October 26

This piece contains strong language from the beginning, as they say on the BBC. But only in the name of science – for a new study of how slang expressions spread on Twitter could offer insights into a more general question in linguistics: how language changes and evolves.

You might, like me, have been entirely innocent of what “af” denotes in the Twittersphere, in which case the phrase “I’m bored af” would simply baffle you. It doesn’t, of course, take much thought to realise that it’s simply an abbreviation for a vulgarity – a tamer version of which is “as hell”. What’s less obvious is why this pithy abbreviation should have jumped from its origin in southern California to a cluster of cities around Atlanta before spreading more widely across the east and west US coasts, as computer scientist Jacob Eisenstein of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and his co-workers Brendan O’Connor, Noah Smith and Eric Xing of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh report in an, as yet unpublished, study.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121025-language-lessons-from-twitter  

October 24

Fox News featured the Robot Hall of Fame and Carnegie Mellon on "Happening Now" Wednesday afternoon.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/TVEyesMediaCenter/UserContent/103282/1259477.3154/FNC_10-24-2012_12.59.18.mp4

October 20

The talk of a continued boom had one energy expert urging caution.

"Sounds hopeful for the local economy, but the energy business has always been boom-and-bust, so long-term predictions are pretty risky," Carnegie Mellon University professor Jay Apt wrote in an email.

"Perhaps we will get lucky," Apt wrote, but added that because Pennsylvania doesn't directly tax gas output or deposit some of the proceeds of its fee into a trust fund, the Marcellus benefits will run out one day. That's in contrast with Alaska, where residents "get an annuity check from the Permanent Fund set up with their severance tax."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/10/20/us/ap-us-gas-drilling-marcellus-trends.html?_r=1

October 18

While Fraga's research centers around developing a method to find potential criminals, Marios Savvides is focusing on security systems that will help to prevent crime in the first place. For Savvides, each literal step forward is a metaphorical one as well; in his bio-pedometrics lab at Carnegie Mellon University, he is studying the unique imprint of a person's foot as he or she walks.

His work is part of a collaboration with Autonomous ID, the company that is funding the research at CMU and whose chairman and president Todd Gray developed the idea for the bio_sole, a device that measures the way in which a person's foot hits the ground to verify his identity. Such a device could replace measures that high-security areas now have in place to protect their privacy, such as fingerprint and retina scanning.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/three-advances-forensic.html  

October 17

Carnegie Mellon University criminologist Alfred Blumstein suggested that because there was little or no change in other violent crimes in the survey, the surge in assaults could be due to deeper probing by survey interviewers.

He said robbery, which is one of the most likely crimes to be reported by victims, declined by 2%, according to the survey.

"I think it is too early to say what is going on exactly,'' Blumstein said. "I think we should wait for the results of the (FBI report later this month). If that tracks what the survey is showing, then I would it would represent a flag that we need to investigate.''

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/17/victims-report-violent-crime/1638895/

October 16

Diagnosing dementia early is both important and difficult. Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Anind Dey thinks he’s found a better way.

By embedding motion-detecting sensors in domestic objects, such as coffee machines and pill boxes, Dey can make informational representations of people performing everyday tasks. Doctors can then look at that data for subtle changes suggesting mental decline.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/house-as-doctor/

October 12

Milton Cofield

Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University

Undergraduate Courses Taught: Global Business, International Management

One of Milton Cofield’s goals in the classroom is to help his students relate the material he’s teaching to the real world. Cofield, the executive director of the undergraduate program at Tepper, says a typical lecture could include the “PowerPoints and lecturing that people hate,” but he mixes up his lessons with the occasional dramatic reading from a Shakespeare play. He uses current events and real-life examples of corporate decision-making in his business classes so that students are “really prepared for the world they want to be a part of,” he says.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-12/favorite-professors-carnegie-mellons-milton-cofield

October 7

"We are trying to be balanced. We will sacrifice the environment for nothing," said Robert Vagt, president of the Heinz Endowments, a Pittsburgh charity founded in 1941. The foundation, which is not affiliated with the company of the same name, has given more than $12 million to Cornell University, the Clean Air Council, the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, Duquesne University, the environmental law organization Earthjustice, the Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Trout Unlimited and others.

One scientist said some research wouldn't have happened without the Heinz support.

"Foundation support has been critical as we and others who study water have worked to understand how energy and water resources affect each other in southwestern Pennsylvania," Carnegie Mellon University professor Jeanne VanBriesen wrote in an email.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/AP289418b590804daaac294b2d061dddf7.html?KEYWORDS=%22Carnegie+Mellon%22&mg=reno64-wsj

October 6

Luis Von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, sold one Internet start-up to Google in 2009, and is now on to another. With the new company, Duolingo, he hopes to tap the millions of people learning languages online to create a crowdsourced engine of translation. “We want to translate the whole Web into every major language,” Mr. von Ahn says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/technology/making-the-case-for-a-government-hand-in-research.html?_r=1  

October 3

Take one laptop with information you’d like to keep private, add new voiceprint technology and a dash of salt and you’ve secured your privacy, according to a Carnegie Mellon University team.

Raj and Manas Pathak, researchers at the school’s Language Technologies Institute (LTI), believe their voice verification technology will not only prevent impersonators from breaking into your system, but protect your voice identity in the wider world as well.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/10/03/voiceprint-and-dash-salt-can-protect-your-laptop/