When: Thursday April 9, 2015 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Mahin Khatami, PhD
Language: English

Synopsis:

Inflammation is a series of complex immunobiological responses of tissue toward infections and biological, chemical or environmental hazards. A role for inflammation in acute and chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer recognized for centuries. However, ongoing, controversies, misinformation on the role of inflammation in cancer research and therapy, have been tremendously costly for the aging society globally. Claimed cancer ‘targeted’ therapies or ‘personalized’ medicine produced 90% (± 5) failure rates, primarily due to heavy investment on genetic mutations of molecules identified in chaotic environment of cancers and bases for therapy. Dr. Khatami talk will focus on recent definitions of acute inflammation, the balance between two biologically opposing arms of immunity termed ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’. She hypothesized that chronic inflammation or loss of balance in Yin -Yang of immunity is a common denominator of nearly all age-associated chronic diseases or cancer. Results of her ‘accidental’ discoveries, established in 1980’s at the University of Pennsylvania, on models of inflammatory diseases, are suggestive of first evidence for a direct link between inflammation and tumorigenesis. She also published a first report on time course kinetics of inflammation-induced developmental phases of altered immune dynamics leading to tumorigenesis and angiogenesis. Future directions of effective cancer prevention, designs of clinical trials and drug development require systematic understanding of the multistep immune disruption toward carcinogenesis.

About the Speaker:

When: Thursday March 12, 2015 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speakers : Shahrokh Fardoust, Ph.D. and Hossein Razavi, Ph.D.
Language: English

Synopsis:

Dr. Shahrokh Fardoust will present a brief picture of the current conditions of the global economy and its longer prospects, based on his recent research:

1.      Since the 1990s, the economic center of gravity has started to shift toward Asia, with important new trends concerning economic growth, demographic changes; trade, finance, infrastructure investment, climate change and resource depletion; and the state of global economic governance.
2.      The slowdown in global economic growth and significant increases in income inequality in many developed and developing countries raise serious concerns.
3.      The global economy has also experienced massive balance of payments imbalances, reflecting large and persistent current account surpluses in a number of countries, including massive surplus of oil exporting countries. Some experts have argued these imbalances may have played a key role in causing the 2008-09 crisis.
4.      The time has come to seriously think about how improvements in both national and international policies could lead to better outcomes.

Dr. Hossein Razavi will present a brief picture of global energy trends while discussing some specific issues that are of relevance to the policy decisions of oil producing countries. These issues include:

1.     How the development of clean energy affects the demand for oil and gas?
2.      How the increasing production of US shale oil and gas will affect the international price of oil?
3.      How much of its oil should a country produce now and how much of it should it keep in the ground for future generations?
4.     What should a country do with the money that it earns from selling its oil: spend it on making people happy; spend it on developing the country’s infrastructure, or save it in the bank for future generations?

About Dr. Shahrokh Fardoust :

Shahrokh Fardoust is a research professor at the Institute of the Theory and Practice of International Relations at the College of William and Mary. He has more than 30 years’ experience in crafting economic development policy and analyzing the global economy. Until 2011, he was Director of Strategy and Operations, Development Economics, the World Bank, where he contributed to the research and policy priorities of the Chief Economist, the G20’s development agenda, and the review and quality assurance of the World Bank’s major policy papers and reports. His previous positions at the World Bank included Senior Adviser to the Director-General of the Independent Evaluation Group and Senior Economic Adviser to the Chief Economist. Dr. Fardoust obtained his MA and a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.  He has authored numerous papers and reports on development policy. He is a co-editor of Post Crisis Growth and Development: A Development Agenda for the G20 (World Bank, 2011) and Towards a Better Global Economy: Policy Implications for Global Citizens Worldwide in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2014). He is also the president of International Economic Consultants, LLC, and a member of the SovereigNET Advisory Council at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

About Dr. Hossein Razavi :

Dr. Hossein Razavi has worked at the World Bank for more than 20 years and has held a number of technical and managerial positions including Director of the Energy Department., and the Director of Private Sector Development. He has worked extensively in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe. He managed the operational work of the World Bank in the oil, gas and power sectors in various countries. He also led the development of the World Bank’s various business strategies including subnational lending, guarantee products and the GEF facility. Dr. Razavi has pioneered research and executive analysis in power sector planning, regional energy development, and project finance. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Energy Journal and Energy Economics. He holds an MS in Engineering, a PhD. in economics and is a graduate of the Harvard Advanced Management Program. He has published extensively in the field of energy.  His papers have been published in the Energy Journal, Energy Policy, Energy Economics, and Annual Review of Energy and Environment.  His books include Financing Energy Projects in Emerging Economies, published by PennWell Books, and Fundamentals of Petroleum Trading, published by the Westview Press.

When: Thursday February 12, 2015 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Nicolas Gorjestani
Language: English

Synopsis:

The 21st Century will increasingly be considered as the age of innovation. The shift in the organizing principle from the industrial era paradigm of scarcity of traditional factors of production to an abundance of knowledge will create unlimited opportunities for innovation in all facets of societal life. Innovation will become the distinguishing feature of the intelligent societies of the future. To be successful in such an environment, societies, organizations and citizens will have to develop appropriate mindsets, values and behaviors. Building on the speaker’s earlier lectures at IAAP, this lecture will focus on mindset implications of the shift to an innovation culture, and address the following questions: Why is creativity and a culture of innovation critical to the success of a knowledge-based, innovation-driven organization in the 21st Century? What are some examples of creative organizations that are experimenting with innovative approaches in management or moving from the prevailing ‘more from less’ model of innovation to approaches that promote ‘more from less for more’ to reach larger segments of the global market? How to re-think innovation in product and process in order to successfully compete in the newly emerging global consumer landscape?

About the Speaker: