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March 25
- 31, 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 March 25 - 31,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 125
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
National Public Radio (NPR) | March 31
The Journal News | March 30
The New York Times | March 29
Science Magazine | March 25
Qatar Campus
International Herald Tribune | March 25
Arts and Humanities
Tribune-Review | March 31
Post-Gazette | March 28
Post-Gazette | March 28
Tribune-Review | March 27
Tribune-Review | March 26
Information Technology
Post-Gazette | March 29
Post-Gazette | March 27
Environment
Naples Daily News | March 27
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | March 30
Tribune-Review | March 29
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | March 31
Post-Gazette | March 29
Post-Gazette | March 28
International News Stories
New Scientist, UK | March 26
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National News Stories
National Public Radio (NPR) | March 31
On the eve of Paul Wolfowitz's nomination to head the World Bank, Allan
Meltzer, professor of political economy at Carnegie
Mellon University, and Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center
for Global Development and former director of policy research at the
World Bank, discuss the mission and future of the bank.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story
/story.php?storyId=4568794 | back
to top
The Journal News | March 30
The Yankees play the Red Sox six times over the first 12 days of the
season. The Mets have a road trip that takes them to Oakland, Seattle
and then all the way across the country to Philadelphia. On Memorial
Day, a perfect spring holiday to take in a game, only 16 of the 30 teams
are playing. Think you could create a better schedule? Major League
Baseball invites you to try. You won't be alone. A husband-and-wife
team from Massachusetts and a group of college professors were among
those who gave it a shot this year...Doug Bureman, a former employee
of the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates, helped form SSG.
Two university professors joined Bureman. Michael Trick
teaches business at Carnegie Mellon, and George Nemhauser
systems engineering at Georgia Tech. According to Feeney, SSG was chosen
because it did the best job of avoiding the dreaded "semi-repeaters."
Those come when teams play the same opponents home-and-away within the
same week or 10 days. With teams playing division rivals 19 times, it's
a thorny problem to solve.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID
=/20050330/SPORTS01/503300303/1108 | back
to top
The New York Times | March 29
The landscape looked lifeless. But satellite images from orbit identified
geological formations containing minerals that microbes sometimes like
to nestle in, and scientists dispatched a small rover to look at the
rocks up close...The exercise last summer was practice for the techniques
scientists hope to use in the future on Mars, where the question of
life remains intriguingly open. "You've got to go look," said
Dr. Alan S. Waggoner, director of the Molecular Biosensor
and Imaging Center at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh and a participant in the NASA-sponsored project. "I'd
give it a 50-50 shot that you could find it somewhere underground. But
then that's a guess." He is not alone. In an informal poll taken
last month at a conference in the Netherlands, three-quarters of 250
scientists working on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission
said they believed Mars once possessed conditions hospitable to life.
One quarter believe it still does.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29
/science/space/29mars.html | back
to top
Science Magazine | March 25
When Susan Sclafani and her colleagues in Houston, Texas, received a
$1.35 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to work
with secondary math and science teachers, nobody asked them to demonstrate
whether the training improved student performance. "All we had
to do was produce qualitative annual reports documenting what we had
done," she says. Sclafani thought that wasn't nearly enough and
that NSF should be more concerned about whether the project helped students
learn. Now, a decade later, she's in a position to do a lot more. And
that's exactly what worries many education researchers...Some of the
researchers conducting these studies aren't so sure, however. One hurdle
is convincing a large enough sample of schools to agree to randomization.
