2006 Experts in the Spotlight Archive

Marty Fischer presented a paper co-authored by Denise Masi at the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) in Monterey CA. The title of the paper was “Analyzing Internet Packet Traces Using Lindley’s Recursion." They report on their use of Lindley’s Recursion to analyze publicly-available link data from the Abilene Network, an Internet2 backbone network. They extend the use of Lindley's Recursion and include a discussion of the computational problems, numerical evaluation of trace packet performance and potential modeling issues, and a statistical investigation of the independence of packet interarrival times. In addition, they show how Lindley’s Recursion can be used to extend the base-line analysis to interject Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) packets into the trace.

Dr. John DeSesso has been named to the Editorial Board of the journal, Reproductive Toxicology, which is the official publication of the European Teratology Society.

John Hunsinger, Sharon Dantzig, and Vince Erb successfully passed the Project Management Institute's Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification.  

Kathy Henchey and Aaron DeBoer presented to approximately 60 financial professionals of the North Dakota HFMA in tropical Grand Forks, North Dakota on the topics of Physician-Hospital Alignment and Pay-for-Performance.  

Amy MacNulty conducted a teleconference on "Succeeding in a Pay-for-Performance Environment" for health care strategic planning and marketing professionals with the New England Society for Healthcare Strategy (NESHS).  

Mun-Wai Hon convened a panel presentation at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) International Best Practices Conference. The topic was the use of open source software in law enforcement and was presented to law enforcement officials of the IACP Information Management branch. The IACP leadership recognized Mitretek’s Center for Criminal Justice Technologies work efforts in facilitating information sharing and invited Mun-Wai to submit a workshop proposal at the 2007 conference.

Dr. John DeSesso presented a paper at the SERDP-ESTCP Partners in Environmental Technology Technical Symposium. The title of his lecture was “TCE: Reactionary Regulatory Representations versus Realistic Reckoning of Relevant Exposures Rules Out Reasonable Clean Up Standards."  

Dr. Alan Dowling and David Felscher, J.D., lectured on “Health Records Interoperability: Operational & Legal Aspects”, as part of Harvard University’s Program in Psychiatry and the Law.

November

Bob McGowan gave a presentation entitled "Strengthening Physician-Hospital Relationships" at the recent Physician Leadership Forum sponsored by the Connecticut Hospital Association. The day-long conference was attended by physician leaders, CEOs, senior managers and board members from acute care hospitals in Connecticut.

July

Mitretek's DOD MHS Team - Joseph Strauss, Jeremy Seiferth,  James Phalen, Mark Lay, William Klenke, Emily Klein, William Froberg, Eric Emerson, Thomas Mannle, Thomas Dembeck, Robert Hunzinger, Eileen Malone, Myra Mengwasser, Fred Cecere, Frank Kittredge, Robert McGowan, Doug Farber, Neil Alexander, Birdie D'Andrea, Aaron DeBoer, Dorothea Stevens, Abu Talib, James Breslin, Doug Wilson  - support to the US Army Health Facility Planning Agency (HFPA) was recognized by Debbi LoCicero: "I wanted to pass COL Bond's note on to all of you. Its because of your efforts that HFPA can be successful and be a positive force in research facilities planning for the Army. Thank you for all you do, you go beyond the call and help us make a difference in the lives of so many people."
Debbi LoCicero

Lydia Thomas, Ph.D., has been named a "Science Spectrum" Trailblazer, Top Minority in Research Science by Career Communications Group.  

Dr. Marty Fischer presented a practical view of the mutual growth of operations research and computing at the 21st European Conference on Operations Research, Reykjavik, Iceland [EURO XXI 2006]. In this presentation, he traces this growth and relates it to how operations research professionals conduct their business on a day-to-day basis. Dr. Fischer was the Session Chair at this conference in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Mike McGurrin has been appointed to the Traffic Safety and Technology Advisory Committee of the Virginia legislature's Joint Commission on Technology and Science.  For more information on the commission, see http://jcots.state.va.us/.

Dr. John DeSesso was an invited faculty member at the Teratology Society’s continuing education course, Vertebrate Embryology.  The subject of his lecture was “Development of the Cardiovascular System.”

Ed Rea and Dr. Ron Morrison were among the recent recipients of the Commanding General’s Excellence in Engineering Award for their work on the Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S).  The award is presented annually by Major General William D. Catto, Commanding General, Marine Corps Systems Command.

Dr. John DeSesso was the guest speaker at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion & Preventive Medicine (CHPPM) Directorate of Toxicology Technical Seminar Series at Edgewood. The title of his presentation was “Interpreting Animal Safety Data: Biology as the Context for Assessing Relevance.”

