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January
28 - February 3, 2005
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications. Please note that some sources may require registration
or a subscription in order to access their information online.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From January 28 - February 3,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 274
references to the university in worldwide
publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
The Chronicle of Higher Education | February
4
The Wall Street Journal | January 28
The Wall Street Journal | January 28
The Day | January 28
Student Experience
Tribune-Review | January 28
BusinessWeek | January 27
Arts and Humanities
The Wall Street Journal | February 2
Tribune-Review | January 29
Washington Post | January 28
Information Technology
Baltimore Sun | February 1
The New York Times (ASSOCIATED PRESS) | January
31
Biotechnology
Newsday | February 2
Environment
Philadelphia Inquirer | February 1
Post-Gazette | February 1
KDKA-TV | February 1
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | January 30
Post-Gazette | January 30
Valley Independent | January 28
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | January 31, 2005
Tribune-Review | January 31
Post-Gazette | January 29
Tribune-Review | January 29
Post-Gazette | January 28
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National News Stories
The Chronicle of Higher Education | February
4
A growing number of colleges and universities are offering courses or,
like Southern Methodist University, full programs in video-game design.
Among them, Carnegie Mellon University has, since 1999,
offered a master's degree in entertainment technology that is run jointly
by the College of Fine Arts and the School of Computer Science. The
university boasts that the graduates of its first class earned average
starting salaries of $60,000 as game programmers, software engineers,
consultants, and researchers.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i22/22a03001.htm
| back to top
The Wall Street Journal | January 28
That's odd, mathematician Lenore Blum thought. At a
math institute where she once served as deputy director, Mondays seemed
to bring more than their share of announcements of new theorems, the
gold rings of mathematical discovery. Prof. Blum, of Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, quickly figured out why. Male
mathematicians hanging out together on weekends wound up doing math,
inspiring each other in a way that produced breakthroughs. Women were
rarely included in these get-togethers; they weren't invited and felt
awkward inviting themselves. Stories like this have been making the
rounds of academics ever since Harvard University President Lawrence
Summers, in a now infamous lunch address, suggested that the relative
paucity of women in science and math (they represent 25% of the work
force in these fields) might reflect "innate differences"
between men and women more than social forces.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1106859036
51738366-search,00.html | back to top
The Wall Street Journal | January 28
Sunlight may not be the best disinfectant after all: A new study suggests
advisers who come clean about conflicts of interest benefit at the expense
of those they advise. The authors of the study, published in the January
issue of the Journal of Legal Studies, said the results "should
challenge the belief that disclosure is a reliable and effective remedy
for the problems caused by conflicts of interest." The study, based
on an experiment with about 150 undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon
University, could have implications for Wall Street, investors and regulators.
The experiment divided students into two groups: "estimators"
who were asked to guess the value of coins in a jar, and their "advisers,"
who got a closer look at the jar. The estimators were paid based on
the accuracy of their guesses, while the advisers sometimes were rewarded
when the estimators guessed correctly and other times were paid more
when the estimators overshot the amount. Estimators were told of this
conflict of interest only some of the time.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20050128
_005877-search,00.html | back to top
The Day | January 28
As home prices and property taxes in many areas of the United States
continue to reach new heights, homeowners are aiming their sights at
a common target: the local tax assessor. Angry about higher tax bills,
and not content with the formal appeals process, citizens are suing
assessors or calling for their ouster. In other cases, mounting pressure
is prompting city councils and community organizations to arrange grilling
sessions where the spotlight is on the assessor to explain why assessed
values and tax bills have gone through the roof...There are a number
of other factors that can affect the process...“Each affects the
accuracy and fairness of real-estate assessment in material ways,”
says Robert P. Strauss, a Carnegie Mellon
University professor of economics and public policy.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?
re=E15E62DE-48F1-4D1A-8BA8-DA1094A3C5A4 | back to
top
Student Experience
Tribune-Review | January 28
Dr. Phil Dahar gave his son a going-away present before he left Shadyside
to study around the world. "He didn't want it, but I insisted he
take it," said Dahar, a dentist from Greensburg, Westmoreland County.
