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January
14 - 20, 2005
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From January 14 - 20,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 155
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
Philadelphia Inquirer | January 20
The Wall Street Journal | January 17
Philadelphia Inquirer | January 17
Los Angeles Times | January 16
Student Experience
Newsday | January 20
Post-Gazette | January 18
Arts and Humanities
Post-Gazette | January 18
Tribune-Review | January 18
Tribune-Review | January 17
Post-Gazette | January 14
Information Technology
CNN | January 20
InformationWeek | January 17
Biotechnology
Tribune-Review | January 18
Newsweek | January 14
Regional Impact
The Pittsburgh Business Times | January 14
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | January 19
Post-Gazette | January 17
International News Stories
News Today, India | January 19
The Economist, UK | January 13
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National News Stories
Philadelphia Inquirer | January 20
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are like two first cousins who live far
apart and never see each other, never think about each other, and barely
remember they're even related. They're not rivals, they're not pals,
they're not partners in crime, they're not anything. About the only
thing they have in common is the same last name and the misfortune of
being told what to do by the same group of knuckleheads in Harrisburg.
But if the Eagles and Steelers both win their playoff games this Sunday,
the two cousins will find themselves going off on a great adventure
together, arm-in-arm and shoulder-to-shoulder, making Pennsylvania the
envy of the nation, as they march to the Super Bowl..."Philadelphia
is part of the East Coast, Pittsburgh is basically Midwestern,"
says Jon Delano, who teaches public policy at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and reports on business and
politics for KDKA-TV.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews
/news/local/10687304.htm | back to top
The Wall Street Journal | January 17
Federal regulators are targeting what they say is an elusive culprit
contributing to the soaring hospital costs of recent years: mergers.
Next month, the Federal Trade Commission brings to trial an unusual
case in which it is seeking to undo the January 2000 takeover of Highland
Park Hospital, in suburban Chicago, by Evanston Northwestern Healthcare
Corp. The FTC accuses Evanston Northwestern, which already ran two hospitals
in the area, of antitrust violations, saying it used its postmerger
"market power" to impose huge price increases -- of 40% to
60%, and in one case 190% -- on insurers and employers..."When
hospitals are nonprofit, members of the community and judges as well
tend to think of them as institutions with a strong humanitarian bent,"
says Martin Gaynor, professor of economics and public
policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
But Prof. Gaynor, like the litigators at the FTC, says he believes that
"these firms aren't existing on philanthropy. They live and die
on sales revenue, and will exercise market power if they have the opportunity."
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1105924
83226927563-search,00.html | back to top
Philadelphia Inquirer | January 17
Already subject to one of the largest and most confusing assortment
of local levies in the nation, Pennsylvanians by the hundreds of thousands
are about to find yet another tax nibbling at their paychecks. The name
of this one is the Emergency and Municipal Services Tax, and it was
conceived in the state legislation that rescued Pittsburgh from insolvency
in late November. In the bailout process, lawmakers gave Pennsylvania's
2,500 municipalities the same gift they bestowed on Steel Town: the
option of extracting a flat tax of up to $52 annually from the wages
of everyone - CEO and burger flipper alike - who works in the community...
The state Department of Community and Economic Development, which oversees
local governments, expects as many as 500 statewide to impose the tax
this year, with more likely to follow in 2006. "It'll be like an
arms race," said Robert Strauss, an economics
professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh
and a national tax expert. If every community in the Philadelphia suburbs
joined in, the collective tax pot would swell to more than $40 million.
Municipalities are to use that money, according to the law, only for
police, roads and property-tax cuts.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly
/news/10662444.htm | back to top
Los Angeles Times | January 16
She helped lead the nation to war and in the process became one of President
Bush's closest friends and most intimate advisors. But even before she
headed the National Security Council, Condoleezza Rice held a job that
required grit, skill, political savvy and a sublime degree of self-confidence:
running Stanford University..."When you're a university administrator,
people are always upset with you for one reason or another," said
Kiron Skinner, an international studies scholar whom Rice mentored.
"You've got to make decisions about tenure, about funding issues.
So someone is always unhappy."...Some who believed that Rice would
emerge as a champion of blacks and women were disappointed. Skinner,
though, was not surprised that Rice ran a colorblind administration.
