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December
22, 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 December 17-22,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 87
references to the university in worldwide
publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
Wired News | December 20
San Francisco Chronicle | December 20
The New York Times | December 19
The Chronicle of Higher Education | December
16
The Chronicle of Higher Education | December
16
Arts and Humanities
Richmond Times-Dispatch | December 18
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 17
Information Technology
Sys.Con Media | December 19
The Boston Globe | December 18
The Journal News | December 18
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 17
PhysOrg.com (UPI) | December 15
Biotechnology
Bio-ITWorld.com | December 19
Environment
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 21
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 21
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 20
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 22
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 21
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 20
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 19
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 19
International News Stories
The Sydney Morning Herald | December 21
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National News Stories
Wired News | December 20
Raising hopes for the families of 9/11's unidentified victims, scientists
say they're making major inroads in their efforts to successfully pull
DNA out of stubborn bodily remains. ... Still, any improvement in DNA
extraction could lead to more identifications. While the December 2004
tsunami and Hurricane Katrina stretched the limits of forensic investigation,
the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks remain the largest DNA-identification
project of all time. ... Besides reuniting 9/11 victims with their identities,
improvements in DNA-extraction techniques could help historians do a
better job of medical detective work when they exhume bodies of soldiers,
victims of violence and historical celebrities. ... Better extraction
techniques could help identify the skeletal remains of about 900 unknown
Korean War soldiers buried in Honolulu's National Memorial Cemetery
of the Pacific, also known as the Punch Bowl, said Carnegie
Mellon University principal research scientist Dr. Victor
Weedn, a veteran of historical DNA investigations, including
the successful identification of the Romanov family remains.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/
0,1286,69877,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1 | back to top
San Francisco Chronicle | December 20
Some of Silicon Valley's largest firms, including Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard
Co., joined forces with big-name universities like UC Berkeley and Stanford
on Monday, announcing a new set of guidelines intended to expedite research
collaborations on new technology and eliminate legal wranglings over
intellectual property rights. ... The new guidelines stem from a summit
meeting last August at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington.
Representatives from IBM, Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and HP attended
the meeting, along with those from UC Berkeley, Stanford University,
Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and University of Texas at Austin.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/
chronicle/archive/2005/12/20/BUGHQGAI971.DTL
&type=business | back to top
The New York Times | December 19
To remove obstacles to joint research, four leading technology companies
and seven American universities have agreed on principles for making
software developed in collaborative projects freely available. The legal
wrangling over intellectual property rights in research projects involving
universities and companies, specialists say, can take months, sometimes
more than a year. This legal maneuvering, they say, is not only slowing
the pace of innovation, but is also prompting some companies to seek
university research partners in other countries, where negotiations
over intellectual property are less time-consuming. ... The companies
involved in the agreement, which will be announced today, are I.B.M.,
Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Cisco. The educational partners are the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the universities
of Stanford, California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon,
Illinois and Texas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/
technology/19research.html | back to top
The Chronicle of Higher Education | December
16
Either literary theory is dead, or it's invincible. It all depends on
who's talking. When Jacques Derrida died last year, The New York Times
declared the end of the era of "big ideas." ... Others say
that theory has never been more perniciously alive. These critics persist
in arguing that it is no longer possible to study literature for its
own sake. ... Jeffrey J. Williams, a professor of English
and literary and cultural studies at Carnegie Mellon
University and one of the editors of The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism, calls himself "very topic oriented" when it
comes to teaching. Carnegie Mellon has what he describes as a fairly
heavy emphasis on theory, and "the students kept coming to me and
complaining that they weren't reading any literature," he says.
