CapSci2004

Capital Science 2004

The first Cap Sci was held on the weekend of March 20-21, 2004 at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia.    Following are abstracts of the presentations.  Please contact the authors for more details about these excellent presentations.

Abstracts

A Paradigm Shift? by Dr. Harold Morowitz, George Mason University Sunday 4:00PM
The recent discovery from DNA sequences that
genes are rather promiscuously horizontally transferred among prokaryotes
refocuses the already difficult question of what we mean by a “species” within
this taxon. This species problem may extend to eukaryotic taxa. We are
simultaneously discovering that the core of the chart of intermediary
metabolism is very old, ubiquitous and extremely robust to change. This results
in a phenotype (the chart of intermediary metabolism) that is stable to a
fluctuating noisy genetic background. The stability forces a reexamination of
the dogma of molecular biology and asks in which way the information flows.
This possible shift of paradigm has implications for evolutionary theory,
biogenesis, Lamarkianism and our general philosophic view of biology.

AAAS/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Engineering is for Children and
Not Just for Adults.
by Dr. Leigh Abts, Deputy Director of Outreach, Johns
Hopkins University, Whiting School of Engineering
Sunday 9:00AM
Engineering is a bridge
for pre-college students to play and tinker with mathematics and science
concepts. Experiences that allow pre-college students to design and build
projects that illustrate principles learned in a classroom can strengthen a
child’s understanding of abstract concepts. However, before children can learn,
their teachers need to understand the connections between engineering and the
mathematics and science learning goals that are taught in classrooms. The
National Science Foundation has funded programs at higher education
institutions, such as Johns Hopkins University, to support in service programs
for teachers that focus on engineering and research. This program couples
research faculty and secondary school educators. These educators become engaged
in real research and engineering experiences that can be applied to classrooms.
The presentation will describe the JHU program, its partnership with AAAS, and
practices transferred into classrooms across the country.

ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. WASHINGTON
CHAPTER

Underwater Sound from the Whale’s Point of
View.
by Paul Arveson, The Balanced Scorecard Institute
Saturday 9:00AM
There have been numerous reports in the recent
literature of apparently stressful effects on marine mammals due to sonar
experiments. But another man-made source — the radiated noise from ships —
contributes significantly to the ocean ambient, nearly everywhere and all the
time. The technical basis for this talk is a set of accurate and detailed
measurements of the radiated noise of a typical cargo ship [“Radiated Noise
Characteristics of a Large Cargo Ship”, P. Arveson and D. Vendittis, J. Acoust.
Soc. Am. Jan. 2000]. However, the talk will be a popular-level demonstration
and a (necessarily) fictitious narrative of acoustical experiences from a
humpback whale’s point of view. Room acoustics permitting, the audience should
be able to gain an experiential insight into the environmental impact of
shipping noise on the life and habits of these creatures.

 

Nuclear Explosion Monitoring: An Overview
with a Focus on Acoustics.
by Zachary Upton, BBN Technologies
Saturday 10:00 AM
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was
adopted by the United Nations on September 10, 1996. The treaty bans all
nuclear weapons testing by its member countries. Statistics of signature and
ratification include:

  • 169 countries have signed the treaty.
  • 106 countries have ratified it.
  • Thirty-one of the required forty-four
    countries with nuclear capability have ratified it.
  • The United States has signed but not
    ratified it.

Once the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty
enters into force, there will need to be a system in place to verify treaty
compliance. Research and development of this system has been underway since the
early nineties. The International Monitoring System (IMS) will be a
continuously active system that will be able to detect and localize a nuclear
explosion anywhere on the globe. It will include seismic, hydroacoustic,
infrasound and radionuclide sensors. This presentation will give a brief
overview of the Treaty and the International Monitoring System (IMS). It will
then focus on the current research in the acoustics-related areas of the IMS.
From theory and modeling to signal processing, the challenges of nuclear
explosion monitoring using acoustics will be discussed at a level suitable for
a general audience. Facilities permitting, the audience will be able to
experience some of the sounds received on IMS hydroacoustic
sensors.

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICS TEACHERS,
CHESAPEAKE SECTION

Goals of Physics Education for Non-Majors
by Dr. Robert Ehrlich, George Mason University
Saturday 9:00AM
We have surveyed three groups on what they
believe the appropriate goals should be for a college-level (algebara-based)
physics course for nonmajors. These groups include: (a) physics faculty at
George Mason (a more or less conventional department), (b) a group of physics
faculty who make use of physics education reform curricular materials, and (c)
the students taking the algebra based physics at George Mason. We compare the
results of the goals survey for these three groups, and various
subgroups.

 

The World Year of Physics 2005-An Opportunity
to Increase the Public’s Awareness and Appreciation of Physics.
by Dr.
Warren W. Hein, American Association of Physics Teachers
Saturday 9:35AM
The year 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of
Albert Einstein’s “miraculous year” in which he published three important
papers describing ideas that have since influenced all of modern physics. This
year provides the opportunity to celebrate Einstein, his great ideas, and his
influence on life in the 21st century. The World Year of Physics (WYP 2005) is
a worldwide celebration of physics and its importance in our everyday lives.
Physics not only plays an important role in the development of science and
technology but also has a tremendous impact on our society. The goal of the WYP
is to raise the public awareness of physics and physical science and this
presentation will discuss ways in which everyone in the physics community can
help achieve this goal.

 

Improving Teacher Preparation, Society
Style
by John W. Layman, University of Maryland
Saturday 10:10AM
PhysTEC (Physics Teacher Education Coalition)
is an NSF FIPSE sponsored collaborative effort between the American Physical
Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American
Institute of Physics to get physics departments in collaboration with their
colleagues in education to create more and better prepared science teachers,
K-12. We are in our third year of operation and a report of our progress and
aspirations will be provided.

 

Science and Technology in James Madison’s
World
by Dr. William H. Ingham, James Madison University
Saturday 10:45AM
Many scholars have rightly examined and
celebrated the scientific interests and activities of Franklin and Jefferson.
In this presentation, we examine James Madison’s scientific and technological
interests during his long life. By doing so, we hope to illuminate the role and
progress of science in a young and rapidly expanding nation.

 

Model of the 2003 Tour de France by John
Eric Goff, Lynchburg College
Saturday 11:20AM
Working with Lynchburg College senior Benjamin
Hannas, we modeled the 2003 Tour de France bicycle race using stage profile
data for which elevations at various points in each stage are known. Each stage
is modeled as a series of inclined planes and we accounted for aerodynamic drag
and rolling resistance on the bicycle-rider combination. Our calculated total
of the stage-winning times differed from the actual total by just
0.03%.

 

Scanning Probe Microscopy in the
Undergraduate Curriculum: Nanolithography
by David Schaefer,Towson
University and Brian Augustine, James Madison University
Saturday 2:00PM
Scanning probe microscopy has become an
established tool for performing nanoscale research in industry and academia.
These instruments have also proven to be excellent instruments for
undergraduate instruction. This presentation will focus on applications of
scanning probe microscopy for nanolithography studies and their applications.
Barcode Reader by James O’Connell,
Frederick Community College
Saturday 2:30PM
The Universal Product Code (UPC) printed on
containers and packages of commercial products is a barcode identifying the
contents. The code is represented by black and white stripes of varying widths.
When the bars are scanned with a laser beam the code is translated into a
serial number, which gives relevant information about the product, its
description, price, etc. This talk describes a demonstration with physics
laboratory equipment that mimics a commercial laser UPC reader and illustrates
the application of simple physics to a modern technology used in everyday
life.

 

Scientific Reasoning Competency Assessment in
Higher Education in Virginia
by Harold Geller, George Mason
University
Saturday 3:10PM
In 2002 the State Council of Higher Education
of Virginia (SCHEV), requested all state institutions of higher education to
submit institutional plans for assessing scientific and quantitative reasoning
competency of students. These institutional plans or proposals must include the
institution’s definition of competency and a description of how the institution
will assess it. I will address the approach being taken at George Mason
University, including the primary goals in the definition of scientific
reasoning competency, and the implementation plans being considered to meet the
SCHEV requirements.

 

Iron Artifact Conservation: Science on the
Cheap
by Rhett Herman, Radford University
Saturday 3:45PM
Radford University has worked with the town of
Saltville, Virginia, to help understand and publicize their role in US history,
including the Civil War. As a major producer of salt in the 1700s and 1800s,
Saltville built a number of ‘saltworks’ to remove salt from the
high-salt-content groundwater found in certain locations in the area. Much of
this involved large iron vats and other iron artifacts that today are either
buried or are rusting out in the open. We are using a simple electrolysis
process–the same as that used on the Monitor submarine–to remove the years of
encrustation as well as to reconstitute the iron structure of the artifacts
themselves. The equipment for this procedure is easy to assemble and can be
used on iron artifacts of various sizes and ages. Calculations involving this
reaction will show why these processes take such a long time to
complete.

 

AMERICAN
FISHERIES SOCIETY

A US-Canadian Aquatic Inventory and Invasive
Species Warning System
by Donna Turgeon and Gary Matlock
Saturday 9:30AM
Natural resource managers need to know when an
alien species is introduced to their region and where they can get information
to help formulate response strategies. Although there are many nuggets to be
gleaned from the literature and answers can be found within a myriad of
databases and websites, currently there is no comprehensive website that
integrates the data, synthesizes it in a usable format, and makes it readily
available. For that reason, the National Ocean Service, the U.S. Geological
Survey, the Smithsonian Museum, and many other partners initiated in FY02 a
project that will result in a credible inventory of U.S. and Canadian aquatic
species, a reporting and verification system for species not on the inventory,
timely warnings for species new to aquatic ecosystems, risk assessments, and
other information on alien species. Implemented as a Hawaiian Pilot Inventory
and Warning System, the Pilot is now being tested. Data is already being added
from other regions of the United States and Canada to those databases to
enhance the effort. A draft U.S. and Canadian inventory and warning system
could be ready as early as FY08. Visitors to the Pilot website can ‘ground
truth’ new collections against an inventory of existing U.S. and Canadian
species, map distributions, and get in-depth information on invasive species.
If a species not on the inventory is confirmed as alien, a warning will be
posted automatically to managers. With such warnings and information, managers
will be better prepared to prevent alien species and mitigate impacts. Reducing
the potential for a species becoming established in aquatic ecosystems should
also help maintain habitat structure, function, and diversity for critical
fisheries habitats.

AMERICAN
METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

Education in the Atmospheric and Related
Sciences in the Washington Area.
by Dr. Eugenia Kalnay, Distinguished
University Professor, Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland
Saturday 3:00PM
The Washington area has one of the
strongest concentrations in atmospheric, oceanic and environmental sciences
education programs in the country. It includes the graduate programs in
atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Maryland (College Park),
and the programs in atmospheric physics at Howard University and University of
Maryland (Baltimore County), as well as a climate program at George Mason
University. We will discuss these programs, and their relative strengths, as
well as other opportunities that they provide in related areas.

 

The Research Enterprise in the Atmospheric
and Related Sciences in the Washington Area
by Dr. Franco Einaudi,
Director, Earth Sciences Directorate, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Saturday 3:35PM
The Washington area has one of the largest
concentrations of research activities in the country, covering a broad range of
pure and applied research. These activities take place in the numerous
universities and in several government laboratories. An attempt will be made to
distribute some of these research efforts that are taking place in this area
with the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of
Defense, and NASA. Some of the efforts designed to fill the gap between
research and operations activities will be discussed.

 

Advances in Weather and Climate Prediction:
Local Contributions
by Dr. Louis Uccellini, Director, National Center for
Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Saturday 4:05PM
The application of Newton’s law, the laws
of thermodynamics, Planck’s law, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and advanced
numerical techniques to the creation and successful applications of numerical
weather forecast models is one of the major intellectual achievements of the
20th century. Today, data from around the globe are assimilated into global
numerical models run on one of the most powerful computers in the world with
grid resolutions of 33 miles (55 km) that predict weather out to 15 days in
advance. The accuracy of today’s 5 day forecast is equivalent to that of a 2
1/2 day forecast issued 15 years ago. Extreme weather events including
hurricanes, snowstorms and severe weather outbreaks are predicted routinely 5
days in advance. Snowfall amounts and rain-snow-ice boundaries are predicted
days in advance with a resolution down to the county level. In this
presentation, the role of the NOAA/National Weather Service’s National Centers
for Environmental Prediction (NCEP — located in Camp Springs, MD) in fostering
these breakthroughs in numerical weather prediction will be discussed. The
nature of numerical models and how they have advanced hurricane and snowfall
prediction will be emphasized, with the linkages to the scientific advances
related to observing systems, data assimilation and numerical prediction
highlighted. Prospects for improved short-range climate prediction (seasonal to
interannual forecasts) will also be discussed.

 

Policy Considerations for the Atmospheric
and Related Sciences
by Dr. William Hooke, Director, Atmospheric Policy
Program, American Meteorological Society
Saturday 4:35PM
Most people might think of atmospheric
science and public policy existing in two separate realms. In fact, atmospheric
policy issues are numerous, threaded throughout the national agenda, and
stubbornly resistant to resolution. This talk provides an overview of the stark
and forbidding atmospheric policy landscape, and its implications for
mankind.

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY

Identifying Clostridium
Perfringens Toxins by Microarray Hybridization
by K. M. Myers, Center for
Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park,
MD (presenter), D. Villanueva, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,
Food and Drug Administration, College Park, MD, S. F. Al-Khaldi, Center for
Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park,
MD, D. Volokhov, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug
Administration, Rockville, MD, A. Rasooly, Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park, MD, V. Chizhikov Center
for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Rockville,
MD
Saturday
2:05PM
Multiple oligonucleotide
microarray hybridization is a relatively new technology that has shown
potential in genotyping and characterizing pathogenic bacteria. C. perfringens,
a pathogenic bacteria found in soil and the intestinal tract of vertebrates,
was characterized by the microarray technology here in 17 isolated strains. The
strains produce many toxins, six of which were genotyped by the multiple
oligonucleotide microarray technology; iA (iota toxin), cpa (alpha toxin), cpe
(enterotoxin), etxD (epsilon toxin), cpb1 (beta toxin 1), and cpb2 (beta toxin
2). Three oligonucleotide probes (oligoprobes) were developed for each toxin
from complementary sequences and were immobilized on a glass slide. Multiplex
PCR was performed to provide amplified regions of ssDNA from each virulence
gene and fluorescently labeled (Cy5 or Cy3) DNA was hybridized to its
complementary oligoprobe on the microarray chip. Fluorescence on the chip was
analyzed in order to determine the presence or absence of toxins in each strain
of C. perfringens. Results of the study, verified by single PCR amplification
shown in gel electrophoresis, indicate the reliability and potential usefulness
and efficiency of the multiple microarray-based technology in the genotyping of
microorganisms.

 

Mathematical modeling of in vitro
systems to predict the outcome for in vivo exposure to biological threat or
infectious pathogenic agents
by Rasha Hammamieh, Chanaka Mendis, Shuguang
Bi, Sachin Mani, Roger Neill, Rina Das and Marti Jett (presenter), Walter Reed
Army Institute of Research, Division of Pathology, Silver Spring,
MD
Saturday 2:25PM
The system we are studying focuses on use of
“host” gene responses to various biological threat agents in order to
obtain early assessment of exposure. Our aim is to identify signature genes
that will identify exposure to each one of these threat agents even soon after
exposure. Already we have demonstrated with B. anthracis exposure in non-human
primates (NHP) that using gene response profiles, there is a unique signature
of exposure within 24 h and are moving back to 6 h post exposure. Classical
methods have been unable to detect such exposure until 3 days post exposure.
Obtaining patient samples for HIV, flu, malaria is not difficult and is a
critical part of designing new detection and therapeutic approaches. Human
samples from exposure to biothreat and emerging pathogenic agents are rare to
non-existent. For many, the only animal models that exist are non-human
primates (monkeys) and there are enormous problems in their use especially
since they are in such short supply, are quite expensive and they retain their
wild characteristics, hiding signs of illness. The efforts of our program are
to determine how we can use mathematical predictive modeling from data obtained
with in vitro exposures to human white blood cells. In this in vitro system, we
can investigate dose, exposure times and other variables in order to thoroughly
understand the host responses. We have NHP studies with which to model these
predictive algorithms. Obviously, those animal studies are impractical for the
range of studies that we carry out in vitro. Mathematical and bioinformatics
approaches are providing the means to identify gene patterns that have been
identified in vitro that predict in vivo progression of
illness/exposure
.