"Initially, there was an expectation, maybe, that she would behave
a certain way because she's black and a woman," said Skinner, who
is African American and teaches at Carnegie Mellon University.
"But those who knew her all along knew that she wouldn't use any
kind of indicators about her race or background as an excuse for how
she handled her work."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rice16jan16,
1,1358914.story?coll=la-headlines-california | back
to top
Student Experience
Newsday | January 20
Harvard president Lawrence Summers has done real damage by suggesting
that women are absent from senior faculty positions at universities
- especially in math and science - because of innate gender differences.
His statement, made at an academic forum last week and picked up by
many news outlets, is dead wrong, but how many undergraduates will steer
away from math because of the power of his position? How many mothers
and fathers will remember the headlines, and discourage their high school
daughters from taking hard math classes? Summers said it was his job
to be provocative, but instead he has done a disservice to girls and
women by shooting from the hip...This sad situation can be reversed
- but not if influential college presidents make poorly informed statements
about innate differences. With a little bit of training, girls can improve
their math abilities quickly - which could not happen if females were
"hardwired" to perform poorly at math. At Carnegie
Mellon University, aggressive outreach brought the numbers
of freshmen women interested in science from 7 percent in 1995 to 40
percent in 2000.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion
/ny-vpriv204119777jan20,0,884109.story?
coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines | back to top
Post-Gazette | January 18
Even for people trying to follow the rules, U.S. immigration policy
can be confusing, time-consuming and illogical, those who work in the
field said at a conference yesterday at Duquesne University. Because
the Bush administration and immigration advocates alike agree that reform
is needed, organizers of the conference, hosted by the Pittsburgh Interfaith
Impact Network, said now is the time to advocate for changes as various
legislative proposals are floated. Few dispute the system is working
poorly...Current policy does not take into account the needs of U.S.
employers and the realities of the economic situation in countries from
which people emigrate. Nor do many people recognize the contribution
immigrants make to the economy, said Linda Gentile,
international student adviser for Carnegie Mellon University.
"International students generate $12 billion in revenue for the
United States, $630 million in Pennsylvania," she said.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05018/444020.stm
| back to top
Arts and Humanities
Post-Gazette | January 18
Carnegie Mellon University's Jill Watson Distinguished
Lecture Series, also known as Wats:ON?, will bring Santa Monica-based
architect Craig Hodgetts and Japanese multimedia group Maywa Denki to
campus Friday and Saturday. The presentations are free and open to the
public. Formerly known as the Jill Watson Festival Across the Arts,
the event was initiated in memory of Jill Watson, who died in the crash
of TWA Flight 800 in July of 1996. Watson was a Carnegie Mellon alumna
and adjunct faculty member in the School of Architecture, as well as
a Pittsburgh architect. The name change reflects a shift in direction
for the event, which recently was held in the fall. "Wats:ON is
going through a transitional stage at the moment to evaluate how best
we can honor Jill Watson's legacy, as well as provide students and the
Pittsburgh community with exciting programming year after year,"
Carnegie Mellon spokesperson Eric Sloss said.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05018/443948.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | January 18
In PBS' "Do You Speak American?" special, host Robert MacNeil
talks to yins in the 'Burgh to discover the intricacies of Pittsburghese.
Pittsburgh is just a brief stop on MacNeil's journey across the United
States to discover the diverse dialects and accents that color our culture.
Along the way, the veteran journalist chats with people on the streets,
celebrities and linguistics professors. He discovers that the American
language is always changing and a source of pride for many areas. "People
talk about something called Pittsburghese," explains Barbara
Johnstone, professor of linguistics at Carnegie Mellon
University. "We have this strong idea that we have a way of talking
that happens here and only here, or in this area." "All the
while, they are talking about who they are and what it means to be here,"
she adds.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/tv/s_294149.html | back to top
Tribune-Review | January 17
After the glory, pure elation yields to more complex emotions. Leonardo
Balada's "The Death of Columbus," performed for the
first time Friday night at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, is an uncommonly
impressive and winning contemporary opera that visits the discoverer
of the New World on his deathbed, where memory and imagination mix.