That present, a satellite phone, has been getting a lot of use since
Wednesday when a 50-foot wave and foul weather battered the MV Explorer,
a ship carrying about 700 students, including 110 from Pennsylvania
colleges. The vessel is part of Semester at Sea, an education program
academically sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh and supervised
by the Institute for Shipboard Education. The 591-foot ship left Vancouver
on Jan. 18 for a 100-day trip. It carried 81 students from Pitt, seven
from Penn State University, six from Bucknell University, four from
Carnegie Mellon University, two each from Temple University
and Gettysburg College, and one each from Point Park, Indiana, Lehigh,
Kutztown and Shippensburg universities and Allegheny, La Roche and Juniata
colleges.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_297735.html | back to top
BusinessWeek | January 27
Thibeault responded to his classmates in a big way. In 2003 he, along
with other students, launched Graduate Leverage, a student loan consolidation
and debt-management company in Cambridge, Mass., that this year will
offer advice to about 5,000 MBAs and other graduate students. There's
certainly a ready market among MBAs...Take time to prepare. If you're
just applying, getting your finances in order is one of the first steps
in preparing for B-school. "Get debt to a manageable level before
taking on a student loan," says Bonnie Lack, associate
director of financial aid at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper
School of Business in Pittsburgh, one of the few B-schools with its
own financial-aid office apart from the one undergrads and other grad
students use. "Pay off that car and all those credit cards,"
she adds.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content
/jan2005/bs20050127_1030_bs001.htm | back to top
Arts and Humanities
The Wall Street Journal | February 2
The element of surprise is often associated with George W. Bush. For
many, his re-election was the biggest surprise of all. More recently,
some were startled by the strong content and direction of his second
inaugural address -- the "Freedom Speech." Tonight's State
of the Union address might generate further surprises, but those who
register astonishment simply haven't been paying attention. Despite
their reputation as the party of the elite, key Republican presidents
tend to have had a grass-roots campaign strategy that blindsided Democrats.
Like President Reagan before him, however, President Bush's policies
and his strategy for electoral victory have actually been available
for public scrutiny for a long time, in some instances well before he
occupied the White House. Yet for some reason, his and Reagan's pre-presidential
policies -- the source of their strategies in office -- never found
a place in the Beltway consciousness. In fact, the reason for their
success may very well have been the understated nature of their activities.
***This article was submitted by Kiron K. Skinner,
assistant professor of history at Carnegie Mellon.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB11073063032
4643201-search,00.html | back to top
Tribune-Review | January 29
Early music groups are anything but traditional. They seek to rediscover
persuasive ways to present music for which the thread of performance
style, one form of tradition, has frayed away over the centuries. Yet
American Baroque, the California-based period instruments group that
makes its Pittsburgh debut tonight, long ago broke free of the limitations
of its genre by including contemporary music on its programs and recordings.
The musicians of American Baroque have played modern music almost from
the group's inception. Flutist Stephen Schultz brought
the group together in 1986 because he wanted to record Telemann's "Paris
Quartets." "We were a studio band for the first few years,"
he says, "but then the CDs generated interest in us for concerts
and we were on our way." Schultz, who's 54 and grew up in Los Angeles,
moved to Pittsburgh in 2003 when his wife, Tina, was appointed to the
faculty of Carnegie Mellon University. Now he's on
the faculty there, too, teaching baroque performance practice and music
history.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/music/s_297983.html | back to top
Washington Post | January 28
A year before his grandmother died, Scott Sandage sat down with a tape
recorder and asked her to talk about her life. She told him how she
used to hear her husband crying at night. Sandage's grandfather was
an immigrant kid whose parents pulled him out of school to work in the
brickyards in Mason City, Iowa. Surviving the Depression as a traveling
salesman, he then started making mattresses, one at a time. He made
mattresses for 35 years, taking custom orders in a small shop, scraping
by. He would tell his wife he felt like a failure -- I'm not smart enough
to keep the family together; you graduated from high school, I didn't
even graduate from grade school -- and she would always try to buck
him up. Still, she would hear him weeping. After telling this story,
Sandage says, his grandmother was quiet for a long time. Then she said:
"He was a darn good man." Sandage was 19 at the time. He went
off to college, part of the first generation in his family to do so,
and ended up as a historian at Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh. His book "Born Losers: A History of Failure in America"
is out this month from Harvard University Press. A serious work of cultural
history, built on a decade of research, "Losers" uses the
stories of forgotten Americans to offer a new perspective on our conventional
national narrative of striving and success.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn
/articles/A43288-2005Jan27.html | back to top
Information Technology
Baltimore Sun | February 1
Despite doomsday predictions of machine meltdowns and the hijacking
of votes via computer, the state's new $55 million electronic voting
machines made it through their first major test on Election Day 2004
with what appeared to be only minor glitches. Still, a push to add a
layer of security to the machines -- including a way to conduct meaningful
recounts of ballots if necessary -- appears to be picking up momentum
in Annapolis this year...Some experts say the technology is unproven
and isn't the answer to security problems. Others argue it won't solve
the problem, either. "Voter verifiability is a good thing,"
Michael I. Shamos, a computer science professor at
Carnegie Mellon University who testified on behalf
of Maryland's elections board in TrueVote-MD's suit against it, told
the committee in December. "Paper trails are probably not."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local
/politics/bal-voting0201,1,6327296.story?
