See the online campus calendar for more seminars, etc.

Dateline staff

The UC Davis Health System announced a talk by José Octavio Ruiz Speare, chief of staff at American British Cowdray Medical Center in Mexico City, on his efforts to improve health care in Latin America and the Caribbean.

His address, “Reflections on Leadership in Health,” is scheduled for the noon hour Thursday, April 14, in the auditorium of the MIND Institute, 2825 50th St., Sacramento. Admission is free and open to the public. The organizers said light refreshments will be served, starting at 11:30 a.m.

Ruiz is expected to highlight the need to build humanist competencies among physicians in order to improve health care for underserved populations in the United States, Mexico and throughout Latin America.

Ruiz is a transplant and trauma surgeon who is known in Latin America for establishing trauma training centers, educating scores of physicians and refining guidelines for organ distribution.

People who plan on attending are asked to RSVP by e-mail, specialevents@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu, or phone, (916) 734-9101.

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The third annual Statistical Science Symposium, featuring the Shumway Lectures, is scheduled for Thursday, April 14. The Department of Statistics presents the symposium and lectures, honoring Professor Emeritus Robert H. Shumway, whose research illustrated the connection between theoretical and applied processes.

The lecture program is scheduled from 2:15 to 5 p.m. Here are the lecturers and their topics:

• Professor John Rice, UC Berkeley — “Time Series Analysis in Astronomy”
• Professor Xiao-Li Meng of Harvard University — “Trivial Mathematics but Deep Statistics: Simpson’s Paradox and Its Impact on Your Life”

The organizers said Rice’s and Meng’s talks will explore the coexistence of theoretical statistics and its application to emerging problems of significant scientific importance. The program also includes discussion of Rice’s and Meng’s papers in light of Shumway’s academic pursuits.

The symposium program continues with a poster session, “Statistics and its Applications,” followed by a reception and dinner.

Registration and more information. E-mail contact: Pat Aguilera, pjaguilera@ucdavis.edu.

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Economics professors Peter H. Lindert of UC Davis and Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley are co-presenting a seminar titled “Can the Welfare State Survive in a Global Economy?”

Lindert is a professor emeritus in the Department of Economics, while Saez is the E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics and director of the Center for Equitable Growth at UC Berkeley.

Their seminar is scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in the AGR Room at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

The program is sponsored by The Levine Family Fund, the Department of Economics and the Institute of Governmental Affairs.

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The Department of Biomedical Engineering is hosting Leroy E. Hood, a pioneer in systems approaches to biology and medicine, as this year’s Maroney-Bryan lecturer.

Hood received this year’s Russ Prize, the bioengineering profession's highest honor and one of three engineering awards likened to Nobel Prizes. Ohio University and the National Academy of Engineering bestow the $500,000 Russ Prize, officials cited Hood "for automating DNA sequencing that revolutionized biomedicine and forensic science."

“Without Dr. Hood's work, we would not have been able to sequence genomes, so his lecture will surely be of interest to many people in the UC Davis community,” said Holly Ober, communications coordinator for the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The Maroney-Bryan Lecture is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. Friday, April 15, in the auditorium of the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility. Admission is free and open to the public. A reception is planned after the lecture.

Hood, president and co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, has played a role in founding more than 14 biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Darwin, The Accelerator and Integrated Diagnostics.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, one of only 10 people in the world elected to all three academies.

The Department of Biomedical Engineering awards the Maroney-Bryan Lectureship once a year to a person who has played a pivotal role in the field of biomedical engineering. The lectureship is funded by alumnus John Maroney (Bachelor of Science, mechanical engineering, 1975), and his wife, Sarah Bryan.

More information.

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"Don't Put Your Name on the Label." So says William S. “Bill” Price III in the title for his talk in the Walt Klenz Lecture Series at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

Here is the full title: "Don't Put Your Name on the Label: Hard-Earned Lessons About Making Wine in the Wine Business." As for Price, his title is owner, Sonoma Valley's Durell Vineyard.

His talk is scheduled for 4 p.m. Monday, April 18, in the RMI's Sensory Theatre, and a reception is planned afterward. Admission is free and open to the public; registration is required and can be arranged online (look for the link below).

Treasury Wine Estates (formerly Beringer Blass Wine Estates) established the
Walt Klenz Lecture Series in honor of the winery's former chief executive officer, in recognition of his many contributions to the wine industry. Lectures focus on the business of wine and are aimed at students with the goal of giving them a glimpse of the many facets of the wine industry, based on the speaker’s expertise.

Registration and more information.