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November
4, 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 October 28-November 3,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 221
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
Discover Magazine | November 2005
Newsday | November 3
The New York Times (AP) | November 2
The New York Times | November 1
Atlanta Journal Constitution | November 1
Minneapolis Star Tribune | October 30
The Wall Street Journal | October 28
CNN Money | October 28
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 1
Vermont Guardian | November 1
Philadelphia Inquirer | October 30
Information Technology
Akron Beacon Journal | November 3
Newsday | November 1
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 28
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 3
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 2
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 1
International News Stories
Gulf Times | November 4
International Herald Tribune | October 31
Malaysia Star | October 30
ZDNet India | October 28
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National News Stories
Discover Magazine | November 2005
Economists have long been baffled by what they call the equity-premium
puzzle: Long term, on average, stocks outperform bonds by a decent margin,
yet people tend to put more money into bonds than they do into stocks.
Why? Economists and neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Iowa decided to find out whether people's
feelings got in the way of their intellects. They found that stroke
victims and others with damage to the emotional centers of their brains
made better investment decisions than those with a full range of emotions.
The researchers gave the subjects $20 and asked them to invest—that
is, bet on the flip of a coin, a dollar at a time. ... The healthy subjects
may have felt safer with the money in hand, a feeling that overruled
their logical thinking, says George Loewenstein, a
lead scientist on the study. "In the stock market you get compensated
for taking risks," he says. "But there are other situations
where it can be disastrous. People can end up losing their job and losing
their family."
http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-05/
rd/do-emotions-cloud/ | back to top
Newsday | November 3
In Samuel Alito's first year as U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 1987,
the number of defendants his office prosecuted plunged 30 percent from
the year before, with the biggest drop coming in drug cases, an analysis
of federal criminal justice data shows. ... In fact, in no year in the
past two decades has the office prosecuted so few criminal defendants
as it did in each of the four years it was under Alito's control, the
analysis found. ... John Lacey, a former assistant prosecutor under
Alito, and crime expert Alfred Blumstein of
Carnegie Mellon University, yesterday both said the drop in
prosecutions, particularly of drug crimes, could indicate Alito's preference
for organized crime and other cases. ... "He obviously slowed things
down," said Blumstein. If Alito consciously sought to move away
from small drug crimes to focus on more complex criminal activities,
Blumstein said, it was a "wise exchange." Lacey, now a New
Jersey defense lawyer, said his recollection is that is exactly what
Alito did - drop the "small buy" cases.
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/
nation/ny-usjudg034495803nov03,0,7523002.
story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print | back to top
The New York Times (AP) | November 2
Imagine this: You want to whisper something to a co-worker in Spanish,
but you can't speak the language. So you simply mouth the words in English,
without uttering a sound, and they immediately pop up in Spanish on
your colleague's computer. The premise may seem far-fetched, but researchers
are working toward making it a reality. As Carnegie Mellon
doctoral student Stan Jou mouthed words in Mandarin recently, 11 electrodes
on his face and throat sensed what he said by the movement of his facial
muscles and promptly translated it into English and Spanish. The device
is among several projects at the International Center for Advanced Communication
Technologies designed to tear down language barriers using computers.
The center is run jointly by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh
and the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. Using a different device,
the center's director, Alexander Waibel, delivered
a lecture last week simultaneously translated from English to German
and Spanish. All he had to do was speak into a microphone.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/
technology/AP-Translation-Technology.html | back
to top
The New York Times | November 1
If Ben S. Bernanke has his way, the Federal Reserve is likely to become
more open, less mysterious and perhaps less intriguing than it is right
now. ... The ambiguity of inflation-targeting is evident in the speculation
about whether Mr. Bernanke would be a tough-minded "hawk"
or a soft-hearted "dove" on inflation. ... The uncertainty
suggests that the Fed could be forced to explain a great deal more about
its strategy, simply to clarify how its inflation target would actually
work. "It's going to take a big educational job," said Allan
H. Meltzer, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh and a historian of the Fed. "Right now,
we have a lot of people in the markets yelling about inflation. Short-term
numbers show that prices are rising, but we all know that has to do
with oil prices and that's a one-time increase. You have to explain
what you're doing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/business/
01fedspeak.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1130957004-
48q1jOukx1CrGB1nYmLvbQ | back to top
Atlanta Journal Constitution | November 1
The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday boosted short-term interest rates
for the 12th time in a year and a half, discounting any long-term effects
on the economy from this season's hurricanes. ... In an accompanying
statement, the Fed hinted strongly that rate boosts would continue.
Rates may keep rising "at a pace that is likely to be measured,"
the Fed said. That's generally taken as code for quarter-point increases.