 

The Presence of Influenza Viral
RNA and Cytokine mRNA in the Lungs and Brains of Mice at the Onset of the
Hypothermic Response to Virus
by Jeannine A. Majde, Cottrell Consultants,
LLC, Arlington, VA, and Stewart G. Bohnet, Georgeann A. Ellis, Abdur Rehman,
Deborah Duricka and James M. Krueger all from Department of VCAPP, Washington
State University, Pullman, WA
Saturday 2:45PM
Influenza pneumonitis causes severe systemic
symptoms in mice, including hypothermia, anorexia and excess slow wave sleep.
The association of extrapulmonary virus, particularly virus in the brain, with
the onset of such disease symptoms has not been investigated. C57BL/6 male mice
were infected intranasally with high doses of purified mouse-adapted influenza
virus (strains PR8 or X-31) under inhalation anesthesia. Core body temperatures
were monitored continuously by radio-telemetry, and tissues (whole blood,
spleens, brains and upper lung lobes) were harvested at the time of onset of
hypothermia (13-24 hr post infection). In some experiments brains were
dissected into cortex, hypothalamus and brainstem. All tissues were examined
either by single-step reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR),
two-step nested RT-PCR (nRT-PCR), or quantitative real-time RT-PCR (RT2-PCR)
for negative polarity (genomic) or positive polarity (replication
intermediates, cRNA or mRNA) strands of PR8 or X-31 nucleoprotein. RT-PCR
detected viral genomic RNA and viral replication intermediates only in the
lung. However, nRT-PCR and RT2-PCR detected both viral genomic RNA and viral
replication intermediates in all tissues examined except brain cortex. RT2-PCR
also revealed increased mRNA for proinflammatory cytokines in lung, and the
same brain regions expressing viral replication intermediates also expressed
interleukin-1? mRNA. Controls receiving completely heat-inactivated virus
expressed only viral genomic RNA, and that only in lung. Therefore the onset of
virus-induced hypothermia is associated with possible viral replication in
selected brain regions. In addition, hypothermia onset is associated with
increased inflammatory mediator mRNAs in lung and in the same brain regions
expressing viral replication intermediates. We propose that viral symptoms may
result from rapid transport of the virus or viral RNA into the central nervous
system from the respiratory tract.

 

Bacteria and Phytoplankton,
Nutrients and Organics; Or How Estuaries Really Work: Evidence from The
Chesapeake Bay and the Chao Phraya River, Thailand
by R.B. Jonas,
(presenter), Envr. Sci. and Policy, George Mason Univ. Fairfax VA, L.J. Hamdan,
US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, and K. Ruchiwit, Faculty of
Allied Health Science, Thammasat Univ., Bangkok, Thailand
Saturday 3:05PM
Estuaries are known to be very productive
ecosystems. Aspects of both grazer and detrital food webs play a major role in
various estuarine trophodynamics. While bacteria are major catalysts driving
detrital food webs, evidence from the Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac River and the
Chao Phraya River estuary in Thailand indicate that the roles of microbially
labile dissolved organic matter produced in situ (autochthonous) and the
bacterioplankton community, as a consumer of that dissolved organic matter,
have been very seriously underestimated. The magnitude of the misunderstanding
is such that on average more than 50% of the organics fuelling community
respiration are not accounted for in many predictive ecosystem models. These
three estuaries were studied because each is highly enriched with inorganic
nutrients (N and P), each exhibits severe, long-term seasonal hypoxia and
anoxia, but none develop unusually high phytoplankton abundances. How is it
then that severe oxygen depletion occurs? Data from these estuaries indicate
that high concentrations of functionally dissolved, microbially labile organic
matter (DiMLOC), composed largely of dissolved carbohydrates and dissolved
amino acids, occur in the water column. Experimental (inhibition of bacteria
activity with antibiotics) and microscopic evidence indicate that in situ
phytoplankton production is the source of this DiMLOC. Dissolved carbohydrates
and amino acids were significantly correlated with phytoplankton biomass,
bacterial abundance and bacterial production. In the absence of bacterial
metabolism high concentrations of these dissolved organics accumulated in
experimental microcosms. However, while unprecedented bacterial abundances
occur in the Chesapeake and the Potomac (often > 30 x 106 cells/ml)
ecosystems, abundances in the Chao Phraya estuary do not exceed 7 x 106
cells/ml. It seems clear that microbially-labile, dissolved organic matter in
these ecosystems must be accounted for directly in order to develop realistic
models of their function.

 

Temporal and Spatial Variations
in Bacterial Community Composition in the Mesohaline Potomac River Determined
by Amplicon Length Heterogeneity
by J.M. Classen (presenter), P.M.
Gillevet, M. Sikaroodi and R.B. Jonas, all at Dept. Envr. Sci. and Policy,
George Mason Univ. Fairfax VA
Saturday 3:30PM
The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem has changed
drastically in the past 50 years, mostly due to anthropogenic causes. The Bay,
the largest estuary in the United States and once considered the nation’s
most productive, has become less biologically diverse and more susceptible and
less resilient to disturbances. Data from the mainstem and Potomac River show
unprecedentedly high bacterial abundances and rapid metabolism. In situ
produced microbially labile dissolved organic matter fuels this bacterial
dominated ecosystem. Elucidating bacterial community structure and dynamics is
vital to understanding this ecosystem and to developing management models of
overall function. The goal of this work was to investigate bacterial
composition of that community and its temporal and spatial dynamics. The
mesohaline Potomac River estuary was selected for this work because it is a
physical, hydrodynamic and biological model of the mainstem Chesapeake Bay.
Water samples were collected between March and November 2002 from the top,
middle, and bottom depths of one mid-river station and two near shore sites
located along a cross river transect near Ragged Point. The Length
Heterogeneity Polymerase Chain Reaction (LH-PCR), which interogates mixed
bacterial communities based on amplicon length of variable regions of the 16S
rDNA gene, was used to investigate the biocomplexity of the bacterial community
on temporal and spatial scales. The results suggest that there is only limited
spatial variation in bacterial community composition within this ecosystem and
that there is more variability on a temporal scale. However, community
composition was clearly quite different in zones of anoxic, deep water in
mesohaline Potomac as compared with both oxic and hypoxic areas. This finding
may be important in understanding how the Chesapeake functions under the anoxic
conditions which develop each summer. Amplicons from the bacterial genomic DNA
were cloned and sequenced. Comparison of these cloned sequences with known
bacterial rDNA sequences (at 90% identity) indicated that most of the bacteria
in these samples appear to be novel, uncharacterized species.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANT
BIOLOGISTS

Structure and function of a
water-soluble carotenoid-binding protein
by Cheryl Kerfeld,
UCLA
Carotenoid-binding proteins function in
light-harvesting and in photoprotection. The structure of the orange
carotenoid-binding protein (OCP) isolated from the cyanobacterium Arthrospira
maxima has been determined at a resolution of 2.1A. OCP is the first structural
example of a protein that binds exclusively carotenoids. The OCP appears to be
involved in photoprotection; microarray analysis indicates that levels of the
OCP transcript increase more than 600-fold when cells are transferred from low
to high light. Data from our lab also indicates the OCP is an avid quencher of
singlet oxygen. The structure of OCP is a novel composite of two domains. A
proteolytic product of OCP, isolated in the laboratory, appears red instead of
orange. OCP can also be converted into a red protein by exposure to low pH. Our
data suggests that low pH changes the structure of the protein. Details of the
interaction between the pigment and protein will also be discussed in the
context of OCP’s putative function in photoprotection. We have also transformed
Arabidopsis with the OCP. The potential for using OCP to enhance
photoprotection in plants will also be discussed.

 

Sources of metabolic urea in
plants: What does it have to do with soybean performance?
by Joe Polacco,
University of Missouri, Columbia
Soybean expresses two active ureases, an
abundant seed isoform and a tissue-ubiquitous form, expressed at a much lower
level. The ubiquitous urease has an assimilatory function: mutants which lack
it cannot utilize urea nitrogen (N) in cell culture and, at the whole plant
level, they accumulate urea in leaves and in seeds. What is the source of urea?
Much of it is from breakdown of arginine (Arg). We showed, by independently
manipulating the urease phenotype of the developing embryo and maternal seed
coat, that the arginase reaction does not operate in developing embryos. This
situation prevails in spite of measurable arginase activity in vitro and the
generation of Arg-derived urea from cotyledons cultured with Arg as sole N
source. An examination of mitochondrial Arg carrier proteins indicated that
they were not a barrier to Arg entry into the mitochondrial matrix, the site of
arginase. A second potential source of urea is ureides, the major form of N
transported out of fixing nodules. It has been suggested that there are two
routes of ureide degradation in soybean, differing in the generation of urea vs
ammonia, with plants exhibiting the urea-generating pathway also having more
drought-tolerant N-fixation. We have used a urease-negative mutant and urease
inhibitors to derive data contrary to this hypothesis, i.e. a tolerant (‘Maple
Arrow’) and a sensitive cultivar (‘Williams 82’) exhibited no major difference
in their ureide degradation routes. However, in both cultivars urea is indeed a
product of ureide degradation, along with direct generation of ammonia,
consistent with the scheme: allantoin ‘ allantoate ‘ ureidoglycolate (+
ammonia) ‘ glyoxylate + urea.

 

Late-acting stylar factors in the
self-incompatibility system in Nicotiana,
by Bruce McClure Department of
Biochemistry, University of Missouri-Columbia
Many plants possess genetically controlled
self-incompatibility (SI) systems that allow them to recognize and reject
self-pollen and pollen from closely related individuals. Nicotiana alata has a
gametophytic SI system; pollen is rejected when its single S-allele is the same
as either of the two S-alleles present in the diploid pistil. S-allele-specific
pollen rejection is determined by S-locus products expressed in the pollen and
the pistil. S-RNase is expressed on the pistil side. Each S-allele expresses a
specific S-RNase that is secreted into the stylar extracellular matrix. S-RNase
enters pollen tubes and acts as an S-allele-specific cytotoxin; pollen RNA is
degraded in incompatible but not compatible pollinations. It has recently been
shown that the pollen product is likely to be an F-box protein. The popular
model for SI is that the pollen product provides for resistance to S-RNase,
perhaps causing its ubiquitination and subsequent degradation in compatible
pollinations. Pollen rejection is thought to result from a failure to degrade
or otherwise inactivate S-RNase allowing its cytotoxic action to be felt. While
it is clear that S-RNase is the sole determinant of allelic specificity on the
pistil side of the SI reaction, it is also known that other factors are
required. For example, antisense inhibition of a small asparagine rich protein
called HT-B causes breakdown of SI but does not affect S-RNase expression.
Absence of a factor designated 4936-factor results in a similar breakdown
without affecting S-RNase expression. Pollination tests show that HT-B and
4936-factor only affect the pistil side of SI. We used florescence
immunocytochemistry to test whether these factors affect the interaction
between S-RNase and the pollen tube. Pollen from wild-type SI N. alata was used
to pollinate plants defective for 4936-factor and antisense suppressed HT-B
plants. Styles were fixed, sectioned and treated with S-RNase antibodies and
anticallose antibodies. The results show large amounts of S-RNase uptake in
both normal and defective plants, even those where pollen rejection does not
occur because of defects in pistil factors. Thus, HT-B and 4936-factor act late
in the pollen rejection pathway. Since pollen tubes contain large amounts of
S-RNase but exhibit no ill effect, we conclude that S-RNase initially taken up
in an inactive form. Thus, pollen rejection is more complex than is commonly
appreciated. It is possible that the target of the F-box protein may not be
S-RNase itself.

 

AMITAI
ETZIONI
Sunday
2:30 PM
Dr. Etzioni’s talk will be based on an
extension of his latest book, My Brother’s Keeper: A Memoir and a
Message.
Dr. Etzioni launched the communitarian movement in the 1990’s and
he is the Founder and Director of George Washington University’s Institute for
Communitarian Policy Studies. The book is more than a summation of his life;
like most of his writing, it engages two major themes: rights and
responsibilities, and how we get a new moral infrastructure.

ASSOCIATION FOR
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Stimulating Space
Development through NASA’s Space Exploration ProgramStimulating Space
Development through NASA’s Space Exploration Program
by Eric Dahlstrom,
InternationalSpace.com
Saturday 9:00AM
Government funded space
science and exploration programs provide an opportunity to initiate large-scale
space development. To accomplish a lasting effect on humanity, the new NASA
Moon and Mars programs must be implemented in ways that stimulate more activity
in space, rather than becoming the only activity. If we can implement the
appropriate role for the government in the exploration program, even current
NASA funding levels can be used to initiate the large-scale economic
development of space. Taking the appropriate steps now can complete “the giant
leap” for humanity, and fulfill the promise of Apollo.

 

The Carbon Fuel Cell’s Impact on the Future
Global Energy Equation
, by John Bosma, Synthesis Partners,
LLC.
Saturday 9:30AM
The carbon fuel cell’s impact on the future
global energy equation, including climate change, matches or exceeds that of
the nuclear reactor because of its extraordinary end-to-end efficiency (65% to
80%=), its electrochemical simplicity and its enormous fuel diversity. Using NO
hydrogen, these fuel cells run DIRECTLY on carbon from diverse sources: coal,
carbon black (e.g., from recycled tires), oil-refining chars and petroleum
coke, and chars from fast-pyrolysis conversion of waste wood and high-cellulose
organics (garbage) into liquid fuels and chemicals. Automotive CFCs using
graphitized carbon have 4x the range of internal-combustion cars for the same
tank volume. A CFC-powered Navy warship with electric propulsion would have 4-6
times the range of current gas-turbine ships with their costly engines and
propeller shafts. CFC repowering of steam-cycle coal-fired generating plants
could double or triple their efficiency while eliminating air toxics,
carcinogenic particles and tens of millions of now-lagooned coal ash and
wet-scrubber sludges. CFC-repowered turboprop aircraft and helicopters could
radically boost range and payload while replacing costly, massive gas turbines,
gearboxes and shafting with mechanically simple electric motors. CFCs let poor
nations power themselves with carbon waste (including fast-growing fuel-biomass
crops) without importing costly conventional plants. A CFC-ization of US
baseload power generation, cars and trucks, locomotives and diesel generators
could turn a low-tech ‘commodity steam coal’ industry into very profitable
producers of carbon electrodes and low-ash coal slurries.

 

The Innovation Gap: The Russians are Far
Ahead with TRIZ – We can’t beat
them; we should join them
by
Bob Kolodney, Klimek Kolodney & Casale P.C.
Saturday 10:00AM
An overview of TRIZ and
its potential impact on our technology, our new products, our new ventures, the
development of our economy. The Russians have something that is not only
world-class, it is world-leading, and they are considerably in advance of the
United States when it comes to innovation. They have a practical
problem-solving discipline named TRIZ (Russian acronym for “The Theory of
Inventive Problem Solving”) with 60 years of development behind it. Various
countries with developed economies are ahead of the US in the adoption of TRIZ.
Although the approach is starting to take hold in Corporate America, it has yet
to be adopted to the extent that it merits. In the Capital region TRIZ is
practically unknown. TRIZ makes it possible to maximize the ability of the
inventor or product developer to achieve an optimum new product. It allows the
orderly solving of problems by using techniques to:
· understand problems;
·
make use of existing resources;
· establish practical
objectives;
· perceive the direction that improvements must
take;
· identify constraints and use generic approaches to resolve
them;
· apply standard solutions;
· access many thousands
of patent claims and scientific principles to provide solutions.
At ASTI we see the potential usefulness of
TRIZ in business development to help optimize innovative products and services,
determine the feasibility of new ventures and plan them effectively. In these
days of globalization
it is important for the United States to marshal its
resources to be competitive. Hopefully, TRIZ will help us to do
this.

 

Materials Research to Meet 21st Century
Defense Needs
, by Arul Mozhi, Ph.D., National Materials Advisory
Board, The National Academies
Saturday 10:30AM
This paper presents the
results of a recently completed National Materials Advisory Board study that
examined the Department of Defense materials needs and research and
development(R&D) priorities in the five classes of materials: Structural
and Multifunctional Materials, Energy and Power Materials, Electronic and
Photonic Materials, Functional, Organic and Hybrid Materials, and Bioderived
and Bioinspired Materials. This paper integrates the R&D priorities from
all five materials areas and presents the study’s R&D ecommendations. The
study committee recognized that realizing the revolutionary new defense
capabilities that materials science and engineering offer will depend on more
than just R&D; innovative management will also be needed to reduce risks in
translating fundamental research into practical materials, and to promote
cross-fertilization of scientific fields. This paper also discusses these
issues and presents the study’s recommendation for needed innovations in
management.

