challenges and current social trends in computer engineering

Emerging Social Trends and Challenges for Computer Engineering
The swift and complex design of information processing has given rise to computer-based structures in virtually every area of human life. Future-oriented developments and solutions to be built in the field of computer engineering can offer assistance in different areas of human life. Some of the innovations made by computer engineers include funding for health systems, robotic services and automotive and traffic services. Such programs are provided to human beings in a variety of forms. Around the same time, the same human beings would need a favorable atmosphere in which to work. Continuous improvements on the field are therefore essential to facilitate for lower energy consumption by the devices produced. As a result, enabling for eco-friendly systems. The field itself is very wide. Hence there are issues and challenges that arise along. Some of the issues are; Organic computing, software/hardware architecture, sustainability and environmental impact.

Organic Computing and Systems Security

The traditional methods going to the future seems less suitable considering the processing systems on information are coming up. The other fact many individuals can access the wide range of information at a time through the web and the integration of systems has also contributed to this complexity. Organic computing will, therefore, provide for future visionary and system design which is capable of meeting the current emergence of the need for high processing and performance devices. Also suitable for integration in various environments and able for self-organizing while performing.

The hardware platforms are increasingly becoming unreliable the fact which cannot be ignored. (Aggarwal et al., 2007) Therefore, need to be concerned about. As a result, an organic computing is expected to address the issue. This will be achieved by developing hardware systems with the properties referred to as x-properties. This hardware will have much more improved capabilities. Some of this improvement will majorly be on, the self-optimization, ability to configure itself, protect itself and to organize itself as well. This way, through organic computing, the hardware will be capable of operating and performing optimally in the ever dynamic and changing environment hence increasing its suitability for a variety of conditions.

Research on such creation and development of such items has already taken root. Moreover, it has to be continued. This will ensure that a good track on performance and adaptability of the hardware systems are maintained given the ever-changing factors and the dynamic environment.

The ability to self-configure and self-optimize will help address the rising issues regarding systems security where instances of breaches by hackers to protected servers or systems have been on the rise. The less than adequate security of many systems increases levels of system vulnerability to hacking and breaches that lead to loss of critical and confidential data risking individual and organizational privacy. The lost or stolen information is at times used to extort or blackmail individuals and companies into providing further personal information or paying ransoms to the hackers or risk exposure when such information is released to the public damaging the firm’s reputation or an individual suffering public humiliation. The organic computing systems, therefore, will not only help develop computer systems that are adaptable to changing environments but also will help create systems that are immune to unwarranted penetrations increasing the security nature of critical systems such as banks, power grid, health sector systems and records, and national defense among others.

Software and Hardware Architecture

The design of the processor has gone through quite some changes to date. Further advancement on the frequency clock is therefore limited. Improvement going to the future will therefore mainly be based on having a higher number of transistors in a parallel manner on a chip. This means on a given processing chip there will be more than one processing core implemented.

The result of having many-core processors and them being multiple in nature brings about new challenges not only in hardware research but also in operating systems such as applications and other tools to enable for facilitating for the provided parallel system. To accomplish a need to parallelize the various sequential program applications have been put into consideration. As a result, there will arise the new and improved multi-core applications which are not realizable with the current single processors (Song et al., 2014). Systems capable of operating and managing a large number of cores and software performance need to be developed.

There is an increasing need for high-performing computer systems to meet the ever increasing and dynamic nature as well as the diverse problems facing the human beings. One of the major challenge being climatic conditions which must be taken into consideration for sustainability and computer engineering has to play a role in ensuring the same. Integrating of the various given multiple and many core processing systems will bring about the performance leap in greater performance and also GRID systems of computing (Jacko, 2012). Many questions have been brought forward on how to reduce challenges brought out in GRID systems on administrative. Also how techniques on combining some resources majorly for local management to enable transparency. Many engineers and scientist will, therefore, have to use high computational performance to run the improved simulation and hence will provide more accurate information enabling for better results.

