From December 15 to December 21, Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 254 references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.

National

U.S. says ex-worker at drug giant was out of damage computer data
The New York Times | December 20
A federal grand jury has indicted a former systems administrator for the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager on fraud charges, saying he installed a “logic bomb” on company computers, a program that could have erased critical prescription information for 60 million Americans. Among the records that could have been destroyed were those pharmacists use to determine whether there are dangerous combinations in an individual’s prescribed drugs. ... Dawn M. Cappelli, a senior member of Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Emergency Response Team, said logic bombs are typically put in place by disgruntled employees bent on revenge. They are designed to erase data and wreak havoc when a set date arrives or other external conditions are met. Unlike viruses, which originate outside of a system and which must go through firewalls and other intrusion detection devices before doing damage, logic bombs are internal and harder to detect ahead of time, Ms. Cappelli said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/nyregion/20data.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

NASA launches Google collaboration
Washington Post | December 19
NASA, seeking to give the public easy access to its massive trove of images and data about Earth and outer space, has entered into a formal agreement with Google to post material from the agency's many missions on the Internet. As the technology improves and the collaboration grows, officials said, viewers could one day be treated to live video from the moon, Mars and elsewhere. ... Under the agreement, he said, Google will use NASA images on its Google Earth Web site and will financially support some related projects at the agency. He said some collaborations are already under way -- in particular, a global-imaging project called the Global Connection, with National Geographic magazine and Carnegie Mellon University -- and more will begin in the next six months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801119.html

 

Universities vulnerable to ID thieves
The New York Times (AP) | December 17
Universities have become attractive targets for hackers who are taking advantage of the openness of the schools' networks, their decentralized security and the personal information they keep on millions of young adults. A major database breach at the University of California, Los Angeles that went undetected for more than a year and a smaller breach at the University of Texas are the latest examples of how vulnerable colleges are to such attacks, security experts said. ... ''On the academic side, we want people to see what we do and who we are, within limits,'' said David Farber, professor of Computer Science and Public Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Universities do take seriously, however, the need to separate sensitive personal data from academic data that is more open, Farber said. ''On the administration side of the house, they are running a business and should behave like a business,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-University-Data-Thefts.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

Searching for the stars among fund managers
MSN (Reuters) | December 16
Just about everything you've been told about mutual fund investing in recent years goes something like this: Fund managers can't consistently pick stocks that beat the indexes. Even when they do, it's a fluke, and it's not good enough to compensate for their fees. So just buy index funds and be done with it. And yet, there are some star managers, aren't there? ... Stay small. Another study, by Jonathan Berk of the University of California, Berkeley, and Richard C. Green of Carnegie Mellon University, found that stellar managers lose their edge when their funds get too big. They can't move in and out of stocks as nimbly, and they also have to pick more and more companies to buy as their own shareholder base grows. They reach the point of diminishing returns.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=OBR&Date=20061216&ID=6262183

 

IBM, schools pursue open - source research
USA Today (AP) | December 14
IBM, which has been a big backer of open-source software, is working with seven universities on new computing research projects whose fruits would be widely shared rather than held as intellectual property. ... The schools involved are Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue, Rutgers and the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis. Other universities are also part of the program, as are Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-12-14-ibm-universities-research_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

Education for Leadership

Designs to help boomers keep on truckin'
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 16
Visiting a truck stop, Katie Strausser noticed a bungee cord hanging from the steps of a big rig. Curious, she asked drivers what it was for. "They use it to hold the nozzle in place when they're fueling because, otherwise, the vibrations of the truck would knock it out," said Strausser, 22, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering student. That gave Strausser and her fellow engineering students an idea.After 16 weeks and 50 hours in the machine shop, they had a patentable product: an ergonomic gas cap and a funneled, nozzle-supporting fuel receiver.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_484515.html

 

Best spot for having a non-English conversation: Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh City Paper | December 14
With students and faculty hailing from 90 countries, perhaps it's no surprise that Carnegie Mellon University is a good venue to practice a foreign tongue. According to Carnegie Mellon, fully one-quarter of its students are from outside the United States. But now it's official: CP readers voted the Squirrel Hill campus as the best place to not speak English."You can see so many languages. From my dorm [in Morewood Gardens] to [the University Center], you can hear at least three languages," says Ishita Gaur, a first-year student and architecture major from New Delhi. Gaur says at first she was blown away at how commonly Hindi is spoken on campus. But Gaur says that when the situation requires, she would switch between English and Hindi in order to include everybody in a conversation. "We're identifying ourselves as a global university," says Susan Polansky, associate head of the university's department of modern languages. "That's really the case."
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20482

