September 27

One of the biggest perks of heading off to college is the chance to surround oneself with like-minded individuals. For students who were considered outcasts in high school, Carnegie Mellon will feel right at home. According to one biology major, "Everyone is brilliant, everyone is a geek, everyone is driven, everyone is awkward, everyone is a work-a-holic." Carnegie Mellon is often named one of the country's most elite college and students are challenged daily by both their professors and peers. "You walk in smart, you walk out smarter and you learn all you can."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/the-new-ivy-league-unigo-_n_982994.html#s374211&title=Carnegie_Mellon_University

September 27

Small battery packs could offer more social benefits in the near term than large battery packs with longer electric range.

That’s the verdict of a new study by Carnegie Mellon University’s Jeremy Michalek, who determined that small battery packs could promote the adoption of hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, ahead of plug-in hybrids and battery electric cars with larger battery packs.

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20110928/are-small-batteries-the-future-for-hybrid-cars.htm

September 26

William S. Dietrich II has led a quiet life since selling his family's steel business, writing about economic history and managing his family foundation while living in a downtown apartment.

In the past three weeks, the 73-year-old has made an uncharacteristic public splash by pledging a total of $390 million to two local universities.

The University of Pittsburgh said last week that Mr. Dietrich had promised a $125 million donation. Two weeks before, Carnegie Mellon University announced a $265 million gift from him, the 14th-largest on a global list of private gifts to higher education compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904563904576589162075617014.html?KEYWORDS=%22Carnegie+Mellon%22&_nocache=1317326903865&mg=com-wsj&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj

September 20

Carnegie Mellon University, based in Pittsburgh, will open a campus in Kigali, Rwanda, with the first group of 40 students to begin classes in fall 2012.

The university made the announcement Thursday and also said the campus hoped to have up to 150 students by 2017.

Pradeep Khosla, dean of engineering at Carnegie Mellon, said in an interview by telephone from Washington, D. C., that approximately 16 hectares, or 40 acres, of land had been allocated for the construction of a campus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/americas/carnegie-mellon-plans-to-build-campus-in-rwanda.html

September 20

"The Fed is the only game in town," says economist Marvin Goodfriend at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. "That's what's created the stresses" within the bank and political pressure from outside.

Republican presidential candidate Perry has said it would be "almost treasonous" for Bernanke to do anything to help the economy before the 2012 presidential election.

Some economists say that the Fed has already used up all its ammunition with its zero-interest rate policy and its bond purchases. Skeptics say the Fed really can't do much more to help the economy -- and might hurt it by stoking inflation.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20110920p2g00m0bu044000c.html

September 19

Several major health insurers say they will provide information on billions of medical-billing claims in their books to a new academic institute, which will create a database for research on health-care costs and utilization.

Researchers have sometimes struggled to perform such studies on the commercially insured population. They often turn to Medicare data, which reflect a mostly elderly patient base as well as the federal government's unique payment model. The Health Care Cost Institute will start with claims from UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc. and the nonprofit Kaiser Permanente, and the carriers are also providing initial funding to set it up.

Martin Gaynor, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who will lead the new institute, said the database will include more than five billion claims, covering a period from 2000 to the present. It will include some Medicare data. Dr. Gaynor said he hopes to add more data from other insurers.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903374004576581131849595492.html?KEYWORDS=%22Carnegie+Mellon%22&_nocache=1316518169945&mg=com-wsj&mg=reno-secaucus-wsj

September 18

How much: $265-million unrestricted pledge

Who gave it: William S. Dietrich II, former chairman of Dietrich Industries, a steel company founded by his father, Kenneth, which was sold to Worthington Industries in 1996

Who got it: Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. It will receive the money upon Mr.Dietrich’s death.

http://philanthropy.com/article/Carnegie-Mellon-Gets-Record/129002/

September 17

Carnegie Mellon University will open a branch campus in Rwanda next year, making it the first American university to do so in central Africa.

