Never before in human history has society been confronted with the prospect of such a large aging population. One strategy for meeting their increasing needs is the development of the "smart home" that uses technology to monitor and respond to the medical needs of older people outside of hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Dr. Deen's research uses advances in information technology, wireless communication, web-based technologies and autonomics to remotely monitor and assist people in their own homes: for the early detection of symptoms, leading to earlier treatment, to promote wellness, and to manage chronic illnesses. Through examples of ongoing collaborative work, Dr. Deen will discuss the critical role of information technology, some challenges and current research issues.

Dr. Deen is Professor of ECE and Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His current research interests are nanoelectronics and optoelectronics and their applications to health and environmental sciences.

Linguists maintain that the approximately 6,000 world languages all share basic structural features. Do all human languages have a common origin? If so, how was language invented, where was the original language spoken and how did human languages spread and diversify around the globe?

For more than 200 years these questions have been taboo in mainstream linguistics. Now genetic data from DNA and comparisons of blood types around the world offer a coherent picture of the dispersal of human beings. These new data have revived interest in the origin and early history of human language. This talk describes current linguists’ efforts to respond to the geneticist model and some of the challenges still confronting them.

Dr. Thomas is Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at McMaster University.

On the night of April 14–15, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in three hours with the loss of 1,517 passengers and crew. Public interest in this sinking has remained strong for 100 years, even growing since expeditions using submersibles have located and filmed the wrecked ship lying on the floor of the Atlantic in two pieces.

Analysis of hull fragments recovered from the wreck has altered the popular understanding of how the Titanic sank and provided a good understanding of how the materials used in hull construction contributed to this legendary disaster.

Professor Thomson, Manager of the Steel Research Centre, will review the events of the sinking and describe the Titanic’s design and construction, particularly with regard to the iron and steel technology of the period.

Acclaimed writer Lawrence Hill will describe the research he undertook to write The Book of Negroes and the challenges involved in blending historical facts into a dramatic narrative.

Both a literary and popular success, the novel tells a compelling story of how one woman's life was shaped by the slave trade in West Africa, Britain, the United States and Canada. It has been published in various countries as The Book of Negroes, Someone Knows My Name, Het Negerboek and Aminata. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Ontario Library Association's Evergreen Award and CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2009.

Formerly a reporter and parliamentary correspondent, Lawrence Hill has lived and worked across Canada, in Baltimore, Spain and France and is now a Hamilton resident.

The High Level bridge, McMaster University, the RBG, Gage Park, the QEW, Niagara parks and the Rainbow Bridge were among the visionary projects championed in a long and successful political career by Thomas B. McQuesten. They remain as landmarks but he is largely forgotten.

His sister Ruby was a beautiful, gifted young teacher and artist who worked to put Tom through university. When he graduated, she fell ill and died, and her part in his success was also forgotten.

Author Dr. Mary Anderson recounts their story in an illustrated presentation while Liz Corey and Peter Ormond bring Ruby and Tom to life in a dramatic reading of their letters. Dr. Anderson is author of Tragedy and Triumph in the McQuesten Story at Whitehern and The Life Writings of Mary Baker McQuesten.

A 1974 discovery uncovered thousands of life-sized clay sculptures of Chinese warriors, now known world-wide as the Terra Cotta Army. One of the most significant archaeological finds in history, these funeral objects have allowed experts and amateurs alike to learn about China’s rich history and the early political and social transitions taking place in this rising world power.

The sculptures were created as symbolic guards for China's first emperor, who welded together disparate peoples into one single and powerful kingdom in the third century BC. But the 1970s were another volatile period in China — an important part of this talk explains why China's all-powerful ruler Mao Zedong, who had previously ordered the destruction of most reminders of China’s imperial past, chose to preserve these newly discovered witnesses to the power and glory of the nation's first emperor.

Helen Vreugdenhil is Assistant Professor of History at Redeemer University College.

The boreal and subarctic regions are home to some of the world’s largest forests and peatlands. These ecosystems represent a long-term carbon sink storing carbon over the last several thousand years, which has helped maintain lower atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

However, with climate change, these northern peat and carbon reserves are likely to become increasingly vulnerable to drought, wildfire and permafrost degradation, switching them to a large and persistent carbon source. Dr. Waddington discusses his research on these changing carbon dynamics with special attention on how to potentially diffuse the ‘carbon bomb’.

Dr. Waddington is Associate Director of the McMaster Centre for Climate Change, professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences and Associate Editor of Ecohydrology.

Exactly a century after Ernest Shackleton trekked the Antarctic terrain in 1908, a group of men, from Hamilton and area, Peter Turkstra, Fred Losani, Mark MacLennan and Steve Stipsits, experienced some of the same challenges and hidden dangers on the icebound continent. They took part in an expedition to ski 200 km to the geographic south pole from a private base camp in the Ellsworth Mountains of western Antarctica, to raise funds for local inner-city school children. Mr. Turkstra numbers himself among roughly 100 people who have skied to both north and south poles.

Unlike Shackleton’s crew, this expedition was able to maintain contact with the outside world. Numerous internet followers tracked both their progress and setbacks. Mr. Turkstra will describe his experiences, illustrated by photographs taken in Antarctica, Torre De Paine National Park, Chile and the Magellanic Penguin Rookery.

Peter Turkstra is president of Turkstra Lumber, a family-owned retail and manufacturing business based in Hamilton for more than 50 years.