Computer science and software engineering students and researchers are busy with their courses, in their labs, working on their studies and research - for the most part not really thinking about the impact of politics on their research. However, there are increasing restrictions on the information researchers are allowed to share with their students, and who researchers are allowed to collaborate with respect to national security and increasing concerns with China. To an increasing extent researchers are made aware at grant time. Research institutions must follow federal rules in the grant and hiring process and are conducting workshops and roundtables on issues of national security. The AIP, The American Institute of Physics provides through their mailing list an informative brief on national science policy titled "FYI: Science Policy News from AIP, This Week." The issue for January 23, 2023, invited those interested to join a National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine workshop called a "Meeting of experts," on the topic of "Fundamental Research, Openness, and Protecting the U.S. Technological Advantage: NSDD-189 in the New Global Context."

This column addresses: 1. Smallsats; 2. Smallsats and Software Engineering; 3. Smallsats and Export restrictions

This column is a change of pace, a report on Formula Hybrid+Electric contest held last May at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH. Formula Hybrid was founded by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and is sponsored by, among others, IEEE and SAE. Formula Hybrid racers are modeled on scaled down formula race cars, and are single seat, open cockpit, and open wheel. Universities and colleges competing at the May event included Dartmouth, BU, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois Institute of Technology, Indiana and Purdue Universities, Lafayette, Lawrence Tech, MIT, Middlebury, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Princeton, RPI, Tufts, UVM, U. Victoria, U. Waterloo, U. Wyoming, WPI, and Yale.

Computer science and engineering students and teachers alike, are just trying to get by, live their lives, but there are hinderances, things that interfere. Some hindrances are beyond our control for example, illness and power outages. Yet others, make no sense, such as U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) "deemed export" regulations. Academic research is intended to be shared and released into the public to advance human progress. Research, at one time, had legal cover for restrictions on sharing, through Executive Order NSDD-189, which placed an exemption on restrictions over fundamental research.

"Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, civilization will stagnate and die." -- Wyman, Attorney General, in Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957

The concerns of this column are questions of law and fairness, of the balance of competing interests - of encouraging collaboration among research engineers, scientists, and students against what appears to be coercion and censorship by the U.S. government under the rationale of national defense.

"...the step from not being able to do something at all to being able to do it a little bit is very much smaller than the next step - being able to do it well. In AI, this fallacious thinking seems to be all pervasive" -- Bar- Hillel.

This is a good time as any to address the more philosophical questions of what software is and how we use it, in particular software used as a replacement for human intelligence-AI. My intent in this and in the next few columns is to address some of the fundamentals, that is, the science of AI or what should be nailed-down before software engineering begins. You get more traction when you design on a solid science base of knowledge. A simple analogy, for example-one might not choose to labor over a not-quite-working perpetual-motion machine if one were aware of the second law of thermodynamics. Then again, there is no equivalent "law of human intelligence," so people keep trying.

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Catch –-with apologies to T. S. Elliot Greetings. I have been told the proper way to open an essay is with a joke, so here's a small but relevant joke. There are two kinds of people in this world-the first kind classifies everyone into two kinds of people, and the second kind does not. The relevance is that there are two kinds of science in this world-the first is Open Science, the second is Closed Science. Open and Closed Science operate in different environments under different sets of rules. Open Science is peer reviewed and published openly, in a civilian/academic environment. Closed Science is not peer reviewed, and not openly published, in a military/industrial environment. Though these are different environments, in respect to the two, historian John G. Cloud in " Through a Shutter Darkly, " writes there has been " virtually complete integration between intelligence, military, and civilian operations. " For readers who are familiar with Open Science but not Closed Science or Closed Science but not Open Science, there are catches that make Closed Science interesting. The first catch of Closed Science is: Do not talk about Closed Science. The consequence of this catch is the impossibility of judging Closed Science objectively. Closed Science is kept closed through security clearances (military) or NDAs (industry). Lack of peer review and absence of open publication prevent knowledgeable people finding each other or from communicating if they do find each other. Inside the Closed Science organization there will be locked doors, and behind locked doors will be projects where people are not supposed to talk about work apart from their assignment. For anything else, they have no need to know. Ironically, vendors selling to Closed Science will know more about what goes on in Closed Science than those who work in Closed Science. The point of the catch is, the less one knows, the less information that can leak. Which leads to the second catch. The second catch of Closed Science is: It is better Closed Science fail than information leak. A failure in Closed Science may be seen from another perspective as a success in security. This catch induces priority inversion in a multitasking operating system, priority inversion in Closed Science prevents accountability related project management tasks from execution increasing inefficiency by masking incompetence, mismanagement, and …