June

Larry Nadel served on the Program Committee of the “2006 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition – Biometrics Workshop” and participated on the panel entitled “On the Future of Biometrics – Research, Applications, and Social Challenges.” 

Steven McCabe was a featured speaker at the International Association of Chiefs of Police 30th Annual Law Enforcement Information Management Training Conference and Exposition, co-presenting a workshop  on “Intelligence-Led Policing: Successful Sharing Models and Tool Demonstration.”   Steve provided an overview of the Intelligence-Led Policing Tool (ILPT), which is a prototype tool currently being developed by Steve and Paul Le for the Center for Criminal Justice Technology in partnership with the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office.  The ILPT models flexible investigative logic using modern knowledge representation methods to identify potential criminal suspects based on recidivist patterns.

Dr. John DeSesso is a Core Member of the Voluntary Children’s Chemical Exposure Program (VCCEP), which is run for the Environmental Protection Agency by TERA. At their two day meeting, the VCCEP panel of experts evaluated the potential magnitude of exposure to benzene and resultant health effects during early life stages. The results of their deliberations will be forwarded to assist EPA in the determination of protective exposure standards.  

Brad Ulery and Austin Hicklin gave an invited talk at the 2006 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition: “Selected Topics in Biometric Fusion: Summary of Results.”

Rodney Lay was an invited panelist at the National Airspace System Infrastructure Management Conference.  The people who drive airplanes heard how ground vehicles and our highways infrastructure are cooperating with the deployment of Intelligent Transportation System technologies.

May

Tom Fowler presented a paper entitled "Zubiri’s Reality by Postulation and its Implication for the Relationship Between Science and Religion" at the conference "Continuity and Change: Perspectives on Science and Religion," sponsored by the Metanexus Institute and held at the University of Pennsylvania. The annual conference was attended by representatives from forty countries.  

Rob Maccubbin, Barbara Staples, and Firoz Kabir were three of the five featured speakers in the "Talking Technology and Transportation (T3)" webinar, which was sponsored by the U.S. DOT's ITS Professional Capacity Building (PCB) Program.

The T3 session, titled ITS Decisionmakers' Resources, showed participants how to use the databases and knowledge resources available from the ITS Applications Overview (http://www.itsoverview.its.dot.gov/). The T3 seminar provided a Web-based tour of the ITS Benefits Database (http://www.itsbenefits.its.dot.gov/) [Mitretek], the ITS Costs Database (http://www.itscosts.its.dot.gov/) [Mitretek], ITS Deployment Statistics Database (http://www.itsdeployment.its.dot.gov/) [Oak Ridge] and the ITS Lessons Learned Knowledge Resource (http://www.itslessons.its.dot.gov/) [Mitretek].

Debbie Kolb-Collier presented a seminar titled "Strategies for Successful Physician - Hospital Alignment" for the VHA Georgia 2006 Trustee Institute. Approximately 200 hospital executives and board members attended the session.  

Marty Fischer and Denise Masi authored a paper titled "Development of Procedures to Analyze Queueing Models with Heavy-Tailed Interarrivals and Service Times," to be presented [by John F. Shortle, Ph.D., an assistant professor of systems engineering at Georgetown University] at the Proceedings of 2006 NSF Design, Service, and Manufacturing Grantees and Research Conference.  

Dr. John DeSesso presented, “The Biology Underlying Stem Cells and Cloning,” and participated in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. Yuval Levin (former chair of President Bush’s Bioethics Committee) as part of the Stem Cell Forum at Georgetown University Medical Center.  

Andrew Rak is co-author of a paper, "Emerging Contaminants in Groundwater: A Continually Moving Target,"  being presented at the Groundwater Resource Association San Francisco Branch Meeting, "Regulating Emerging Contaminants: National Research Council (NRC), EPA and CA State Perspectives."

April

Austin Hicklin gave two lectures: “Quantifying Latent Quality” and “Extended Fingerprint Feature Sets,” at the NIST Latent Fingerprint Testing Workshop. Austin also ran a meeting of CDEFFS (the ANSI/NIST Committee to Define an Extended Fingerprint Feature Set), of which he is the chair.

Susie Krentz was asked to serve as the Chair of a workshop sponsored by the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development on Essentials of Healthcare Strategic Planning. As Chair, Susie designed the course curriculum and identified other industry leaders to serve as part of the five person faculty team. Susie gave two different presentations. The first on "Understanding the Current Situation & Framing the Future," and the second on "Planning Exercises."

