AAAS DISCUSSION ON THE EFFECT OF PATENT LEGISLATION ON SCIENCE RESEARCH
| Reception | Sunday 4:00PM |
Speakers
The Effects of Patent Reform Legislation on the Conduct of Scientific Research |
4:30PM |
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICS TEACHERS, CHESAPEAKE SECTION
| David M. Schaefer (presenter), Cameron Bolling Towson University, John Sunderland, Rajeswari Kolagani , Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences, Tyler Bradley, Towson High School, Towson Md. 21252, Bonnie Ludka, James Madison University, Physics Department , Undergraduate Experiments in Nanolithography | Saturday 9:00AM |
| The continued miniaturization of devices and components has produced an urgent need for fabrication techniques on a nanometer length scale. Nanolithography using the atomic force microscope (AFM) is emerging as a promising tool for nanotechnology. In this presentation, we discuss experiments using the AFM to perform nanolithography in an undergraduate laboratory. We report our results of AFM- induced nanoscale surface modifications in thin films of the CMR manganite material La0.7Ba0.3MnO3. CMR manganite materials have been demonstrated to be useful for a variety of technological applications including magnetic sensors and bolometric infrared detectors. |
| Lincoln E. Bragg, Simple Black Hole Formation Model | Saturday 9:20AM |
| The first level of black hole formation ideas is just physical and is suitable for anyone you can mention the idea of black holes to. More depth is suitable if they are comfortable with (x,t) history diagrams of light ray paths. Later level is suitable if you have introduced the Schwarzschild black hole model and they know about changing coordinate systems in a plane. |
| Carl E. Mungan, Physics Dept, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, Escape Speeds and Asteroid Collisions | Saturday 9:40AM |
| Simultaneous conservation of momentum and energy determines the relative speed of a pair of gravitationally attracting bodies as a function of the distance separating them. This has applications such as solar-system satellite escape and asteroid-earth collisions. It is not necessary to start from an infinite-earth-mass approximation. Careful choice of reference frames eases the calculations. |
| William T. Franz, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, Bottle Rockets, Teacups and the Real World: A senior seminar to bridge the gap between physics student and life after college | Saturday 10:00AM |
| One of the peculiar aspects to being a professional physicist is the authority we all seem to have to comment on ‘real life’ phenomena. I have been asked about everything from divining rods to space junk during my career. The senior seminar at Randolph-Macon College is designed to be a culminating experience that asks students to synthesize their course and research experience and improve their presentation skills. The most recent iteration focused on problems that varied from urban legends to wacky theories with an emphasis on laboratory measurement, practical calculation, and presentation of results. Methods for heating water to make tea, the practicality of launching people with bottle rockets, and the use of aluminum helmets to prevent brainwashing will be discussed. |
| Eric Kearsley, NRAO, Green Bank, WV and A. Einstein HS, Kensington, MD, K. O’Neil NRAO, Green Bank, WV, From 20 cm – 1µm: Measuring the Gas and Dust in Nearby Massive Low Surface Brightness Galaxies | Saturday 10:20AM |
| Archival data from the IRAS, 2MASS, NVSS, and FIRST catalogs, supplemented with new measurements of HI, are used to analyze the relationship between the relative mass of the various components of galaxies (stars, atomic hydrogen, dust, and molecular gas) using a small sample of nearby (z<0.1), massive low surface brightness galaxies. The sample is compared to three sets of published data: a large collection of radio sources (Condon, 2002) from the UGC having a radio continuum intensity >2.5 mJy; a smaller sample of low surface brightness galaxies (Galaz, 2002); and a collection of NIR LSB galaxies (Monnier-Ragaigne 2002). We find that if we naively assume the ratio of the dust and molecular gas mass relative to the mass of HI is a constant we are unable to predict the observed ratio of stellar mass to HI mass, indicating that the HI mass ratio is a poor indicator of the total baryonic mass in the studied galaxies. HI measurements obtained during this study using the Green Bank Telescope also provide a correction to the velocity of UGC 11068. |
| David Wright, Tidewater Community College, Virginia Beach, VA, Physics in the Courtroom | Saturday 10:40AM |
| Two very different cases, a car accident and a spotlighted helicopter, will be used to illustrate how physics can be used in the courtroom. The cases will be presented to the audience for consideration. Will their judgment match that of the judge? |
| Rhett Herman, Radford University, Radford, VA, Learning astronomy at the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observato | Saturday 11:00AM |
| Physics students and faculty from Radford University have taken advantage of using the 40-foot-diameter educational radio telescope at Green Bank NRAO for the past several years. We have found that even on a “getaway” weekend such as this, students tend to put in a great amount of work in learning how to use the equipment, and to interpret and process the data. The question has arisen as to whether course credit should be offered for these weekend trips. And the answer is … |
| Deonna Woolard, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, Learning astronomy at the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observato | Saturday 11:20AM |
| We have been conducting the Force Concept Inventory Pre and Post tests for the last six years. Preliminary analysis of the data shows a downward trend of pretest scores. Might this be attributed to more students going to college and taking intro physics, for example, as compared to years past where the college environment was geared towards a certain type of student? I would like to know other’s opinion on this and the actions that they are taking to address the situation. |
| Business Meeting of the CS-AAPT | Saturday 11:40AM |
AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
| Student RepresentativesOverview of Programs at Area Universitites | Sunday 2:00PM |
| The greater Washington-Baltimore area is one of the world’s centers for research and operations in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences. Numerous local universities are integrally linked to these efforts, offering vibrant graduate programs where students and faculty make new contributions everyday. At the session of the DC Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, student representatives have been invited from several universities (University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore County, George Mason University and Howard University) to provide program overviews. This will offer students the opportunity to learn about neighboring programs, meet their peers and identify research connections and possible synergies. In addition, Dr. Ron McPherson, Executive Director Emeritus of the AMS, will present an overview of the services and scholarships available to students through the AMS as well resources the AMS provides to all of its members. Both students and interested WAS affiliate members are invited to attend this session. |
ASSOCIATION FOR SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
| John Bosma Synthesis Partners , Advances in Rapid Manufacturing | Saturday 9:00AM |
| Advances in “rapid manufacturing” (RM) – which includes “rapid prototyping” and “rapid tooling” (RP, RT) — permit us to turn out diverse products at low cost and high quality – e.g.: 1) aircraft wing structures up to 14 ft in one dimension, using laser-sintered titanium-aluminide alloys; 2) large composite tools (molds) with dimensional tolerances of 0.01 inch in 5 minutes, also large composite airframe sections up to 8 x 10 ft within minutes; 3) small to large complex structures — from small sonar transducers to ship deckhouses — by extruding (like toothpaste) various materials mixes — from composites and o\plastics to metal powders — using simple gantries, then following the deposition nozzle with curing and finishing tools; 4) single-process production of electronic hardware like TV remotes and handheld controllers; 5) rapid forward repair of damaged helicopters, trucks and tanks with parts made to order from data generated from video-based coordinate measuring machines that a forward mechanic uses to ‘;map’ damaged parts; and 6) finely structured metal and composite structures (channels, grids, honeycombs). There are more than 100 RM-RP-RT processes available around the world – yet they have not yet penetrated major industries like car and truck manufacturing, much less the aircraft industry. At the same time, these processes greatly reduce the startup costs for small manufacturing firms and allow them to quickly enter “high end” markets. The author believes that rapid manufacturing could become the single greatest competitive edge the US develops — yet competition is fierce from newer entrants intro this field like China. |
| Jim Burke, Northrop Grumman Information Technology Intelligence (TASC), Wild Cards and Weak Signals | Saturday 9:30AM |
| Have you ever been surprised by something in science, politics or your own organization and wondered why it was a surprise. Why are these things such surprises to so many folks? Are people not paying attention because the in-box is so full? Don’t folks trust forecasters and futurists who offer insights about the future? These are some of the questions that Jim Burke, Northrop Grumman Information Technology Intelligence (TASC) will be talking about in his presentation–real surprises, wild cards, weak signals and unintended consequences. He will do this in a rich stew of subjects–science, the environment, robotics, as well as some practical tools for forecasting. Jim heads up a group that assesses future technologies and organizations and is a former president of the Capitol Area World Future Society chapter, as well as a member of the Association of Professional Futurists. |
| Gene Allen Director, Collaborative Development MSC Software Corporation, Stochastic Simulation – A New Engineering Process Demonstration Using MSC Robust Design | Saturday 10:00AM |
| Mr. Allen will be providing background on a new engineering analyses process being used that takes advantage recent advances in computer capabilities. The process incorporates the natural variability and uncertainty that exists in reality into computer simulations. The process, referred to as stochastic simulation, uses advanced Monte Carlo techniques. The results of a stochastic simulation are displayed in a cloud of points that represents the reality of the physics being modeled, with each point representing a possible situation. Cause and effect information is quickly derived from the results and displayed in Decision Maps. Design improvements can be realized by using the Stochastic Design Improvement (SDI) process to move the cloud towards design targets. The process enables users to get an order of magnitude more information from computer models. Some companies are using stochastic simulation in product design with significant success. EADS-CASA has reduced weight of a satellite launch dispenser was reduced from 500 to 337 lbs by changing the composite layup. Alenia has used the process to reduce weight in commercial aircraft. Application of this process in the auto industry has resulted in improved crash worthiness with weight reduction. BMW reduced weight in a car model by 33 pounds, Nissan – 35 pounds, other cars at other companies had weight reductions of 55, 40, and 13 pounds. |
| Thomas Meylan, Ph.D., EvolvingSuccess Hyattsville, MD, The Formation of Collaborative Sub-cultures Within a Pervasively Competitive Business Culture | Saturday 10:30AM |
| Every human culture, including cultures in business organizations, is built on a basis of interpersonal competition, and of competition between human groups. For corporate success against other groups, internal competition has to be replaced with collaboration. This provides highly leverage-able advantages relative to other organizations which retain in-house competition as a primary culture characteristic. The willingness of individuals to give up interpersonal competition in favor of collaboration is completely dependent on the individual’s primary Drive Satisfaction Strategy (DSS). All DSSs contribute to the formation of competitive business cultures, but two DSSs can also contribute to the formation of collaborative business cultures. While it is not possible to build an organization with a completely collaborative culture, it is possible to increase the number and sizes of the pockets of collaborative culture housed within a pervasively competitive business culture. |
| Richard H. Smith, MS Flexible Medical Systems, LLC, Nanotechnology Moves from the Lab to Medical Practice | Saturday 2:00PM |
| Two years ago, Nanotech commercializer Richard Smith described how nanotechnology might be exploited to fit the needs of the military. This year, he will describe the progress of a nano-based diagnostic device that is now moving from the lab into medical practice. The uses for this device will range from insulin management for diabetics to shock/trauma care for soldiers in the field to a “canary- in-the-mine” detector for asian flu and other potentially pandemic infectious diseases. |
| Dr. Geoffrey P Malafsky,TECHi2, Scalable Ontological Sense Matching | Saturday 2:30PM |
| The dramatic increase in availability of information is inundating people with enormous quantities of data and information that must be sifted quickly and accurately enough to support decision making and actions. Despite the significant improvements in technologies, they still lack the ability to determine the meaning and sense of the information. This is especially acute for Knowledge Discovery since knowledge is differentiated from information by context, confidence, pedigree, and relationships to other information. A main gap is representing knowledge in a manner that is accurate and scalable for large-scale computer processing. Current techniques of knowledge representation with ontologies rely on expensive and time consuming efforts to produce static upper, middle, lower level ontologies. This large level of effort and the resulting static nature of the ontologies make them difficult to scale to realistic operations where the volume is extremely large, and the concepts and knowledge change at a rate faster than can be accommodated with this approach. We developed a new ontology framework that uses repeatable ontology templates aligned with natural organizational boundaries for roles, responsibilities, and domain knowledge. The templates define domain and term level senses for concepts using both controlled and domain specific vocabularies that express functional domain knowledge. This provides a unified logical design with a distributed physical system which is the hallmark of a services oriented architecture. The sense matching ontology is part of an integrated architecture that connects and traces domain knowledge to ontologies to business rules to semantic metadata. It provides a single unified specification of knowledge expressed in an ontology, rules distilled from an ontology, and metadata annotating data and information with rules and knowledge. |
| Martin Schwab Author, consultant and member of the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG), chartered by NASA Headquarters in 1990, The Future of Humans in Space: Alternative Views and Strategies | Saturday 3:00PM |
| Every human culture, including cultures in business organizations, is built on a basis of interpersonal competition, and of competition between human groups. For corporate success against other groups, internal competition has to be replaced with collaboration. This provides highly leverage-able advantages relative to other organizations which retain in-house competition as a primary culture characteristic. The willingness of individuals to give up interpersonal competition in favor of collaboration is completely dependent on the individual’s primary Drive Satisfaction Strategy (DSS). All DSSs contribute to the formation of competitive business cultures, but two DSSs can also contribute to the formation of collaborative business cultures. While it is not possible to build an organization with a completely collaborative culture, it is possible to increase the number and sizes of the pockets of collaborative culture housed within a pervasively competitive business culture. |
ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE. DC-METRO CHAPTER
| Mentoring: Making the Most of Scientists Symposium | Saturday |
| Rachael Scholz, Senior Consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton and Caren Chang, Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, Mentoring Graduate Students | 9:00AM |
| The relationship between the graduate student and mentor is multifaceted and can be central to the success of the student. The mentor ultimately serves as a role model for the student, both professionally and personally. Therefore, it is crucial that the student select a lab/mentor that best fits the needs and personality of the student. It is imperative that mutual respect and good lines of communication are established early in the mentor-mentee relationship. The expectations of the mentor should be clearly defined in the beginning of the student’s tenure in the lab. The mentor should recognize the student’s strengths, weaknesses and learning style, set appropriate goals, and provide encouragement and support. The role of the mentor changes over time and serves to help the student make the transition to an independent scientist. During this time, it is important that the mentor and student have regular meetings to discuss progress, outside funding opportunities, and career guidance. In the event that problems arise between them, then both the mentor and mentee need to be equipped with options and ways to deal with the problems. These and other issues will be explored in this panel discussion. |
| Jennifer Shen, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Cancer Institute and Jonathan Wiest, Associate Director for Training and Education, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Mentoring Postdocs |
9:45AM |
| The origin of mentor is traced to ancient Greek mythology, when a friend of Odysseus, Mentor, was entrusted with the education of Odysseus’s son Telemachus. In modern times, the role of mentor can be defined as a trusted guide or counselor for his or her protégé. During the postdoctoral training period, successful mentoring can lead to productive working relationships, as well as enhancing professional career development for both mentor and protégé. While the mentor and postdoctoral fellow might have distinctive career goals, it is possible, and beneficial, to build a successful mentoring relationship. Both mentor and trainee ought to strive to achieve open communication based on trust, respect, and compromises. While a successful mentoring relationship could be rewarding – perhaps leading to a lifelong friendship – unexpected negative outcomes might result. As long as the mentor and protégé start building the relationship with a clear understanding of each other through open communication and well-defined expectations, a successful mentoring relationship will benefit the professional careers for both. |
| Donna J. Dean, Senior Science Advisor, Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC and President, Association for Women in Science and Kathryn L. Beers, Research chemist, Combinatorial Methods Center, Polymers Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Mentoring Professionals | 10:45AM |
| By the time young scientists reach their first professional position, there are likely many different roles that they must learn to balance. As a result, there are many types of mentoring relationships that can enhance awareness, accelerate success and enrich the experiences of someone during the course of their career. We will discuss several types of mentor-mentee relationships, how to establish new mentoring relationships with mutually agreeable expectations, and the important balance between setting realistic goals and creating personal challenges through the relationship. We will also discuss some of the unique issues facing the career professional, including different organizational cultures, workplace diversity, and long-term strategies for career planning. Finally, we will discuss the evolution of mentor-mentee relationships as individuals progress in their careers, including the challenges of mentoring upwards and managing the changing needs of mid- and late-stage career professionals. |
| Laurel L. Haak, Program Officer, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, The National AcademiesMentoring Graduate Students, Moderated Discussion | 11:30AM |
| INSTITUTIONAL PANEL – Moderated by Laurel L. Haak | |
| 2:00PM | |
A primary component of all AGEP projects is significant capacity building with respect to administrative infrastructure. More specifically, the successful and effective implementation of strategies to coordinate innovative graduate education activities across multiple departments at participating institutions and across multiple partnering institutions requires the establishment of new administrative infrastructure (i.e., policies, practices, offices, and staffing). These newly established administrative infrastructures involve a variety of resources, including (but not limited to) space, equipment, and staff. This administrative infrastructure will exist after the term of the NSF-supported activity. Transition and graduate success strategies tend to be focused in multiple departments across partner institutions (intra-alliance activity), and the career development strategies are more likely to involve inter-alliance activity. Each level of interconnectivity poses exciting challenges and opportunities for developing new paradigms for the vertical integration of research and education that will lead to significant increases in the pool of minority professionals interested in and prepared for careers in the STEM professoriate. In addition to addressing the enhanced preparation of Ph.D.s for the professoriate, AGEP alliances have taken significant steps toward proactively recruiting from that well-nurtured pool to fill future faculty positions. Through AGEP, an unprecedented community of institutions committed to acting cooperatively at the graduate level is being created. AGEP provides an opportunity for participating institutions to leverage their resources with a community of other institutions sharing a commitment to enhance recruitment, retention, advancement and long-term career success of students.
