My Upcoming Plenary Talk in New York City on Cybersecurity, Game Theory, and Operations Research

When the invitation arrived a few months ago from Professor Quanyan Zhu of New York University asking me whether I would be interested in giving a plenary talk at a conference in New York City, I did not hesitate. The conference, SecGames 2016, Decision and Game Theory for Security, will take place November 2-4, 2016.

First, the theme of the conference meshes perfectly with one of my major research themes; secondly, the venue is one of my favorite cities (I grew up in neighboring Yonkers), plus the season - mid-Fall is also perfect, and I had collaborated with Professor Zhu on another initiative.

Also, I do believe in the importance of having female plenary speakers at technical conferences, so it is important, when invited, and it is feasible (I am not on another continent speaking elsewhere), to accept the invitation.

The conference has a great organizing committee and the technical program committee consists of leaders in game theory and cybersecurity.

I have started working on my presentation, which is on: Game Theory Models of Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Investments Under Network Vulnerability. I am having a terrific time preparing my presentation. In my presentation I will focus on research that I have done both independently and with collaborators which integrates game theory and operations research.

As a plenary speaker, one has to generate and sustain interest among the audience members, so, of course, it is important to have great content and a topic that one is very excited to be speaking on.

I am one of two plenary speakers - with the other one being Dr. George Cybenko of Dartmouth.

UMass Amherst has an announcement for my plenary talk at this conference.

I have had some wonderful speaking engagements in NYC, some not very typical. In fact, just yesterday, while teaching my Transportation and Logistics class about the Braess paradox, I showed my students a segment of a videoclip of the World Science Festival panel in NYC on Traffic that I was part of in 2009, which was an extraordinary experience.

 Also, in 2013, I was on the Transportation panel, along with Dr. Janette Sadik-Khan, at the New York Times Energy for Tomorrow conference in NYC. The panel was moderated by the Times columnist Joe Nocera. You can view the video here.

In November 2008 I was a plenary speaker at the North American Regional Science Association in Brooklyn and my presentation can be downloaded here.

I remember walking fondly over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is a favorite bridge of mine, and I hope to do that again next month in NYC!

Green Spaces in Some Favorite Cities

After spending multiple weeks in Europe this past summer, as a Visiting Professor in Sweden, and also speaking and attending plus co-organizing conferences in various countries, I am enjoying being in very green Amherst, Massachusetts.

But,  before long, I will be heading out again, to give a plenary talk in Bogota, Colombia. I will be speaking on Sustainable Supply Chains for Sustainable Cities.

Reflecting back on the places that I had been recently what stood out in my mind is the importance of green spaces in cities.

The New York Times recently even had an article on a scientific study on the effects of walking in nature on people's brains.


I must admit that in traveling I always try to locate a hotel close to a park.

Below are photos of green spaces in some of my favorite cities. Take in the beauty and enjoy - it may even be good for your health.

Below are scenes from Gothenburg, Sweden

Below photos are from Hyde Park, London, England

StadtPark in Vienna, Austria

The Meadows in Edinburgh, Scotland

 Oxford, England

And, of course, Central Park in New York City!

Congrats to the New Fellows of the Radio Club of America and Other Awardees and a Thank You

We recently returned from NYC where, this past Friday, my husband and I attended the 103rd Anniversary Awards Banquet of the Radio Club of America at the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South.

 

The evening was truly special, with the recognition of individuals who have contributed in a multiplicity of ways to radio communications and broadcasting, education, and even to engineering and the manufacturing of radio communications equipment.

Among the honorees was Ms. Carole J. Perry, who received The President's Award for her outstanding development and advancement of the Amateur Radio Youth Program. Ms. Perry is from Staten Island, and in her acceptance speech, she, as did several others, spoke of the devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy. She noted that even though some still do not have power they still have strength! Ms. Erin King, who is a freshman at MIT, received the Young Achiever Award. David Buchanan received an award for his contributions to public safety.

I was at the banquet since my husband, Lad Nagurney (the other Professor Nagurney), was one of the five recipients of the Fellow Award.  Glenn Bischoff, the Publisher of Urgent Communications, was one of the other Fellow awardees, and I very much enjoyed talking with him about disaster communications and humanitarian logistics.
                                    