Most economists expect similar boosts in December and probably in January,
when the last meetings are scheduled before the retirement of 18-year
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. "I don't know what they are going
to do, but what they should do is go to 4.25 or 4.5 percent," said
economist and Fed watcher Allan Meltzer of Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "That is kind of a neutral
place for the Fed to end."
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/
business/1105/02bizfed.html | back to top
Minneapolis Star Tribune | October 30
The go-go 1990s economy conjured a new -- and illusory -- image of the
Fed chairman deftly pushing all the right buttons to make inflation
sink to the tamest levels since the 1960s while productivity, personal
income and economic growth soared. Since 2000, however, the buttons
-- and the hand pushing them -- have seemed less commanding. A stock
market bubble he tried to deflate slowly instead burst. A recession
he tried to avert arrived. A job market he tried to push forward stalled
stubbornly. A series of interest-rate increases he championed has failed
so far to significantly lift the cost of long-term loans. ... Still,
some bridle at the thought that the same people who once overstated
the authority of the job of Fed chairman now might underestimate it.
"I've been following monetary policy since the 1950s. I've never
seen a period when some jackass doesn't want to write that the Fed is
losing its power," said Allan Meltzer, Carnegie
Mellon University economist and author of the book, "A
History of the Federal Reserve." "It's not perfect. It makes
mistakes," Meltzer said. However, he adds that the Fed's ability
to influence the economy "remains very strong."
http://www.startribune.com/stories/
535/5695630.html | back to top
The Wall Street Journal | October 28
World Bank money is building schools in China's impoverished western
provinces but the bill for interest charges is being mailed to the United
Kingdom, attention Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown. Mexico, Chile
and Brazil will soon be lining up for the same deal. This is but the
latest scheme designed to preserve the World Bank's lending role at
a time when the need and demand for its services are falling. ... The
cost of doing business with the Bank is not just about money or about
the burdens of the bureaucratic "hassle factor." There is
also the "technical assistance," which the Bank has always
insisted be tightly bundled with subsidized loans. Translated, this
Bankspeak is really about imposing a First World vision upon an emerging
world. The environment must be safeguarded, workers must be protected,
women must play an equal role, indigenous peoples must be empowered
and the overriding focus must be on the poor. *** This article was written
by Adam Lerrick, Carnegie Mellon professor
of economics and director of The Gailliot Center for Public Policy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113046603851182183-
search.html?KEYWORDS=%22Carnegie+Mellon%22&COLLECTION
=wsjie/archive | back to top
CNN Money | October 28
[Ben] Bernanke has pledged to continue Greenspan's policy of preemptively
fighting inflation with interest rate hikes when necessary. But he also
has been a proponent of so-called inflation targets, meaning that the
Fed would alter monetary policy in order to attain a specified rate
of inflation. A numerical target, some argue, could make it even easier
for the markets to predict what the Fed will do. That could eliminate
the need for terms like "measured." "Inflation targets
would be a good idea," said Marvin Goodfriend,
professor of economics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie
Mellon and a former policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank
of Richmond. "There has been an evolution in the ability of central
bankers and economists in explaining monetary policy and as leadership
moves to a younger generation I would expect that to continue. Clearly,
Bernanke is a person who has made communication skills very important,"
Goodfriend added.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/28/
news/economy/fed_preview/ | back to top
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 1
For the third year running, in lieu of a fall vacation, the changing
of the seasons has brought a different sort of break to students in
Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama. Rather
than taking time off, the school's dramats faced the challenge of preparing
dozens of short productions for their annual "Playground"
series of performances. Amid homecoming's other special events -- class
reunions, a performance of "A Chorus Line" and even a "dive-in
movie" screening of "Pirates of the Caribbean" in the
university's pool -- "Playground's" showcase of nearly 40
short pieces, each 45 minutes at most, ran from Friday to Sunday evening.
Open to the public for no charge, the event included music, film and
theater, all conceived, rehearsed and performed in a single week. ...
Despite restricting its performers to "only a performance venue,
limited rehearsal time and zero budget," an eight-show sample of
the festival provided ample evidence of the depth and quality possible
in such a format -- and of the all-around daring of these student-performers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05305/598246.stm | back to top
Vermont Guardian | November 1
In a paper published by the Chicago-Kent Law Review, [Jules Lobel of
the University of Pittsburgh] and Carnegie Mellon University
professor George Loewenstein draw on recent scientific
and social research to conclude that the sense of perpetual crisis that
emerged during the Cold War and escalated after 9/11 has distorted the
true risk of being killed in a terrorist attack and led policymakers
to respond with an expansion of federal law enforcement powers, cumbersome
security measures, and a war that may be self-defeating. ... "Moderate
levels of fear, anger or any almost any form of negative emotion warn
the deliberative system that something is wrong and that its capabilities
are required,” Loewenstein explained in a summary of the research
released by Carnegie Mellon. “Perversely, as emotion intensifies,
however, it tends to assume control over behavior even as it triggers
the deliberative system, so one may realize what the best course of
action is, but find one's self doing the opposite." The researchers
conclude that emotional responses can prompt government officials to
make decisions in response to a crisis with little regard to the long-term
consequences. In terms of public policy, they say that when people are
angry, afraid or in elevated emotional states, they tend to favor symbolic,
viscerally satisfying solutions to problems over more substantive, complex,
but ultimately more effective policies.
