|
Two Exciting Events in 2013!
from ACM Europe Council Chair Fabrizio Gagliardi 
Dear ACM Member,
The ACM Europe Council has been hard at work, and I'm happy to report that we'll be seeing two major inaugural events kick off this year: the first ACM European Computing Research Congress (ECRC), and the
Heidelberg Laureate Forum.
First, ECRC: modeled on the Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) that is held in the US every four years, ECRC will be held in conjunction with the
CHI 2013 Conference on Computer-Human Interaction at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, May 2–4, and will include five conferences, as well as plenary sessions
addressing important issues in European computing research. ACM president Vint Cerf will deliver the joint CHI/ECRC keynote, and Michel Cosnard, CEO of INRIA, will be the lead speaker at a panel on
"Computing Research 2020 and Beyond". Attendees will enjoy an enhanced level of networking among European researchers in
fields ranging from Accessibility to High Performance Computing. Read more in the Conferences and Events section of this newsletter.
Second, I want to encourage you to invite young researchers to participate in an extraordinary opportunity to meet and interact with leading minds in mathematics and computer science. (Or, if you are a
student, apply yourself!) ACM, in cooperation with the Klaus Tschira Foundation in Heidelberg, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the International Mathematical Union, has created the
Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual event to bring students together with the very pioneering researchers who may have sparked their passion for
science and math. These role models include recipients of the ACM A.M. Turing Award (computer science), the Abel Prize, and the Fields Medal (mathematics). The first
Heidelberg Laureate Forum will take place September 22–27, 2013 in Heidelberg, Germany. The week-long event will focus on scientific inspiration and exchange through a series of presentations, workshops,
panel discussions, and social events involving both the laureates and the young scientists.
Nominate a young researcher for this program here.
Students apply here. This includes new and recent Ph.Ds, Ph.D candidates, and other graduate
students involved in research, and undergraduate students with solid experience in, and a commitment to, computing research.
The deadline for applications is February 15. Successful applicants will be notified by April 15 and will receive full support to attend the Forum.
Thanks in advance for your participation, and all the best for 2013!
Regards,
Fabrizio
Fabrizio Gagliardi is Europe, Middle East and Africa Director for External Research, Microsoft Research.
- TOP STORIES
- Awards/Member Recognition
- Meet the 2012 European ACM Fellows and Distinguished Members
- Best Paper Awards at European Conferences
- Distinguished Speakers Program
- Featured ACM European Distinguished Speaker: Francesco Flammini
- Conferences and Events
- EuroSys '13, April 13 - 15, Prague, Czech Republic
- CHI '13, April 27 - May 2, Paris, France
- ECRC: First ACM European Computing Research Congress, May 2 - 4, Paris, France
- Chapters News
- Report from CECL Chapters Meeeting, December 2012, Vienna
- Featured ACM European Chapter: University of Peloponnisos ACM Student Chapter
- Welcome New ACM European Chapters
- Student News
- ACM-W Expands Scholarship Program with Support from Microsoft
- ACM-W News
- First Meeting of ACM-W Europe, December 2012, Vienna
- Publications News
- Featured ICPS Conference Proceedings: CVMP '12: Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Visual Media Production, December 5 - 6, 2012, London, UK
Awards/Member Recognition
Meet the 2012 European ACM Fellows and Distinguished Members
The ACM Fellows Program was established by in 1993 to recognize and honor outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and information technology and for their significant
contributions to the mission of the ACM. The ACM Fellows serve as distinguished colleagues to whom the ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership as the world of information technology evolves.
ACM Europe congratulates these 11 Europeans who were named 2012 ACM Fellows:
The Distinguished Member Grade recognizes those ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous Professional Membership who have achieved significant accomplishments
or have made a significant impact on the computing field. Three Europeans were named Distinguished Scientists for 2012:
Ian Brown, University of Oxford |
Torben Bach Pedersen, Aalborg University |
Franco Zambonelli, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
Read ACM press releases about the 2012 ACM Fellows and Distinguished Members.
Best Paper Awards at European Conferences
Best Paper awards are presented to individual(s) judged by an awards committee to have written the best paper appearing in an annual conference proceedings. Please visit the
Best Paper Awards Page to see the best paper awards that have been given at ACM's sponsored and co-sponsored events held in Europe over the past year.
