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ViSE Hosts Alan Clements
Voices in Software Engineering: Alan Clements presenting "Attack of the Mutant Killer Computers."
| What | ViSE |
|---|---|
| When |
May 02, 2008 02:30 PM
May 02, 2008 04:00 PM
May 02, 2008 from 02:30 pm to 04:00 pm |
| Where | 70-2400 |
| Contact Name | Alex Ford |
| Contact Email | arf4188@rit.edu |
| Contact Phone | (814) 572-2499 |
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About the Speaker
| Name | Alan Clements |
|---|---|
| Merit | Ph.D. Data Transmission |
| Location | University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England |
| Profession | Department Chair of Computer Science |
| Lecture Headline | "Attack of the Mutant Killer Computers" |
Professor Alan Clements is currently the Motorola Professor in the School of Computing and Mathematics at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough, England. He started as a normal academic doing a Ph.D. in data transmission at Loughborough University and then post-doctoral research. However, at Teesside there were few research facilities at that time, and so he became increasingly involved with “scholarship” and started writing books on computer architecture. His Microprocessor Systems Design: 68000 Family Hardware, Software, and Interfacing textbook was the bestselling book on the Motorola 68K microprocessor. Motorola eventually sponsored his position as department chair. Clements later got involved with the IEEE Computer Society – first in Publications, then the Educational Activities Board, and the Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC). He considers a highlight of his life being awarded the National Teaching Fellowship in the UK in 2001, a multimillion dollar government sponsored project. The current IEEE CS Press Editor in Chief made headlines in 2007 as he became the first European to be awarded the Taylor Booth Award for Computer Science Education, the IEEE Computer Society’s highest international honor for computer science education. Dr. Celements’ interests include photography and aviation.
Dr. Clements' website: http://www-scm.tees.ac.uk/users/a.clements/welcome.htm
About the Lecture
The following is the abstract provided for the lecture:
The typical PC is mostly harmless. Unless one falls out of a 42nd story window onto your head, you are most unlikely to be involved in a fatal accident with a PC.
Not all computers are so benign. Our lives are increasingly controlled by computers; for example, computers in medical equipment, computers in automobiles, and computers in aircraft. The reliable operation of such computers is vital to the lives of all those who depend on their continued operation. In this lecture we look at how computer errors have lead to fatalities in the medical world, the military world, and in civil aviation. Indeed, we are now in a situation where pilots can legitimately talk of “the computer-aided crash”.
When computers commit mayhem, the problem is often not with the computer, but with its software. This talk looks at the role of the computer in several major incidents and demonstrates how simple errors in system design can have tragic consequences. We will discuss how the origin of such errors often goes back far beyond the design of the software and rests with the teaching of computer science itself.
