Computer Society [C-16]

Computer Society, Society on Social Implications of Technology and GBC/ACM

7:00 PM, Thursday, 21 June

Democracy is a design problem: How changes in design change the outcome of elections

Dana Chisnell

This is a story about how a simple change in type size on a commonly used form led to two major wars and a world wide economic crisis. Design matters.

We keep learning this lesson on ballots, on web sites, in software and devices, and in the interactions we have with customers and users. And yet, there are glimmers of hope everywhere -- successful designs where small changes made all the positive difference. Dana will discuss some of the lesser-known disasters, show some surprising successes, and share results from her research and usability testing on ballot designs and instructions to voters.

Even if your day job is seemingly far away from world-changing events, Dana will show you how you, too, can get involved and start contributing your super powers to make your world a better place.

Dana Chisnell Photo Dana is the person federal and state election officials call on when they need to do something about ballot usability and design.

Over the last 8 years, Dana E. Chisnell has trained more than a thousand election officials to test the design of their ballots to avoid costly mistakes and unwarranted attention. She's given highly rated presentations and workshops for a dozen state election departments and conferences, as well as voter advocacy groups and secretaries of state.

As a member of the Brennan Center for Justice's ballot design task force, Dana advises on plain language, ballot design, and usability testing. She's also one of the leaders of the Usability in Civic Life Project, which developed the LEO Usability Testing Kit, a simple training tool for local election officials.

This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society on Social Implications of Technology, and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room E51-315. E51 is the Tang Center on the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus. Room 315 is on the 3rd floor.

Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.

Electron Devices, Computer and Solid State Circuits Societies

6:00 PM, Tuesday, 12 June

IEEE Conference on Tools for Building the Internet of Things Planning Meeting

[Keynote Speaker to be Announced]

Please join your fellow members of the Electron Devices, Computer and Solid State Circuits Societies as well as others interested in Sensor Networks to help plan: IEEE Conference on Tools for Building the Internet of Things: Sensors and Actuators for Networks [working title].

The conference to be held @ Westin Waltham-Boston in the [October - November 2013 window] and will provides a venue and forum for researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the Internet of Things – to lay the groundwork for its successful, rapid implementation.

“In the real world, things matter more than ideas...We need to empower computers with their own means of gathering information, so they can see, hear and smell the world for themselves, in all its random glory. RFID and sensor technology enable computers to observe, identify and understand the world—without the limitations of human-entered data...The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even more so.” – Kevin Ashton, confounder and executive director of the MIT Auto-ID Center¹

“...we are now heading to the third and potentially most "disruptive" phase of the Internet revolution – the “Internet of Things.” …. a world where physical objects and beings, as well as virtual data and environments, all interact with each other in the same space and time....” – Gérald Santucci, European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media²

There are a number of conferences, in Europe and Asia, which are devoted to conceptualizing the “Iot Era,” focused on applications and societal benefits: health, transportation, household life, commerce, custom-manufacturing, etc. However, realizing the promise of the “IoT Era” requires combination of applications-specific expertise with IoT concepts and the IoT practicum. In particular the practical implementation of the IoT requires the development of efficient means for rapid prototyping of sophisticated transducer-rich (sensors and actuators) systems. The conference is intended to provide a forum for the discussion and demonstration of practical tools, technologies and techniques, to interconnect the myriads of sensors and actuators, with local and global-scale computation, storage and modeling.

Topics include: MEMS & NEMS Sensors & Actuators; Interfaces & Protocols; Development Tools & Platforms; Systems Engineering based on web-based integration of sensor data with models:

Open, practical and easy to use tools;
Core hardware and software technologies for sensing and actuation;
Core hardware and software for local computation, communications and storage;
Standards and protocols for networking from the chip to global-scale;
Power harvesting and power-saving architectures and components;
Tools and Design Methodologies;
IoT-related Educational Materials;
Pedagogical innovations;
Practical applications which can serve as models for other projects

For further information please RSVP Ted Kochanski, EDS Chapter Chair, and check-out www.ieeeboston.org , the e-Reflector and http://www.facebook.com/IEEEBoston for updated information on the meeting and the IoT.

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 12 at 6 PM at Analog Devices, 804 Woburn Street, Wilmington, MA, in Building 6, opposite the Ray Stata Technology Center.

Driving directions:

Take I-93 to Exit 38 (Rte 129 Wilmington); Go west on Route 129 [From I-93 southbound, at the end of the ramp; take a left]; [From I-93 northbound, at the end of the ramp, take a right]; At the second set of traffic lights, take a left onto Woburn Street; Analog Devices is a 1/4 mile on your left (East side of Woburn Street); Stop at the guard station and provide your name; the guard will direct you to building 6 visitors parking.

1. The Auto-ID Labs, successor to the MIT Auto-ID Center (the creators of the RF-ID initiative, the progenitor of the IoT, credited with coining “Internet of Things”), and the leading global network of academic research laboratories in the field of networked RFID, are dedicated to creating the Internet of Things using RFID and Wireless Sensor Networks.

2. Gérald Santucci, Head of Unit "Enterprise Networking and RFID“ for the European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media, and author of the definition of the IoT formally adopted by the EU.

Computer Society and GBC/ACM and Aerospace & Electronic Systems Chapters

7:00 PM, Thursday, 19 April (MEETING POSTPONED FROM APRIL 12TH TO APRIL 19TH)

Nanoscale construction with DNA

Shawn Douglas, Wyss Institute, Harvard University

The programmability of DNA makes it an attractive material for constructing intricate nanoscale shapes. One method for creating these structures is DNA origami, in which a multiple-kilobase single-stranded 'scaffold' is folded into a custom nanoscale shape by interacting with hundreds of short oligonucleotide 'staple' strands. I will talk about our efforts to realize demand-meeting applications of this method, including our recent development of nanoscale devices to mimic cell-signaling stimulation carried out by our own immune systems.

Shawn Douglas Photo Shawn Douglas received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Yale in 2003 and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard in 2009. His research interest is in developing experimental methods and software to construct and manipulate self-assembling biomaterials on the nanometer scale. He worked as a graduate student in the laboratories of William Shih and George Church to generate custom three-dimensional shapes using the "DNA origami" method, including a novel alignment medium for NMR structure determination of membrane proteins. He has also led the development of cadnano, an open-source computer-aided design software that aids in the design of 3D shapes. Contact: shawn.douglas@wyss.harvard.edu.

This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room E51-315. E51 is the Tang Center on the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus. Room 315 is on the 3rd floor.