Distinguished Speakers Program
Featured ACM European Distinguished Speaker: Francesco Flammini
The Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) is one of ACM's most valued outreach programs,
providing universities, corporations, event and conference planners, and local ACM chapters with direct access to top
technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry.
Francesco Flammini received his MD (2003) and PhD (2006) degrees in Computer Engineering from the University of Naples Federico II.
From 2003 to 2007, he worked in Ansaldo STS as a Software/RAMS Engineer in the Verification & Validation unit, specialising in model-based dependability evaluation and testing of real-time control
systems. He was involved in several European Railway Traffic Management System/European Train Control System (ERTMS/ETCS) projects. Since 2007, he has worked as both a System
Engineer and a Researcher in the Innovation & Competitiveness unit. He has been mainly devoted to research and installation projects related to the protection of transportation infrastructures,
specialising in risk assessment and design of security management systems.
From 2006 to 2009, he was an adjunct professor of software engineering at the Second University of Naples and of Computer Science at the University of Naples Federico II.
He has authored several books and more than 50 scientific papers, and has been involved in chairing several international conferences, including SAFECOMP '11. Since 2009, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief
of the International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems. He has served as the Vice-Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Italy chapter and participates in several technical committees, including
Software Engineering and Fault Tolerant Computing. He is also a member of:
- European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems Reliability, Safety and Security
- Formal Methods Europe
- ERCIM Working Group on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems
- ESRA Technical Committee on Operational Safety and Security of Interconnected Critical Infrastructures
- IEEE SMC Technical Committee on Homeland Security
His awards include: Automatic Train Control System based on ERTMS/ETCS L3 (2005), Subway Tunnel Protection System (2007), and Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting System for Railways (2009). In 2005 he received a
research grant from the Institute for Research and Educational Activities, and in 2006 he was awarded a Best Student Paper grant at the Dependability of Computer Systems (DepCoS'06) international conference.
"Being a Distinguished Speaker is a great way to share my industrial experience with other industry colleagues and representatives from academia," says Francesco. "That is essential for both
me and the audience to consolidate the best practices and to stay up-to-date on recent methodologies and tools to address new (and old) issues related to my field of research."
Learn more about about Francesco and his lecture "Model-Based Approaches for Railway Safety, Reliability and Security" on his
DSP speaker information page.
Francesco Flammini's ACM Digital Library author page
Nominate a colleague as a Distinguished Speaker.
Conferences and Events
EuroSys '13, April 13 - 15, Prague, Czech Republic
The EuroSys conference series focuses on systems research and development: operating systems, database systems, real-time systems and middleware for networked,
distributed, parallel, or embedded computing systems. EuroSys has become a premier forum for discussing various issues of systems software research and development, including implications related to hardware
and applications. EuroSys 2013 aims to include papers on all aspects of computer systems, as well as a number of workshops to allow junior and senior members of the systems community to explore leading-edge
topics and ideas before they are presented at a conference.
CHI '13, April 27 - May 2, Paris, France
The premier international conference on human-computer interaction, the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems this year takes as its theme "Changing
Perspectives," offering new visions of people interacting with technology. Multidisciplinary and multicultural in scope, CHI brings together students and experts from over 60 countries, representing
different cultures and application areas, whose diverse perspectives influence each other. CHI aims to serve serve communities in design, management, engineering, user experience, arts, sustainability,
children, games and entertainment, health, and community development and sustainability. This year's CHI will take place in collaboration with ECRC.
ECRC: First ACM European Computing Research Congress, May 2 - 4, Paris, France
ACM Europe is launching its first global multi-conference event, ECRC. It will be held in conjunction with the
CHI 2013 Conference on Computer-Human Interaction at the Palais des Congrès, and will include these conferences:
In addition, there will be a number of plenary sessions for all attendees. ACM president Vint Cerf will deliver the opening keynote, and INRIA CEO Michel Cosnard will lead a panel on the future of computing
research that includes leaders from industry, academia and government.
Chapters News
Report from CECL Chapters Meeting, December 2012, Vienna
By Marc Shapiro, ACM Council of European Chapter Leaders
Chapters are the local structure of ACM. Chapters are where professionals meet, where active members help the whole community,
and where the younger members learn and benefit from the older
ones' experience. An ACM chapter is an incubator for the ethical computer professional of tomorrow.
Chapters are active in organising activities, such as programming contests, hack-a-thons or install-a-thons, technical conferences, seminars, sponsoring their members to attend prestigious
conferences, and more generally seeking and exchanging technical information. Many have links with local computer industry, opinion leaders, and government.
