In This Issue
Expanding Frontiers of Engineering
December 1, 2007 Volume 37 Issue 4
Volume 37, Number 4 - Winter 2007
Articles In This Issue
  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorJulia M. Phillips

    Editor’s Note

    Every year, NAE sponsors a three-day U.S. Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) Symposium that brings together some 100 outstanding young engineers (ages 30 to 45) from academia, industry, and government laboratories to share ideas and learn about cutting-edge research on a wide ...

  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorGreg Morrisett

    The more we rely on software, the more we need mechanisms to ensure that software is trustworthy.

    How much can you trust software? When you install a piece of code, such as a video game or a device driver for a new camera, how can you be sure the code won’t delete all of your files or ...

  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorMatthew Lang

    Understanding the role of force, mechanics, and biological machinery—the “mechanome”—will open the way to new strategies for fighting disease.

    Genomics and general “omics” approaches, such as proteomics, interactomics, and glycomics, among others, are powerful ...

  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorSanjay V. Malhotra, Vineet Kumar, Anthony East, Michael Jaffe

    Corn is replacing petroleum as a raw material in many industrial applications.

    The United States produces 44 percent of the world’s corn. The largest crop grown in the United States, corn occupies some 70 million acres. This versatile, natural, biodegradable, and renewable resource has many ...

  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorMichael van Lent, Mark Core, Steve Solomon, Milton Rosenberg, Ryan McAlinden, and Paul Carpenter

    Computational models that incorporate the sociocultural layer of human behavior present
    serious challenges and promising opportunities.

    One major textbook divides artificial intelligence (AI) systems into two categories, those that are meant to think and act rationally and those that are meant ...

  • Saturday, December 1, 2007
    AuthorJess C. Brown

    Systems that use bacteria to treat drinking water have been shown to be highly efficient and environmentally sustainable.

    Microbial biomass has been used since the early 1900s to degrade contaminants, nutrients, and organics in wastewater. Until recently, the biological treatment of drinking water ...