The ASCB MAC programs were awarded the 2004 NSF Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. Under the auspices of a National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS) Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) grant, the ASCB MAC hosts a variety of activities. The ASCB MAC recruits members and students for participation in programs at the ASCB Annual Meeting and sponsors 50-60 minority students and faculty to attend and present a research poster for competitive judging at this meeting. MAC provides financial support for minority students to complete summer coursework at Marine Biological Laboratory and Friday Harbor Laboratory and MAC’s Linkage Fellows Program provides fellowships to junior or associate level faculty from minority serving institutions. ASCB MAC’s mentoring work includes hosting a mentoring symposium and a Junior Faculty Workshop, which invites minority junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows to discuss issues related to tenure track positions, publications, grant writing, and service to the community. ASCB MAC also participates in conferences aimed at studying minorities in the workforce and is involved in conducting an assessment of all MARC and non-MARC programs. Independent of NIH NIGMS MARC support, ASCB MAC hosts minority outreach and networking activities. This session will discuss the details of these and other ASCB programs.
In 2003 the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) received a very prestigious Institutional Transformation Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the ADVANCE Program. ADVANCE at UMBC is designed to enhance policies and practices affecting the recruitment, retention, advancement, and leadership of women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and is instrumental in developing and implementing mentoring activities campus-wide. Mentoring and outreach are key components of the Faculty Horizons Program, a professional development opportunity for upper level graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, particularly women, with an emphasis on women from underrepresented groups, in STEM. Participants of this program gain the knowledge and tools needed to build successful and productive faculty careers. A key vehicle for mentoring junior STEM women faculty is the Eminent Scholar Mentor Program. This ADVANCE initiative pairs UMBC women faculty with researchers eminent in their fields, developing a broader connection to their research community and supporting the faculty member’s future success. Thus far, several successful matches have developed, with the mentor visiting UMBC the first year and the junior faculty visiting the mentor’s institution the second to continue the relationship as well as conduct research presentations. Another successful mentoring effort includes work with the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) group, which predates ADVANCE at UMBC. Informal mentoring takes place within this network of STEM women faculty. This informal mentoring has branched out to include the formalized Faculty ADVANCEment Workshop Series, which is open to all STEM faculty at UMBC. |
CHEMICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON (CSW)/NSF INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE
| Scott J. Moore and Kenneth L. Busch, Office of Inspector General National Science Foundation, Chemistry’s “Creative Commons”: Changing Perspectives for Plagiarism and Intellectual Property Theft | Saturday 2:00PM |
| The term “creative commons” can be used to refer to information (in all its forms) that most would consider to be in the public domain, and thought to be free for use without the need for specific citation of a source or an individual. The wide availability of information on the internet, both with and without subscription, and allied with or separate from classical print publication, has engendered disparate views of just what the chemistry “creative commons” might encompass, and just what the standards of scholarship for appropriate use might be. Such divergences of view are apparent in allegations of plagiarism or intellectual property theft forwarded to our office. Our assessment of each allegation must include the standards of the relevant research community, as well as the often pointed opinions of those directly involved in specific issues, as complainants, subjects, investigators, or adjudicators. As examples of the chemistry “creative commons,” and what it may or may not include, we will present some recent case-based perspectives that touch on the issues of 1) appropriate use of text and information from the internet; 2) faculty/student interactions; 3) figures, photos, and fabrications; and 4) proposal and manuscript review processes. |
INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS (IEEE), WASHINGTON AND NORTHERN VIRGINIA SECTIONS
| Haik Biglardi, PhD, Senior Director of Electronics Systems and Controls, Fairchild Controls Corporation, The Genesis of Quaternions | Sunday 10:00 AM |
| Complex numbers have been studied for nearly five centuries. The first hint of existence of such a number is recorded in the work of Nicholas Chuquet in 1484. In solving general equations he showed that some equations lead to imaginary solutions, but dismisses them (“Tel nombre est ineperible”). Then Cardano in 1545 writes Ars magna on the solutions of cubic and quartic equations. In it, there are solutions to polynomials which lead to square roots of negative quantities. Cardano calls them “sophistic” and concludes that it is “as subtle as it is useless.” In 1637, Descartes coins the term “imaginary”. By 1747 imaginary numbers are well accepted and Euler presents his famous identity. The period from 1825-50 and the work of Cauchy is considered to be the beginning of modern complex analysis. And finally in 1843, Hamilton presents the Quaternion numbers. For nearly a century the Quaternion numbers remained useless. In the mid twentieth century the Quaternions are applied to Attitude Control problems and soon after they become very useful for computer graphics applications. It is interesting to know that as long as Quaternions have been with us, so have Gaussian Integers and their by products which are the Golden Triangles or Golden Gaussian Integers. Then a natural question arises: Is there any Golden Quaternion? That is, the quaternion magnitude is a perfect square and the Quaternion components are also integers. The answer is emphatically yes! |
| Kiki Ikossi, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Mason University and President of I-Cube Inc., The Next Generation Electronics | Sunday 10:40 AM |
| With the invention of the transistor electronic devices quietly took a prominent role in our modern lives. Technological advancements and the demand for faster and more efficient computations and communications gave the impetus to move beyond the crystalline silicon dominated electronics. Today’s advanced materials and nanosize dimensions allow for new physical concepts to be directly implemented in optical and electronic devices. In this presentation we will examine the potential for some of the most recent advancements in the antimonide based semiconductor material system and structures. New hetero-structures allow the development of electronic devices with 10-fold reduction in energy consumption and 3-fold increase in high frequency performance. Furthermore, the application of these materials in photovoltaic devices allows for the development of IR sensors and solar cells. The photovoltaic devices can be made so that they respond to the whole solar spectrum instead of a narrow wavelength resulting in more efficient solar cells. The potential for significant energy conservation has broad ramifications in biomedical, remote sensing, communications, military and consumer applications. Technical, economic and political barriers for bringing this technology to use are examined. |
| Shahid Shah, CEO, and Chief Software Architect of Netspective Corporation, Service Orientation in Modern Software Architectures | Sunday 11:20 AM |
| As our computer and software systems become more and more complex engineers are finding that specialization, standardization, and scalability lessons from the real world of services are more and more applicable to the world of software. Just like entire service industries (like transportation, retail, and telecommunication) cropped up as the business world became more complex, companies that use a service orientation approach in the design and architecture of their computer systems can benefit enormously from specialization. This paper will introduce SOA and take a look at the impact of SOA in various industries. |
| Jonathan Ward, PhD, Project Leader, Nantero, Inc. and Murty Polavarapu, Senior Principal Engineer, BAE Systems, Carbon Nanotube-based Nonvolatile Memory Device for Space Applications | Sunday 2:00 PM |
| There exists a great need for a high density radiation-hard non-volatile random access memory (RH-NVRAM) with performance comparable to that of a Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) and with the non-volatility of an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) for Department of Defense, Space and other national security applications. Current solutions for filling the void are Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM), Magnetic RAM (MRAM) and Chalcogenide RAM (CRAM). None of these technologies has the all of the desired attributes of performance, density, radiation hardness and non-volatility. Nantero’s Nanotube RAM (NRAM™) is a revolutionary memory scheme developed to overcome many of the limitations of current RH-NVRAM. This technology exploits the unique mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes to realize a non-volatile electromechanical memory element. NRAM is also virtually immune to radiation events because of the absence of any charge storage element. The concept of NRAM and its integration into a state of the art CMOS technology will be discussed. |
| Panel Discussion: The University of Maryland Solar Decathlon: Past, Present, and Future | Sunday 2:40 PM |
| Panelists: Harry R. Sauberman, Senior Professional Engineer in FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), Office of Device Evaluation. – Panel Moderator Dan Vlacich Dan Feng Rifat Jafreen |
INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS, NATIONAL CAPITAL CHAPTER/WASHINGTON CHAPTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES
| Meet the Officers and Members of IIE and WINFORMS. | Saturday 9:00AM |
| Richele R. Scuro, P.E., Manager of Process and Methods at the Fredericksburg Distribution Center of CVS Pharmacy, Optimizing System and Operational Capital | Saturday 10:00AM |
| The objective of the presentation is to provide the analytical tools to mechanically and operationally balance distribution-related systems. The presentation will cover details about different designs of merges, curves, turns, belts, and manpower associated with maximizing equipment throughput potential. Speed and spacing at each mechanical point is critical to mechanical operational balancing to optimize a system that requires capital expense. Manpower at input and at output points is also critical to optimizing the system, but does not require capital expense. All points will be discussed in detail with examples.. |
| Richele R. Scuro, P.E., Manager of Process and Methods at the Fredericksburg Distribution Center of CVS Pharmacy, GAP Analysis, The Best Way to Discover Your Own Best Practice | Saturday 11:00AM |
| The objective of the presentation is to provide the analytical tools and subject matter to complete a gap analysis. Gap analyses are used to determine variations between two operations, systems or processes. In this presentation subject details will be discussed from staffing, processes, tools, parameters that should be included in a complete analysis. Also, selecting which operations to compare based on certain criteria will be used. This presentation will benefit engineers, analysts, managers, and others that have similar sites at various performance levels that can not compare to any industry standards. |
| Dr. Russell Vane, Senior Researcher, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Dr. Douglas Griffith, Principal Cognitive Psychologist, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, The Origins of Hypergame Theory: Why Decision Theory and Game Theory Rarely Capture the Actual Decision Problem | Saturday 2:00 PM |
| Hypergame Theory invented in 1979 by Peter G. Bennett is re-emerging as an analytic tool in post-9/11 strategic reasoning. Attendees will receive a brief history and the properties of this theory which promotes thinking about the competitor’s mindset, information, and constraints when generating and choosing options. This work borrows heavily from Dr. Vane’s doctoral dissertation at GMU in Fall 2000. Dr. Griffith will discuss how hypergames could decrease cognitive errors, such as decision-maker “confirmation bias.” |
| Dr. Russell Vane, Senior Researcher, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Dr. Douglas Griffith, Principal Cognitive Psychologist, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, A Step by Step Guide to Hypergame Theory | Saturday 3:00 PM |
| Hypergame theory is discussed as an approach to account for uncertainty, good and bad luck, the possible contexts of competitors, how to collect evidence about competitors, and how to incorporate the inherent fragility or robustness of different options. A stock market example will be explained that considers when to accept or eschew growth oriented portfolios. The advantages and caveats of hypergame theory are revealed. |
| Dr. Russell Vane, Senior Researcher, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Dr. Douglas Griffith, Principal Cognitive Psychologist, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, A Practical Example about Hypergame Theory, Reasoning about New US Policies Concerning Cuba | Sunday 10:00AM |
| Hypergame theory has great power in structuring reasoning about future actions and policies. In this session, attendees are invited to participate in a highly interactive exploration of the Pros, Cons, and Emergent Properties of a Hypothetical Shift in US strategy that involves opening Cuba to US tourist trade, investment and a new era of cooperation; and some potential pitfalls. |
| Dr. Russell Vane, Senior Researcher, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Dr. Douglas Griffith, Principal Cognitive Psychologist, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Hypergame Theory, Participant Practice | Sunday 1100AM |
| Attendees will be challenged to attempt to set up a hypergame to explore their own domains of expertise and to gain hands-on experience about hypergame theory. Participants will receive paper and pencil templates and an excel spreadsheet on CD-ROM that aids the process. Ten doctoral dissertation topics will be revealed in a handout that can be discussed during lunch. |
| Dr. Douglas A. Samuelson, Senior Analyst at the Homeland Security Institute, Arlington, Virginia, President of InfoLogix, Inc., and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the in-coming President of WINFORMS for 2006 and the author of the ORacle column in ORMS Today, The Hyper-Hypergame: Issues in Evidence-Based Evaluation of Social Science | Sunday 2:00PM |
| Advanced social science methods produce models and other analytical structures whose complexity approaches that of the actual systems of interest. For such analyses, traditional methods of validation are often ineffective. Also, in some cases, theoretically sound validation experiments are ethically indefensible. These difficulties force us to reconstitute our methods of assessing model quality, tracing these methods back to philosophical fundamentals. In particular, with reference to examples from current social science, we reexamine such questions as: What is evidence? How compelling is a piece of evidence? How is the value of a piece of evidence affected by context? How do we recognize inappropriate specifications of context and other overly restrictive assumptions? What degree of interaction with a complex system (violating traditional notions of maintaining perpetual separation between observer and observed) is appropriate to understand sufficiently how the system works? What degree of uncertainty must be accepted as intrinsic to the system we observe, and/or to the process of observing it? To what extent can and should we use our understanding of complex social systems to predict how our analyses will be received? Most important, as we move beyond conventional physical science answers to these questions, how do we best advance social science and still maintain scientific objectivity and credibility? |
| Richard Leshuk. Program Manager, IBM Federal Systems (retired), Technology Transfer Society Education Director – USDA Graduate School Course in Technology Transfer, Technology Transfer Trends and Implications | Sunday 3:00PM |
| The pace of technology transfer is clearly increasing. A number of sub trends can be identified, e.g., the advent of business process and software patents, which have implications for the long-term effectiveness of technology transfer. This paper will examine both qualitative and quantitative changes in the flow of innovation into commercialization and will consider the impact likely to evolve |
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH, WASHINGTON SECTION
| Abstracts not yet available | Sunday 10:00AM |
NATIONAL CAPITAL SECTION/OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA & IEEE/LEOS
| Chair: Jim Heaney |
| F.A. Narducci, Naval Air Systems Command, EO Sensors Division, Atom Wave-Guiding using Bi-chromatic Fields | Saturday 9:10AM |
| Under the right conditions, bi-chromatic fields can exert strong dipole forces on neutral atoms. In this paper, we theoretically explore the possibility of atom guiding using bi-chromatic fields, and in particular, fields whose frequency difference is close to the ground state splitting of the atoms being guided. Implications to all-optical guiding experiments and hollow-core fiber being performed at the Naval Air Systems Command will be discussed.. |
| J.P. Davis and F.A. Narducci, Naval Air Systems Command, EO Sensors Division, Effects of Frequency-Chirp in Electro-magnetically induced Transparency | Saturday 9:25AM |