 

The Speed of Gravity: The End of the
Universal Speed Limit
, by Tom Van Flandern, Ph.D.,
MetaResearch
Saturday 11:00AM
No one disputes that the
speed of gravitational waves must be the speed of light. However, the speed of
propagation of the gravitational force is apparently very much faster than
light according to all six available experiments that bear on the subject. We
will discuss those experiments, their physical interpretation, and how this can
be reconciled with the propagation speed of gravitational waves and with
special and general relativity. Although nothing we will discuss implies the
need for any changes in the math of relativity, we will see that the physical
interpretation is not unique. The currently popular geometric interpretation
may no longer be the best available way to understand the nature of
gravitation. Meanwhile, the Le Sage model for the field interpretation has
answered all challenges and provides an intuitive understanding of the
phenomenon and distinguishing predictions. Naturally, this choice has
implications for everything from quantum physics to Galactic exploration. This
talk will use multimedia elements, and will be based in part on: “The speed of
gravity What the experiments say” , T, Van Flandern, Phys.Lett.A 250, 1-11
(1998); and “Experimental Repeal of the Speed Limit for Gravitational,
Electrodynamic, and Quantum Field Interactions” , T. Van Flandern and J.P.
Vigier, Found.Phys. 32(#7), 1031-1068 (2002).

 

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (and,
by the way, what is nanotechnology?)
byRichard
Smith, Nanoverse, LLC, The Nanotechnology Network, Nanotechnology Policy
Foundation
Sunday 9:00AM
It is estimated that over $10B will be spent on
nanotechnology R&D this year (about 1/3 of it in the United States.) The
hope for nanotechnology is immeasurable but the hype is also massive. Today’s
nanotechnology products are useful but mundane: see-through high-SPF sunscreen
and longer-lasting tennis balls. Tomorrow’s products are more interesting:
high-strength, low-weight formable steel and highly sensitive diagnostic
devices for medical care and homeland defense. The next decade will see more
and more complex and valuable products entering the marketplace: cures for some
cancers, materials that allow super-light and super-strong cars and ever-taller
buildings, disassemblers to mine air and water pollution for valuable raw
materials. And within the next fifty years, we MIGHT see molecular-scale
computers and even robots that can manufacture macro-scale products or go
inside the body to perform DNA repair. This presentation will define the likely
stages of nanotechnology as it begins to permeate all areas of R&D and
manufacturing and will help distinguish between the hype and the hope. The
speaker will identify who’s spending what on what and how the audience can
begin to take advantage of the coming nanotech boom.

 

Back-Engineering Biological Information
Processing Systems in the Human Body via Evolutionary Psychology
,
by Thomas Meylan, Ph.D., EvolvingSuccess
Sunday 9:30AM
Four primary information
processing systems have been identified in the human body by utilizing
primitive Darwinist principles for the analysis. All four of these systems have
evolved to provide an animal system increasingly effective mastery over the
environment, but each of these systems operationalizes the principles of
natural selection in vastly different ways. All four of these systems will be
outlined, but this presentation will emphasize the relationship between the
system which produces complex emotional signaling and the system which supports
symbol-based abstraction. Practical implications of this interplay will be
discussed briefly toward the end of the presentation.

 

Space Business
Entrepreneurship and Exponential Innovation: Linking Public Sector Space
Investments to Private Sector Economic Stimulus
by Guillermo Sohnlein, Fortivo
Consulting
Sunday 10:00AM
With President Bush
establishing a new vision for NASA in the midst of the election-year focus on
the national economy and a post-recession boom in global entrepreneurship, the
stage is set to critically quantify the economic justifications for continued
public investment in space programs. However, in order to conduct a
comprehensive evaluation, a new analytical paradigm must be implemented to
accurately capture the significant role of technological innovation and space
business entrepreneurs. Traditional analytical methods amount to nothing more
than a tracing of the lineal diffusion of public funds throughout the supply
chain or the expanded impact of this diffusion at each link in the supply
chain. However, only by exploring the unique level of exponential innovation
associated with space initiatives can one gain a complete and accurate
assessment of the economic stimulus return on a public sector space investment.

 

Technology Transfer
Trends: A 2004 Perspective
by Richard Leshuk, P.E., President, Xfer
Tech
Sunday 10:30AM
The modern era of
technology transfer is usually dated from the Stevenson -Wydler act of 1980. By
the early 1990’s, a series of legislative actions had significantly formalized
the activity. This paper examines the maturation of technology transfer
thinking over the past decade and quantifies evolving trends; these trends
include changing attitudes towards metrics and a shift in corporate
strategies.

 

A New Engineering Process by Gene Allen,
MSC Software Corp
Sunday 11:00AM
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. Design improvements can be realized by using
the Stochastic Design Improvement (SDI) process to move the cloud towards
design targets. 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. 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.

 

Making Information
Systems Intelligent
by
Geoffrey P. Malafsky, Technology Intelligence International
Sunday 11:30AM
Artificial intelligence
is often portrayed in mass media as machines being able to reason and sense
their surroundings. While this long-term vision will continue to evolve, there
is much greater need and opportunity for systems that proactively ingest,
digest, and personalize great quantities of information into succinct and
targeted knowledge for humans to use confidently and in real time. This
capability is not provided by current technologies, however sophisticated and
powerful. A new breed of intelligent systems is being developed that melds
humans and computers into a single system where each complements the other.
This design uses both state-of-the-art science and technology methods, like
bio-MEMS and ontological reasoning engines, as well as the critical success
factors that are most often overlooked in information systems, namely the
reality of organizational dynamics and business process states. This talk will
describe the components and architecture of this type of intelligent system,
and show examples of early attempts and successes to use this in an operational
environment.

ASSOCIATION FOR
WOMEN IN SCIENCE. DC-METRO CHAPTER

Leaving the Ivory Tower: Social-Structural
Causes of Doctoral Student Attrition
by Barbara E. Lovitts, Ph.D.,
Research Scientist, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland
Saturday 2:05PM
Graduate schools have faced attrition rates of
approximately 50 percent for at least the last half century. This study focuses
on the social-structural factors that cause so many people to leave their
programs without obtaining the Ph.D. The study involved surveying individuals
who enrolled in doctoral programs in 1982-84 (both completers and
noncompleters). The sample was drawn from two universities that are among the
top Ph.D.-granting universities in the United States and, within each
university, from nine departments. Telephone interviews were held with 30
noncompleters, approximately two from each department, in order to explore
issues that could not be addressed adequately by the survey instrument.
Telephone interviews were conducted with the Directors of Graduate Study from
each participating department in order to obtain background information on the
departments’ formal and informal structures and processes for educating
graduate students. In addition, site visits were made to each university, and
two senior faculty members from each participating department—one who had
produced many Ph.D.s and one who had produced few or none—participated in
face-to-face interviews in order to discern systematic differences in
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of those most responsible for training
graduate students. Differences between completers and noncompleters, and
at-risk completers (completers who seriously considered leaving without
completing their degrees) and on-track completers (completers who never
considered leaving) were found to lie in the differential distribution of
structures and opportunities for integration and cognitive map development
within departments.

 

Promoting Leadership among Undergraduate
Faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
by
Jeanne Narum, Director, Project Kaleidoscope
Saturday 2:30PM
A crucial factor in building and sustaining
strong undergraduate STEM programs is the quality of leadership within the
faculty and administrators taking responsibility for tackling this work.
Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) has spent more than a decade fostering such
leadership within the undergraduate STEM community, taking a multifaceted
approach through which the range of leadership opportunities for the STEM
community have been explored. PKAL has spotlighted the work of leaders who
understand the “why” and the “how” of transformation of undergraduate STEM,
distilled lessons learned from these experiences, and drawn out promising
practices that can inform the work of emerging generations of leaders.
Considering the “why” calls for attention to the external context that affects
the work of leaders: changing student demographics, new directions in science
and technology, emerging societal demands and opportunities for the scientific
and technological communities. Considering the “how” calls for understanding
about the politics of institutional renewal, how-to: build informed
collaborating communities; keep connected to larger institutional visions;
provide requisite resources of people, time, and space to support such efforts.
Finally, the fundamental dimension of PKAL’s focus on leadership is that
individuals take personal responsibility for making a difference. This
presentation will highlight PKAL activities and approaches that have been
particularly successful and could be adapted by other organizations and used in
other environments.

 

Institutional Resources and Family
Strategies among Early Career Academics
by Roberta Spalter-Roth, American
Sociological Association
Saturday 2:55PM
Research on scientific disciplines suggests
that academic careers are based on male breadwinner models. In order to promote
gender diversity in these disciplines, work/.family policies such as stopping
the tenure clock, family leave, or modified teaching and service loads have
been instituted at many universities. These policies tend to be underutilized
by academic parents because they are afraid that they will not be considered to
be serious scholars if they use these policies. This paper examines access to
other sorts of institutional resources, resource-based, or family-based
strategies (such as child spacing strategies) and the effect on the early
career success of a cohort of new PhDs, especially those that become mothers.
The research is based on data from a longitudinal study of a cohort of
sociologists who received their degrees from U.S. universities between July
1996 and August 1997. The results show that access to institutional resources
and the ability to use institutional resources in professional activities
increase the odds of early career success. Child spacing strategies are
significant for women who want careers at research universities.

 

PROGRESS for Women Chemists/Chemical
Engineers
by Felicia Dixon, American Chemical Society and Helen Free,
Bayer Corporation
Saturday 3:20PM
PROGRESS is an American Chemical Society
three-year pilot project designed to support the advancement, participation,
and leadership of women chemists and chemical engineers in the workplace. Its
goals are to assist entry-level professionals find employment and support
early- and mid-career professionals seeking advancement. Seven programs make up
the PROGRESS Project: 1) Corporate Recognition; 2) Web-based Resource Center;
3) Be Visible: Funding Speaker Opportunities; 4) ACS Course on Business &
Leadership Skills for Women in the Chemical Workforce; 5) Thriving in the
Workplace Road Shows: An Awareness Program; 6) GROW: Grants for Renewal
Opportunities for Women; and 7) Academic Awareness/Site Visits. Each program
addresses the following issues in facilitating women’s participation and
advancement in chemistry: Partnerships: Cooperative interaction with
other organizations to share success stories and best practices for advancing
women’s careers; Reflection: Use of data to monitor the level of
involvement of women in the activities of the Society and the percentage of
women in senior-level positions as it reflects their general representation in
the graduate school population; Openness: Communication about success
strategies critical to career advancement and the challenges faced at career
transitions; Grants: Funding for new opportunities and experiences that
can increase visibility and enhance scientific reputation; Resources:
Career development information, statistical information, development tools,
etc.; Education: Structured career development; Site Visits:
Advisory teams to assist in identifying and addressing barriers to the
attraction and retention of women; Successes: Recognition of successes
and best practices. The talk will focus on the activities and expected results
of each PROGRESS program.

 

Supporting Women’s Employment Success:
Findings From IWPR’s Research and Organizational Experience
by Vicky
Lovell, Ph.D., Institute for Women’s Policy Research
Saturday 3:45PM
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research works
to improve women’s employment outcomes and promote women’s leadership capacity
through its organizational practice and research portfolio. IWPR’s internship
and research fellow programs and its networks throughout the women’s movement
provide leadership development opportunities to the Institute’s employees.
Strong relationships with grassroots activists offer additional avenues for
strengthening and diversifying the research and advocacy communities. The
Institute’s research supports the development of public and private employment
practices to expand women’s job opportunities and improve women’s employment
outcomes, highlighting barriers in job training and education, private-sector
practices, and public policies that impede women’s professional success and
earnings stability. Policies designed to promote low-income women’s economic
security are a particular focus of the Institute’s work

 

The Talent Imperative in Science and
Engineering – A Two Year Net Assessment
Wanda
Ward, National Science Foundation
Saturday 4:10
The talent imperative in science and engineering
remains a major challenge to the sustained vibrancy of the U.S. scientific
enterprise, an enterprise that has fueled America’s economic competitiveness
and standard of living for all Americans. This presentation describes the
efforts of BEST (Building Engineering and Science Talent), a public-private
partnership established to help build a stronger, more diverse U.S. workforce
in science, engineering and technology. It addresses why the talent imperative
matters, the case for meeting this national imperative, and major
lessons-learned from a two-year assessment of what works at the PreK-12 level,
higher education and the workforce to broaden S&E participation. The
assessment represents the rigorous examination of evidence to identify what
works and the subsequent distillation of design principles underpinning
effective programs. These principles provide the tools for expanding and
adapting what works. The presentation then makes priority recommendations and
describes the challenge to policy makers, educators, and the private sector for
nation-wide action to build needed S&E capacity through broadening
participation.

 

Best Practices for Recruiting, Retaining, and
Advancing Women Scientists and Engineers in Industry
by Mary C. Mattis,
Ph.D., National Academy of Engineering
Saturday 4:35PM
Historically, women scientists and engineers
have been disadvantaged compared to men in similar careers in academia and
industry. Recently, industry has taken the lead in recognizing and acting on
the need to identify and implement strategies to attract, retain, and advance
women scientists and engineers, while academic institutions have been slow to
recognize the need for greater diversity, and to adopt initiatives to address
the chilly climate for women on science and engineering faculties. The
presentation will: (1) contrast the cultures and work environments of academia
and industry that impact the retention and advancement of women scientists and
engineers; (2) examine possible differences in the motivations of academic and
business organizations to undertake cultural transformation to eliminate
barriers to the retention and advancement of women scientists and engineers;
and (3) review characteristics of best industry practices for recruiting,
retaining and advancing women scientists and engineers, along with the
potential challenges of importing these practices into academic institutions.
The presentation draws on quantitative data on women in engineering and
science, as well as qualitative data from individual interviews and focus
groups with women engineers and scientists, corporate representatives, and men
and women engineering faculty and administrators.

BOTANICAL
SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

Botany in the Washington, D.C., Region: A
Historical Overview
by J. Douglas Ripley, Air National Guard, Andrews
AFB
Saturday 9:00AM
The plants and ecological habitats of the
Washington, D.C., region have long been studied by residents and visitors
alike. American Indians relied on many native plant species, as well as farm
crops such as corn and squash that came from elsewhere in North America. In
1607, Captain John Smith marveled at the Potomac’s rich, dense forests with
many unfamiliar kinds of trees. Early botanists such as John Clayton, David
Warden, and Samuel Rafinesque described many of the Washington area’s plants
scientifically. More comprehensive views of the local flora emerged by the late
19th Century, and have been refined to the present day. For more than a hundred
years, the Botanical Society of Washington has provided a forum for local
botanists, addressing both diverse aspects of the local flora as well as the
wide-ranging, worldwide interests of many Washington botanists.

 

Botanical Diversity in the Washington, D.C.,
Region
by Larry E. Morse, NatureServe
Saturday 9:20AM
The Washington, D.C., region, extending from
the High Alleghenies of West Virginia to the ocean shore of New Jersey and the
Delmarva Peninsula, offers diverse natural habitats and more than two thousand
native plant species. The region’s geological and topographic variety, a range
of climates and microclimates, and historical factors such as sea-level changes
and proximity to the Pleistocene ice-age glaciers all contribute as factors
underlying the geographical distributions of the region’s native plants. Two
areas of particular note are the world-class freshwater-intertidal estuarine
shores of Chesapeake Bay, and the Potomac River Gorge (from Great Falls to
Georgetown and Rosslyn), one of eastern North America’s premier riverbank
bedrock floodscour ecosystems

 

Fall-Line Magnolia Bogs: A Distinctive Plant
Habitat
by Rod Simmons, Parks and Recreation Dept., Alexandria,
Virginia
Saturday 10:20AM
In 1918, W. L. McAtee described the “magnolia
bogs” as a distinctive habitat present in a few dozen places on the innermost
Coastal Plain (near the Fall Line) in the Washington, D.C., area. Occurring
where cool water seeps from hillside gravel deposits, these specialized
wetlands are characterized by the presence of the native sweetbay magnolia
(Magnolia virginiana) as well as other distinctive plants, such as peat moss
(Sphagnum) and poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix). While many of McAtee’s
localities have been destroyed or badly degraded by development over the past
decades, a few good examples remain (including one within the District of
Columbia itself), and several additional high-quality magnolia bogs have been
recently located, particularly in Charles Co., Maryland

 

Invasive and Other Non-Native Plants in the
Washington, D.C., Region
by Elizabeth F. Wells, George Washington
University
Saturday 11:00
Most wild plants of the Washington, D.C.,
region are readily characterized as native (naturally occurring), or as
non-native (present only due to direct or indirect human intervention, also
called exotic, alien, or non-indigenous), with a few interesting cases such as
the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) still being debated. Many additional
kinds of plants from other lands have been grown in the Washington area for
gardening and landscaping, agriculture, forestry, and other purposes, and yet
others have arrived accidentally as weeds. However, length of cultivation in
the local area does not correlate well with invasiveness; some plants grown by
George Washington at Mt. Vernon are not known as escapes, while several species
only recently introduced horticulturally have quickly spread to natural
habitats. Once escaped, wild non-native plants can be further dispersed by
wind, animals, and other means, as are native plants. Major floods have further
contributed to the spread of non-native (as well as native) plants along the
Potomac River

 

Resources for Botanizing in the Washington,
D.C., Region
by Edward M. Barrows, Georgetown University
Saturday 11:30
Information resources on the plants of the
Washington, D.C., region range from traditional field guides to various
Internet web sites. Illustrated field guides (such as Peterson or Newcomb) help
with identification of the more common species, and various technical works are
more comprehensive. Finding Wildflowers in the Washington-Baltimore Area
provides directions to scores of publicly accessible sites, with notes on
trees, shrubs, and wildflowers to be expected at each. Nature centers at many
regional parks offer local expertise, and the Smithsonian Institution’s
Naturalist Center provides a regional reference collection of pressed herbarium
specimens for consultation. Various web sites provide more depth, including
those of NatureServe (with information on classification, distribution, and
conservation status); Georgetown University’s Biodiversity Database (including
many photos); and the Botanical Society of Washington and other organizations
sponsoring meetings and field trips.

