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April 14
- 21, 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 April 14 - 21,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 225
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
Science Daily | April 19
Science | April 18
BusinessWeek | April 18
BusinessWeek | April 18
San Jose Mercury News | April 18
The Dallas Morning News | April 18
Student Experience
USA Today | April 19
BusinessWeek | April 18
Qatar Campus
The Chronicle of Higher Education | April 22
Knight Ridder Newspapers | April 15
Information Technology
Tribune-Review | April 21
The Mathematical Association of America | April
18
Cybersecurity
The Chronicle of Higher Education | April 22
The New York Times (ASSOCIATED PRESS) | April
15
Tribune-Review | April 15
Hot Topic: Nanotechnology
Post-Gazette | April 17
Post-Gazette | April 15
Pittsburgh Business Times | April 15
Regional Impact
Tribune-Review | April 19
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | April 21
Post-Gazette | April 20
Tribune-Review | April 19
Post-Gazette | April 17
International News Stories
New Scientist, UK | April 23
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia | April 18
Nature, UK | April 18
The Financial Express | April 14
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National News Stories
Science Daily | April 19
Stories of exciting chemistry discoveries in Scientific American and
The New York Times paint a better picture of chemistry as it is practiced
than do some widely used high school textbooks, according to a study
by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The
findings signal that introductory textbooks could be shortchanging students,
denying them exposure to the creativity of chemistry and omitting context
they need to be scientifically literate citizens, according to the authors,
whose results are in press at the Journal of Chemical Education. "High
school textbooks focus on teaching a set of basic tools that chemists
use, but they often fail to address how those tools are used by practicing
chemists," said David Yaron, associate professor
of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon. "Because of this
misalignment, students may leave an introductory chemistry course without
a practical perspective on the field of chemistry. If one of our goals
is to educate scientifically literate people who can read Scientific
American and the science section of The New York Times, then we are
not giving them the tools they need. We may also be missing chances
to attract talented students to this important field."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases
/2005/04/050418093817.htm | back
to top
Science | April 18
The elusive pentaquark may be about to disappear. A new result presented
at a meeting here of the American Physical Society provides the strongest
evidence yet that the much-studied [theta-plus] particle is just a statistical
mirage. The pentaquark saga began 2 years ago when a Japanese experiment,
SPring-8, seemed to catch a glimpse of a particle that couldn't be made
of two- or three-quark ensembles like all the quarky matter scientists
have seen. Within months, other experiments had announced nearly a dozen
more sightings of the particle (Science, 11 July 2003, p. 153). After
data from earlier particle-physics experiments failed to show the [pentaquark]
or related exotica (Science, 19 November 2004, p. 1281, physicists awaited
the results from several JLab experiments tailor-made to find the pentaquark...The
new data don't completely rule out the pentaquark. But they do undermine
one line of support for the particle's existence and have a much higher
statistical significance than the original sightings did. "I hope
the issue will be settled soon," says Curtis Meyer,
a physicist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. "But I'm not going to buy any pentaquark stock right
now."
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi
/content/full/2005/418/1 | back
to top
BusinessWeek | April 18
With applications down and tuition up at all of BusinessWeek's Top 30
MBA programs, plus an improved job market and mostly stagnant post-MBA
base salaries, B-school deans have a lot to think about these days.
To hear thoughts on the state of the MBA world, BusinessWeek B-Schools
Editor Jennifer Merritt recently spoke with Edward A. Snyder, dean of
University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business; R. Glenn Hubbard,
dean of Columbia Business School; Robert Dolan, dean of University of
Michigan's Ross School of Business; Richard Lyons, dean of the Haas
School of Business at University of California-Berkeley; Ken
Dunn, dean of Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School
of Business; and Steve Jones, dean of the Kenan-Flagler School of Business
at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Edited excerpts of their
conversation follow.
http://www.businessweek.com/@@YISg9ocQqDNAERcA
/magazine/content/05_16/b3929042_mz011.htm
| back to top
BusinessWeek | April 18
As the latest batch of MBA students brace themselves for upcoming finals,
some administrators and recruiters worry that grading has gotten too
easy. More schools are moving to some variation of a pass/fail system.
And at many of those that still give old-fashioned grades, grade inflation
is so bad that students rarely get lower than a B...A soon-to-be-published
new study shows how deeply embedded grade inflation already is throughout
the entire system. A pair of researchers, Don A. Moore,
an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie
Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, and his partner,
Samuel Swift, the director of the Tepper Behavioral Research
Laboratory, studied grade evaluation by B-school admissions committees
after controlling for institution quality using publicly available rankings.