"Everybody wants to have the treatment, nobody wants to have the
placebo," says Kenneth Koedinger, a psychologist
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
who's leading the Cognitive Tutor study.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content
/full/307/5717/1861 | back to
top
Qatar Campus
International Herald Tribune | March 25
Qatar may seem an odd country to be leading education reform in the
Gulf region. The country's ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani,
tolerates no political dissent, and many areas of public life remain
off-limits to debate. Yet Doha has become home to one of the boldest
experiments in higher education in the world, and certainly the boldest
in the Middle East. Four U.S. universities - Cornell Medical, Virginia
Commonwealth, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M - have
opened branch campuses in this tiny Gulf country over the past two years,
and a fifth is expected soon...Many of the students were attracted by
the combination of a Western education in a Middle Eastern setting...Although
the university experiment here is largely successful, cultural differences
surface in unexpected ways. A professor at Carnegie Mellon, John
Robertson, describes teaching a Victorian-era novel in a freshman
seminar. He explained to the class that, in writing from that time,
nature reflects the inner turmoil of the characters. He found that the
students missed the implication for the main character, however, in
one key scene where the skies darkened and rain loomed. "We live
in a desert," Robertson recalls one student telling him. "Why
should we think that clouds and rain are a bad thing?"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03
/24/news/schools.html | back
to top
Arts and Humanities
Tribune-Review | March 31
The latest exhibition at Carnegie Mellon's Regina Gouger
Miller Gallery is an engaging one. Featuring artworks by five master
of fine arts candidates of Carnegie Mellon's School of Art -- Jacob
Ciocci, Adam Davies, Carolyn Lambert, Mario Marzan and Blithe Riley
-- the show has a way of pulling the visitor into it in one way or another.
For example, one can hold hands with a cyborg, drink freshly filtered
river water or take a nap in a dream cube filled with references to
pop culture, if so inclined.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/arts/s_318804.html | back
to top
Post-Gazette | March 28
You wouldn't know it to watch her in action, but Jennifer Lerner
specializes in anger. In person, the 36-year-old Carnegie Mellon
University professor is poised, good-natured and frequently lets loose
with a deep-throated laugh. But her research has made anger her signature
work -- in particular, understanding how it shapes people's views of
life and influences the decisions they make. Lerner is one of a growing
cadre of academics in the field of "decision science," an
intriguing mix of psychology, economics and neuroscience. They try to
unravel how emotions and cognition interact, and how this stew of feeling
and thinking governs people's real-world choices.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05087/478644.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | March 28
Babies really do like baby talk. Not only do infants like the exaggerated
intonation, the higher pitch and the short, simple sentences typical
of baby talk, but they actually learn to speak sooner if adults speak
to them this way, according to a study published this month in the journal
Infancy. In a series of experiments with 8-month-old infants, Erik
Thiessen, director of the Infant Language and Learning Lab
at Carnegie Mellon University, found that they learned
words more quickly when the words were expressed in baby talk than they
did if they heard the same words spoken in the same monotone that adults
use to address each other. Thiessen said the findings may also suggest
why it is that adults so often struggle to learn a second language...A
U.S. Army post in Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood, has given its Commander's
Award for Public Service to a cognitive psychologist at Carnegie Mellon
University for his work to improve training for land mine detection.
The training system developed by Carnegie Mellon's James Staszewski
has boosted land mine detection rates with handheld metal detectors,
which once hovered around 15 percent, to 87 percent to 100 percent.
Since the training system was coupled with a more sophisticated metal
detector, detection rates have hovered around 98 percent.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05087/478561.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | March 27
The rule at museums used to be "don't touch." But hands-on
play is the name of the game at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.
Yet enabling kids to enjoy a large collection of fragile puppets, some
centuries old, posed a special problem. Unlike such activities as creating
art in the studio, dressing up in costumes and riding the trolley in
a re-creation of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the 700 puppets from all
over the world are one of the few collections of objects at the museum
that can't be handled. The Children's Museum found a solution in a collaboration
with the Entertainment Technology Center, a master's degree program
of Carnegie Mellon University. A student "animateering"
project created three-dimensional versions of 25 of the puppets that
children can enjoy with familiar computer game controls, leaving the
original puppets preserved. The success of the puppet animateering project
is one of many at the Entertainment Technology Center, where students
develop their skills at creating the future digitally.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/arts/s_317032.html | back
to top
Tribune-Review | March 26
If the idea of landscaping seems daunting, Pittsburghers can get inspiration
from experts at a symposium at Carnegie Mellon University.