Although chapter members are not necessarily members of ACM itself, the ACM umbrella brings immediate professional recognition, and some help from ACM headquarters. For instance, chapters
can get top speakers, expenses paid, through the Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP).
There are different kinds of chapters. A Student Chapter is run by the students of a university helped by a faculty sponsor. There is a variety of Professional Chapters, e.g., connected to
a particular SIG (Special Interest Group technical area) or geographical location.
In Europe, there are three Europe-wide Professional Chapters, connected to SIGOPS, SIGMM and SIGDOC respectively.
There are 14 general ACM chapters in a city or a country. 27 are local SIG chapters—the most active SIGs are SIGCHI (15 chapters) and SIGGRAPH (4). There are 27 Student Chapters, mostly
in Eastern Europe. Total: 71 chapters across Europe.
To break their relative isolation, a first initiative was the Europe-wide Chapter Workshop that took place in Paris in January 2012. This was a great opportunity to network and to create
links, to share information and best practices, and to understand better what chapters and ACM itself do, and what needed to be improved. The voice of active chapter officers was heard
loud and clear. Among the ideas coming out of the workshop:
- create a legal entity for ACM Europe, in order to facilitate chapter creation and operation
- expand and localise the DSP Program, with more speakers from Europe
- publish ACM content in national languages
- To set up communication and networking channels, using technical means (e.g., social networks) and physical meetings, including more European chapter workshops
The ACM Europe Council has appointed a new body, called the Council of European Chapter Leaders (CECL), in order to implement these ideas, and more generally assist chapters in Europe. The
CECL is composed of volunteer chapter leaders and of members of the Europe Council (see photo). Meeting in Vienna in December 2012, the CECL adopted a strategy document, with the objectives of
growing the number of chapters and members, increasing the visibility of chapters and of ACM itself, of rewarding volunteers for their engagement, and of making ACM an attractive society for
European computer scientists and professionals. The CECL will be the link between ACM and European chapters. It aims to:
- facilitate and help improve chapter operation
- communicate and share information between chapters
- promote and reward best practices
- mentor less-experienced members
- expand the DSP Program in Europe and make it more easily accessible
It plans to organise a second European chapter workshop in the Fall of 2013. New chapters will be featured and listed in MemberNet. If you wish to create a chapter, or you have ideas to share,
contact the CECL.
CECL meeting in Vienna. From left: Nisiolu Codrin-Florentin, Gerhard Schimpf, Fabrizio Gagliardi, George Eleftherakis, Virginia Grande, Dimitar Chatleski, Marc Shapiro, Adrian Scolca, Bozena Mannova, Mashhuda Glencross, Avi Mendelson, Martin Turner
Featured ACM Chapter: University of Peloponnisos ACM Student Chapter
In this issue we feature the University of Peloponnisos ACM Student Chapter in Tripolis, Greece. This chapter received the
2011-2012 ACM Student Chapter Excellence Award for Outstanding Chapter Activity.
UoP's chapter activities center around promoting students' interest in computer science and research, encouraging them to network with each other and participate in computing conferences and contests.
During the academic year, they organized events on programming languages, security, HTML, and psychology and computing, and particpated in FOSSCOM, an open source conference organized each year by a different
CS university department in Greece. Next year, they hope to organize it at their department.
ACM Student Chapters in Europe
ACM Professional Chapters in Europe
Welcome New ACM European Chapters
ACM Europe welcomes these new chapters that were chartered in 2012:
Professional Chapters:
- Azerbaijan ACM Chapter, Baku
- Bilkent ACM SIGCSE Chapter, Ankara, Turkey
- Dublin ACM SIGMOBILE Chapter, Dublin, Ireland
- Lodz ACM Chapter, Lodz, Poland
- Romanian ACM Chapter, Bucharest
- Vienna ACM SIGSAC Chapter, Vienna, Austria
Student Chapters:
- METU-CENG ACM Student Chapter, Ankara, Turkey
- Perm ACM Student Chapter, Perm, Russian Federation
- Qafqaz University ACM Student Chapter, Baku, Azerbaijan
- Firat University ACM Student Chapter, Elazig, Turkey
- CITY College ACM-W Student Chapter, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Aarhus University ACM-W Student Chapter, Aarhus, Denmark
Student News
ACM-W Expands Scholarship Program with Support from Microsoft
by Adriana Compagnoni, Chair, ACM-W Scholarship Committee
The generous support of Microsoft has enabled ACM-W to increase the number of scholarships we can give in each award cycle. This new funding has allowed us to sponsor seven European women
students in 2012 to attend these events: ISIC: The Information Behaviour Conference, ACM SIGGRAPH, SPLASH, ASSETS, ACM MultiMedia, and the World Intelligence Congress.
