Ion in CS&E includes the use of scientific inquiry, modeling, and experimentation to test the validity of hypotheses about computational phenomena. Computer professionals in all ten areas of the discipline use abstraction as a fundamental tool of inquiry— many would argue that computer science is the science of building and examining abstract computational models of reality.
Abstraction arises in computer architecture, where the Turing machine serves as an abstract model for complex real computers, and in programming languages, where simple semantic models like the lambda calculus are used as a framework for studying complex languages. It appears in the design of heuristic and approximation algorithms for problems whose optimal solutions are computationally intractable.
It is surely used in graphics, where models of 3D objects are constructed mathematically, given properties of lighting, color, and surface texture, and projected in a realistic way on a two-dimensional video screen. Design is a process used to describe the essential structure of complex systems as a prelude to their implementation. It also encompasses the use of traditional engineering methods, including the classical life-cycle model, to implement efficient and effective computational systems in hardware and software. It includes the use of tools like cost/benefit analysis of alternatives, risk analysis, and fault tolerance that ensure that computing applications are brought to market effectively.
Design is a central preoccupation of architects and software engineers developing hardware systems and software applications. Like abstraction, it is an important activity in computational science, database and information retrieval, human– computer interaction, operating systems and networks, and the other areas considered here. The social and professional context includes many issues that arise at the computer– human interface, such as liability for hardware and software errors, security and privacy of databases and networks, intellectual property issues (patent and copyright), and equity issues (universal access to the technology and the profession).
Computing professionals in all subject areas must consider the ethical context in which their work occurs and the special responsibilities that attend their work. The next preliminary chapter discusses these issues, and several other chapters address topics in which specific social and professional issues come into play. For example, security and privacy issues in databases, operating systems, and networks are discussed in Chapters 49 and 89. Risks in software are discussed in several chapters of section X of the Handbook.
1.4 Broader Horizons: HPCC and Grand Challenge Applications The 1992 report “Computing the Future” (CTF) [CSNRCTB 1992], written by a group of leading computer professionals in response to a request by the Computer Science and Technology Board (CSTB), identifies the need for CS&E to broaden its research agenda and its educational horizons. The view that the research agenda should be broadened initially caused concerns among researchers that funding and other incentives might overemphasize short-term at the expense of long-term goals.
This Handbook reflects the broader view Computer Science and Engineering: The Discipline and Its Impact 1-11 of the discipline in its inclusion of computational science, graphics, and computer–human interaction among the major subfields of computer science. CTF aimed to bridge the gap between suppliers of research in CS&E and consumers of research such as industry, the Federal government, and funding agencies like NSF, DARPA, and DOE. It addresses fundamental challenges to the field and suggests responses that encourage greater interaction between research and computing practice. Its overall recommendations focus on three priorities: 1. To sustain the core effort that creates the theoretical and experimental science base on which applications build. 2. To broaden the field to reflect the centrality of computing in science and society.
3. To improve education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. CTF includes recommendations to federal policy makers and universities regarding research and education: Recommendations to federal policy makers regarding research: The High-Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program passed by Congress in 1989 [OST 1989] should be fully supported. Recommendations to federal policy makers regarding research: The High-Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program passed by Congress in 1989 [OST 1989] should be fully supported. Recommendations to federal policy makers regarding research:
The High-Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program passed by Congress in 1989 [OST 1989] should be fully supported. Recommendations to federal policy makers regarding research: The High-Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) program passed by Congress in 1989 [OST 1989] should be fully supported.
Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook. However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines. Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader.
The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook. However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines. Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook. However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines.
Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook. However, it is 1-12 Handbook of Applications of Chaos Theory important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines. Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook.
However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines. Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook.
However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines. Though this report was motivated by the desire to provide a rationale for the HPCC program, its message that computer science must be responsive to the needs of society is much broader. The years since publication of CTF have seen a swing away from pure research towards application-oriented research that is reflected in this Handbook. However, it is important to maintain a balance between short-term applications and long-term research in core disciplines.
The HPCC program encourages universities, research programs, and industry to develop specific capabilities to address the “grand challenges” of the future. Realizing these grand challenges requires both fundamental and applied research, including the development of high-performance computing systems whose speed is two to three orders of magnitude greater than that of current systems, advanced software technology and algorithms that enable scientists and mathematicians to effectively address these grand challenges, networking to support R&D for a gigabit National Research and Educational Network (NREN), and human resources that expand basic research in all areas relevant to high-performance computing.
The grand challenges themselves were identified in HPCC as those fundamental problems in science and engineering with potentially broad economic, political, or scientific impact that can be advanced by applying high-performance computing technology and that can be solved only by high-level collaboration among computer professionals, scientists, and engineers. A list of grand challenges developed by agencies like NSF, DOD, DOE, and NASA in 1989 includes: • Prediction of weather, climate, and global change. • Challenges in materials sciences. • Semiconductor design. • Superconductivity. • Structural biology. • Design of drugs. • Human genome. • Quantum chromodynamics. •
