Norman Chonacky

3Ms for Instruction: Reviews of Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab

Most CiSE readers have probably used Maple, Mathematica, or Matlab for several years. With this review series, our goal is to help you now decide whether one of the others is better suited to your temperament and current practice than your original choice. For those of you new to integrative computing packages, our goal is to enable you to make an informed first choice. In this installment, we begin to examine how these tool packages serve the professional work of undergraduate education.

Integrating computation into the undergraduate curriculum: A vision and guidelines for future developments

There is substantial evidence of a need to make computation an integral part of the undergraduate physics curriculum. This need is consistent with data from surveys in both the academy and the workplace, and has been reinforced by two years of exploratory efforts by a group of physics faculty for whom computation is a special interest. We have examined past and current efforts at reform and a variety of strategic, organizational, and institutional issues involved in any attempt to broadly transform existing practice. We propose a set of guidelines for development based on this past work and discuss our vision of computationally integrated physics.

Staking New Ground

In the last issue, I outlined my development priorities for moving CiSE to the next level--community, content, and approach. In this message, I want to describe our first steps on the way forward along each of these paths.

Computers for integrative instruction in bioengineering labs

The authors review the work of two biomedical engineering departments that use computers in their laboratory courses to integrate labs into the broader curricula. The review is set in the context of other related developments in current BME research practices and educational reform work occurring nationally.

Where in this World Are You

CiSEs editor in chief, Norman Chonacky, describes some recent events that underscore the relevance of CiSEs mission. This piece also features an interview with the magazines cover artist, Dirk Hagner.

From the Editors: An Evolving Mission

It is my privilege, as the incoming editor in chief, to extend a sincere thanks to Francis Sullivan for the excellent job he has done over the past four years at CiSEs helm. As part of my transitional education, Francis shared his wisdom concerning the magazines strengths and needs. I then went back into CiSE history and met with George Cybenko, the magazines first editor in chief, to drill even deeper into the experience lode.

Lots of Headroom

I spent a pleasant afternoon at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics/Quantum Electronics (CLEO/QUELs) in Baltimore this June. Having only a relatively short time to spend, I decided to try a quick experiment-cruise the aisles of the poster session, scan the presentations, and get a sense of how deeply computing practices have permeated the conduct of experimental optics research and development

Over-the-Horizon: Not Just for Radar Anymore

A few months ago, I heard an interesting colloquium by John Hopcroft, one of the preeminent thinkers in the area of theoretical computer science. His talk mirrored his current investigative passion--future directions in theoretical computer science--but his approach can be instructive to anyone concerned with what I call adaptive anticipation (discerning trends and adapting behavior to changes before events require it).

Science and engineering databases in an open-source software world

Storing and organizing scientific and engineering information is a natural application for databases. But database designs and systems have conventionally been driven by the business-application market, especially by large businesses. The authors introduce a hybrid open source/proprietary approach to creating a dynamic Web site for modest laboratory or academic use. Although they cannot claim our solution was optimal, they are convinced that this approach - attending to the back end, as well as the front - assumes a very worthwhile posture for scientific and engineering database applications.

Guest Editor's Introduction: Scientific Databases

Over the past three decades, shared scientific databases have evolved from the narrow con.nes of critically analyzed measurement tables (such as properties of materials) to collections of records covering a larger scientific scope (such as real-time data sets and imagery). Much of this evolution has happened concurrently with-and followed new capabilities emerging from-the evolution in information technologies.