Some of the nation's leading artists and landscape architects will gather
April 11 for "No Stone Unturned: A Symposium of Artists and Gardens"
to celebrate the completion last fall of the Kraus Campo garden and
discuss the aesthetics of gardening and how it relates to art and architecture.
"Whether you're interested in it from the garden point of view
or the art side, I think there is going to be a lot of energy and different
view points presented," says artist Mel Bochner, co-designer of
Kraus Campo. The symposium is the first of its kind to be devoted to
the artistic and landscaping aspects of gardening, says Bochner, who
is widely recognized as one of the founders of conceptual art.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/style/homegarden
/gardening/s_317445.html | back
to top
Information Technology
Post-Gazette | March 29
Remember Napster? The free Internet file-sharing program that nearly
brought the music industry to its knees before it was shut down in court
six years ago? Napster has now gone legit -- offering music downloads
for a fee. But the issue of free copying of music and movies on the
Internet hasn't gone away. Today the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear
oral arguments on what some experts are calling the most significant
copyright issue since 1984, when the court decided that Sony's Betamax
video tape recorder didn't violate copyright law. In one corner: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios, backed by 28 of the world's most powerful movie studios and
record companies. In the other corner: Online file-sharing services
Grokster and StreamCast Networks, which allow people to search computers
of others and download music and movies free of charge. They are supported
by Kazaa, Morpheus, Limewire and other popular file-sharing programs,
along with technology and consumer electronics companies. Grokster also
is supported by a group of engineering and computer science professors
from nine universities, including David J. Farber,
distinguished career professor of Computer Science and Public Policy
at Carnegie Mellon. In a brief submitted to the court,
they argued that a ruling against file sharing could chill innovation
in computers and on the Internet.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05088/478943.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | March 27
In the world of wardrivers, there are the good guys and there are the
bad guys. Wardrivers are people who ride in their cars with laptop computers
and scout for wireless Internet, or WiFi, connections. Wardriver Rick
Farina of Robinson says he is doing good by identifying unsecured wireless
networks and, for a starting price of $75, offering to help their owners
protect them.
Other wardrivers aren't so well-intentioned..."All of the risks
can be distilled down to one issue," said Larry Rogers,
a senior member of the technical staff at the U.S. Computer Emergency
Response Team or CERT, which tracks and monitors computer security issues.
Wireless networks are vulnerable, and determined hackers will penetrate
them...Andrew Widdowson, a Carnegie Mellon University
computer science major and wireless security enthusiast, likens wireless
theft to modern-day "dumpster diving" -- where thieves check
trash for credit card and bank account statements.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05086/477876.stm
| back to top
Environment
Naples Daily News | March 27
From the outside, it looks like just another house on an upscale residential
street outside Barcelona. But inside this "smart house," its
creators say, is the most advanced domestic technology in Europe. The
home can clean itself, adjust to changes in the weather and cut energy
consumption. A family of four lives in the Eneo Labs showcase home,
a sprawling two-story abode with an impeccable garden and green, spongy
grass...Most of these technologies have been used for a decade or more
in the United States or Japan. But Europe's smart house industry has
caught up rapidly in recent years, and experts say European companies
have an edge on helping homes conserve energy. "Though smart houses
are more widespread in the U.S., Europe is far ahead in terms of researching
and commercializing energy-efficient practices," said Volker
Hartkopf, a professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon
University and an expert in smart house technologies.
