FACS/SCSC Evening Seminar:Public Safety, Counter Terrorism and the

(Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement)

BCS-FACS Evening Seminar Series -- Joint meeting with the
safety critical club

Public Safety, Counter Terrorism and the Mathematics of Proof

Professor Chris Johnson

University of Glasgow


12 May 2008

5.45pm

BCS London Offices
First Floor, The Davidson Building
5 Southampton Street
London WC2E 7HA


This talk will describe a number of recent projects to improve public
safety by
supporting counter terrorism.   Most of this work has been based
either on the
analysis of specific previous attacks, including the use of Improvised
Explosive Devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, or through advanced
simulation
techniques, for example developing crowd models to plan the evacuation
of
future Olympic venues. Formal methods have not been used to support
any of
this detailed work. Instead, the aim has been to create multi-
disciplinary teams
that work together to create computational tools for counter-terrorism
based on
detailed domain knowledge.  Unfortunately, it can be difficult to
develop more
general theories that might be used to support predictions about
future targets or
strategies for attacking public infrastructures.   In contrast, this
talk will
suggest that mathematical specification techniques and associated
abstractions
can be used to generalise beyond the specific focus of our previous
work on
public safety and counter terrorism.

Refreshments will be served from 5.15pm.

The seminar is free of charge and open to everyone. If you would like
to attend, please email Paul Boca [Paul.Boca@googlemail.com] by 
at the BCS Offices is tight.

BCS-FACS Website: http://www.bcs-facs.org

Safety Critical Club website: http://www.safety-club.org.uk/

BCS-FACS Evening Seminars:
http://www.bcs-facs.org/events/EveningSeminars

Location of venue: http://www.epsg.org.uk/locations/bcsss-guide.html