His solution? "Now I try to teach hybrid courses." In a recent
course on "narratives of profession," for instance, he mixed
sociology and theories of professionalism with half a dozen novels,
and taught Anthony Trollope's Dr. Thorne alongside a history of the
medical profession.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/
v52/i17/17a01201.htm | back to top
The Chronicle of Higher Education | December
16
Imagine it: Tomorrow, in Southeast Asia, a bird-flu virus gains the
ability to spread quickly among human beings. Patients begin to flood
the hospitals. ... How should universities react? ... Two institutions
in particular have prepared detailed plans: the University of Minnesota-Twin
Cities and Carnegie Mellon University. Even if the
next pandemic is decades away, "the planning we're doing is really
useful in any emergency or crisis situation," says Anita
L. Barkin, director of health services at Carnegie Mellon.
Carnegie Mellon's plan—in its ninth revision since it was drawn
up in October—details steps that the university will take under
three scenarios: when human-to-human transmission of a new strain of
influenza has begun anywhere in the world, when a suspected case arrives
on the campus or elsewhere in Pittsburgh, and when confirmed cases occur
on the campus. The plan is overseen by Madelyn G. Miller,
director of environmental health and safety, and by Ms. Barkin. They
pulled together 15 offices and groups at the university and listed actions
that each would be expected to take during a pandemic. ... Carnegie
Mellon plans to hold a "tabletop drill" of its flu response
in January.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/
i17/17a02701.htm | back to top
Arts and Humanities
Richmond Times-Dispatch | December 18
Congress' Government Accountability Office is the latest to ask the
persistent question: How can deregulation of the electric power industry
be fixed?As the past few years have demonstrated, giving consumers a
choice is easier said than done. ... Lawmakers in Virginia and in other
states are relying on competition to deliver deregulation's promises.
"Even in states that initially saw high levels of interest on the
part of consumers and third-party electric-service providers, the market
for alternatives to the [local] utility has all but dried up,"
researchers from the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry
Center at the University of Pittsburgh advised federal regulators recently.
Disputing other reports that show huge deregulation savings, the Carnegie
Mellon researchers said their own research "shows that there is
no evidence that restructuring has produced any measurable benefit to
consumers."
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename
=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid
=1128768770941&path=!business&s=1045855934855 | back
to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 17
For Martin and Martha Prekop of O'Hara, their home is a mirror image
of who they are. Martin Prekop, 65, dean of the College
of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University for the
past 12 years, has customized the house in a way that makes it unique.
The home sits lower than the road and is nestled among trees and other
natural landscaping. The pitched roof features mirrors mounted horizontally,
creating a visual contrast to the triangular shaped area. Some mirrors
are beveled, some framed. Some appear individually. Others are grouped.
... A tri-level brick structure, the house was built in the 1960s. Prekop
experimented with several ideas before deciding on the mirrored approach.
Over four years, he transformed the exterior of his home, which he described
as previously being "a dingy red-brown brick with lime green trim,"
covering every brick with mirrors he attached with two-sided tape. His
house and backyard, which features mirrored trees, ponds and garden
sculptures, evolved over time. Prekop says it's still a work in progress.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/style/
homegarden/s_404807.html | back to top
Information Technology
Sys.Con Media | December 19
The newest ransom caper in real life involves hackers taking over an
individual's or company's computer, scrambling or encrypting documents,
videos, spreadsheets, databases, and other crucial files, and then demanding
a ransom to unlock the files and make them usable again. Called "ransom-ware,"
this new malicious code combines the worst of spyware and Trojan horses.
... We're not anywhere near as prepared as we should be to deal with
these threats. ... Confidence in local law enforcement and business'
IT departments is also low. Nearly half of the 100 businesses that responded
to a non-scientific online survey conducted by Carnegie Mellon
University in 2004 said they wouldn't seek police help to investigate
attempted cyber-extortion. ... Asked why, most cited the downstream
liability, followed by negative publicity, lack of confidence in the
police, and fear of retribution. In addition, 45% said they didn't think
their own IT departments were up to the task of preventing or dealing
with a serious cyber-extortion attack.
http://br.sys-con.com/read/156178.htm
| back to top
The Boston Globe | December 18
The shortage of new computer scientists threatens American leadership
in technological innovation just as countries such as China and India
are gearing up for the kind of competition the United States has never
before faced. The US economy is expected to add 1.5 million computer-
and information-related jobs by 2012, while this country will have only
half that many qualified graduates, according to one analysis of federal
data. Meanwhile, the subject is becoming increasingly intertwined with
fields ranging from homeland security to linguistics to biology and
medicine. ''People who are mapping the genome are really computer scientists
involved in biology," said Lenore Blum, a professor
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/
2005/12/18/in_computer_science_a_growing_gender_gap? | back
to top
The Journal News | December 18
Started in 1990 by three robotics scientists from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, iRobot also helps keep humans out of harm's
way in Iraq and Afghanistan with a military robot called the PackBot.
But it's the Roomba that's put iRobot in the spotlight as the first
company to build a successful mass-produced, practical robot. More than
1.5 million Roomba vacuums have been sold since the product was introduced
in late 2002. ... "It's a real milestone. It's a consumer product
that's a robot, and it's not a robot toy. It's demonstrated that there
is a real market out there," said Matthew T. Mason,
director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon
University.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/
BUSINESS01/512180311/1066 | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 17
Many people know Dr. Rob A. Lowe as the technology
transfer expert—the Carnegie Mellon University economics
professor who seems to know everything about how patenting and licensing
inventions can yield new companies and jobs in the Pittsburgh area.
