A
twenty-first century transport system for
Leeds?
Speaker:
Dave
Haskins (Metro)
Why was Supertram cancelled?
What are the options now and how will they
affect Headingley and the wider region?
Find out about the Supertram replacement scheme
and new transport proposals for Leeds including
the Tram-Train concept.
What is the business and political framework?
How are European models affecting plans?
Is it affordable and where will the money come
from?
Date:
February
Title:
The
physics of Star Trek: could anti-matter power the
Enterprise?
Speaker:
Ruth Gregory (University of Durham)
Ruth
is a member of the Centre for Particle Theory. Her
current research interest is in the interface
between fundamental high energy physics and
cosmology.
Date:
Monday 3rd March
Title:
The
psychology of pain
Speaker:
Stephen Morley
Stephen Morley is
Professor of Clinical Psychology at
the University of Leeds and holds an honorary
clinical appointment in the NHS. He is associate
editor of Pain, the journal of the
International Association for the Study of Pain and
section editor of the European Journal of Pain.
He will be speaking about the psychology of pain
(particularly chronic pain) and the treatment of
pain by psychological methods. What do these methods
aim to achieve? And how effective are they?
Date:
Monday 7th April
Title:
Polymaths: who needs them?
Speaker:
Alasdair Beal
Alasdair Beal is a consulting structural engineer
and former journals editor of the Society for
Interdisciplinary Studies. He asks: are polymaths a
brilliant and
entertaining irrelevance in the history of science -
armchair dilettanti who are jacks of all trades but
masters of none? Doesn't real progress come from the
sustained efforts of the specialists who concentrate
their efforts on a limited area of research in order
to make the real breakthroughs? I'd like to
challenge this view, drawing on the lives and work
of two of history's great polymaths: the Italian
Leonardo da Vinci and the Englishman Thomas Young.
Date:
Tuesday 6th May
Title:
The world as structure: exploring the implications of
modern physics
Speaker:
Steven French
"Most people think of the world as made up of objects,
which have certain properties and interact with each
other in certain ways. Even if modern physics tells us
that those objects behave in very odd and sometimes
baffling ways, this is typically how we regard the world
at its most fundamental level. I want to explore the
suggestion that the implications of modern physics are
even more radical than that - in effect they take
objects out of the picture, leaving only structures. I
shall look at these implications in (hopefully!)
accessible terms and then discuss what the world might
be like as nothing but structure."
Professor Steven French is Head of the Department of
Philosophy and Professor of the Philosophy of Science,
at Leeds University. His interests include the history
and philosophy of modern physics. He is currently
Editor-in-Chief of the reviews journal Metascience.
Date:
Tuesday 2nd June
Title:
Sex and drugs and
broken bones
Speaker:
Jo Neill and Kay
Marshall
Evidence is accumulating for the existence of subtle
differences in the brain structure and neurobiology of
men and women; differences which may account
for differences in behaviour.
At least part of these differences may act through the
sex steroids, oestrogen,
testosterone and progesterone. There is also gathering
belief in the hypothesis that oestrogen has
neuroprotective properties which influence both normal
and disturbed behaviour, as observed in psychiatric
disorders such as schizophrenia.
Dr Neill is Reader in Psychopharmacology in the School
of Life Sciences at the University of Bradford and Dr
Marshall is Head of Division in the School of Pharmacy.
They are currently collaborating on research into gender
differences in cognitive function. Their presentation
will focus on the evidence for sex differences in brain
and behaviour shown by clinical and preclinical
studies.
Date:
Monday 7th July
Title:
Artificial Intelligence in Games – 1945 to 2045
Speaker:
Peter Cowling
Peter
is deeply interested in the use of games as a testbed
for the development of Artificial Intelligence
(AI). The
Universities of Bradford and Essex have teamed up with
Imperial College and with academics and games company
professionals from around the UK to create the
Artificial Intelligence and Games Research Network
www.aigamesnetwork.orgof which he is a leading member.
In this talk Peter will review the role of AI in games
and then consider the large class of games where such AI
advances have proved impossible so far.
Can games represent an important step in the search for
general-purpose AI?
the University of Leeds and holds an honorary
clinical appointment in the NHS. He is associate
editor of Pain, the journal of the
International Association for the Study of Pain and
section editor of the European Journal of Pain.
entertaining irrelevance in the history of science -
armchair dilettanti who are jacks of all trades but
masters of none? Doesn't real progress come from the
sustained efforts of the specialists who concentrate
their efforts on a limited area of research in order
to make the real breakthroughs? I'd like to
challenge this view, drawing on the lives and work
of two of history's great polymaths: the Italian
Leonardo da Vinci and the Englishman Thomas Young.
