During 'Live from MTV,' Max George from the Wanted shares his story about the Oscar-winning script.
By Christina Garibaldi
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Janet Lathrop
jlathrop@admin.umass.edu
413-545-0444
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
AMHERST, Mass. Applied mathematicians Markos Katsoulakis and Luc Rey-Bellet of the University of Massachusetts Amherst will share a three-year, $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, with others, to develop new methods to assess and improve mathematical modeling of multi-scale, complex systems. Once developed, the new methods are expected to have applications in energy research and materials synthesis.
As Katsoulakis explains, predictive mathematical models and algorithms have long complemented theory and experiments in applied sciences and engineering, but such computational models are now more important than ever because of the increased complexity of the problems plus advances in computing capabilities. A recognition of the vast predictive potential of modeling and efficient simulation of complex systems, he points out, is the fact that the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems.
One of the primary practical applications planned by Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet, with partners at Brown University and the University of Delaware, is to design highly efficient and cost-effective bimetallic catalysts using relatively inexpensive metals, allowing storage and production of clean hydrogen fuel from readily available sources such as ammonia.
Katsoulakis says, "The role of uncertainty and sensitivity quantification in this process turns out to be crucial, because the design of bimetallic catalysts rests on understanding how sensitive the catalyst's performance metrics are on its parent metals. Also, experiments have shown that performance depends on the micro-geometry of the arrangement of the two metals, that is structure and ordering of their layers. Given all the choices we have in selecting materials and geometries for the two-metal catalysts, this becomes a very complex system to model."
Being able to systematically evaluate which metal combinations in the catalyst are the most efficient and cost effective is one of the team's key goals. The challenge is an example of a model where new mathematical and computational techniques for assessing uncertainty and quantifying sensitivity can be extremely productive, the researchers say.
Over the next three years, the multi-institution team will develop new mathematical tools that describe uncertainty and model sensitivity using information theory, probability theory, statistical methods such as model selection and model reduction, rare events methods, multi-scale analysis and parameterization of coarse-grained models from finer scales and data.
Mathematical models are now routinely being asked to account for systems of
increasing complexity, that is handling millions or even billions of variables. In addition, a model must integrate data from different scales and must account for different spatial scales, for example from the molecular level all the way to the everyday macroscopic scale, and basic physical processes at different time scales.
The UMass Amherst mathematician says, "Interactions across scales are a unifying feature in all complex systems that we may experience in everyday life. Think of the effect that a single vehicle breakdown during rush hour may have to the overall traffic flow, even at very large distances from the scene." Taking all the different variables and mechanisms such as vehicle speeds, sizes, road network, weather, traffic volume and so on into account, represents a typical complex "multi-scale multi-physics" modeling, simulation and analysis problem that challenges current applied mathematical methods, he adds.
Handling real-life systems with unprecedented levels of complexity and multi-scale features requires not only more powerful computational capabilities, but also new mathematics, Katsoulakis explains. "Though high performance computing can allow us, for the first time, to simulate at least some complex systems, there are important concerns related to the effectiveness and reliability of the predictive computational models."
As in the traffic example, all such models depend on a large number of mechanisms and parameters but it is not immediately obvious which ones critically affect the final predictions and which ones can be ignored. Another, closely related, source of uncertainty is insufficient knowledge of a particular highly complex system.
Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet believe that their research has great potential for wider impact in a number of fields because it will lay down the mathematical foundations for uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis in a broad class of complex systems typically encountered in physicochemical and biological processes, atmosphere and ocean science, and other types of complex networks.
Besides Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet at UMass Amherst, collaborators are mathematician Petr Plechac and chemical engineer Dion Vlachos at the University of Delaware and applied mathematician Paul Dupuis at Brown University.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 7-Nov-2013
ShareContact: Janet Lathrop
jlathrop@admin.umass.edu
413-545-0444
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
AMHERST, Mass. Applied mathematicians Markos Katsoulakis and Luc Rey-Bellet of the University of Massachusetts Amherst will share a three-year, $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, with others, to develop new methods to assess and improve mathematical modeling of multi-scale, complex systems. Once developed, the new methods are expected to have applications in energy research and materials synthesis.
As Katsoulakis explains, predictive mathematical models and algorithms have long complemented theory and experiments in applied sciences and engineering, but such computational models are now more important than ever because of the increased complexity of the problems plus advances in computing capabilities. A recognition of the vast predictive potential of modeling and efficient simulation of complex systems, he points out, is the fact that the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems.
One of the primary practical applications planned by Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet, with partners at Brown University and the University of Delaware, is to design highly efficient and cost-effective bimetallic catalysts using relatively inexpensive metals, allowing storage and production of clean hydrogen fuel from readily available sources such as ammonia.
