From November 17 to November 22, Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 249 references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.

National

Image labeling for blind helps machines 'think'
Washington Post | November 21
As director of Web operations at the American Foundation for the Blind, Crista Earl knows more than most about how visually impaired people can access the Internet. Still, when she browses the Web, Earl, 48 and blind, finds it time-consuming and difficult to use. ... That is why researchers are studying ways to tap the powers of the Web to have ordinary users label great numbers of images. Asking people to label image after image, however, is asking them to become bored quickly. To make it less tedious and more fun, Luis von Ahn, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has created the ESP Game. ... The promise of von Ahn's research is that it will allow computers to replicate the complex abilities of the brain. "What he's doing is mining the ability of humans," says Manuel Blum, a Carnegie Mellon professor who advised von Ahn's dissertation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001200.html

 

To catch crooks in cyberspace, FBI goes global
The Wall Street Journal | November 21
On Aug. 16, 2005, a CNN television news bulletin alerted viewers that computers at the network's New York and Atlanta offices were infected with a new virus called Zotob. Soon, U.S. companies from coast to coast were hit. Halfway around the world, two young computer hackers in Turkey and Morocco got spooked by the ensuing media coverage, but mocked the ability of authorities to track them down. ... Even when the agency does find suspects overseas, local authorities sometimes lack the resources or laws to prosecute. In its pursuit of LoveBug, one of the first big international computer viruses, which spread around the world in 2000, the FBI located its creator in the Philippines. But he was never charged because local laws didn't specify the virus writer's activities as illegal at the time."The criminal community is winning," says Nicholas Ianelli, a security analyst at the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, a federally funded group that coordinates responses to computer-security incidents. But the agency is making some headway, thanks partly to a diplomatic offensive to enlist help from foreign agencies. It now has about 150 agents deployed in some 56 offices around the world, including in Iraq and China, which deal with computer intrusions, as well as terrorism and other crimes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116406726611228873.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

Flaws seen in markets for utilities
The New York Times | November 21
A growing chorus of large industrial power users, municipal utilities and consumer groups say there is a reason the price of electricity has not fallen since the federal government opened the heavily regulated utility industry to competition a decade ago. The new markets, they argue, do not work right. ... Officials of other exchanges all said they had strict rules to ensure that capacity is not withheld from the market to inflate prices artificially. But critics of the current system have found ammunition in a study at Carnegie Mellon University by Sarosh N. Talukdar, who used computer models to simulate a market in which 10 utilities bought electricity and 10 producers sold it. ... "My studies show it is easy to learn from the signals given by others how to get the benefits of colluding without breaking the law," Professor Talukdar said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/business/21utility.html

 

G-20 resists urge to fast-track IMF voting overhaul
Bloomberg | November 19
The world's 20 largest economies resisted a push to fast-track a second stage of International Monetary Fund quota reform, urging it give growing emerging nations a bigger voice within the next two years. Australian Treasurer Peter Costello said the Group of 20 policy makers had not agreed to bring forward the timeline on reforms by one year. Australia, hosting the annual G-20 summit, had campaigned for the changes to be enacted by 2007. ... The U.S. has endorsed de Rato's proposal, though it won't surrender any of its 17 percent voting share, which gives it a veto over IMF decisions. The U.S., which accounts for about 30 percent of the world economy, is already under-represented at the fund. Given the U.S. veto, decision-making authority is unlikely to change much, says Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who led a U.S. congressional commission that examined the IMF in 2000. "It pleases the people who are getting more votes and makes them feel they are in a position to be recognized,'' Meltzer said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aD3VtIOXLPFA&refer=home

 

Don't grandfather coal plants
Science | November 17
The United States, the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2), generates about half of its electricity by burning coal. In terms of capacity, the average coal plant is just over 30 years old. Although most have been renovated and upgraded, there is no escaping the fact that these plants are aging, and sooner or later many will have to be replaced. Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has tracked the plans of U.S. electricity generators to build new coal-fired power plants. They report plans to build 154 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants over the next 24 years, and 50 GW in just the next 5 years, a big jump from the 6 GW built during the past 5 years. ***This article was written by M. Granger Morgan, head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5802/1049