Catalina Gomolka has been awarded a Competent Toastmasters Award from Toastmasters International. In order to gain this recognition, Catalina completed 10 speech projects which were in the Communication and Leadership Program manual.  Examples of some of the projects included speaking with sincerity, effectively organizing a presentation, using body language and voice to convey your message, word choice and props, persuasive speaking, and how to inspire others.  She is now eligible to obtain an Advanced Toastmaster designation.

Toastmasters International is a non-profit organization.  The first Toastmasters club was established on October 22, 1924, in Santa Ana, California, by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley, who conceived and developed the idea of helping others to speak more effectively. More clubs were formed, and Toastmasters International was incorporated under California law on December 19, 1932.

Ken Carey has been selected for membership to the International Honor Society, Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS). BGS is the honor society for nationally accredited collegiate schools of business. Nomination for membership in BGS is the highest national scholastic recognition available to business students, and is restricted to students of high scholarship in institutions with programs accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business International.

Mitretek staff member and George Washington University Master of Public Health candidate Dave Roberts was selected to give an oral presentation on his research entitled "Troubling Trends in Emergency Department Visit Rates for Elderly Patients, 1993-2003, at the annual Research Day event held at GWU Medical Center. Dave collaborated with GWU faculty member and emergency physician Dr. Mary Pat McKay on the biostatistics-oriented project, which provided insights into the 26% increase in ED visits per 100 patients that has been observed over the past decade in data from the annual National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.

Dr. John DeSesso received two Golden Apple Awards from students at Georgetown University School of Medicine. He was elected “Physiology Teacher of the Year” for 2005-2006 by the 150 students of the Special Masters Program in Physiology. He was also elected by the Medical Student Class of 2009 as the winner of the Golden Apple Award for exceptional qualities as an educator and role model. He was presented both of these awards at Georgetown University’s 28th Annual Golden Apple Award Ceremony.  

Roger McClinton gave an invited presentation on Network and Information Security to a CIA audience of Johns Hopkins graduate students on 29 March.  

March

Dr. Katharine Jennings was invited by the U.S. Health Facilities Planning Agency to provide a presentation at the Team Army Conference hosted at Mitretek’s Fairview Park facility.  Team Army is a forum of architects, engineers, health providers, and managers of both Army personnel and contractors who meet quarterly to discuss health care delivery and facilities within the Department of Defense facilities.  Dr. Jennings discussed “Biodefense and Biosecurity – Implications for Lab Design and Construction” as part of an effort by the Army to provide awareness to the A&E firms about issues related to the safety of their laboratories from the perspective of defense against terrorist attacks and containment of biothreat agents.

Tom Fowler is serving as a reviewer for a new reference book to be published by John Wiley & Sons, "The Handbook of Computer Networks." Tom is reviewing articles on optical fiber and optical networking.  

Patty Reyes and Drew Rak will be participating in the Joint Services Environmental Management (JSEM) Conference in Denver, next week.  Patty Reyes will be chairing 2 sessions.  In addition, Drew Rak will be co-chairing a session on Emerging Contaminants and presenting a paper on "Developing Levels of Concern for Emerging Contaminants".

Mitretek's Toxicology group published an in-depth evaluation of the likelihood that the ubiquitous contaminant trichloroethylene (TCE) might cause heart defects in babies.  The paper carefully analyzed all available human and experimental data and concluded that there is no possibility of a causal relationship between the amount of TCE in drinking water supplies and the development of heart defects. The paper, which is entitled “Trichloroethylene-Contaminated Drinking Water and Congenital Heart Defects: A Critical Analysis of the Literature,” appeared in the February issue of Reproductive Toxicology, 21, pp. 117-147 (2006). The Mitretek authors included Rebecca Watson, Catherine Jacobson, Amy Lavin Williams, and John M DeSesso as well as Brian Howard from the Air Force Institute of Occupational Health.

Austin Hicklin and Donald D’Amato provided invited presentations at the Biometric Quality Workshop, hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  Don’s presentation was entitled Best Practices for Taking Face Photographs and Face Image Quality Metrics and Austin’s was The Role of Data Quality in Biometric Systems. Approximately 150 people from government, industry, and other non-profits were in attendance. The workshop was aimed at improving the performance of biometric systems through assessment of quality measurement capabilities and identification of technologies, factors, operational paradigms, and standards that can measurably improve quality.  The workshop was held over two days: Day One considered applications, capabilities and standardization; Day Two considered research and development for all modalities, and evaluation.

Ken Carey represented the career opportunities in the atmospheric science's private sector and armed forces while participating as an invited panelist at the 31st Northeastern Storm Conference sponsored by the Lyndon State College Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association.

