The Tulsa Race Massacre is believed to be the single worst discrete incident of racial violence in American history. During the course of eighteen bloody hours on May 31 and June 1, 1921, more than one thousand homes and businesses were destroyed, and as many as three hundred people killed. By the time the violence ended, Oklahoma’s second-largest African American community had been burned to the ground. As the Oklahoma Historical Society summarized: “The outbreak occurred during an era of acute racial tensions, characterized by the birth and rapid growth of the so-called second Ku Klux Klan and by the determined efforts of African Americans to resist attacks upon their communities, particularly in the matter of lynching.” So, what does a 1921 state-sponsored white massacre of a relatively wealthy Black community in America’s 48th state have to tell us about our own here and now? Join Amos Jones in a lecture that grapples with this and related questions and promises to offer what, to many, might seem to be some surprising answers.

So which belief is true: ‘accidents happen’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’? Behavioural sciences show that in the world of interpretation, human judgement is powerfully affected by how problems are initially framed. As humans, we are prone to subconsciously anchor on preconceived notions and then tend to find what we are looking for during an investigation.

The function of an engineered artifact is to deliver the desired fit, form and function to society. It is the purpose of engineering to postpone failure of an artifact for a safe design lifetime. The lecture will highlight the practice of forensic engineering investigation and illustrate methods to assess potential sources, causes and solutions for prevention of failure of engineered products, and of the investigation itself.

Your heart is a marvelously complex organ responsible for pumping blood to the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients to all tissues, and removing carbon dioxide and other wastes. Cardiovascular disease, which can lead to heart attack, heart failure, sudden death, stroke, and acute limb ischemia, affects millions each year and involves a huge cost to society. Staying alive means protecting yourself from the risk of having either a first time or subsequent event. This session will be a simplified state-of-the-art review of the cardiovascular system in health and disease, and the management of risk factors. Diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease will be discussed, as well as future developments in personalized medicine through genetics and biomarkers, and advances in imaging, devices, and artificial intelligence.