We are proud to support the first steps into the world of international research for undergraduate students like Clara Bayarri from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain who said:
"ASSETS was the first conference I attended, and it was a great experience. During the presentation of our demo, I received very useful feedback to introduce in my work."
The scholarships program helps women students become part of the technical community. "It was a great opportunity for me to extend my contact network and meet new, enthusiastic multimedia
people," said PhD student Miriam Redi, after attending ACM Multimedia 2012. A similar experience was that of undergraduate student Jiali Sheng attending SIGGRAPH: "It was a trip where I never
stopped getting to know people. I was in line for coffee on the second day, and somehow started talking about OpenGL and WebGL with the person behind me. And all of a sudden, everyone around
us started having a discussion about the topic together. It was wonderful!"
Some ACM Special Interest Groups, such as SIGMM, supplement the ACM-W scholarships by assigning a mentor to enhance the student conference experience.
Miriam Redi also said: "The most interesting aspect for me was that the scholarship allowed me to have Professor Klara Nahrstedt as my mentor, whose advice and guidelines were really
precious for my future steps in the field."
Attending a conference is an energizing experience. In PhD student Ankica Barisic's words, "Attending PloP and SPLASH in Tuscon, Arizona, brought lots of benefits to me in terms of encouraging
feedback and new research directions. I got back filled with joy and a strong will to proceed further with my work."
We look forward to being part of the computing research journey of many more women students in the future. For more information on applying for a scholarship, visit the
ACM-W Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences home page.
ACM-W News
First Meeting of ACM-W Europe, December 2012, Vienna
by Reyyan Ayfer, ACM-W Europe Chair
The ACM-W Europe founding members held their first face-to-face meeting in Vienna on December 12, 2012 to determine future goals and immediate actions.
ACM-W Europe will work to fulfill the ACM-W mission in Europe. It has its main goal to promote the image of computing and raise awareness of the importance of women in the computing profession. The members
will work toward making women aware of career options in computing and promote new ways of facing the challenges of the next generation of women in computing. Establishing partnerships with similar existing
organizations in Europe for appropriate activities and working with the EU and the European Commission on programmes related to women in computing is another vital goal. ACM-W Europe aims to act as a
hub and provide a platform for sharing resources, ideas and experiences. Increasing participation of women in senior level positions of ACM and its conferences is another important goal.
ACM-W Europe members decided to start with two types of activities as their initial activities: Regional Events and a Speaker Series. Regional Events will be one-day events during which keynotes,
panels, and workshops take place. The events will help to create connections especially among women and to build local communities. High-profile women in academia and industry, including
freelancers, will be invited to hold open discussions. A Speaker Series will be organised with universities, where an invited speaker will give a talk and afterwards meet with the students
for open discussion sessions.
ACM-W Europe is looking forward to including more women volunteers who are enthusiastic about working together toward fulfilling the goals of the committee.
ACM-W Europe meeting in Vienna. From left: Pat Ryan, ACM COO, USA; Cornelia Denk, BMW, Germany; Reyyan Ayfer, Bilkent University, Turkey, ACM-W Chair;
Eva Navarro, University of Manchester, UK; Vicki Hanson, University of Dundee, Scotland; Beryl Nelson, Google, Poland
Publications News
Featured ICPS Conference Proceedings: CVMP '12: Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Visual Media Production, December 5 - 6, 2012, London, UK
ICPS is ACM's International Conference Proceedings Series, which enables conferences and workshops to publish their proceedings
in ACM's Digital Library, providing maximum dissemination of the material through electronic channels. In this issue we are
featuring the 9th European Conference on Visual Media Production, which which brings together the worlds of academic research and
media production to discuss new advancements and innovative applications in visual media production. Papers address facial expression analysis, video textures from different perspectives,
processing of gestures, photography, animation, high-definition capture of images, and other topics.
See the full list of conferences in the ACM ICPS Series.
Read ACM in the News articles.
|
|
