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Seminar Series

June 28

Personal Control of Digital Data

Butler Lampson
MIT, Microsoft

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

32-123
Add to Calendar 2017-06-28 19:00:00 2017-06-28 21:00:00 America/New_York Personal Control of Digital Data IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM7:00 PM, Wednesday 28 June, 2017MIT Room 32-123 (the Kirsch auditorium in the Stata Center)Personal Control of Digital DataButler Lampson, Adjunct Professor at MIT & Technical Fellow at MicrosoftPeople around the world are concerned that more and more of their personal data is on the Internet, where it's easy to find, copy, and link up with other data. Data about people's presence and actions in the physical world (from cameras, microphones, and other sensors) soon will be just as important as data that is born digital. What people most often want is a sense of control over their data (even if they don't exercise this control very often). Control means that you can tell who has your data, limit what they can do with it, and change your mind about the limits. Many people feel that this control is a fundamental human right (thinking of personal data as an extension of the self), or an essential part of your property rights to your data.Regulators are starting to respond to these concerns. Because societies around the world have different cultural norms and governments have different priorities, there will not be a single worldwide regulatory regime. However, it does seem possible to have a single set of basic technical mechanisms that support regulation.Butler Lampson is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft Corporation and an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT. He was on the faculty at Berkeley and then at the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox PARC and at Digital's Systems Research Center. He has worked on computer architecture, local area networks, raster printers, page description languages, operating systems, remote procedure call, programming languages and their semantics, programming in the large, fault-tolerant computing, transaction processing, computer security, WYSIWYG editors, and tablet computers. He was one of the designers of the SDS 940 time-sharing system, the Alto personal distributed computing system, the Xerox 9700 laser printer, two-phase commit protocols, the Autonet LAN, the SPKI system for network security, the Microsoft Palladium security system, the Microsoft Tablet PC software, and several programming languages.He holds a number of patents on networks, security, raster printing, and transaction processing. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the ACM Software Systems Award in 1984 for his work on the Alto, the IEEE Computer Pioneer award in 1996, the National Computer Systems Security Award in 1998, the IEEE von Neumann Medal in 2001, the Turing Award in 1992, and the National Academy of Engineering's Draper Prize in 2004.This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer and GBC/ACM will be held in the Kirsch Auditorium at the Stata Center (MIT room32-123). Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list. 32-123

June 22

Dataverse: Building a Digital Repository

Raman Prasad
Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

E51-335
Add to Calendar 2017-06-22 19:00:00 2017-06-22 21:00:00 America/New_York Dataverse: Building a Digital Repository IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM and Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science7:00 PM, Thursday, 22 June 2017MIT Room E51-335Dataverse: Building a Digital RepositoryRaman PrasadOpen source platform Dataverse takes on the challenge of making research data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Started by Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the platform has grown to include 20 installations with data from over 500 institutions.The talk will focus on the Dataverse's evolving architecture including topics such as:- extracting and sharing metadata- handling streaming data- exposing datasets to cloud computing toolsDataverse web pages - The Dataverse project: http://dataverse.org - The Harvard installation of Dataverse: http://dataverse.harvard.edu/ -Codebase: http://github.com/iqss/dataverseRaman Prasad is a software developer at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science where he has worked for three years as a member of the Dataverse team. He has worked for a variety of non-profit and for-profit organizations and holds an M.S. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room E51-335. E51 is the Tang Center on the corner ofWadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus. Room 335 is on the 3rd floor. E51-335

