Tuesday 11/11/03 2:10 PM 100 Jenness Hall


Leibniz, Information, Math and Physics

Gregory Chaitin, IBM Research
http://www.cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin/kirchberg.html

Abstract:

The information-theoretic point of view proposed by Leibniz in 1686 and developed by algorithmic information theory (AIT) suggests that mathematics and physics are not that different. This will be a first-person account of some doubts and speculations about the nature of mathematics that I have entertained for the past three decades, and which have now been incorporated in a digital philosophy paradigm shift that is sweeping across the sciences.
 
Biography of Speaker:
Gregory Chaitin is at the
IBM Watson Research Center in New York. In the mid 1960s, when he was a teenager, he created algorithmic information theory (AIT), which combines, among other elements, Shannon's information theory and Turing's theory of computability. In the four decades since then he has been the principal architect of the theory. Among his contributions are the definition of a random sequence via algorithmic incompressibility, his information-theoretic approach to Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and the celebrated number . His work on Hilbert's 10th problem has shown that in a sense there is randomness in arithmetic, in other words, that God not only plays dice in quantum mechanics and nonlinear dynamics, but even in elementary number theory. His latest achievements have been to transform AIT into a theory about the size of real computer programs, programs that you can actually run, and his recent discovery that Leibniz anticipated AIT (1686). He is the author of eight books: Algorithmic Information Theory published by Cambridge University Press; Information, Randomness & Incompleteness and Information-Theoretic Incompleteness, both published by World Scientific; The Limits of Mathematics, The Unknowable, Exploring Randomness and Conversations with a Mathematician, all published by Springer-Verlag; and From Philosophy to Program Size published by the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics. In 1995 he was given the degree of doctor of science honoris causa by the University of Maine. In 2002 he was given the title of honorary professor by the University of Buenos Aires. He is also a visiting professor at the Computer Science Department of the University of Auckland.

 

 

Wednesday 11/19/2003 2:10 PM 115 DPC


Information Assurance Education


Tony Gauvin
Assistant Professor of eCommerce
University of Maine at Fort Kent
http://www.umfk.maine.edu/directory/bios/tgauvin.htm
 
Dr. Ray Albert
Associate Professor of
Computer Science
University
of Maine at Fort Kent
http://www.umfk.maine.edu/directory/bios/ralbert.htm


Information Assurance is quickly coming of age as an academic discipline.  As results of recent events, many government, military and commercial agencies have a great need for college graduates with knowledge and skills in computer and network security, cryptography and security violation detection and response. Several national efforts are underway to increase the number of Information Assurance educators and graduates. Key funding agencies for these efforts include the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, The National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.
 
Profs Albert and Gauvin, recent graduates of the Information Assurance Education Graduate Certificate Program at the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at
Purdue University, will discuss the current state of the Information Assurance Awareness, Education and Research and those programs and institutions that are supporting ongoing efforts in this new academic discipline.  There will be an additional discussion of the curriculum changes made at the University of Maine at Fort Kent in support of new multi-disciplinary concentration in Information Assurance along with discussion of other possible endeavors that may develop in the near future.



                     Thursday 11/20/03 2:10 PM 100 Neville Hall


Application of Acoustic Particle Velocity Sensorics  for Port Perimeter Security


Dr. Paul Wlodkowski
Maine Maritime Academy

ABSTRACT
Maritime security programs are in need of reliable technology to safeguard against threats to our harbors and ships.  The development of a high-sensitivity, low-noise acoustic particle velocity sensor in a small package remained a formidable technical challenge for many years.   With the advent of single crystal piezoelectric material, however, that goal has
been achieved.    Given the exceptional performance of these Vector transducers, the feasibility of  this technology to harbor defense is investigated.

BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Wlodkowski is currently an Assistant Professor of Engineering at
Maine Maritime Academy.  His responsibilities include teaching and advancing the curriculum within the Marine Systems Engineering Program.  He has thirteen
years of industrial, manufacturing and academic experience that encompass the fields of applied physics, reliability engineering, acoustics, materials science, shock and vibration, sensor design, and radiation effects. As the Principal Staff Engineer and Program Manager at Wilcoxon Research, Inc., he led several of the Company's high technology programs in
the research, development, and commercialization of directional, acoustic particle velocity transducers (Vector) utilizing single crystal piezoelectric materials.  In addition to these responsibilities, P.A. Wlodkowski managed the Company's intellectual property portfolio and advised the Chief Executive Officer on matters of corporate strategy and
direction.  He has been successful in securing greater than $3 million in government research and development contracts for the Company.  His sponsors included the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and several major corporations.  Moreover, he has transitioned one Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract into a
Phase III program.  Prior to this assignment, P.A. Wlodkowski managed the Mechanical Engineering Department, which designs piezoelectric-based sensors and actuators.  At EG&G, Inc., he co-founded AcousTech, a provider of technical solutions to complex shock, vibration, and noise problems in military and industrial applications.  P.A. Wlodkowski is a co-inventor on one patent and the author of numerous papers and technical reports.

 


Monday  11/24/03  2:10 PM   115 DPC

Defining Yourself -- Living Your Life & Preventing Some Bad Things


Richard A. MacKinnon
Former Head of IBM Cambridge Scientific Center

 

Abstract:
When perpetrators of bad deeds in corporate and institutional 
America {including NASA and  our military} are asked why they did it, you frequently hear the lame excuse: "I had to. They made me. It was expected of me. I was ordered to." Well?

One's reaction to facing such situations is directly related to what one brings both to the situation, what you bring to the table, so to speak. This discussion focuses on preparing to run the race, thinking about your fork in the road, and generating your set of personal value anti-bodies. This has relevance to situations spanning the range of [1] The Mylai Massacre [2] two shuttle disasters [3] the General Electric price fixing scandal of the 1950-60s and my father's role in it, and [4] my delaying the announcement of the IBM Personal Computer in August 1981 and its impact on Bill Gates and Microsoft-DOS {MS-DOS}.

