On 28 April 2015 the scientific conference on „Markov Chains. Applications to cognitive processes embedded in Human Performance” took place at the Institute of Space Science (ISS), within the General Starwalker Seminar. The conference was held by Prof. Dr. Alexandru Agapie, professor of mathematics at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and collaborator of the Space Technologies Competence Centre for Human Spaceflight Support – Starwalker.
The conference was the third of a cycle of educational and interdisciplinary, stimulating conferences, initiated by the Starwalker Competence Center.
Center members and guests representing domains related to manned spaceflight participated at the seminar composed of a conference part followed by debates, moderated by Dr. Eng. Dumitru Dorin Prunariu, astronaut.
At the beginning of the conference the theoretical background on probabilities and stochastic processes was briefly reviewed, moving on to the presentation of connected mathematical objects, Markov Chains (MC) and Hidden Markov Chains (HMC), their properties and types, relevant to the use of MC as a tool for analysing the cognitive processes associated with Human Performance.
The presentation of the lecturer was illustrated with clear examples of modeling and analysis of processes through MC/HMC. During the conference which became interactive, this fact strongly challeneged the audience who suggested analogue applications from the fields of neuro-psycho-somatic training for astronauts and not only.
Due to the novelty of the material presented, the seminar served an important objective for the research of the Centre: laying the foundation stone for an interdisciplinary cooperation in order to develop training and analysis methodologies for neuro-psycho-somatic Human Performance through mathematical models based procedures.
Anyone interested in the material presented during the seminar or advanced information related to it, may directly address the lecturer: Alexandru Agapie – agapie@clicknet.ro.
This third seminar is the last of the cycle of General Starwalker Seminars, the winter/spring 2015 season. The seminars held during this time were designed by the scientific management of the Centre in order to complement one another and to facilitate familiarity with interdisciplinary concepts, beneficial to future research of Human Performance in Human Spaceflight Support. Following the success of the first experimental cycle of seminars, the scientific management of the Centre is already focusing on designing a new cycle of general seminars for interdisciplinary information exchange for the summer/autumn 2015 season.
People interested in details regarding the Starwalker General Seminars can contact the Starwalker Seminary Secretary: Alexander Nistorescu by e-mail – alexnistorescu@spacescience.ro.