May 11

Engineering Complex Behaviors in Biological Organisms

Jake Beal
BBN Technologies

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

E51-325
Add to Calendar 2017-05-11 19:00:00 2017-05-11 21:00:00 America/New_York Engineering Complex Behaviors in Biological Organisms *IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM**7:00 PM, Thursday, 11 May 2017**MIT Room E51-325**Engineering Complex Behaviors in Biological Organisms**Jake Beal*Engineering biological cells to perform computations has a broad range of important potential applications, including precision medical therapies, biosynthesis process control, and environmental sensing. Recent years have seen the development of a profusion of synthetic biology tools, largely falling into two categories: high-level "design" tools aimed at mapping from organism specifications to nucleic acid sequences implementing those specifications, and low-level "build and test" tools aimed at faster, cheaper, and more reliable fabrication of those sequences and assays of their behavior in engineered biological organisms. Between the two families, however, there is a major gap: we still largely lack the predictive models and component characterization data required to effectively determine which of the many possible candidate sequences considered in the design phase are the most likely to produce useful results when built and tested. Recently, however, significant advances have been made against three key engineering obstacles: development of fast high-precision characterization methods based on calibrated flow cytometry, construction of combinatorial libraries of high-performance synthetic regulatory devices, and derivation of methods capable of high-precision prediction of new biological computational systems from models of their component regulatory devices. Such enabling developments are, in turn, likely to allow high-level tools to break the design barrier and support rapid development of transformative biological applications.Dr. Jacob Beal is a scientist at BBN Technologies and a research affiliate of MIT and the University of Iowa. His research interests focus on analyzing and engineering complex aggregates, such as engineered and natural cells, genetic regulatory networks, sensor networks, and robot swarms.He received his PhD degree in 2007 from MIT, where he was also ateaching assistant for 6.034 (artificial intelligence) and a research assistant on Project MAC.This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room E51-325. E51 is the Tang Center on the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus.Room 325 is on the 3rd floor.Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, ourself-administered mailing list. E51-325

April 12

Evolution of the Translational Apparatus and implications for the origin of the Genetic Code

Hyman Hartman

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

The Broad Institute Auditorium, 415 Main St, Cambridge, MA
Add to Calendar 2017-04-12 19:00:00 2017-04-12 21:00:00 America/New_York Evolution of the Translational Apparatus and implications for the origin of the Genetic Code IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM7:00 PM, Wednesday, April 12, 2017The Broad Institute Auditorium, 415 Main St, Cambridge, MAEvolution of the Translational Apparatus and implications for the origin of the Genetic Code**Hyman Hartman*Abstract:The translational apparatus involves: - 1) The Ribosome; the Large and Small subunits - 2) The 20 Aminoacyl -tRNA synthetases - 3) The tRNAsWe shall walk thru the evolution of the translational apparatus starting with the ribosome passing thru the Aminoacyl tRNA synthetases and ending up with the origin and evolution of the tRNA. There are one or two surprises in this leisurely walk and we will end up with the Origin of the Genetic Code and the Demise of the RNA World.Conclusion: The Origin of the Genetic Code implies the Decline and Fall of the RNA world."It is almost impossible to discuss the origin of the code without discussing the origin of the actual biochemical mechanisms of protein synthesis. This is very difficult for two reasons: it is complex and many of its details are not yet understood." - Francis CrickHyman Hartman was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He received his B.Sc. with honors In Biochemistry from McGill University (1957) and his PhD in Biochemistry from Columbia University (1964). He began his studies on the Origin of Life by publishing two pioneering papers in 1974 on the Evolution of the Genetic Code and the Origin and Evolution of Metabolism. These papers were based on the Clay theory for the Origin of Life. He edited a book with Graham Cairns-Smith entitled Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life.(1987). He was on the Grant Board for NASA Exobiology Division and he was a co-editor with Jim Lawless and Phil Morrison on the book Search for the Universal Ancestors published by NASA. He and Temple Smith (Boston University) have been studying the Bioinformatics of the Ribosomal Proteins and the Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases. These studies have allowed them to reconstruct the Origin and Evolution of the Translational Apparatus and the Origin and Evolution of the Genetic Code. He is also active with a group inthe University of Kentucky and McGill University studying the De Novo synthesis of Clay as catalyzed by Amino acids and Dicarboxylic acids.This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be held in the Broad Institute Auditorium (MIT buildingNE-30). The Broad Institute is at 415 Main St between Vassar and Ames streets. You can see it on a map at this location.The auditorium is on the ground floor near the entrance. Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.For more information contact Peter Mager (p.mager at computer.org <(p.mager@computer.org>) The Broad Institute Auditorium, 415 Main St, Cambridge, MA

March 09

Next Generation Sequencing: Underlying Technology and Applications to Cancer

John Methot
Director of Health Informatics Architecture at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

