Rhode Island Nexus

From the Agenda:

9:00-9:45
Opening Keynote Presentation
Business, the Environment and the Bottom Line
Joel Makower, Chairman & Executive Editor, Greener World Media
Read more about Joel Makower
...
10:15-11:30
Concurrent Sessions

Sustainable Design & Architecture
Joel Towers, Associate Provost for Environmental Studies &
Director, Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School
Mark Saccoccio, Principal, Saccoccio & Associates
Jean Carroon, Principal, Goody-Clancy
Christopher Bull & Jonathan Knowles, Solar Decathlon

Clean Retail
Kathy Loftus, Global Leader for Sustainable Engineering, Maintenance & Energy Management, Whole Foods Market
Ronald Dyer, Regional Environmental Manager, Poland Spring
...
12:15-1:00
Luncheon Keynote Presentation
Adam Werbach, CEO Act Now
Read more about Adam Werbach
...

3:45-4:30
Closing Keynote Presentation
The Energy Marketplace
J. Patrick Adcock, Senior Vice President, Environmental Markets, World Energy
Read more about Rick Adcock

4:30-5:30
Investing in a Greener Future
Rob Berridge, Program Manager, Investor Programs, Ceres
John Ewen, Energy Technology Team, Ardour Capital Investments
Eric Emmons, Partner, Massachusetts Green Energy Fund
Jackson Robinson, President & Chief Investment Officer, Winslow Management Company

Cost: Members $60, Non-Members $95, Students $25 (prices include morning/afternoon refreshments & networking reception, lunch priced separately at $35)

"Developments in Holographic Algorithms"

Jin-Yi Cai, University of Wisconsin - Madison and Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Valiant's theory of holographic algorithms is a new design method to produce polynomial time algorithms. Information is represented in a superposition of linear vectors in a holographic mix. This mixture creates the possibility for exponential sized cancellations of fragments of local computations. The underlying computation is done by invoking the Fisher-Kasteleyn-Temperley method for counting perfect matchings for planar graphs, which uses Pfaffians and runs in polynomial time. In this way some seemingly exponential time computations can be done in polynomial time, and some minor variations of the problems are known to be NP-hard or #P-hard. Holographic algorithms challenge our conception of what polynomial time computations can do, in view of the P vs. NP question.