Boumediene Belkhouche is Professor of Computer Science in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Tulane University. His research areas include Programming Languages and Software Engineering. In Software Engineering he has been investigating issues associated with requirements expression and analysis, abstract data types specifications, multiple view analysis, and object-oriented design and analysis. In Programming Languages, he has been investigating object-oriented type systems, formal semantics of concurrent processes, and new computational models for Internet Programming Languages. He is also interested in modeling ecological systems such as the Mississippi River. His is the leader in the design and implementation of the Water Quality Information System associated with Mississippi River Project.

He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE.

For more detail check his homepage at: http://www.eecs.tulane.edu/Belkhouche.

By: Boumediene Balkhouche

Many extraordinary people have developed an intimate relationship with the river. They imagined it, represented it, and gave it a mind and a soul. Henceforth, they were able to communicate with it. While this may seem just a product of our imagination, it is still technically possible to give a voice to the river. This presentation demonstrates how this is achieved and what the rivers can tell us.

In the world of object-oriented modeling, everything, be it a human, an animal, an insect, a plant, an artifact, or an idea, is represented uniformally as an object. Such a representation captures the fundamental characteristics and abilities of the object, gives it autonomy, and allows it to interact with its environment. What we thought of as inanimate becomes animated. Thus, the Mississippi River becomes alive and gives us a wealth of details about its inner self and its concerns. We will therefore explore the use of information technology in helping us understand our environment

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