NSF and NATO are offering 12-month postdoctoral fellowships for beginning scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers, for US researchers abroad or for visiting scientists at US institutions. Even the history and philosophy of science are included, along with research in science teaching and learning. 14Nov97; . [Fedix OAF!!!, 20Oct97.]

National Security Education Program (NSEP) Graduate International Fellowships are available from the Academy for Educational Development, to allow US students to pursue area and language studies or add an international dimension to their education. This Congressional program is to help US citizens communicate and compete globally. One semester to two years, at $2K/semester for domestic studies and up to $10K overseas. 15Jan97; . [Ibid.]

NSF will award 1,000 3-year Graduate Fellowships and Minority Graduate Fellowships of $15K/year. See also Graduate Research Fellowships, Women in Engineering, and Computer and Information Science awards at . Apply by 06Nov97. [Ibid.]

NSF/CISE is offering ten Postdoctoral Awards in Experimental Computer Science, of $42K-$66K over two years. 05Dec97; . [Ibid.]

The updated NSF solicitation, "Science and Technology Centers: Integrative Partnerships," is available on NSF's Office of Science and Technology Infrastructure page at . Submit intent to apply by 0Jan98, with preproposals due 12Feb98 and full proposals due 03Sep98. . [grants, 23Oct97.]

Fedix Opportunity Alert is offering grant seminars in Austin on 17Nov97 and Chicago on 08Dec97. These include Identifying and Applying for Federal, Foundation and Corporate Grants; Proposal Writing; Patenting, Licensing and Technology Transfer for Inventors and Administrators; Fundamentals of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in Research Administration; and Preparing for Electronic Research Administration. $275-$325 per seminar. On-site courses can be arranged. , 1-800-875-2562 or 301-975-0103. [Ibid.]

For information on Internet access to US government services, see "More than Screen Deep: Toward Every-Citizen Interfaces to the Nation's Information Infrastructure," from the Information Infrastructure Steering Committee, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, National Research Council National Academy Press (Washington DC, 1997, ISBN 0-309-06357-4, paperback, 433 pp.). Copies are available from National Academy Press , 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313. . [Maria Zemankova , IRLIST, 20Oct97.]

Pete Domenici (R-NM), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is now supporting the bipartisan National Research Investment Act (S.1305) that would call for doubling civilian science funding in ten years. George Brown (D-CA) is sponsoring a House budget plan that would increase R&D by 5% per year, consistent with the doubling goal. [Robert L. Park, 24Oct97.] (A call for doubling the budget is nowhere near the same thing as actually doubling it. It's more of a trial balloon, to see if anyone cares. Both measures need support from the public, if this is worth doing. (Politics should not be a spectator sport. The winner gets us.))

Bowdoin College (Brunswick, ME): asst. prof in AI, CogSci.

UBuffalo/CEDAR (NY): BS/MS/PhD for handwriting recognition systems.

Boeing Defense & Space (Philadelphia): MS/PhD technologist in AI, NN, OOP, image processing.

Worcester Polytechnic (MA): CS department head.

Zoesis (Boston, MA): BS/MS games developers experienced in AI, ML, NN, robotics, NLP, etc. (*)

Purdue (West Lafayette, IN): profs in AI, SE, networks, etc.

UMinnesota (Minneapolis): profs in HCI, AI, SE, multimedia, DB, robotics, vision.

UColorado (Boulder): profs in HCI, AI, SE, OS, networks, DB.

UWashington (Seattle): profs in AI, DB, CE, user interfaces, networking, etc.

Oregon Graduate Inst. (Portland): PhD researcher in speech recognition, NLP, NN, HCI.

Stanford (CA): profs in AI, HCI, etc.

Perspecta (SF Bay Area): computational linguist in NLP, KBS, KR, algorithm design.

International Neural Machines (Waterloo, Ontario): BS SEs in NN, FL, genetic algorithms, pattern recognition.

Bristol U. (UK): postdoc RA in HCI for wearable computing initiative.

UBristol (UK): four postdoc researchers in fuzzy logic, KE, ML, agents.

UBrighton/ITRI (UK): six PhD researchers in computational linguistics, NLP/generation, HCI, CBR, KBS.

UEast Anglia (Norwich, UK): MS/PhD RA in speech recognition, DSP, linguistics.

Canon Research Centre Europe (Guildford, UK): NLP researcher and SE, for IR or speech recognition.

IDIAP (Lausanne, Switzerland): MS/PhD researchers in speech recognition, speaker verification.

ERCIM (France): PhD fellows in VR, HCI, data mining, signal processing, constraints technology, digital libraries.

* captain's cool job of the week. (Selected by Brian "captain" Murfin.)

"AI Communications, The European Journal on Artificial Intelligence" is soliciting contributions. It's a quarterly from IOS Press (Amsterdam), with a new editorial board this year. Georg Gottlob , Technische Universitaet Wien, Paniglgasse 16, A-1040 Wien, Austria. [comp.ai, 14Oct97.]

Statistical Inference for Stochastic Processes is a new Kluwer journal for time series analysis and the statistics of continuous-time processes and dynamical systems. Free sample copy of the first issue. . [Martijn.Boet@wkap.nl, sci.stat.math, 22Oct97.]

User interfaces for digital libraries; Int. J. on Digital Libraries. 15Dec97; Joseph Busch , +(310) 440-6343, +(310) 440-7715 Fax. [IRLIST, 13Oct97.]

Computer algebra in physics research; Computer Physics Communications, late 1998. 28Feb98; R.G. McLenaghan . [Olivier Gerard , comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica, 24Oct97.]

