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(01/14/09 5:00am)
A team of University engineers working on a project to improve the security of radio frequency identification computer chips recently received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation.RFIDs are small, patch-like devices primarily used to transmit information over very short distances to devices capable of reading them, said John Lach, University associate electrical and computer engineering professor. For example, an RFID reader can be used in place of a barcode scanner to scan multiple items at a time, Lach said. He also noted that they can be used for purposes such as storing passport data or medical records.The potential use of RFIDs to store such sensitive data, however, raises concerns about the security of those devices. Assoc. Computer Science Prof. David Evans, who is also the lead researcher on the project, said the challenge of the project is to figure out how to allow only “the legitimate readers” to access information on RFIDs while not surpassing “the fundamental limits of how much security you can get with such a simple circuit.”To accomplish this goal, Evans said, the research team is working on creating hash functions for RFIDs. He explained that these functions leave the reading device unable to read the data on the RFID without possessing the appropriate key.Using hash functions rather than encryption functions would place lower computational demands on the RFID because the reading device mostly would be responsible for decoding the transmitted information, Evans said.Evans also explained that the RFIDs have another constraint: They only can use a certain amount of power. He explained that this is because a less power-efficient device, such as an RFID, has a smaller window of time to be read by the reading device because it has to be closer to the reader before it starts working.Lach emphasized the importance of staying within the limits of the RFIDs’ computational abilities, noting that the small devices “provide sort of the ultimate in resource-constrained platforms ... they’re so small, they’re so inexpensive, they don’t have any power source at all.”Evans and Lach noted that the project will call for close collaboration between the computer scientists on the team, namely Evans and Asst. Computer Science Prof. Abhi Shelat, and the hardware engineers, Lach and Ben Calhoun, University assistant electrical and computer engineering professor.Lach said the collaboration will help to resolve the issue of how much of a trade-off should be made between improving security while not exceeding the limited computational abilities of such small devices.Evans agreed, noting that “the connections between the hardware and software design are really important, and that’s one of the reasons we think we can [build upon]” previous efforts to improve the security of the devices.
(01/13/09 5:00am)
As a new year begins, the research efforts of the University’s various schools and academic departments are continuing to forge ahead, contributing to what Vice President for Research Tom Skalak called progress in key areas of interest.Skalak, who emphasized that “the deans of the [University’s] schools have the job of building their schools,” noted that there is “a lot of creativity and initiative within each school” to provide public service and research opportunities for students. Many current projects face the “complex problems facing society” and, as a result, cross disciplinary boundaries, Skalak said. As an example, he named a team in biomedical engineering — a department already spans both the Medical School and the Engineering School — that includes faculty from both of these schools as well as students from the Darden School.This team, which sometimes includes external corporate partners, has produced projects such as a new MRI technology that can image the human heart in such a way as to display both the heart muscle itself and the blood vessels within the heart, Skalak said.This development, Skalak said, could simultaneously allow users to determine whether the heart is beating properly while checking for problems in areas such as the coronary arteries that feed blood to the heart itself. Concerning the corporate side of the issue, Skalak noted that this technology has been licensed to Siemens Corporation.“The point is,” Skalak said, “that this is a great example of a diverse team coming together to lower health care costs, which benefits our state and our nation and ... would deliver better health care to the person that walks into U.Va. Medical Center.”Another joint activity involving multiple schools within the University is a project known as ecoMOD, which involved a collaboration between the Architecture School and the Engineering School, said Phil Parrish, principal scientist in the University’s materials science and engineering department. Parrish said ecoMOD involves designing and building more sustainable houses from a modular design after which there would be evaluations of the design process.As part of the modular construction movement, Parrish said, ecoMOD, which has constructed three houses and is now working on a fourth, has constructed modules for homes at central locations and then shipped them to the actual house sites to piece the modules together into a functioning house. This process, Parrish said, not only greatly improves the efficiency of home construction but also has allowed ecoMOD to “demonstrate new concepts” to modular builders with each new house the project has built.In this respect, Parrish said, ecoMOD has been part of a larger energy leadership movement within the University. For example, Parrish noted that Asst. Architecture Prof. John Quale, who has also been prominent in the ecoMOD project, has traveled to Southwest Virginia with representatives from Skalak’s office to develop prototypes to improve upon the housing options available in the region. Parrish said this also served as a platform to encourage economic development, engage modular home builders in the area and create a business model that could be taken to other parts of the country.Such wide-ranging efforts, which look at a multitude of challenges while proposing solutions on a variety of fronts, are not limited to the ecoMOD project and related initiatives. Skalak noted, for example, that his office is involved in creating “pan-University efforts,” wherein researchers from multiple schools may study some of the pressing issues facing modern society.The challenge of meeting the demands of present-day issues, Skalak said, may also be affected by the changing political landscape in Washington.