Arts and Humanities

It's about being Liz, and loving the experience
Sun-Sentinel | December 20
I saw audition posters for a production of The Book of Liz by Amy and David Sedaris all over campus at the beginning of school.I am only a freshman, new to campus, but after debating whether to audition, I decided to go for it. I researched the plot: a play about a sweaty, Amish-like woman who makes cheeseballs and her adventures in the "real world." It sounded fun … and a tad strange.The show was produced by Scotch `N' Soda, the student-run, non-drama-major acting company at Carnegie Mellon. I auditioned, and I thought I did a pretty good job. I made the directors laugh, which is always a good sign.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-pp20viewdec20,0,279691.story?coll=sfl-news-browardcomm

 

Innovation News
Pop City Media | December 20
With a $3 million seed funding just awarded from the Kauffman Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University is launching a major $18 million initiative to incorporate entrepreneurship and innovation management throughout the undergraduate curriculum. The goal? To foster the teaching of entrepreneurship throughout the entire university to enable students to be entrepreneurial, to think entrepreneurially and creatively, says Steven Klepper, who was named the director of the new Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technological Change. The institute will manage the initiative and be the hub for education and research.
http://www.popcitymedia.com/timnews/42cmuschool.aspx

Information Technology

He's trying to make the complex simpler
Bucks County Courier Times | December 17
Stephen DeAngelis is a very popular guy. He was named one of the “best and brightest” in Esquire magazine's December genius issue, sharing the distinction with controversial NBA team owner Mark Cuban and scientists who are trying to prove the theories of the universe. What's more, his profile appears in the same magazine as actor George Clooney, who graces Esquire's cover. He said that has made him a huge hit with his wife and all the other women he knows, who want to attend the party that comes with the distinction.But it's DeAngelis' work solving business' — and the world's — complexity problems that earned him the distinction of being Esquire's best and brightest in innovation and makes him sought after by government officials and scientists around the world. ... DeAngelis, who lives in Upper Makefield, is a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and a professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York. One of the companies he founded created the first Web-based supply chain management system, which integrated a number of different supply systems.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/147-12172006-755635.html

Environment

Carnegie Mellon students propose plan to green up city's vacant lots
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | December 18
In August, 11 master's degree students at Carnegie Mellon University accepted what seemed like a grunge assignment. But when they delivered their results last week, people packed a Downtown meeting room to hear them."Believe it or not, all 11 of us have gotten really excited over vacant land management in Pittsburgh," public policy student Nathan Wildfire told a gathering of about 80 people, including Pittsburgh officials.There's a lot to get excited about: Of 14,102 vacant parcels in city neighborhoods, possibly half contribute to blight. No one knows how many blighted lots there are because they have never been counted separately. The total vacant lot count includes parts of park land and all the privately owned, unlittered, kept-up vacant land on which there are no tax liens.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06352/746983-53.stm

Biotechnology

Printing muscle and bone
Technology Review | December 19
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have successfully directed adult stem cells from mice to develop into bone and muscle cells with the aid of a custom-designed ink-jet printer. They say it's a first step toward better understanding tissue regeneration, which may one day lead to therapies for repairing damaged tissues, as occurs in osteoarthritis. ... Now Phil Campbell and his team at Carnegie Mellon have added a new branch to the budding field of bioprinting. Certain growth factors spur stem cells to morph into specific kinds of cells, such as bone or muscle. Campbell and his colleagues have successfully printed growth-factor solutions on the same slide, or "paper," forming a scaffold onto which stem cells can interact and differentiate into bone or muscle cells side by side.
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/17913/

 

Inorganic nanoparticles improve gene transfer into cells
Nanowerk News | December 18
Though gene therapies hold great promise for treating cancer, it has proven difficult to deliver therapeutic genes efficiently into cancer cells. Animal studies have shown that polymeric and lipid-based nanoparticles have the potential to overcome this delivery obstacle, and at least one nanoparticle-based gene therapy is in human clinical trials. Now, thanks to research conducted at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, gene therapy researchers have yet another nanoscale tool at their disposal, this one made of biocompatible inorganic materials. Charles Sfeir, D.D.D, Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburgh, and Prashant Kumta, Ph.D., of Carnegie Mellon University, led the team of investigators that developed calcium phosphate nanoparticles to function as stable gene carriers.
http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1164.php