... Now Dr. Lowe is tackling a new task—that of president and chief
executive officer of his own Carnegie Mellon spinoff. Strip District-based
Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, or "PittPatt, has developed a software
that can track and identify objects—even faces on video and photographs.
... Dr. Lowe co-founded the firm with fellow Carnegie Mellon-ite Dr.
Henry Schneiderman, whose decade-long research spawned
the technology, and Dr. Michael Nechyba. All three
are Pittsburgh transplants—researchers who moved here to for work
and opted to stay.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/05351/623889.stm | back to top
PhysOrg.com (UPI) | December 15
The next generation of wireless systems is set to utilize "mesh
networking," a set of technologies designed to route data between
relay points that require almost no configuration, are available at
minimal cost and can "heal," or fill in, for any relay point
along the network that may break down. Unlike traditional networking
technologies, which typically distribute a feed from an Internet or
server connection from a single source to other devices, mesh-technology
devices can provide additional bandwidth to the network they're added
to as well as set up their own networks without Internet access. ...
"I think there are at least two separate directions this can go
in," said professor Raj Rajkumar of Carnegie
Mellon University's electrical and computer engineering and
computer science departments. "Municipal locations like Philadelphia
and other cities are using it to cover a large part of the region. The
cost is relatively low, as you don't need broadband lines to each connection.
You just install the boxes and they relay off each other. Secondly,
these access points can enter vehicles. If cars talk to each other,
it enables new types of applications," said Rajkumar, who pointed
out how vehicles could share movement data and inform the driver of
situations such as a nearby car braking sharply, then either warn the
driver or assume control to avoid a collision.
http://www.physorg.com/news9098.html
| back to top
Biotechnology
Bio-ITWorld.com | December 19
Microarray gene expression studies are mainly used in two types of experiments:
static and time-series. In fact, in the public domain, time-series experiments
account for about 40 percent of the datasets. While time-series experiments
are widely used to study biological systems, determining the quality
of the results can be a fundamental problem according to Ziv
Bar-Joseph, assistant professor of computer science and biological
sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Bar-Joseph
is the inventor of a computational method that identifies genes missed
by current analysis methods.
http://www.bio-itworld.com/newsletters/
microarray/2005/12/19/17088 | back to top
Environment
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 21
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing today to cut the
standard for fine particle emissions almost in half, a tough rule that
none of Allegheny County's air-pollution monitors would meet. A class
of fine, soot-like particles—known as PM2.5—will have to be at
levels less than 35 parts per billion over a 24-hour period by 2015,
said Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation.
The current standard is 65 parts per billion. ... About 80 percent of
Allegheny County's fine-particle pollution floats in from states upwind
of the region, such as Ohio and West Virginia, according to a study
by Carnegie Mellon University.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/health/s_406052.html | back to top
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 21
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: CIS, the Community Information
System. It's a blockbuster of data so large you couldn't hold it in
your hands. Developed for the city by an academic and nonprofit partnership,
CIS is a map-based computer tool that lets the user see real-time conditions
on any property. Planners can spot trends and patterns of use and misuse,
see potential for improved use and where planning now can reduce problems
later. ... The city recently signed a sharing agreement with those who
developed and invested in it—the Partnership, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania,
Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05355/625569.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 20
Stand at an adult-sized easel at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh—while talking to your child standing next to you, painting at a child-sized
one—and you've just experienced the kind of interactive learning
pushed by researchers at Pitt's genre-bending UPCLOSE program. UPCLOSE
(the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments)
studies museum exhibits and recommends ways to improve them. Researchers
watch videotapes and listen to conversations at exhibition visits, among
other methods, looking for ways they can improve talk and interaction.
... UPCLOSE is also working with the Children's Museum on its upcoming
"How People Make Things" exhibition, along with officials
from Carnegie Mellon and Fred Rogers' Family Communications
Inc., which will introduce children to the science and technology of
manufacturing.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05354/624928.stm | back to top
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 22
It was late 2004, and Carnegie Learning was performing poorly in the
school of business. Sales were low, morale even lower and the 6-year-old
educational software and publishing firm had yet to follow up on its
successful maiden product, "Cognitive Tutor"—a secondary-school
math curriculum that melds computer-based learning with classroom teaching
and workbooks. The Strip District-based company, lacking focus and direction,
had stalled, its board of directors concluded. So the board decided
to bring on new leadership, hiring one of its own, technology veteran
and venture capitalist Dennis Ciccone. ... How did a company in the
doldrums manage to alter its course in less than a year? Turns out,
even in fast-paced technology firms, it takes several cracks at the
equation before getting the answer right. Indeed, Mr. Ciccone's tenure
is the fourth iteration for Carnegie Learning, which evolved out of
a collaboration in the 1990s between Carnegie Mellon
University computer science and psychology researcher John Anderson
and Bill Hadley, a former Langley High School math
teacher who now serves as Carnegie Learning's chief academic officer.