They discovered that admissions staff, even at top B-schools, take grades
at face value, thus MBA applicants are more likely to gain admission
if they came from an undergraduate institution that inflated grades.
Moore deduces that recruiters would have an even more difficult time
understanding the difference between an A at a school with a traditional
grading curve and one somewhere else.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content
/apr2005/bs20050419_8678_bs001.htm | back
to top
San Jose Mercury News | April 18
California stands out as the only state where comatose inmates are shackled
and guarded -- often on overtime -- for months or longer at community
hospitals outside prison walls. Elsewhere in the nation, unconscious
inmates are treated and guarded in prison hospitals or high-security
wings of private health care facilities, sometimes watched by lower-cost
security guards. Or they are medically paroled, sometimes to nursing
homes as a way to save taxpayer dollars. In California in the last six
months of 2004, state officials estimate they spent $1.2 million to
treat six comatose inmates at outside hospitals. And several million
dollars have been set aside to care for similar cases this year..."The
thought of posting a round-the-clock guard is ludicrous for someone
who is comatose," said Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist
at Carnegie Mellon University. "And part of the
problem is that government is enormously risk-adverse." Blumstein
said no one wants to risk losing his job if an unconscious inmate suddenly
bolts up and tries to kill someone or escape.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/
local/states/california/northern_california/11422735.htm
| back to top
The Dallas Morning News | April 18
Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it's with your employer.
Like any other kind of relationship, it can be difficult to know when
it's time to move on from a job. Often, it's just feeling stuck somewhere.
You dread going to the office each day, and yet you dread the thought
of not going even more. For some workers, though, the delay moves to
unhealthy extremes. They stay even when it's obvious that all pretense
of respect from their employer has long since disintegrated. They're
addicted to their bad jobs...According to a fact sheet created by Carnegie
Mellon University's Student Affairs Office, these are the warning
signs of an addictive relationship. (Of course, the list was intended
to refer to toxic romantic ties, but trust me, it still applies.)
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea
/texasliving/stories/041805dnlivbadjobs.2282f8f9.html
| back to top
Student Experience
USA Today | April 19
The master of business administration degree just isn't what it used
to be, thanks to a reinventing of the way executives are trained at
more than 50 business schools nationwide. Fast fading are the days when
students spent two graduate years mastering management theory and honing
a specialty in finance or marketing to serve them in any number of industries.
Instead, business schools are aiming to graduate more well-rounded managers
who are as strong in communication as in technical analysis but geared
often for a career in one particular industry. Spurred by a mix of factors,
from declining application numbers to feedback from unsatisfied employers,
many of the nation's smaller business schools are carving out a niche
by overhauling their MBA curricula...For Rebecca Nathenson, three years
working for start-up software firms in Silicon Valley helped her see
that effective managers are often those who understand the work of both
marketers and engineers. So she chose the Carnegie Mellon
program, new last fall, in which students choose from among nine career-oriented
tracks.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education
/2005-04-19-mba-usat_x.htm | back
to top
BusinessWeek | April 18
As tuition -- which already costs upwards of $50,000 -- continues to
rise, many potential students wonder how they can afford to get an MBA.
The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh awards financial assistance based on merit, like most
B-schools. It takes many other aspects into consideration: a candidate's
GMAT performance, undergraduate GPA, interview, resume, letters of recommendation,
and overall application. About 65% of the Tepper incoming class receives
some form of financial aid. The average debt MBAs graduate with is $65,000.
Bonnie Lack, associate director of financial aid at Tepper, recently
fielded questions from audience members and BusinessWeek Online's Francesca
Di Meglio and Jack Dierdorff. An edited transcript follows.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content
/apr2005/bs20050418_5755_bs004.htm | back
to top
Qatar Campus
The Chronicle of Higher Education | April 22
So imagine you're the head of a small, oil-rich desert emirate. Having
overthrown your father in a bloodless coup, you rule over a sparse,
acquiescent population and control access to seemingly bottomless reserves
of oil and natural gas. Life is good, but still, you'd like to raise
your country's international profile a bit, invest in your people's
human potential, and diversify the economy. What do you do? Sheikh Hamad
bin Khalifa Al-Thani, emir of Qatar, who faced that scenario 10 years
ago, started by inviting a handful of American universities to establish
branch campuses on a tract of desert near the capital here. He called
the project Education City. So far, four American institutions have
accepted the invitation of Qatar (pronounced KAH-ter) to set up campuses
[including] Carnegie Mellon University [which] began
offering undergraduate courses in business and computer science in 2004.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i33/33a04201.htm
| back to top
Knight Ridder Newspapers | April 15
At first glance, Education City doesn't look much like an American university
campus: There are palm trees where the ivy-covered Greek columns should
be and sun-baked dirt instead of rolling college greens. But inside
modernistic white buildings are pieces of Pittsburgh, Ithaca, N.Y.,
and other U.S. university towns: fully functioning mini-campuses of
four major American educational institutions. Washington-based Georgetown
University, which was founded by Jesuit priests, has been in long-running
negotiations to join Carnegie Mellon, Cornell Medical
School, Texas A&M University and Virginia Commonwealth University
on the edge of the Arabian peninsula. "There has been stereotyping
(between the Arab and Western worlds). ... We would like to break that.