http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/real_estate/article
/0,2071,NPDN_14970_3649071,00.html | back
to top
Regional Impact
Post-Gazette | March 30
Pupils at Avalon Elementary School in Northgate School District got
radio airtime and their names on a compact disc when they were chosen
to record book reports. The reports are being aired on the "Saturday
Light Brigade," a children's show, now through the summer. They
have also been placed on the Internet and distributed on a CD. The show
airs from 6 a.m. to noon Saturdays on WRCT-FM, the lower-power FM station
on the Carnegie Mellon University campus that reaches
12 to 15 miles from campus...One youngster's grandparents live in Egypt
and were able to listen to her report on the Internet. Reports are being
aired in groups at about 8:30 a.m.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05089/479456.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | March 29
Pittsburgh Technology Council hopes to advance regional and state efforts
to build a nanotechnology industry here, including using a $200,000
state grant to help establish a Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization
Center in South Oakland. The center will seek to secure millions of
dollars in federal research and development funding that can be directed
to projects that seek to advance commercial applications of nanomaterials.
It will be based on a model established for the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse,
a state-sponsored project specializing in establishing a microchip industry
in the region. Partners in the project so far will include four major
area companies -- Alcoa Inc., the Bayer Material Science unit of Bayer
Corp., PPG Industries Inc. and U.S. Steel Corp. -- as well as two universities:
Carnegie Mellon University and Pennsylvania State University.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/business/s_318163.html | back
to top
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | March 31
A series of pending real estate transactions will enable Pittsburgh
Vision Services to relocate its main headquarters from Oakland to a
former hospital building in Homestead by midyear and, sometime later,
move its Bridgeville-based operations to the same site. In addition,
the sale of the organization's 90,000-square-foot building at 300 S.
Craig St. will give Carnegie Mellon University added
space near its Oakland campus to house research operations, including
some for the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center..."This is a positive
addition to Carnegie Mellon," said [Chris Gabriel,
vice provost and chief technology officer], who oversees university
capital projects, facilities design, construction and renovations. "Meanwhile,
we will endeavor to preserve the character of the Craig Street business
district, which we believe is very successful and important to our campus
community."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_318975.html
| back to top
Post-Gazette | March 29
Hispanic Engineer and Information Technology Magazine named Cristina
Amon of Carnegie Mellon University one of
America's 50 most important Hispanics in technology and business. Amon
is the Raymond J. Lane distinguished professor of mechanical engineering
at Carnegie Mellon and director of the Institute for Complex Engineered
Systems. Amon's research helped pioneer design development of portable
electronics, such as laptop computers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05088/478999.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | March 28
Raymond Andrew Sorensen, a theoretical nuclear physicist and former
chairman of Carnegie Mellon University's physics department,
died March 13 of heart failure. He was 74. Mr. Sorensen grew up in Wilkinsburg
and attended Edgewood High School. After two years at the College of
Wooster in Ohio, he transferred to Carnegie Mellon, where he earned
a bachelor's degree in 1953 and a doctorate in physics in 1958. After
a year at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and two years at Columbia
University in New York City, Mr. Sorensen joined the faculty at his
alma mater where he worked until his retirement in 1997. "He was
a strong advocate of physics, always meticulously prepared and thoroughly
honest and trustworthy in his analysis of departmental plans and in
administrative matters," said Robert F. Sekerka,
who first met Sorensen in 1982 when Sekerka had become dean of the Mellon
College of Science. "We owe a debt of gratitude to Ray and his
gracious wife, Audrey, for their diligent service to Carnegie Mellon."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05087/478678.stm
| back to top
International News Stories
New Scientist, UK | March 26
The genetic basis of a distressing neurological condition that prevents
people from recognising faces has been pinned down. The finding may
help people cope with the impairment, which the researchers believe
may affect 1 in 50 people from birth. People with prosopagnosia, or
face blindness, cannot easily tell faces apart, even if they belong
to people they know well, and so often see their friends and family
as strangers. The condition is usually associated with brain damage,
for example from a stroke, but numerous anecdotal reports have suggested
that it also runs in families...Marlene Behrmann, a
psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, US, says the study is a big step forward. "This is
a new model for us. We've got a lot to do," she says.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7174
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