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Maryland Moments, May 2007 (Honors, New Programs, Appointments, Initiatives)
Katepalli Sreenivasan is selected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is the 15th present faculty member to be so honored. Sreenivasan is a distinguished university professor in physics, Glenn L. Martin professor of engineering, and director of the Institute for Physical Science & Technology. Maryland Daily Record: "The University of Maryland, College Park unveiled what it says is the world's largest unclassified database of terrorism attacks, a tool that researchers say may aid in the development of more effective responses to terrorism. The 'Global Terrorism Database,' developed by START, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at UM, and funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is available at www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd. The database, five years in the making, includes 80,000 terror incidents from 1970 through 2004." Gary La Free, professor of criminology, directs START. "This is a powerful new weapon in the hands of researchers and policy-makers who must respond to the threat of terrorism," he said. Associated Press: "The language software and the fingerprint-recognition system are examples of new spy gear that the national intelligence director's office bought last year. They may seem like tools that should have been available years ago, but the government isn't noted for its ability to quickly develop new technology. A fledging center called IARPA is hoping to change that. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity will try to develop groundbreaking technology for the 16 spy agencies. ... The new intelligence organization will be significantly smaller than DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ), which has a $3 billion annual budget. It will be based at the University of Maryland and staffed with 56 intelligence professionals" from various government agencies. According to the Washington Examiner, "The new provost at the University of Maryland's College Park campus said he wants to 'lift' the school to 'significantly higher levels of excellence and prominence' in the country and around the world. 'You do that by raising expectations, by setting higher standards, by attracting outstanding people,' Nariman Farvardin said... ' University President Dan Mote announced Farvardin's selection... following an internal search that lasted about a month and a half, according to history professor Ira Berlin, who chaired the search committee." Farvardin, dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering, succeeds William Destler as provost. Destler is now president of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Citing competitive disadvantages and recruitment problems, UM is pushing to enact domestic partner benefits for its employees. The proposal would grant health insurance and tuition remission to the partners of all campus employees. According to the Washington Blade: "In a letter last month to Chancellor William Kirwan, College Park President C.D. Mote Jr. said he wants to enact the changes as quickly as possible. 'The lack of these benefits has in the past and continues to put us at a competitive disadvantage,' he wrote. 'It is out of step with the values and expectations of our community.' " C.D. Mote Jr. is quoted in the Washington Examiner: "[Improving buildings] is critical to how attractive we'll be ... to students and facility,' said C.D. 'Dan' Mote Jr., president of the University of Maryland, College Park." Before the Board of Regents, Mote called the present funding inadequate, saying many buildings at the system's flagship campus are more than 50 years old and there is a $623 million backlog in deferred maintenance. He also presented a housing plan for the university, which had to turn away nearly 550 seniors in need of housing next year. A diverse UM grapples with issues of inclusiveness after the carnage at Virginia Tech, precipitated by a murderous Korean-American student there. "We are reminded of what it is like to be the perpetual foreigner. To have others assume that even if we came here at the age of eight, indeed even if we had been born here, that figuratively we do not belong -- we are not real Americans," said Dr. Frank Wu, author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.' Wu was the keynote speaker at the forum. "My biggest concern and my biggest worry is that the educational experiences of my younger Asian-Pacific American brothers and sisters will be compromised,' said UM student Jen Park. Other students related stories from across the country of being targeted or discriminated against. President C.D. Mote Jr. sent a letter to the campus community following the shootings, reminding all of the diversity that contributes significantly to the university community. Maryland was picked as a locale for the sequel to the popular movie National Treasure. NBC affiliate WRC-TV investigated our link to Hollywood. "Hundreds of Washington-area folks got to fulfill their showbiz fantasies by working as extras. University of Maryland students Leayne Freeman and Jordan McCraw took part in scenes shot on the school's campus and around the region. The students said they often put in 14-hour days, but they also got to meet some of their idols. 'I was sitting next to Ed Harris during a shoot in Virginia,' McCraw said. 