“We believe that with [President-elect Barack] Obama taking office, there will be some transitions in our federal government’s emphases in science, engineering and other forms of University scholarship,” Skalak said, noting that his office expects “an emphasis on developing alternative energy and improving energy conservation measures.”In addition, Skalak said, his office expects an emphasis on safety and security, both in the field of developing “safe and secure homeland defense systems” and in developing and improving cyber security systems. This is expected to coincide with an increased emphasis on bioscience research, health information technology and public health.“And I think the final thing [is that] there’ll be a renewed emphasis on federal government realizing that the pipeline for innovation is fundamental research and the physical and biological sciences,” Skalak said.Alongside this overall theme of innovation, Skalak noted that his office, in practicing another aspect of “research enhancement,” often works to transfer technology developed in University laboratories out into the wider world.For example, Skalak said, University researchers may join partnerships with “work from the Commerce School and the Darden School” and then “find their way into corporate research agreements or ... fund startup companies.” Many of these school and department-affiliated research projects, Skalak said, are also assisted by his office’s overarching goal of research enhancement, which in this case largely refers to the procurement of external funds to make up for shortcomings in federal, state or corporate funds.These external sources of funding, which Skalak said include foundations and other donors, tend to be necessary for researchers in the humanities, visual arts and social sciences. Despite these departments’ tendency to have less access to funding, Skalak said, their research can still have great impacts on society.Some of these projects, while academic in focus, have also taken on a much grander scope thanks to modern-day technology. Examples of this include the work done by the University’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship.IATH Assistant Director David Koller described the institute’s mission as one of providing information technology to humanities scholars. He noted that the institute has about a dozen full-time employees who provide advanced technology support in areas such as Web design, 3D computer graphics and 3D scanning of real-life objects.In reference to these 3D scans, Koller noted that he is leading the High Performance Computing for Processing and Analysis of Digitized 3D Models of Cultural Heritage project, which received a grant last month from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Because of this grant, the project will have access to federal supercomputer facilities. This is particularly important, Koller said, because the 3D scanning devices gather hundreds of thousands of points of data per second, meaning that a desktop computer would be incapable of efficiently processing the data.Another University project in the humanities whose broad scope was enabled by modern-day information technology is the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship.NINES founder and former codirector Jerome McGann, who was also a cofounder of IATH in 1992, said the project serves as an online database of hundreds of thousands of resources on British and American 19th-century studies resources. The works — which include such resources as fiction, nonfiction, primary resources and secondary resources — span the “long 19th century,” or the period of time from about 1780 to 1920, McGann said.McGann, who founded NINES after receiving a distinguished achievement award from the Mellon Foundation in 2002, estimated that there are about 300,000 to 400,000 objects aggregated with NINES, and he expects that by the end of the year there will be several hundred thousand more.As may be expected, the increased scope brought about by technological innovations spans beyond the humanities and the social, physical and biological sciences. University astronomers, for example, will be undertaking a survey of more than 100,000 Milky Way red giant stars — stars approaching the later years of their life cycles — in order to gain insight into the origins and evolution of galaxies.This survey, known as the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, has the goal of discovering how elements are formed and distributed across the galaxy, said Astronomy Prof. Steven Majewski, the primary author of APOGEE’s research on this subject. He noted that most chemical elements past the first few entries in the periodic table were formed inside stars through the process of nuclear fusion.Majewski explained that different elements burn to produce different patterns of lines in the electromagnetic spectrum, noting that this allows instruments to identify the chemical composition of stars.He explained, however, that interstellar dust clouds interfere with visual light observations of distant stars. The work in APOGEE, Majewski said, will compensate for this by focusing in measurements in the infrared spectrum, which has a wavelength longer than that of visible light.The instruments used by APOGEE also will be able to identify the spectra of up to 300 stars at a time, Majewski said. The ability to identify more stars at greater distances will, Majewski noted, contribute to the experiment’s greater scope when compared to previous astronomical surveys.APOGEE is focused on red giant stars because of their much greater brightness when compared to smaller stars, Majewski said. He explained that some challenges in the survey would arise from factors such as the much shorter life cycles of higher-mass stars. It will be a challenge, Majewski said, to determine how much the survey is representative of the galaxy as a whole, especially because the 100,000 surveyed in the project will still be a small percentage of the galaxy’s total population of stars.Nevertheless, Majewski said, APOGEE is part of a greater movement in the field of astronomy toward “bigger and bigger projects” that are moving away from the old trend of one professor doing work alone with a small team.