CHEMICAL
SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON (CSW)

Green Chemistry: Principles and Practice
Saturday 9:00AM
This symposium will introduce the principles of
green chemistry, provide specific examples of greener technologies, and
highlight the economic benefits of adopting environmentally friendly processes.
Recent advances in green chemistry education will also be discussed.
Green chemistry, the design of chemical
products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of
hazardous substances, is the most fundamental approach to pollution prevention.
Green chemistry addresses the need to produce the goods and services that
society depends on in a more environmentally benign manner. Examples of green
chemistry approaches include the use of alternative feedstocks, the use of
alternative solvents and reaction conditions, and the design of safer
chemicals.
Through the design and implementation of one or
more of these green chemistry approaches, chemists have found ways to remove
millions of pounds of hazardous substances from the products and processes that
society needs, without sacrificing scientific innovation and creativity.
Pfizer, for example, eliminated 140 metric tons of TiCl4, 150 metric tons of
35% HCl, and 100 metric tons of NaOH in redesigning the synthesis of
sertraline, the active ingredient in the antidepressant drug Zoloft®. The
implementation of green chemistry technologies has eliminated waste, improved
safety, and saved industry money.
Equally important is the incorporation of green
chemistry concepts and principles into the curriculum. Providing examples of
green chemistry technologies throughout the curriculum is one of the best ways
to promote the adoption of green chemistry across the chemical enterprise.

ILYA
PRIGOGINE TRIBUTE (Panel organized by WESS)

Prigogine’s Theories by Andrew Vogt,
Department of Mathematics Georgetown University
Sunday 9:10AM
The speaker will briefly review some of Ilya
Prigogine’s theoretical accomplishments, including the law of minimum entropy
production for near-equilibrium systems, the concept of dissipative structure
in far-from-equiliirium systems, his formulation of nonequilibrium statistical
mechanics, and his research on nonintegrability in Hamiltonian systems

 

Prigogine’s Concepts of Relations between
Science and Society
by Joseph E. Earley, Sr., Professor and Head (ret.)
Department of Chemistry, Georgetown University
Sunday 9:35AM
Ilya Prigogine (1917- 2003) had an unusual
notion of the relationship of science to the rest of human culture. This
non-standard view was made clear in La Nouvelle Alliance (Gallimard, 1979)
co-authored by (then) graduate student Isabelle Stengers. The English version
of this work, Order Out of Chaos (Bantam, 1984), is probably the best known of
Prigogine’s many books for general readers. A number of physicists and chemists
and have found aspects of Prigogine’s work troublesome – even, for some, highly
objectionable. This presentation summarizes some points of Prigogine’s general
outlook and examines objections raised against them.

 

Science, Hope and History by Robert
Artigiani, Professor and Head, History Department U.S. Naval Academy
Sunday 10:00AM
Prigogine’s pursuit of a “New Alliance”
indicates just how revolutionary his scientific vision was. Convinced that the
classical paradigm–even as modified by relativity and quantum physics–was
unsatisfactory, he argued for a historical turn that would enable science to
track qualitative change. To do so he introduced the idea of “dissipative
structures” that emerged and evolved at symmetry-breaking discontinuities.
Describing a nature of processes rather than things, Prigogine hoped his
science would be as applicable to human history as to nature. This presentation
will explore one way to interpret human history as a succession of
self-organizing systems, whose products–conscious, free, and moral
individuals–give the process meaning. It will also argue that the purpose of
Prigogine’s revolution was to establish a “New Rationality” with the potential
to reground ethics in science.

INSTITUTE OF
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS (IEEE), D.C. AND NORTHERN VIRGINIA
SECTIONS

Nano-Bio Technology – An Overview by
Dr. Anantha Krishnan, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA)
Sunday 10:30AM
This talk will review recent developments and
future directions of nano-bio technology, a rapidly developing area of
convergence of biotechnology, micro/nano technology and information technology.

 

MAGLEV by Philiip Holmer, Titan Systems
and frequent invited speaker at IEEE regional, technical and University
chapters.
Sunday 11:15AM
Maglev refers to super high-speed transport
systems with a non-adhesive drive system that is independent of wheel-and-rail
frictional forces. The acronym is derived from Superconducting Magnetic
Levitating Vehicles.

INSTITUTE OF
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS, NATIONAL CAPITAL CHAPTER

Business Improvement Methodology
Integration
by Sharon M. Valencia
Saturday 2:00PM
Today’s competitive
business environment requires constant improvement in business processes in
order to maintain competitive position. This presentation provides an overview
of business process management and compares improvement methodologies such as
Lean, Six Sigma, Design For Six Sigma (DFSS), Business Process Reengineering
(BPR), Total Quality Management (TQM), and Kaizen. Techniques for enabling
project success through methodology integration will also be
covered.

 

Rapid Development for Migration of Legacy
Applications to a Web Environment
by Dr. David L. Danner, P.E, IDEAMATICS,
Incorporated
Saturday 3:00PM
Prior to Operation Iraqi
Freedom, the United States Navy (USN) had demonstrated the viability of a
mobilization processing and manpower requirement tracking system for the
activation of reservists based on a Microsoft Windows client-server system
developed for the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The need to immediately
deploy a system for use throughout the USN dictated a rapid development effort
to migrate the legacy USMC application to a Web-based USN application. The
Navy-Marine Corps Mobilization Processing System (NMCMPS) was programmed in
four weeks time, and was deployed Nation-wide in less than ten weeks from
project start. The development team migrated 80,000 lines of code and added
USN-specific functionality while reducing the amount of code to 10,000 lines.
This presentation provides an explicit methodology using existing
productivity-improvement tools for a rapid development approach to the
migration of a legacy application to a web environment. Unlike approaches which
simply try to replicate the application in a Web shell, this approach converts
the application, providing for efficiencies in processing, database storage and
communications. The key to the methodology is the use of the .NET programming
tools in concert with a systematic work plan and a formalized decision
protocol.

 

Various Types of Possible and Feasible Means
of Ergonomics Training
by Jeffrey Fernandez,
PhD, PE, CPE, JFAssociates, Inc.
Saturday 4:00PM
When employees are well
trained in ergonomics, businesses can realize economic benefits in less lost
time and fewer worker compensation claims. Research demonstrates numerous
positive benefits from ergonomics solutions, including increased productivity
and work quality, and decreased absenteeism. This presentation talks about the
various types of possible and feasible means of ergonomics training, the focus
of the training, and the contents of such training.

INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH, WASHINGTON SECTION

Structure-Property Relationships of Thermoset
Methacrylate Composites as a Function of Resin Matrices, Nanofillers, and
Nanofiller Surface Chemistries
by Kristen Wilson, Elizabeth Wilder, Joseph
Antonucci NIST Polymers Division (Support was provided from NIDCR/NIST
Interagency Agreement Y1-DE-1021-03)
Saturday 9:15AM
The goal of this
research is to better understand the interactions and relationships between
nanoparticle fillers, their surface treatment chemistries, various dental resin
matrices, and the resultant properties of these thermoset methacrylate
composites. These methacrylate composites are primarily designed for use as
restorative and sealant dental materials. For optimal clinical performance,
properties such as high strength, facile polymerization, high degrees of vinyl
conversion, low polymerization shrinkage, and processable viscosities are
desirable. One of the composites of interest was a visible light-curable system
containing a 50:50 by mass mixture of
2,2-bis[p-(2′-hydroxy-3′-methacryloxypropoxy)phenyl] propane (Bis-GMA) and
tri(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate filled with 40 nm clustered silica
particles that were silanized with various blends of two silane agents,
3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS – a typical coupling agent for
glass-filled, acrylic composites) and n-octyltrimethoxysilane (OTMS).
Methacrylate conversion after two minutes of light-irradiation was measured by
Near-IR spectrometry. Mechanical properties of these nanocomposites 24 hours
after photopolymerization were measured by three-point bend and biaxial
flexural strength tests. In general, it was found that increased concentrations
of OTMS and decreased concentrations of MPTMS in the surface treatments of the
nanosilica particles lowered the moduli and flexural strengths of the cured
composite materials. However, the composites containing silica silanized with a
50:50 mixture of MPTMS and OTMS resulted in slightly higher moduli compared to
the other composites. A second composite system of interest was a bioactive
composite capable of sustained release of calcium and phosphate ions into
aqueous environments. It consisted of an ethoxylated bisphenol-A dimethacrylate
matrix filled with surface-treated amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) fillers
(40% by mass), which are clustered nano-sized fillers analogous to the
nanosilica fillers. It was found that adsorption of poly(ethylene glycol)
(PEG), PEG-dimethacrylate, or MPTMS onto ACP particles resulted in small
increases in the moduli and flexural strengths compared to composites filled
with untreated ACP. Ongoing experiments are investigating conversion and
polymerization shrinkage as a function of filler concentration and surface
treatment. Also, AFM is being used to probe the microstructure of these
composites; fracture surfaces also are being assessed to determine the effect
of filler types and surface treatments on fracture behavior. Finally,
non-clustered, surface-treated, colloidal silica particles will be investigated
as fillers for the purpose of assessing their effects on thermoset methacrylate
composites.
Synthesis and Characterization of PEG and PEG
Urethane Dimethacrylate Hydrogels
by S. Bencherif, J.A. Cooper, N.R.
Washburn, J.M. Antonucci, S. Lin-Gibson, NIST Polymers Division and Ferenc
Horkay, Sect Tissue Biophys & Biomimet, Lab Integrat & Med Biophys, NIH
(Support was provided from NIDCR/NIST Interagency Agreement
Y1-DE-1021-03)
Saturday 9:30AM
A key area in the repair
and regeneration of tissues is optimizing the polymeric caffold-tissue
response. This study is designed to better understand the relationships between
polymer matrix structure and properties to cell response. The current study
includes the preparation/characterization of a series of polyethylene glycol
(PEG) dimethacrylates and PEG urethane dimethacrylates, their conversions in
aqueous solution to hydrogels by photopolymerization, and a preliminary
assessment of the correlation of mechanical and cell response to hydrogel
structural variations. MALDI-TOF MS confirms the formation of oligomers of high
purity and narrow mass distribution (PD < 1.02). Aqueous dimethacrylate
solutions were photopolymerized to hydrogels. The gel structures are probed by
small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and are correlated to the mechanical
properties determined by rheology and uniaxial compression tests. Bovine
chrondrocytes, seeded in hydrogels, were used to assess the cell responses to
the hydrogels. Preliminary studies showed varied mechanical response but that
cells were completely viable in both types of hydrogels after two weeks.
Improved Bioactive Polymeric Composites for
Mineralized Tissue Regeneration
by Walter G. McDonough, NIST Polymers
Division, Drago Skrtic and Janet B. Quin, American Dental Association
Foundation – Paffenbarger Research Center, NIST, and Da-Wei Liu and Joseph M.
Antonucci, NIST Polymers Division
Saturday 9:45AM
Crystalline
hydroxyapatite (HAP) is the structural prototype of the major mineral component
of teeth and bones. In contrast to HAP, amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP), a
postulated precursor to biological HAP, shows high solubility/degradability in
aqueous media, readily liberating calcium and phosphate ions, and transforming
readily to crystalline apatitic calcium phosphate. These properties suggested
its use as a bioactive filler in polymeric dental composites derived from the
photopolymerization of dental monomers such as
2,2-bis[p-(2′-hydroxy-3′-methacryloxypropoxy) phenyl] propane (BisGMA),
triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate
(HEMA). The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of: 1) using
acidic comonomers in the resin matrices of ACP composites, especially with
regard to the degree of vinyl conversion (DC) and mechanical strength after
polymerization, and 2) using small amounts of short polyethylene fibers (2
µm to 3 µm) on the mechanical behavior of ACP composites,
especially with regard to their ability to arrest crack propagation. The DC was
not significantly affected by the addition of the acidic comonomers. The acidic
monomers with relatively hydrophobic chemical structures improved the strength
and durability of ACP composites. ACP composites containing polyethylene fibers
maintained their strength while exhibiting improved fracture toughness by their
ability to resist catastrophic failure.
(Support by NIDCR/NIST
Interagency Agreement Y1-DE-1021-04 and NIDCR grant 13169-05).
TBA Saturday 10:00AM
TBA Saturday 10:15AM
Discussion Panel Saturday 10:30AM

MARINE
TECHNOLOGY SOCIETY

It’s One Ocean After All by Barry
Stamey, Chairman, Washington D.C. Section, Marine Technology
Society
Sunday 10:30AM
We have “One Ocean” shared by the world’s
community, and no matter what you do as an individual or organization in your
involvement with our ocean, your actions influence all other actions that
affect our global ocean. The future of our ocean is today at a critical
juncture, and the specific action, or inaction, of those throughout our global
community in the next very few years will determine our ocean’s vitality and
value for at least the next several generations of mankind. There are many
wonderful programs that are working through key aspects of this global
challenge, but it is time for all of us across the entire ocean spectrum –
government, industry, academia, researchers, educators, the public, and others
– who truly want to make a difference – to engage the future now and come
together as colleagues of our global ocean community. We must stress the
necessity of maximizing our understanding of our ocean, balancing our use and
stewardship, and looking forward with new and exciting science and technology.
The role of “ocean” professional societies, such as the Marine Technology
Society, in both advancing our knowledge of our ocean and helping work through
the science that supports myriad policy issues, has now reached an
unprecedented level of critical need. And even the definition of an “ocean”
professional society is no longer as expected, because the future of our ocean
touches on every aspect of science and technology and affects every member of
our global society. We invite you to participate in this interactive session
that will examine these challenges, solicit your inputs and recommendations,
and outline the planning that will culminate in an international landmark
conference in Washington, D.C. in September, 2005 – OCEANS 2005 MTS/IEEE – to
share the knowledge that will benefit the world’s community and the future of
our “ONE OCEAN.”

NATIONAL
CAPITAL SECTION/OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Instrument Synthesis and Analysis
Laboratory At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
by Dr. H. John Wood, NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center
Saturday 9:15AM
This paper will address the development of a
new instrument design laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Engineering studies for pre-proposal space-science and earth-science instrument
designs had taken typically 6 months or more in the past. A rapid design
capability was clearly needed in the new competitive arena in which Goddard
finds itself today. The Instrument Synthesis & Analysis Laboratory (ISAL)
has unprecedented resources and can provide a rapid and sustainable
instrument-development environment. Typical studies are complete in two weeks.
The ISAL supports instruments at different maturity levels such as direct AO
response, trade studies in advance of AO and Instrument Incubator Program
projects. The ISAL has been an operational facility since the spring of 1999
and has completed more than 50 studies (X-ray telescopes to microwave
radiometers) since its inception. A cadre of highly skilled discipline
engineers is put together with the customer science team to develop the
customer’s instrument concept. Detailed designs are derived with significant
analysis of the design performed during the study. In Spring 2001, ISAL
management and operations were unified with the Integration Mission Design
Center (IMDC) to form the Integrated Design Capability (IDC).