Soft decision analysis; Fuzzy Sets and Systems. Abstracts due 30Nov97, full papers 31Mar98; Christer Carlsson , +358-2-2519912 Fax. [Robert Fuller , comp.ai.fuzzy, 19Oct97.]

"Discrete vs analog computation: links between computational complexity and local minima"; Discrete Applied Mathematics (DAM). 10Apr98; Marco Protasi , +39 (6) 72.59.46.78, +39 (6) 72.59.46.99 Fax. [connectionists, 16Oct97.]

A chief knowledge officer (CKO) must collect, manage, filter, and present business and technical knowledge to advance the company's competitive position. This will be an increasingly important function. [IW, 29Sep97. EduP.]

A 1996 Reuters Business Information report claims that half of all senior managers and a third of all managers suffer from "Information Fatigue Syndrome" -- physical sickness from information overload. [IBD, 01Oct96 (?). EduP, 02Oct97.]

A new Inc. survey of 200 executives found that 68% view entrepreneurs rather than corporate CEOs as America's business heros. 37% said they'd run their own businesses if they had it to do over again. [SJM, 13Oct97, 1E.] (So maybe 63% _wouldn't_ want to run their own businesses. It's not an easy career.)

Many Japanese corporations are looking for ways to encourage individual creativity or entrepreneurial spirit. They're trying to combat slow decision-making, known as Big Company Disease. Efforts include wall slogans, flexible hours programs (largely ignored), trips to Silicon Valley, and well-supported spin-off companies derived from employee suggestions. NEC keeps the new CEOs on payroll; Fujitsu forces them out on their own. [NYT. SJM, 13Oct97, 3E.]

High-tech products come and go so quickly that politicians have had little success in setting up trade barriers. Japan is currently a pretty good market for Silicon Valley exports, which are up about 145% since 1993. Information technology should continue to sell well in Japan. If any US company chooses not to export, worldwide competitors are likely to step in with similar products. [Michael Dorgan, SJM, 15Oct97, 25A.]

Silicon Valley venture capitalists estimate that about 40% of startups have one or more immigrant founders. Sequoia Capital has a $3M venture fund specifically catering to such people, built with $100K each from 30 immigrant entrepreneurs. (Sequoia itself has another $150M invested in software and telecommunications.) Sequoia's immigrant entrepreneurs are said to be especially frugal, hard-working, technically knowledgeable, and willing to fight or take risks, but are often weak in marketing and finance. [Scott Herhold, SJM, 22Oct97, 1C.]

New Venture Match is a Menlo Park monthly dinner-and- discussion forum linking Bay area startups and venture capitalists. It's being restarted after a two-year hiatus, and will focus this year on interactive, digital media/multimedia, and Internet companies. A panel of 2-3 experts will critique each business presentation. Admission is $25-$35. Pat Pickford , 415-593-6603, 415-593-6623 Fax. [Fred Lam , 08Oct97. Bill Park.]

The MIT Club of Northern California is starting a Venture Incubator '98 program, to support technical and non-technical startups. (No MIT affiliation is needed.) The process helps entrepreneurs form a founding team -- via Web-based networking and bimonthly mixers -- and develop opportunity concepts, then works with them to develop realistic business plans. See for scheduled presentations and workshops. [, (408) 544-7169; BASES, 17Oct97. Bill Park.]

Silicon Valley resources for entrepreneurs include the Center for Software Development (San Jose) and various business networking opportunities through the Software Forum, ACM, IEEE, the MIT alumni club, and perhaps other alumni groups. Stanford offers entrepreneurial training and networking, plus great discounts on software at the student bookstore. There's a Business Association for Stanford Engineering Students (BASES) organization to host lectures, workshops, job fairs, and other events. Stanford and MIT also host a monthly "public haircut" for an entrepreneur willing to bare his or her business problems in return for [sometimes brutal] free advice. [Bill Park , 14Oct97.]

The Software Forum's monthly dinner meeting at the Elk's Club is a gentler affair, with an invited speaker talking about technological or business advances. It's $40 for nonmembers, $25 for members. Bring business cards for the pre-dinner schmoozing session at the bar. The crowd will include entrepreneurs, programmers, intellectual property lawyers, advertising execs, venture capitalists such as Ann Winblad, and ex-CEOs looking for new companies. . [Bill Park , 14Oct97.]

Bill also suggests reading Robert J. Kunze's "Nothing Ventured: The Perils and Payoffs of the Great American Venture Capital Game" (HarperBusiness, 1990), possibly available in a second edition, and Sandra L. Kurtzig's "CEO: Building a $400 Million Company from the Ground Up" (Harvard Business School Press, 1994). A good approach is to team with your first customer to get early feedback in return for a free site licence or other really good deal. VCs love to see a business plan that already has a customer.

Berkeley has a women's entrepreneurial group called Digital Dames, for Silicon Valley CEOs and executives. Christine Comaford of PlanetU started the meetings a year ago, with a buffet format that includes "great food (mostly take-out), better desserts, and a circle of chairs" every six weeks or so. Each participant must introduce herself and then say what it is she currently needs. "You could never have a similar group of male computer CEOs. They wouldn't share their problems, weaknesses, and fears. Besides, they'd all just bring beer." [AP. SJM, 08Sep97, 11E.]

Gary McGraw says that his company, Reliable Software Technologies (RST; , VA) has won a $2.4M NIST ATP award to develop Java security certification components for electronic commerce. Gary is co-author of the book "Java Security: Hostile Applets, Holes, and Antidotes." . [, 22Oct97.]

In TCC 7.72, I mentioned Project RC5 to win the RSA Secret-Key Challenge. Brad Miller tells me that the encryption has been broken. You can look up the story on news.com, or on the previously mentioned websites. [, 23Oct97.]

-- Ken