HDI Seminar: Engineering, Poverty, and Mental Illness
Feedback control systems that achieve various levels of autonomy have
become a necessity for all people, especially those in dire poverty or poor mental
health. In this talk, two examples of where feedback control is greatly needed are
outlined: (i) for individual/community financial advisors to avoid financial tragedy for
persons living in poverty; and (ii) for persons with mental illnesses such as
emotion/mood regulation deficiencies (e.g., depression). It will be shown that there are
little-explored opportunities for mathematical analysis (e.g., conditions for stability that
represent the ability to lift mood out of a depressed state) and computational studies
(e.g., simulations that show that community finance management strategies are robust
and successful) that will enable controller design.
Kevin M. Passino received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the
University of Notre Dame in 1989. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and
Computer Engineering and past Director of the Humanitarian Engineering Center at The
Ohio State University. He won a 2018 OSU Distinguished Scholar Award and is a
Fellow of the IEEE. He is on the IEEE Humanitarian Engineering Activities Committee
and is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Society on Social Implications of
Technology. He is an author or coauthor of several books, and sole author of
“Humanitarian Engineering: Advancing Technology for Sustainable Development,”
Edition 3, Bede Pub., OH, 2016. For more information, see:
http://www.ece.osu.edu/~passino/