... Carnegie Mellon provost and board member Mark Kamlet
believes this year's success also "can be attributed to the groundwork
that had been laid" prior to Mr. Ciccone's command. For example,
a recent contract to supply "Cognitive Tutor" to the Los Angeles
school system was a work in progress over the course of three years.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/05356/626096.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 21
Stung by the chatter of moving the Penguins to the land of barbecue—Kansas City—a "Save the Pens" rally unfolded before
Friday's game outside of Mellon Arena. Local hockey fans are preparing
for the worst. ... Earlier this month, Mario Lemieux expressed doubts
the team will remain in Pittsburgh after 2007 because of the lack of
public help in financing a new arena. Lemieux said the team probably
has run out of time to find a way to stay. ... Because of the NHL lockout
last year, Pittsburgh already has experienced the economic impact of
a lost hockey season. The Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors
Bureau estimated the lockout cost Pittsburgh $48 million. A Carnegie
Mellon University study figured the Penguins' yearly financial
impact at $104.4 million.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/
sports/penguinslive/s_406254.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 20
A bottle of ketchup might not be suitable for stuffing stockings, but
how about a golf putter in the shape of a Heinz pickle? ... Marketing
experts say it takes a special kind of company to generate revenue by
wrapping a bow around itself. Companies that connect with consumers
on an emotional level, such as merchandising king Harley-Davidson, are
more likely to sell their gear than firms with reputations for being
functional or even dependable, such as Pittsburgh's banking and manufacturing
giants. "It's the emotional side that excites us," said Peter
Boatwright, a marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon
University. "You're not going to wear a T-shirt just because you
want to help out the big company Heinz, or support your local Primanti
Bros. sandwich shop. It's something that the brand is giving the person."
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/05354/624951.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 19
Pittsburgh Opera elected two new members to the board for three-year
terms: Kenneth B. Dunn, dean of Carnegie Mellon's
Tepper School of Business, and Douglas Millar, president and owner of
Travelers' Service Company.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05353/623859.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 19
It's the company that has given English a new verb, and last week its
senior managers announced plans to create a Pittsburgh presence. Google
Inc., the California-based search engine giant, will open a research
and development office here, in large part to take advantage of Carnegie
Mellon University talent. Pittsburgh will join Tokyo, Zurich,
New York, Phoenix and Bangalore, India, in Google's worldwide string
of engineering offices. ... Google's arrival is a coup for Pittsburgh
and for Carnegie Mellon. While Pittsburgh always will be a universal
symbol of 19th- and 20th-century industrialization, the city and the
region around it have been developing a new image as a center for higher
education, finance, medical research and technology. It is fitting that
Google, a 21st-century icon, should locate its newest office near the
campus of a university that takes its name from three of the nation's
foremost financial leaders, Andrew Carnegie and brothers Andrew W. and
Richard B. Mellon. Since Carnegie Mellon already is a center for engineering
and computer science, Google's research office expects to benefit from
its proximity to the university. The company already employs 50 Carnegie
Mellon alumni at its offices around the world, a number that increased
by one with this week's announcement. It seems appropriate that a third
Andrew—Andrew W. Moore, a Carnegie Mellon professor
of computer science and robotics—has been named to head Google's
Pittsburgh office.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05353/624523.stm | back to top
International News Stories
The Sydney Morning Herald | December 21
If you're going away for the Christmas holidays I have bad news and
good, courtesy of the psychology profession. The bad news is that holidays
rarely, if ever, live up to our high expectations. The good news is
that it doesn't worry us.... We derive a lot of pleasure from thinking
about how great our holidays will be, and then we get more pleasure
from thinking back on how good they were. We edit our memories in much
the same way a novel or a movie is edited: we cut out the boring bits,
leaving only the interesting bits - the highlights. It's like the way
a five-day cricket Test is reported on the TV news: all you see is the
people hitting sixes or getting out. But interesting doesn't always
mean pleasant. As George Loewenstein, of Carnegie
Mellon University, remarked to the American Psychological Society's
Observer magazine: "The worst experiences often make the best memories."
http://smh.com.au/news/opinion/happy-times-in-holidays-
from-hell/2005/12/20/1135032017554.html | back to top
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