http://www.vermontguardian.com/
dailies/112005/1101.shtml | back to top
Philadelphia Inquirer | October 30
Like medieval villagers with pitchforks, antitax groups were on the
march in the mid-1990s across the Philadelphia suburbs. In school district
after school district, the tax protesters were able to storm the castle
and elect their own to the school board. But a decade later, school
property taxes continue a relentless rise. ... Robert P. Strauss,
professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University,
generally blamed higher school taxes on rising teacher salaries and
health-care benefit costs. While costs have gone up, state subsidies
have slid. In Pennsylvania districts, on average, about 35 percent of
education dollars come from the state, down from 50 percent in the '70s.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
news/local/13034740.htm | back to top
Information Technology
Akron Beacon Journal | November 3
Conceding the inevitability of a worldwide flu pandemic, Ohio public
health experts focused Wednesday on how the state would detect and respond
to the arrival of a deadly virus. ... Robert Campbell, chief of the
bureau of health surveillance at the Ohio Department of Health, outlined
national and state systems for electronically reporting infectious diseases.
He said the national system that would be most useful in a flu pandemic
is RODS (Realtime Outbreak and Disease Surveillance), which was developed
by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie
Mellon University. From this database, local health departments
can continually receive information about signs of unusual flu or infection
cases. The database draws its information from such sources as drugstores
and hospitals.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/
living/health/13069022.htm | back to top
Newsday | November 1
A new generation of video games wants to save the world through peace
and democracy. A Carnegie Mellon University team is
working on a game on the Mideast conflict - you win by negotiating peace
between Israelis and Palestinians. In the United Nations' World Food
Program's new online game, Food Force, (www.food-force .com) players
must figure out how to feed thousands on a fictitious island.
http://www.newsday.com/features/
printedition/ny-2use4492291nov01,0,
7401146.story?coll=ny-features-print | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 28
Stan Jou's lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Mr. Jou, a
graduate student in language technologies at Carnegie Mellon
University, was simply mouthing words in his native Mandarin
Chinese. But 11 electrodes attached to his face and neck detected his
muscle movements, enabling a computer program to figure out what he
was trying to say and then translate his Mandarin into English. The
result boomed out of a loudspeaker a few seconds later: "Let me
introduce our new prototype," a synthesized voice announced. "You
can speak in Mandarin and it translates into English or Spanish."
"This is a bit of science fiction," said Alex Waibel,
director of the International Center for Advanced Communications Technologies,
"but it is a vision that we think is very exciting." And where
it once seemed a distant dream, it now is being actively developed thanks
to recent advances in machine translation.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05301/596293.stm | back to top
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 3
He had "the face of a plumber and the soul of a poet." This
description of Luke Swank was relayed by a relative of the late photographer
to Howard Bossen as he was wrapping up his research. Bossen is guest
curator of the exhibition "Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer,"
which opens Saturday at Carnegie Museum of Art, and author of a book
by the same title published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. ...
Bossen, a professor of journalism and adjunct curator at the Kresge
Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, was the Distinguished
Visiting Professor in the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie
Mellon University for 2001-02 when he happened upon Swank's
photographs in the Carnegie collection. Amazed at the quality of the
work and puzzled that he hadn't previously heard of Swank, he proposed
a project to Carnegie Museum. ... As to its long-term success, "if
students study the history of American photography and Swank is back
among those he belongs with, then I guess I've done the job," Bossen
says. "He's not there, and he once was there."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05307/599555.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 2
Aug. 29 was a big day for Jewell Parker Rhodes, the Pittsburgh-born
novelist. After publishing her third novel, "Voodoo Season,"
she was finally getting her first book party. ... Rhodes was raised
largely by her grandparents (her grandfather worked at Jones & Laughlin
Steel). They supported her as a college student, first at Community
College of Allegheny County, then as a theater major at Carnegie
Mellon University, where she became interested in writing and
switched to English. She went on to earn her doctorate in English at
Carnegie Mellon in 1979. "Carnegie Mellon trained me as a writer," Rhodes
added.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05306/598882.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 1
A new book by a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's
Robotics Institute is poised to make waves behind the cloistered doors
of the school's famed robotics labs, and its rights have already been
optioned for a Hollywood film. It is not a sexy roman a clef or an investigative
look at the school's ties to the U.S. Defense Department, but rather
a humorous guidebook for battling a robot takeover of Earth. "Any
robot could rebel, from a toaster to a Terminator, and so it is crucial
to learn the strengths and weaknesses of every robot enemy," author
Daniel H. Wilson warns in "How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips
on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion." What makes
the book cool -- and unlike some other survival books -- is that Wilson
is an actual roboticist, who got his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon last
month. While his scenarios are outlandish -- describing attacks by humanoid
robots, some of them with creepy tails, some that can climb walls or
swim -- the research on how to build and attack the robot creatures
is quite real.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05303/596210.stm | back to top
International News Stories
Gulf Times | November 4
IN a first for Qatar and probably the region, Carnegie Mellon
University in Qatar (Carnegie MellonQ) is working on a novel project that aims to
monitor diabetics using advanced sensors as they go about their life.
