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SYMPOSIA
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•••As of February 1, 2002
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| Communicating Across Boundaries |
International Trends in the Transfer of Academic Research
Monday, February 18, 2002 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. |
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| Irwin Feller, Pennsylvania State University; Fabio Pammolli, University of Siena |
| Internationally, universities are taking on increasingly greater roles as sources of commercially relevant technologies and, relatedly, for national and regional economic growth. Moving beyond descriptive catalogues of national policies and institutional practices, a growing body of research has identified significant variations across nations in the techniques used by universities to transfer academic research to the marketplace. The choice or portfolio of technology transfer techniques, such as patents and licenses, equity holdings, spin-off firms, research parks, leveraged sponsored research, and others, is increasingly being interpreted in terms of strategic behaviors on the parts of universities, firms, and governments. These behaviors, in turn, are conditioned by national and regional legislation and policies, national patterns for funding higher education and academic research, and historic patterns of university-industry collaborative research and development. |
| 1 | Evolving Choices in Technology Transfer Mechanisms in American Universities | Maryann P. Feldman (Speaker), Johns Hopkins University |
| 2 | CO/W FELDMAN | Irwin Feller (Speaker), Pennsylvania State University |
| 3 | CO/W FELDMAN | Janet E.L. Bercovitz (Speaker), Duke University |
| 4 | CO/W FELDMAN | Richard M. Burton (Speaker), Duke University |
| 5 | Perspectives on the Science-Industry Interaction in Germany | Georg Licht (Speaker), Centre for European Economic Research |
| 6 | A Comparison of U.S. and European University-Industry Relations in the Life Sciences | Fabio Pammolli (Speaker), University of Siena |
| 7 | CO W PAMMOLLI | Massimo Riccaboni (Speaker), University of Siena |
| 8 | Is Bayh-Dole a Model for Encouraging University-Industry Technology Transfer in Other OECD Countries? | David C. Mowery (Speaker), University of California-Berkeley |
| 9 | The Impact of University-Based Science Parks on Research Productivity: Evidence from the United Kingdom | Donald Siegel (Speaker), Nottingham University Business School |
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The New Biology of Rocks
Friday, February 15, 2002 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. |
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| Abigail Salyers, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; James T. Staley, University of Washington |
| Through evolutionary time, Earth’s biota has profoundly interacted and altered the geology of our planet. Interactions among the geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere are so important that the evolution of life on Earth cannot be separated from the evolution of the non-living planet. The boundaries of geobiology, the science that deals with this intersection, are expanding and includes an array of diverse topics, ranging from the molecular basis of mineral formation and dissolution to the detection, diversity, and evolution of life in remote locations; biogeochemical extremes in gradients; and control of biogeochemical cycles over vastly different temporal and spatial scales. The field is in a state of constant flux. This session discusses the relationships of the microbial world to the geosphere from the molecular biology of several perspectives. The session derives from a recent colloquium of the American Academy of Microbiology to define the field and address intellectual, economic, social, and educational issues. |
| 1 | Kinetics, Energy Flow, and Life: Whither Geobiology | Kenneth H. Nealson (Speaker), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and California Institute of Technology |
| 2 | The Submarine Biosphere | Edward F. Delong (Speaker), Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute |
| 3 | Are There Medical Implications of Geomicrobiology | Abigail Salyers (Speaker), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign |
| 4 | Microbial Life on Rocks | James T. Staley (Speaker), University of Washington |
| 5 | Comparative Ecology of Deep Subsurface and Hot Spring Habitats | David A. Stahl (Speaker), University of Washington |
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Bioconsensus: Bringing Social Choice Theory to Biology
Saturday, February 16, 2002 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon |
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| Fred S. Roberts, Rutgers University |
| Consensus methods developed in the context of voting, decision making, and other areas of the social and behavioral sciences are often based on mathematical concepts and tools and increasingly make heavy use of the algorithmic methods of computer science. These consensus methods have begun to have a variety of applications in the biological sciences, originally in taxonomy and evolutionary biology, and more recently in molecular biology. Typically, several alternatives (such as possible taxonomies, alternative phylogenetic trees, alternative molecular sequences, or alternative alignments) are produced using different methods or under different models and then one needs to find a consensus solution. There are, already, several hundred papers in this developing field of "Bioconsensus." In this session, we explore ways to make use of the consensus methods of social choice theory in solving problems of biology, with emphasis on molecular biology. Two talks will develop social choice theory from the social science point of view and provide a synopsis for those not knowledgeable about the field, and will present the beginnings of connections to biology; the remaining talks will give heavy emphasis to the biological applications. |