coll=bal-local-headlines | back to top
The New York Times (ASSOCIATED PRESS) | January
31
Among the handiest villains in science fiction are Computers That Know
Too Much. Think of the dream-weaving despots of "The Matrix"
or murderous HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey." But in reality,
even the most super supercomputer lacks the reasoning capacity of a
child engrossed in a Dr. Seuss book. Computers can't read the way we
do. They can't learn or reason like us. Narrowing that cognitive gap
between humans and machines -- creating a computer that can read and
learn at a sophisticated level -- is a big goal of artificial intelligence
researchers...Machines already exist that understand spoken words, recognize
faces and make inferences based on experience, says Carnegie
Mellon University computer science professor Tom Mitchell.
But Mitchell, past president of the American Association of Artificial
Intelligence, offers a big caveat: Even though researchers have made
a lot of progress in different areas of cognition, there is still a
big mystery about how the pieces go together.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology
/AP-Machines-That-Read.html | back to top
Biotechnology
Newsday | February 2
The Intelligence Reform law signed in December provides for increased
use of fingerprints, iris scans, hand geometry or facial recognition
to identify passengers. The new law calls on the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security to establish technical systems and standards for such
biometric identifiers in airport access control systems. By March 31,
airports will be required of more thoroughly screening passengers and
visitors. In the area of transportation security, many methods are being
employed. For example, facial recognition passports are intended to
replace passports as they expire. They will come with embedded chips
containing digitized versions of passport photos. They are intended
to be machine-read and compared against databases of terrorists and
criminals. But even Takeo Kanade, a facial recognition
proponent and pioneer from Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh, says it is not as reliable as fingerprinting.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld
/nation/ny-newcrew4132060feb02,0,6397403
.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines | back to top
Environment
Philadelphia Inquirer | February 1
Emergency crews on Tuesday were facing the precarious task of lifting
a damaged railroad car out of the Allegheny River, amid worries that
the corrosive chemical leaking from the tanker would release a caustic
gas. The midsection of an 83-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed
early Monday in East Deer Township, sending several cars into the river
and forcing the evacuation of 200 residents, officials said. There were
no reports of injuries... Emergency management officials planned to
remove a damaged tanker from the river on Tuesday, but were concerned
that hydrogen fluoride gas may be released into the air once the car
comes out of the water, Full said. "The hydrogen in gas stage is
very toxic," said David Dzombak, a civil and environmental
engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
"I would be concerned about keeping the workers and people in the
area safe from the hydrogen fluoride gas."
