For the past five years, the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) of the National Academy of Science has reviewed and analyzed the health risks from exposure to low levels of radiation (X-rays and gamma rays.) This re-assessment followed a period of rich accumulation of biologic and epidemiologic data from 1990 on, the year of the last previous study (BEIR V.)

The scientific evidence showed that even low doses of radiation may pose a risk of cancer, and that there was no threshold below which exposure may be viewed as harmless. Lifetime excess risks were determined for 12 relatively common cancers. While the over-all risk of cancer at low radiation levels is small, the mortality in women is higher than in men, and infants are at greater risk than adults. The presentation will review the conclusions of the 700-page report.

Herbert L. Abrams, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Radiology at Stanford, was formerly Philip H. Cook Professor and Chairman of Radiology at Harvard, and has been a CISAC Member-in-Residence since 1985. He served as one of the two physicians on the BEIR VII committee, the other members, representing radiation biology, cancer biology, physics, epidemiology and genetics. The 1st edition of his three volume work, Abrams Angiography: Vascular and Interventional Radiology, was published in 1961, the fifth edition in 2005. He is the author or co-author of six other books on Congenital Heart Disease, Coronary Arteriography, Diagnostic Decision Making, Diagnostic Technology Assessment, and Presidential Disability and of over 200 refereed papers on cardiovascular disease, health policy, disabled leadership, human instability in the nuclear forces, and inadvertent nuclear war. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, he was also the founding Vice-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

Alexander Downes is assistant professor of political science at Duke University specializing in international security. Before coming to Duke, Downes held fellowships at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies (Harvard University) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (Stanford University). His current research focuses on why states attack enemy noncombatants in warfare, a subject on which he is revising a book manuscript that includes case studies of strategic bombing, blockade, counterinsurgency, and ethnic cleansing. His previous research on the relative efficacy of partition versus negotiated settlements as solutions to ethnic wars has appeared in the journal Security Studies.

Michael May is emeritus professor Emeritus (research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with FSI. He is the former co-director of CISAC, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is emeritus director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. May's current research interests are in the area of safeguarding the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Chaim Braun is a vice president of Altos Management Partners, Inc., and a CISAC science fellow and affiliate. He is a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Non-Proliferation Trust International, and others.

Braun has worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Braun has worked on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, he was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors, and most recently co-authored an article with CISAC Co-Director Chris Chyba on nuclear proliferation rings. His research project this year is entitled "The Energy Security Initiative and a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Center: Two Enhancement Options for the Current Non-Proliferation Regime."

China's high technology companies are experiencing a significant shortage of senior and mid-level talent to support the development of their enterprises. Professionals who can operate at world class levels are in very limited supply--and this talent constraint is limiting the growth of the technology sector. How should leading companies in China address this talent shortage?

Heidrick & Struggles and the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) have interviewed over 80 C-level executives in China's knowledge-intensive industries--semiconductor, e-commerce, computer hardware/software, and telecommunications. The result is a view into China's leadership and talent issues, and a playbook on how Chinese companies can accelerate the development of key talent.

Today, China's base is manufacturing, but to drive its economy in the decades ahead, China must rely in part on more knowledge-intensive industries. How successfully Chinese technology executives address today's talent shortages will help to define China's development path.

Martha Crenshaw is the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., where she has taught since 1974. She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes the chapter on "Coercive Diplomacy and the Response to Terrorism," in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy (United States Institute of Peace Press), "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies", in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), and "Counterterrorism in Retrospect" in the July-August 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs. She serves on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chairs the American Political Science Association Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism.

She has served on the Council of the APSA and is a former president and councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson Award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. For the next three years she will be a lead investigator with the new National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She is also the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2005-2006. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. Her current research focuses on why the U.S. is the target of terrorism and the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, as well as how campaigns of terrorism come to an end.

We know the terrorist threat: an atomic bomb exploding in downtown Manhattan, a roadside bomb in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Yet Congress, against the wishes of New York's Senator Schumer, voted down a bill that would have facilitated complete surveillance of radio activity, the sort of surveillance that might actually prevent the demise of NYC. The price tag was $100 million of initial funding and it would have cost $100 billion altogether--expensive then, but cheap after Iraq and Katrina. So where are we now? We have still have terrorist threats and still have limited protection.

In my talk I want to give an affordable solution: mathematical modeling, using an even more magical bullet: Reflexive Theory. If we talk about security and cooperation, we need one thing, as important as the frontal lobe: a model of the self! That is, we need Reflexive Theory.

My presentation will be an exciting journey through a contemporary approach to counter-terrorism, based on the work of the famous mathematical psychologist Vladimir Lefebvre.

Stefan E. Schmidt is CEO of the research company Phoenix Mathematical Systems Modeling, Inc.; he is also a member of the graduate faculty of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at New Mexico State University and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. For the past five years, he has been working as Senior Research Scientist at the Physical Science Laboratory of New Mexico State University.

From fall 2004 to 2005, Schmidt was on a one-year professional leave from PSL to follow an invitation as visiting professor at the University of Technology in Dresden, Germany. Between 1995 and 2000, he has held research appointments at the University of California, Berkeley (1995-98), the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (96/97), the Shannon Laboratory of AT&T (98/99), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999-2000).

Previously, after his PhD in 1987 at the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany, Schmidt was assistant professor until 1995 at ainz University, Germany (as Hochschulassistent, Habilitation 1993).

Schmidt's scientific research ranges from discrete mathematics to applications in information sciences and network analysis; his expertise covers geometric algebra, order theory, combinatorics, formal concept analysis and reflexive theory--applied to communication networks, agent modeling and systems of systems analysis. His recent work includes modeling and simulating terrorist recruitment via reflexive theory as well as border protection via reflexive control. As a real world application of his scientific methods, he is currently involved in a long-term research project on the stock market (as a market of markets).