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Jaargang 44, 6 december 2001 English page

"Start work now to make my computers faster" President of Stanford University John L. Hennessy The Holst Memorial Lecture by Stanford University president John L. Hennessy on 'Directions and challenges in microprocessor architecture' attracted a big crowd last Thursday. Latecomers had to listen in by video connection one floor down. "The problems we are facing now will take at least ten years to solve. Young people need to start work immediately so that my computers will continue to grow faster," he declared. Hennessy found an attentive audience for his views on the past, present and future of microprocessing in TU/e students and staff and Philips researchers. He is of the opinion that it will be increasingly difficult to improve the speed and performance of computers. "We must change the way we think about microprocessing," he said. "And the changes will have to come out of academia and research labs and by teaching young people." According to Hennessy most of the potential performance of microprocessors is lost. "We have to accept this. There is no silver bullet to get rid of this problem. Nobody has a single answer that is clearly better than the others," he explained. "Energy and power will be the key limit if we want to exploit more parallelism. This will be how we go back and redesign these machines." "We will not see a point where there is no performance increase, but there will be diminishing returns, the pace of improvements will slow down. Already research engineering projects with thousands of man-years have been closed down with almost no results to show for all their work." "The gap between academic and industrial practise has vanished. Formerly, papers were written ten years before the ideas were applied. Now the gap is no more than two years, if that. Our research is being used up rapidly. We always had a lot of research on our shelves, but now we have almost nothing we have not tried. We've run out of break-through machines." A group a Indian multimedia researchers from Philips commented afterwards that it's no wonder there is no gap between research and commercial application, as most research is funded by industry. Hennessy envisions no new breakthroughs in the short term. "In the long term computing is about access to information. It is web-centred and information-centred. I predict multi-threading will come of age. This will be the most important development in the next few years."/. John L. Hennessy. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke

Extra funds for South Africans and Indonesians TU/e's Bureau for International Activities has about 70,000 guilders available to support South African and Indonesian students at TU/e this academic year. The funds are from a special ministry of education project called Delta, which aims to increase the number of foreign students in the Netherlands and thereby promote 'export' of Dutch higher education. "We are free to use these funds as we please, just as long as we increase the number of students from South Africa and Indonesia at TU/e," says BIA director Leo Robben. The money is not directly available to students; department managers must request it for a specific purpose. For example, one South African exchange student is receiving support because something went wrong with his housing arrangements and he was forced to rent a more expensive place than he had expected. An Indonesian PhD student who couldn't finish his dissertation in the prescribed four years can stay on for an extra year thanks to a grant from Delta. The sum of a Delta grant may be anything from 3,000 to 25,000 guilders. "I don't want to make too many rules about spending this money. Basically, I want to solve as many problems as I can. If I show that I have helped more foreign students come to the Netherlands, I will receive more money from the Delta project next year because I spent what I had effectively. Keeping this criterion in mind, I'll support South African and Indonesian students where I can," Robben explains. It is unclear why South African and Indonesian students have been singled out for special treatment. "The choice of South Africa and Indonesia probably has to do with international contacts at a government level," Robben speculates. Nuffic (Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education) in The Hague is responsible for co-ordinating Delta. The project also includes financial support for students from Taiwan and China. "But we aren't participating in that part of the project. TU/e has almost no existing contacts in Taiwan. In China we have enough other recruitment avenues and Chinese students need no additional incentive to come to TU/e," says Robben. Another limitation for the spending of Delta funds is TU/e's stated intent of working only with universities of equal or higher status. "For example, this may exclude students from poorer universities in South Africa, which are predominantly black," Robben concludes./.

Dekate Mousa photo exhibition on light Student film an photo club Dekate Mousa is planning a photo exhibition on the subject of light in the glass room at the Auditorium from December 10 to 21. Members of Dekate Mousa are given assign-ments on different themes a number of times a year. The assignment may be interpreted in any way. The exhibition shows the results. Dekate Mousa members Eva Habets and Coen de Jongh have put this particular exhibition together. Their choice for the 'light' theme was well-considered. "Now we are in the darker part of the year, we thought 'light' would make a good theme. The fact that Christmas is coming up is also good in this context. Our members are free to interpret the exhibition assignment as they themselves see fit," explains Habets. Perception is always different for every individual. "You should see our themes in a larger perspective. 'Light' doesn't always mean a sunset, although sunset photos are included. The different interpretations make the exhibition quite varied. If you take, say, the tractor, as your theme, there won't be much room to manoeuvre. We make sure the exhibition is presented as well as possible, we hang the pictures and even think about whether certain photos go together. We want to create a kind of unity," says De Jongh. Regular exhibitions make it possible for members of Dekate Mousa to exhibit. "This is an opportunity to share your work with others," says Habets. "We all want to show what we can achieve artistically," De Jongh adds./.   Debate at ESC A debate on multi-cultural society, student life in Eindhoven and students and politics are the subjects of a big debate planned for Tuesday December 11 by Eindhovens Studenten Corps (ESC) in co-operation with Mosaïc. Prof.dr. Bert Meijer will lead the discussion in the Bunker. There will be a buffet meal from 6.00 to 7.00 p.m. for all present, the debate will be from 7.00 to 9.00 p.m. Anyone interested is welcome. OSC moves The Onderwijs Service Centrum (education service centre) has moved to the second floor of the IPO building. All didactic training sessions will be held in a room on the ground floor. Other OSC services will remain unchanged. Election results The results of the University Council, Services Council and Departmental Council elections (on Thursday December 13) at TU/e will be made public on Monday December 17. This will take place in room 4, Auditorium at noon. Afterwards, the results of the 'satisfaction survey' among university staff will also be publicised. Candidates' vison on PhD-ship The PhD association at the TU/e (AiOOE) wants to get PhD students involved in the coming elections at the TU/e. The AiOOE asks all candidates for the elections to formulate their vision on PhD-ship. Candidates for the councils of both the university and the departments may send a few lines (in English) on the topic to Dima Aliakseyeu (d.aliakseyeu@tue.nl). He will put it on the AiOOE website (www.tue.nl/aiooe). The AiOOE shall draw her members' attention to this information in the days preceding the elections.   The English Page is written by Paula van de Riet. She can be reached at engcur@stud.tue.nl.