Katsoulakis says, "The role of uncertainty and sensitivity quantification in this process turns out to be crucial, because the design of bimetallic catalysts rests on understanding how sensitive the catalyst's performance metrics are on its parent metals. Also, experiments have shown that performance depends on the micro-geometry of the arrangement of the two metals, that is structure and ordering of their layers. Given all the choices we have in selecting materials and geometries for the two-metal catalysts, this becomes a very complex system to model."
Being able to systematically evaluate which metal combinations in the catalyst are the most efficient and cost effective is one of the team's key goals. The challenge is an example of a model where new mathematical and computational techniques for assessing uncertainty and quantifying sensitivity can be extremely productive, the researchers say.
Over the next three years, the multi-institution team will develop new mathematical tools that describe uncertainty and model sensitivity using information theory, probability theory, statistical methods such as model selection and model reduction, rare events methods, multi-scale analysis and parameterization of coarse-grained models from finer scales and data.
Mathematical models are now routinely being asked to account for systems of
increasing complexity, that is handling millions or even billions of variables. In addition, a model must integrate data from different scales and must account for different spatial scales, for example from the molecular level all the way to the everyday macroscopic scale, and basic physical processes at different time scales.
The UMass Amherst mathematician says, "Interactions across scales are a unifying feature in all complex systems that we may experience in everyday life. Think of the effect that a single vehicle breakdown during rush hour may have to the overall traffic flow, even at very large distances from the scene." Taking all the different variables and mechanisms such as vehicle speeds, sizes, road network, weather, traffic volume and so on into account, represents a typical complex "multi-scale multi-physics" modeling, simulation and analysis problem that challenges current applied mathematical methods, he adds.
Handling real-life systems with unprecedented levels of complexity and multi-scale features requires not only more powerful computational capabilities, but also new mathematics, Katsoulakis explains. "Though high performance computing can allow us, for the first time, to simulate at least some complex systems, there are important concerns related to the effectiveness and reliability of the predictive computational models."
As in the traffic example, all such models depend on a large number of mechanisms and parameters but it is not immediately obvious which ones critically affect the final predictions and which ones can be ignored. Another, closely related, source of uncertainty is insufficient knowledge of a particular highly complex system.
Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet believe that their research has great potential for wider impact in a number of fields because it will lay down the mathematical foundations for uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis in a broad class of complex systems typically encountered in physicochemical and biological processes, atmosphere and ocean science, and other types of complex networks.
Besides Katsoulakis and Rey-Bellet at UMass Amherst, collaborators are mathematician Petr Plechac and chemical engineer Dion Vlachos at the University of Delaware and applied mathematician Paul Dupuis at Brown University.
###
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Police stand outside a building near the scene of a multiple shooting that took place at Al's Place Barber Shop in Detroit, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013. Detroit police say gunfire broke out at the barbershop known for gambling activity. Police Chief James Craig told reporters that police were looking for two vehicles that the suspects may have been using, a 2004 white Chevrolet Impala that may have a broken window and bullet holes in the back, and a 2004 black Impala. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Police stand outside a building near the scene of a multiple shooting that took place at Al's Place Barber Shop in Detroit, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013. Detroit police say gunfire broke out at the barbershop known for gambling activity. Police Chief James Craig told reporters that police were looking for two vehicles that the suspects may have been using, a 2004 white Chevrolet Impala that may have a broken window and bullet holes in the back, and a 2004 black Impala. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Detroit Police Chief James Craig addresses the media during a news conference in Detroit, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013. Craig said a man has been apprehended and will be questioned about a barbershop shooting that killed three people and wounded several more on Wednesday night on the city's east side. Craig said that the man was wearing body armor when he was arrested on unrelated felony charges in suburban Rochester after the shootings. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Police stand outside the scene of a multiple shooting at Al's Place Barber Shop in Detroit, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013. Detroit police say gunfire broke out at the barbershop known for gambling activity. Police Chief James Craig told reporters that police were looking for two vehicles that the suspects may have been using, a 2004 white Chevrolet Impala that may have a broken window and bullet holes in the back, and a 2004 black Impala. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Police gather at a scene of a multiple shooting at Al's Place Barber Shop, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013, in Detroit. Detroit police say gunfire broke out at the barbershop known for gambling activity, leaving at least three people dead. (AP Photo/Detroit Free Press, Andre J. Jackson) DETROIT NEWS OUT; NO SALES; TV OUT; INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT
People stand outside a barber shop, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013 in Detroit. Gunfire broke out Wednesday evening at a Detroit barbershop known for gambling activity, leaving at least two men dead, police say. (AP Photo/Detroit News, Elizabeth Conley) DETROIT FREE PRESS OUT; HUFFINGTON POST OUT
DETROIT (AP) — A convicted felon who was wearing body armor when police arrested him in a Detroit suburb will be questioned in an investigation into the fatal shooting of three men in a back gambling room of an east side barbershop.