| Electro-magnetically induced transparency (EIT) and coherent population trapping (CPT) are phenomena that have been studied now for quite some time. In contrast to the usual studies based on the steady state solution of the equations of motion, we have simulated more closely a typical experimental arrangement by making the laser detuning a dynamic variable and solving the equations as a function of time. We present our simulations that not only show the expected decrease in the contrast of the EIT and CPT resonances against the Doppler line, but we also found, under certain conditions, an unexpected “ringing” in the EIT and CPT resonances. We demonstrate that this is a curious interplay between the spectrum of the laser fields and the width of the two-photon resonance and not a direct result of quantum coherence. Experimental results will also be presented. |
| Ming-Chiang Li, Spooky Phenomenon Initiated by Two Laser Sources | Saturday 9:45AM |
| Physical process on spooky phenomenon1 initiated by two laser sources was discussed in a Physical Review article more than twenty five years ago. Around 1990, there were very active experimental pursuits on such a spooky phenomenon, initiated by a single laser source with the help of crystal parametric down conversion. This present talk will review the similarity and difference between these two distinct processes. Spooky phenomena form the physical basis for quantum computation and quantum encryption. Experimental investigations on that initiated by two laser sources will lead to better understanding of spooky phenomena, and provide clues for the successes of quantum computation and quantum encryption as well as on high precision measurement of various atomic energy levels. Reference: 1. Ming-Chiang Li, Phys. Rev. A 22 (1980) 1323. |
| Dr. Donald J. Michels, Naval Research Laboratory and the Catholic University of America , Using the Sun to Teach the Teachers | Saturday 10:05AM |
| A new approach to improving the preparation of K-8 teachers for the all-important role of teaching and inspiring the next generation of scientific leaders is under development at the Catholic University of America in Washington. A course specially designed to capture the interest of early-grade teachers and to promote confidence in their ability to teach physical science is now in its third year. Course content is focused on the concept of force fields (gravitational and electromagnetic) and it capitalizes on the current wealth of stunning solar and space imagery to illustrate on astrophysical scales the application of simple concepts taught hands-on in the classroom and laboratory. Students work with elementary hands-on materials as well as with real-time data from operating space missions such as the SOHO and other major space observatories. A poster and slide show presentation of Physics 240 – Sun and Earth: Concepts and Connections will be presented throughout the day (Saturday 3/25) in foyer outside Room 375. |
| Brian Redman; Barry Stann; William Ruff; William Lawler; Mark Giza; Paul Shen; Nuri Emanetoglu; Keith Aliberti; John Dammann;Deborah Simon; and William Potter, Army Research Laboratory, Chirped AM Ladar Development at ARL | Saturday 10:45AM |
| The Army Research Laboratory has developed ladars based on the chirped amplitude modulation (AM) technique. A summary of other ladar techniques is presented first, followed by an explanation of the chirped AM technique. This technique is based on the linear frequency modulation – continuous wave (FM-CW) waveform, which has been employed in radars and coherent ladars for decades. In the chirped AM technique, the linear frequency modulation is applied to the frequency of the amplitude modulation of the transmitted laser power, rather than to the electromagnetic field as in radar and coherent ladar. This enables the ladar to use optical direct detection with coherent mixing in the radio-frequency electronic domain. Unlike optical coherent detection, optical direct detection is easier to scale to large format detector arrays and wide fields-of-view, is unaffected by speckle and turbulence induced phase noise and loss of coherence, is compatible with lower cost broadband laser and LED transmitters, and is much more tolerant of misalignments and platform vibrations. Unlike radar, ladar has excellent spatial resolution for relatively small receiver apertures, and rarely suffers from multi-path interference even in highly cluttered environments. Like radar and coherent ladar, the chirped AM ladar technique enables simultaneous measurement of range, velocity, and vibrations. Unlike pulsed direct detection ladars, the chirped AM technique down-converts the wideband (~GHz) signal necessary for good range resolution to much lower frequencies (<MHz) for compatibility with standard bandwidth readouts. Lastly, 3D imagery, range-Doppler tracking, and ladar vibrometry results from various chirped AM ladar prototypes are presented. |
| Clifford M. Krowne Microwave Technology Branch, Electronics Science & Technology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Negative Refracting, Negative Index, and Left-Handed Materials: Physics, Optics and Electronics | Saturday 11:05AM |
| There has been a tremendous amount of research theoretically, numerically and experimentally into the area of materials and structures which display properties whereby the conventional association of the phase front velocity and power flow of a wave is not what we would regularly find in ordinary materials. Such materials, I will indicate, have been known for quite a while, and their properties are much affected by the boundary conditions of the structures containing them. What is striking, though, is not that there have been indications of such behavior for so long [1], but rather that new technologies allowing micro-fabrication, nanomaterials, and small scale heterostructure layering, are making room for constructing truly artificial multi-dimension materials which have the projection of the phase velocity on the power flow direction being negative. Dramatic effects occur, including subwavelength imaging of waves from the microwave regime to the optical regime in unusually shaped lenses, completely reconfigured electromagnetic fields [2], [3] which are totally unlike anything seen for convention electronic structures made with ordinary materials, and electronic quasi-lumped element circuits which can have new properties including zero electrical length. I will discuss what we have been doing at NRL [4], [5], [6], and finish by suggesting where research and development efforts ought to go next in this broad field. [1] C. M. Krowne, “Left-Handed Materials for Microwave Devices and Circuits,” in Encyclopedia of RF and Microwave Engineering, Wiley, Vol. 3, pp. 2303 – 2320, 2005. [2] C. M. Krowne, IEEE Trans. Microwave Th. Tech. 51, 2269, Dec. 2003. [3] C. M. Krowne, Phys. Rev. Letts. 92, 053901, 3 Feb. 2004. [4] C. M. Krowne, Phys. Rev. Letts. 93, 053902, 30 July 2004. [5] C. M. Krowne, J. Appl. Phys., 15 Feb. 2006. [6] C. M. Krowne, Am. Phys. Soc. Meet., Bull. APS 49, 15 Mar. 2006. |
| H. John Wood and Tammy L. Brown, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, New Developments at NASA’s ISAL | Saturday 11:25AM |
| NASA’s Instrument Synthesis & Analysis Laboratory (ISAL) has developed new processes to provide an instrument study in one “virtual” week. The week-long study is spread out over a period of three weeks to add fidelity to the mechanical model so that structural analysis is possible, and to add confidence to the cost model. By staggering the effort between different engineering disciplines, while still maintaining a collaborative work environment, each engineer still contributes a week of their time to the process to maintain the study costs. The benefits are added value, fidelity, and confidence in the multi-discipline instrument design. |
| Richard B. Gomez, George Mason University, School of Computational Sciences, Self-Adaptive Hyperspectral Application Strategies Using Smart Satellites | Saturday 2:05PM |
| NASA’s Instrument Synthesis & Analysis Laboratory (ISAL) has developed new processes to provide an instrument study in one “virtual” week. The week-long study is spread out over a period of three weeks to add fidelity to the mechanical model so that structural analysis is possible, and to add confidence to the cost model. By staggering the effort between different engineering disciplines, while still maintaining a collaborative work environment, each engineer still contributes a week of their time to the process to maintain the study costs. The benefits are added value, fidelity, and confidence in the multi-discipline instrument design. |
| Dr. John J. Degnan Sigma Space Corporation, Laser Ranging to Satellites, the Moon, and the Planets | Saturday 2:25PM |
| The first successful laser tracking of an artificial satellite carrying an array of passive retroreflectors took place at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD on October 31, 1964. Over the next four decades, international scientists and engineers developed a global network of almost 40 satellite laser ranging (SLR) stations which have provided precision tracking to over 60 international space missions. Over the same period, the ranging precision has improved approximately three orders of magnitude, from a few meters in 1964 to a few millimeters today. The scientific data gleaned from these experiments has contributed immensely, either directly or indirectly, to our understanding of the Earth’s gravity field, plate tectonics, regional crustal deformation, ocean circulation, global warming, etc. In the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the manned US Apollo and unmanned Soviet Lunakhod lunar missions placed a total of five retroreflectors on the Moon. Ranging data from a few select stations (notably in the US and France) to these reflectors has been used by analysts to study Earth-Moon and Solar System dynamics and to provide unique tests of General Relativity. Recent laser ranging experiments to the Messenger and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, carried out in 2005 at distances of 24 and 80 million Km respectively, have demonstrated the ability of lasers to make decimeter or better measurements throughout the inner solar system. Such capabilities have important consequences for interplanetary ranging and time transfer, spacecraft navigation, planetary ephemeredes, solar mass and gravity field studies, more accurate tests of general relativity, asteroid mass distribution, and interplanetary optical communications. |
| Eric P. Shettle and Rangasayi N. Halthore, Naval Research Laboratory, Remote Sensing Division, Lunar Backscattering Measurements of Aerosol Optical Depth at Night | Saturday 2:45PM |
| Previous satellite measurements of the atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) have utilized measurements backscattered sunlight, starting with the AVHRR [Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer] measurements on the NOAA polar-orbiting satellites. The National Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System [NPOESS] currently being developed, will also use backscattered solar radiation with the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite [VIIRS] to measure the AOD. However, the VIIRS instrument also includes a Daytime/Nighttime Visible Imagery band or the Day-Night Band (DNB) which is a broad band channel covering from about 500 to 900 nm, with sufficient dynamic range to provide calibrated cloud imagery from quarter moon to full sunlight. We have used MODTRAN to simulate the lunar radiances scattered by the atmosphere under different conditions and investigate the possibility of using the DNB to provide nighttime measurements of AOD. Preliminary simulations indicate that there is sufficient signal-to-noise to measure the AOD with an uncertainty of ±0.08 to ±0.09 for lunar phase angle of 60 , near nadir, assuming a calibration accuracy of about 10%. The uncertainty increases towards the edge of the across-track scan. This would provide improved temporal information on the aerosol transport or other transient phenomena (such as Land/Sea breeze), due to the twice-a-day revisit frequency, instead of once. These retrievals of AOD would be limited to over the ocean where the surface albedo is small and well known. They could not be extended over vegetated surfaces using the “dark pixel” method, because the DNB includes much of the high reflectance in the near-IR due to vegetation. This means that the contribution to the at-sensor radiances reflected by the vegetated surface would be much larger and more poorly known than that due to the ocean surface so that the uncertainties in the surface contribution could be greater than the magnitude of the radiances backscattered by the atmospheric aerosols. The presence of the aurora could mask any aerosol signal. |
| A. N. Chryssis; C. Stanford; Jui Hee; Prof. W. E. Bentley; Prof. P. DeShong; S. S. Saini; S. M. Lee and Prof. M. Dagenais, University of Maryland, College Park, High Sensitivity Bio-Sensor Based on Etched Fiber Bragg Grating | Saturday 3:05PM |
| We have developed a high sensitivity chem/bio sensor based on an etched fiber Bragg grating. This sensor permits the precise measurement of the index of refraction of liquids. The sensor is based on the evanescent wave interaction of the etched fiber core with the surrounding environment. A high index resolution of 7.2 x 10-6 was achieved by monitoring the wavelength shift of the Bragg grating peak. Still, the performance can be significantly enhanced by utilizing the third order propagation modes in the fiber which are more than 3 times more sensitive to index changes, and can provide us with measurements robust to temperature and stress. The sensor surface can be functionalized with single strand DNA (20-oligomer) and the complementary strand has been successfully detected. The attachment of protein molecules (Con-A) to a functionalized surface using glucose is also currently under investigation and will be described. |
| Vincent T. Bly and Maria D. Nowak NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Single Crystal Silicon Instrument Mirrors | Saturday 3:25PM |
| We describe a process for fabricating light weight mirrors from single crystal silicon. We also report ambient and cryogenic test results on a variety of mirrors made by this process. Each mirror is a monolithic structure from a single crystal of silicon. Mirrors typically weigh 1/3rd to 1/6th that of an equal diameter solid quartz mirror. We avoid print through of the underlying support structure by light weighting after the optical surface has been formed. Because of the extraordinary homogeneity of single crystal silicon, distortion of the optical surface by the light weighting process is negligible for most applications (<1/40th wave RMS @ 633nm). This homogeneity also accounts for the near zero distortion at cryogenic temperatures. |
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)
| Carl J. Williams, Chief Atomic Physics Division, NIST, An Introduction to Quantum Information Science and Its Future Technological Implications | Sunday 2:00PM |
| Quantum information science is described as a revolutionary development that has the potential of impacting the 21st century in a manner similar to what the laser and transistor had in the 20th century. How much of this is hype and why should one think that this might be a possibility? This talk will give a brief introduction into quantum information and its potential for affecting technology and innovation in the 21st century. I will try and give an argument of why such radical statements might be true and how difficult achieving them might be. After explaining why one might expect that quantum information could be revolutionary and describing some of its better known impacts I will provide a brief introduction to quantum information. This will be followed by a high level overview of the Quantum Information Program at NIST. The remainder of the session will focus on two of the major applications – quantum communication and quantum computing. |
| J. Bienfang; D. Rogers, X. Tang; L. Ma, A. Mink; A. Nakassis; B. Hershman; D. S. Su; C. J. Williams; and C. W. Clark, Quantum Communications Systems* | Sunday 2:40PM |
| The application of quantum mechanics to information technology has resulted in devices with capabilities not available by classical means. In particular, recent research in quantum communications has focused on the development of cryptographic systems that provide verifiable security over unsecured communications channels. Such systems exploit the unique laws governing quantum-state measurement to give users sensitivity to the actions of an eavesdropper, resulting in the equivalent of a natural wax seal on the channel. The revolutionary aspect of this technology is that its security is based on the laws of physics, as opposed to computational complexity and attendant assumptions about an adversary’s technological ability. While quantum cryptography addresses a real problem in communications networks, it has also served as a vehicle for the development of techniques in quantum engineering and device physics, particularly single photon sources, detectors, and the design of systems based on manipulating quantum states. This talk will present an overview of the physics upon which this technology is based, as well as a survey of the state of the art in quantum cryptographic systems. * Work supported by DARPA/QuIST and NIST. |
| D. Leibfried, J. Britton; R. B. Blakestad; R. Epstein; W. M. Itano; J. D. Jost; E. Knill; C. Langer; R. Ozeri; R. Reichle+; S. Seidelin, J. Wesenberg, and D. J. Wineland National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado, Quantum Information Processing in a System of Trapped Ions* | Sunday 3:20PM |
| Recent theoretical advances have identified several computational algorithms that can be implemented on a system utilizing quantum information processing (QIP) with an exponential speedup over all known algorithms on conventional computers. QIP makes use of the counter-intuitive properties of quantum mechanics, like entanglement and the superposition principle (being in more states than one at a time). Unfortunately nobody has been able to build a practical QIP system that outperforms conventional computers so far. Atomic ions confined in an array of interconnected traps represent a potentially scalable approach to QIP All basic requirements have been experimentally demonstrated in one and two qubit experiments. The remaining task is to scale the system to hundreds and later thousands of qubits while minimizing and correcting errors in the system. While this requires extremely challenging technological improvements, no fundamental roadblocks are currently foreseen. The talk will give a survey of recent progress in implementing simple quantum algorithms with up to six ions in trap arrays. The prospects and challenges of scaling this particular approach towards a large scale computing device will also be summarized. * Work supported by ARDA/NSA and NIST. + present address: University of Ulm, Germany |