We are showing the best of the American system here," said Dr.
Mohammed Fathy Saoud, higher education adviser to the nonprofit Qatar
Foundation, which oversees Education City and other projects.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11405498.htm
| back to top
Information Technology
Tribune-Review | April 21
Electronic voting machines frequently are inferior to the technologies
they replace, evidenced by a string of snafus stretching from Western
Pennsylvania to Miami-Dade County, elections experts say. E-voting nonetheless
is the way of the future, said state consultant Michael Shamos,
a Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor
who has been testing voting machines for the state since 1980. More
than half of the 108 electronic machines Shamos has tested have failed.
But the electronic machines offer better security against fraud than
other systems and, when designed correctly, can offer benefits, such
as alerting voters if they fail to vote in a particular race, he said.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_326434.html | back
to top
The Mathematical Association of America | April
18
Computers can do all sorts of amazing things, from searching the Web
at an incredible rate to playing chess at a grandmaster level. Yet some
tasks that are easy for people to perform remain remarkably difficult
for computers. For example, computer programs have a hard time reading
distorted text or deciphering images.In the last few years, computer
scientists have worked out an ingenious security scheme that takes advantage
of such a mismatch...Here's an example. The following computer-generated
image contains seven different words, randomly selected from a dictionary
and displayed so that they overlap and fall against a complex, colored
background pattern. A person can almost always identify at least three
of the words. A computer program would typically have great difficulty
doing so. Such a puzzle is known as a CAPTCHA. The word was coined by
Luis von Ahn, Manel Blum, and Nicholas
J. Hopper of Carnegie Mellon University and
John Langford of IBM. It stands for "Completely Automated Turing
Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart."
http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_04_18_05.html
| back to top
Cybersecurity
The Chronicle of Higher Education | April 22
Eight universities will work together to try to solve some of the nation's
most vexing computer-security problems. The National Science Foundation
announced last week that it would award a $19-million, five-year contract
to the universities to create a new center to be called the Team for
Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology, or Trust. The University of
California at Berkeley will coordinate the center's activities. Other
participating institutions are Carnegie Mellon, Cornell,
San Jose State, Stanford, and Vanderbilt Universities, and Mills and
Smith Colleges.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51
/i33/33a03402.htm | back to
top
The New York Times (ASSOCIATED PRESS) | April
15
Having trouble navigating cyberspace, kids? Never fear -- George Jetson
is here. Jetson, Kim Possible and other pop-culture characters are part
of a new interactive game designed to help children understand and stay
safe on the Internet. Called MySecureCyberspace, the game was the result
of a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University's
Cylab and its Information Networking Institute. Game users begin by
watching a primer about the Internet -- a grainy, black-and-white movie
with a booming narrator's voice and marching band score reminiscent
of old news movie reels.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology
/AP-Safe-Net-Surfing.html | back
to top
Tribune-Review | April 15
Carnegie Mellon University has developed a cyber game
to help prevent youngsters from spreading viruses and becoming victims
of online predators. The university's CyLab and its Information Networking
Institute will soon launch the initiative, called MySecureCyberspace.
It will include the children's game and a Web-based portal for home
users. Pradeep K. Khosla, CyLab co-founder and dean
of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering, said it is important to
teach children how to avoid computer viruses, worms and scams. Students
playing the game will learn about the dangers of Internet viruses and
cyber-criminals from cartoon characters such as the Disney Channel's
Kim Possible and George Jetson. "With children, they're sometimes
not motivated sitting in a classroom and hearing about things,"
said Dena Haritos Tsamitis, director of the institute
and director of education, training and outreach for CyLab. "We
make the game meaningful to students." Carnegie Mellon is working
with i-SAFE America, a foundation focused on Internet safety education,
to expand the program around the country.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_324452.html | back
to top
Hot Topic: Nanotechnology
Post-Gazette | April 17
Nanotechnology is a lot like a fresh-faced ingenue just-arrived in Hollywood:
bursting with potential, creating a media buzz and waiting for that
first big break. Cheerleaders say that nanotechnology is no flash-in-the-pan.