As a grade-schooler I took part in an experiment, i.e. I was “experimented on” with “New Math”. New Math came out of the crisis known as the “Space Race,” a political game started in 1957 after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, the first man made satellite to orbit the Earth. The Space Race may have raised the first STEM crisis. Before the H1B visa, instead of importing engineers, the U.S decided to grow engineers locally, hence New Math. What I remember of New Math in elementary school was an introduction to set theory and number theory. Set theory offered Venn diagrams, unions, and intersections. As this was before computers in the classroom, number theory did not mention base two but base five. New Math did not lead to my becoming an engineer; a hands-on electronics course in high school did – I built a vacuum tube amplified radio. Interestingly enough, by the time I was in college, vacuum tubes were out, digital was in, and base eight was popular, if only briefly, as “octal”, a vestigial element of the C language. Today New Math has long been forgotten, replaced by endless revampings of the math curricula to the consequence that parents will never be able to help their children with their homework. The interesting part about New Math was the process national needs, through government funding of science and technology, converted into an educational program. One can look at the national funding of science and technology as something that falls into one of two bins: Open (as in open to all scientists) and meant to benefit all, or Closed (open only to a chosen few) and meant for war. This binning deserves more exploration. What is the relation between Open and Closed Science? Open Science can progress in parallel with Closed Science. Open Science may be used for Closed Science goals. Closed Science may sponsor Open Science funding. And rarely, through bureaucratic wrangling, Closed Science be used for Open Science goals. The choosing of which path to which bin, Open or Closed occurs at the university level. The U.S. military funded Closed Science in Universities during the Vietnam War. As the Vietnam War was unpopular among college students – who were subject to the draft, there were riots on college campuses. When those riots were over the act of Closed Science in support of the Vietnam War, Congress changed the laws on funding Closed Science. In 1969, the Mansfield Amendment, named after Senator Mike Mansfield, ended the funding of Closed Science on college campuses. That is, Congress did not stop funding Closed Science, only where Closed Science was performed. The reduction in funding in Closed Science was matched (more or less) by increased funding of Open Science by the NSF and NASA. In terms of sources of funding, the military-side of science is a competitor with the academic side except when the military-side is a sponsor of the academic side. Where am I going with this? As a result of the Mansfield Amendment, the MIT Haystack Observatory (pure science) – where I work today was “spun off “from Lincoln Labs (applied science for war). The research did not change, only the location where the research was done. As the research was co-located, very little changed. The research and researchers remained the same (more or less). What changed was, in accounting-speak, the “color” of the money. The MIT Haystack/Lincoln Labs Open/Closed Science separation by color of money is not unusual. In the late 1980’s when I was working for a defense contractor on an Open Science project, the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph instrument (LASCO), the project was co-sponsored by the civilian agencies NASA and ESA but the systems integration was subcontracted to the U.S. Navy Research Labs (NRL). Even though LASCO was an Open Science project, its developers shared office space with other Closed Science projects. One day my curiosity got the better of me and I asked why the U.S. Navy was interested in LASCO, I was told that as the Sun affects radio communication over the Earth, and the oceans cover 2/3 of the Earth, so of course the Navy would be interested. The line drawn between science for science’ sake (Open Science) and science for war (Closed Science) is, if not vague, certainly arbitrary – dependent on the feelings of those who make the decision over what is, and is not Open and Closed. Who is to say what is “pure” and what is “applied” science? Who is to say what is a “civilian” and what is a “military” application? The concept of “dual use” technology has a long history. It is interesting to consider that when the US publically announced its intention to launch a space satellite in1958 as part of International Geophysical Year (IGY), that announcement may have been the impetus for the USSR to beat the U.S. to first launch. The first U.S. Open Science satellites were cover for Closed Science, one instrument collecting Open Science data, another instrument spying. Kenneth Bowles, the first director the Jicamarca Radio Observatory in Peru, also built out of IGY funds, went on to initiate the UCSD Pascal project, founded TeleSoft, and also participated in the ISO committee for Ada 95, a computer language meant for military systems. The common basis for “pure” and “applied,” for “civilian” and “military”, is science and mathematics. The space race was used to prove the launch capabilities for nuclear-tipped ICBMs as well as to send men to the moon. The Haystack Observatory’s MISA radar used for ionospheric study was repurposed from BMEWS, its earlier use as early warning for detecting the start of WWIII. When the Closed Science radar became militarily obsolete it was repurposed for Open Science. The building that generates the power for MISA’s transmitter is in a shared facility with the Millstone Hill radar, a Closed Science radar that tracks objects in space, something it has done continuously for more than 50 years – just as Haystack’s Open Science data goes back more than 50 years. Millstone Hill was the first radar that detected Sputnik. Millstone Hill’s ionospheric “noise” that interfered with tracking was Haystack’s “science”, studyable in its own right.

"Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow."-Baruch Spinoza Scientists have a different perspective than engineers. I didn't realize there was a difference until now, not having much interaction with them as a contractor to the Military-Industrial Complex. There, the ratio was maybe one scientist per 50 engineers. Now employed at an academic institution, scientists outnumber engineers two to one. The characteristic difference between scientists and engineers may be identified in the difference of the nature of their work. Scientists identify patterns and relationships by studying the world, to validate and create theories. Engineers work with scientists in constructing the tools used to acquire, search, manipulate and maintain data, which in turn allows the scientists to formulate new theories, for which engineers create new tools to acquire new data from which scientists can identify new patterns and relationships – a never-ending cycle. There is one constant in engineering, whether working for the Military-Industrial Complex or for a research institution-engineers are second-class citizens. " They " (the scientists, systems engineers, or managers) specify the work to be done, and " we " (the engineers of various specialties) design, build, test, integrate and maintain. There may be differences in how well second-class citizens are treated, however. From my albeit limited experience, engineers are better treated in academia than their counterparts in for-profits. At for-profits, employees seem to be constantly reminded by their bosses of Machiavelli's advice to princes, " it is better to be feared than loved. " In academia, the word " colleague " seems to have real meaning, and engineers good-naturedly refer to their scientists as " our scientists. " Outside of academia, do engineers use a tone other than sarcasm when talking of " our managers " ? So, I'm in a semi-weekly staff meeting to get the scientists to talk about what they are doing, else we, the staff, would never know. I volunteered to organize the meetings after a two-year hiatus where the meetings were not held at all because the scientists seemed to be always too busy. Coordination is simple: I schedule a room every other week; ask a secretary to prepare coffee; and I pick up donuts on the day of the meeting. After the meeting starts, I keep track of the time so that it doesn't go too far past an hour – everyone gets antsy when forced to sit too long. …

column Share on The World Will Not End With a Bang But With Http Error 404 Author: Robert Schaefer View Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering NotesVolume 41Issue 1January 2016 pp 5–7https://doi.org/10.1145/2853073.2853075Published:22 February 2016Publication History 0citation72DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads72Last 12 Months3Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my Alerts New Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

This column is a roundabout way of asking, if it is possible to improve the working conditions of software engineers beyond what we have today. I don’t mean trivialities such as free coffee, or a bring your pet to work day, or even a foosball table, I mean something more relevant to actual software development. The software industry remains far from being an engineering profession as it ever has, though arguably better than it was in 1969 when the term “software engineering” was coined.

The Radio Array of Portable Interferometric Detectors (RAPID) is an advanced radio designed for multi-role applications. The system implements a spatially diverse sparse array technology and can be deployed and reconfigured easily. Data are captured at the raw voltage level using the system in the field and processed post-experiment. Signal processing for the system is software defined and uses a scalable Cloud computing architecture. The system builds upon the Square Kilometer Array Low Frequency Aperture antenna (SKALA) in combination with custom hardware for data acquisition on a per antenna basis. The instrument uses physically disconnected elements, a high performance direct digitization receiver, hot swap solid state storage, solar and battery power, and wireless control for interconnection. Schedule based operation can also be used in radio quiet locations or to enable minimally attended operation. RAPID is intended for application as both an Astronomical radio telescope and a Geospace imaging radar system. The high degree of mobility a orded by the system enables a wide variety of interferometric configurations and allows deployment of the instrument at locations which are optimal for specific scientific goals.

" Tragedy fills us with a sense of urgency that if we don't act immediately we are going to be bystanders to our own destruction "-Bryan Doerries, playwright " Rescue workers in Alameda, California were forced to watch as a man drowned after they realized they could not save him because they did not possess the proper certifications for water rescue required to legally do so. "

column Share on Software management: reification, institutionalization and "too big to succeed" Author: Robert Schaefer Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyView Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering NotesVolume 39Issue 4July 2014 pp 9–11https://doi.org/10.1145/2632434.2632457Published:05 August 2014Publication History 0citation101DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads101Last 12 Months3Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Those who remember Usenet, realize that though the web had a hand in killing it, it has also led to a flowering of a thousand usenets, in blogs and comments sections. I liken reading blogs and their comments to dipping a ladle into infinity, or like life itself, a box of chocolates. In this as in life Sturgeon's Law applies, " ninety percent of everything is crap. " I do however miss the centrality of Usenet– there was just one place to go to find everything; for blogs one has to know where to go. One website that comes close to Usenet in aggregation is the " Groups " section of LinkedIn where ACM and IEEE both have a presence. The topic that led to this note comes from the LinkedIn group set up by the IEEE's Computer Society – the topic is titled, " Computer Programmer Among Jobs with Biggest Pay Raises, " a thread initiated by Margo McCall – who is very brave for posting – comments tend to devolve to the lowest common denominator (insulting everyone, again see Sturgeon's Law). This thread however belongs to the ten percent of not crap. My takeaway of the general nature of the comments is that our field is filled with people of wide technical ability but narrow parochial view, i.e. technologies may change, but people seldom do – for good and for bad. Some of the comments attempt to refine the definition of programmer, which to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a coarse bin for statistics – meaning anything to do with software, including jobs that do not involve programming, such as spec writing and " ilities. " These jobs have less to do with coding than with programming's meta – the environment that allows programming " in the large " to flourish. And many of the comments raise more questions than answers – Can design be separated from programming? What is systems architecting? It also seems that our software field is so broad and so narrow at the same time, that a few of the commenters, who consider themselves to be " real " programmers, do not recognize other commenters as belonging to same domain. Sigh. I hope that this thread maintains a civil discourse between when this is written and when you go read it and not descend into a religious war, or prove yet again …