'He was listening to his iPod. He kept forgetting his lines. It really puts it on a human level.' ... Producers said that the University of Maryland and its campus will be prominently featured in the movie, which is scheduled for release on Dec. 21." Associated Press: "The five Americans who swept the Nobel science prizes appeared ... at a round-table discussion called by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the chairwoman of a Senate subcommittee that funds many of the nation's largest research agencies. Mikulski told the five she wanted to discuss innovation and competitiveness that leads to new technologies, products, industries and jobs. ... Roger Kornberg, a Stanford University professor who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, said innovation can't be legislated or mandated, but the current system has been successful. ... In addition to Kornberg, the other Nobel Prize winners who appeared were John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland (adjunct in physics); George Smoot of the University of California at Berkeley; Andrew Fire of Stanford University; and Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Mather noted the work on cosmic background radiation that won him the Nobel prize came out of a failed graduate school thesis. Mather also said scientists and educators can encourage students to get involved in the sciences and the federal government can provide opportunity through scholarships and funding. 'The federal government can send signals to the world that we mean what we say. Kids can figure this out and they won't just sit at home and write video games,' Mather said." The university urged students, faculty and staff to register for "UM Alert"—the university's new emergency text messaging system created in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy. UM Alert was available to all members of the university community. A software-based web application, it allows UM to send emergency text messages to cell phones, pagers, BlackBerries, PDAs, and/or email accounts. When an emergency occurs on the campus, the university is able to send a text message within minutes to all registered devices. Society & Culture A New York Times story about Robert Friedel's new book is more than a book review. The Times points to China and the East preceding the West in using science to advance the world. "How did the West emerge, though, out of what was once a diverse set of has-been or backwater cultures of a relatively small geographic region roughly contained in the boundaries of modern Europe?" Continuing, the Times notes: "The subtle nature of that mastery in science and technology can be gleaned from a new book, A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium by Robert Friedel (MIT Press). Mr. Friedel, a historian at the University of Maryland, emphasizes that he does not try to address these big questions about the rise of the West; he explicitly states that he does not attempt to answer questions 'about why the West was able to create such a dynamic and productive technology while the rest of the world failed to do so.' But his book is also a rare, detailed, nontheoretical survey that exposes the veins of invention that run through Western culture, creating an astonishing picture of achievement through its careful accumulation of small details." One Engineer's Pet Project: An AP Course The Washington Post: "Leigh Abts knows high school students would love his profession, if they just had a chance to explore it. That's why Abts, an engineer and research professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, has created a model Advanced Placement course in engineering and led an effort to implement it at high schools nationwide. 'Engineering gives kids a chance to tinker with the math and science they've learned over so many years,' said Abts, 55, who has been lobbying for the new AP course for two years. ... Next month, the College Board, which runs the AP program, will decide whether an engineering class will be added to the curriculum." Inter Press Service News Agency: "According to the results of a groundbreaking 18-nation poll... people around the world favour dramatic steps to strengthen the United Nations, including giving it the power to have its own standing peacekeeping force, to regulate the international arms trade and to investigate human rights abuses. ... The Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted the poll with WorldPublicOpinion.org, in cooperation with polling organisations around the world. WPO is a project of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland in the U.S., which seeks to provide a source of in-depth information and analysis on public opinion from around the world."
Pakistan Daily Times: "In the world as a whole, negative views of the United States have increased sharply in recent years, because the United States is perceived as unconstrained in its use of military force by the system of international rules and institutions that the US itself took the lead in establishing in the post-war period, an American professor told a congressional committee this week. Prof. Steven Kull of the University of Maryland, in testimony before a subcommittee of the House of Representative Committee on Foreign Affairs, said the Muslim world is of particular interest as it is a major source of violence against the US. It is also an area of the world with particularly negative feelings toward the United States. Some have argued, he continued, that what is important is not that people in the region like the US, but that they fear it. When forced to make a choice between the US and Al Qaeda, it is surmised, this fear will increase the likelihood that people in the region will choose the US."
Bloomberg News: "Most people in the U.S. believe their nation's economy, the world's largest, will one day be equaled in size by China's and they are largely untroubled by the prospect, according to a multinational survey... . Sixty percent of Americans believe China will reach economic parity and, in 12 other countries, more people agree with that proposition than disagree, the WorldPublicOpinion.org survey found. In none of the surveyed countries did a majority view China's ascendancy as 'mostly negative,' the Washington- based group said. 'What is particularly striking is that despite the tectonic significance of China catching up with the U.S., overall the world public's response is low key -- almost philosophical,' WPO editor Steven Kull said in a statement." An International Herald Tribune op/ed. "Avner Cohen is a senior research scholar with the University of Maryland and the author of Israel and the Bomb. ... 'For those few who were involved in this extremely secretive (Israeli) crash initiative it was an exceptionally emotional moment. Israel crossed the nuclear threshold in a crisis that evoked for Israelis a collective sense of siege and loneliness associated with memories of the Holocaust. This activity meant a solemn oath of 'Never Again.' Yet there are two major differences between what the United States did in 1945 and what Israel did in 1967. First, the United States did test its first atomic device; Israel never did. Second, and more significantly, the United States subsequently used its first atomic weapons in anger; Israel never did.' " Iran Magazine: Charles Butterworth, professor of government and politics, and Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, professor and founding director of the UM's Center for Persian Studies, are among a group of scholars protesting Iran's detainment of Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American scholar and the director of the Middle East program at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "We call upon all international organizations, academic and professional associations, and other groups and individuals devoted to the promotion and defense of human rights to strongly protest and condemn the arbitrary detention of Dr. Esfandiari, to call for her immediate and unconditional release, and to urge the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respect, guarantee and implement the provisions and principles of human rights as specified in international conventions and treaties to which Iran has long been a signatory." UM's Susan Moeller writes in Foreign Policy: "If you think RSS (Really Simple Feeds Internet) feeds are giving you the same stories that you can find on a news site, think again. It's true that the ubiquitous little orange square that one increasingly finds on websites can be a gateway to a world of content. But is using RSS a reliable way to stay informed about the world itself? Not yet. A new study from the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (Merrill College of Journalism) concludes that RSS feeds work very poorly for anyone who uses news for more than infotainment. The study looked at 19 of the world's top news sites to determine which news outlets use RSS well—which outlets give users the range of information on their feed readers that most closely approximates what can be found on the home website. Among the best: The LA Times, BBC World Service and Fox News. Among the worst: Al Jazeera, (London) Guardian and the New York Times." The cost of new weapons systems for the U.S. military is unsustainable, the man formerly in charge of buying them says. United Press International: "The unit costs of current ships, planes, tanks, missiles and so on is simply unaffordable in the quantities required -- low-cost weapons are the future,' Jacques Gansler, director of the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise at the University of Maryland and former undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told a conference Tuesday. Gansler's remarks were reported by Jane's Defence Weekly, which organized the conference. Significant changes to the way the U.S. Department of Defense buys big-ticket hardware are 'both needed and inevitable,' he said. His comments have particular weight, reports Jane's, because he is the chairman of a Defense Science Board task force studying sweeping changes to the U.S. defense industry, due to report by mid-2008." Smith School outreach, reported by the Annapolis Capital: "SPAN provides food and monetary assistance to families in Severna Park, Millersville and throughout the Broadneck Peninsula. The idea to start the project came from a friend, George Riley of North Cape Arthur. Mr. Riley is completing the MBA program at the University of Maryland. He was looking for a project management topic to cover for an assignment. He and two classmates on his team met with Mrs. Franceschini and the idea of turning the porch into functional storage space was born. 'My group and I were very excited to pick a project that could potentially have a very positive impact on the community,' said Mr. Riley. They also plan to help with fundraising and have already enlisted the help of the University of Maryland. The college has donated $1,000 toward the project." Science & Technology Christopher Reynolds, associate professor, astronomy, and colleagues Tamara Bogdanovic, research associate, astronomy, Laura Brenneman, graduate student, astronomy, and Coleman Miller, associate professor, astronomy, and director of the Center for Theory and Computation, explore a realm unimaginable in its breadth and power.