| 1 | Median and Mean Social Science Consensus Methods and Molecular Sequences | Fred S. Roberts (Speaker), Rutgers University |
| 2 | From Preferences to Trees (From Social Choice to Biology) | Fred R. McMorris (Speaker), Illinois Institute of Technology |
| 3 | Use and Abuse of Consensus Methods in Phylogenetic Studies | Francois-Joseph Lapointe (Speaker), Universite de Montreal |
| 4 | Desiderata for Consensus Supertrees in Comparative Biology | Mark Wilkinson (Speaker), The Natural History Museum, London |
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Mathematical Models for Movement and Aggregation of Cells and Organisms
Sunday, February 17, 2002 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. |
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| Hans Othmer, University of Minnesota |
| Movement is a fundamental process for most biological organisms, and occurs on scales ranging from the single cell level to the population level. Examples of active movement at the cellular level include morphogenesis, wound healing, and angiogenesis, and at the population level, various active and passive dispersal mechanisms operate throughout ecology. The goal may be to find food, to escape danger, to attack intruders, or to find a mate, and to achieve this the individual must detect and process external signals, and transduce them into an internal signal that initiates the appropriate response. Recently there has been a large increase in our understanding of signal detection and transduction in a variety of systems, and new mathematical models that incorporate such microscopic information have been developed. For instance, one aspect of the response to signals is a change in velocity, and in mathematical models of movement this often involves modulating the parameters of stochastic process driving these changes. One theme of this symposium will be how detailed mathematical models that incorporate our current understanding at the single cell level can be developed, and how the analysis of these models can help in understanding how complex spatial and temporal patterns arise. A second theme will be the development of macroscopic descriptions for population-level behavior from these microscopic models. The speakers will focus on a number of examples of movement and its consequences, ranging from motion of individual cells, to aggregation in mathematical models, and the effects on invasion and genetic diversity. |
| 1 | Models of Cell Motion | Alex Mogilner (Speaker), University of California |
| 2 | Localization in Models of Reinforced Random Walks | Kevin Painter (Speaker), Heriot-Watt University |
| 3 | Traveling Wave Patterns in Colonies of Selforganizing Species | Angela Stevens (Speaker), MaxPlanckInstitute for Mathematics in the Sciences |
| 4 | Consequences of Relative Spatial Scales on Resistance in Host-Pathogen Associations | Claudia Neuhauser (Speaker), Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior |
| 5 | The Role of Long-Distance Dispersal in Population Dynamics | Mark Lewis (Speaker), University of Utah |
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The New Computing
Friday, February 15, 2002 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon |
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| Maureen C. Kelly, Haddonfield, NJ; Rolf M. Sinclair, Chevy Chase, MD |
| Computing as we know it cannot continue to grow for more than another decade. By 2010 (or not much later) the present exponential growth of such key factors as information storage density and computing speed will reach natural limits. This session explores the inevitable limits on information handling and how new concepts in computing will permit continued development. One entirely new method of computing involves a "quantum computer", which would use all of the states allowed by the quantum principle of superposition to process information. Such a computer, in principle, offers the possibility of an exponential speedup over our present methods. Speakers will consider how new concepts in computing can be realized, how funding opportunities and roadblocks will influence the direction of research and development in computer technology, and what the implications are for long-range planning in industry, universities, and government. A panel discussion will give speakers and panelists an opportunity to interact with the audience and to exchange views on the what lies ahead, including the promises and cautions for computing both on a large scale in the sciences and on the scale of the personal user. |
| 1 | The Problem Before Us | James Crutchfield (Speaker), The Santa Fe Institute |
| 2 | No Title Available | Ruzena Bajcsy (Discussant), National Science Foundation |
| 3 | The History of Computing, and Its Lesson for the Future | Neil Gershenfeld (Speaker), Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 4 | No Title Available | Walter Mossberg (Discussant), [The Wall Street Journal] |
| 5 | Quantum Computing: Theorist's Dream, Experimenter's Nightmare | Raymond Laflamme (Speaker), Perimeter Institute, Waterloo University |
| 6 | Automation and Internet Invisibility | Steven J. Andriole (Speaker), Cutter Consortium |
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Waves: Patterns and Turbulence
Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. |
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| Walter Craig, McMaster University; Nick Ercolani, University of Arizona |