Sustainability, Health, and Environmental impact

The ever continuing discussion on environment pollution, the appropriate use of natural resources and changes in climate facing our universe will call for the computer engineers’ involvement. They too have to partake a role in shaping the world and ensuring its sustainability. There are challenges facing the humanity such as efficiency on energy, impacts on environment and sustainability (LaFrieda et al., 2007). The contributions of the computer engineers to finding solutions on the above can be categorized into two subsections.

There have been increasing computations as well as communication systems due to the ever-increasing number of individuals and firms using the same. As a result, there is a need for high consumption of power and energy. The overall access and availability, storage, demand, and management of the information play a major role as a contributor to this challenge. The integration systems into world web this facilitate access to information worldwide promptly. This means more consumption of energy and power. This will demand more research and development to enable for much-improved devices which are friendly to the environment, consumes less power. The development has to be done on both the software and the hardware.

Computer engineers are called upon to develop computer systems which provide intelligence and control mechanisms which are capable of reducing the energy and power consumed as well as the emission of carbon dioxide of other systems for example cars.

Despite the challenges as the highlighted computer has had a major impact on our lives some which is a daily routine in nature. Some of these impacts on our society are; health sector contributions, smart energy, and transportation sector contributions.

Health Sector Contributions

Computers alone play a significant role in the health industry all around the world. Ranging from the simplest tasks within the hospital to the administrative procedure for example maintenance and organization of patients files. It also ensures that proper track and record is maintained to assist in proper treatment. More improved performance of some computers will enable for simulation of organs, diseases, and medication; as a result, there will be no necessity for animal experimentation (Jacko, 2012). This will also lead to further understanding of our body processes. Therefore keeping sane and well hence prolonging our lives.

Smart Energy

The need to ensure that we live in a conducive and sustainable environment has brought in the much need competitiveness in the computer engineering. This has seen more improved and energy efficient devices which use less energy and power hence eco-system friendly. This has not just helped to protect the environment but also facilitate the creation of new jobs while at the same time preserving the existing ones (Song et al., 2014).

Contributions to the Transportation Sector

Many requirements need to be meet for the conducive and smart transportation sector. The vehicles themselves need to meet the conditions to be environment-friendly right from the assembling process for improved engine performance. Hybrid engines are some of the impressing approaches. The other factor which calls for better performance in this sector is the need for safety and less number of accidents. The increasing number of electronic components in the car systems have led to comfort while driving. However, there is the uncertainty due to malfunctioning, which might, in turn, bring about the vulnerability.

On the given challenges some group of scientists has come up with a roadmap to develop a better view on the way to take on these challenges. This has been done through the given organic computing which enables for further developments through intensive computing (Patel & Wang, 2010). Through many and multiple processors we might in the future not have the silicon-based processors.

Computer engineering can have an important impact on human lives and provide for more improvements provided that research is objectively done and funded appropriately. Having looked at the challenges of their research leads to solutions which have improved our ways of leaving.

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References

Aggarwal, N., Ranganathan, P., Jouppi, N. P., & Smith, J. E. (2007). Configurable isolation. Proceedings of the 34th annual international symposium on Computer architecture - ISCA ’07. doi:10.1145/1250662.1250720

Jacko, J. A. (Ed.). (2012). Human computer interaction handbook: Fundamentals, evolving technologies, and emerging applications. CRC press.

LaFrieda, C., Ipek, E., Martinez, J. F., & Manohar, R. (2007). Utilizing Dynamically Coupled Cores to Form a Resilient Chip Multiprocessor. 37th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN’07). doi:10.1109/dsn.2007.100

Patel, M., & Wang, J. (2010). Applications, challenges, and prospective in emerging body area networking technologies. IEEE Wireless communications, 17(1).

Song, W. J., Mukhopadhyay, S., & Yalamanchili, S. (2014). Energy Introspector: A parallel, composable framework for integrated power-reliability-thermal modeling for multicore architectures. 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Performance Analysis of Systems and Software (ISPASS). doi:10.1109/ispass.2014.6844476