Nature: "Theorists predicted it would be one of the most dramatic events in the Universe: two black holes merging in a distant galaxy and then flying out of that galaxy, millions of Suns. But a survey of thousands of quasars — distant, active galaxies where large black holes reside — has failed to turn up a single such 'kicked' object. ... Some of the largest black holes are believed to lie at the centre of quasars. Occasionally, a quasar can have two black holes at its core. When it does, they will slowly spiral inward, until suddenly one lurches towards the other, says Christopher Reynolds, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, College Park. The colliding holes, Reynolds says, should give off a mighty gravitational shockwave that sends them speeding out of the galaxy at thousands of kilometres per second. 'These events are by far the most powerful things that exist at that point in time in the Universe,' says Reynolds. 'They release the energy of tens of millions of Suns in about an hour.' " Supermassive Black Holes Spin at the Limits of Relativity International Reporter (India): "You know the saying: nothing, not even light can escape a black hole. That makes them invisible. Amazingly, researchers from the University of Maryland have determined how fast a supermassive black hole is spinning. You won�t be surprised to know it�s spinning insanely fast, at the limits predicted by relativity. The researchers used ESA's XMM-Newton X-Ray telescope to examine the quantity of iron in an accretion disk around a supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy MCG-06-30-15. Because the disk is spinning so rapidly, the light from the disk is warped relativistically. According to their calculation, the black hole must be spinning at least 98.7% of the maximum spin rate allowable by Einstein's Theory of General relativity. This result helps astronomers understand how black holes grow over time. If supermassive black holes formed by slowly pulling in surrounding matter, they would be expected to spin faster and faster, until they reach this relativistic limit. If black holes were instead formed by colliding black holes, they�d be spinning much more slowly." The New York Times: "After the New Orleans hurricane protection system failed under the onslaught of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Army Corps of Engineers rethought the way it assesses hurricane risk. It devised new, flexible computer models and ran countless simulations on Defense Department supercomputers to help it understand what kind of storms the region can expect, how the current protection system might perform against them, and what defenses will be needed in the future. Skeptics say the corps has bitten off more than its supercomputers can chew. And in fact, the effort to produce what the corps calls its risk and reliability report has long passed its original deadline of June 1, 2006. ... Ed Link, director of the official corps investigation into the levee failures and a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland, said that while 'everyone's frustrated with how long it's taken, especially us,' the agency would deliver the report only 'when we have confidence that it's the right information.' 'Misinformation is a whole lot worse than no information,' Mr. Link said." Chicago Tribune: "Ted James and Lysa Grant hit it off immediately when they met at a study group for a psychology class. The two students at New York University knew something was special, and four years later they are now engaged. ... But according to R. Douglas Fields, neither intelligence nor charm had much to do with their mutual attraction. Rather, a little-known cranial nerve brought them together, he believes. Few neuroscientists are even aware that this so-called nerve zero exists, but Fields, an adjunct professor of neuroscience at the University of Maryland, believes it may be the key to lust." United Press International: "U.S. scientists are using laser remote sensing lidar to study biological diversity. The researchers from the Woods Hole Research Center, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of Maryland are using lidar -- light detection and ranging -- to predict bird species richness by examining 3-D images of forest canopy height in the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge. ... According to Scott Goetz, a Woods Hole senior scientist who is leading the project: 'Lidar is the most unique and exciting technology to come along in the past decade in the remote sensing research community. We now have the ability to characterize vegetation in three dimensions, and that has implications not only for biodiversity research, but also for improved estimates of biomass and carbon stocks.' " Scott Goetz is adjunct associate professor of geography. The information technology magazine Wired: "Military researchers are working hard to give their robots the powers and shapes of animals. The latest addition to the menagerie: teeny-tiny drones that can see like bugs, and hear like bats. University of Maryland's Timothy Horiuchi is trying to get computers to copy bats' 'echolation' ability -- nature's answer to radar, basically. So Horiuchi is building a circuit that he hopes that can emulate how 'interaural level differences' are processed 'in the bat brainstem and midbrain.' He's already built a number of robotic 'batmobiles' to test his circuits out. Bugs use their combination eyes to gather a ton of visual information from almost every angle. Horiuchi's colleague Sean Humbert would like to see his 'bots ape that ability of 'insect visual systems [to] combine motion estimates from arrays of local motion detectors in a way that preserves the spatial layout of the retina.' " Horiuchi and Humbert are faculty members at the Clark School of Engineering. Asia News International: "The creation of a new 'virus sponge' by researchers has raised hopes for the eradication of Influenza virus H5N1, which caused the recent epidemic of avian flu. Researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering have created a 'virus sponge' that could filter a patient's blood in a procedure parallel to kidney dialysis, removing the deadly virus from the patient's body. ... The research group of Peter Kofinas, a professor in the Clark School's Fischell Department of Bioengineering, is the