Request Expert

He carries out forensic consulting, writes specialized computer programs both for others and for his own amusement, edits technical books, tutors in English for speakers of other languages, serves as treasurer for not only the local Emergency Squad but also the BCS USA Section, and gives an occasional lecture.


In the past, he's consulted with lawyers, a major food manufacturer, a major life insurance company, sat on the CODASYL COBOL committee, written a simulator for a UNIVAC I and II (with the bemused permission of UNISYS’s legal department!), developed a decompiler for Cbasic intermediate files, and generally has been programming professionally since 1957.


Frequently, data is available in unusual, inconsistent, formats, or is embedded in garbage. He has managed to squeeze real information out of what, at first impression, appeared to be utterly intractable data. Sometimes this involved manual entry, other times it was possible to write clever programs to weed through the dross to mine the ore. Once the data has been converted to a rational form, he has correlated data from incompatible sources, generated reports, added ZIP codes, validated references, and done other kinds of things to attempt to assure that the data is as was represented.


He has helped some attorneys in identifying statistical indications of discrimination for their use in lawsuits. He generally consults in the area of statistical analysis.


He wrote his first computer program in 1951, and has been programming professionally since 1957. He's written a number of different kinds of programs, from astrological to zoological, in a number of different computer environments. If you need something, and you can't find it, or anything like it, on a shelf somewhere, perhaps he can develop it for you.


He can take a program in ROM and, knowing the chip on which it will run, reverse-engineer it so that he can understand exactly what it does. This has been useful for some patent problems. He has written a decompiler for the intermediate language generated by some compilers, to recover the source code to allow him to make corrections and improvements, when the original source code was unavailable.

He's currently working on a program that allows the user to invent a language from scratch, and a program that integrates multiple calendars, languages, and date-dependent data. Evaluating repair/replacement costs for equipment damaged by disasters. Digging out trends and patterns in data provided by lawyers, usually involving discrimination on the basis of age, sex, or race.

Array

Created a program that does a statistical analysis of two-by-two tables using the Fischer Exact Test, as well as computing the chi² statistic and the odds ratio. Utilized this program to analyze data in three discrimination cases. [PUGLISI v. CITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK, Civil Docket 90-4212(JAG), US Court, District of New Jersey; FITZ v. PSE&G, Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County, Docket L-14338-96; SCOTT v. IBM CORP., Civil Docket 98-4092(JBS), US Court, District of New Jersey]Advised a small pipe-organ firm on the design of pipe organ components (and assisted in building some of those components).
Designed, developed, and implemented a system for entering, consolidating, maintaining, and reporting on the records required for employee drug testing as required by the federal regulations for a drug-free transportation workplace. This system was written in PC/FOCUS, and generated all of the required letters, reports, and inventory control information. Provided professional assistance to an accounting firm in the computer and systems aspects of audits of four of its clients (a bank, a manufacturing company, a glass fabricator, and a ship building firm), and also reviewed and audited the EDP department of the accounting firm itself. These audits included security, privacy, and integrity of both the computer systems (including hardware and software) and the data processed by those systems. Designed and implemented a complete membership system for a volunteer emergency squad; the system keeps complete records on each member, including membership status, hours volunteered, and skills. This system was written in CBASIC in a CP/M environment, and has been rewritten in Visual Basic for a Microsoft Windows environment.