The keynote speaker was David Sumner, the Chief Executive Officer and Secretary of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). He had recently returned from Vietnam. He was the contact person who had suggested, when I was organizing, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Programs,  the conference on Humanitarian Logistics: Networks for Africa, that I have Dr. Cosmas Zavazava of the International Telecommunications Union of the United Nations, speak.

David Sumner spoke brilliantly on the importance of communications, especially robust radio communications, in saving people's lives. Brian Williams had been the keynote speaker at last year's banquet, and Walter Cronkite, the year before he passed away..

We had a wonderful group of fascinating people at our banquet table, including Andrew Conte, and his wife, who had spent a year at UMass Amherst on an exchange program from Rutgers. Mr. Conte received the Jack Poppele Award, named after the founder of the radio station WOR and Director of the Voice of America under President Eisenhower.
                                        
Below, I have posted some additional photos taken at the New York Athletic Club and of those who attended

Congratulations to all the award recipients and thanks for all that the members have done over one century in communications and in education!

 

 

 

New York City and Fashion Supply Chain Management

I recently spent a few days in New York City and stayed at our favorite hotel on the Upper West Side, The Excelsior, which is across from the Museum of Natural History. As appropriate to one of the themes of the 2011 World Science Festival, which took place in NYC, June 1-5, I basked in both Art and Science.

I had a chance to go to the Guggenheim, which will soon be celebrating its 40th anniversary, to see the Frick Collection, and the Cooper and Hewitt Smithsonian Museum of Design, which had a breath-taking exhibit on over one hundred years of Van Cleef and Arpels jewelry. Also, my family and I got to see several of our relatives and my daughter got together with a friend from her prep school (while strolling in Central Park they were recognized by another friend of theirs who was in town from Connecticut to see The Museum of Natural History). Of course, we also headed over to Broadway and Times Square to view the pedestrian plaza where I had been filmed back in freezing March for the PBS production American Revealed for a segment on Transportation and the Braess paradox and even Basketball!

NYC never fails to captivate and we walked for miles and enjoyed not only Central Park but also the hustle and bustle of NYC and the amazing sights, sounds, energy, people, fashion (high as well as fast) and live theater.

Speaking of fashion, I am delighted that the preface to the Fashion Supply Chain Management: Industry and Business Analysis book is now online. This book, in which we have the leading chapter, Fashion Supply Chain Management Through Cost and Time Minimization from a Network Perspective, is edited by Dr. T.-M. Choi, and will be released next month.

Above I have posted some photos that were taken this past week in NYC, which depict scenes that show the beauty and elegance of this great city. I must also commend the taxi drivers, whose navigation and driving skills are terrific (at least in mid-Manhattan) and we made it to Penn Station just in time to catch the Metro North train.

Rest in Peace, Dr. Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel Laureate

As I was growing up in Yonkers, New York, I read The New York Times at every opportunity.

While I was a student at Yonkers High School and in college at Brown University, I would periodically come across articles on the amazing scientist, Dr. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, who had been born in NYC. She passed away on May 30, 2011, in NYC at age 89.

Her parents never finished high school, but she went on to graduate magna cum laude from Hunter College and then struggled to get accepted for graduate school. When she applied to a midwestern university (I won't mention the name but you can find it here and times have changed somewhat since I was recruited by the same one a few years back for a tenured faculty position) to further her studies in physics, the university wrote back to her professor: She is from New York. She is Jewish. She is a woman. If you can guarantee her a job afterward, we’ll give her an assistantship. This could not be guaranteed, so she was rejected.

Despite being hurt by this rejection, she got a job as a secretary at Columbia University and with World War II opening up academic opportunities for women, she received a teaching assistantship at the University of Illinois in Urbana in engineering. She was the only female teaching fellow/faculty member out of 400! She received her doctorate in nuclear physics in 1945, moved back to NYC, where her incredible scientific career with discoveries in radioimmunoassay, with her collaborator Dr. Berson, continued.