first to apply molecular imprinting to confine the viruses, and to show that this approach is achievable using a low-cost hydrogel." The Semiconductor Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation awarded $2 million in grants for nanoelectronics research at six NSF affiliated research centers. UM's grant was awarded to the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, directed by Dr. Ellen Williams (distinguished university Professor of physics), with a project team led by Dr. Sankar DasSarma (distinguished university professor, physics) and Dr. Allan MacDonald at the University of Texas at Austin." Spirit India: "Now that the genome sequences of hundreds of bacteria and viruses are known, we can design tests that will rapidly detect the presence of these species based solely on their DNA. These tests can detect a pathogen in a complex mixture of organic material by recognizing short, distinguishing sequences�called DNA signatures�that occur in the pathogen and not in any other species. Adam Phillippy (research graduate assistant, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies) and colleagues from the University of Maryland, USA, have developed a computer program that can identify these signatures with a higher degree of accuracy than ever before. They describe this new computational system, called Insignia, and the results of its successful application on 46 Vibrio cholerae strains this week in the Open Access Journal PLoS Computational Biology. USA Today: "Will global warming bring malaria to Montana? Place your bets. Scientists attending a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology won't make predictions, but they say changes in the environment are sure to have ripple effects that pose new concerns for future outbreaks of infectious diseases. Animals and insects can change their behaviors and expand their geographic range in response to changes in the climate and other environmental influences, experts said Tuesday. 'Infectious diseases are a moving target,' said microbiologist Rita Colwell (Distinguished University Professor Emerita, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies) of the University of Maryland. 'As climate changes, so do infectious diseases.'...Colwell says a strategy of 'pre-emptive medicine' is needed, in which public-health experts consider factors t hat will make a disease outbreak likely, then take steps to minimize its effect. 'If we could predict the conditions conducive to a cholera epidemic, we could provide safe drinking water, vaccines, medications,' she said. 'We could target it, rather than taking a shotgun approach.' " Asia News International: "Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with scientists from the University of Maryland (Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics), and Howard University, have developed a technique to create tiny, highly efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) from nanowires. As described in a recent paper, the fabricated LEDs emit ultraviolet light�a key wavelength range required for many light-based nanotechnologies, including data storage�and the assembly technique is well-suited for scaling to commercial production." Arizona Daily Star: There is an alternative sugar choice called Whey Low. "Currently, Dr. Thomas Castonguay of the University of Maryland is testing Whey Low as part of the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (Maryland Technology Advancement Institute). MIPS is designed to help the state's small businesses. Castonguay is a professor of nutrition in the UM nutrition and food science department. His area of research focuses on food intake, body weight and body composition � 'the things you eat, why you eat them and what happens after you eat them,' he said." Live Science: "If compasses were around a million years ago, they would not have pointed toward North. That's because the Earth's magnetic field likely underwent a reversal 800,000 years ago, explains Daniel Lathrop, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland. This is hardly a startling idea to scientists, but experts have long lacked a convincing way to be sure because the answer probably lies at Earth's core. 'We'd like to understand how to predict changes in the future,' said Lathrop. 'The magnetic field's strength has fallen 10 percent in last 160 years and continues to fall. This could be a sign we're headed toward a reversal, but we just don't know.' Lathrop is one of a handful of scientists who have started to work with new computer models of the hot liquid metals flowing deep in the Earth's core." Maryland Daily Record: "A new vaccine is showing promise helping two-pack-a-day smokers kick the habit, according to studies conducted in part at the University of Maryland, College Park. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals Inc. said... its NicVAX vaccine seemed effective in helping heavy smokers quit in preliminary results from a proof-of-concept trial. ... The director of the University of Maryland Center for Health Behavior Research, Dr. Elbert D. Glover, said the mood there was jubilant. 'We're partially responsible for everything approved by the Food and Drug Administration for smoking cessation, from the patch to the oral inhaler to nicotine gum,' Glover said. But for all those effective treatments, the center has tested dozens of failed product candidates, he added. 'This is what you work for,' Glover said." The Maryland Department of Agriculture and UM's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources release new software designed to make annual nutrient management implementation reporting easier for farmers and farm operators. "Nutrient management plans help farmers protect water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries by balancing crop nutrient needs with fertilizer applications," said state Agriculture Secretary Roger Richardson. "Our goal in developing this software program with the University of Maryland is to make nutrient management reporting as easy and efficient as possible for our state's farmers and nutrient management consultants."
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 Information provided by the Office of University CommunicationsEmail University Communications at emailum@umd.edu |
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