“This is a very big problem that’s sort of hot in the field right now,” Majewski said. “Understanding how stars form, how dusts form ... that requires a new approach and level of understanding.”In regards to new research approaches, the University launched its Science and Art Project last month, Skalak said. That project’s goal, Skalak said, is to bring together the diverse perspectives of scientists and artists in order to allow them to collaborate on projects of their choosing. “What we’re doing on the Web site is ... creating an open collaborative space so that people can come together,” Skalak said.Among the examples of such possible collaboration, Skalak noted, include cases in which a researcher in neuroscience might come together with someone in theater or drama to study the human response to performances. He also mentioned that a computer scientist and artist may look at the problem of Internet traffic in different ways or that a sculptor may collaborate with a plant biologist out of an interest in portraying how genetic modifications of plants may be expressed in sculpture.“The basic idea was to recognize that creativity and innovation are an important part of all the disciplines that we’ve just been discussing,” Skalak said, concluding that “the goal is to expand new ideas and creative work.”
(12/02/08 6:53am)
University Architecture students involved in a neighborhood planning course gave a presentation yesterday about foreclosure and property decay to representatives from the City of Charlottesville, Piedmont Housing Alliance and other local organizations.Second-year Architecture graduate student Adam Lovelady said the project, whose participants are all affiliated with the Architecture School’s urban and environmental planning department, was divided into four themes, each of which involved a different group of students: “Identifying Priority Areas,” “Correlating Blight and Prevention,” “Forecasting Foreclosures” and “Increasing Financial Literacy.”In discussing the methods used for the project’s data collection and analysis, fourth-year Architecture student Laura Hammett, who is also a Cavalier Daily production editor, noted that the initial data on foreclosures were collected from foreclosures.com, Piedmont Housing Alliance’s foreclosure data and The Daily Progress newspaper. This data, Hammett said, was analyzed according to demographics, time, finances and housing quality and then used to make policy suggestions.When speaking of the motivation behind the project, Lovelady said as a class the workshop members were interested in seeing how the larger foreclosure crisis affects Charlottesville itself.“Obviously you see the headlines of [areas] that have drastic numbers of foreclosures,” Lovelady said, noting that it is “easy to think of Charlottesville as isolated from this.”Lovelady said Charlottesville is not isolated from the foreclosure crisis, especially when considering issues such as neighborhood foreclosures.Fourth-year Architecture student Ahnivah Williams, who worked on the project’s first theme of identifying priority areas, said the Charlottesville locations recognized by the group as most in need of redevelopment funds were Fifeville, Fry’s Spring and Ridge Street. She explained that these areas had the greatest percentage of home foreclosures, the highest percentage of subprime mortgages and/or a likelihood of experiencing a significant increase in the rate of home foreclosures.These three areas could file applications for grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program, fourth-year Architecture student Melissa Reese said. She noted, however, that it is uncertain whether the areas actually could receive the grants. Hammett and Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said the NSP requires that areas receiving grants must have a foreclosure rate of 10 percent or higher. Charlottesville itself has a foreclosure rate of 0.5 percent, fourth-year Architecture student Sarah Bridger said, but having the critical areas within Charlottesville apply individually for NSP assistance might bypass this restriction if the foreclosure rates — which as of this year are all below 3 percent — increase.The second theme of correlating blight and prevention, fourth-year Architecture student Alicia Rabadan said, deals with the issue of preventing decaying properties from negatively affecting their surroundings. Rabadan explained that the motivation for this part of the project was a perception that “blighted” properties not only damage aesthetics but also encourage further deterioration of and damage to property in the surrounding area. This in turn may lead to less community development, more crime and other issues that would reduce the quality of life in affected neighborhoods, Rabadan said.Currently, the city’s policy on properties experiencing such deterioration is to receive reports from residents, conduct a series of public hearings involving the owner and then raise the possibility of the city acquiring, renovating and reselling the property, Rabadan and Norris said.Despite this possibility, acquisition of blighted property is a last-resort option, Norris said.