 

Modeling Studies for the MODIS Solar
Diffuser Attenuation Screen
by Eugene Waluschka, Xiaoxiong Xiong, B.
Guenther, William Barnes and Vincent V. Salomonson, NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center
Saturday 9:35AM
On-orbit calibration of the reflected solar
bands on the EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is
accomplished by having the instrument view a high reflectance diffuse surface
(SD) illuminated by the sun. For some of the spectral bands this signal proves
to be much too bright and results in the saturation of detectors designed for
measuring low reflectance (ocean) surfaces signals. A mechanical attenuation
device in the form of a pin hole screen is used to reduce the signals to
calibrate these bands. The sensor response to solar illumination of the SD with
and without the attenuation screen in place will be presented. The MODIS
detector response to the solar diffuser is smooth when the attenuation screen
is absent, but has structures up to a few percent when the attenuation screen
is present. This structure corresponds to non-uniform illumination from the
solar diffuser. Each pin hole produces a pin-hole image of the sun on the solar
diffuser, and there are very many pin hole images of the sun on the solar
diffuser for each MODIS detector. Even though there are very many pin-hole
images of the sun on the solar diffuser, it is no longer perfectly uniformly
illuminated . This non-uniformly illuminated solar diffuser produces intensity
variation on the focal planes. The results of a very detailed simulation will
be discussed which show how the illumination of the focal plane changes as a
result of the attenuation, and the impacts on the calibration will be
discussed.

 

CHARMS: The Cryogenic, High-Accuracy
Refraction Measuring System
by B.J. Frey, D.B. Leviton, NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center
Saturday 9:55AM
The success of numerous upcoming NASA infrared
(IR) missions will rely critically on accurate knowledge of the IR refractive
indices of their constituent optical components at design operating
temperatures. To satisfy the demand for such data, we have built a Cryogenic,
High-Accuracy Refraction Measuring System (CHARMS) which, for typical IR
materials, can measure the index of refraction accurate to ±5 x
10-5. This versatile, one-of-a-kind facility can also measure
refractive index over a wide range of wavelengths, from 0.105 µm in the
far-ultraviolet to 20 µm in the mid-IR, and over a wide range of
temperatures, from 10 K to 100°C, all with comparable accuracies. We first
summarize the technical challenges we faced and engineering solutions we
developed during the construction of CHARMS. Next we present our “first light,”
cryogenic, IR index of refraction data for LiF, BaF-2, and
CaF-2. Finally, we compare our data to previously published results
for these materials.

 

Electromagnetic Scalar Potentials:Overview
and Historical Perspective
by Martin J. Lahart, U.S.Army Research
Laboratory
Saturday 10:30AM
It has been known for about a hundred years
that electric and magnetic fields that satisfy Maxwell’s equations can be
derived from two scalar functions. Scalar potentials have been investigated
many times in the hope that analyses that are made in terms of the six
interrelated components of the electric and magnetic fields could be simplified
by describing fields in terms of two quantities that are relatively simple to
compute. This paper reviews investigations of scalar potentials that have been
made over the years. It discusses possible definitions of scalar potentials and
describes their properties, including a requirement that scalar potentials have
a preferred direction, for which their functional form is different from that
in the other two directions. It describes applications to boundary value
problems and to the computation of electric and magnetic fields generally.
Restrictions of coordinate systems in which calculations involving scalar
potentials are discussed. These restrictions, combined with the requirement of
a preferred direction, limit the use of scalar potentials to specific
geometries. The relationship of scalar potentials to charge and current sources
of electromagnetic is described. It is shown that scalar potentials cannot
always be used in regions where charges or currents are present. The
limitations that these restrictions impose are discussed. Some computational
examples on the use of electromagnetic scalar potentials are given. It is
demonstrated that, when it is possible to describe a problem in terms of scalar
potentials, their use can lead to a considerable simplification of the
calculations.

 

Ordered Transactions Strategy
for Optically Connected Multiprocessor Systems
by Neal K. Bambha, US Army
Research Laboratory and Shuvra S. Bhattacharyya, University of Maryland,
College Park
Saturday 10:50AM
This paper presents techniques for efficiently
mapping digital signal and image processing (DSP) applications onto processing
architectures that are specifically streamlined to accomplish these tasks.
These applicationspecific embedded systems provide significant advantages in
terms of weight, power, cost, and computational power compared to
generalpurpose computers. As VLSI feature sizes shrink, interconnects between
processing elements are becoming a limiting factor for high performance
systems. One way to solve this problem is to utilize optical interconnects to
replace the longest metallic interconnects. Such hybrid optical/electronic
designs are particularly promising for systems that have large computational
requirements and that must satisfy these requirements in real time. DSP
applications often possess a high degree of parallelism, and thus can
potentially benefit from parallel processors. However, we show that
interprocessor synchronization and communication (IPC) costs can quickly negate
these advantages for architectures using electronic interconnects. Because DSP
applications are characterized by limited control flow, we have the opportunity
to perform extensive compiletime analysis in order to minimize IPC cost. We
introduce a class of fiberberbased architectures utilizing wavelength division
multiplexing, and an efficient graph theoretic ordered transaction technique
for optimizing communication patterns in such architectures. We show that
significant performance advantages for DSP applications can be achieved through
the combination of

  • flexible interconnect topologies enabled by
    optical interconnects,
  • faster interprocessor communication using
    optical interconnects,
  • the elimination of contention for shared
    communication resources, and
  • extensive optimization of communication
    patterns through efficient graph theoretic techniques.

We compare simulation results for systems
utilizing electronic vs. optical interconnects on a suite of benchmark
applications.

 

OE Interconnects and OE Processing Based on
VCSEL-CMOS 2-D Arrays
by G. J. Simonis, W. Chang, J. J. Liu, P. Shen, P.
Newman, N. Das, G. Dang, and M. Taysing-Lara Army Research
Laboratory
Saturday 11:10AM
This paper reports our results regarding the
development of vertical-cavity surface-emitting-laser (VCSEL) 2-D arrays at
850- and 980-nm wavelengths with oxidized-aperture diameters of between 5 and
15 µm. It further reports their incorporation into dense optoelectronic
flip-chip (OE) interconnect arrays hybridized onto CMOS drivers along with
III-V-detector-CMOS OE receivers. These interconnects are being integrated into
experimental OE processing architectures such as a digital-half-tone image
compressor. The VCSEL hetero-structures are designed at ARL and grown in our
MBE growth facilities. Individual VCSELs incorporate either GaAs quantum wells
(850 nm and top-emitting) or InGaAs quantum wells (980 nm and either top- or
bottom-emitting). The normal configuration of the VCSEL 2-D array is in an 8×8
geometry with a 125-µm spacing between VCSELs for an interconnect density
of 64 interconnects/mm2. The VCSEL arrays are flip-chip mounted onto
silicon-based CMOS (980-nm bottom-emitting VCSELs through GaAs substrate) or
silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) CMOS (850-nm top-emitting VCSELs through SOS sapphire
substrate). Individual VCSELs have been found to have 3-dB bandwidths as high
as 6 Gb/s/ch for an array data flux density as high as 384 Gb/s/mm2 with the
employment of appropriate CMOS or III-V drivers. The near-term incorporation of
carbon p-type dopant and semi-insulating substrates will substantially increase
the operational bandwidth of the VCSELs, reduce optical cavity losses, and
reduce VCSEL current thresholds. Interconnect coupling is presently achieved
with free-space lens optics but could also be accomplished with other media
such as fiber image guide. The photo-receivers are based upon GaAs flip-chip
PIN detector arrays for 850 nm and InGaAs/InP flip-chip PIN detector arrays for
980 nm. Optical cross-talk between channels is less than -20 dB. These dense
optical interconnect arrays will be of interest for the movement of large
bandwidths of data on various functional multi-sensor platforms and within OE
processing architectures.

 

Light Activated Medical Diagnostics and
Therapies
by Dr. Ronald W. Waynant, FDA/CDRH, Electro-Optics Branch, Dr.
Ilko K. Ilev, FDA/CDRH, Electro-Optics Branch and Dr. Juanita J. Anders,
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Saturday 11:30AM
Light has taken an important role in both the
information age and in the medical field. Not only does it have a dominant role
in modern communications and information transmission as well as in information
storage such as CDs and DVDs, it is now moving to play an important role modern
medical diagnostics and therapeutics. In diagnostics mid-infrared wavelength
laser sources and quantum well detectors are beginning to play a role in
identifying endogenous trace gas biomarkers that signal abnormal conditions in
the body. By non-invasively analyzing human breath, numerous indicators of
disease and health status can be identified. Light may also play a role in the
therapy needed to heal the body. Although more research needs to be done to
determine precise dosage, already nearly one hundred ailments that respond to
light therapy have been identified. Light treatment may have few side effects.
In addition in some cases it can help heal wounds or relieve pain that will not
resolve with the traditional medical practices.

 

The Rayleigh-Sommerfeld Diffraction Integral
is Superior to Fresnel-Kirchhoff
by R. Lucke, Naval Research
Laboratory
Saturday 2:00PM
The venerated Fresnel-Kirchhof (FK) diffraction
integral gives a different description of Poisson’s spot than does the
less-familiar Rayleigh-Sommerfeld (RS) formulation. FK is obviously wrong,
while RS is obviously right(?). Basically, FK is restricted to small
diffraction angles (which is usually not an important limitation). The flaw in
the derivation of FK is discussed (the FK solution is well-known not to satisfy
the boundary conditions under which it is derived), as is the fact that a
derivation using Fourier propagation leads to RS, not to FK. Both FK and RS use
the scalar wave approximation, which means that an acoustics experiment could
prove which is right, an experiment that could be done by an enthusiastic
undergraduate

 

Hyperspectral and Multi-spectral Remote
Sensing of Atmospheric Water Vapor and Cirrus Clouds
by Bo-Cai GAO Naval
Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
Saturday 2:20PM
Through analysis of hyperspectral imaging data
collected with the Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS)
during the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is found that narrow channels located
within and around the 0.94-micron water vapor bands are useful for the remote
sensing of the columnar amount of atmospheric water vapor. It is also found
that narrow channels located within the 1.38-micron and 1.88-micron strong
water vapor absorption bands are useful for remote sensing of cirrus clouds.
Based on these observations, several narrow channels near 0.94 micron have been
selected and implemented on the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
(MODIS) instrument for remote sensing of water vapor from space, and a narrow
channel centered at 1.375 micron has also been implemented on MODIS for global
measurements of cirrus clouds. Sample water vapor images derived from AVIRIS
and MODIS data will be presented. Examples of global cirrus cloud reflectance
images obtained from the MODIS data will also be presented. It will be shown
that if an additional narrow channel near 1.88 micron is implemented on a
future multi-channel meteorological satellite sensor, our ability in global
remote sensing of cirrus optical depths and effective particle sizes will be
improved significantly

 

Satellite Measurements of Multi-Decadal
Trends in Noctilucent Clouds
by Eric P. Shettle, Naval Research Laboratory,
Remote Sensing Division, Matthew T. DeLand.,SSAI, Gary E. Thomas, LASP, Sharon
P. Burton, SAIC, MS 475, NASA Langley Research Center, John J. Olivero,
Embry-Riddle University, Dept. of Physical Sciences, and Larry W. Thomason,
NASA Langley Research Center
Saturday 2:40PM
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) have been observed
from the ground since 1885 and from satellites since 1969. They occur at high
latitudes during a three month period starting about one month before the
summer solstice. They form in the upper mesosphere, at altitudes of 80 to 85
km. NLCs are composed of small ice particles, which form during the polar
summer when the upper mesosphere reaches temperatures of less than 130 K, so
that even the few parts per million of water vapor available at those altitudes
becomes highly supersaturated. There are now several sets of satellite
measurements of NLCs, each of which cover a decade or longer with the same
instrument or multiple copies of the same instrument on different satellites.
We will focus on two of these datasets from the Solar Backscatter UltraViolet
[SBUV and SBUV/2] instruments on the NOAA polar-orbiting meteorological
satellites and from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment [SAGE II].
While both of these instruments were developed primarily to measure
stratospheric ozone, and in the case of SAGE II also measure other trace gases
and aerosols in the stratosphere, they have proven sensitive enough to measure
NLCs. These measurements show that the number of NLCs observed each season
exhibit a strong anti-correlation with the solar Lyman-alpha flux. While there
is no clear indication of a long-term trend in the frequency of occurrence of
all NLCs, there is evidence that the frequency of brightest NLCs are
increasing. There is also clear evidence that the average brightness or albedo
of the NLCs observed by the SBUV instruments has increased over the past
quarter century. Recent modeling results by Thomas et al. have shown that this
increasing brightness is consistent with the increase in mesospheric water
vapor over the same period. We will discuss the implications of these findings
in terms of our understanding of global change.

 

Linear and Nonlinear Magneto-Optical
Rotation in Ultra-cold Sodium
by J. Nash, Naval Air Systems Command C.
Adler, St. Mary’s College, Dept. of Physics, and F. A. Narducci Naval Air
Systems Command and St. Mary’s College, Dept. of Physics
Saturday 3:00PM
Recently, there has been an increased interest
in polarization rotation in atomic media immersed in a magnetic field (see, cf.
[1]). Due to atomic coherence effects, resonances as narrow as 2 x1Hz [2] and
rotation angles as large as 10 radians [3] have been reported in hot rubidium
cells. These experiments rely on special wall coatings or buffer gas cells to
preserve the coherence by either preserving the polarization as the atoms
collide with the cell wall or by keeping the atoms in the coherence-inducing
laser fields by non-depolarizing collisions with buffer gas atoms. In this
paper, we report on our measurements of polarization rotation in a novel medium
that does not rely on either of these techniques. We report on our measurements
of both linear and non-linear polarization rotation in ultra-cold sodium and
compare to our theory, which includes the effects of atomic recoil.

 

Exploring Sun-Earth Connections: A Physical
Science Program for (K-8) Teachers
by D.J. Michels, The Catholic University
of America and Code 7660M, Naval Research Laboratory, S. M. Pickert, The
Catholic University of America, C. J. Montrose, The Catholic University of
America, and and J. L. Thompson, The Catholic University of
America.
Saturday 3:20PM
An experimental, inquiry-based and
standards-referenced physical science curriculum for undergraduate, pre-service
K-8 teachers is under development at the Catholic University of America in
collaboration with the Solar Physics Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory
and NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection missions. A feature of this
program will be its use of solar data in the form of images and movies from
ongoing space missions, to illustrate basic concepts of physics and to inspire
student interest and curiosity. Courses will be team-taught by faculty from the
University’s Departments of Education and Physics with active
participation by researchers from the local solar physics community. Teaching
goals will include pedagogical methods appropriate to the physics content. This
is a progress report.

 

Coffee break and Don Michels SOHO
demonstration
Saturday
3:30PM

 

Twenty-five Years of Interferometric Fiber
Optic Acoustic Sensors at Naval Research Laboratory
by James H. Cole, Clay
Kirkendall, Anthony Dandridge, Gary Cogdell and T. G. Giallorenzi
Saturday 4:00PM
Interferometric fiber optic acoustic sensors
are based on measuring the phase change of light traveling in an optical fiber
due to the strains developed in the fiber by a pressure field. Fiber
interferometry is extremely sensitive allowing detection of periodic length
variations on the order of a few hundred femtometers (~10-13
meters). This paper will cover the development of these sensors from 1977 to
the present. A brief introduction will describe the operation of
interferometric fiber optic sensors including component development and
interferometric demodulation techniques. A discussion of the transduction
mechanism from the pressure field to phase modulation in the fiber will follow.
The mechanical design of various sensor configurations including coated fibers,
fiber coils, solid and air-backed mandrels will be reviewed. Recent results
measured on the acoustic sensors employing fibers coated with air-included
polymers will also be presented. The significance of fiber optic sensor
multiplexing for use in multi-element arrays will be discussed. Finally, a
photograph of the prototype sensors similar to those deployed on the new
Virginia Class submarine will be presented.

PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

The Economics of the
Moon
by Dr. Klaus P.
Heiss, High Frontier, Inc.
Saturday 11:00AM
Applying von
Thünen’s economic laws on the location of various economic activities
(1826 and 1850) the author concludes that the principal economic uses of the
Moon for benefiting Earth will be limited to observations, communications, Cis-
and Trans-lunar Space transportation and, potentially, energy
applications.
With the ability to
deploy vast distributed aperture observatories across the electromagnetic
spectrum on the Moon looking toward Earth and deployed on a stable platform
– the Moon – a revolutionary new era in Earth observations will be
opened: long-dwell, high resolution observations from infra-red, near infrared,
optical, microwave up to x-ray and gamma ray observatories, passive and active,
of the earth’s land and ocean areas. Specific applications and benefits
deriving therefrom are discussed – based not on simulations but
quantitative statistical measurements and estimates, including crop
measurements, monitoring and forecasting, with ‘feedbacks’ to crop
distribution and production decisions
The potentially vast
economic uses of the Moon for Earth should not be prejudged by narrow
preconceptions held by some in the scientific community because of a lack, or
unwillingness, to explore these potentials by ‘looking back to earth’
from the moon, rather than only out to the stars.