"The Death of Columbus" is the sequel to Balada's "Christopher
Columbus," which was commissioned by the King of Spain for celebrations
of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas. The newer
opera was written in 1992-93 and revised and expanded in 1995-96. Its
premiere was unfortunately not staged, but rather a concert performance
-- with the characters in a row across the front of the stage and choruses
at the back and on one side...Conductor Robert Page
put together the impressive premiere, with the student Carnegie
Mellon Philharmonic and Repertory Chorus quite dependable in
the sometimes challenging modern music. While some inaccurate dynamics,
such as loudness issues, made musical textures less varied than Balada
imagined and wrote in his score, such things are common even at professional
premieres.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/arts/s_293923.html | back to top
Post-Gazette | January 14
Christopher Columbus' legacy is, of course, all of ours. Like it or
not, the effect of his connecting Europe with the Americas -- his mistaken
Indies -- has led to the world we live in. From the Colombian exchange
of flora and fauna to the transmission of endemic diseases to the exploitation
and slaughter of entire cultures, the expedition of 1492 has had massive
consequences. But what of Columbus, himself? A touchstone for controversy
today, he has been given the honor of a celebratory name day, but some
boycott it... For the Spanish-born [Leonardo]
Balada (a Catalan), the pull of Columbus proved too great to
ignore, not unlike Columbus' headstrong desire to find the Western route
to China. The Carnegie Mellon University composer examined
the first part of the explorer's life in "Christopher Columbus,"
which premiered in 1986 (with Jose Carreras and Montserrat Cabelle,
which the label Naxos will release in a few months).
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05014/441713.stm
| back to top
Information Technology
CNN | January 20
As David Perry left a cyber-security conference in Luxembourg in 2004,
an airport terminal handling international flights was in chaos. A network
worm known as Sasser was scorching the world's computer systems and
had knocked out the airport's reservation desk, stranding delegates
in the terminal. In a fable for the information age, conference attendees,
among them some of the world's foremost computer security experts, flipped
open their laptops and reopened the terminal in a matter of minutes...Although
the threat of cyber-terrorism exists, the greatest risk to Internet
communication, commerce and security is from cyber-crime motivated by
profit. The Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research
center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, reports that electronic assaults are growing more sophisticated
-- and lucrative. Attacks have evolved from cracking passwords into
vast coordinated attacks from thousands of hijacked computers for blackmail
and theft. "Attacks against Internet-connected systems have become
so commonplace that reports of the number of incidents provide little
information [about] the scope and impact of attacks," reported
the institute's CERT Coordination Center last year.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH
/internet/01/18/cyber.security/ | back to top
InformationWeek | January 17
Last year, a computer worm that conducts automated reconnaissance appeared;
it uses the Google Inc. search engine to automatically find Web sites
running vulnerable bulletin-board software and then defaces them. The
financial-services industry noticed a spike last fall in phishing attempts
to steal money from customers' accounts and put the blame on a new toolkit
that made it easier to set up such scams...Automated hacking has gotten
so bad that a federally funded effort to track cyberspace attacks has
quit counting. The CERT Coordination Center, part of Carnegie
Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, noted that
21,756 incidents--each of which can involve thousands of sites--were
reported in 2000, 52,658 in 2001, 82,094 in 2002, and 137,529 in 2003.
Last year, it stopped publishing the number. "Given the widespread
use of automated attack tools, attacks against Internet-connected systems
have become so commonplace that counts of the number of incidents reported
provide little information with regard to assessing the scope and impact
of attacks," the group said.
http://www.informationweek.com/story
/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=57701362 | back to top
Biotechnology
Tribune-Review | January 18
A local university professor has built a scale model of Pittsburgh in
her campus basement laboratory with sinister purposes in mind. The simulated
city and suburbs that Carnegie Mellon University computer
science professor Kathleen Carley stores in a supercomputer
are so detailed they have to be shrunk to one-third size to fit in the
memory banks. Into this mini-Pittsburgh, Carley inserts 250,000 simulated
people, or "agents." Hit "start," and they get up
in the morning and go to work or school, call their friends, dine at
restaurants and go to the theater. "Some of our agents that are
high school students, they can cut class," Carley said.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_294207.html | back to top
Newsweek | January 14
Ryan Yorio is an extremely likable 21-year-old who knows he has a problem.
