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The University of Southampton
Web Science Institute

WSI Mini Seminar series Event

WSI
Time:
15:00 - 17:00
Date:
8 May 2014
Venue:
University of Southampton, Highfield campus, Building 32, level 4, room 4077

For more information regarding this event, please .

Event details

The Web Science Institute presents a seminar with Professor George Metakides on 'Mathematics for Web Science' Open to all PhD, MSc students and staff.

“Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science” was the title of E. T. Bell’s classic work.
Indeed, the second attribute referring to the role of Mathematics as responsive supporter of Scientific development can be diachronically and amply documented. From ancient mathematics for Astronomical calculation and topography to Calculus and Analytic Geometry for classical Physics, and (jumping to the last century) Maths for fluid mechanics in the 1900’s, for quantum Physics in the 1930’s, “discrete” Maths for Computer Science in the 1960’s, new econometrics math techniques in the 1980’s ,sources for such documentation abound.
Furthermore throughout its fascinating history, Mathematics itself developed via a virtuous feedback process. New definitions and theorems were created to respond to the needs of emerging Science problems (e.g. calculus – Newton), and then evolved further beyond the original “call for service”. Interestingly enough though, many of these further curiosity driven developments came to serve new scientific and technological developments in unexpected ways (e.g. graph theory and printed circuits).
We believe that this decade will see many such developments in what we could call “Mathematics for Web Science”.
Already, significant use is made in current Web Science research by selecting from the vast arsenals of Mathematical Logic, Probability and Statistics, Game theory and other branches of classical Mathematics.
Sometimes work is duplicated (e.g. description logic as a modal logic syntactic variant) and the identification and definition of new challenges for researchers in the classical math subjects which originate in Web Science Research is still largely missing.

Speaker information

Professor George Metakides ,University of Patras, Greece,Born in Thessaloniki, Greece. George Metakides received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Logic from Cornell University in 1971. He pursued an academic career at MIT, Cornell and Rochester University until 1978, when he returned to Greece after being elected to the Chair of Logic at the University of Patras. Since 1984 he has held senior positions with responsibility for Research & Development policy, funding and international co-operation in European institutions. He established and headed the department for Basic Research and International Scientific Rela-tions in Information Technologies at the European Commission from 1988 to 1993. He was the Director of the ESPRIT (European Strategic Program for Information Technologies), from 1993 until its completion in 1998, followed by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Program (1998-2002).He has contributed to the establishment of international institutions (including the launch of the World Wide Web Consortium in 1993) and is a corresponding member of several National Academies. He is currently Professor of the University of Patras, President of the Digital Enlightenment Forum, President of the Scientific Board of the Computer Technology Institute, and Advisor to several international organizations. He is involved in the promotion of co-operation in Web Science and its applications in the European Union and other regions and enthusiastically active in the Digital Enlightenment Movement.

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