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn
/news/103-02012005-441588.html | back to top
Post-Gazette | February 1
About 200 people were evacuated from their homes yesterday in the Creighton
section of East Deer so private contractors for Norfolk Southern Railroad
could remove from the Allegheny River a ruptured tanker car filled with
a hazardous chemical. Four tankers and nine other rail cars derailed
at 5:28 a.m. yesterday about 13 miles north of the Point. Two of the
tanker cars that ended up in the river were filled with anhydrous hydrogen
fluoride, a caustic concentrated gas that turns into hydrofluoric acid
when mixed with water. One tanker is almost completely submerged...Hydrogen
fluoride can cause burns to the skin and eyes and may be fatal if inhaled
or absorbed through the skin. David Dzombak, a professor
in Carnegie Mellon University's department of civil
and environmental engineering, said caution should be the watchword
in the tanker removal. "The hydrogen in gas stage is very toxic,"
Dzombak said. "I would be concerned about keeping the workers and
people in the area safe from the hydrogen fluoride gas."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05032/450926.stm
| back to top
KDKA-TV | February 1
Emergency crews on Tuesday were facing the precarious task of lifting
a damaged railroad car out of the Allegheny River, amid worries that
the corrosive chemical leaking from the tanker would release a caustic
gas. The midsection of an 83-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed
early Monday in East Deer Township, sending several cars into the river
and forcing the evacuation of 200 residents, officials said. There were
no reports of injuries. Two of the tanker cars that ended up in the
river contained anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, a chemical used in steelmaking,
but just one of the tankers was leaking, said Betsy Mallison, a state
Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman. The tanker can hold
up to 15,000 gallons..."The hydrogen in gas stage is very toxic,"
said David Dzombak, a civil and environmental engineering
professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "I would
be concerned about keeping the workers and people in the area safe from
the hydrogen fluoride gas."
http://kdka.com/local/local_story_032095541.html
| back to top
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | January 30
The Allegheny Conference on Community Development wants the same outcome
for southwestern Pennsylvania's air quality as I believe the Group Against
Smog and Pollution does (see Kate St. John's Jan. 25 letter, "Unite
for Clean Air"). However, the Allegheny Conference believes the
approach that the Environmental Protection Agency has mandated for PM2.5
is ill-conceived, inefficient and not in this region's best interests.
The complicating factor in regulating PM2.5 is that much of the problem
in one area originates from emissions in another. Indeed, my colleagues
at Carnegie Mellon have conducted an extensive analysis
for the EPA and the Department of Energy that concluded that as much
as 80 percent of PM2.5 in southwestern Pennsylvania originates from
locations outside of our region. Clearly, in order for our region to
achieve clean air standards, we have to rely on upwind communities to
reduce their emissions. ***This letter was written by Carnegie Mellon
University President Jared L. Cohon, who is also a
board member of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05030/449606.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | January 30
As legislators continue talks at the Capitol to find several hundred
million dollars needed for statewide transportation improvements, Gov.
Ed Rendell will make a special trip to Pittsburgh tomorrow to enlist
top business and community leaders in his efforts to rescue ailing mass
transit systems in Allegheny County and Philadelphia. He plans to meet
privately with about 35 corporate, labor, university and community officials,
asking them to contact state legislators from southwestern Pennsylvania
for support in resolving the serious funding crises that face the Allegheny
County Port Authority and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority. Expected at the meeting are Mayor Tom Murphy; county Chief
Executive Dan Onorato; Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg; Carnegie
Mellon University President Jared Cohon; Allegheny
County Labor Council President Jack Shea; Greater Pittsburgh Chamber
of Commerce President Barbara McNeese; Duquesne Light Chief Executive
Officer Morgan O'Brien; U.S. Steel Corp. President John Surma Jr; and
many others.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05030/450123.stm
| back to top
Valley Independent | January 28
It's official. Well, almost. Several mid-Mon Valley communities have
committed to forming a council of governments in order to make the smaller
individual communities stronger as a whole. During a meeting at the
Mon Valley Community Health Center Thursday evening, representatives
from seven communities listened to Michael Foreman, regional local government
policy specialist with the state Department of Community and Economic
Development. Foreman gave them plenty of reasons why a council of governments
[COG] would work for them...At a Feb. 24 meeting, the communities involved
will start to work on bi-laws for the COG and try to find a solicitor.
