PHILIPPINE DISASTER SCIENCE CENTER HOSTS THE LECTURES
OF PROFESSOR JOSE CRUZ ON SYSTEM COMPLEXITY APPLIED
TO REAL WORLD PROBLEMS

The Philippine Disaster Science Management Center (DSMC) along with the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) and present a lecture by renowned control theorist Dr. Jose Cruz to discuss utilizing system complexity in disaster science, to be hosted by Ateneo de Manila University.

The lecture, to be held at Ateneo University on Saturday, January 29, is a continuation a series by renowned scientists that began recently that present a scientific view of the effects of global warming on climate change and technical discussions with the scientific community on coping with disasters in the Philippine setting.

Dr. Cruz is a Control Theorist and Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Ohio State University. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST)

He has been given the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, the Curtis W. McGraw Research Award and the Richard M. Emberson Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Dr. Cruz is well known for his research and work on game-theoretic control and estimation, circuits and automatic control, hierarchical multi-agent strategies in hostile environments, bidding strategies in energy markets, multiple training in associative memories, and feedback theory.

COMSTE says that the game theory approach applies to many system level problems affecting not just disaster science but also energy, such as understanding and setting the feed in tariff (FIT) as provided for by the Renewable Energy Act 0f 2008, given multiple stakeholders, or developing an ethanol economy and a sugar economy together, and trading of carbon credits on an open market.

Senator Edgardo J. Angara, Chair of COMSTE, said that the series of lectures would harness the talents of excellent scientists both local and foreign. Renowned scientist and climate expert Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo is the current lecturer. Dr. Rodolfo also commenced the lecture series at the Ateneo de Manila University discussing the role of humanity in global warming and climate change.

Dr. Rodolfo is Professor Emeritus with the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Senior Visiting Fellow of Earth System Science of the MO. He is also a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and the Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE).

Angara said that the ongoing lectures will tackle issues like how flooding and can affect insurance companies and how to quickly adopt Renewable Energy Systems to lessen local fossil fuel use. Both local and foreign scientists and experts will be lecturing.

The DSMC is a public-private initiative that the scientific community can use to better understand the mechanics of managing disasters with the cooperation of neighboring countries that have experienced similar storms and natural calamities as the Philippines.