Biography of Speaker:

Dick MacKinnon pursued three distinct careers over a forty year period. Some of these endeavors were in parallel. First, MacKinnon worked for IBM for thirty years and had the good fortune to spend his last 18 years in
Cambridge as research director and head of IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center, a systems "skunk works." Cambridge pioneered the virtual machine operating system which MacKinnon kept alive and enhanced during his long tenure. He was also intimately involved in the birth of the IBM PC in 1981 and IBM's early UNIX work. His final activity led to IBM's RAMAC-II disk array which was prototyped in Cambridge shortly before IBM closed its worldwide network of scientific centers . In parallel he taught operating systems as a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management. In 1992 MacKinnon retired both from IBM and MIT and for the next eight years taught his course at Boston University and Bentley College as an executive in residence . In parallel with this post 1992 teaching, MacKinnon worked as an independent consultant with his twin brother {he says they met annually in a phone booth}, retiring in 2001 when his wife contracted breast cancer. As a consultant MacKinnon served State Street Bank as their first State Street Fellow; performed technology scouting for EMC Corporation's founder and CEO; and served Roger Penske at Detroit Diesel as their interim Chief Information Officer. Now retired,  MacKinnon revels in his self described life of irresponsibility and has been known to say that after sweeping up other's messes over a forty year period, he loves the thought of attending to his own.

Dick MacKinnon is a graduate of
Northfield-Mount Hermon School, Yale University {Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude} and Harvard Business School. He has served since 1984 as a director and trustee of  Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary and serves on the oversight committee of the Radiation Oncology Department at neighboring Massachusetts General Hospital. He has served as distinguished lecturer at UMaine; has taught at Harvard University's computer science department; and is a fellow of Yale University's Berkeley College and Harvard's Leverett House.  He and wife Pat have  two children living in Manhattan, and they are  aware every day of  son Bruce's survival from North Tower of the World Trade Center.

 

 

Former UN Weapons Inspector to Speak at UMaine

Wednesday 12/3/03  2:10 PM 100 DPC

A Day in the Life of an UNMOVIC Inspector

 

Dr. Rocco Casagrande
Director of the Homeland Security Program
Abt Associates
Cambridge, MA

 

Abstract
Here's your chance to find out more about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction from someone involved in searching for them before the Iraq conflict started. Dr. Casagrande will discuss the following topics:

* Why Inspections?

* A typical day in Iraq before the conflict

* The Types of activities undertaken by UNMOVIC inspectors

* The role biological sampling and analysis

* Types of sites visited by UNMOVIC inspectors

* The justification for a conflict

Biography of Speaker

Dr. Rocco Casagrande
is the Director of the Homeland Security Program at Abt Associates. His projects at Abt Associates focus on the bringing rigorous scientific analysis to problems of homeland defense. For example, Dr. Casagrande provides biological threat analysis to improve the design and testing of biological agent detectors for MIT Lincoln Laboratories. For the FBI, Dr. Casagrande leads a team of scientists to evaluate simple, broad-spectrum, protein detection devices for use by law enforcement officials while responding to potential biological attacks.
 
From December 2002 to March 2003, Dr. Casagrande served as an UNMOVIC biological weapons inspector in Iraq where he obtained hands-on experience with chemical and biological agents. In Iraq, Dr. Casagrande acted as the chief of the UN biological analysis laboratory. As laboratory chief it was his responsibility to collect and analyze potentially hazardous biological samples and to develop standard operating practices and safety procedures for other inspectors collecting samples. During his time in Iraq, Dr. Casagrande participated in over 50 inspections and led approximately one dozen. With a background in biotechnology and agricultural biological warfare, Dr. Casagrande was an integral part on all inspections of agricultural facilities and biological research and development sites. His experiences in Iraq were detailed in a biographical article carried in Scientific American.
 
 Prior to working for UNMOVIC, Dr. Casagrande led a team of biologists and engineers to test and develop real-time detectors for biological agents while working as a scientist at Surface Logix, a Boston-based biotechnology firm. Dr. Casagrande has written several articles on the topic of biological defense and has consulted on chemical and biological warfare and defense for several congressional staffers and government agencies. Because of his background, Dr. Casagrande was invited to write a pair of articles on the detection of biological attacks for Scientific American. In these articles, Dr. Casagrande discusses high-tech gadgetry in a manner that is accessible to non-scientists. Dr. Casagrande has also presented on the impact of genomics and proteomics in biological defense and biological nonproliferation at two NATO meetings.
 
For the past five years, Dr. Casagrande has been studying the problem of agricultural bioterrorism. Dr. Casagrande was one of the first to realize that the same factors that make many terrorist groups unwilling to execute a biological attack on people would actually motivate these groups to execute a biological attack on agriculture. This theory was included in his first article on agricultural biological warfare (published in the Nonproliferation Review in 2000), which was one of the first articles which seriously considered agricultural bioterrorism. Dr. Casagrande has been consulted as an expert on agricultural biological warfare by the department of defense, congressional staffers and in NATO advanced research workshops. For a project for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, Dr. Casagrande reviewed an emerging veterinary pathogen for its implications on agriculture, public health and the environment and then suggested research pathways that may reduce the impact of the disease.
 
 Dr. Casagrande holds a B.A. in chemistry and a B.A. in biology from Cornell University where he graduated magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in experimental biology from MIT. During his academic career, Dr. Casagrande published several articles on his novel research in molecular biology, cell biology, genetics and biochemistry.