Tracking Influenza Virus Epidemics over the Past Century: Can We Predict Next Year's Epidemic?

Arnold Levine
Institute For Advanced Study
December 5, 2007 - 4:00pm

Arnold LevineArnold J. Levine, Professor, The Simons Center for Systems Biology, School of Natural Sciences
Influenza viruses are unusual because we can become infected by a similar virus almost every year during our lifetime and occasionally there are worldwide pandemics that can cause many fatalities. Why does our usually excellent immune system fail us? How does this come about?


AstroGPU 2007 - Workshop on General Purpose Computation on Graphics Processing Units in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Institute for Advanced Study
November 9, 2007 (All day)

dispersion graphGraphics processing units (GPUs) are rapidly emerging as a powerful and cost-effective platform for high-performance parallel computing. The current generation of GPUs sports capabilities in TFLOP range, already an order of magnitude greater than most powerful x86 CPUs.


Edward T. Cone - A Composer's World Today

Paul Moravec
Institute For Advanced Study
November 5, 2007 (All day)

Artist-in-Residence Paul Moravec discusses the work of a composer in contemporary society.


Space Tourist

Institute for Advanced Study Trustee
October 25, 2007 (All day)

Charles Simonyi, Institute Trustee and President and CEO, Intentional Software Corporation. Space flight is still a very rare and exotic experience that has only recently been opened to "tourists," officially known as spaceflight participants. Dr. Simonyi was the fifth of these as the 450th person in space.


The History of Others: Foreign Peoples in Early Chinese Historiography

Nicola Di Cosmo
Institute for Advanced Study
October 17, 2007 (All day)

Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies, School of Historical Studies. This lecture will provide an overview of the production and characteristics of alien history in early China, while acknowledging and attempting to gauge the cultural influence of these accounts among the alien people themselves, as "consumers" of histories they did not produce, but were used politically and in other ways.