http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/invitation-introduction-tp4862386p4866574.html
> First, the invitation:
> On Thusday, the University of New Mexico Computer Science department will
> hold it's annual student conference highlighting active research within
> the department. Dr. Melanie Mitchell will give the keynote address at
> 11:00 am.
>
> The conference is open with no admission fees, however we are not able to
> provide you with lunch. Proceedings hardcopy can be ordered for $10,
> and will be available for free via download from the website shortly.
> Details, and the keynote talk abstract, are below.
>
> Next, the introduction:
> By way of introduction, I am largely a FRIAM lurker, but have met a few
> of you and in particular would like to further encourage Nick's suggestion
> of a Robert Rosen reading group. My PhD research area is molecular computing
> and I am developing a formal system for reasoning about molecular computing
> systems, specifically those composed of heterogeneous mixtures of DNA
> oligonucleotides. Milner's pi calculus, and Alur and Dill's timed automata
> have been inspirational starting points. Of course it's supremely simple
> to find these inspirations, and attempt physics-style reductionist
> techniques, in the engineering of synthetic biological systems. However
> one quickly determines that building even the simplest systems with a
> biological basis must be done with a different approach. The difficulty
> in system calibration and readout, and the large number of tunable input
> parameters, prevent breaking down molecular computing systems into neat
> modules and demand study of how living systems execute their own
> engineering and maintenance.
>
> My training, and I use this word with great trepidation following recent
> discussion, is Engineering Physics, B.S. from CU-Boulder, Computer Science,
> M.S. from UNM, and among other industry jobs, 7+ years doing Guidance,
> Navigation and Control engineering for the Space Shuttle program in
> the middle years when the fleet was "upgraded" to handle heavier weight
> missions to the Space Station -- all old hat now and soon to retire, but
> initially a load of interesting problems to work out.
>
> Leigh Fanning
>
> --------
>
> The train between SF and ABQ works well, the bus system has a straight
> shot up to the UNM campus from the depot. Otherwise about an hour
> of driving time is needed from Santa Fe, followed by some patience to work out
> parking on campus. There is a large parking garage by Popejoy hall
> just off of Central Ave, or street parking just SW of campus can
> work well sometimes. If this works for your schedule, please come
> and enjoy!
>
> The schedule of talks is here:
>
>
http://cs.unm.edu/~csgsa/conference/>
> The location is the new Centennial Engineering building on the west
> end of campus, bordering University Blvd, just north of Central Ave.
>
> ---
>
> Melanie Mitchell, Portland State University and Santa Fe Institute
> Thursday, 8 April, 2010
> 11 am - 12:00 pm
> Centennial Engineering Center auditorium
>
> Enabling computers to understand images remains one of the hardest
> open problems in artificial intelligence. No machine vision system
> comes close to matching human ability at identifying the contents of
> images or visual scenes or at recognizing similarity between different
> scenes, even though such abilities pervade human cognition. In this
> talk I will describe research---currently in early stages---on
> bridging the gap between low-level perception and higher-level image
> understanding by integrating a cognitive model of perceptual
> organization and analogy-making with a neural model of the visual
> cortex.
>
> Bio: Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland
> State University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
> She attended Brown University, where she majored in mathematics and
> did research in astronomy, and the University of Michigan, where she
> received a Ph.D. in computer science, working with her advisor Douglas
> Hofstadter on the Copycat project, a computer program that makes
> analogies. She is the author or editor of five books and over 70
> scholarly papers in in the fields of artificial intelligence,
> cognitive science, and complex systems. Her most recent book,
> "Complexity: A Guided Tour", published in 2009 by Oxford University
> Press, was named by Amazon.com as one of the ten best science books of
> 2009.
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College