This is the largest student-run conference in the nation and a very informative and beneficial experience for professionals and students alike. Over 300 public, private and academic sector professionals and high school, graduate and undergraduate students participated in this ideal setting for students who wish to begin making connections within the field, investigating potential career paths, and learning about a broad spectrum of topics in meteorology.  It also exposes both students and professionals to cutting edge research taking place in a number of areas. Though winter weather is often the subject of presentations, topics frequently extend outside the realm of Northeast weather to include severe and tropical meteorology, numerical weather prediction, and historical weather events.

Susie Krentz gave an invited presentation at the Healthcare Financial Management Association's 2006 Spring Summit. The Summit's theme was on A New Era in Healthcare Finance: Consumer-Directed Healthcare and Pay-for-Performance. Susie's presentation was "Using Service Line Management to Achieve Superior Performance and Customer Satisfaction."  

March 2006 HR Magazine article, "Bearing Fruit - Usage rates for traditional tuition assistance programs are low, so employers are tempting employees with free tuition and bonuses," featured Professional Development Principal Audrey Kremer. http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0306/0306bolch.asp

Drs. Ivan Boyer and John DeSesso co-authored a paper with Lorraine Irvine of toXcel.  The paper, “Monomethylarsonic Acid and Dimethylarsinic Acid: Developmental Toxicity Studies with Risk Assessment,” appeared in the January/February issue of Birth Defects Research (Part B): Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology, Vol. 77, pp. 53-68. The results from this study are being used by the Environmental Protection Agency in its determination of potential risk to humans of pesticides containing dimethyl arsenic acid (DMA). 

February

Tom Fowler published an article titled, ""Zubiri y el desarrollo de la causalidad," in Volume 28 of the Chilean journal, Philosophica.

Judy Belt and Neil Alexander delivered a presentation on "Service Line Portfolio Assessment" to the Louisiana Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) at their Winter Institute in Baton Rouge.

Mitretek’s Vice President, CFO, Secretary and Treasurer Mark Simione has been named as president of the United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) Chapter of Washington, DC and Northern Virginia.

United Cerebral Palsy of Washington, DC and Northern Virginia has been serving adults with cerebral palsy and other disabilities since 1949. UCP’s mission is to advance the independence, productivity and quality of life for individuals with disabilities and their families. UCP accomplishes this mission in the delivery of services that are both unique in the community and considered "best practice" in the field of human services.

Rick Murphy was an invited member of a workshop on digital forensics and information assurance education sponsored by the National Center for Forensic Science and the Cyber Security Education Consortium. The purpose of the workshop was to define and guide degree standards for investigation of criminal activities that incorporate computer and telecommunications aspects.  

January

Frank Kittredge presented a talk on "Strategies for Strengthening Hospital-Physician Relationships" to 50 attendees from the Austin, TX Chapter of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). The talk is based on findings from Mitretek’s national study on Hospital-Physician Relationships funded by Mitretek Healthcare's Center for Health Innovation. An important outcome of the talk is the interest from this MGMA Chapter to participate in the national study.  

Neil Alexander presented a talk on "Strengthening Hospital-Physician Relationships" to 60 attendees at the Winter Meeting of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). The talk is based on findings from Mitretek’s national study on Hospital-Physician Relationships funded by Mitretek Healthcare's Center for Health Innovation. An important outcome of the talk is the potential interest of HFMA chapters to hear more about this national study.  

Rebecca Watson and John DeSesso published a paper, “The Case for Integrating Low Dose, Beneficial Responses into U.S. EPA Risk Assessments,” in the January 2006 issue of the journal Human and Experimental Toxicology, Volume 25, pages 7-10.  

Michael Caloyannides gave an invited presentation on network security at the International Systems Security Association conference at the Johns Hopkins University.  

Scott Clay authored “Improving Physician-Hospital Relationships: 10 Strategies for Success” for the Winter 2005 issue of The Georgia Scroll (a Georgia Healthcare Financial Management Association publication). The article was based on findings from Mitretek’s national study on Physician-Hospital Relationships funded by Mitretek Healthcare's Center for Health Innovation.  

Bob McGowan conducted a pre-conference workshop on the topic of “Strategies for Strengthening Physician-Hospital Relationships” at the AHA Center for Healthcare Governance Annal Meeting.  

Patrick Gerdes will be recognized as a Black Engineer of the Year, Special Recognition Award Winner at the Black Engineer of the Year Conference.

Alan F. Dowling, PhD, delivered a presentation on “Demographics Affecting Healthcare” to the Renaissance Healthcare Forum. He also delivered a presentation on "Costs and Consequences of Healthcare Reform" at the Renaissance Academy.