July 22, 2004

Vol. 15, No. 3

The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the University Advancement Division. News of campus interest should be sent to one of the following editors:   Ed Delaney, 412-268-1609 (ed47@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Bruce Gerson, 412-268-1613 (bg02@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Susan Cribbs, 412-268-7521 (cribbs@andrew.cmu.edu)

The newsletter is available on the official.cmu-news and cmu.misc.news bulletin boards.

2001 Editions are available online.

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2003 Editions are available online.

Previous editions are available online.

Computer agents developed by 32 teams converged at Columbia University in New York City this week to vie for the title in the second annual Supply Chain Management Trading Agent Competition (TAC-SCM) designed by Carnegie Mellon researchers and conference organizers from the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. TAC-SCM pits teams against each other in a game modeled after PC assembly supply chains. Computer agents bid on requests for quotes from prospective customers, select offers from component suppliers and decide when to assemble and ship PCs. Agents must buy computer components and deliver assembled computers to customers at competitive prices. In the end, the team with the most money wins. The competition wraps-up today (July 22).

— Carnegie Mellon's team includes Norman Sadeh, associate professor in the School of Computer Science (SCS) and director of the Mobile Commerce and e-Supply Chain Management Laboratories; Raghu Arunachalam, research engineer in SCS; Sun Jiong, a graduate student in the Tepper School of Business; and visiting scientist Young Jae Park. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/PR/releases04/040716_tacscm.html

RESEARCHERS UNVEIL MULTICULTURAL COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN BARCELONA

Carnegie Mellon researchers unveiled new multimodal and multilingual communication technologies during Language Technology Day, a feature of Forum 2004 held last week in Barcelona, Spain. Forum 2004 was conceived by the Barcelona City Council, the Catalan Autonomous Government and the Spanish Government as a space where the world's citizens can gather, engage in dialogue and debate urgent issues of the 21st century.

— Scientists from across the globe showcased a series of new technologies that included demonstrations of multimodal access to foreign documents; translation of speech, road signs and texts; spoken language navigation; and information retrieval. The tools are designed to bridge the language gap and promote cross-cultural understanding.

— Language Technology Day combined the efforts of Carnegie Mellon; the University of Karlsruhe, Trentino Institute of Culture, Italy; The Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain; PRIMA Group, at GRAVIR Laboratory, Grenoble, France; SONY, Stuttgart, Germany; ATLAS, Catalonia, Spain; CapInfo and the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Beijing, China; and Mobile Technologies, Cepstral, and M*Modal, all of Pittsburgh.

HEINZ HELPS LOCAL PRINCIPALS MAKE THE MOST OF STANDARDIZED TESTS

The Heinz School is offering an intensive course in educational statistics this month for 16 principals in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The program aims to use the results from standardized tests required under the No Child Left Behind Act to improve the quality of instruction in city schools. During the course, principals will be trained to analyze and interpret test-score data using up-to-date statistical software packages. They will also learn how to design, implement and evaluate educational interventions, as well as tailor those interventions to match the needs of students. At the end of the course, the principals will devise and administer a pretest on part of the curriculum being taught during the summer session in their schools and identify different ways to improve student achievement in that area. Finally, they will administer a post-test and, with the statistical skills developed in the course, decide whether or not the intervention raised achievement more than traditional teaching methods. For more, see www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/040705_grade.html

NEWS BRIEFS

— Four faculty members have contributed to "Models of a Man: Essays in Memory of Herbert A. Simon," published in April by MIT Press. The late Simon, who spent 52 years at Carnegie Mellon, was the Richard King Mellon University Professor of Computer Science and Psychology. Simon, the 1978 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, left his imprint in many fields and was a pioneer in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and human decision-making. Contributing to the anthology from Carnegie Mellon were psychology professors David Klahr and Ken Kotovsky; R.M. Trueblood University Professor of Accounting and Economics Yuji Ijiri; and Raul Valdes-Perez, associate research professor of computer science. The book is available at www.amazon.com.

— Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall will be without power for roughly five minutes between midnight and noon on Friday, July 30. All networking, including wireless networking, will also be down during this time. This outage will not impact other campus areas or the feed to the Internet. Questions or comments should be directed to your departmental administrator or the Computing Services Help Center at 8-HELP or advisor@andrew.cmu.edu.

— As part of the business school's continued efforts to transition to its new identity as the Tepper School of Business, all machines in the xxx.gsia.cmu.edu domain will be changed to xxx.tepper.cmu.edu. The switch became effective July 19, but the xxx.gsia.cmu.edu name will continue to work as an alias for one year. Most students, faculty and staff will not be affected by this change, but anyone incurring an interruption in network services provided by or related to the Tepper School should contact the school's computing group at 8-5881.

PERSONAL MENTION

— Associate Professor of Art Golan Levin received an honorable mention in the interactive art category at the Prix Ars Electronica, the International Competition for CyberArts 2004, for his "Messa di Voce."

— James Tomayko, SCS teaching professor and visiting scientist at the Software Engineering Institute, co-wrote "Human Aspects of Software Engineering" with Orit Hazzan, senior lecturer in the Department of Education in Technology and Science of the Technion; Israel Institute of Technology. Written for software engineering students and developers, the book details software engineering from the perspective of the individuals, teams, customers and organization involved in the process. It is the first textbook for a full course on the topic.

— ICES Director Cristina Amon and mechanical engineering graduate student Rodrigo Escobar won the Best Paper Award at ITherm 2004, the 9th IEEE-ASME Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems. They received the award for their paper, "Lattice-Boltzmann Modeling (LBM) of Sub-continuum Energy Transport in Silicon-on-Insulator Microelectronics Including Phonon Dispersion Effects." Their presentation also included research from mechanical engineering graduate student Brian Smith.

— Annual Giving Coordinator Marygrace Antkowski painted a panda sculpture for the Washington D.C. Arts and Humanities Commission's PandaMania, an exhibition of 150 creatively designed panda sculptures on display in the city through September. Antkowski's panda, "Peanut Butter & Raspbearry," sits on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. She'll also create a miniature version of the panda that will be mass-produced for online outlets and stores across the country. For more, visit www.pandamaniadc.org

— Rob A. Rutenbar, the Stephen Jatras Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his graduate students Zhong Xiu, James D. Ma and Suzanne M. Fowler were nominated for a Best Paper Award for their paper "Large-Scale Placement by Grid Warping" at the 41st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference. Rutenbar also delivered the keynote address at the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) 2004 Conference in San Francisco.

CALENDAR

— Tuesday, July 27: Staff and Community Blood Drive. 8 a.m. - 2:45 p.m., Rangos 2 & 3, University Center (UC). Contact Susan Stonick (SStonick@itxm.org) to schedule an appointment. Walk-ins are also encouraged.

— Wednesday, July 28: Town Meeting for Orientation 2004. 2 - 3 p.m., Dowd Room, UC. Learn what will happen during Orientation 2004, meet the head orientation counselors and find out what is in store for the class of 2008. For further information, contact Anne Witchner at 8-4886

— July 28 - 29: Staff Council Book Fair. 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Social Room, Mellon Institute third floor. The book fair will feature a variety of new books, including bestsellers, children's books, cookbooks and special interest books at discounted prices. Cash, checks and major credit cards will be accepted.

— Tuesday, Aug. 3: Lecture, "Cross-Cultural Communication Online: How Diverse Cultural Values and Communicative Preferences Shape Users and Uses of Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies." 1:30 - 3 p.m., Board Room, Posner Center. Charles Ess, distinguished research professor of interdisciplinary studies and professor of philosophy and religion at Drury University, will present a survey of divergences among cultures and ethnic groups regarding values and preferences; highlight some of the basic values and communication patterns that most often conflict with Western white-male, middle-class values and communication patterns; and present design best practices for multicultural audiences.

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