Ed Roberts Day - another milestone of Independent Living

Ed Roberts, a Berkeley quadriplegic who began the disability rights movement 40 years ago, now has his own California day.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous Hollywood actor and US politician signed a bill on Monday creating Ed Roberts Day, encouraging schools and other institutions to educate the public about the disability-rights and Independent Living pioneer every year on his birthday, January 23 each year. The commemoration does not include time off for state employees.
"Ed Roberts was a great example that whatever life hands you, you can be a success," said State Senator Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, a former next-door neighbor of Roberts' on Ward Street in Berkeley. "California should be very proud."
Roberts, who had polio as a teenager and relied on an iron lung, was among the first  student with severe disability to attend UC Berkeley, and went on to found the First Center for Independent Living. He died in 1995.

The International Conference on Digital Information Processing and Communications (ICDIPC),

VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
July 7-9, 2011
www.sdiwc.net/cz

All the papers will be reviewed and the accepted papers in the conference will be published in the “Communications in Computer and Information Science” (CCIS) of Springer Lecture Notes Series (www.springer.com/series/7899), and will be indexed in many global databases including ISI Proceedings and Scopus. In addition, selected papers after complete modification and revision will be published in the special issues journals.
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The proposed conference on the above theme will be held at the VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic from July 7-9, 2011 which aims to enable researchers build connections between different digital applications.

The information processing still the base for most new technology applications. This includes the processing of the information on the web, mobile phones, networking information, and many other applications.The conference aims to show the cutting edge technology on the fields of information processing and its real applications in the field of Digital Information Technology. The conference covers the following topics, but it is not limited to them. They are:



Information and Data Management
Data Compression
E-Technology
E-Government
E-Learning
Wireless Communications
Mobile Networking, Mobility and Nomadicity Ubiquitous Computing, Services and Applications Data Mining Computational Intelligence Biometrics Technologies Forensics, Recognition Technologies and Applications Information Ethics Fuzzy and Neural Network Systems Signal Processing, Pattern Recognition and Applications Image Processing Distributed and parallel applications Internet Modeling User Interfaces,Visualization and Modeling XML-Based Languages Network Security Social Networks Information Content Security Mobile, Ad Hoc and Sensor Network Management Web Services Architecture, Modeling and Design Semantic Web, Ontologies Web Services Security Quality of Service, Scalability and Performance Self-Organizing Networks and Networked Systems Data Management in Mobile Peer-to-Peer Networks Data Stream Processing in Mobile/Sensor Networks Indexing and Query Processing for Moving Objects User Interfaces and Usability Issues form Mobile Applications Mobile Social Networks Peer-to-Peer Social Networks Sensor Networks and Social Sensing Social Search Embedded Systems and Software Real-Time Systems Multimedia Computing Software Engineeing Information Propagation on Social Networks Resource and Knowledge Discovery Using Social Networks Cloud Computing Grid Computing Green Computing Researchers are encouraged to submit their work electronically. Submitted paper should not exceed 15 pages, including illustrations. Papers should be submitted electronically. All papers will be fully refereed by a minimum of two specialized referees. Before final acceptance, all referees comments must be considered.


Important Dates
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Submission Date : Feb 25, 2011
Notification of acceptance: April 10, 2011
Camera Ready submission : April 30, 2011
Registration : April 30, 2011
Conference dates : July 7-9, 2011

A Message from the Honorable Tony Coelho on the Occasion of the ADA's 20th Birthday

On this 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we have much to be proud of as a community.  A little more than twenty years ago, we embarked on a historic journey in advancing civil rights for Americans with disabilities.  We came together with one voice, putting aside our political and other differences, to work toward this cause, and we were joined by our partners in Congress, who put aside their differences to do the same.  And this unity and bipartisan spirit both within our community and in Congress led to our success.  We could not fully imagine then the profound impact our civil rights struggle and work to pass the ADA would have for people with disabilities around the world.  Today, inspired by the ADA, our brothers and sisters in scores of countries have worked to pass their own pioneering legislation to protect and promote their inherent human and civil rights. What's more, the world community came together at the United Nations at the start of this century and did something that is changing the world.  They worked to create international law recognizing, protecting, and promoting the rights of all people with disabilities-the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  Americans with disabilities joined them in this effort, sharing our experience with the ADA to strengthen the provisions of this human rights legislation.  The disability rights movement now encompasses a global community. But our work to strengthen and implement the promise of equal rights for people with disabilities at home and abroad remains unfinished.  We have no doubt created a pillar of domestic law, but we must now work to ensure that the United States remains a global leader in the disability rights arena by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which President Obama signed last July.  Ratifying this landmark treaty will not only advance the promise of the ADA at home, it will give the disability rights movement a new vigor abroad with the clear message that the United States affirms the inherent dignity and human rights of all people with disabilities. I am excited by the energy and enthusiasm of USICD in working toward CRPD ratification.  I want to thank USICD President, Marca Bristo, and our Executive Director, David Morrissey, for their leadership in this effort.  I ask you to join with me in supporting USICD in the important effort of making CRPD ratification in the United States a reality.  When the Obama Administration completes its review and submits the CRPD to the U.S. Senate for its consent for ratification, we must come together as the American disability community and proclaim "Yes to Ratification."  Today, 88 countries have already ratified the CRPD.  By joining in this community, we can share our great expertise and leadership in furtherance of the democratic values enshrined in the CRPD.  The CRPD is good for people with disabilities, good for America, and good for the world. Let us take this opportunity to deliver our unified message to the U.S. Senate.  Please sign on to a letter prepared by USICD to Senators Kerry and Lugar of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to indicate your support for the CRPD.  Please follow this link to sign on.          Sincerely,                  Tony Coelho