POTOMAC
CHAPTER OF THE HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY

Panel Discussion: Human Factors and
Ergonomics: Improving the Technology of our Times
Panelists from the
Potomac Chapter Human Factors and Ergonomics Society: Douglas Griffith, Richard
L. Horst, Gerald P. Krueger, Jack I. Laveson, and John W. Ruffner
Saturday 11:00AM
Panel members will provide an introduction to
and an overview of the field of human factors and ergonomics. The relevance of
human factors and ergonomics to national security, public policy, safety, and
consumerism will be discussed. Computer usability issues will be examined and
solutions offered. The panel will field questions from the audience. There will
be lively, interactive discussions among the panelists and between the panel
and audience.

SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING APPRENTICE PROGRAM, GEORGE WASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY

The Effects of United States Ground Water
Levels on J2
by David Price, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and
Technology Mentor: Dr. Thomas Johnson Lab: United States Naval
Observatory
Sunday 10:30AM
This project examines whether continental United
States net groundwater movements could account for part of the mass
redistribution required to explain observed changes in J2 rate. The J2, also
called “dynamic oblateness” or “flatness”, is a measure of the deviation of
Earth’s shape from the spherical and has important effects on satellite orbits
and length of day. In 1998, the J2 of the Earth inexplicably began to increase
after having decreased since measurements began around 1980. This research is
based on well depth data from the US Geological Survey (USGS). The quality of
the data varies, so only high-quality readings are selected for analysis. Next,
meaningful geographic regions are defined such that changes in groundwater
levels within each region have similar effects on J2. The USGS data are then
used to estimate groundwater mass in each region. The effect of observed
groundwater mass on J2 is then calculated. Continental US groundwater mass
varied by approximately 3 x 1015 kilograms between 1993 and 2003; the change in
J2 rate due to this change in mass would be approximately 4 x 10-12 per year.
The observed global change in J2 rate over the same period was 3.2 x 10-11 per
year. Therefore, the continental US, with about 5% of the Earth’s land mass,
contributed approximately 12% of the change in J2. Extrapolating these results
to the global distribution of groundwater could explain much of the observed
changes in J2.

 

On Calculating the Moon’s Times of Perigee
and Apogee and on the Minimum Distance Between Two Keplerian Orbits
by
Andrei Munteanu, Benjamin Banneker High School Mentor: Dr. Marc Murison
Lab: United States Naval Observatory
Sunday 10:45AM
A web application was developed which reads
JPL’s DE405 Ephemeris file and determines times of perigee and apogee of the
moon. This interactive web page will be included in the suite of astronomical
data applications available at the ISNO Astronomical Applications website.
Moreover, research was continued on the problem of finding the minimum orbital
intersection distance (MOID) between two Keplerian orbits. Specifically, a 2D
Newton-Rhapson solver was implemented numerically to find the roots of a set of
tow bivariate trigonometric polynomials that are at the heart of the
problem.

 

Neurotrophin Gene Expression Profiling in
the Hippocampus and Amygdala of Acutely Stressed Mice
by Renee Park,
Montgomery Blair High School Mentors: Wenling Eileen Chang, CPT Jose
Pizarro, Dr. Lucille Lumley, Dr. James Meyerhoff Lab: Walter Reed Army
Institute of Research (WRAIR
Sunday 11:05AM
The amygdala and the hippocampus are known to be
involved in the regulation of anxiety and stress responses. Studies have shown
that cell proliferation is inhibited by psychosocial stress, which may lead to
the down-regulation of neurotrophin genes. Previously, our lab presented the
evidence that the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) mRNA are
significantly decreased in the mouse hippocampus after social defeat. In this
study, total mRNA was extracted from both the hippocampus and the amygdala and
used to examine changes on neurotrophin expression in these brain areas. We
used the GEArray Q Series Mouse Neurotrophin and Receptors Gene SuperArray Kit
to profile the expression of 96 neurotrophic genes that may be involved in
social stress. ScanAlyze v2.50 and GEArrayAnalyzer v1.3 were utilized to
analyze the SuperArray for each brain region. The Onto- program was used to
create a functional profile of the 96 genes. The results support our findings
as well as the findings of several other studies that link a decrease of
hippocampal BDNF expression with stress. BDNF was also found decreased in the
amygdala. Other genes, such as corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRR), were
determined to be down-regulated in both the hippocampus and amygdala.
Conversely, persephin (Pspn) and neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor type 1
(Ntrkl) were found to be up-regulated in the amygdala and neuropeptide Y
receptor Y5 (Npy5r) and neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor type 2 (Ntrk2)
were up-regulated in the hippocampus. It is interesting, however, to note that
Pspn was down-regulated in the hippocampus despite being up-regulated in the
amygdala.

 

Automated Seizure Detection Using Principal
Comvonent Analvsis and Discriminate Analvsis
by Sherri Geng, Montgomery
Blair High School Mentor: Dr. Lucille Lumley Lab: Walter Reed Army
Institute of Research (WRAIR
Sunday 11:25AM
We present a new method of automated seizure
detection in EEG data based on discriminant analysis for signal pattern
classification, preceded by principal components analysis (PCA) for seizure
feature extraction. We have developed all necessary algorithms and implement
fully functional software via MATLAB. We use as our training dataset 100 sets
of EEG records (0.5 second epochs with a digitization sampling rate of 250 Hz)
consisting of both seizure and non-seizure signal patterns. Feature patterns
from this set are extracted by statistical analysis within PCA procedures. The
dimensionality of the feature space is reduced by selecting the first 50
dominant eigenvectors. The extracted feature patterns are then classified with
a Student discriminant analysis approach. After training the system with the
dataset of 100 mixed EEG signals, we feed into the software a new and
independently collected testing dataset of 100 EEG signals. Both the training
and testing datasets are verified by experts. Our experiments show the false
alarm rate to be 2%, the false rejection rate at 0%, the selectivity at 98%,
the sensitivity at 100%, and the specificity at 98%. Automated systems promise
significant reduction of the amount of EEG data that must be reviewed or stored
for further analysis, and may serve especially well in the long-term EEG to
simultaneously reduce susceptibility of human error, increase efficiency in
reading extensive records (weeks and months of continuous EEG waveforms), and
potentially improve detection sensitivity. They may corroborate with the
physical-observational approach of clinical EEG experts to achieve maximum
specificity, selectivity, and sensitivity. The method we present may be paired
with existing seizure detection systems such as the Dataquest Acquisition and
Analysis System from Data Sciences International to achieve improved accuracy
in seizure detection. Automated detection of seizure activity has become an
increasingly prevalent theme in the domain of EEG analysis. We hope the study
presented herein will contribute to the advancement of this promising but very
challenging field.

WASHINGTON
CHAPTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT
SCIENCE

Competing Models: Mathematics of Context
by Russell Vane, President, WINFORMS
Saturday 9:00AM
This talk provides a way to tradeoff the
uncertainty of the modeling process with possible interpretations. Adding more
and more factors to the model is not the answer.

 

Early Operations Research in Washington
by John Honig, Cofounder of WINFORMS
Saturday 9:45AM
This talk involves the early history of the
Operations Research field in the seat or power of the US government

 

Ops. Research from Britain to New
Battlefields
by Adjunct Professor Gene Visco, George Mason
University
Saturday 10:30AM
Part One: How Operational Research Crossed the
Pond and Became Operations Research. A brief account of the origins of modern
military analysis and its first few years in the New World. Part Two:
Clausewitzian Friction is Alive and Well on the New Battlefields. A brief
attempt to answer the question: Is network centric warfare likely to be the
panacea?

 

What Hath Reverend Bayes Wrought: Powerful
Probabilistic Inference on Your Laptop
by Dennis Buede, Principal,
Innovative Decisions, Inc
Saturday 11:15
This seminar will reacquaint everyone with Bayes
rule and its natural applications to medical diagnosis, systems testing, sensor
fusion, spam filters, etc. Several examples will be given for medical
diagnosis, systems testing and sensor fusion. Finally, the topic of learning
the joint probability distribution (i.e., the Bayesian network) from data will
be presented and illustrated.

 

Surviving as an Analyst in an NQPT World
by . Kirk Yost, Senior Analyst, MITRE
Saturday 2:00PM
Major decisions are largely made by a class I
refer to as Non-Quantitative Policy Types” (NQPTs). Quantitative analysts tend
not to understand NQPTs very well, which results in their analyses leading
nowhere. This presentation offers advice on how to succeed (and fail) in an
NQPT environment.

 

Validation Challenges and Ethical Issues in
Simulation Models of Organizations
by Douglas A. Samuelson, Owner,
InfoLogix, Inc
Saturday 2:45PM
Multi-agent simulation models enable us to study
complex social and cognitive phenomena, including leadership and influence in
organizations. In these studies, it is easy to generate experimental hypotheses
that would be difficult to validate because any sufficiently powerful
experiment would change the system of interest. In some cases, merely stating
the research question could affect the object of study. This raises serious
ethical concerns, as well.

 

Bell, Sherlock, Mycroft and Homeland
Security
by Professor David Schum, George Mason University
Saturday 3:30PM
This talk explores the way that the reasoning
techniques of Dr. Joseph Bell, Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes can be used
to address homeland security issues.

 

Human-Computer Symbiosis by Douglas
Griffith, Scientist, General Dynamics
Saturday 4:15PM
This talk merges Licklider’s, Heuer’s and
Kahneman’s work on mixed initiative systems to propose requirements for design
using psychological principles to account for a human being’s cognitive
shortfalls and a computer’s semantics/context errors.

WASHINGTON
EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS SOCIETY

Opening Remarks, The Mysterious Nature of
Abstractions
by Jerry LR Chandler, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study,
GMU
Saturday 9:00AM

 

Story Telling and the Story of Man by
Andrew Vogt, Department of Mathe matics, Georgetown University
Saturday 9:05AM
To some extent man’s place in the universe and
man’s future can be understood though man’s history, the evolutionary path from
the beginnings of life, through the proliferation of life forms, and along our
particular branch in the great tree of life. For example, how does the human
brain do the things that it does? The answer proposed by scientists is partly
to be found in evolution. We are products of the evolutionary process, and our
bodies and minds, our motor and sensory apparatuses, our feelings, our
thoughts, our impulses for good and evil, our art and our science all result
from how we have met the challenges and opportunities that we have survived to
be here today. Although our knowledge of the distant past is speculative, the
stories that we put together and the lessons we draw from the evidence
illustrate how our minds work and at the same time offer intriguing glimpses of
how we might have gotten to be the way we are. The relationship of motor
activity to sensation and the processing of sensation, the development of
memory and the higher intellectual functions, our internal models of the world,
the stories and myths we tell ourselves about the world, our awareness of death
can all be seen as arising from episodes in the struggle to survive.
Contributing to survival is a sense of purpose or joy in life, and the question
arises whether our stories and myths reflect a literal reality or a
self-serving set of delusions. To what extent is true knowledge possible or
desirable? My presentation will examine some of these issues, and is motivated
chiefly by writings of H. J. Jerison.

 

Mystery, Abstraction, Dynamics by
Frederick David Abraham, Blueberry Brain Institute, Waterbury Center, VT and
Psychology, Silliman University Dumaguete City, Philippines
Saturday 9:30AM
A central theme in most
philosophical lineages is that of the difference between the complexities of
that which is observable and the presumed ideal unified forms and laws which
may lie hidden and from which the complexities spring. These issues tend to
recur in the philosophies of science and of society. From the early Greek
enlightenment, through the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, and to the
present, examples abound in myth, the Galileo affair, operationism, and the
history of psychology such as in Wundt’s distinction of two psychologies.
Abstraction and various mathematical and computer methods have been used in
attempting representation of the “truth”. Nonlinear dynamics attempts the
resolution of holistic and analytical approaches, of convergent and divergent
tendencies in representing change (bifurcation) and emergence
(self-organization) when multiple factors are interacting, but does not resolve
the basic differences. I will just graze briefly in these
pastures.

 

Mapping the Human World: Abstraction,
Evolution, and Ethics )
by Robert Artigiani, History Department, U.S.
Naval Academy
Saturday 10:00AM
Maps representing hills,
valleys, plains, and rivers are familiar examples of abstraction. Because they
represent geography in the simplified language of color and shape, we think
maps are uniquely human modes of abstraction. But nature maps itself all the
time. Perhaps the most obvious example is DNA, which maps organisms by
abstracting all the information stored in them into a few chemical molecules.
Uniquely human ways of abstracting involve symbols, which emerged to map social
realities. Societies self-organized when population growth created problems
individuals could not solve for themselves. Once biological survival depended
on correlated behaviors, however, the rules of the evolutionary game changed.
From this point on, to survive, individuals had to Afit in@to networks of
interacting behaviors, and natural selection acted on social systems as well as
organisms. The symbols that map social spaces and guide individuals into them
are Values, Ethics, and Morals (VEMs). Morals map the meaning of action, for
they symbolize how local actions are translated into global states. Since what
the members of societies do depends in part on the symbols guiding their
choices, competition between societies measures the value of moral information
the way biological evolution measures the value of DNA. It is, therefore,
possible to speak of an evolution of morals paralleling the evolution of genes.
But now the evolution of morals leads to conclusions radically different from
those drawn in the past. Previously, evolution seemed to authorize individually
barbarous activities like those supposedly advantaged in jungles. But an irony
appears once the focus of moral evolution shifts to societies, for it seems
that, in the Darwinian world of inter-system politics, societies compete best
that individuate, liberate, and empower their members most. This presentation
will explore the relationship between abstraction and evolution, hopefully
showing that a humanistic morality grounded in natural processes logically
follows.

 

Notational Systems and Abstractions
by Jeffrey G. Long
Saturday 10:30AM
The notion of
“abstractions” is used in many different ways. Before developing a taxonomy of
abstractions it will be necessary to clarify the various kinds of entities that
are often subsumed under the rubric of “abstractions.” This paper makes an
attempt at defining the notion of abstraction, and distinguishing it from the
many other kinds of entities that are often called abstractions, by looking at
several notational systems that seem to reify or tokenize abstractions.

 

Emergence, Thinking, and Abstraction in
Hominid Evolution
by Ann M Palkovich Krasnow Associate Professor Krasnow
Institute of Advanced Study George Mason University
Saturday 11:00AM
Probing the deep
history of humanity is a process where sweeping claims are grounded in the
fragments of the few, literally. Our understanding of hominid evolution is
based on a small group of individuals, scattered through millions of years of
time, separated by hundreds of thousands of miles. And while each year the
ranks of this fossil lineage modestly swell by a few specimens, we still
confront the notion that most of our presumed evolutionary path is in fact an
abstraction. Based on analogy, comparison and metaphor, hominid evolution as we
currently understand it is the product of abstract notions of evolutionary
change, constrained and confounded by peculiar bits of empirical evidence.
Shaped by the fashions of scientific inquiry and the happenstance of fossil
preservation, hominid evolution is the story of scientific abstraction and
interpretation. The abstractions relevant to paleoanthropology generally are
drawn from evolutionary biology, geology, and argument structure. These
abstractions allow us to account for fossils in time and space. Stratigraphic
context places fossils in time. Spatial location is the basis for geographic
variability of specimens and their ecological settings. Comparative anatomy
provides a reference for morphological variability. Evolutionary models then
frame individual specimens as members of populations subject to the processes
of natural selection. Finally, highly focused studies draw our attention to
specific features of these hominid ancestors, presumably add insight or
challenging old truisms. I will briefly explore the nature of a few current
trends in abstraction – ideas about emergence and cognition — as they are
invoked to create the story of hominid evolution. For biology, these concepts
are deeply embedded in contemporary evolutionary thought about the nature of
change, relational characteristics, and the issues of categorization. Yet,
paleoanthropology characteristically stands apart from other biological
inquiry. The arguments, ideas, explanations of evidence, and competing views
appear to be bounded by scientific traditions within the field. How do new
abstractions derived from emergence theory and issues of cognition fit with
similarly sketched scientific abstractions in parallel fields? How do the
trends in “evolutionary thinking” – novel in many contemporary scientific
arenas – resonate with the well-worn abstractions that have traditionally
formed our core understanding of own origins in paleoanthropology? How do
notions of emergence create new domains of abstraction from which we now
consider the origins of thinking? How do we think about the origins of
thinking?

 

Universal Darwinism and Global Change by
George Modelski
Saturday 11:30AM
Universal Darwinism is the idea that Darwinian
principles of evolution are fundamental to all life anywhere. These core
principles therefore also apply, jointly with auxiliary material bearing on
specific domains, to the organization of social life on this planet, and each
of these domains may be regarded as the locus of an equal instance of an
evolutionary process and not just as analogous to biological evolution. The
powers of abstraction embodied in these concepts, and their universality has of
course, been noticed for quite some time but their recent specification by
Henry Plotkin (1997) is particularly cogent. It may be summarized in the
following terms: it deploys (1) an internalized notion of evolution that
extends evolutionary principles as operating within, as well as without the
entities under analysis (2) a hierarchical conception that maps the multi-level
nature of evolutionary processes; (3) the Lewontin-Campbell (g-t-r) heuristic
that accounts for evolutionary change and its innovative character; and (4) the
Williams-Dawkins (R-I-L) formulation that brings out the role of replication,
of continuity and of reproduction and that accounts for stability. The wide
range of these principles will be illustrated by reference to global political
evolution, and world system change.

