Abstraction is an interesting topic. Also sensor interfacing and simulation, both of which are helped by some forms of abstraction.



When I attended a short course on neuroscience at the Royal Institution, I realised that the brain uses some of the abstraction techniques that software engineers commonly use to aid simulation and testing. I expect it uses lots more I didn't spot. I think the brain is very sophisticated in its ability to abstract, therefore if you want to talk about abstraction, it would be more than worthwhile having an event where control engineers talk with neuroscientists I think.



In his difficult to read book "A Model of the Brain" (1964) J. Z.Young goes as far as trying to think about the "Brain as the Computer of a Homeostat". I think this is a reasonable approach to take to try and understand and talk about some of the lower level fucntions of the brain.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostat





I'm not sure what elese people would find interesting to discuss. Serial control compared with parallel control perhaps?



One of the interesting features of control and automation is that you often have to have a database attached - especially so for batch control. There are probably design elements to this union that could be improved and simplified. I did think on this many years ago but I have completely forgotten what conclusions I came to.

Abstraction is an interesting topic. Also sensor interfacing and simulation, both of which are helped by some forms of abstraction.



When I attended a short course on neuroscience at the Royal Institution, I realised that the brain uses some of the abstraction techniques that software engineers commonly use to aid simulation and testing. I expect it uses lots more I didn't spot. I think the brain is very sophisticated in its ability to abstract, therefore if you want to talk about abstraction, it would be more than worthwhile having an event where control engineers talk with neuroscientists I think.



In his difficult to read book "A Model of the Brain" (1964) J. Z.Young goes as far as trying to think about the "Brain as the Computer of a Homeostat". I think this is a reasonable approach to take to try and understand and talk about some of the lower level fucntions of the brain.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostat





I'm not sure what elese people would find interesting to discuss. Serial control compared with parallel control perhaps?



One of the interesting features of control and automation is that you often have to have a database attached - especially so for batch control. There are probably design elements to this union that could be improved and simplified. I did think on this many years ago but I have completely forgotten what conclusions I came to.