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF)
| The National Science Foundation workshops will provide an overview of the Foundation, its mission, priorities, and budget.It will cover the NSF proposal and merit review process and NSF programs that cut across disciplines. On Saturday, George Wilson, Legislative Specialist from the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs will join David Friscic of the Office of Polar Programs in the morning and Almadena Chtechelkanova (Program Director, Communications and Communications Foundations) in the afternoon. Dr. Chtechelkanova will give short presentation and highlight NSF role in High End Computing Interagency Task Force initiative. On Sunday morning Anita Klein will discuss the Directorate for Biological Sciences and Cross-Cutting Programs and Sunday afternoon Julias Palais, of the Office of Polar Programs will be available for discussions. | Saturday 10AM-noon and 2:00PM-4:00PM
Sunday 10AM-noon and 2:00PM-4:00PM |
NORTHERN VIRGINIA REGIONAL PARK AUTHORITY
| Martin Ogle, Chief Naturalist, NVRPA, Gaia Theory; The Fullest Expression of Earth Science | Sunday 2:00PM |
| This paper introduces the Gaia Theory, a compelling scientific context for understanding life on our planet. The theory asserts that the organic and inorganic components of Earth form a seamless continuum – a single, self-regulating, living system. British scientist, James Lovelock, who was commissioned by NASA to determine whether or not there was life on Mars, developed the Gaia Theory in the 1970’s. Ironically, this theory has yielded some of the most “cutting edge” insights into life on Planet Earth. For example, Lovelock found ways in which the Gaian system regulates surface temperature, ocean salinity, and other conditions at levels necessary for life to survive. This paper includes discussion about the value of the Gaia Theory for science and society. |
| William Folsom, William B. Folsom Photography Inc.,The Butterflies at Meadowlark | Sunday 3:00PM |
| Native host plants played a crucial role in Meadowlark Botanical Garden’s extraordinary success in attracting native butterflies to the Garden at a time when many butterfly populations have drastically diminished. Thanks to the creation of the Potomac Valley collection, and its philosophy, many native plants have been reintroduced at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. This has allowed the number of native butterflies seen at the Gardens to double in the past five years. |
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
| Robert Hershey, Energy Trade-Offs | Sunday 10:00AM |
| Energy choices involve trade-offs. The costs and availability of energy sources must be considered, as well as the environmental effects. Generally, these factors will be site-specific to the area being served. This lecture will address these issues in relation to a project the author analyzed in the Czech Republic. Various scenarios were considered for heating the town of Cesky Krumlov, 90 miles south of Prague. Based on the trade-offs, an economical method was chosen to provide heating for the buildings while achieving a significant reduction in particulate emissions. |
| Kenneth J. Haapala, Provost General, Northeast, Brotherhood of the Knights of the Vine, Adding a Bit of Scientific Rigor to the Art of Finding and Appreciating Fine Wine by | Sunday 1100AM |
| The murky history, local traditions, customs of wine making, and the lineage of vines and wines often confuse those who appreciate wines. One wine variety may have many different names. Conversely, the name of a wine may be the same in several locations, but the wine and vine may be totally different. A history of viniculture and why it is so convoluted are briefly discussed. The fickle characteristics of the vines explored; the diseases that almost destroyed the industry explained; several common misconceptions dismissed; and 20th Century efforts to rigorously identify vines and wines are briefly discussed. Rigorous efforts to understand the innumerable sensations of appreciating wines will be presented. Three individual experiments to better understand one=s palate and food and wine combinations will be described. |
POTOMAC CHAPTER OF THE HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY – Medical Errors: Reducing Risk and Enhancing Safety
| Session Chairman: Doug Griffith, PhD, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Introduction | Saturday 9:00AM |
| Colin F. Mackenzie, MD., National Study Center for Trauma & EMS, Videos of Emergency Care Show Challenges for Patient Safety | Saturday 9:10AM |
| Traditional data collection methodologies have difficulty capturing fleeting events, subtle cues, brief utterances or team interactions and communications. There is a paucity of data about what occurs in uncertain emergency medicine workplaces, where risky but beneficial procedures are carried out, often in non- optimal circumstances. Such data may be critical to identification of what are often identified as unsafe acts, pre-cursor events, accident opportunities, latent and systems failures. This presentation will illustrate how patient safety shortcomings in the emergency medical domain can be identified, and potentially rectified through a video-based data collection, analysis, and educational feedback approach. Preventive strategies will be discussed to avoid patient and clinician safety performance problems that could only have been revealed using this robust, inexpensive technology through which fine-grained data analyses are possible. This approach for improving patient care outcomes in healthcare, used in a systematic manner can identify many deficiencies in knowledge about pre-cursor events, error opportunities and provide solutions for correction of deficiencies. Video clips will be presented from our extensive video library and 11-year experience of video data collection and analysis methodologies for emergency care of trauma patients. We will characterize the challenges in identification of safety, organizational, and systems-based problems in technical work in emergency care, using human factors and ergonomic methods. We will describe a multidisciplinary approach that includes experienced trauma clinicians, experts in industrial engineering, psychology and applied technology. |
| Marilyn Sue Bogner, PhD., Institute for the Study of Human Error, LLC, It’s Not Who in 98,000 Medical Error Deaths, It’s What! | Saturday 10:00AM |
| In 1999 the Institute of Medicine reported that 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized patients die annually due to medical error. Following recommendations in that report, Congress appropriated funds for research on provider accountability to reduce the incidence of error by 50% in 5 years. The products from that $250 million of research are characterized “Efforts to attain the 50% reduction in error not only did not meet that goal, the impact of those efforts on error is negligible.” That should not have been a surprise if one considers what error is. Given that error is behavior, and behavior – as attested by centuries of empirical literature in the physical and social sciences as well as millennia of philosophical writings – be it person or particle is the product of the interaction of the individual entity with factors in the environment. An empirically-based approach to address such environmental factors, the Artichoke systems approach, is described. Cases illustrating the power of the Artichoke approach in reducing error and examples of actual error-inducing factors in today’s health care are discussed. Implications for changing the paradigm for addressing health care error from “who” to “what” are underscored. |
| Gerald P. Krueger, Ph.D., CPE Krueger Ergonomics Consultants Alexandria, Virginia, Fatigue, Drowsy Decision-Making and Medical Error: Issues of Quality Health Care | Saturday 11:00AM |
| Health care providers must give careful attention to important life-sustaining details, such as monitoring critical vital signs of patients in emergency or intensive care; or in diagnosing ailments; administering correct levels of anesthetic gases to prepare a patient for surgery; or while dispensing proper levels of prescribed medications. Like other workers, health-care providers are affected by physiological, psychological and behavioral variables associated with their jobs and their particular lifestyles. Often, interns, residents, nurses, and other critical care providers obtain insufficient quantity and quality of sleep; they participate in lengthy work shifts in excess of 10-hours; they engage in overtime work, work through the night, or serve on-call at the hospital in excess of 24-hours at a stretch. Worker fatigue creeps in, drowsiness occurs, performance degrades, mood and attitudes swing to lower levels; and from time-to-time these health care providers approach critical care decision-making and the administration of medical care while they are at less than 100% effectiveness due to the effects of fatigue. This talk will outline some of the quality of health care issues pertaining to the impact of different shiftwork schedules, the lengthy hours of work associated with internship or residency training, around-the-clock nursing care, the effects of circadian rhythms and physiology, sleep loss, and fatigue. It will address performance expectations of health care providers who are expected to maintain continuously high levels of attention in sustained monitoring of patients; the likelihood of fatigue-related error, and other safety aspects of providing institutional health-care services. |
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING APPRENTICE PROGRAM, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
| Cycle Hawkins. Mentors: Dr. Margery Anderson, Mr Walter Bryant, Dr. Jose Hernandez-Rebollar School: School Without Walls Senior High School Automated Wi-Fi Decryption Device | Sunday 9:00AM |
| In analyzing wireless networks, it is not only possible to break the encryption of the wireless network in the most common forms it is formulaic. Wired equivalent privacy (WEP) along with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) slated to replace WEP transmit the keys to both of these standards within a large percentage of the transmitted packets. Designing a piece of networking equipment using off-the-shelf components and commonly available software, to increase the ease of constructing the piece, is no easy task. Thus, the piece of equipment had to use modular components such as Wi-Fi radios, commonly found in Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) cards or Mini-PCI cards, as well as Compact Flash memory cards to store information and the instruction sets on a non-mechanical medium. The end user of the device has access to the device through Secure Shell (SSH) via Ethernet and Serial Ports, LCD and push buttons mounted on to the front case of the device. The minimum requirements to run a full desktop operating system such as Microsoft Windows 2000 are met, however due to the headless nature of the device the device runs an embedded derivative of the Linux 2.4 kernel, which also allows for a more secure device. In order to maintain the mobility and usability of the device the device implores both an AC adapter and a battery interface. With additional work on the firmware of the device, the overall user interface the device and shrinking and automating the decryption applications, the device is feasibly completed. |
| Bhuvanesh Govind. Mentor: Dr. Madhusoodana Nambiar School: Thomas S. Wootton Demonstration of Airway Absorption as an Important Route of Exposure to Nerve Agents in Addition to Alveolar Gas Exchange Following Inhalation Poisoning in Guinea Pigs | Sunday 10:00AM |
| Inhalation is a common route of exposure to toxic nerve agents such as soman and VX. Previous studies of inhalation exposure to soman vapors indicated non-linear kinetics with respect to dose and time. We have developed a microinstillation technique in guinea pigs to assess lung injury following VX exposure. During VX exposure (0.5 – 0.9 LD50), some animals exhibited twitching of the upper limb but no twitching of the lower limb was observed. This indicates a site-specific increased localization of the nerve agent specifically at the airway and thoracic region. To further elucidate differential localization of the nerve agent following inhalation exposure, we determined the level of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition in various tissues, including samples close to the lung (diaphragm, chest muscle, esophagus, heart), intermediate (spleen, liver, intestine) and distant (thigh, muscle, kidney, testis). In diaphragm, nearly 50% inhibition of AChE was observed at 0.5 LD50 and the inhibition gradually increasing with the dose of VX. However, thigh tissue showed no significant inhibition of the AChE compared to untreated animals. These results suggest that VX is absorbed from the airway and the lung microcapillary and is transmitted to surrounding tissues. Thus inhalation exposure to VX is localized to tissues surrounding the lung region. Site-specific localization of VX supports the notion of airway absorption in addition to alveolar gas exchange as an important route of nerve agent exposure. |
| Student: Erica Price Mentor: Dr. Sachin Mani School: Rutgers University The Role of RNA quality in the identification of gene markers in Staphylococcal enterotoxin-A (SEA) induced incapacitation | Sunday 11:00AM |
| Staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) is a protein superantigen produced by Staphylococcus aureus. SEA causes food poisoning i.e., when ingested, it results in profuse vomiting, spurting diarrhea, severe dehydration and in grave cases, lethal toxic shock. Contamination of food with SEA is a serious health issue because it can incapacitate large numbers of people in a short amount of time and the likelihood of a successful recovery is reduced depending on the length of exposure without diagnosis and treatment. In this experiment blood from a SEA intoxication model is used to isolate RNA using the PAXgene RNA isolation method. It is important to have a good quality of RNA to determine the genes that are specific to SEA exposure. These genes or biomarkers act as molecular targets for developing targeted therapy against SEA. After isolation, the quality of RNA is confirmed using native gel electrophoresis and the Agilent 6000 system. Both these tools have demonstrated that the PAXgene RNA isolation method produces good quality RNA which can be utilized to identify |
SOCIETY FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
| Curtis R. Chong; Xiaochun Chen; LiRong Shi; Jun O. Liu; and David J. Sullivan, Jr., Department of Pharmacology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Identification of Astemizole as an Antimalarial Agent by Screening a Clinical Drug Library | Saturday 9:00 |
| The high cost and protracted timeline of new drug discovery is a major roadblock to creating therapies for diseases common in the developing world. One way to sidestep this barrier is to identify new uses for existing drugs. Because the toxicity and clinical properties of existing drugs are known, any novel therapeutic use identified can be rapidly translated into the clinic. We created and screened a library of 2,687 existing drugs for inhibitors of the human malaria parasite P. falciparum using [3H]-hypoxanthine incorporation. The non-sedating antihistamine astemizole and its principal human metabolite desmethylastemizole potently inhibit chloroquine-sensitive and multidrug-resistant parasite in vitro and in three mouse models of malaria. Like the quinoline antimalarials, astemizole inhibits heme crystallization, concentrates within the P. falciparum food vacuole, and co-purifies with hemozoin from chloroquinesensitive and multidrug-resistant parasites. Importantly, astemizole is equally effective against multidrug-resistant P. falciparum. In mice infected with chloroquine-resistant P. yoelii astemizole and desmethylastemizole reduced parasitemia with an apparent IC50 of 15 mg/m2, which is near the dose used to treat allergic rhinitis. These results suggest astemizole is promising for the treatment of malaria, and highlight the potential of finding new treatments for diseases of the developing world by screening libraries of existing drugs. |
| Ion Cotarla and Michael Johnson, Oncology, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown Univ.; Ji Luo and Lewis Cantley,Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School; and Priscilla A. Furth, Oncology, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown Univ., Loss of Both Allelleles of the P85Alpha Regulatory Subunit of P13 Kinase Results in Impaired Mammary Gland Development, Whereas Loss of Only One Does Not Alter Mammary Tomorigenesis | Saturday 9:15AM |