“We intend to use robotic technology to help people by combining
our intelligent sensor processing skills with the expertise of Hamad
Medical Corporation (HMC) and Qatar’s Supreme Council of Information
and Communication Technology,” Carnegie Mellon-Q dean Chuck Thorpe
told Gulf Times in an interview. The project has immense potential
considering that Qatar has a high incidence of diabetes among its population,
and reportedly has the highest rate of diabetes among GCC countries,
going by research findings of HMC experts. “This is about using
advanced, wrist-strapped, non-invasive sensors that take measurements
from diabetics and finding out a host of information, including that
of insulin levels,” he explained. The sensor is smart enough to
collect data and make a cell phone call to transmit it to a computer.
“The goals of the project are for the computer to give feedback
to the person wearing the device and to the physician,” stated
the dean. ... Carnegie Mellon-Q’s parent institution Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh in the
US is renowned for its pioneering work in robotics research. Thorpe
has made his mark in the field over the past two decades.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/
article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=59400&
version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16 | back
to top
International Herald Tribune | October 31
A multibillion-dollar project funded by the Qatar Foundation for Education,
Science and Community Development, "Education City is a visionary
model of education that is unique in the world," said Saif Ali
al-Hajari, vice chair of the foundation. "We invited top American
universities because they are leaders in many fields, including medicine,
engineering and business. ... Other cross-cultural initiatives include
a course at Carnegie Mellon on U.S.-Arab relations that links students
in Qatar to its Pittsburgh campus by an Internet simulcast. ... A recently
introduced cross-registration system enables students at each university
to take courses at the others, so offering what Charles Thorpe,
dean of the Carnegie Mellon school, described as "an
education that is unrivaled in the world." Plans for the future
include a central library, a communications and journalism college,
an Islamic studies center, a large teaching hospital specializing in
women and children's health, and Qatar Science and Technology Park,
a commercial research and development center, the initial tenants of
which will include Microsoft, Shell and ExxonMobil.
http://www.iht.com/articles/
2005/10/17/news/Redcit.php | back to top
Malaysia Star | October 30
Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, has embarked on a program
to woo more Malaysian students. "No other city in Australia has
stronger links with Malaysia," said Adelaide’s Lord Mayor
Michael Harbison in an interview with Bernama recently. ... "Our
plan is to double South Australia’s share of international students
in the next 10 years," said Harbison. To achieve this, Adelaide
has embarked on a huge student-housing program, worth millions of Australian
dollars, which will provide foreign students with affordable accommodation.
The Lord Mayor said he was looking forward to the introduction of post-graduate
United States degrees through the prestigious Carnegie Mellon
University – an Australian first. "Carnegie Mellon will lure
even more Asian students to Adelaide.
http://thestar.com.my/education/story.asp?file=/
2005/10/30/education/20051029141651 | back to top
ZDNet India | October 28
In a few years, you might be able to speak Spanish, French and English--and
all at the same time. Alex Waibel, a professor of computer
science at Carnegie Mellon University and Germany's
University of Karlsruhe, plans to demonstrate a host of software and
hardware on Thursday at Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus. The technology
could make it far easier for people who speak different languages to
understand each other. One application, informally called Lecture Translation,
translates a speech from one language into another on the fly and without
restrictions. Current translation technologies typically circumscribe
speakers to certain topics or a limited vocabulary and require them
to train on the application. Another prototype, which hadn't been given
a name, uses directional speakers to beam translations of a speech to
specific listeners in a variety of languages. "It is like having
a simultaneous translator right next to you but without disturbing the
person next to you," Waibel said.
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/software/
stories/129822.html | back to top
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