“There’s been one occasion, only one, when I’ve been on [Charlottesville] City Council when we’ve had to initiate a seizure of property,” Norris said, noting that once the seizure was initiated, it did not have to be carried through, because the owner complied with the city’s orders to repair his property.With this in mind, Rabadan said, the group that addressed the second theme recommended that Charlottesville adopt an anti-blight ordinance that punishes violators before threatening them with a public acquisition of their property.The group that studied the topic of forecasting foreclosures saw several trends, including an 89-percent increase in foreclosures since 2006, the fact that 56.8 percent of foreclosed loans are adjustable rate mortgages and that 62.5 percent of home loans in Virginia are adjustable rate mortgages, Bridger said. Some financial analysts have argued against adjustable rate mortgages, noting that some consumers who enter into a low interest rate loan later find themselves unable to repay the loan should the interest rate rise. “The good news is that the number of ARMs and subprime loans originating is decreasing, but many of them are soon to reset,” Bridger said.In light of this, the group proposed to create a local partnership including the city, the Piedmont Housing Alliance, local nonprofits and lending institutions to connect affected or at-risk individuals with foreclosure information, Bridger said. She explained that this could be aided by neighborhood early warning systems, improved online materials and publicity regarding national hotlines.The group studying the fourth theme of increasing financial literacy proposed a collaboration between the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the city to increase financial education efforts on various levels, especially in primary, secondary and adult education, fourth-year Architecture student Hedieh Fakhriyazdi said. She cited a number of programs across the country designed to accomplish such goals, noting that it is “crucial to tackle foreclosure before it expands.”For primary and secondary education, Fakhriyazdi said, the city could implement a curriculum that requires students to demonstrate sufficient financial literacy to graduate from high school. At the adult level, she listed group suggestions such as increasing access to financial literary resources and holding required workshops on the issue.PHA Executive Director Stuart Armstrong, who is also chairman of the Nelson County School Board, explained that financial literacy is taught in Virginia public schools but only in passing during regular courses required by the Standards of Learning. Because of this, Armstrong said, the current challenge is to make financial literacy a stand-alone program that is required in its own right.Norris, who expressed his view that the presenters “did a wonderful job,” particularly emphasized the importance of preventative strategy.“We can’t be complacent,” Norris said in reference to the city’s relatively low rate of foreclosure. “It’s not over yet.”
(11/21/08 6:22am)
A lifelong teacher and school librarian decided before her death in 2006 to make a final commitment to the world of education, including to the University’s Education School. The estate of University alumna Jane Iris Crutchfield has executed Crutchfield’s wish to donate more than $1 million to both the University’s Education School and the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Crutchfield left these donations in the name of her mother, Janie Gammon Crutchfield, a driving force behind her pursuit of her education, Curry Foundation Executive Director Deb Donnelly said.Architecture School alumna Mary Kay Lanzillotta, one of Crutchfield’s co-trustees, described her longtime neighbor — known to Lanzillotta and others in their community as “Miss Iris” — as a warm and friendly individual who was “very interested in education and giving back” to the communities of which she was a part.Crutchfield, a 1952 Education School alumna, taught at Virginia public schools for 19 years before earning a degree in library science from UNC at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science, Lanzillotta said. Crutchfield then served as a librarian in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area until her retirement, Lanzillotta said.“It’s a remarkable gift, given that Ms. Jane Iris was a school teacher and librarian her whole life,” Donnelly said, noting that education professionals are not often able to make such sizable donations.The majority of the gift to the University of Virginia will go toward financing part of the construction of Bavaro Hall, a building that Donnelly described as the future “face of the Curry School of Education.”Education School Outreach Coordinator Lynn Bell noted that about $500,000 of the roughly $1.1 million Crutchfield gave to the University will specifically fund the creation of the Janie Gammon Crutchfield faculty suite in the building, pending approval from the Board of Visitors, while the rest of the gift will go toward the general construction of the building. She said the $37.4 million building being constructed next to Ruffner Hall will house faculty while providing common spaces for activities such as student and faculty research. These provisions are expected to provide a greater opportunity for collaboration among faculty and students, Bell said.José-Marie Griffiths, UNC at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science dean, noted that her institution’s share of the gift is being allocated to the Susan Grey Akers Scholarship Fund. The funds, which have been received by the school during the past year, have accrued enough interest to aid students in the upcoming academic year, Griffiths said, noting that this allocation of additional funds to the scholarship will be particularly helpful, considering the current state of the economy.Crutchfield’s altruism in the name of her mother raised concerns that Crutchfield might not be remembered in the future, Griffiths said. With this in mind, Griffiths said, the Susan Grey Akers Scholarship will include an homage to one of Crutchfield’s traditions: annual tea parties that will mirror Crutchfield’s own practice of offering the drink to community members as they discussed their lives and educational experiences.
