Journal of the ACM: January 2020

This month's CACM was particularly good regarding hot topics and approaches.  For both the science and application areas.  Below the table of contents.  Something here for everyone.   Click through for link addresses. Join the CACM!   I am a long time reader and contributor.

Table of Contents
Cracks in Open Collaboration in Universities
Universities and the interchange of scholars and students in international collaborations have long played an important role in knitting a fabric of human relationships and shared understanding. This fabric is fraying rapidly …   Andrew A. Chien, Page 5

DEPARTMENT: DEPARTMENTS
Publish and Perish
Publishing one's paper at a prestigious conference has become the standard way to build professional credentials, yet the dominance of conference publication comes at a cost.
Moshe Y. Vardi, Page 7

DEPARTMENT: BLOG@CACM
In Search of the Shortest Possible Schedule
Bertrand Meyer considers how to speed up software engineering.
Bertrand Meyer, Pages 8-9

COLUMN: NEWS
Multiplication Hits the Speed Limit. A problem "around since antiquity" may have been resolved by a new algorithm. Erica Klarreich, Pages 11-13

How the Internet Spans the Globe.  The modern Internet is made possible by hundreds of thousands of miles of undersea cables.  Logan Kugler, Pages 14-16

Will Deepfakes Do Deep Damage? The ability to produce fake videos that appear amazingly real is here. Researchers are now developing ways to detect and prevent them.Samuel Greengard,  Pages 17-19

COLUMN: LAW AND TECHNOLOGY
Increasing Automation in Policing. Seeking the delicate balance between civil liberties and policing public safety.   Elizabeth E. Joh, Pages 20-22

COLUMN: TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT
'Platformizing' a Bad Business Does Not Make It a Good Business.  Transaction platforms link third-party applications and services providers with users.
Michael A. Cusumano, Pages 23-25

COLUMN: HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
Von Neumann Thought Turing's Universal Machine was 'Simple and Neat.': But That Didn't Tell Him How to Design a Computer
New discoveries answer an old question.
Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, Pages 26-32

COLUMN: VIEWPOINT
Ethics of Technology Needs More Political Philosophy.  Incorporating considerations of reasonable pluralism, individual agency, and legitimate authority.
Johannes Himmelreich, Pages 33-35




A* Search: What's in a Name?
A search for algorithmic answers returns unique results.
James W. Davis, Jeff Hachtel, Pages 36-37

SECTION: PRACTICE
The Reliability of Enterprise Applications
Understanding enterprise reliability.
Sanjay Sha,Pages 38-45

Blockchain Technology: What Is It Good For?
Industry's dreams and fears for this new technology., Scott Ruoti, Ben Kaiser, Arkady Yerukhimovich, Jeremy Clark, Robert Cunningham
Pages 46-53

Space Time Discontinuum
Combining data from many sources may cause painful delays.
Pat Helland, Pages 54-56

SECTION: CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES
Dependability in Edge Computing
Edge computing holds great promise, and almost as many challenges in deployment.
Saurabh Bagchi, Muhammad-Bilal Siddiqui, Paul Wood, Heng Zhang, Pages 58-66

SECTION: REVIEW ARTICLES
Techniques for Interpretable Machine Learning
Uncovering the mysterious ways machine learning models make decisions.
Mengnan Du, Ninghao Liu, Xia Hu, Pages 68-77

Mastering Concurrent Computing through Sequential Thinking
A 50-year history of concurrency.
Sergio Rajsbaum, Michel Raynal, Pages 78-87

SECTION: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Technical Perspective: Is There a Geek Gene?
"Evidence that Computer Science Grades Are Not Bimodal" uses empirical methods to determine if belief in innate differences may explain why CS teachers see a bimodality in grades.
Mark Guzdial, Page 90

Evidence That Computer Science Grades Are Not Bimodal
There is a common belief that grades in computer science courses are bimodal. We devised a psychology experiment to understand why CS educators hold this belief.
Elizabeth Patitsas, Jesse Berlin, Michelle Craig, Steve Easterbrook, Pages 91-98

COLUMN: LAST BYTE
Feedback for Foxes
Searching for the best strategy for shifty maneuvers.
Dennis Shasha, Pages 104-ff