Detroit Police Chief James Craig described the man as a person of interest in Wednesday evening's shooting at Al's Barber Shop that left six other people wounded. Speaking at a Thursday news conference at police headquarters, Craig said the bloodshed may have stemmed from an ongoing feud.
Craig did not name the person of interest and provided few details about the arrest. He said Rochester police picked up the man north of Detroit without incident on an unrelated felonious assault charge.
"Police wear body armor. Why would a community member be driving around in body armor?" said Craig, who described the latest mass shooting in Detroit as "urban terrorism."
Craig said 20 to 30 people were gambling in a tiny back room at the barbershop in a strip mall shortly before 6 p.m. when shots were fired from a high-powered rifle through an open back door.
When the gunfire began, the gamblers tried to escape the room through a door that led back into the barbershop, but that the jam of bodies prevented them from escaping.
"The shooter struck nine of the individuals inside the location," Craig said, adding that many people in the room were armed and at least one returned fire.
"Officers were able to develop information that there was an ongoing feud between a particular individual and several members of the gambling party," the chief said.
Craig declined to say whether police think the person of interest is the shooter. But he would say that the shooter is suspected in at least two other violent crimes.
Two of Wednesday's shooting victims died inside the gambling room. The third died later at a hospital. The conditions of the survivors were not available.
A witness told police that the shooter pulled into a rear alley and fired shots at someone in a pickup truck. He then got out of the car and began shooting into the open rear door of the barbershop.
Wednesday night police said they were seeking two vehicles believed to have been involved in the shooting.
Lorne Carter told the Detroit Free Press that he was smoking a cigarette against the wall of a nearby business when he heard what sounded like 30 to 40 rapid shots.
Detroit has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Including Wednesday night's barbershop slayings, 289 criminal homicides have been committed so far this year in Detroit.
Criminal homicides accounted for 386 of the 461 death investigations in 2012.
"Anytime you have ... shootings of nine, it certainly does rise up as one of Detroit's more violent incidents," Craig said.
Craig said one person was shot and three others wounded during a shooting in October 2012 on the city's west side. Seven teenagers — including five students at Cody Ninth Grade Academy — were shot and wounded while waiting at a bus stop near that school in June 2009.
___
Associated Press writers David N. Goodman and David Runk contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-11-07-Barbershop%20Shooting-Detroit/id-a11eaa1161684ce2938aedb2aa93c41e
We're all busy gearing up for Expand NY this weekend (you're coming, right?), but Brian, Peter and Terrence are taking a few moments out of their day to talk the week in tech. You can join along in the chat, just after the break. ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3fug6pekRr4/FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2013, file photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez arrives at the offices of Major League Baseball in New York. Attorneys for Rodriguez will appear in a New York courtroom for an initial court conference in his lawsuit against Major League Baseball. The New York Yankees third baseman is not expected at the meeting Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013, in Manhattan federal court. (AP Photo/David Karp, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2013, file photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez arrives at the offices of Major League Baseball in New York. Attorneys for Rodriguez will appear in a New York courtroom for an initial court conference in his lawsuit against Major League Baseball. The New York Yankees third baseman is not expected at the meeting Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013, in Manhattan federal court. (AP Photo/David Karp, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Rodriguez's legal team has gathered extensive additional evidence since he filed a lawsuit accusing Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig of trying to polish their images and destroy the third baseman's career and reputation, his lawyer said Thursday.
At a Manhattan federal court hearing, attorney Jordan Siev said his law office has gotten more evidence nearly every day to support its lawsuit accusing MLB and Selig of going on a "witch hunt" to ruin Rodriguez's reputation and career. He said the defendants went "way over the line."
He said evidence will prove that MLB and Selig engaged in behavior that subjects them to civil, "if not criminal," liability. The New York Yankees star did not attend the hearing.
MLB attorney Joseph Baumgarten responded by calling the lawsuit "inappropriate." He said the defendants will seek its dismissal.
"It doesn't belong in federal court," he said. Both sides were scheduled to file papers in the case on Friday. A hearing was scheduled for Jan. 23.
Siev is seeking to move the case back to state court, where it was originally filed.
At one point, U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield noted: "It's ironic. Neither side wants to be here, but you're both here."
