July 24, 2003

Vol. 14, No. 3

The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the Department of Public Relations. News of campus interest should be sent to
Ed Delaney, 412-268-1609 (ed47@andrew.cmu.edu) or Bruce Gerson, 412-268-1613 (bg02@andrew.cmu.edu). The newsletter is available on the official.cmu-news and cmu.misc.news bulletin boards.

2001 Editions are available online.

2002 Editions are available online.

Previous editions are available online.

Researchers at the School of Computer Science (SCS) have received an initial $7 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as part of a five-year project to develop a software-based cognitive personal assistant that will help people improve their productivity in the workplace.

—The project, nicknamed "RADAR" for Reflective Agents with Distributed Adaptive Reasoning, will help humans with tasks like scheduling meetings, allocating resources, creating coherent reports from snippets of information, and managing email by grouping related messages, flagging high priority requests and automatically proposing answers to routine messages.

—The project's principal investigators include SCS professors Daniel P. Siewiorek, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Jaime Carbonell, director of the Language Technologies Institute, and Principal Research Computer Scientist Scott Fahlman. The project will initially focus on four tasks to illustrate how the system's learning curve increases people's productivity: email, scheduling, webmaster and space planning.

—"With each task, we'll run experiments to see how well people do by themselves and make comparisons," Siewiorek said. "We will also look at people plus a human assistant and compare that to the software agent."

—Further information: official.cmu-news, "$7 Million Grant From DARPA," July 16, and www.cmu.edu

A SMILE A DAY HELPS KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY, SAYS PSYCHOLOGY PROF

People who are happy, relaxed or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to catch colds than those who are unhappy or anxious, according to a study by Psychology Professor Sheldon Cohen that will be published in the upcoming edition of Psychosomatic Medicine, the journal of the American Psychosomatic Society.

—Researchers interviewed volunteers over several weeks to assess their moods and emotional styles, and then infected them with one of two types of cold viruses. The volunteers were quarantined and examined to see if they came down with a cold. People who had a positive emotional style were less likely to get sick than others. If they did get sick, they reported fewer symptoms than one would expect from objective measures of their illness.

—"Although there is quite a bit of talk about positive emotions being good for your health, there actually is very little evidence. This is the first study that measures emotions in initially healthy people and finds that those who are generally happier are more resistant to infectious disease," Cohen said. He collaborated on the study with researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Medical University of South Carolina.

FONSECA NAMED FIRST "MCS PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS"

Irene Fonseca, director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis (CNA), has been named the first Mellon College of Science (MCS) Professor of Mathematics. Her research is centered on the calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. It is motivated, in part, by the study of properties of novel man-made materials and by issues in imaging. Her ability to introduce and apply new mathematical techniques to materials sciences complements her work as director of the CNA.

—"She repeatedly puts the department at the forefront of significant activity in applied mathematics," states Roy Nicolaides, head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences. "Irene has a talent for identifying potential leaders in applied mathematics. Many of those whom she selects for the CNA postdoctoral program go on to become famous in their own right."

—The CNA, the university's center for research and scientific training in applied mathematics, collaborates internationally with other university-based teams to conduct research and train students and postdoctoral fellows. It is one of the few centers in the United States that receives federal funding for research in applied mathematics.

CARNEGIE MELLON AND NASA INSPIRE FUTURE ROBOTICS ENGINEERS

More than 30 high school students are currently at the university's West Coast campus honing their engineering and computer programming skills in an intensive, seven-week robotics course.

—Sponsored by Carnegie Mellon and the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the summer robotics course, called RoboCamp West, allows students to work with NASA engineers and Carnegie Mellon faculty to build and program sophisticated, three-wheeled "TrikeBot" robots fitted with sensors, including a video camera and infrared range finder.

—Each week, students are presented with a problem to solve. With guidance from Carnegie Mellon instructors and student mentors, the students develop individual solutions and program their robots.

—"The students span the spectrum of experience with programming and robotics, but all are very enthusiastic, easily motivated and love what they are doing," said Mel Siegel, Carnegie Mellon senior research scientist and RoboCamp West instructor. "They keep us going. We are exhausted but very happy at the end of the day."

—Each student is given a custom kit of parts to build a robot, which includes motors and custom-designed electrical components integrated into a precision laser-cut rover frame. The robots are controlled by an onboard personal digital assistant that is wirelessly linked to a laptop computer. Using JAVA software, the students can pre-program the robot and/or control it manually.

—Further information: official.cmu-news, "Inspiring Future Engineers," July 18.

ROBOT SOCCER TEAMS TAKE FOURTH PLACE IN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Carnegie Mellon's robot soccer teams recently placed fourth in the small-size league and the Sony legged league at RoboCup 2003 in Padua, Italy.

—"The students worked very, very hard," said Manuela Veloso, computer science professor and leader of the university's robot soccer program. "In the small-size, our robots had a beautiful learning algorithm for adapting their play selection to different opponents. The research goes on."

—Cornell took the title in the small-size league, with the University of New South Wales (Australia) finishing first in the four-legged league.

—Carnegie Mellon has been involved with the International RoboCup competition since its inception in 1997, winning several world championships along the way. Earlier this year, the university hosted the first American Open RoboCup competition.

—Carnegie Mellon participants in RoboCup 2003 included program leaders Veloso and Robotics Institute Systems Scientist Brett Browning; graduate students Douglas Vail, Sonia Chernova, Scott Lenser, James Bruce and Michael Bowling; and undergraduates Juan Fasola, Jennifer Lin and Michael Sokolsky.

—Information about RoboCup 2003 is available at www.robocup.org

CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

—Saturday, July 26: The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble premieres Roger Dannenberg's "The Watercourse Way." 7 p.m., the Hazlett Theatre (formerly the Pittsburgh Public Theater), North Side, Six Allegheny Square East. Admission is $16; $8 for students and seniors. "The Watercourse Way" features a chamber orchestra, computer-generated and processed music, a dancer, computer animation, water, lights, video and wearable lighting systems. Dannenberg, senior research scientist and artist at Carnegie Mellon, is known internationally for his computer music research. His work on computer accompaniment forms the basis of SmartMusic, used by thousands of music students around the world. Further information: official.cmu-news, "Pgh. New Music Ensemble," July 16.

—Monday, July 28: Blood drive sponsored by the Graduate Student Assembly. 11 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Rangos 2 and 3, University Center. For advance registration, email Josh Furgeson at joshua5@andrew.cmu.edu. Walk-ins are welcome.

—Wednesday, July 30: Orientation 2003 Information Session. 2 - 3 p.m., Rangos 3, University Center. Learn what will be happening Aug. 19 - 24 when Orientation 2003 takes place. An overview of the program will be offered and your questions will be answered. For more information, contact the Office of Orientation at 268-4886 and/or see http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/first-year/

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