Many new, creative ideas are met with resistance. According to The Times, scientific journals, at first, rejected her research with Berson on insulin antibodies. She did not forget this experience and included the rejection letter in her Nobel prize lecture. She received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977, only the second woman at that point to have been awarded this major accolade. Speaking to schoolchildren several years after receiving the Nobel about the challenges of a life as a scientist, she said, Initially, new ideas are rejected. Later they become dogma, if you're right. And if you're really lucky, you can publish your rejections as part of your Nobel presentation.

Although Berson predeceased her, and, hence, could not share the prize with her, she named her lab after him, so that his name would appear on her publications afterwards. Yalow was not only a great scientist but also a great person.

This week, the 2011 World Science Festival (WSF) is taking place in NYC, and I hope to catch a part of it, since it is an amazing set of 50 events over 5 days. One of the themes this year, and Yalow would have been pleased, is Women in Science.

Some highlights of my experiences at the 2009 WSF can be found here.

Thank You, South Africa, for a Great World Cup

Wherever you may have been this weekend, it was hard not to notice the excitement surrounding the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa.

I was in cosmopolitan, gorgeous NYC this past weekend, which was filled not only with locals who weren't at the Hamptons, but also with many tourists from around the world.

Yesterday, the scores during the Spain vs. The Netherlands final match were relayed from taxi driver to taxi driver (these we saw parked) and from tourist to tourist so one could always catch the score even while walking.

As the German octopus named Paul "predicted," Spain beat The Netherlands and the final score was 1-0. Neither of these teams had ever advanced to the finals so it was a great achievement for both. The day before Germany beat Uruguay to receive third place in this 32 team World Cup.

Thank you, South Africa, for a month of great sports in the form of the game of soccer that brought fans around the globe to focus on the exciting games in your country. It was the first time that the World Cup was hosted on the continent of Africa and South Africa should be congratulated for the success of this month-long sports event!

World Science Festival Begins Tomorrow in NYC!

The New York Times had a wonderful article on the third World Science Festival that begins tomorrow in New York City. The article, The Cosmos and the Culture Converge at a Science Festival, by Dennis Overbye captures some of the wonder and excitement of this annual event which combines science, art, music, and even drama (with Alan Alda being one of the main movers behind this fantastic annual event). Dr. Brian Greene, the physicist from Columbia University and his wife, Tracy Day, the journalist, were the originators of this creative extravaganza that transforms parts of NYC during the beautiful month of June into a science wonderland.

I was a participant in last year's World Science Festival as a panelist on Traffic and the experience was simply fabulous. I enjoyed meeting other speakers and participants at the festival and in my meanderings around Soho since several of the events take place at NYU and I was put up in the Soho Grand Hotel.

If you can make it to NYC this week, do take part in the World Science Festival, which even includes a street fair, and with Stephen Hawkings, the renowned Cambridge University cosmologist, as one of the headliners, I promise you that you will not be disappointed!

Feet and Buses First -- Another Miracle by Macy's?!

Michael M. Grynbaum writes in The New York Times about another plan by Mayor Bloomberg and his NYC administration to ban automobiles on the block between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, creating a pedestrian plaza bookended by Herald Square and the Empire State Building. The plan is to support certain modes of transportation (but not cars or taxis) in that area -- in particular, those that travel by foot, i.e., pedestrians, as well as those that ride the buses.

According to the plan (and article), the final design for the plaza and traffic changes is expected in fall 2011, with the street ready for use by the end of 2012. The redesign is expected to cost a minimum of $30 million, and officials said they would continue to tweak the plan based on public reaction and in-house studies.

The city's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, who is very gutsy and innovative, said that: “It’s going to improve the mobility along the corridor.” “We expect the bus travel times to improve by up to 35 percent, which is something that up to 33,000 passengers that currently travel crosstown will appreciate.”

I have written about the Braess paradox in both the scholarly literature and in this blog and that the closure of Broadway from 42nd to 47st Street in NYC is like the reverse of the Braess Paradox (in which the addition of a new route results in all the travelers being worse off in terms of travel time).