The students who attend the programme in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, will get exactly the same diploma as those who attend Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus, officials told The Associated Press. Credits from the two programmes will even be fully transferable. Rwanda's President Paul Kagame will give a speech later Friday in Pittsburgh, announcing details of the programme. The first degree offered will be a Master of Science in Information Technology.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2460002.ece

September 16

The number of violent crimes fell by a surprising 12 percent in the United States last year, a far bigger drop than the nation has been averaging since 2001, the Justice Department said.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were 3.8 million violent crimes last year, down from 4.3 million in 2009.

Experts aren't sure why. The expectation had been that crime would increase in a weak economy with high unemployment like that seen in 2010.

The reality is that "we're surprised to find how much it declines," Professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School said Friday.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2093620,00.html#ixzz1YOrImya1

September 14

Carnegie Mellon University plans to open a branch campus in Rwanda next year, making it one of the few American colleges offering degrees in Africa.

While a number of American universities work on the continent, often establishing partnerships with local institutions on research, faculty-training programs, and other educational ventures, Carnegie Mellon's appears to be the largest commitment to date.

The Pittsburgh-based institution will be the first American university to operate a full-fledged campus in Africa, said Kevin Kinser, co-director of the Cross-Border Education Research Team at the State University of New York at Albany, which tracks branch campuses worldwide.

http://chronicle.com/article/Carnegie-Mellon-U-to-Open/128991/

September 14

The Federal Reserve should wait for more evidence the economy is slowing before starting a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, according to Marvin Goodfriend, a former Richmond Fed policy adviser.

“The Fed shouldn’t be premature about that,” Goodfriend, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday” with Tom Keene. “It should wait to see whether this slowdown develops into a more serious contraction and whether disinflation develops into an incipient deflation before it acts.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/goodfriend-says-fed-needs-more-data-before-new-round-of-asset-purchases.html

September 13

U.S. utilities could shore up reliability, but experts are divided over whether customers would be willing to spend the billions needed to harden the grid to significantly reduce outage risks.

"The fact that the power went out for about 12 hours (in San Diego) does not justify doubling electric rates for the whole rest of the year," said Jay Apt, Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon's Electricity Industry Center.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-utilities-sandiego-blackout-idUSTRE78C4UG20110913

September 12

Likewise, the number of questions on the AP exam will be pared back to allow for more questions designed to test conceptual understanding rather than memorization. The current 75 multiple choice questions will probably be reduced to 60, says David Yaron, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the AP chemistry curriculum development committee. The exam will also likely have multiple questions related to one situation or set of information, to reduce the amount of time students need to spend reading. “We want to be careful that the questions are set up so that if you miss the first question you don’t necessarily miss the second,” Yaron says, “but we should still save students time by asking about the same situation.”

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/89/8937cover4.html

September 9

Many college students are also too young to recall much from Sept. 11, 2001, says Nico Slate, assistant professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “They have vague memories of it at best,” he says, pointing out that educators are now moving into an era of students for whom 9/11 must be taught as an historical rather than a current event.

Yet, he notes, the book is hardly closed on what it all means, with new information and events changing the historical narrative all the time.“It can be taught from so many perspectives,” says Mr. Slate. “This is both the challenge and the opportunity.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0909/Teaching-9-11-How-educators-are-responding-10-years-later

September 8

Former steel executive William S. Dietrich II, a man who loves history, made some this week with the announcement that he will donate $265 million to Carnegie Mellon University, the largest gift ever received by the institution and one of the 10 largest by an individual to a private school of higher education in the country.

Although Mr. Dietrich, 73, is a longtime member of Carnegie Mellon's board of trustees, he did not attend the Oakland university. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Princeton University in 1960 and then joined his father's steel business, where he worked for 18 years before enrolling for graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He earned a doctorate in political science there in 1984, studies he pursued during his 30-year tenure as president of Dietrich Industries, the world's largest manufacturer of steel framing studs for construction.

