Patent a milestone for university
The Cognitive Map-based Tactical Decision Support System, or CM-TDSS, is not (we are happy to say) the latest bureaucratically mind-numbing name for a battery of standardized tests administered to students in Georgia public schools. Nor is it a revised version of the already cumbersome official name of what used to be the state Ethics Commission.
Rather, CM-TDSS is software to help train soldiers and emergency responders, created and developed at Columbus State University, and distinguished by the first patent in school history.
And according to the leader of the CSU team that put this system together, the CMDST — as its official patent name lists it — actually justifies its name.
“If you tried to describe what it is and what it does,” CSU computer science professor Shamin Khan laughingly told the Ledger-Enquirer last week, “eventually you have all the words put together.”
Khan was a principal designer of the system a project of the university’s TSYS School of Computer Science, in partnership with the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Florida.
As you might imagine, this wasn’t just a matter of a few really smart computer nerds working a few all-nighters. (Although we’re probably pretty safe on the “really smart” part.)
This achievement was at least six years in coming, beginning in 2010 with the work of students, faculty, Army officers and engineers, many of whom — especially the students — have since moved on to other things. It was obviously impressive enough to the powers that be in Arlington to attract a $1.6 million grant, and it was actually finished in 2012. The patent was announced earlier this year.
Bravo to everybody on the CMDST team. This is not just impressive science, but life-saving science.
Get over it
Now comes another flap (sorry) over Chick-Fil-A and politics, this one even sillier than before, if that’s possible.
The restaurant chain is holding voter registration drives at some of its Florida sites. Some Florida Democrats object, citing inherent bias in the venue. (Implicit in such a complaint, of course, is that voter registration drives aren’t routinely located or timed according to political agendas. Right.)
Anyway, according to Pinellas County Democrats, “[Chick-Fil-A] has a strong and well-understood history of anti-LGBT activism and is publicly associated with Republican Party values.”
The first part of that is wrong, the second so vague as to be meaningless. The “anti-LGBT activism” consists of company exec Dan Cathy airing his personal views on same-sex marriage. As far as a voter drive being held anywhere or sponsored by anybody “publicly associated” with political “values,” we might as well shut down the practice altogether.
If somebody has a concern that this or any other voter drive is stealth electioneering, then monitor it and report violations. Beyond that, there’s nothing to stop somebody from registering at a Chick-Fil-A before casting write-in votes for the Village People.
This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Patent a milestone for university."