This new proposal by the same administration shows vision and concern about traffic efficiency as well as sustainability.

I see another Miracle on 34th Street (the name also of a favorite holiday movie) taking place!

2010 World Science Festival -- Guess Who is Coming!

I received this past week a lovely letter from Professor Brian Greene and Ms. Tracy Day, the Co-Founders of the World Science Festival (WSF), that takes place in New York City in late Spring. The 2010 WSF will take place June 2-6, 2010, so save the dates!

Last year, I was an invited panelist on Traffic, along with Drs. Iain Couzin and Mitchell Joachim at the 2009 Festival, with Robert Krulwich of NPR and ABC, as our panel moderator. That event, plus numerous others, associated with the WSF, which focuses on bringing the excitement and wonder of science and discoveries to the public, were just fabulous! I blogged about this fascinating festival on this blog. Below is a photo from the Traffic panel.

The letter from Greene and Day (who are husband and wife, by the way, and a terrific team all-around) announced that Dr. Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, of Cambridge University in England, will be taking part in the 2010 WSF's Opening Night Gala Performance on Wednesday, June 2, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall!

Although Dr. Hawking has suffered for years from Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that affects muscle control) for which he uses a wheelchair and speaks through a computer and voice synthesizer, he remains very active professionally and has given talks around the world. I recall him speaking in China a few years back and was so impressed by his stamina and professionalism, despite his disability, that when an opportunity came to me to speak in China, I had to accept. Dr. Hawking is an incredible scientist and role model.

A quote from Professor Hawking's website: Among the most important people to both Stephen and his work are the PhD students that he supervises. This quote really resonates with me!

The Gala Evening at Alice Tully Hall will also feature Alan Alda (a great supporter of this festival and science), Yo-Yo Ma, and Damian Woetzel, among others. It will be the setting for the world premier of Icarus at the Edge of Time, an orchestral work composed by Philip Glass, with libretto by Brian Greene and David Henry Hwang!

I would like to thank the organizers of the WSF and all the supporters for bringing the wonder and pleasures of science to NYC and the world!

The Fragility of New York's Travel Network

The NY Times article that appeared yesterday had the terrific and terrifying title, "Bridge Fire Reveals the Fragility of New York's Travel Network," and demonstrated the major impact of a fire on July 10 (almost two weeks ago) started by a worker's blowtorch on the Throgs Neck Bridge that resulted not only in an immediate impact but one that has continued to this day. This bridge has been closed to traffic in both directions and this major artery that carries 112,000 vehicles on an average day between Queens and the Bronx severed. Our new book, "Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World," provides measures that identify the importance and rankings of nodes and links in transportation networks that capture the economic impact including the demands and flows (which here would include the 112,000 vehicles per day). Interestingly, throughout this NYTimes article key words from our book title, such as "fragile" and "vulnerability" kept on appearing.

UMass Amherst has a nice article on the publication of our book in In The Loop. The official press release was issued by UMass Amherst today.

With the deterioration of the infrastructure in the United States, it is time that we do the rebuilding and the building in a coherent, well-planned, transparent, and intelligent manner. The Throg's Neck Bridge incident is just another case of a local incident (the blowtorch fire) having a major impact on the network and its users! Let's identify what we need to protect and to secure, before it is too late.

World Science Festival, New York City, Traffic

I am getting ready for the World Science Festival, which takes place in New York City, June 10-14, 2009. There will be a gala to open up the festival this coming Wednesday night and to also honor the 80th birthday of E. O. Wilson, the scientist from Harvard, who needs no introductions. I will be a panelist on the "Traffic" segment that will take place on Friday evening. My co-panelists are Iain Couzin of Princeton University and Mitchell Joachim of Columbia University and the Parsons School of Design. The excitement surrounding the 2009 World Science Festival is palpable! It is an incredible venue in which to celebrate science, creativity, and the world around us!

The Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, where I teach and conduct research on networks, is also publicizing the event and has issued a press release. The Traffic segment is especially timely, given Mayor Bloomberg's initiative in closing Broadway from 47th to 42th Street to create pedestrian plazas!