 

Shareholders rebelling against buyouts
BusinessWeek (AP) | November 17
As Four Seasons Hotels Inc. shareholders contemplate a $3.7 billion offer to take the company private, one in particular is in line for the equivalent of a stack of suitcases stuffed with money: Isadore Sharp. The chairman and CEO of the luxury hotel chain will get a special payment of $288 million if the deal goes through. ... That's part of a troubling trend, according to James Owers, a professor of finance at Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. When a company's managers team with buyout groups, "there's an inherent conflict of interest," he said. "Management is supposed to serve shareholders and get the best price possible," added Robert Dammon, a professor of finance at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. "On the other side, the same management is serving as the buyer and wants to sell the company as cheaply as possible."
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LF114O2.htm

 

Google completes Pittsburgh office
BusinessWeek (AP) | November 16
Online search giant Google Inc. has completed its Pittsburgh office and hired about 30 software engineers since it opened earlier this year, the facility's research director said Thursday. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company will continue to hire workers to develop search tools at the office on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University, said Andrew Moore, a former Carnegie Mellon professor who heads the office. We're working on things that are really at the core of Google, he said. We're very much a back-end office. Engineers at the facility so far have focused their efforts on refining the processing of search requests, improving the search engine's ability to predict what information might be useful to users, and text analysis, Moore said.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LEGO100.htm

Education for Leadership

No more haggling: Grad student Web site tracks shared expenses
Center Daily Times (AP) | November 20
Splitting a group dinner bill can prove challenging even to the mathematically inclined, but three Carnegie Mellon University graduate students think they have designed a program that could make post-meal haggling a thing of the past. Ashwin Bharambe, Amit Manjhi and Shashank Pandit created Buxfer, short for "bucks transfer," several years ago for their own use. The social networking site with a personal finance angle allows users to form groups of friends or housemates and track online who owes what for expenses like utility bills, dinner tabs and movie tickets. ... Buxfer's quick growth is a result of "viral marketing," said Michael Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who also specializes in e-commerce."It spreads from person to person rather through traditional advertising," he said. "You can build very large communities quickly that way at very little cost."
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/politics/16053697.htm

 

NCAA Division III Playoffs: Carnegie Mellon pounds out a win
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 19
Millsaps College was in a hurry with a no-huddle, spread offense that featured quick-hitting passes.
Carnegie Mellon was patient, pounding away with a diversified running attack generated from its unconventional wing-T formation. Time was on Carnegie Mellon's side. "When we find a formation that gives us mismatches in our favor, we exploit them," said Carnegie Mellon running back Robert Gimson, who carried 23 times for 142 yards and a 17-yard touchdown as the Tartans (11-0) bunched all their scoring in the second half of a 21-0 victory against Millsaps (Miss.) in the first round of the NCAA Division III playoffs yesterday at Gesling Stadium.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06323/739626-134.stm

Arts and Humanities

A thankful child
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | November 19
Robin Baum says she takes her two children to volunteer with her at a food bank because she wants them to understand that not everyone lives as well as they do. ... During the holiday season, self-indulgence, commercialism and a "gimme gimme" attitude can grip adults and children, and teaching youths about giving thanks and giving to others can be challenging. Experts say the key is to model generosity and gratitude yourself, and your children naturally will follow. Greedy and selfish parents are likely to produce the same kind of offspring. ... Sharon Carver, director of The Children's School and psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland, agrees. "Children will follow what you model, and children will do more of what you reinforce," she says. "If parents are focused on acquiring stuff--the newest technology, newest car, newest house, or whatever it is--then it's not surprising that children would do that.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/living/family/s_480342.html

 