Rather, it could spark a potential industrial revolution that will radically
alter the way products are made and the world does business...Carnegie
Mellon University last week added to the momentum by announcing
the creation of a multidisciplinary nanotechnology center. According
to Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of the College of Engineering,
Carnegie Mellon already has garnered $7 million in federal research
dollars. That nanotech is still fuzzy and new makes it all the more
exciting for some young firms. There's a greater chance to shine with
fewer players on the field.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05107/489173.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | April 15
Carnegie Mellon University has consolidated its research
in the hot area of nanotechnology into a new Center for Nano-Enabled
Devices and Energy Technologies. The center will be headed by Elias
Towe, professor of electrical and computer engineering and
materials science and engineering, and will include 23 scientists already
pursuing nanotech research in Carnegie Mellon's engineering and science
colleges. That initial team of researchers has a total of $13 million
in research funding. The Institute for Complex Engineered Systems, which
is housing the new center, also will provide seed money for 11 new projects.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05105/488768.stm
| back to top
Pittsburgh Business Times | April 15
Carnegie Mellon University announced plans Thursday
to create a nanotechnology center, the Center for Nano-Enabled Devices
and Energy Technology. The center will bring together nanoscale research
under way at the College of Engineering and the Mellon College of Science.
It will focus on alternative energy technology, including fuel cells,
and sensors that use nanoscale properties to monitor things such as
the human body and the environment, according to Pradeep Khosla,
dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering. "(The focus on
these aspects) is part of our strategy," he said. "We don't
want to be broadly based ... It is an area for us to excel."
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh
/stories/2005/04/11/daily26.html | back
to top
Regional Impact
Tribune-Review | April 19
Some Port Authority buses now have an extra set of eyes scanning the
streets for potential accidents. The first buses armed with collision-warning
sensors on their sides will hit the street soon, making Port Authority
of Allegheny County the first transit agency in the country to use the
technology. The sensors are intended to help prevent accidents by flashing
lights and sounding alarms around the bus driver when objects such as
cars are too close. If successful here, the device could become standard
equipment for buses across the country...Sensors are mounted on the
sides, sending sonar waves away from the bus. When the wave hits a solid
object, like a car, too close to the bus, the alarm is triggered. The
sonar cannot always detect people or bicyclists...A group of Carnegie
Mellon University students is trying to improve the technology
by using laser sensors that could be better at detecting people.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_325578.html | back
to top
Local News Stories
Post-Gazette | April 21
A hacker who tapped into business school computers at Carnegie
Mellon University may have compromised sensitive personal data
belonging to 5,000 to 6,000 graduate students, staff, alumni and others,
officials said yesterday. For information, the school is directing those
potentially affected to a Web site for tips in protecting themselves.
It also is offering them a phone link, 1-800-226-8258, to obtain information.
The breach confirmed by officials in the Tepper School of Business is
the latest in a recent string of campus computer break-ins nationally...At
Carnegie Mellon, [Mike] Laffin said officials do not see a link to any
other campus breach and said the problem does not involve the rest of
campus. Tepper officials said student laptops were not breached, nor
were undergraduate business and economic students or faculty affected.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05111/491836.stm
Post-Gazette | April 20
Barbara Mistick, the new director and first woman to
lead the Carnegie Library, at the grand opening of the Carnegie Library
Squirrel Hill branch yesterday. Barbara K. Mistick, founder of a successful
transportation business and a distinguished service professor at Carnegie
Mellon University, will become the first woman to lead the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Mistick, who takes over as director
on June 1, attended yesterday's opening of the newly renovated Squirrel
Hill branch, where her appointment was announced. The library's trustees
approved Mistick's hiring Monday afternoon. The Shadyside resident succeeds
Herb Elish, who retired in March after more than six years on the job.
Her major challenge, Mistick said, will be maintaining the momentum
of the ambitious agenda that Elish oversaw. During his tenure, the library's
main Oakland location was renovated along with Carnegie libraries in
Homewood, Brookline and Squirrel Hill. A new Downtown business library
opened on Smithfield Street earlier this year.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05110/491075.stm
| back to top
Tribune-Review | April 19
If you don't ask your boss for more money, you probably won't get any.
