acm - an acm publication

2008 - March

  • Why visual aids need to be less visual
    I was recently invited to a presentation by an accomplished speaker. Needless to say, his speech was well structured, his manner relaxed and confident, his eye contact and body language excellent, etc. He normally spoke without slides, but this time he felt they would reinforce and illuminate his message. They didnt. In fact, they were more of a hindrance than a help.
  • Interview with MIT's Robert Langer
    Dr. Robert Langers work is at the interface of biotechnology and materials science. A major focus is the study and development of polymers to deliver drugs, particularly genetically engineered proteins, DNA and RNAi, continuously at controlled rates for prolonged periods of time.
  • Out sourcing-off shoring: how will you derive the value?
    The equations of global economies are changing fast due to Industry consolidation, merging, acquisitions and on account of industries hunger for global hunt and race of scaling-up higher and higher there by creating stiff competition among their rivals. The business houses are deeply evolved in looking at techno commercially viable IT solutions to grow at faster speed, support the business effectively and provide competitive advantage by using the latest emerging technologies.
  • Create centre of excellence (CoE) for better business
    What is CoE? In todays world, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) applies to any organization who wants to create and use excellent state of art and showcase its technological, service and business oriented capabilities to the entire world in a competitive environment. CoE is the combined effect of emerging business model and technologies.
  • Arrogance or efficiency? a discussion of the Microsoft office fluent user interface
    1 Introduction I was writing an e-mail message the other day using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and clicked on the button for adding one of my signature blocks. Presto! Most of my message disappeared! Investigation and testing showed that the behavior was unpredictable; sometimes, only the existing default signature was replaced by the new signature but occasionally the program became confused and wiped out portions of the text as well.
  • Generation of a random simple graph and its graphical presentation
    Most of the physical and mathematical problems can be formulated in terms of Graph Theory [1]. Generation of a single spanning tree for a simple, symmetric and connected graph G is well known polynomial time solvable problem [1]. Also there are some intractable problems like Graph Coloring, Vertex Connectivity, Isomorphism etc. in graph theory [2,3]. To solve these problems we need some Soft computing approaches like GA, SA, Fuzzy Set, Rough Set etc. [4,6].
  • Use of genetic algorithms for Indian music mixing

    Music has changed and evolved through time and time tells that it has always been for the better. In our study, we have implemented Genetic Algorithms for the generation of music by music mixing to provide willing music lovers, the first step to personalize music to suit their liking. A music loop library, containing a list of all tentative loops which are to be used in the remix production alongwith the parameters which define them, is used for this purpose. A loop is an endless band of tape or music allowing continuous repetition. These loops cover all the major music instrument families with particular emphasis on Indian musical instruments as they have been extracted from Indian songs after careful observation using a sound editor. The combinations of different loops for the analysis is run through genetic algorithms. Some important parameters of a loop from the point of view of music mixing are: Depth, BPM (beats per minute), length of the loop and type of the instrument. A fitness function is calculated for the genetic algorithm to rank various combinations of loops for the next generation. The best loop combination can be selected out of the final set of population.

  • Is a worldwide common language just over the horizon?
    I am an American living in Belgium since 1974. Ever since arriving here, I have been hearing the mantra To be a good European, you should learn several languages. Almost from the very beginning, I suggested going the other way: To be a good European, everyone should learn a single common language.
  • Why track actual costs and resource usage on projects?
    The importance of tracking actual costs and resource usage in projects depends upon the project situation. For some projects, tracking actuals is unnecessary or is not worth the effort required. In other cases, however, tracking actual costs and resource usage is an essential aspect of the project control function. In such cases, a system must be put into place to support the tracking process, and the collection/recording of the potentially voluminous quantity of data requires strong organizational discipline. Why then is tracking actual costs and resource usage on a project ever worth the effort required to accomplish it?
  • Some observations on mind map and ontology building tools for knowledge management

    Ontology is a fundamental data object for organizing knowledge in a structured way in many areas ranging from philosophy to Knowledge Management. Knowledge capture, knowledge integration and knowledge delivery are the essential parts of dynamic knowledge management. E-Learning is considered to be an integral part of knowledge delivery system. Information architect plays an important role in developing the system, and are primarily responsible for capturing and modeling knowledge from various Information sources as a part of eLearning. Ontology is found to be useful and efficient as a basis to capture the knowledge, model it in a structured way and disseminate it for further processing from various information sources. In this paper, we present a brief description on the role of ontology in e-learning and review the ontology building tools. The purpose for reviewing ontology building tools is to determine the toolkit most suitable for ontology creation, editing, and mind/concept mapping from the view points of Information Architects (IAs) who play a significant role in designing knowledge management systems. The paper also gives a fundamental understanding of ontology tools available on the market as open source products as well as commercial products in terms of their capability, availability, enhancement and further development. We provide a ranked list of the tools based on our needs and suitability for the IAs.

  • An Interview with Dr. Yi Pan of Georgia State University
    Ubiquity is proud to publish this inspirational interview, which starts with a discussion of the creation of the computer science department at Georgia State University, and concludes with the heroic efforts an impoverished student from Tsinghua University in China overcame many obstacles to rise to a significant position at Georgia. The interviewee is Yi Pan, Chair and Professor of Georgia State University's computer science department, who provided us with these inspirational reflections on computer science, academic success, and true success. The interview was conducted by Ubiquity editor-in-chief John Gehl.
  • An Interview with Michael Schrage on Ubiquity
    Author of several acclaimed books and numerous articles in such publications as Fortune and Technology Review, Michael Schrage is also a world-traveling consultant to all businesses great and small. He has been at MIT for many years, and his new academic home will be in that institution's Sloan Management School.