The 2007 American Control Conference has introduced three special “themes” to capitalize on the local character of the New York City metropolitan area. 

• In recognition of New York City as an international capital for finance and the home of the New York Stock Exchange, we have the theme Control Methods in Finance.  This theme is considers control methods in portfolio management, stochastic models of markets and pricing, and hedging of options.  The theme includes three paper sessions on Wednesday, as well as the Wednesday plenary presentation “Stochastic Control in the context of Mathematical Finance: problems, results and challenges” by Dr. Ioannis Karatzas of Columbia University.  A Monday workshop, “An Introduction to Financial Engineering for Control Theorists” will be presented by J. Primbs (Stanford Univ.), M. Rathinam (UMBC), and Y. Yamada (Univ. Tsukuba).

• In recognition of New York City as an international hub of transportation, we have the theme Control in Transportation Systems. The theme considers control applications in automotive highway systems, in air traffic systems, and others.  Papers related to transportation and automotive systems appear throughout the three days of the conference.  The Thursday plenary “Feedback and Stability in the Air Transportation System”, will be given by Dr. R. John Hansman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• In recognition of New York City’s skyline of magnificent large buildings, we have the theme Control and Integration in Intelligent Building Systems.   The theme addresses automated control for security and egress, control systems for energy and HVAC, and the sensing and control networks necessary to support large buildings.  The theme is primarily focused on Friday, and includes the plenary “Control Issues and Research Activities in Building Automation and Control Systems” by Steven T. Bushby from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.