 

Categorical Models of Abstraction with
Possible Relevance for Biology
by Dr. Paul C Kainen, Department of
Mathematics, Georgetown University
Saturday 2:00PM
A view of category theory will be presented
that regards commutative diagrams as a representation of “facts”. The speaker
will give a brief review of the main ideas in category theory – focusing on the
case of abelian categories (where the morphism sets have the natural structure
of an abelian group). The central theme is that the concept of adjointness,
which requires categorical language for a precise formulation, gives sufficient
richness to explore abstraction as an aspect of evolutionary systems. The
speaker has shown that under certain conditions, partial commutativity of
diagrams implies full commutativity – that is, under suitable constraints, a
partial model of some cognitive situation must be extendable to a complete
model. This may allow an extension of the concept of adjointness.

 

Flirting with Paradox:
Emergence, Creative Process, and Self-transcending Constructions
by Jeffrey
Goldstein, Ph.D., Adelphi University
Saturday 2:30PM
I am proposing a new
formalism that would cover the varied processes involved in emergence in
complex systems, namely, that of self-transcending constructions (STC).
Although this is a new formalism, it can also function as generalization wide
enough to include the many species of emergence such as the emergence of new
orderly regimes in simple, self-organizing physical systems, bifurcations and
the emergence of new attractors in dynamical systems, the emergence of novel
robust patterns with novel properties exhibited in artificial life, as well as
other instances of collective level emergence in evolutionary natural and
social systems. STC’s are many and varied but the prototype I am using is
derived from the anti-diagonal construction that was critical to the set
theoretical investigations of Georg Cantor as well as the limitative theorems
in mathematical logic achieved by Godel and Turing (Machover, 1996). In fact,
the anti-diagonal construction is implicated directly in several important
approaches in the study of emergence, namely, Ian Stewart’s and Jack Cohen’s
so-called Existence Theorem for Emergence (Cohen and Stewart, 1994), Charles
Bennett’s construct of logical depth put forward as a complexity metric to
remedy the limitations of algorithmic or Kolmogorov/Chaitin/Simonoff complexity
(Bennett, 1986), John Holland’s call for a new mathematics showing a change in
cardinality (Holland, 1998), and indirectly in John von Neumann’s work on
self-reproducing automata (Burks, 1987) and Walter Fontana’s and Leo Buss’s
work on algorithmic chemistry using proof theory (Fontana and Buss, 1996), The
notion of STC is also meant as a replacement for the common meaning of
self-organization since I will demonstrate why the former expression is
inadequate for understanding emergence. The idea of construction as such was
suggested by Phillip Anderson’s Constructionist Hypothesis put forward as a
strong statement of emergence at the birth of modern complexity theory: the
ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the
ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe (Anderson, 1972).
Instead, at each new level of complexity, new properties appear that require
new theoretical constructs appropriate for that new level as fundamental as any
other level. The “self-transcending” part of STC refers to manner in which
these kinds of constructional processes of emergence “construct” the universe
along the lines of building-up new levels of complexity. This focus on
construction rather than self-organization can also be understood in the light
of Fontana’s and Buss’ (1996) critique of an unmodified phase space model for
understanding the coming into being of the computational emergence of
artificial life. Since STC’s will be understood as fundamentally creative
processes, I will be discussing certain research on creativity which highlights
how truly original outcomes can come about (Finke, Ward, and Smith, 1992; and,
Rothenberg, 1979). As creative processes, STC’s will be shown to flirt with,
but not embrace paradox, a crucial distinction necessary in order to avoid
logical inconsistency (Hofstadter, 1985; and, Melhuish, 1973). I will
demonstrate how this flirtation with paradox is essential for the coming into
being of novel entities and dynamics. Conceptual advantages accruing to the
notion of STC will be elaborated by showing how it improves upon earlier
generalizations of emergence such as that devised by Alfred North Whitehead
with his construct of process. In particular I will show how process
philosophies and theologies cannot really account for the kind of radical
novelty that self-transcending constructions can

 

Complementarity in Evolution
by Dorothy Kurth Boberg
Saturday 3:00PM
In 1859, when the Origin
of Species was published, the logic of science remained the deductive reasoning
of Plato and the inductive reasoning of Aristotle. These logics remain the
reasoning of much of science today. However, deductive logic requires an all
inclusive major premise and students know that any test question that begins
with the word “all” raises a red flag. Also the minor premise must be a part of
the major premise and this may be problematical. Inductive logic also has a
serious problem. How can it be known that all or even enough parts of a whole
can lead to a proper hypothesis? These classical systems of monistic logic
require either/or, true/false decisions, restricting thought to alternatives
that may obscure both quantitative and qualitative fine distinctions. Other
logics have been developed since then and some of them may be more productive
than classical logics in understanding evolution issues. Charles Darwin said
that the competition of natural selection was the “main means of evolution” and
cooperative processes were subordinate to, and part of, natural selection. This
reasoning can be accommodated deductively but it may not represent the logic
needed today to understand the new facts about microorganisms and their origin
and my discovery of the role of viruses in evolution.. Niels Bohr, in
considering atomic processes, developed the concept of complementarity to
define the relationships of elementary particles, and suggested that the
concept of complementarity should be considered in other fields, especially
psychology and biology. The complementarity of two or more concepts or facts
involves a logic of complementarity that I have developed as “complementarity
dynamics.” In using this reasoning, I propose that the competition of natural
selection and the symbiotic or cooperative processes we see in nature, are
complementary processes. This challenges the Darwinian prevalence in evolution
theory. When we consider that competition is complementary to cooperative
processes, we can no longer accept that the aggression of males of many species
leads to the most progeny – the long accepted test of “survival of the
fittest.” Unless the females cooperated with the aggressive test of maleness,
and cooperated with the responsibility of nurturing the young, there may be no
progeny at all for the most aggressive male. In fact, in many cases today among
humans, the most nurturing males have more progeny. Even the concept that those
having the most progeny survive is now being challenged by the reality of the
finite earth. The overpopulation of the human species currently gives evidence
that this is not the key to long term survival of either our own species or the
species biodiversity necessary for all life. Can it be that a new theory and a
new logic of the complementarity of competitive and cooperative processes, in
dynamic equilibrium, is required not only to understand evolution but also to
promote long term survival on this planet?

 

Multi-Stage Evolution on Earth:
Empirical Evidence for Entropy and Information Changes
by Richard L. Coren
Emeritus Professor Drexel University
Saturday 3:30PM
Verhulst’s equation, or
Logistics, is a robust, widely used, phenomenological model of the growth of a
system; its simplicity avoids many of the detailed complexities of most such
descriptions. In this paper it is extended to describe growth, through the
emergence of several distinct stages, e.g., species changes. From the extended
mathematical expression a distinctive relation is derived that serves as a test
of the interrelatedness of the stages and the continuity of the evolutionary
parameters throughout. It is shown that a sequence of critical events,
extending from the Big Bang, through biological evolution, through
technological development conform to this description. This establishes
continuity of this entire evolution as stages of a related, underlying process.
The extent of the changes involved, and the tremendous, overall time scale lead
one to expect a relation of the evolutionary parameter to entropy. The
distinctive, altering events and, in particular, the fact that the last few of
them are inventions of mankind and therefore transparent in their nature,
indicate that information is the entropic related variable. The mechanism for
this is discussed; it suggests an unrecognized feature of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. The historic time scale of appearance of the critical events
leads to an estimate of when the next major transition will occur but the form
of that transition remains obscure.

 

Keynotes for a new ecodynamic vewpoint as
suggestions for the environmental wisdom
by Riccardo M. Pulselli,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Sienna,
Italy
Saturday 4:00PM
The theory of
evolutionary physics by Ilya Prigogine has changed expectations and
perspectives in science. Thermodynamics and entropy are the tools necessary for
studying the complexity of living systems and evolving ecosystems. Asserting
that energy and mass are intrinsically conserved and entropy is intrinsically
evolutionary, the asking question is how can entropy be calculated on the basis
of energy and mass quantities. This question is still unanswered and all we can
do is to note that the ecodynamic viewpoint is different from that of classical
physics and classical ecology. According to the fact that the history and the
succession of events are of scientific relevance, the concept of function of
state should be revised at a higher level of complexity. At least, the issue is
also that state functions do not work and cannot exist in a evolutionary
network. By an evolutionary viewpoint it is necessary to use goal functions.
Suggestions coming from such a discussion on entropy and living systems
strikingly condition human approach on those problems affecting the planet in
order to pursue an issue of environmental wisdom. .

 

Record warfare in the global system and the
next magnitude µR > 7.1 record-setting war: A preliminary analysis
by Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Ph.D. Professor of Computational Sciences and
Director Center for Social Complexity George Mason University
Saturday 4:10PM
The long-term process of warfare involving great
powers in the global system is well-documented for the past five hundred years
of history (Levy 1983; Small and Singer 1983) with complete data and no missing
observations. This study demonstrates the existence of a previously undetected
process with exponentially increasing record values in war fatalities, or
constantly increasing record magnitudes for warfare produced by the great power
core of the global system. Thirteen wars since 1495 have set unprecedented
battle-fatality records, not counting civilian and postwar fatalities. Based on
these findings, the next record-setting war, which is now statistically overdue
by several decades, is estimated to be of at least magnitude 7.35
(approximately 22.5 battle fatalities), global in scale, and waged with weapons
of mass destruction. Civilian and postwar casualties would significantly
increase this estimate.

 

A Common Basis for Abstraction,
Computing with Words
by John E. Gray, Code B-32, Naval Surface Warfare
Center, Dahlgren Division
Sunday 10:30AM
Science has a unique
requirement, the abstractions it uses must display some form of familiarity
with reality if they are to live within the community of science. This is has
been noted by Feynman who has observed that imagination in science is quite
different than that in other creative disciplines “It is surprising that people
do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting
kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in
trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in
every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what
has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague
proposition. That is indeed difficult.” Since the nature of scientific
imagination is quite different than other forms of human imagination; is it
reasonable to expect that the abstraction that results from the successful
exercise of the imagination to have common grounds? One might argue that the
common ground cannot be found in the realm of numbers, but in a different
arena—perceptions, which are expressed in terms of words. In order for the
“word” metaphor for science to be a useful abstraction, we must consider both
the limitations of what has gone before us and what awaits us. The usage of
words allows us arrive at a common language for discussion, however there
remain problems with trying to consider them as an universal language. The
price to be paid for the usages of words is that we can no longer rely on
predicting the outcome of experiment by the usage of numbers as the criteria
for success or failure. The crispness of numbers for the outcome of experiments
is not universal in science, contrary to claims by many authors. “With all
objects represented in a uniform way, computing reduces to just one fundamental
operation: transforming one expression into another.” Abstractions begin and
ends with “words” and the symbols that form them. Once that it realized,
scientific question can then be reduced to one of the above questions.
Expressing questions as computations can become as concrete or abstract as the
objects drawn from “reality” that form the words we compute with. It is our
thesis that a common basis for science should be to view all theories and
experiments as questions posed in terms of words and the symbols that form
them. Thus abstraction is first and foremost words made flesh and the new basis
for the common language of science. This new language comes from viewing all of
science as words and questions about allowable transformations of words. Using
this common language forming questions would allow all who participate in
science to play the role of poets with language games that would new forms to
be created and allow cross fertilization of interactions to form a common basis
for discussion.

 

Abstraction and Software Design by
Alexander Shostko, Research Engineer, Simulation Concepts Inc.
Sunday 11:00AM
One of the definitions
of abstraction is “the act of considering separately what is united in a
complex object” [Webster Dictionary]. The goal of abstraction is to provide a
better understanding of phenomena and make it appear less complex. It is
paradoxical that the high-tech software field, which brought rapid advances to
virtually every domain from manufacturing to finance, still relies mainly on
manual labor. The explanation is that it takes considerable human intelligence
and skills to overcome complexity. The phrase ‘paradigm in crisis’ was coined
decades ago to indicate that software takes too long to develop, costs too
much, and does not work very well once delivered. This paper tries to sketch
the past evolution of software design from an abstraction and complexity point
of view.

 

Evolved Introspective
Abstraction
by H T Goranson, Advanced Enterprise Research
Office
Sunday 11:30AM
Problem solving,
especially in science, is a matter of finding the correct abstractions for the
problem, the so-called problem space. These abstractions when found are hosted
in a formal framework, usually mathematical with some intuition-friendly
metaphors some of which are implicit.
One might remark that there are so many
long open grand challenges because our vocabulary of abstractions is so
limited. Nowhere might this be more apparent than in our inability to reason
well about introspective emergent behavior.
One limit is the restriction of the
intuitive metaphors employed (with resulting semantic confusion); another is
the implicit default to set-theoretic abstractions. Probably a third is the
unfriendliness of first order logic in accommodating context and soft dynamics.
Supposing that an expanded
abstraction vocabulary would be useful in addressing these problems, we assume
it to be based on category theoretic mechanisms because they allow an
introspective awareness: abstraction mechanisms that can describe abstraction
mechanisms. We also presume it to employ the situation theory, as that provides
a semantics to reason about semantics.
This approach has been suggested elsewhere,
most forcibly by John Barwise who subsequently developed some useful results.
What is missing is the appropriately novel intuition-friendly metaphoric link.
We suggest that society as an
evolutionary system is evolving new methods of metaphoric abstraction quite
apart from the community of theorists. We seek to identify these emergent
notions of abstraction and relate them to category/situation
formalisms.
A program is
underway that identifies a few common notions: Folding which is a metaphor of
systems that describe systems and that also resemble the systems described.
This is a broad concept, widely used in popular art that has evolved a few
rigid rules that are being surveyed.
Embedded reflections, where the view of the
system includes the viewer: more precisely, the agent of abstraction is
explicitly referenced in the abstractions themselves.
These two work together as the
meta-abstraction maintains a folded mechanism or narrative.
This is not an ungrounded investigation, as
there is a specific, well-formed problem: how can one reason about semantic
conveyance in deeply introspective evolutionary systems like:
Process-driven
(business) virtual enterprises where each component acts selfishly, using some
synthetic information conveyance metrics;
Biological systems driven by molecular
dynamics that depend in part on system context and unnatural information
metrics; and,
Issues related
to emergent semantic hiding and forgetting of information, tasks now handled by
cryptographic means resort to a central authority.
A first goal of this agenda is to develop
semantic conveyance metrics (characterizations of semantic distance) for use in
semantically informed self-organizing systems.
An interesting feature of this work is that
is uses evolved abstractions to deal with evolutionary processes, deepening the
introspection to the most basic level.

 

The Evolution of Abstraction and
the Abstraction of Evolution
by Richard J. Khuri
Sunday 2:00PM
Abstract unavailable

 

A Religious Implication of the Concept of Matter for Static and Evolutionary Thinkers
by James F. Salmon, S.J, Baltimore MD.
Sunday 2:30PM
The significance of abstraction seems
obvious if one looks at interpretations of religious doctrines. This paper
investigates abstraction that forms ideas or concepts of matter, and historical
implications for the Christian doctrine of original sin. Abstraction is
conceived here as “the formation of an idea, as of the qualities or properties
of a thing, by mental separation from particular instances or material
objects.” (Webster’s Dictionary) It is the thesis in this paper that the
“mental separation” that forms the concept of matter has influenced theological
interpretations of the biblical account of original sin. The paper follows
briefly the career of the concept of matter, introduced first as a tool of
speculative thought by Ionian physicists of the sixth century B.C. Abstraction
permitted the development of metaphysical categories that eventually had a
profound influence on interpretations of some Christian doctrines, including
original sin as described in the Book of Genesis. A fascinating bifurcation of
interpretations of the story between eastern and western theologians in the
early Church will be proposed. It seems that interpretations are related to
abstraction concerning respective concepts of matter. The seventeenth century
was decisive, when the empirical sciences began to dissociate themselves from
their parent natural philosophy. The role of abstraction is evident as
important categories of the older natural philosophy are transformed by the new
science. Examples of abstraction from “particular instances or material
objects” will be cited. Up to the seventeenth century religious thinkers in
Christian churches, in general, continued to apply concepts of matter derived
from natural philosophy to interpret theological doctrines, including original
sin. The Roman Church abided with this policy into the twentieth century.
However, after the Reformation, reform thinkers tended to disregard traditional
philosophical categories and emphasized biblical sources and personal
experience. Before the late nineteenth century, examples of “evolutionary
thinking” will be cited in the writings of certain Christian thinkers, but
within the context of a static cosmology. Even today, in some Christian
communities in the United States, Christian theology is based on a concept of a
static cosmology as envisioned by biblical thinkers. The paper concludes with
the proposal that contemporary evolutionary thinking is compatible with an
interpretation of original sin found in writings of certain eastern “Fathers of
the Church.” It also concludes that this interpretation is compatible with a
concept of matter proposed in writings of Teilhard de Chardin.