Pipes II
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 19
Alasdair Gillies is a world champion bagpiper whose skills are being called upon to raise funds for the First Presbyterian Church in Downtown Pittsburgh at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The concert is a celebration of the Feast of St. Andrew and will combine the Scottish bagpipes of Gillies, Carnegie Mellon University artist lecturer; vocalists (including Scottish tenor Bob Murdoch); dancers; and church organist Andrew Scanlon.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06323/738952-42.stm

Information Technology

BigBen even more super after upgrade
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | November 22
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is more than doubling the capabilities of its Cray XT3 supercomputer nicknamed "BigBen" to 21.5 trillion calculations per second, improving its ability to handle the most demanding science projects. To put that speed in perspective, if everyone of the Earth's roughly 6.5 billion people each did one calculation per second on a calculator, they still would be about 3,000 times slower than the upgraded BigBen. "The Cray XT3 has proven itself as a massively parallel scientific platform of exceptional capability," said Michael Levine and Ralph Roskies, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's scientific directors, in a statement. "We look forward to new insights into important problems that scientists will produce as a result of this upgrade." The Supercomputer Center, a joint venture between Carnegie Mellon University, Westinghouse Electric Co. and the University of Pittsburgh, will replace BigBen's existing 2,090 processors with Advanced Micro Devices' top-end Opteron dual-core computer chips.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_480892.html

 

Carnegie Mellon robot car to face urban traffic challenges
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 15
Driving city miles can be dangerous and cause hypertension. But that challenge increases manyfold when the moving vehicle no longer has a human driver. In the case of Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing team, the driver is a bank of computers with new-age software, radar devices, sensors, lasers, cameras and global positioning systems, along with various other high-tech doohickeys, gizmos and gadgets. ... "It's a whole other layer of complexity," said Chris Urmson, Tartan Racing's director of technology. "People are working on perception problems with city speeds and urban driving conditions. Not a lot of work has been done in operating in those spaces."Tartan Racing Director Charles "Red" Whittaker said technology that regulates speed, braking and steering was well understood. But new technology is needed to make the vehicle follow traffic signs and codes.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06324/739746-115.stm

 

Experts: Look to robotics, biomedical careers
The Times Express | November 15
Calling all students. You are needed for careers as robotics and biomedical technicians. At Forbes Road Career and Technology Center on Monday, representatives of Carnegie Mellon and Penn State universities presented their cases for students to pursue 21st-century educations and to consider career routes other than a four-year bachelor's degree. The presentations were part of an Alliance for Career Education meeting.Pennsylvania is third only to Boston and California as a major epicenter for robotics in the United States, according to Robin Shoop, director of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Academy and former Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher.He wants to make Pennsylvania the place to be for robotics and said the field is headed in a direction where robots can direct other robots to do hazardous work in such settings as outer space or battlefields. "If we colonize another planet or underwater, it will be robots, not people, who build," said Shoop.
http://www.gatewaynewspapers.com/timesexpress/67936/

Environment

Carbonfund.org helps shippers go 'carbonfree'
GreenBiz News | November 17
A new program to offset shipping-related carbon-dioxide emissions, Carbonfree Shipping, has been launched by Carbonfund.org. The program was designed in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University's Green Design Institute. It involves a breakthrough method for calculating shipping-related carbon dioxide emissions. ... Professor Scott Matthews, project leader for Carnegie Mellon’s Green Design Institute and an expert on the impact of material movement, agrees. "The application we’ve developed for this shipping program is scalable and can easily be modified to meet the needs of other businesses," Matthews said. "This methodology could have a very broad effect on the way we address commercially-produced CO2 emissions."
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=34266

