FRI 9/4: GEECS coffee, bagels, and sundry sweets, usual time and place, and all are welcome. 10:00 a.m. in Ford 2.227

TUE 9/8: International Graduate Student Orientation and Welcome Reception 1:30 p.m., McCormick Tribune Center, Evanston. RSVP by 8/31. Details

Saturday - Tuesday, 9/12-9/15: International Undergraduate Student Orientation Details

Student Job Opportunities:
New:
9/3 - Metromix seeks Ruby on Rails programmer
Details and contact information

See also AfterCollege.com listings for EECS jobs

Fortnow's Communications of the ACM Cover Story Sets Record Downloads
The cover story in the September 2009 issue of Communications of the ACM on "The Status of the P versus NP Problem" set a record number of downloads in its first week of availability in ACM's Digital Library. In fact, the download statistics for this article started accumulating well before the print edition became available.
In the article, author Lance Fortnow of Northwestern University explores one of the fundamental mathematical problems of our time, finding its challenge no closer to unraveling. He chronicles past attempts and approaches to solving the problem and describes a ray of hope in a new long-term project to separate P from NP using algebraic-geometric techniques. The Fortnow article is open and available to the public in its entirety via the Communications Web site. We encourage you to view the article that has generated such interest and share it with your colleagues. "The P vs NP problem is the most outstanding problem in theoretical computer science; the interest in its status is enormous," says Moshe Y. Vardi, editor-in-chief of Communications, about the overwhelming response to the cover story. The article is available at this link. Please note that it is necessary to click on the "pdf icon" to get the full text.

Faculty Activities & Accolades

Manijeh Razeghi and the Center for Quantum Devices group has published new results which are available on the CQD website. Two recent articles entitled "Gain-length scaling in quantum dot/quantum well infrared photodetectors" and "ULTRAVIOLET DETECTORS: Nitrides push performance of UV photodiodes
Nitrides" were published in Applied Physics Letters (95, 093502 2009) and Laser Focus World (September 2009, Vol. 45, Issue 9, p. 47-51) respectively.

Lance Fortnow wrote the cover article for Communications of the ACM, September, 2009, entitled "The Status of the P versus NP Problem." More

The EECS Weekly is published most Thursday afternoons throughout the academic year and occasionally during Summer. It is the newsletter of the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department in the McCormick School at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

Email your activities, news items, and research stories to 'webmaster @ eecs.northwestern.edu'.

This publication is emailed to the EECS faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, the EECS Advisory Board, and McCormick marketing staff. To subscribe, email 'webmaster @ eecs.northwestern.edu'