Computer Science Research

As I browsed pages on the Internet about the state of computer science research, I had landed on certain articles in various sites that tackle such topic.

By the way, one of the articles that I have read was all about the statement of Wm. A. Wulf, Ph.D, the president of the National Academy of Engineering and was on leave as an AT&T professor of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Virginia that time. He presented it before the U.S. House of Representatives on the 12^th day of May, 2005. He testified before the honorable about the state of Computer Science research in US.

As to what I have understood about his statement, Wulf, first presented the Science in Endless Frontier, the report that launched their system of federal funding of basic researches.  Vannever Bush promoted a system in which the government will support the research such as giving funds in order for the research to be possible. But it is sad to know that the research to be funded by the government is selected depending on how the researcher presented the good points of his research.

Upon the aforementioned system, I can say that the Computer Science researches in the United States are lucky enough even though researches to be funded by the government are selected only through how much the people can benefit by the research being proposed. Speaking of benefits, Wulf presented the kinds of benefits the research being selected should give. The dividends of the research are for the nation – for national security, prosperity and health.  For the national security, he summed up the researches that have made possible. These are the smart bombs, GPS, unprecedented “information awareness” for war-fighter, unmanned robotic vehicles for surveillance, enormously enhanced training through the use of virtual reality. Among the benefits gained by the nation are the three percent of national productivity fueled by information technology, dozens of multi-million dollar of industries per year, internet-enabled business model, a forty-fold reduction on the cost of telephony, a global wireless phone system and many more. Among the researches that helped the field of health is the medical imagery such as CAT scans, cochlear implants, bio sensors, smart prosthetics, and smart defibrillating pacemaker.

Some may say that the researches of the technologies aforementioned are just a huge expense by the government, huge expense in a sense that the government prepares a huge amount of money in order to make the research possible. But as to what these technologies had imparted to the nation, these technologies returned huge investments to the nation. It may even return the investment twice or thrice depending on how beneficial these researches will make. Though some of the investment made by thee government take time to be returned, these will not be wasted because it will have equally large return fort he future generations.

Secondly, Wulf also said that Computing and computer science is in the unusual position for being both a challenging intellectual discipline and at the same time it provides infrastructure in the other fields of science, engineering and commerce. Well, I guess, it is quite visible to what we, The CS research students are experiencing right now. To think it clearly, the topics being presented on the open forum last September 2 proved Wulf’s statement about Computing and Computer Science. As we can see, the proposed topics belong to computing. Engineering is also visible because the student/ researcher should plan for a framework of the project, must calculate necessary data if there are and things like that. Commerce; because all the topics presented can be manufactured for the use of the respective kinds of people the project is intended for. Research such as this made the quality of life to be better. With this, Wulf had justified that funding a research is not an expense but an investment. You can see the benefits after the research has been done and what you invest returns back to you.

“There is a marvelously rich and productive interplay between basic scientific discovery and applications, between universities and industries, between societal need and technology.” This is what Wulf believe rather than that of “basic research begets applied research begets development begets benefits to society”. I wish I had seen the figures he presented that time so that I can totally relate to what he is saying. Well, he pointed out a figure showing the relationship between industry and universities in the development of information technology which produces more that a billion dollars of revenue per year. With this, he pointed out that progress does not always start with basic research. It often involves iteratively exchanging roles between industry and university. However, if federally-funded, university basic research didn’t jive together, the technologies we are enjoying right now would not exist.

With Wulf’s statements above, I though that he is not pro to research, but as his following statement, he said that though basic research may not be the original source for the benefits that we are enjoying from technology, but it is the vital and irreplaceable component of the rich system that produces them.

Speaking about the state of Computer Science research, he pointed out that when resources are tight, researchers propose more incremental, less risky projects and that they get less on what they spend. In terms of funds, he cited that at NSF the budget for CISE (Computer and Information Science and Engineering) has grown nicely when it was in the late 80’s. A number of studies have shown but it takes years for these researches to make their way from laboratory to product. In fact, only a few of these ideas become commercial and there is no good way to predict which of these ideas will be the most important. Wulf also vent an old annoyance about agencies who gained a lot of benefits from information technology but does not even contribute to the development of the technologies to fulfill ther missions  and yet Computer science research haven’t got any contribution from these agencies – NASA, DoE, NIH, etc.

What is the variety of topics in Computer Science research?

According to the Department of Computer Science, Yale University, these are the technical topics involving CS research. These are Artificial Intelligence, Vision & Robotics, Computer Systems and Networking, Distributed Computing, Machine Learning, Programming Languages, Scientific Computing & Applied Math, and Security & Cryptography.

References:

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Computer_Science_Research_in_the_United_States http://www.cs.yale.edu