUATE OPEN HOUSES...Prospective CS and RI graduate students will be visiting campus on March 19-20 and March 28-29, respectively. A hefty schedule is planned for all. For details, contact martha.clarke@cs or suzanne.crow@ri.

CARD SPEAKS AT GASCHNIG/OAKLEY MEMORIAL LECTURE ...The next SCS Distinguished Alumni Lecture is scheduled for Thursday, March 18 and features Stuart Card, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The talk begins at 4:00 pm in Wean 7500. Distinguished donuts served at 3:45 pm.

THE CUTTING EDGE...Manuela Veloso will present, "Creating Teams of Soccer Robots" at the next "Cutting Edge Cafe" (CEC) on Thursday, March 11 at 4:30 pm in the Peter/McKenna Room, University Center. Hosted by the Division of Student Affairs, the lecture series highlights leading edge research conducted on campus, offering participants a "fundamental understanding of current research initiatives in an atmosphere that encourages interaction between the speaker and the audience."

ARGUMENTATION IN COMPUTER MEDIA...A new special interest group has been formed. For details contact Nancy.Green@cs.cmu.edu or visit: www.cs.cmu.edu/~sage/argumentation.html.

MOBOT $99 MINI CHALLENGE AND CLINIC...will be held Wednesday, March 31 at noon on the Mobot race course in front of of Wean Hall. Members of the Mobot Committee will be available to help participants with their mobots. The Mini Challenge consists of two "partial course" competitions: 1) a slalom race on the flat part of the course, between the hills (gates 2 to 8), and 2) a decision race, starting at the first fork in the line and continuing to the end of the course (gates 9 to 14). The winner of each competition, the participant finishing the reduced course in the fastest time, will receive the $99 cash prize. Competitors can enter either of both of these events. All is in preparation for the 5th Annual Mobot Slalom Race scheduled for spring carnival weekend, April 16.

JAVA WILL DO IT IN REAL-TIME...Raj Rajkumar asks, "If you are looking to use Java in multimedia, real-time or robotic control applications, but are stymied, here is how you can act. A Real-Time Java Experts Group has been formed to come up with a specification for the use of Java in real-time applications." Just recently announced by Sun Microsystems, this team of 20 includes only one participant from academia, Raj Rajkumar. "Draft specifications and compliant prototype implementations are expected by the end of the year." If you would like to communicate your expectations for Real-Time Java, contact raj+@cs. or visit: www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/03/javalinks.idg/.

SEI INTERACTIVE...the online publication of the SEI, is now available at http://interactive.sei.cmu.edu. The March 1999 issue (Vol 2, Issue 1) "focuses on one of the thorniest issues confronting software developers, engineers, and end users: requirements engineering." As noted by the March guest editor, Nancy Mead, of the SEI's Survivable Systems Initiative, "We have seen a lot of interest in requirements engineering over the past 10 years, and that interest is increasing..." Browse on...

SURG DEADLINE...The deadline for Summer/Fall SURG proposals and Summer Fellowship proposals is Wednesday, March 17 at 5:00 pm. Applications should be handed in at the Undergraduate Research Symposium offices (428-429 Warner). Contact stocks@cmu.edu or ls2y@andrew.cmu.edu to review a draft of your proposal or for guidance. Don't delay!

MEETING OF THE MINDS...Faculty, staff, students! Mark your calendars. The Spring 99 Undergraduate Research Symposium, Meeting of the Minds, is scheduled for Wednesday, May 5. This is a great opportunity to see what our undergrads have been up to over the term and to see some excellent examples of their research. Registration deadline is Friday, April 2 for all students wishing to participate (you did not have to receive a SURG grant to join in the presentations). Visit www.cmu.edu/adm/uri for details.

PERL MONGERS MEET AGAIN...on Tuesday, March 9 at 6:30 pm in Wean 8220. Matt Siegler will focus on Approximate String Alignment in Perl (Dijkstra's to Watch Out For). He will walk through design and a perl implementation of a Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm: a Dynamic Programming solution for finding the optimal alignment between two arrays. "Things" used in this effort include: Graph.pm, Package variables and subroutines, "tie", and the Orcish maneuver. Contact lenzo@cs for more details.

WATS:ON?...The Jill Watson Festival Across the Arts will be held March 10-11. On Wednesday, The Jill Watson Award for Transdisciplinary Achievement in the Arts will be presented to Magdalena Jetelov at 6:30 pm in McConomy Auditorium. Arnold Wasserman, design management consultant and CMU design alumnus discusses his work as Director of Design at the Idea Factory and how design innovation has moved towards interdisciplinary team work, beginning at 7:00 pm. Margaret Baxtresser follows with a performance of a multi-sensory piano recital, featuring the music of Claude Debussy and Impressionist paintings at 8:00 pm. On Thursday, The Robert Lepper Lecture will be presented by artists Leon Golub and Nancy Spero, who share a retrospective of their work at 7:00 pm in Rangos Hall. A reception follows at 8:00 pm, with a performance of original computer music "using computers and proprietary software as instruments".

GET A LIFE..."The Mystery of Edwind Drood" by Rupert Holmes continues at the CFA Kresge Theatre this month (268-2407). On Saturday, March 13, The Carnegie Mellon Jazz Ensembles "rocks" in McConomy Auditorium at 4:00 pm. The Jazz Vocal Ensemble performs Sunday, March 14 at 4:00, same location.

WORDS FOR THOUGHT...
MONDAY, MARCH 8
COMPUTER SYSTEMS SEMINAR: Pradip Bose, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, "Performance Evaluation and Validation of Microprocessors: Current Challenges", 3:30 pm, Wean 5409.

FRIDAY, MARCH 12:
GRAPHICS SEMINAR: Dimitris Metaxas, CIS, University of Pennsylvania, "Overview of Physics-based Modeling Methods for Graphics, Vision and Medical Image Analysis", 2:00 pm, Wean 4623.
SCS STUDENT SEMINAR SERIES: Marius Minea, "Verification of Timed Systems using Partial Order Reduction", 12:00 noon, Wean Hall 4601.

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