"I have the disease autism," he says. Yorio is what is called
a high-functioning autistic. He has a normal IQ but still has other
hallmarks of the mental disorder — especially difficulty in social
interactions. "I remember when I was younger, I was afraid to make
eye contact, you know, with other people when I talk to them,"
says Yorio. In a lab at Carnegie Mellon University,
researchers scan the brains of autistics like Yorio and control volunteers
while they perform tasks. Dr. Marcel Just, who heads
the effort, points out that both the autistics and the control group
use the same brain areas for perception — but the parts of the
brain that bring things together are far less active in the autistics.
**Please note that this story appeared as a segment on NBC Nightly News.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6827424/
| back to top
Regional Impact
The Pittsburgh Business Times | January 14
Tech transfer is paying off for the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie
Mellon University. Both saw a significant jump in revenue from
spinoffs and related activities in 2004, with Pitt bringing in $5.36
million and Carnegie Mellon $4.63 million. Carnegie Mellon saw its income
from spun-off technologies jump from $2.76 million in fiscal year 2003
to $4.63 million in fiscal year 2004, which also ended June 30. Carnegie
Mellon vice provost Christina Gabriel said there was
no one spinoff from which a bulk of the increase derived. Ms. Gabriel
also said Carnegie Mellon has improved its processes after the promotion
of Bob Wooldrige to director of the Innovation Transfer
Center in February 2002. Since then, he has hired new staff members
who have become familiar with the tech transfer process and in promoting
the benefits with staff and faculty.
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh
/stories/2005/01/17/story6.html | back to top
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | January 19
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is giving Carnegie
Mellon University a $1.5 million grant for the latest phase
of the school's Open Learning Initiative, a program to develop online
versions of high-demand courses in fields from biology and chemistry
to statistics. It is the second grant Carnegie Mellon has received from
the Hewlett Foundation for the project. The introductory-level university
courses are free to anyone with Internet access and, for a nominal fee,
to colleges and universities that offer them for credit.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05019/444750.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | January 17
Regulators riding herd on Corporate America believe disclosure will
do investors a world of good. But Carnegie Mellon University
researchers say that's not necessarily the case.Their experiment on
how advisers and their clients respond when an adviser discloses a conflict
of interest produced some surprising -- and thought-provoking -- results.
"Disclosure can have surprising backfire effects and it shouldn't
be considered the panacea it once was," says Daylian Cain,
a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business.
"The main conclusion in our study is that disclosure left those
receiving advice worse off for having been warned." Cain's partners
were George Loewenstein, an economics and psychology
professor, and Don Moore, an assistant professor whose
specialty is organizational behavior and theory. Their experiment involved
a group of about 150 undergraduate students and jars of coins.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05017/442505.stm
| back to top
International News Stories
News Today, India | January 19
Stayed away from politics for the best results and for the right reasons
[sic]. So said, Prof. Finn Kydland, Nobel
Laureate in Economics-2004, Professor of Tepper School of Business Administration,
Carnegie Mellon University, PA, USA. Kydland is in
Chennai for the foundation ceremony of the Great Lakes Institute of
Management. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is to unveil the foundation
stone of the main building of the GLIM campus today. The land for the
new campus to be provided by the State government is located on Old
Mahabalipuram Road.
http://newstodaynet.com/19jan/bu2.htm
| back to top
The Economist, UK | January 13
Taiwan's deep fascination with a televised form of puppet theatre illustrates
the complexity of what it means to be Taiwanese. Budaixi, as the art
form is known, is an omnipresent feature of Taiwan's cultural and political
life. The island's biggest budaixi production company, PiLi International
Multimedia, says it has an annual turnover of $35m. A million people
a week rent the latest PiLi shows on DVD. Budaixi puppets feature the
wooden expressions and jerky movements of early TV animations, but the
characters, costumes and plots draw on ancient Chinese sources, with
a heavy dose of martial arts and special effects. The target audience
is grown-ups as well as children. Politicians like to portray themselves
as budaixi heroes...In the 1960s, televised budaixi was banned for allegedly
distracting islanders from their work. By the time Taiwan began moving
towards a multi-party democracy in the 1990s, budaixi was in danger
of dying out, but it became "intertwined" with a movement
to revive Taiwanese culture, wrote Wu Sue-mei, a scholar at Carnegie
Mellon University.
http://www.economist.com/
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