 

The Abstraction of Evolutionary
Thinking in the Bicameral Mind of Self-Governance and Government: Discovering
the Twelve Senses of Twisted Logic
by William J. Wells Ph.D. Student,
University of Humanistics, The Netherlands
Sunday 3:00PM
The challenge of the
public discourse in a bicameral mind of governance becomes improved through a
commitment towards mobility and accessibility by learning the structure of
nature’s evolving design. In the era of e-based commerce, the challenge will be
to effectively communicate the electrical nature of life’s deep matter at
scalar levels of existence. Public policy awareness for the necessity of
integrating green with universal design in the planning, architectural and
engineering world will challenge our thought processes that “connect” the
public to options for work and play. The political realities of a bicameral
form of governance will be taxed to orchestrate and organize resources for
commerce that affirms life. Phones, computer screens and smaller bytes of
information, while increasing the rhythmic pace of life’s thoughts and
opportunities for “discovery” may hinder our comprehension for the universal
expression of human form and function. Moments for reflection may arise from
gentle inquiry into the senses of one’s surrounding. Expressions of
self-governance may be a function of rhythmic mental looping of abstraction
with concreteness in the idea of existential space as a becoming in the now.
Mature democracies can affirm an emergent consciousness for disability, and
complexity science.

 

Evolutionary Thinking in Past Scientific
Theories: A Logical Analysis
by Antonino Drago, Dept. Phys. Sci., Univ.
“Federico II”, Naples, Italy
Abstractions lead us to shape ideas, about
which our minds argue by means of logic. An evolutionary thinking occurs when
these ideas are not linked together by means of mechanistic deductions, but in
a creative way. In this sense evolutionary thinking pushes us to shape a
broader kind of logic. The phenomenon of a double negated statement whose
corresponding positive statement is lacking of scientific evidence (=DNS) will
be examined. It represents a failure of the double negation law; this law
constitutes the borderline between classical logic and, broadly speaking,
non-classical logic (in particular, intuitionistic logic). In fact, several
scientific theories born in past times include in an essential way DNSs. In
particular, quantum logic can be represented by means of DNSs inside
intuitionistic logic. When DNSs pertain in an essential way to a theory, no
more – as a comparative analysis upon the several instances shows – a deductive
organization of the theory is possible; rather, the theory puts an universal
problem by means of a DNS, then some double negated methodological principles
(e.g.: “It is impossible a motion without an end”) follow in order to achieve a
new scientific method, capable to solve the problem at issue. This arguing
evolves through a cyclic pattern, according to the synthetic method as it was
improved by L. Carnot. The crucial step in this pattern is an ad absurdum
theorem (likely as in thermodynamics S. Carnot’s theorem is). This theorem
reaches evidence for a possible conclusion, still enunciated by means of a DNS.
Then by a move like Markoff principle this DNS is changed in a positive
statement; it can now be put as a new hypothesis from which to develop a full
deductive system. This move is illustrated at best in Lobachevsky’s – maybe
first – presentation of a non-Euclidean geometry, but can be recognised also in
S. Carnot’s thermodynamics, Avogadro’s atomic theory, Einstein’s founding
special relativity. This pattern of arguing is examined by means of
paraconsistent logic. In correspondence to the use by theoretical scientific
research, of respectively paraconsistent logic, intuitionistic logic and
classical logic about statements which are potentially principles for a theory,
three kinds of principles are recognized; i.e., a guess, a methodological
principle, an axiom-principle. These differences are expressed in a lucid way
by Einstein again in his celebrated paper on special relativity: “We will raise
the conjecture (the substance of which will be hereafter called the
“[axiom-]principle of relativity”) to the state of a [methodological]
postulate”
Paper available, not scheduled for presentation

 

Emergence of Evolutionary Thinking as a
Change of the Time Scale
by M. Burgin, Department of Mathematics,
University of California, Los Angeles
Anthropological studies
show that primitive tribes had a static world comprehension: the world was
created and since those time nothing was changing. It is easier to believe that
nothing changes at all. However, this contradicts to everyday experience. Day
is changed by night. Then night is changed by day and the whole process repeats
all the time. Seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winter) are changing each
other also in an infinite cyclic sequence. All this induces formation of the
world comprehension in a cyclic time in social and individual mentality. Cyclic
time, in which everything is repeating itself, has become a cornerstone of the
world picture for millennia. Evolutionary thinking changes the world
comprehension by breaking the temporal cycle. The new vision brings time that
has a very different nature. For instance, Bergson lays special emphasis on the
distinction between the reversible time of physics, in which nothing new
happens, and the irreversible time of evolution and biology, in which there is
always something new. To explain peculiarities of this process and its relation
to physical time, we utilize the concept of the existential triad and related
to it world stratification (Burgin and Milov, 1999). The system theory of time
(Burgin, 2002) provides means for understanding geometry and topology of
evolutionary time and its impact on people mentality.
Paper available, not scheduled for presentation

 

Double Symmetry and the Logic of
Number Theory
, by Karl Javorszky, Vienna, Austria
Abstract unavailable Paper available, not scheduled for presentation

WASHINGTON
SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

The Road to Eleusis Again by Dr. Alain
Touwaide, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution ,Chair,
History Committee, Washington Academy of Sciences.
Sunday
2:30PM
Ancient Greek culture claimed to be rational, a
fact that was best symbolized by its most representative god, Apollo. Classical
tradition accepted, confirmed and reinforced this claim, making of ancient
Greece the paradigm of rationality. Recent studies, however, have challenged
such a self-identification process, bringing to light phenomena of psychotropic
drug consumption, magic, necromancy and similar practices. Research has even
come to the point of interpreting the most representative religious rites of
Greece – the Eleusis mysteries – as a psychotropic phenomenon. A re-examination
of the question is not only necessary, but timely. Medical facts provide
information not taken into account so far, facts that unequivocally show that
the effects of psychotropic drug consumption were well known. This paper will
examine the texts, showing that revisiting the Eleusis mysteries can still lead
to interesting discoveries.

 

Drug Smuggling: A Three Hundred Year
History
by Michael Harris, M.S., R.Ph. Historian and Curator, Drug Enforcement Administration Museum.
Sunday
3:00PM
The smuggling of drugs for healing, abuse or
profit has existed for many centuries. This paper will concentrate on the past
three hundred years and will focus largely on the smuggling of drugs of abuse.
In times of war, countries suffering a blockade must smuggle in medicines that
they need but cannot produce themselves. During the American Revolutionary War,
for example, the colonists needed to smuggle opium and quinine past the British
blockade. The Confederate States also had to smuggle drugs past the Union
blockade during the Civil War. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many
countries began to ban the non-medicinal use and abuse of narcotic drugs. This
restriction has led to a drug trafficking of narcotics of over 400 billion
dollars today. This paper will focus on how these drugs of abuse are smuggled.

WASHINGTON STATISTICAL SOCIETY

Human Rights Issues Around the World: The
Role of Good Data
by Dr. Fritz Scheuren, Vice-President of Statistics,
National Opinion Research Center and President-elect, American Statistical Association
Sunday 10:30AM
Dr. Scheuren will
describe his work as a statistician investigating numerous human rights abuses,
from an early study of Cambodian land mines to more recent conflicts in
Guatemala, Kosovo, and Peru, regretfully predicting that there will be more
such episodes in the future.
Dr. Scheuren will detail the work that he
and his colleagues performed for Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, which Peru’s new administration established in 2001 to
investigate human rights abuses in the guerilla war that previous Peruvian
governments had waged against Maoist and other rebel groups since the 1980s.
Because the casualty figures were so politically charged, demonstrating the
objectivity of the estimation methods to the Peruvian public was a critical
component of the consulting project.The announcement of the
Commission’s estimates in August 2003 was a major political event. The
night before their release, women staged a candlelight vigil in Lima’s
main square. Published in more than a dozen newspapers, the statistics showed
that the number of killed was twice what the previous official count had said
it was. Dr. Scheuren will emphasize the importance of contributing technical
skills to such projects in emerging democracies, where they are often in scarce
supply.

WORLD FUTURE
SOCIETY

Future Thinking at the U.S. General
Accounting Office
by Dr. Donna Heivilin, U.S. General Accounting Office
Saturday 2:00 PM
Foresight has taken on a
new emphasis at the U.S. General Accounting Office-a legislative branch agency
supporting Congress in its legislative, oversight and investigative roles. By
playing a new early warning role that alerts Congress and other decision makers
to important trends, GAO can help the government avoid crises and catastrophic
costs. Dr. Donna Heivilin, director of GAO’s Applied Research and Methods
group, will describe GAO initiatives to conduct environmental scanning and to
assess policy issues ranging from the nation’s long-term fiscal situation to
the future of the workforce. A special consideration for the organization is
how it can balance the examination of an uncertain future with its longstanding
reputation for conducting work that is fact-based and objective. Dr. Heivilin
will focus her remarks on her direction of a new methodological approach which
seeks to ground inherently risky work in GAO’s key values as an
organization-accountability, integrity and reliability

 

Future of U.S. Defense
Planning
by Dave Stein, Lt Col, USAFR (Ret)
Saturday 2:25 PM
Besides accomplishing
more with fewer resources, the US military must ensure national security in an
uncertain and rapidly changing geostrategic environment. Factors such as
technology obsolescence, asymmetric-capable adversaries, and the advent of
non-state actors magnify force structure planning challenges – especially in
identifying the decisive force necessary to deter or defeat an unknown future
threat. In addition, new modes of warfare including asymmetric warfare,
informational operations, and non-lethal warfare require new modes of thinking.
With these new modes of warfare come new concepts and interpretations of
deception, denial, surveillance, concealment, mass, rules-of-engagement,
deterrence, and even “peacetime” as well as new requirements for targeting,
battle damage assessment, and doctrine. For all of these reasons – and as
evidenced all too well by the tragic events of 9/11 – incrementalism and
extrapolation from the present are not the desired approaches to force
structure planning or to defense technology investment planning. A more viable
approach, summarized in this presentation, begins with a time warp to a future
characterized by any of several alternative geostrategic worlds, themselves
postulated on the basis of geostrategic planning space drivers and representing
discontinuous jumps from the present. The methodology identifies the threats
that these worlds present and postulates capabilities (weapon systems) needed
to counter the threats. The end product is a list of the enabling technologies,
prioritized according to their relative utilities across the hypothesized
weapons systems and alternative future worlds. The methodology also provides
further insight on long-range threats and needed capabilities. Additional
payoffs are improved understanding among the warfighting, acquisition, and
technology communities, together with an alternative to “peanut butter spread”
/ “salami slice” management of technology budget cuts.

 

Future of Planetary Defense
by Martin Schwab, Homeplanet Defense Institute
Saturday 2:50 PM
This presentation will
offer for consideration the idea that existing terrestrial political insecurity
can be lessened by constructing a planetary defense regime (PDR). This regime
would simultaneously detect, probe and prepare the best possible defenses for
Earth and human interests in space against NEOs. The very acts of proposing,
planning and beginning the construction of a PDR with other countries by the
United States might reduce the probability that current space assets will be
exploited as weapons; either by small or great powers. A conceptual diagram and
world map will be used to present newly defined functions for effective
planetary defense against NEOs. These include: Ground based optical tracking
stations (GBOTs), Observe and respond constellations (ORCs), International
launch infrastructure, Countermeasures beyond low Earth orbit, and Desirable
political components of international joint command. The presentation will
conclude by outlining current thinking on the advantages and disadvantages
(both technical and political) of the following institutions in regard to
planetary defense against NEOs: NORAD, NATO, NASA, United Nations Officefor
Outer Space Affairs, Vienna; Canadian Space Agency; European Space Agency;
China National Space Administration; Asian-Pacific Space Cooperation
Organization (APSCO), International Space University

 

Future of Self
Driving Automobiles
by John F. Meagher, CIH – International Center for Environmental
Technology (INTERCET Ltd.)
Saturday 3:15 PM
Discussion of
self-driving automobiles have been in the public domain since the GM pavilion
at the 1939 World Fair in 1939 and have been discussed ever since. This
presentation will explore future developments and current trends indicating
that automated self-driving automobiles may be a reality within the next decade
to two decades driven by factors at work now and emergent societal needs.
Examples include recent technological advances and experiments in on-board
computing power, radar sensing and robotics within automobiles and in
combination with “smart highways” allowing cars that satisfy an American need
for individual rather than mass or public transport will be presented. Social
benefits of improved public health including reduced loss of life, injury and
serious disability including the limits of human attention span and education
for improving excellent driving behaviors and an aging population in need of
driving assistance from artificially intelligent driving will be discussed.
Environmentally, automated self-driving automobiles could be more fuel
efficient and equipped with artificial intelligence to optimize fuel
consumption reducing pollution from reliance on human driving behavior and
traffic congestion. Politically the challenge of resistance from the U.S.
public regarding robotic driving and lessons learned from government research
efforts (e.g. Department of Transportation Intelligent Vehicle Initiative and
adaptation of DARPA technology) will be examined. Economically the
cost-benefits of automated self-driving automobiles and their potential
impacts, positive and negative, on the U.S. economy in terms of jobs,
manufacturing, increased free time devoted to non-driving activities, spin-off
industries and insurance related losses will be discussed.

 

Future of Education
by Gary Marx,
President, Center for Public Outreach, Vienna, Virginia
Saturday 3:40 PM
How can our education
system connect to seismic shifts taking place in society? Marx will suggest two
approaches. He will also briefly review a few of numerous trends that have
direct implications for education at all levels. Those trends include the
impact of technology on the pace of change, the move from information
acquisition toward knowledge creation, and the possible demand for
personalization, driven by the standards movement. Marx will also suggest that
leaders, no matter how specialized, must also be generalists, constantly
conceiving of the characteristics of the education system we need to prepare
students for a multidisciplinary future.

 

Future of Philanthropy in the U.S.
by Natalie Ambrose, The Council on Foundations
Saturday 4:05 PM
At its most basic, philanthropy derives from the
Greek meaning love for humanity. In these modern times, it describes the
process of sharing private resources for public benefit. Organized philanthropy
has been a unique — sometimes lauded, sometimes controversial — part of the
American landscape since the beginning of the 20th Century. During the last 20
years, the number of philanthropic organizations and the variety of giving
vehicles has burgeoned dramatically. Likewise, a significant support
infrastructure (like where I work — the Council on Foundations) has emerged to
meet their growing and specialized needs. And it has been predicted that over
the next 45 years, there will occur in the US a massive intergenerational
transfer of wealth – $40 trillion or more. Of course, depending on fiscal
and public policy, much of this wealth could be purposely directed towards
philanthropy and benefiting the public good. Despite this growing sector and
its involvement in key areas such as public education, science, health care,
the environment, food, energy, art and humanities, human services, and civil
society, philanthropy – its sources, value, outcome, potential, threats
– continue to be widely misunderstood amongst the American public, most
influentials and policy makers. And organized philanthropy remains
controversial and increasingly under threat from ideological influence,
particularly as it impacts advocacy, public policy and priorities. More
recently, instances of illegal and unethical use of foundation resources by
trustees or staff have been uncovered and publicized by the media, creating
calls for greater regulatory scrutiny and increasing the negative public
perception. Frequently, foundations have been criticized for being slow to
respond or for maintaining the status quo, or for reinforcing plutocracy. As a
result, there is a growing trend to reimagine and rethink the whole
philanthropic process in new ways — to make it more viable for twenty-first
century needs and for global as well as local and national benefit. To leverage
the strengths and experience of foundations – as learning centers, as
“laboratories” to bring untested social experiments to scale, as
aggressive creators of new orthodoxy — to be more responsive to the pressing
social problems of our era.

 

Future of Sex by Joseph F. Coates
Saturday 4:30 PM
Attendees will learn about the many
social, economic, biological, pharmacological, psychological health, familial,
and cultural factors shaping attitudes behaviors, manifestations, and
activities tied to sex and sexuality. Among those who should attend are anyone
who has a sex or is responsible for the health and education of young people,
or who is concerned about changing sexual behavior over one’s
lifetime.