| Patterns, both regular and those with irregularities, are a common feature of physical phenomena that we experience on a daily basis. Pattern forming phenomena occur at virtually all scales; both in nature, from galactic formation, to the motion of waves in the sea surface, to collective behavior of micro-organisms; and in technology, from nanoscale crystal growth arising in fabrication of semiconductor lasers, to far-field optical signals produced by these devices. Mathematicians have long had an interest in phenomena involving pattern formation. Classical approaches to the description of patterns include the derivation of mathematical models, often in the form of partial differential equations and/or nonlinear dynamical systems. The models give a basis from which one can develop numerical experiments, and mathematical analysis of the model equations gives insight into the results of both physical and numerical observations. In the mathematical context of a model one can understand certain features of universality in pattern formation; for instance in the derivation of a model one can come upon closely related systems of equations which would be appropriate to describe physical phenomena on enormously varying scales. |
| 1 | The Wigner Transform in Statistical Theories of Nonlinear Dynamics | Walter Craig (Speaker), McMaster University |
| 2 | Pattern Formation Far from Threshold | Nick Ercolani (Speaker), University of Arizona |
| 3 | Wave Propagation without Hyperbolicity | Barbara Keyfitz (Speaker), University of Houston |
| 4 | On Asymptotic Stability of Solitary Waves for Nonlinear Schrodinger Equations | Catherine Sulem (Speaker), University of Toronto |
| 5 | Stability of Vortices in Fluid Flow | C. Eugene Wayne (Speaker), Boston University |
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Accommodating Interdisciplinarity in the Academic Research Environment
Monday, February 18, 2002 9:15 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. |
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| Edward Derrick, AAAS |
| Interdisciplinarity has become a commonly-used phrase in the research environment. High priority issues such as genomics and post-genomics research, biocomplexity, nanomaterials, global climate change and information technology cross the boundaries of traditional disciplines, and require creative approaches from researchers and institutions to address the scientific issues involved. Cutting-edge work often occurs at the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Despite how often the issue arises, it can be hard to support interdisciplinary work. We may be for it in principle but against it in practice. There are barriers inherent in the mechanisms used in funding research and in the organization of the academy. Thus, it also requires creative approaches to support such work. From the researcher's perspective, it may require searching for collaboraters from outside one's normal contacts, and overcoming the psychological barriers to trusting them. From the university's perspective, it may require a rethinking of the mechanisms used to encourage research, and it may also require a rethinking of what is necessary in the preparation of students for research careers. From the funding agency's perspective, it may require aligning traditionally independent units to implement policy that emphasizes results with social value, rather than results with purely scientific value. The symposium examines several arena in which interdisciplinary work is supported and explores these varied perspectives. Mechanisms used by universities to adapt to the changing environment and to encourage interdisciplinary work will be discussed. |
| 1 | Commercialization and Competition: Catalysts for Isolation or Collaboration? | Denise Caruso (Speaker), The Hybrid Vigor Institute |
| 2 | Dispatches from the Front Lines of a Multidisciplinary Genomic Research Project | Roger Brent (Speaker), Molecular Sciences Institute |
| 3 | Centers Hold the Secret of Great Leaps in Research Funding | Robert Barnhill (Speaker), University of Kansas |
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Best Practices from Research Scientists Who Communicate with the Public
Sunday, February 17, 2002 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon |
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| Bruce V. Lewenstein, Cornell University; Ilan Chabay, The New Curiosity Shop |
| A new trend in public outreach for science has been to add outreach to the daily activities of working scientific groups. NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health all provide supplements to scientific grants for PIs who add outreach to their activities. Several national centers, for example in materials research and nanobiotechnology, have built outreach into their programs. Although some of the disciplinary centers have begun to share information, no broad discussion has taken place about how to build on the experiences of the many scientists who now engage in outreach as part of their normal work process. This brings together active research scientists who are engaged in outreach, along with representatives from the disciplinary centers, to get information about best practices, successful innovations, and methods of evaluation. |
| 1 | No Title Available | Eric Heller (Speaker), Harvard University |
| 2 | No Title Available | Nev Singhota (Speaker), Cornell Center for Materials Research |
| 3 | No Title Available | Fiona Goodchild (Speaker), University of California-Santa Barbara |
| 4 | No Title Available | Velda Goldberg (Speaker), Simmons College |
| 5 | No Title Available | Hyman H. Field (Speaker), National Science Foundation |
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