Baumgarten made little mention of Rodriguez's allegations, but Siev used the public forum to lash out at the league and Selig.
He said baseball's investigation had a "sole purpose of destroying Rodriguez's career and reputation" and was designed "to get Mr. Rodriguez at all costs in an effort to salvage Mr. Selig's reputation as he heads toward retirement."
Siev said Selig "saw this as an opportunity to bring down one of the biggest players in the game."
The lawyer recounted some highlights of the lawsuit, including allegations that the league intimidated and offered cash to witnesses, purchased documents and allowed one of its investigators to engage in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a witness. He said the league made sure to leak information about the investigation to the press along the way.
Outside court, lawyers declined to comment.
The litigation comes after Rodriguez was given a 211-game suspension by the league on Aug. 5 for alleged violations of baseball's drug agreement and labor contract.
He also is challenging the suspension.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-11-07-Yankees-Rodriguez%20Lawsuits/id-703db6badd344309a25923264e2bfcf9"Make the other person feel important." "Let the other fellow feel that the idea is his." "Make people like you." Those are some of the peppy commands that have sent generations of Americans out into the world, determined to win friends and influence people — oh, and make big bucks.
Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People came out in November 1936 and has gone on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide — making it one of the best-selling nonfiction books in American history. Despite taking knocks from the likes of Arthur Miller, who mocked its upbeat worldview in Death Of A Salesman, and Lenny Bruce, who titled his 1965 autobiography How To Talk Dirty And Influence People, Carnegie's blockbuster is still in print and still sells in the six figures yearly. Contemporary prophets of positivity like Oprah, Jack Canfield of the "Chicken Soup For The Soul" series and televangelist Joel Osteen, to name but a few, owe much to Carnegie's brisk gospel of sunny reinvention.
Carnegie is the subject of a new biography by Steven Watts, who has chronicled the lives of other American cultural dynamos like Henry Ford, Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner. To be ruthlessly honest (which is not a conversational style that Carnegie ever recommended), Watts' book, called Self-Help Messiah, is a tad lumbering. We readers are treated to way too much background information about, say, the genesis of the YMCA and the ethos of The Lost Generation. Watts might have profited by adopting some of the perky anecdotes and canny sense of audience that characterizes Carnegie's own writing style.
But Carnegie is such a pivotal figure and his life story such a compelling testament to the power of positive thinking (and good luck) that the overstuffed feel of this book is an irritant rather than a deal-breaker.
Carnegie was born in Missouri in 1888; his parents were dirt-poor farmers. As a teenager, Carnegie enrolled in the tuition-free Missouri State Normal School for teachers, where he was humiliated by his ragged clothes and jug ears until he found distinction in the debate society. His "people skills" were subsequently honed on the road as a meat products salesman and by a stint at acting school in New York City.
As Watts depicts him, Carnegie seems to have been one of those people born with a bedrock optimism and belief in their own potential. He finally found his footing when he began to give workshops on public speaking to aspiring young businessmen at YMCAs along the Eastern Seaboard. The descriptions of those classes, in which sweaty, young middle managers would buckle at the knees and even faint out of fear of public speaking, are poignant.
As Watts shows, Carnegie's emphasis on projecting a sunny personality was part of a larger shift away from a Victorian concern with character and self-denial to a modern fascination with advertising, consumerism and self-promotion. Carnegie's teaching promised to pay off in self-fulfillment and fat wallets.
Steven Watts' other books include The People's Tycoon, Mr. Playboy and The Magic Kingdom.
Steven Watts' other books include The People's Tycoon, Mr. Playboy and The Magic Kingdom.
In How to Win Friends and Influence People, which was derived from those early YMCA classes, Carnegie wrote that he'd asked "thousands of businessmen to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results." Carnegie proudly reported a stockbroker's comments: "I find that smiles are bringing me dollars, many dollars every day." Other businessmen who attested to the success of the Carnegie method were Walter Chrysler, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan.
Watts shows how particularly attuned Carnegie was to the psychological needs of Americans beaten down by the Great Depression, who needed to hear that positive thinking would garner positive results. It's easy, of course, for we contemporary readers to dismiss Carnegie's teaching as mere boosterism and Babbittry, but his self-help legacy has endured well beyond his own death in 1955, and flourishes in our own age.
Of all the anecdotes about Carnegie's far-reaching influence that Watts cites, one especially stays with me. During the 1960s, radical Youth International Party — Yippie — leader Jerry Rubin read How to Win Friends and Influence People to overcome his own fear of making public political speeches. He faced off, ideologically speaking, with President Lyndon Johnson, who had been a Carnegie method instructor in his youth in Texas. Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