Broad Institute Auditorium
Add to Calendar 2017-03-08 19:00:00 2017-03-08 21:00:00 America/New_York Next Generation Sequencing: Underlying Technology and Applications to Cancer *IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM**7:00 PM, Wednesday, March 8, 2017**Broad Institute Auditorium, 415 Main St, Cambridge**Next Generation Sequencing: Underlying Technology and Applications to Cancer**John Methot**Director of Health Informatics Architecture at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute*Abstract: The development of DNA sequencing technology was spurred by the Human Genome Project in the 1990s resulting in massively parallel techniques that are referred to as Next Generation Sequencing. Introduced in 2006, these and subsequent technologies have revolutionized biology. Hundreds of organisms have complete reference genomes. Hundreds of thousands of humans have been sequenced. Myriad creative adaptations of sequencing have been and continue to be devised. Sequencing is now a routine technique that is at the core of biological research in academia, industry and medicine and increasingly in medical care itself.Precision Medicine is the concept that differences in disease risk, prognosis, and response to treatment can be elucidated at the molecular level, often using nucleic acid sequencing. While it is expected to impact many diseases precision medicine has had its earliest applications and successes in cancer. The identification of specific DNA alterations that segment what were previously considered similar tumors has lead to the development of alteration-specific drugs called targeted therapies.This presentation will include a brief history of sequencing technology and a description of how sequencing is performed, how the large volume of resulting data is analyzed, and a brief survey of the ever-growing collection of applications. Then we'll focus on the main application in cancer, somatic variant identification, and its use in clinical care.John Methot is a software and systems architect with more than 30 years' experience developing applications in scientific and technical domains. Since 2006 his work has focused on genomics in the life sciences in pharmaceutical and biotech research and most recently in clinical cancer research. He holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Washington and a Masters in Bioinformatics from the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is currently the Director of Health Informatics Architecture at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and is also a co-organizer of the BostonComputational Biology and Bioinformatics group with over 1300 members.This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be held in the Broad Institute Auditorium (MIT building NE-30). The Broad Institute is at 415 Main St between Vassar and Ames streets. You can see it on a map at this location. http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?zoom=level2&centerx=710846&centery=496467&oldzoom=level3&map.x=340&map.y=72 The auditorium is on the ground floor near the entrance.Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.For more information contact Peter Mager (p.mager at computer.org <(p.mager@computer.org>) Broad Institute Auditorium

January 20

Unintuitive and Insecure: Fixing the Failures of the Authentication User Experience

Jared Spool

Part Of

7:00P
- 9:00P

Location

E51-345
Add to Calendar 2017-01-19 19:00:00 2017-01-19 21:00:00 America/New_York Unintuitive and Insecure: Fixing the Failures of the Authentication User Experience IEEE Computer and Communications Societies and GBC/ACM 7:00 PM, Thursday, January 19, 2017 MIT Room E51-345 This talk is a repeat of the presentation held at Vistaprint in Waltham on Tuesday January 17. Its being given at MIT to interest students and other members of the MIT community to address authentication and security issues without destroying application usability. Unintuitive and Insecure: Fixing the Failures of the Authentication User Experience Jared M. Spool, co-CEO of Center Centre and founder of UIE "Which username did I use?" "Do they want my email address or my nickname?" "Which password did I use?" "What was my favorite vegetable when I created this account?" Nothing wrecks a great user experience like a login form. Our password rules make it hard to remember what we've used, and stupid security questions lock us out of our accounts. And none of these security gymnastics actually prevent our personal information from leaking into the world. (In fact, we often inadvertently make it easier.) If it's not usable, it's not secure. Unusable authentication systems are a bellwether of poor end-to-end experience. Once you've frustrated a user with their account creation or session authentication, it's extremely hard to win them back. Security isn't sexy, but when we get it right, we reduce risk and increase user satisfaction. In this entertaining presentation, Jared will explain how to make authentication design a top priority in your experience architecture. He'll show you where the real risks are and why you shouldn't trust others to handle your design's security elegantly. Jared will walk you through: How to best protect your users without making them frustrated. How Amazon reduces fraud and makes money with a multi-state security model. How to keep the Paranoids at bay without degrading the user experience. Jared M. Spool is a co-founder of Center Centre and the founder of UIE. In 2016, with Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, he opened Center Centre, a new school in Chattanooga, TN to create the next generation of industry-ready UX Designers. They created a revolutionary approach to vocational training, infusing Jared's decades of UX experience with Leslie's mastery of experience-based learning methodologies. You'll also find him as the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual UI Conference and UX Immersion Conference, and he manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time. He is author of the book, Web Usability: A Designer's Guide and co-author of Web Anatomy: Interaction Design Frameworks that Work. You'll find his writing at uie.com. You can also follow his adventures on the Twitters at @jmspool, where he tweets daily about UX design, design strategy, design education, and the wondrous customer service habits of the airline industry. MIT building E51 is the Tang Center on the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus. Room 345 is on the 3rd floor. We will be taking Jared to dinner at Legal Seafood after the talk at about 9pm. Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list. For more information contact Peter Mager (p.mager at computer.org)Updated: January 6, 2017. E51-345