 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11251/1172907-192.stm#ixzz1ZNIUy6cS

September 8

A couple weeks ago at a conference in Las Vegas, a professor from Carnegie Mellon University named Alessandro Acquisti showed me a neat trick. He takes out his iPhone and boots up a custom-made app. It's designed to take a picture of a person -- any person -- then using a facial recognition program made by PittPatt, the app compares that picture to profile photos published on Facebook. And bingo -- the person's identity is revealed.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/09/08/pm-9-11s-effect-on-tech/?refid=0

September 8

Most of the swings in emerging-market inflation are being driven by the “weak” dollar as the Federal Reserve prints money to spur growth, said Adam Lerrick, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

“If there’s a flight back into the dollar, maybe what they are doing is a winning bet,” Hanke said.

Interest-rate futures contracts indicate that traders are anticipating the central bank will lower borrowing costs another 100 basis points in its final two policy meetings this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-08/brazil-rate-cut-to-prevent-slowdown-in-inflation-macquarie-s-welch-says.html

September 8

Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday that William S. Dietrich II, a retired industrialist, has pledged to donate $265 million to the university.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576556920217485748.html

September 8

The philanthropist and former steel executive reminded a crowd at Carnegie Mellon University Wednesday, upon announcing his gift of $265 million to the university, and its naming its College of Humanities and Social Sciences after his mother, that one's school is called "alma mater" -- Latin for "nurturing mother" -- for good reason.

"Underpinning all our achievements and accomplishments is a simple sense of being loved," he said. "It's that feeling of security that allows us to take the risk, dream the dream and dare to live life with the courage that is forged by nurturing and abiding care."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11251/1173009-298.stm

September 8

This is one of the major challenges in designing wall-climbing robots, says Metin Sitti of the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: "It is very difficult to have a robust attachment mechanism that could work on a wide range of smooth and slightly rough surfaces in real-world conditions."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20881-basejumping-robot-throws-itself-off-buildings.html

September 7

William S. Dietrich II, 73, has pledged $265 million to Carnegie Mellon University, to take effect at his death. The gift — the largest in the history of the Pittsburgh-based university, and one of the 10 largest individual gifts to a university — is not yet designated for a particular purpose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/08brfs-265MILLIONPR_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=%22Carnegie%20Mellon%22&st=cse

September 7

Carnegie Mellon University has received a huge new pledge to expand its programs. The $265 million gift from former steel executive William S. Dietrich II is one of the largest in recent years from an individual to a private university, and the largest in the school's history, officials told The Associated Press.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hTjnDRbV2rBwwj8HCk5ZaB0vGiNg?docId=a5a5a2df921d47f0b0c3f0fbe19eb6b6

September 3

SpeedMath, a game that comes with the NeuroSky headset, shows students which types of task require most mental effort on their part, with the aim of encouraging more focused work. Jack Mostow, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, has used NeuroSky’s headsets to distinguish between the patterns of brain activity involved in reading easy and difficult sentences. This, he thinks, means that EEG could be used to tailor teaching to pupils’ needs.

http://www.economist.com/node/21527030

September 2

There are also several younger CEOs, like Kim Polese, a former Sun Microsystems Java developer, who founded Marimba, a software developer acquired by BMC Software. Polese started another company, SpikeSource, which was bought by Black Duck Software.

Right now, Polese, 39, a biophysicist, is serving as a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, but probably will start another company before long.

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/207798/20110902/technology-women-ceo-engineering-e-e-college-princeton-mit-female.htm

September Issue

Americans fear public speaking more than anything else on earth except snakes, according to a 2011 Gallup poll. So if you're jittery about presenting your research, you're in good company.

Which part of a presentation worries people most? The question-and-answer portion, says Carnegie Mellon University assistant psychology professor J. David Creswell, PhD, who regularly presents on stress and coping. "That's because it is the most unknown aspect of your talk, and you don't know what people will throw at you."

http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/09/tough-audience.aspx