Also, Foreman and Carnegie Mellon professors David
Lewis and Luis Rico will report on COG research
done by students and interns at the university. Lewis has pledged to
use resources from not only Carnegie Mellon, but also the University
of Pittsburgh and California University of Pennsylvania, to help get
the COG rolling along smoothly and successfully.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/newssummary/s_297911.html | back to top
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | January 31, 2005
Crime on the campuses of 22 four-year colleges and universities in the
region appears to be on the decline. The total number of crimes dropped
to 283 in 2003 from 319 in 2002, according to the most recent data the
schools gave to the U.S. Department of Education. The crime rate at
the region's campuses also dipped to 1.9 for each 1,000 students from
2.1. "What you're seeing on those 22 colleges in Western Pennsylvania
may be indicative of what's going on around the nation," said Catherine
Bath, executive director of Security on Campus, a campus crime watchdog
group based in King of Prussia, Montgomery County.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_298579.html | back to top
Tribune-Review | January 31
Not even zealous federal investigators will scare off contributors to
this year's crop of candidates for mayor of Pittsburgh. Campaign finance
reports due today are expected to detail contributions totaling nearly
a half-million dollars -- and the race is only beginning. The mayor's
office, though constrained by two state oversight boards, remains strong
enough to generate significant campaign contributions, said
Robert Strauss, a public policy professor at Carnegie
Mellon University. The mayor might not have as many jobs to
hand out, but will still control city authorities and regulatory issues
such as zoning, which will determine the direction of development. "The
home rule charter makes the mayor a very powerful guy," Strauss
said. "The mayor will still have control ultimately over the public
authorities and lots of regulatory issues that don't affect his budget,
but are of economic value."
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_298580.html | back to top
Post-Gazette | January 29
Finally, the world has a robot that can shake its hips. Its maker, Sony
Electronics, has named it Qrio (pronounced like curio), but the way
the surprisingly supple humanoid wiggled its hips during several dance
routines yesterday, it could just as easily be called Elvis. Hideki
Komiyama, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics,
yesterday brought the 2 1/2-foot-tall, silver-colored robot to Carnegie
Mellon University -- with which Sony has a "special relationship,"
he said ---- for a series of demonstrations and talks. Several hundred
students and faculty, many with kids in tow, packed into an auditorium
of the University Center yesterday morning to see a half-hour demonstration.
In addition to tai chi routines and several dances, Qrio also showed
that it could find and kick a ball, recognize faces, and, if pushed
over, get back up on its feet without assistance.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05029/449768.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | January 29
The twin 2 1/2-foot-tall visitors to Carnegie Mellon
University Friday danced a mean meringue and slipped into a Pittsburghese
dialect while pining for a Primanti's sandwich and french fries from
the "O." Qrio, a 2-year-old humanoid robot and corporate ambassador
for Sony Electronics Inc., wowed a packed house at the university's
Campus Center with its fluidity of movement during preprogrammed dances.
Even its more labored efforts to locate, shuffle to and kick a small
orange ball when left to its own wits -- relying on the two cameras
behind its eyes and the 18 sensors scattered throughout its silver metallic
body -- marked a significant improvement over herky-jerky cinema robots
like C3PO from Star Wars.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/business/s_298114.html | back to top
Post-Gazette | January 28
If you think Bill Cowher had trouble controlling his players on the
field last Sunday, wait till you see the Super Bowl this weekend. This
isn't Eagles-Patriots. This is the 11th annual Electric Football Super
Bowl, kicking off in Steeler Country for the first time tomorrow at
the Airport Embassy Suites in Coraopolis. In Electric Football, as every
boomer knows, you set up your little players on the board, hit the switch,
and, when it starts buzzing, anything can happen -- your little football
men smash together, go backward, sideways and sometimes, miraculously,
straight ahead. The pure Randy-Moss-ian unpredictability of the players
would seem to rule out competitive play. But that won't stop the "coaches"
in leagues nationwide from coming to Coraopolis to battle with those
little felt balls. In Pittsburgh, one of the head coaches is Rob
Dalmasse, a 42-year-old from Edgewood who formed a league with
his friends in the chemistry department at Carnegie Mellon.
He first played Electric Football back in '69 on his brother's board.
It was Browns vs. Jets. During the glory days of the '70s, he updated
to make it Steelers vs. Cowboys. Then, like most kids, he stashed it
in the basement and went on with his life.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05028/448957.stm
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