It seems to be a simple truism. Women lag behind men in terms of salary
because they don't ask for what they want when they are hired, said
Linda C. Babcock, co-author of the 2003 book, "Women
Don't Ask: Negotiations and the Gender Divide." "They are
reluctant to ask for what they want. It helps to re-enforce the wage
gap. Even a graduate from college will lose over $500,000 (in career
wages) because of not negotiating," said Babcock, an economics
professor at Carnegie Mellon University's H. J. Heinz
School of Public Policy and Management in Pittsburgh. Society teaches
young girls that they should wait to be offered something, which leads
to them being reluctant to ask for what they want when they are older
and enter the workforce, Babcock said.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/business/s_325533.html | back
to top
Post-Gazette | April 17
A recent study from the Pittsburgh office of RAND Corp. documented our
interdependence. The city generates $6.6 billion in earnings for suburban
workers who commute into the city. While the city's population has been
shrinking, these earnings still account for more than one-third of all
commuter earnings in Allegheny County. It is time, now or never, to
not only think like a region, but to act like a region. The RAND study
is too recent to have made an impact yet, but it is not clear what it
will take to overcome the pervasive denials of our interdependence.
Recently, at an event outside the city, some in the audience asked why
people in other counties should care about the city's bankruptcy --
or why they should be concerned with the fate of US Airways. In order
to vent their frustration, the board of the Southwestern Pennsylvania
Commission had threatened to block the transfer of highway funds to
the Port Authority, a move that would have punished the elderly, the
needy and suburban workers. Can you hear the wake-up call, Mr. Mayor?
**Please note: Author Jerry Paytas is director of the
Carnegie Mellon Center for Economic Development.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05107/489083.stm
| back to top
International News Stories
New Scientist, UK | April 23
A brief history of AI: 1936 Alan Turing completes his paper "On
computable numbers" which paves the way for artificial intelligence
and modern computing; 1942 Isaac Asimov sets out his three laws of robotics
in the book I, Robot; 1956 John McCarthy coins the phrase "artificial
intelligence" at a conference at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire;
1956 Demonstration of the first AI program, called Logic Theorist, created
by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw and Herbert
Simon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie
Mellon University.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel
/info-tech/mg18624961.700 | back
to top
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia | April 18
How will it all end? Some say we are likely to go with a bang, others
predict a slow, lingering end, while the optimists suggest we will overcome
our difficulties by evolving into a different species. Humans have a
50-50 chance of making it through the 21st century without serious setback,
says Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, professor of cosmology and
astrophysics at the University of Cambridge in England, and author of
Our Final Century. "Some natural threats, such as earthquakes and
meteorite impacts, remain the same throughout time, while others are
aggravated by our modern interconnected world. But we also need to consider
threats that are human-induced." So what are the greatest threats
to humans and can we do anything about them? Here, scientists talk about
their greatest fears and explain how society could be affected...Robots
taking over: Robot controllers double in complexity, or processing power,
every year or two. They are now barely at the lower range of vertebrate
complexity, but should catch up with us within a half-century,"
says Hans Moravec, a research professor at Carnegie
Mellon University's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh. "By
2050 I predict there will be robots with human-like mental power, with
the ability to abstract and generalise."...Chance of super-intelligent
robots in the next 70 years: high.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/The-end-is-nigh
/2005/04/17/1113676644061.html?oneclick=true
| back to top
Nature, UK | April 18
Physicists have come home empty-handed from a thorough hunting expedition
for pentaquarks. The lack of evidence has led some to doubt that these
odd subatomic particles, first sighted in 2002, actually exist. The
pentaquark was discovered at the SPring-8 synchrotron in Harima, Japan1.
The particle, thought to be made up of five quarks, is so unstable that
physicists inferred its existence from the debris of collisions between
gamma rays and carbon atoms..."The data for the existence of pentaquarks
do not look convincing," says Curtis Meyer, a
particle physicist from Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, who presented a detailed comparison of
the pentaquark experiments at the meeting. Meyer says that after the
SPring-8 discovery was announced many groups prematurely jumped on the
pentaquark bandwagon. "Some of those results were really on the
edge," he says. Battaglieri adds that the original sightings were
probably just background noise from the experiments.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050418
/full/050418-1.html | back to
top
The Financial Express | April 14
Onslaught of globalisation, outsourcing and rising competitiveness of
countries like India, besides the American worker pricing himself out
of the market with huge pay cheques, health insurance and other benefits,
has led to a situation where US companies have virtually zilch for employees
wage increases. These are the major reasons given by economists to explain
why employees, across the spectrum of activities in US economy, are
increasingly facing a situation where their companies are left with
less money for raises...Others blame the high oil prices for the low-wage-despite-huge-manufacturing
scenario. "What we're seeing now is not atypical; employers can't
pay the wage bill to keep up with the oil price increase," said
Allan H. Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie
Mellon University.
http://www.financialexpress.com
/latest_full_story.php?content_id=87925 | back
to top
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