| Activation of PI3 kinase (PI3K) pathways contributes in many organs to both normal physiology and complex process of tumorigenesis through a plethora of pathway-specific functions. In this study, a genetic approach using knockout mice was taken to investigate the effects of loss of PI3K activity on mammary gland development and tumorigenesis. First, mammary development was examined through mammary gland transplantation, as Pik3r1-/- mice (which lack all isoforms of the p85alpha regulatory subunit of PI3K) die perinatally. Ultrasound and GFP imaging (actin-GFP transgenic mice were bred into Pik3r1 mice), histology and molecular analyses were employed to assess the development and terminal differentiation of the mammary gland. Endogenous mammary gland development was normal in Pik3r1+/- mice through terminal differentiation and lactation, and in Pik3r1-/- mice through embryogenesis and first postnatal week. Nonetheless, mammary glands from newborn Pik3r1-/- mice grown as transplants, either in cleared mammary fat pads or mid-abdominal regions of host nude mice, showed marked underdevelopment during puberty in comparison to Pik3r1+/+ or Pik3r1+/- transplants. Mammary whole-mount analysis using MetaMorph® software demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in mammary epithelial density of Pik3r1-/- transplants compared to Pik3r1+/+ and Pik3r1+/- transplants (reduced total ductal length: p=0.01, and reduced ductal branching: p<0.001). Decreased rates of proliferation, but not apoptosis found in Pik3r1-/- mammary transplants may explain this phenotype. Interestingly, Pik3r1-/- mammary transplants were able to terminally differentiate during late pregnancy. This was indicated by the presence of lipid vacuoles inside the epithelial cells on H&E-stained sections, and expression of molecular markers, such as phosphorylated-Stat5 or milk proteins WAP and beta-casein, detected by Western blotting. Mammary epithelial density, measured on H&E-stained sections using MetaMorph®, remained however reduced in Pik3r1-/- transplants at late pregnancy, although the difference between the two groups was not as obvious as at puberty. Statistically significant decreases in E-cadherin and p63 (myoepithelial marker) mRNA expression, measured by real time RT-PCR, confirmed the decreased epithelial content of Pik3r1-/- transplants. Brca1, and to lesser extent ERalpha and Bcl-2 mRNA levels were statistically significant reduced in Pik3r1-/- transplants compared to the other group. No change in PR and Cyclin D1 mRNA expression or phosphorylation levels of Akt was found. Second, the impact of haploid loss of Pik3r1 locus on mammary tumorigenesis was explored in a mouse model of breast cancer (WAP-TAg). Reflectance confocal microscopy, GFP imaging and H&E-stained sections were employed to visualize and analyze the tumors. Haploid deficiency of Pik3r1 did not alter the onset of mammary tumorigenesis (WAP-TAg, Pik3r+/+ = 208.5 days; WAP-TAg, Pik3r1+/- = 204 days; n=24). Also, haploid deficiency of Pik3r1 did not alter mammary tumor burden or tumor grading in the WAP-TAg model (p>0.05). In summary, complete loss of the p85alpha regulatory subunit of PI3 kinase resulted in impaired mammary gland development, especially during puberty, and reduced Brca1 expression during late lactation. Haploid deficiency of Pik3r1 did not alter mammary tumorigenesis in a mouse model of breast cancer. |
| N. Farkas; R. Aryal; E. A. Evans; and R. D. Ramsier, Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron; L. V. Ileva and S. T. Fricke Department of Neuroscience Georgetown Univ.; J. A. Dagata, Precision Engineering Division National Institute of Standards and Technology, Patterned Iron Thin Film and Microfluidic Phantoms for Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging | Saturday 9:30AM |
| Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies often use magnetic particles as contrast agents to identify and monitor cell movement. Although most of this research demonstrates imaging of groups of labeled cells, a growing number of articles report the detection of single cells and even single superparamagnetic iron oxide particles. However, since the size and iron content of these particles exhibit large variations, quantitative assessment of MRI sensitivity and resolution is difficult, and few attempts have been made to investigate the correlation between signal attenuation and iron concentration. To address these unavoidable issues, our ultimate goal is to design and construct MRI standards for instrument calibration. The first group of phantoms consists of systematically patterned iron nitride thin films generated by a high-voltage parallel writing technique we developed recently to modify refractory metal thin films. The volume of the iron nitride features can be precisely controlled during the intrinsically simple fabrication, which provides a means to correlate iron content with the resulting MRI signal decrease and to determine detection threshold limits as well. The next phantom design includes irregular iron patches forming clusters of different sizes that resemble labeled cells or iron oxide particles with respect to agglomeration and iron distribution. Magnetic force microscope characterization confirms the permanent magnetic nature of all the iron thin film phantoms. As an integral part of the systematic calibration procedure, quantification of magnetic susceptibility artifacts from these iron patterns is obtained over a broad iron content range of 100 pg-0.01 mg. We show that the proposed synthetic ferromagnetic phantoms could facilitate standardization and development of new MRI protocols to advance single cell detection and tracking. To extend our efforts toward establishing accurate spatial resolution and sensitivity measurements of various solution-phase MRI contrast agents, we make use of microfluidic devices as high-resolution MRI phantoms. Continuous wedge and step phantoms with bifurcating 300-800 micron wide channels machined into Plexiglas and sealed with PVC gaskets have been designed for instrument calibration at the micrometer scale. To demonstrate that these microfluidic devices provide a convenient way to administer different contrast agents in-situ, MR imaging of laminar-flow-induced diffusion of positive and negative contrast agents is presented. Since the manufacturing processes described here do not require complicated instrumentation, they promote rapid prototype production and subsequent MRI testing. |
| Curtis R. Chong; David Z. Qian; Fan Pan; Roberto Pili; David J. Sullivan; Jr.; and Jun O. Liu, Department of Pharmacology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Identification of Type I Inosene Monophosphate Dehydrogenase as an Antiangiogenic Drug Target | Saturday 9:45AM |
| Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, plays a central role in the pathophysiology of diseases such as metastatic cancer and diabetic retinopathy. In an effort to rapidly discover clinically useful angiogenesis inhibitors, we created and screened a library of 2,687 existing drugs for inhibition of endothelial cell proliferation using [3H]-thymidine incorporation. Because the toxicity, pharmacokinetic, and clinical profiles of existing drugs are well established, novel hits identified in the library can rapidly be moved into the clinic. Mycophenolic acid (MPA), an immunosuppressive drug, inhibits endothelial cell proliferation with an IC50 of 100 nM and causes G1/S cell cycle arrest. In mouse models, MPA inhibited VEGF and bFGF stimulated angiogenesis, blocked tumorassociated angiogenesis, and decreased tumor volume and metastasis. Inhibition and cell cycle arrest are overcome by addition of guanosine, suggesting the de novo nucleotide synthesis pathway, and more specifically, inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), as the target of MPA in endothelial cells. As MPA is equally potent against the two known IMPDH isoforms, we selectively knocked down IMPDH-1 or IMPDH-2 using siRNA to determine which is essential for cell cycle progression. Knockdown of IMPDH-1 in endothelial cells caused cell cycle arrest similar to that observed with MPA treatment, while IMPDH-2 knockdown had no effect. In contrast, knockdown of IMPDH-2 in T-cells caused cell cycle arrest while IMPDH-1 siRNA treatment had no effect. These results suggest MPA may be useful as an anti-angiogenic drug, and that IMPDH-1 specific inhibitors could block angiogenesis without causing immunosuppressive side-effects. |
| Joe Garman and Alexis Dixon, Department of Medicine, Georgetown Univ. and Christine Maric, Department of Medicine and Center for the Study of Sex Differences: in Health, Aging and Disease, Georgetown University Medical Center, Protective effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in an Animal Model of Diabetic Nephropathy | Saturday 10:30AM |
| Background: Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to have beneficial cardiovascular effects; however, their effects on kidney function, especially in diseases such as diabetic nephropathy, are unknown. Objectives: Walnuts are high in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. This study examined the effects of walnuts, as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, on the kidney in an animal model of diabetic nephropathy. Methods: The study was performed in non-diabetic and diabetic (induced by streptozotocin – STZ, 55mg/kg) male Sprague-Dawley rats fed either a normal diet or walnut supplemented diet. The diabetic rats were treated with 4 Units of slow acting insulin (glargine) 3 times per week to maintain body weight and prevent ketoacidosis. For the duration of the experiment, animals were fed sodium deficient rat chow (Harlan 90228), either with added walnuts (W diet, 40% of calories) or without walnuts (R, regular diet). Both diets were supplemented with salt to provide approximately 20mg Na+/rat daily. Food consumption was monitored daily, body weights and plasma glucose levels were measured weekly, and urine production and albumin content were measured monthly. Results: After 10 weeks of diabetes, body weights for the diabetic rats on the walnut diet, STZ-W, were significantly greater than the diabetic rats on the regular diet, STZ-R, (382 +/- 28 vs. 281 +/- 26g). There was no difference in body weight between non-diabetic rats fed the regular or walnut-supplemented diet. Blood glucose levels were lower in the STZ-W group vs. STZ-R (296.0 +/- 9.2 vs 363.3 +/- 70.3 mg/dl, at 10 weeks). The urine albumin excretion rate was lower in the STZ-W vs. STZ-R (15.3 +/- 17.0 vs 38.2 +/- 11.1 mg/day). No difference in albumin excretion rates were observed in the non-diabetic rats fed either diet. Conclusion: STZ induced diabetic rats maintain greater body weight, lower plasma glucose, and less albuminuria when fed a diet containing walnuts compared to diabetic rats on a regular diet. We conclude that a diet supplemented with walnuts, as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, is beneficial in attenuating renal dysfunction associated with early diabetes. |
| Alexis Jeannotte, Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience and Anita Sidhu, Dept. of Biochemistry, Georgetown Univ., The Norepinephrine Transporter is Bimodally Regulated in Vitro and Ex Vivo by Alpha-Synuclein | Saturday 10:45AM |
| Plasma membrane Norepinphrine transporters (NET) are the primary source for terminating noradrenergic synaptic transmission and are targeted by several therapeutic agents for cognitive, affective, and motor disorders. Several proteins act in concert to regulate the function and trafficking of NET; however, a definitive mechanism has yet to be defined. A novel interaction with the cytosolic protein a-synuclein (SYN) has been identified to modulate NET activity in a concentration dependent manner. SYN was found to inhibit [3H]-NE uptake by 58% in Ltkfibroblasts cotransfected with a 3:1 ratio of SYN: NET DNA, which mimics the expression level in several brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a major destination of noradrenergic terminals. When these cells were cotransfected with 0.5:1 ratio of SYN: NET, [3H]-NE uptake was found to be increased by 48%, representing a change that is novel to NET, unseen in other transporters. This bimodal regulation of NET was dependent upon the integrity of the microtubular network. In synaptosomes isolated from PFC and treated with nocodazole, which disrupts mictrotubules dynamics, there was a relief in the tonic inhibition of NET resulting in increased [3H]-NE uptake. In contrast, there was no significant difference in striatal synaptosomal uptake. Primary neuronal cultures isolated from the rat brainstem at E20, displayed a similar trend for an increase in [3H]-NE uptake with nocodazole treatment. This novel bimodal regulation of NET indicates that the transporter is under differential regulation by SYN, both in vitro and from tissue and neurons isolated from varying brain regions. |
| Curtis R. Chong and David J. Sullivan, Jr., The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthInhibition Of Heme Crystal Growth By Antimalarials And Other Compounds: Implications For Drug Discovery | Saturday 11:00AM |
| During intraerythrocytic infection, Plasmodium falciparum parasites crystallize toxic heme (FP) released during hemoglobin catabolism. The proposed mechanism of quinoline inhibition of crystal growth is either by a surface binding or a substrate sequestration mechanism. The kinetics of heme crystal growth was examined using a new highthroughput crystal growth determination assay based on the differential solubility of free versus crystalline FP in basic solutions. Chloroquine (IC50 = 4.3 uM) and quinidine (IC50 = 1.5 uM) showed a previously not recognized reversible inhibition of FP crystal growth. This inhibition decreased by increasing amounts of heme crystal seed, but not by greater amounts of FP substrate. Crystal growth decreases as pH rises from 4.0-6.0, except for a partial local maxima reversal from pH 5.0-5.5 that coincides with increased FP solubility. The new crystal growth determination assay enabled a partial screen of existing clinical drugs. Nitrogen heterocycle cytochrome P450 (CYP) inhibitors also reversibly blocked FP crystal growth, including the azole antifungal drugs clotrimazole (IC50 = 12.9 uM), econazole (IC50 = 19.7 uM), ketoconazole (IC50 = 6.5 uM), and miconazole (IC50 = 21.4 uM). Fluconazole did not inhibit. Both subcellular fractionation of parasites treated with subinhibitory concentrations of ketoconazole and in vitro hemozoin growth assays demonstrated copurification of hemozoin and ketoconazole. The chemical diversity of existing CYP inhibitor libraries that bind FP presents new opportunities for the discovery of antimalarial drugs that block FP crystal growth by a surface binding mechanism and possibly interfere with other FP-sensitive Plasmodium pathways. |
| Arindam Mitra and Suman Mukhopadhyay VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Maryland, Multiple Regulators Modulate Quorum Sensing In E. Coli | Saturday 11:15AM |
| Cell-cell communication requires incorporation of multiple cues from the environment. Quorum sensing, a process of cell-cell communication is mediated through the production and recognition of extracellularly secreted molecules called autoinducers (AI) that accumulate in the environment in proportion to cell density. E. coli is known to synthesize a signal termed autoinducer-2 (AI-2), synthesis of which is known to be dependent on luxS gene products. This study showed that a single-copy chromosomal luxS-lacZ reporter fusion was regulated by the BarA-UvrY two-component system and other regulators. CsrA, the global regulatory RNA binding protein, negatively regulated luxS expression, and positively regulated AI-2 uptake, demonstrating the existence of a balance between the synthesis and transport. Hfq, another RNA binding protein, also regulates luxS expression in a growth-dependent manner. RpoS, the stationary phase sigma factor, also regulated the growth phase-dependent expression of luxS. Furthermore, we also show that known cyclic AMP-CRP-mediated catabolite repression of luxS expression was UvrY-dependent. These findings suggest that the regulation of luxS expression is complex, and operates at the level of both transcription and translation. Thus multiple metabolic regulators seem to modulate quorum sensing in E. coli. . |
| Phillip L. Van, MS; Vladimir K. Bakalov, MD; and Carolyn A. Bondy, MD Developmental Endocrinology Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Monosomy For The X-Chromosome Is Associated With An Atherogenic Lipid Profile | Saturday 11:30AM |
| Background Differential X-chromosome gene dosage may contribute to gender-specific differences in physiology and longevity. Men typically have a more atherogenic lipid profile than women characterized by higher LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride levels and reduced lipid particle size, contributing to a greater risk for coronary disease. To determine if X-chromosomal gene dosage affects lipid metabolism independent of sex steroid effects, we compared lipid profiles in ageand body mass-matched young women with ovarian failure, differing only in X-chromosome dosage. Methods Women with ovarian failure associated with monosomy X, or Turner syndrome (TS, n = 118) were compared to women with karyotypically-normal, premature ovarian failure (POF, n = 51). These women were normally on estrogen replacement treatment, but discontinued the estrogen two weeks prior to study. We examined fasting glucose, insulin and lipid levels, and NMR lipid profiles in study subjects at the NIH CRC. Results Average age, body mass, and insulin sensitivity were similar in the two groups. Women with TS had higher LDL-cholesterol (P = 0.001) and triglyceride levels (P = 0.0005), with total cholesterol slightly higher (P = 0.06) and HDL-cholesterol slightly lower (P = 0.1) compared to women with 46,XX POF. Also among women with TS, average LDL particle size was reduced (P < 0.0001) and LDL particle number increased, with a two-fold increase in the smallest particle categories (P < 0.0001). Conclusions 45,X women with ovarian failure exhibit a distinctly more atherogenic lipid profile than 46,XX women with ovarian failure, independent of sex steroid effects. The observation, that the direction and magnitude of the differences in lipid levels and lipid particle characteristics between TS and POF parallel the differences seen between normal men and women, is consistent with the view that the second X-chromosome normally contributes to a reduced risk for ischemic heart disease in women. |
| Curtis R. Chong, Shri Bhat, KeeChung Han, and Jun O. Liu, Department of Pharmacology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Manganese-Specific Methionine Aminopeptidase Type II Inhibitors Induce Cell Cycle Arrest In Endothelial Cells And Block In Vivo Angiogenesis | Saturday 11:45AM |
| Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, plays an important role in the pathogenesis of numerous diseases such as cancer and arthritis. TNP-470, the first anti-angiogenic drug, halts endothelial cell proliferation by covalently inactivating the MetAP2 enzyme, effectively blocks tumor growth and metastasis in animal models, and showed promise in preliminary clinical trials. Its widespread use as an anticancer agent is limited, however, by neurotoxic side effects and a plasma half-life measured in minutes. In an effort to identify potent inhibitors of MetAP2 as antiangiogenic drug leads we screened a library of 270,000 compounds for inhibitors of this enzyme. A preliminary screen of 70,000 compounds against cobalt-substituted MetAP2 revealed nanomolar inhibitors which lacked activity against endothelial cell proliferation. Repeating the screen using the entire library with manganese-substituted MetAP2 identified the quinolinol and quinolinyl carbamate class as potent and selective inhibitors over cobalt-substituted enzyme and MetAP1 that also inhibited endothelial cell proliferation. The most potent hits, JHU-1b and 4c, induced G1/S phase cell cycle arrest in endothelial cells, activated p21 transcription, and inhibited bFGF and VEGF induced angiogenesis in the mouse Matrigel model. |
| Greater Baltimore-Washington Graduate Student Research Forum Awards Ceremony | Saturday 2:00PM |
SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION SOCIETY
| Peter Hildebrand, Chief, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory,Global Water Cycle: Floods, Droughts and Water Resources | Sunday 10:00 |
| The presentation addresses how NASA’s unique capabilities and new measurements are helping to advance hydrologic science and applications world-wide, tying together Earth’s lands, oceans, and atmosphere. The presentation will include changes in the global water cycle and precipitation distribution. |
| Robert Bindschadler, Chief Scientist, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory and NASA’s lead scientist for the International Polar Year, 2007-2008 Who Left the Freezer Door Open? | Sunday 10:00 |
| The talk will address satellite data have documented ice shelves disintegrating, permafrost melting, and other large-scale environmental changes. Changes in the cryosphere–the coldest areas of the planet where water and soil are frozen–are altering our world. Climate models predict that Polar Regions will warm more than elsewhere. Satellites provide a comprehensive record of these changes from disintegrating ice shelves, accelerating glaciers, melting permafrost and diminishing sea ice and snow cover. Why are these changes taking place and how will the changes taking place so far away affect us? |
WASHINGTON EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS SOCIETY
| Jerry LR Chandler, President, WESS Introductory Remarks to the Symposium, “Emergence of Designs”. | Room 375 Saturday 9:00AM |
| Roulette William Smith, PhD Institute for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Studies, Evolution and Emergences of Designs in Genetic, Immune and Brain Systems |
Room 375 Saturday 9:05AM |
| In recent presentations, Smith (2006a; 2006b) distinguishes between evolution per se and evolution of species. DNA appears to be the underlying and parsimonious repository for evolution, with proteomic DNA providing an underlying basis for speciation. In addition to proteomic/genetic evolution, Smith posits that evolution has engendered two additional, albeit interdependent, evolutionary pathways. One pathway is associated with the immune system. The other pathway is associated with brain. Although concrete heuristic systems may underlie the three evolutionary schemas, transmission mechanisms differ in quite fundamental ways in these systems. Transmission mechanisms associated with speciation occurs via germline genetic and epigenetic strategies. Transmission mechanisms associated with the other two systems may involve non-proteomic and non-germline approaches. This report explores emergences in designs and heuristics among these three interdependent evolutionary subsystems and in their associated transmission mechanisms. In addition, we discuss countercurrent chemistry, structures and physiology in living systems, and in ecology (e.g., oceans and wetlands) to underscore potential parsimony in designs for both the living and non-living. In summary, opportunities for novel anticipatory evolutionary systems are explored, including approaches for quantifying nature and nurture. Roles of heuristics in emergences of designs in living systems also are explicated. References Smith, R. Wm. (2006a). Evolution and Long-Term Memories in Living Systems: Using molecular biology to resolve three great debates … Lamarck versus Darwin, Nature versus Nurture, and the Central Dogma. Presentation at the Winter Chaos 2006 Conference / Snowflake Forum (<www.blueberry-brain.org/winterchaos/snowflake2006.html#roulette>) [Pittsburgh, PA – February 3-5]. Smith, R. Wm. (2006b). Evolution and Long-Term Memories in Living Systems: Using molecular biology to resolve three great debates … Lamarck versus Darwin, Nature versus Nurture, and The Central Dogma. Presentation to the San Francisco Tesla Society (<www.sftesla.org/Newsletters/newslett2006.htm>) [San Francisco, CA – February 12]. |
| Paul C. Kainen, Georgetown University, Emergences in Graph Theory and Category Theory | Room 375 Saturday 9:30AM |
| Design concerns itself with both abstract architecture and concrete detail. Mathematics is the abstract language par excellence, and thus mathematics is fundamental to design. In particular, the concept of a graph (a set of vertices and edges, nodes and links) underlies many designs. It describes networks of relationships, system components, parts and connections, and applies to such areas as traffic flow, communications, social relations, work scheduling, organic systems (neural, immune, genetic, ecological), molecular models, electrons and photons in a Feynman diagram, verbs and nouns in the diagram of a sentence: the list goes on. I will discuss examples, and review specializations and enrichments of the notion of a graph, such as trees, digraphs, categories, and the metagraphs which result from taking objects of the lower orders as vertices at the next level of abstraction. A new concept, adjointness arises as a relation between certain pairs of arrows in the metagraph. It connects categories, logic, algebra, and analysis, providing evidence of the grand design of mathematics. |
| Robert Artigiani History Department, U.S. Naval Academy, Emergence and Ethics: Steps to a Science for Survival |
Room 375 Saturday 10:00AM |
| From David Hume through T.H. Huxley to G.E. Moore, philosophical analysis has concluded that ethics cannot be rooted in scientific descriptions of nature. Assuming a qualitative difference between the material of nature and the judgments of ethics, Hume summarized the situation with the pithy conclusion that an ought cannot be derived from an is. At the start of the 20th century, Moore revisited the analysis and said those who thought otherwise perpetuated the “naturalistic fallacy.” In a similar vein, Huxley argued that ethics were human attempts-which he lauded-to oppose the laws of nature-which he knew would inevitably prevail. These conclusions reflect the “Modern” conviction that limited science to describing the motions of physical bodies using deterministic laws. In this reductionistic world there were quantitative measures but not qualitative values, pleasures and pains but not rights and wrongs. One consequence of this paradigm was that ethics became either epiphenomenal or subjective. In the first case, life became meaningless because ethics were illusions; in the second case, life was regularly terrorized because ethics were playthings of emotional enthusiasms. As Prigogine often said, by the late 20th century we were in desperate need of a “new rationality,” a science friendly to humanity because able to account for the creation of new information. The science of Complexity seems poised to meet this challenge. Through interactions it can show how information is created, and through self-organization it can show how new information is stored. Interaction and self-organization are the processes by which life emerges. They may also track processes creating ethical information that is then stored in human social systems. If so, Hume’s skeptical conclusions can be finessed, for it is now possible to see that when ethics emerged as societies self-organized, nature itself derived oughts. Moreover, because of variations in initial conditions and the unpredictability of human creative acts, no two societies are shaped by exactly the same ethical rules. Thus, there is ample variety for natural selection to operate upon, and it may be possible to show that slight differences in ethical constructions provide advantages. This presentation will argue that when human behaviors are guided by rules more-or-less analogous to those Complexity finds operative in nature, societies are more likely to locate opportunities and threats, globalize information, and take adaptive initiatives. Being more the tinkerer than the designer, to paraphrase Francois Jacob, natural systems do not generally lock themselves into idealized outcomes. Rather than acting as if the final outcome of an evolutionary process is what makes it meaningful, nature focuses on the means by which the evolutionary process is sustained. As Stuart Kauffman puts it, nature evolves in favor of the ability to evolve. Natural systems evolve by finding ways to use whatever opportunities exist to compute solutions to whatever problems arise. In other words, natural systems survive by distributive processing, by individualizing, liberating, and empowering components. Thus, an ethics based on nature would be one that achieved and encouraged adaptability by emphasizing individuality, diversity, and freedom-essential human values. Although this conclusion is intellectually comforting, it is not clear that human beings are biologically equipped to deal with constant change, unpredictability, and heightened self-awareness. If Complexity can be persuasively shown to support life at the “edge of chaos,” however, perhaps its successful regrounding of consciousness in logic and fact will provide a rationality able to replace passionate commitment. |
| Gary Berg-Cross Ph.D., Engineering, Management and Integration, Ontological Design, the Ultimate Design? Issues and Concepts | Room 375 Saturday 10:30AM |
| Information systems and their design are a major part of modern technology, however, design principles for information and underlying knowledge have been often ad hoc due to an inadequate foundation. Recent attempts to formalize a theory of information and information flow between “systems” have relied on the development of formal ontologies as explicit specifications of the terms in the domain and relations among them (Gruber 1993). Formal ontologies make clear the conceptual commitments that underlie their specification. Such efforts employ a still uncertain mix of philosophy, formal logic, cognitive science and informatics which, taken together, shift the design problem of artifacts to what is often assumed to be a universal level of design- the design of knowledge. However, there is still much debate on how to properly design the foundational knowledge of an upper ontology. The current consensus is to carefully rationalize a space of alternative choices reflecting different focuses and purposes on a specific lower ontology that a foundation serves. Within this framework formal logic is used as a truth preserving process and Tarksi’s model theoretic approach is used as a base to make use of general mathematical concepts such as sets. However, upper ontologies under development may not be universal designs, although they may be as general a set as can be accomplished with our current level of understanding. A fundamental, somewhat philosophical problem, with this base is that it lacks real world semantics. Such semantics are acquired by the epistemological experience of ontological analysis. Ontological analysis provides such concepts as 3D and 4D worlds empirically suitable for differing problems. For example, ontologies of biological structures (anatomy) reflect a commitment to a 3D world of biological objects which biological processes require a 4D ontological commitment. Biology is currently one of the most active areas of ontological development. For example, in the DOLCE ontology a fundamental object “Person” can be committed to as a type but is subsumed by two different concepts – Organism and Causal_Agent. In turn, Organism can be conceived as a type as well, but Causal Agent takes two directions. It can be a type making Person a similar to other causal agents such as chemical catalysts. It can also be understood as a role that a person plays. A Person is also a sub-type of Individual and some idea of the complexity of foundational ontology can be seen in a portion of a taxonomy of Common Upper Ontology from effort to merge several upper ontologies (e.g. DOLCE and BFO) |
| Michael Lissack, Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence, The Overlooked Role of Cues in Design | Room 375 Saturday 11:00AM |
| Cues are not codes. They require different analysis and different tolerances. Stories often work because of cues. Communication often fails because of cues. Those who operate in the world of codes are less than tolerant of the vagaries suggested by cues. Those vagaries are suggestive of inconsistencies and incompleteness that bother the code people. By contrast, those who are more comfortable in the world of cues are less bothered by the assertions of the coders that there is such a thing as exact meaning and that lookups are appropriate. In reality both groups make use of the conceptual framework of the other, but the cuers are usually more explicit when making sue of codes and the coders are usually more emotional (and want to declare not themselves) when making use of cues. Design tools include infrastructure and story. Code based viewpoints suggest that only infrastructure matters are ineffective. Cue based viewpoints suggest that stories are of high effect. But, high effect does not translate to high accomplishment of intent. Intention is as often overridden by situation as it is by bad choices. Indeed, there may be a chicken and egg problem here. The selection of infrastructure may depend upon the stories told around it and the selection of stories may be demanding that the infrastructure be pre-selected first. Such is the overlooked role of cues in design. |
| Stuart Umpleby, The George Washington University, Quadrant Diagrams, Levels of Conceptualization and Requisite Variety | Room 375 Saturday 11:30PM |
| In the field of architecture students are taught to make many sketches, to “think with your pencil.” For those interested in social change or the “design of intellectual movements” how does one “think with one’s pencil”? Quadrant diagrams are one answer. Quadrant diagrams are used in social science fields to organize many observations on two dimensions. This paper will present several examples of quadrant diagrams, illustrating the wide range of their uses in describing social systems and how they change. Quadrant diagrams can be used to depict the additional complexity that results from introducing an additional dimension, for example Fukuyama’s diagrams showing concern with the strength of government in addition to the scope of government (e.g., size of welfare programs). Quadrant diagrams also offer a way to compare the evolution of two or more countries, for example the choice of Russia to emphasize democracy over markets in the early 1990s and the choice of China to expand markets before permitting more democracy. In the philosophy of science, the correspondence principle says that science grows by adding a new dimension. If a second dimension is added, four possibilities are created. The utility of quadrant diagrams is that they bring at least an appearance of order to a large number of cases. A higher level of conceptualization improves the chances that requisite variety will be achieved. |
| Ted Goranson, Narrative and Self-Organizing Systems | Room 375 Saturday 2:00PM |
| One can find mechanisms for self-organization in many disciplines and situations, some apparently better than others. Usually, these posit three elements, the components which organize, the system into which they tend and the mechanisms themselves, ineluctable laws. We propose to look at them literally as SELF organizing, with only two elements, the constitutes and the wholes toward which they tend. Moreover, we propose attempting a single mechanism that applies at physical, chemical, biological and social levels as examples of a universal approach. Mixed natural and synthetic organizations are intended. In addition, we’d like to have the same mechanism applied to the externalities of human understanding of natural systems and the internalities of those systems. Core notions of semiotics have been bent to organizing imperatives with some limited success. We propose a system using a similar metaphoric framework: that of the urge to narrative. Constituents have an urge to “narrative” and construct those via context with others in a collaborative manner. While the concept is human-oriented in perspective, an attempt is made here to devise a new set of formal abstractions at each “layer.” Detailed scenarios will be handed out, but not discussed to save time. Identity is seen as inherently category theoretic, including matters of self and urges as functions. Aggregation as structure is seen as group theoretic, dimensional, with typical group operators in play to produce the new “layers” (chemical to biological for instance). The comprehension logic needs to be extended from “ordinary” first order logic to the situation theory. Some maps to other thinkers will be provided. This talk focuses on new abstractions for scientific theory, proposing an organizing notion of narrative that at the human level see “narrative” in the ordinary way. This will be companioned with a talk by Beth Cardier which is the complement, from the perspective of human narrative. |
| Beth Cardier, Impulses Dragged into Words | Room 375 Saturday 2:30PM |