Biotechnology

New Carnegie Mellon program aims to build better biotech bosses
Pittsburgh Business Times | November 17
Carnegie Mellon University is offering a new master's program designed to teach the business side of biotechnology to students with undergraduate degrees in science-related fields. The degree is designed to better prepare students with backgrounds in those fields to take on managerial roles at biotech companies and help speed their development. Mark Wessel, dean of Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, believes the master's of science in biotechnology and management is the first such interdisciplinary program of its kind in the country."There are many opportunities there (in biotechnology), but a lot of the folks who go out into the industry have a deep science background not specifically tied to the biotech industry, and they haven't had the training in management and management policy," Wessel said. "(We need) people with deep science backgrounds with management and policy skills to really move forward." ... "Many of our students get into many businesses and find themselves in supervisory roles very quickly," said Bill Brown, a professor of biological sciences at the Mellon College of Science. "Students would be in a much better position to tackle these kinds of programs (such as regulations and compliance) if they have a basic understanding of it before they go."
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2006/11/20/story16.html

Regional Impact

Carnegie Mellon Googles it
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | November 18
In a building adjacent to where the U.S. Bureau of Mines explored excavation technology almost a century ago, Google Inc. is mining data on the cutting edge of information technology. Google, the nation's leading online search company, opened a 20,000-square-foot office Friday in the Collaborative Innovation Center on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Oakland.Google has 35 employees in the office and intends to hire eight to 10 more early next year. The location overlooking Panther Hollow has room for about 100 employees, said Kamal Nigam, engineering manager. ... Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon said the Google office benefits Carnegie Mellon and Google. The university has the prestige of having such a company on campus and the opportunity for students to do internships, while Google can benefit from all the computer scientists at the university. "This is a new model for university-company relationships," Cohon said.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_480386.html

 

Tech group seeks to spawn 80 startups a year
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 17
One year and $425,000 later, local economic development officials have agreed that the best plan for growing Pittsburgh's technology industry is to create 80 new companies a year through 2015. That would represent a huge jump from current levels of about 20 between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. But more startups are needed because Pittsburgh trails its peers in building its tech industry, said Donald Smith Jr., chairman of the Greater Oakland Keystone Innovation Zone, which commissioned the report. It was released yesterday.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06321/739029-28.stm

Local

High school scientists meet here to compare ambitious projects
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | November 18
With detailed explanations and effervescent passion, these students explain their research with an air that's easily understood. Fifteen high school students from New York and Maryland--none from Pennsylvania--will compete today at Carnegie Mellon University for the Middle States Regional Finals of the annual Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. ... Elizabeth Jones, head of Carnegie Mellon's Biological Science Department, will lead the team of judges, who will question the students on their level of understanding and whether they or their mentors did most of the work. To reach this level, she said, students must be well versed in science and math. "Sometimes you get such creativity, it's astonishing," Dr. Jones said. "It's easy to forget how young they are."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06322/739426-115.stm

International

What monetary policy does China need?
Taipei Times | November 20
China's remarkable growth has been financed recently by a rapid expansion of money and bank credit that is producing an increasingly unsustainable investment boom. This renews concerns that the country may not be able to avert a replay of the painful boom?and-bust cycle such as the one it endured in the mid-1990s. ***This article was written by Marvin Goodfriend, Carnegie Mellon professor at the Tepper School of Business.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/11/20/2003337162

 

Scientist demands curbs on CO2 emissions
UPI | November 20
A U.S. scientist is demanding U.S. federal and state officials take the lead in eliminating dangerous carbon dioxide emissions. Carnegie Mellon University international engineering and environmental policy expert M. Granger Morgan argues legislators should impose regulations that will prevent power companies from rushing to build large numbers of long-lived conventional coal plants before regulations on carbon dioxide emissions come into effect.Building such plants today without making provisions for future control of carbon dioxide emissions might make such future regulations far more expensive than they need to be, said Morgan, head of Carnegie Mellon's department of engineering and public policy.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061120-103852-8288r

 

IBQ holds live global broadcast meet
Gulf Times | November 17
As part of its continuous efforts in its commitment to leadership excellence, and in line with its corporate vision, the International Bank of Qatar took its staff as well as students and faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar to a live global broadcast of The 12th Worldwide Leadership Conference: 'Leading at a Higher Level.' The event organized by the CHN Institute on Tuesday featured leaders in today’s business communities with a strong emphasis on leadership strategy, and how to use leadership to unleash human potential within the organization.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=118026&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16