Regional Impact

Gambling will have major social impact
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 17
No matter who wins the 11 slots licenses up for grabs this week, the introduction of casino gambling will affect the commonwealth and its largest cities for decades -- if not generations. The seven members of the state Gaming Control Board plan to vote Wednesday on awarding $50 million licenses for six slots parlors at tracks and five stand-alone casinos across the state, including two in Philadelphia and one in Pittsburgh. ... Once Pennsylvania awards the licenses and more casinos start opening -- Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre opened last month with a conditional slots license -- the state never can go back, said Greg Caruso, who teaches a gambling-related course at Carnegie Mellon University, called "Culture of Chance.""Probably 20 years from now, we'll see a situation where whatever you would like to do in terms of gaming will be available to you," Caruso said. "I don't see the tide being stemmed in any way."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/today/s_484613.html

 

100$M park tab raises questions
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 16
With the drop of a gavel and stroke of a pen, Allegheny County officials authorized development - at least on paper - of the county's 10th park, a monumental undertaking along the riverfronts envisioned as "the world's longest urban linear park." Now the hard part: Coming up with the estimated $100 million that supporters hope can be generated to connect 128 miles of riverfront along four rivers with trails, parks, parklets, picnic areas, and a grab bag of outdoor amenities. ... "You've got one of these great ideas, but implementing it is very hard," cautioned Robert Strauss, an economist and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "You've got to have vision, but we're not in a growth mode, so you've got to be prudent. We've also got some really pressing needs, so that all has to get balanced out."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_484510.html

Local

Carnegie Mellon gets $3 million grant
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 18
The Kauffman Foundation has given Carnegie Mellon University $3 million to spread entrepreneurship and innovation-management courses throughout its undergraduate curriculum. The grant is part of an $18 million initiative that will create a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation and a master's degree in engineering and technology innovation and will develop a new curriculum for undergraduate engineers on entrepreneurship and the management of innovation. A new Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technological Change will manage the initiative.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/today/s_484766.html

 

$2.25M grant to fund online learning study
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | December 17
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has given Carnegie Mellon University a $2.25 million grant to investigate whether students in a traditional classroom can learn faster if they also receive instruction online. The grant will be applied to the Open Learning Initiative -- a collaboration of cognitive scientists, human-computer interaction experts and other faculty who create online versions of introductory college courses. The goal is to make high-quality university instruction widely available over the Internet.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/rss/s_484640.html

International

FBI report says violent crime up
Daily India (UPI) | December 19
Violent crime in the United States rose 3.7 percent in the first six months of 2006 compared to the same period in 2005, an FBI report stated. The FBI's "Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report" released Monday covers January-June 2006. It indicated robberies increased 9.7 percent while murder offenses increased 1.4 percent. Property crimes such as motor vehicle theft decreased 2.3 percent. David A. Harris, a law professor at the University of Toledo, told The Washington Post that law enforcement has been saying "crime is on the way up." Alfred Blumstein, criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said homicide rates "plunged" in many small- and medium-sized cities, the paper reported. Blumstein said some big cities make up a "big piece of the action.
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/94797.php/UPI-NewsTrack-TopNews

 

IBM and U.S. universities work to open up software research
International Herald Tribune | December 14
IBM and seven universities have agreed to embark on a series of collaborative software research projects and make the results of the work in fields like privacy, security and medical decision-making freely available. The initiative, which IBM was expected to announce Thursday, is a break with the usual pattern of corporate- sponsored research at universities that typically involves lengthy negotiations over intellectual property rights. ... Purdue and Carnegie Mellon University have agreed to work with IBM researchers on a long-term project on privacy and security policy management. The appeal, Bertino said, is that IBM has a strong research team in security, and working with a corporation ensures that university researchers deal with real- world problems rather than pure theory.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/14/business/ibm.php

 

Chilling data center costs
CIO Asia Magazine | November 2006
As the price of running a data center continues to rise, researchers investigate novel ways to cut two of the top costs: administrative and energy expenses. Carnegie Mellon University in the US created the Data Center Observatory to find techniques to trim the bills for both. Human costs (such as staffing, troubleshooting and maintenance) represent the largest ticket item, says Greg Ganger, professor at Carnegie Mellon and director of the Parallel Data Center, one of the university groups working on the observatory effort. Also, cooling costs add up quickly: In its lifetime, a data center can cost four to seven times more than the equipment’s original price tag, Ganger says. 
http://cio-asia.com/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=4168&pubid=5&issueid=105