| A single story can showcase a range of logical systems, depending on your perspective – linguistic, cultural, psychological, genre. My current writing project matches metaphors across disciplines, so my own perspective is different again. When trying to find common patterns in incompatible fields, conflicts of notation are always an obstacle, so I focus on the subterranean logic instead. Identifying the invisible dynamics of narrative has since become part of my storyline, as well as the tools used to build it. A story is a multidimensional system made visible by two-dimensional notations (language). Words are simply the visible nodes of this network, the most conspicuous edge of an emergent structure. When I speak of structure I am not referring to linguistics, but the constellations of elements that create meaning at an emotional level. These constellations manifest as images, and are conveyed by words. I look for the key points within them and identify the dynamics they describe, because in this abstracted form they are easier to match across fields. The most important aspect of this process is to know what you are looking for. The internal patterns of a narrative system are not made from rules, but from urges. Evidence of the emergent ‘urge’ of a story can be found at every level – from characters and plot, to the structure of the text, and ultimately down to my own impulses as a person (this is a common causal tree in fiction, although it is usually spoken of differently). For my purposes, the urge and the form are the same thing. The narrative’s structure is actually a form of the impulse. The words simply indicate its specific shape, in order to enable a resonation within a reader. In my novel, parrellels are drawn between the writerly battle to drag human impulses into words and the scientist’s struggle to find similar information-carrying structures. Working with Goranson, I am mapping narrative ecosystems in exchange for his mathematical formalizations of a function-based, self-organizing world (as opposed to a being-oriented mechanism). Our theme for this presentation, therefore, is: “It’s narrative all the way down.” |
| Dail Doucette, Washington, D.C., Designing the “Science of Information Institute | Room 375 Saturday 3:00PM |
| Information is a part of every scientific and academic discipline. It is emerging as a trans-disciplinary area of current research and is beginning to develop its own theoretical foundation concepts. There is international interest and participation in this effort. This paper will propose a process and structure to coordinate and correlate the existing theoretical studies on information being done across the major scientific and academic disciplines and to promote the Science of Information as a focused field of study in itself. |
| Jerry LR Chandler, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, The Emergences of Designs of Synthetic Symbol Systems | Room 375 Saturday 3:30PM |
| Human communication based on a grammar may use one of several different symbol systems. Examples of systems designed to transmit messages include, among many others, alphabets, mathematics, chemical structures, musical scores, and dance. Apparently, the utility of each symbol system is to preserve meaning across time and space such that communication is not dependent on the simultaneous presence of all participants. Early cultures appear to use a single symbol system to convey informative messages. The emergence of separate symbol systems from such a primitive system was dependent on the genesis of new meanings and of new symbols. Grammatical symbol systems necessitate specialized training in order to create the competence necessary to encode and decode messages for transmission across time, place and space. The design of a new symbol system does not require the design of a completely new collection of structural symbols. A symbol may be used in two or more symbol systems with different meanings by changing the grammar or positions of the symbols. The symbol systems for alphabets, mathematics and chemical structures often use the same symbols with different meanings, leading to substantial confusion and potentially erroneous conclusions about the relations among the natural sciences and between the natural sciences and society. In fact, the chemical community designed a poly-modal grammar, a perplex number system, and a subject-based existential logic to correspond with the existence of objects in the external world. The commutative rules for relating the poly-modal grammar of chemical symbol systems to alphabetic and mathematical grammars will be briefly introduced. A priori, the illations of the chemical grammar emerged reflexively within a self-referential framework. The perplex number system encodes quantity such that compositions of structural codes become the basis for genetic, anatomical, and biological codes. Subsequent to human development, the perplex chemical compositions (synonymous with the structural hierarchy of biological anatomy) become the generative source of the alphabetic and mathematical codes that in turn become the generative sources of invariant relations of both thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. The historical precedence of and the self-reflexivity and self-referentiality of the perplex number system suggests that the abstractions of the chemical symbol system is a progenitor of other grammatical symbol systems. |
| Andrew Vogt, Axiomatics Reconsidered | Room 375 Sunday 10:00AM |
| The speaker will review the progress of mathematical axiomatics from Euclid to Gödel, and offer some ideas on the arc of that progress, on the mysterious effectiveness of rule-based reasoning, and on the shortcomings of this grand enterprise. |
| Robert M. Cutler, Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow Institute of European and Russian Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Organizational Design and Transformation in a Complex World. | Room 370 Sunday 10:00AM |
| This paper sets out a framework of organizational design and transformation that it designates the “paradox of intentional emergent coherence” (PIEC). The example to which it turns for discussion is the modern (political) state, although the framework is in fact applicable to any organization or structured system, including evolutionary systems and not excluding sentient beings. The paper unfolds through a brief introduction, three main parts plus a conclusion. The introduction sets the stage for the main argument by invoking the difference between first-order (“observed”) and second-order (“observing”) cybernetic systems. With appropriate literature references to the political and social sciences, it indicates what is the significance of this for analysis of political and social systems. The first main part of the paper sets out three very clear differences between the epistemology of system-transformation from the standpoint of second-order cybernetic systems on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from that of first-order cybernetic systems. The latter perspective is typified by Levi-Strauss’s structuralism, with special attention to Piaget’s well-known exegesis of how that has been adapted into the political and social sciences. The second main part of the paper reduces the messiness of the social-science structural (-functional) approach to systems transformation, by using complexity-science epistemology so as to simplify categorically the “conceptual epicycles” required for sense-making. Since the specific example discussed is the political executive of the modern state, the paper’s third main part indicates intrinsic sources of sub-optimization of the use of information in organizational decision-making. It relates these directly and continuously to the epistemological categories of second-order cybernetic systems set out in the introduction and first part of the paper. The conclusion to the paper draws all these threads together, concisely summarizes their practical implications and indicates which directions indicate by this approach are likely to be most fruitful for further development. |
| John E. Gray Systems Research and Technology Department, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Strangeness in Proportion: A Mathematical Approach to Design as an Inverse Problem | Room 375 Sunday 10:30AM |
| In creating a design that comprise disparate elements of composition that constitute a design—-artistic or engineering, requires a fusion of the atomic elements that comprise a design. Thus, any design that has “atoms of composition” is a fusion of these elements into an overall design. The method of fusion is based on the individual and group aesthetic that comes from the artistic temperament. While it is very difficult to arrive at a mathematical criteria that helps understand the process of composition, it is possible to solve the inverse problem to understand the composition once it has been completed. Each atomic unit can be regarded as a distinct element of the composition that has an overall weight in the whole of the composition. Thus, the design regarded as an inverse problem has mathematical elements based on the weights of the individual elements that constitute the composition. Thus, the composition is a fusion of individual weighted components that have two properties: 1. The numerical weights of the individual atomic components weights are either positive or zero. 2. The sum of the weights can be normalized, so the individual weights add to be equal to one. Since these two properties are mathematically equivalent to a probability, they can be treated as probabilities. Thus a design represents an instance or sample drawn from a probabilistic space of possible compositions. Any assignment of probabilities can always be viewed as the solution to a Bayesian Maximum Entropy problem. Given that is the case, then we can ask the question: “What is the Maximum Entropy problem that an assignment of design weights is the composition an answer to?” Being able answer this question for various designs, would allow us classify them in the same fashion. This would lead to an ordering of design algorithms in terms of the complexity of the problem they solve. This is one method to analyze a design mathematically. There is another. Note that the fusion of weighted information from different sources is equivalent to creating the equivalent of a physical interaction system that has an underlying physics that we can strive to understand. Thus a fusion of design elements when looked at this way is physics model based on interpreting our weighing of the data from different sources as an underlying interaction model. This provides an entirely new method to analyze designs from the inverse problem perspective and might point to a new direct approach to design. |
| William Wells, Comprehending Nature’s Design: A Challenge Towards Discernment in the Role of Infinity | Room 370 Sunday 10:30AM |
| The challenge of communicating the active role of the design function attempts to mirror the Complexities ofNature’s Design Laws. In particular the infrastructure of postmodern urban design suggest that we are in danger ofcreating habitat space as museum plazas to be occupied by a life form of the elite rather than by and for thepeople. The challenge to radically develop designs cognizant of human security will require a different financial andmanagement style. In general, an emerging spiritual consciousness for the evolutionary development of man’sfuture will recognize why the flow of humanity is a function of determinism with chance. Ignoring the risks ofecological impacts on populations by political consensus challenges infinite hyper-real marketing. Poorcommunication patterns only bewilders and muddles the urgency of comprehending the nature of life at scalarlevels inherent to secure but potentially volatile political systems. |
| Gary G. Nelson, Systems Engineer, and Stanley Salthe Organizational Evolution, Life Cycle Program Design: Essential Issues in Systems Engineering and Acquisition of Complex Systems | Room 375 Sunday 11:00AM |
| A society of purposeful agents-humans and now their artificial symbionts-self-organizes into partitions of activity (nations, corporations, agencies, services) and a scale hierarchy of governance. This complex-adaptive society is properly evolutionary. Such a society designs “projects” that create purposeful artifacts with a developmental life cycle. As the projects become more and more ambitious, the real and conceptual boundary between the evolutionary and the developmental-between the project and the society-blurs. Over just the last seven decades, this growth in “designed complexity” has spawned the design of formal processes of systems engineering, concurrent with formal processes of acquisition (allocation of and accountability for significant social resources). The most interesting examples of such projects are the information systems for decision support that become the social linkage of indefinite extent, and the very means of collective design and acquisition of projects. So, we have two essential problems: 1) The blurring of designing subject and designed object, and; 2) A recursive relation between the object and the designing process. Empirically (speaking from experience with major federal programs), there is a vast conceptual confusion between evolution and development (including the design phase) in this case. This is reflected in persistent problems with the formal engineering and acquisition processes. Some principles of complex systems, with special reference to decision support systems, are articulated to identify and ameliorate the very practical problems encountered in the life-cycle development of complex designs by complex organizations. |
| Jerry Zhu, Ph.D., Unified Content Methodology, A living systems approach for better, faster and cheaper software. | Room 370 Sunday 11:00AM |
| Cancelled projects and maintenance cost is well over tens of billion dollars yearly in the U.S. alone. Lack of sound practice, poor requirements, poor quality control, and lack of project management tool suites, etc. are commonly considered as sources of software failure. However, current efforts of eliminating sources of software failure are not only unpractical for their high cost but also illusive, for instance, can we say positively that the requirement is complete and immutable? Statistics have shown that the larger the software, the higher failure rate it will show. This paper claims that the source of failure is in the methodology, its deficiency, not in perfecting the use of methodology. Today’s prevailing software methodology, Unified Process, along with its variations such as JAD and Agile, are not sufficient for their intrinsic deficiencies. Innovation in the design of software methodology, rather than in tools and standards, is the best and only way, to overcome software failure, to develop fast, better and cheaper software. Unified Content, as apposed to UP, is proposed in the paper. Rather than viewing software development as a series of practices and the normalization of their organization – as seen in UP, the new methodology views software development as producing right and complete artifacts within the shortest path. The design of the new methodology is the content structure organizing the flow of process as opposed to the process structure organizing the flow of content. The content structure is modeled as five levels of artifacts: business, requirements, architectures, designs, and software. The creation of artifacts at each level is guided by a set of principles. One important principle applicable to all levels is open/close principle that is open to extension and close to modification. The law of the new design is the law of economy for the understanding of striving to reduce the length of the process to the smallest number. Rather than being iterative and incremental in delivering software one portion at a time as piecemeal approach, Unified Content applies living systems approach in producing and testing content structure one level at time in its entirety. The iterative and incremental approach in producing and testing artifacts is applicable only between two levels with lower-level artifacts as “requirement” and higher-level artifacts as “product”. The completed “product” will become new “requirement” for still higher-level artifacts until the completion of the entire content structure. The paper claims that the new methodology will eliminate resource spent on rework with significant improvement in both quality and speed over UP. It holds great potential to eliminate software failures and significantly reduces not only development and but also maintenance costs. |
| Ely Dorsey, Department of Physics, Quincy College, Quincy, Massachusetts, On the Completion of Quantum Mechanics as a Theory of Probability | Room 375 Sunday 11:30AM |
| We pose that Quantum Mechanics is a complete theory and as such is closed to further interpretation as a theory of probability. Using the classical EPR paradox and the John Bell theorems we show that this classical debate closed Quantum Mechanics. Causality is examined and we pose a quantum epistemology, logical realism, as a theory of design reflecting on these results. ( (1)This paper is a continuation of the work presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cybernetics at George Washington University, Washington, DC. That presentation was entitled, “Is Quantum Epistemology Epistemic?”) |
| Horace Fairlamb, University of Houston-Victoria, Justice as an Emergent System of Constraints | Room 370 Sunday 11:30AM |
| 1. The ideal of justice involves coordinating collective and individual interests and teleologies. 2. Biology provides only a limited starting point for theories of justice if we take biology to mean spontaneous or teleonomic systems of design as distinguished from teleological designs. Still, there are several ways in which biology continues to exert a powerful influence over theories of justice. 3. Primarily, human biology suggests a unique orientation toward maximum individual autonomy, at least potentially, through innate abilities to learn, symbolize, and think strategically. This suggests that individual autonomy is the biological telos of human nature. 4. Classical Greek theories of justice erred in making society rather than the individual the telos of human development. 5. Biological systems provide the main prototype of systems of ethics and justice insofar as equilibrium systems anticipate theories of prudential ethics and cost/benefit models of right action. 6. The lawful physical or informational constraints on biological systems provide the prototypes of rights systems that place categorical or apriori limits on collective action. 7. A system adequate to preserve individual freedom within collective actions must be structured by four kinds of principles: (a) rights constraints on action; (b) collective policies seeking maximum social welfare; (c) the inheritance of cultural values and meanings; and (d) the individual’s construction of a life project. |
| Lawrence de Bivort, Ph.D., Evolutionary Incubation of Terrorist Groups | Room 375 Sunday 2:00PM |
| Many counter-terrorist strategies and tactics have had the inadvertent effect of creating evolutionary environments for terrorist groups that favor their rapid learning, evolving operational effectiveness, and growth. Near-perfect evolutionary incubators for terrorist groups have been created by their counter-terrorist foes in many areas, including Israel and Palestine, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Kashmir. This presentation will contrast the evolutionary characteristics of terrorist groups with those of counter-terrorist organizations. I will suggest that the terrorist groups have superior evolutionary characteristics and, resource-for-resource, are winning the contest between the two. Essential characteristics include: performance pressure, timely learning, decision-making and implementation speed, goal flexibility, alliances and net-works, and loss and recruitment rates. This presentation is based on primary sources and discussions with both groups. |
| Anne Washington, School of Business George Washington University, Software Interfaces: Designing for Continuous Change | Room 370 Sunday 2:00PM |
| Design principles provide continuity to software interfaces that are under constant change. The computer software interface is a window into what is stored on the computer. The interface facilitates a series of interactions between a person and a computer. Computer interface design is inherently open to modification. Changes in computing technology bring changes in interface design. Each version of computer software brings an opportunity or a need for a new design. Interface designs are created for a singular moment when certain hardware and software are available. In the next moment, there will be new advances that will lead to the creation of another design. Because of the constantly shifting landscape, design principles become a vital point of stability. Otherwise, every upgrade of Microsoft Word would send millions of people scrambling to relearn how to open a file. Traditional design principles can be also applied to computer software interfaces. Architecture provides examples of understanding the impact of navigation and environment. Systems theory and cybernetics provides a philosophical basis for designing concurrent systems and subsystems. I will discuss computer software interface design and its relationship to principles from architecture and systems theory. |
| John J. Maher, Arlington, VA, CILLI: (Correctness Intrusively Localizing Legitimate Inquiry) & Emergence of Design. (See Glossary at end) | Room 375 Sunday 2:30PM |
| Design, for humans, is remedial. Some problem needs to be remedied. Correctness limits (localizes, establishes boundaries within which a situation can be seen as problematic, and what can be seen as an acceptable resolution). Correctness localizes what can be designed and how it can be designed. This localizing is so restrictive that optimization is precluded in favor of some situationally satisficing (Simon) termination of an emergency [some bad escape valve (Okun)]. By cognitive processes that are known to science but unknown to or disregarded by most Americans, even many with good educations, this bad escape valve (Okun), is transmogrified (transformed by a strange (poorly understood) process) into a correct principle, value, or ritual. Asked if he was not discouraged by how much people did not know, Daniel Borsten, retiring as Librarian of Congress, replied that he was more concerned about what people do know. Thorsten Veblen wrote of “trained incapacity”, or, as Kenneth Burke rephrased it, “A way of seeing is a way of not seeing”. Often attributed to ill will or crass ignorance (“there are none so blind as those who will not see”), this negative impact of knowledge is every bit as “natural”, as biologically inherent, as are the beneficial impacts of knowledge. “Johnny can’t read (or do math)” is often cited as emblematic of (and synonymous with) the failure of education in America, whereas failure at that level is hardly the tip of the iceberg of our educational failure. I assert and attempt to demonstrate that fundamentalism, not exclusively religious, is the principle fruit, as well as a principle cause of pervasive failure from cradle to grave, and exempting no cadre, including the scientific community. Discussed: “is government ‘by the people & for the people’ an oxymoron?”; “No one in his right mind, trying to design a machine for taking in evidence and ‘meeting out justice’ in a civil or criminal law case would ‘wire” it the way the human brain is wired.” “When anthropologists discovered chimps forming marauding parties to punish defectors, why didn’t they attribute that behavior to ‘the devil’?” Was Darwin, in amplifying “Descent with Modification” to “Variation and (adaptive) Natural Selection”, a victim of correctness, of transmogrification? “Can religious correctness so localize inquiry that design emerges from design-oids (Dawkins)?” GLOSSARY: Correctness: Unquestionable application of a norm, not because of any demonstrable net benefit associated with it, but because it is historico-situationally self-evident. Localizing Legitimate Inquiry: limiting the field of inquiry to that within which a set of correct norms is seen as self-evident. |
| David Abel, Life Origin: The Role of Complexity at the Edge of Chaos | Room 370 Sunday 2:30PM |
| The computational genetic algorithms that organized life not only predated humans, they produced our very brains and minds. Biological cybernetics cannot be reduced to human knowledge, psychology, and epistemology. Life origin is historically ontological and objective. Both Turing and von Neumann got their computing ideas directly from linear digital genetics and molecular biology. The study of life origin provides our best hope of elucidating the emergence of Dawkins’ “the appearance of design” in a natural world. Life-origin models frequently point to “complexity” in explanation of self-organization. What exactly is “complexity”? By what mechanism does complexity generate genetic algorithmic control? Rapid-fire succession of Prigogine’s momentary dissipative structures can generate sustained physicodynamic structure out of apparent randomness. This lecture examines the role of such self-ordering phenomena at Stuart Kauffman’s “edge of chaos” in the emergence of genetic instruction. The role of fractals, quantum factors, and yet-to-be-discovered “laws of organization” are discussed. Self-ordering phenomena are contrasted with self-organization. In modeling the derivation of cooperative integration of biochemical pathways and cycles into holistic metabolism, we examine: ” The linear digital nature of genetic instruction and its inheritance, ” Physicodynamic base-pairing vs. dynamically-inert sequencing ” Messenger-molecule “meaning” (binding function in a metabolic context), ” The encryption/decryption of coded genetic instructions, ” The many-to-one Hamming “block-coding” used in triplet-nucleotide ordering of each amino acid to reduce noise pollution of the signal, ” The essential requirements of any sign/symbol system, ” The problem of representationalism in a purely physical, “natural” reality ” Infodynamics vs. cybernetic prescription/instruction Are three-dimensional protein conformations sufficient to explain life? The nucleotide selection in polymerizing primordial RNA strings is rigidly (covalently) bound before weak hydrogen-bond folding begins. The sequence of ribonucleotides determines secondary and tertiary structure via minimum free energy sinks. Each nucleotide selection corresponds to the setting of a four-way configurable switch. How were these switches programmed ahead of time so as to achieve computational halting (biofunction) only after secondary folding of the string? Can genes be programmed by chance given large enough periods of time? We examine the theories for how chance and/or necessity may have generated utilitarian selections at successive decision nodes. Constraints are contrasted with controls. Laws are contrasted with rules. Do prions and examples of epigenetic inheritance invalidate information analogies in biology? What about the fact that any nucleotide “works” at many sites? Life origin studies provide the most pristine, parsimonious, elegant models of the origin of “apparent design.” |
| Frederick David Abraham Blueberry Brain Institute (USA) & Silliman University (Philippines), Cyborgs, Cyberspace, Cybersexuallity and the Evolution of Human Nature. | Room 375 Sunday 3:00PM |
| Human nature resides at the fractal imbrications of the individual and culture, which are evolving in some very rapid ways. Advances in science and technology drive much of this evolution. Some of these advances are in computer systems (cyberspace); some are in the hybridization of the human body with robotics (cyborgs); and some are in communications, artificial intelligence, cloning, genetic manipulation, stem-cell ontogenetic manipulation (which can now eliminate the male from reproductive participation), pharmaceutical and molecular manipulation, nanotechnology, and so on. This evolution influences the programs of emancipation suggested by postmodern social theory and philosophical hermeneutics. Cybersexualitya philosophical, literary, scientific genreprovides a prime example. This evolution also involves some very fundamental human motivations. For example, the desire to optimize knowledge and stability, to know our origins and destinies, our meaning; the ontological-existential quests. The quests for truth and for stability are at once two sides of the same tapestry, sometimes in competition with each other, and sometimes synergistic, but always interactive, playing in the same attractors. Creativity lies in exploring where and how to weave within these fractal imbrications. And creativity requires instability. How does the tension between the need for stability and instability resolve itself? Or put another way, why does stability require instability?Herein is some commentary on this evolution within the context of a thread of literary and philosophical work that Jenny Wolmark calls, Cybersexualities. |
| Dragan Tevdovski and Stuart Umpleby, A Method for Designing Improvements in Organizations, Products, and Services | Room 370 Sunday 3:00PM |
| A Quality Improvement Priority Matrix (QIPM) may be used for identifying priorities for improving an organization, a product, or a service. This paper reports on the use of the QIPM method by the members of the Department of Management Science at The George Washington University and the Department of Management at Kazan State University in Kazan, Russia in the year 2002. Features of a Department, such as salaries, teaching assistants, computer hardware, etc. (a total of 52 features), were evaluated on the scales of importance and performance. We also computed the importance/ performance ratio (IPR) and clustered the items by their IPR scores into four groups – urgent, high priority, medium priority and low priority. Recent research has significantly improved the method as a way of determining priorities, monitoring progress, identifying consensus or disagreement, and comparing two organizations. This paper discusses additional statistical improvements and ways of presenting the results of statistical analysis. The QIPM method is a way of achieving agreement among a group of people on the most important actions to be taken. |
| Andy Schneider-Munoz, Academy of Child and Youth Care, The Emergence of Civic Structures In The World of Domestic Non-Profits and Global Non-Governmental Organizations. | Room 375 Sunday 3:30PM |
| This presentation uses the theories of non-linear system dynamics to examine the emergence of the structures that operate large domestic non-profits and global non-governmental organizations. Events like 9/11 and Katrina have served as strange attractors for the large upsweep of young people willing to give volunteer service in response to these extreme situations. Rather than becoming cynical or afraid, the youth are more hopeful and desire a level of new engagement in youth service organizations and in the democracy as a whole. Many non-profits and ngo’s have been unprepared to provide such intensified opportunities in the chaos and in fact have rigidly maintained outmoded standard operating procedures to the loss of making large scale social change. In fact, large scale social sector research, and the resulting organizational implementation in non-profits and ngos remains an artifact of the operating platforms that were established during the War on Poverty Years. These frameworks for gathering data and recommending action fail to address the “unit of analysis” that exists today driven by the complexities and diversities of cultures and socio-economics. Models for understanding social problems as addressed by the services of non-profits and ngos are locked in the old coherence of one race compared to another or rich compared to poor when the reality of every day life engenders boundary-crossing; trans-migration within urban areas, bicultural experience, and so forth. For example while we could once think of the poor Hispanic in relationship to the rich suburban white, there are more than sixteen Hispanic American experiences living across many micro-climates including cross-state and cross-border and interwoven in the complexity of suburban, urban and rural environments. In these situations strange to the old platforms, the events of every day life cannot be controlled but immediate response for the youth to help one another across cultural and economic boundaries provides fractals of structure within the chaos, fairly stable relational structures that entrain within the unstable environment to provide youth opportunities and experiences in which youth reclaim a sense of identity and control over their most immediate environment through the developmental activities that are generated. Operating at the nexus of non-profit and business, this paper will utilize the organizational history and data from City Year, a large non-profit and ngo in which 1,200 youth serve 89,000 children in 16 American cities and South Africa through a full time year of peace-corps like volunteer service focused on community building, mentoring and tutoring. Examples will be drawn both from 9/11 and from the most current work in the Katrina relief effort with the large number of children under twelve years old still living in youth shelters and emergency housing. City Year operates in new and emergent organizational design called an action tank, which merges the policy research of an institute with the action research of making social change and transformation in the field. The action tank is supported by a core of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners who utilize non-liner dynamic systems to apply solutions to social problems. These solutions are generated in a knowledge core that incorporates the ability to gather data, transfer knowledge, and diffuse best case practice strategies across the nation’s social infrastructure including transformation in the change over time of the civic skills of the youth through the ecology of youth networks, that configure and reconfigure as affinity groups, as well as, at the organizational and national levels through large scale service events that draw thousands of people together to take action by serving the nation. The intervention is not only entrepreneurial but inclusive, every youth adult team doing service for the nation through City Year is constructed to reflect the diversities of the nation in 2050. City Year’s knowledge core, called Research and Systematic Learning, is grounded not only in non-linear dynamics but propelled by organic frameworks such as the organization differentiates and then integrates much like a biological organism and patterns directly on some of the same pathway analysis as neural networks as they frame ecological interactions. The presentation will also observe the phenomenon in it’s history of having reversed from an unstable organization in a stable strategic environment to maintaining and sustaining stability in an unstable strategic environment by consistently configuring and reconfiguring, therefore producing reverse model drift, the core operate much faster than the part but the parts at the furthers reach are the most stable. Typically in a large organization, the headquarters has the greatest cohesion and structure while the constituent sites the furthest removed least represent the culture. In this case formal and informal feedback systems which configure and reconfigure around affinity groups in a large organization has resulted in a rapidly spinning center with great stability in the implantation at the furthers reaches. This paper synthesizes developmental frameworks such as attachment theory, biological models such as theory of the development of organisms, and applies these constructs to organizational thinking as new models emerge for the leadership and implementation on non-profits and NGOs grounded in complexity as the lens which drives growth. |
| Richard Evans George Mason University Department of Computer Science, Design Design: The Design and Designing of Systems | Room 370 Sunday 3:30PM |
| Designs originate in the mind as a mental image. The system design task is to perfect that image. While design can be greatly assisted by machines, it is seen as a wholly human activity. People are the only source of ideas and are conduits of ideas rather than containers. Ideas somehow flow through us; albeit it is admittedly not at all clear where the ideas, the mental images, come from or how they enter. Given humans as pipes and wires through whom ideas flow, a focus in design is on enabling, refining, and maturing that flow of ideas. Designing is seen as a holistic set of concurrent design decisions among alternatives that emerge from within whole spheres of interactive, interrelated, and interdependent perspectives; including perspectives about the designing activity itself: an overall self-design that is called Design Design. A central Design Design idea is the aim of comprehensive consideration of viable alternatives on all applicable perspectives. To enable that aim, one of the ideas in Design Design is to recognize that every design decision exists in a sphere of potential perspectives. To address a sphere of multiple possible perspectives in some tractable way, it is accepted that any sphere can at least be “represented ” by three orthogonal elements, or, in the case of a sphere of perspectives, by three orthogonal perspectives. |