(11/17/08 6:43am)
In an effort to improve the University’s name recognition outside the United States, two student-run initiatives are planning a variety of projects to better inform international students, parents and employers about how the University operates and the opportunities it offers.First-year College student Karissa Nanetta, project leader for U.Va. Global Publicity, said she and other students “perceived the need to further put U.Va.’s name out there.” Though international students at the University have first-hand knowledge of the University’s educational experience, the institution does not tend to be as well-known abroad, she said. The first of U.Va. Global Publicity’s efforts will be held during Winter Break, when University international students will be encouraged to visit secondary schools in their home countries.Director of International Admission Parke Muth has supported organizing the first school visits this December during Winter Break, Nanetta said. This initial effort will allow the parties involved to gauge how effective the program is.“We believe that the most valuable resource that we have is the current students themselves,” Nanetta said, because international students have the ability to return to their home countries and visit schools while talking about their own experiences at the University. The school visits, though, will not focus solely on persuading students to apply to the University in particular, said first-year College student Weiqi Tian, project leader for International Parents Outreach. University students instead will be advised to spend time talking about American lifestyles while explaining what they like about the University, Tian said. Such an approach could generate increased interest in the presentations, Nanetta and Muth said. The approach also will provide an opportunity to inform university-bound international students about the liberal arts framework of the American higher education system, Muth said.In addition to the school visits being planned by U.Va. Global Publicity, students involved in International Parents Outreach plan to promote the University to parents and prospective employers of international students, Tian noted.“We want our international students to be known by employers, and through parents we can [further] publicize [the University],” Tian said, noting the interdependence of parent and student opinions when choosing a university to attend. Additionally, many international students may not have access to American employers after graduation because they cannot remain in the United States; as a result, these students must rely on the University’s reputation among international employers, Nanetta and Tian added.Among the services to be provided by International Parents Outreach will be translation of University information, including handbooks and common online resources that are mostly in English, Tian noted.“Once parents know what is going on here, it will save a lot of energy for international students to explain what is going on to their parents,” Tian said of the efforts to facilitate communication with international families. The Parents Outreach project is expected to complement U.Va. Global Publicity’s efforts, Tian and Nanetta said.While expressing his support for the student initiatives, Muth noted that the admission office’s travel efforts have generally been one of the main ways in which the University has reached out to international students.“The importance is once you get outside the boundaries of the United States there are some places that ... know the Ivy League but ... may not know much about U.Va.,” Muth said. “So part of the [motivation] is to go and demonstrate an active interest from students all over.”Nanetta agreed with the reasoning behind the visits abroad, using the example of her own and Tian’s decisions to attend the University because of information they had received from other students.“We know it works,” Nanetta said. Her school in her home country of Singapore, which has received such visits, is a good example of the success of these efforts, she said.The current focus of the newly proposed student initiatives will be on the University students themselves as they visit schools in their home countries, Muth said, noting he believes time will allow for an effort even larger in scope.U.Va. Global Publicity’s work with the Office of Undergraduate Admission may also be supplemented by an umbrella organization that would aim to coordinate the efforts of the various international student organizations on Grounds. The group proposing the Global Students Council plans to approach Student Council later this week in an attempt to receive authorization as an official contracted independent organization.
(11/07/08 5:53am)
The City of Charlottesville lost its competition with Falls Church, Va., to see which city would have a higher percentage of registered voters go to the polls Tuesday. For its decisive 80 percent to 66 percent voter turnout rate victory against Charlottesville, the Northern Virginia city received a bust of Thomas Jefferson.Jackie Harris, voter outreach coordinator for the City of Charlottesville, explained that Falls Church was chosen as Charlottesville’s competitor in an attempt to unseat Falls Church from its position as the Virginia city with the highest voter turnout rate.“We were looking around at the most recent presidential election and we saw that Falls Church had the highest turnout ... and Charlottesville always wants to be number one,” Harris said when explaining the city’s motivation to pursue the challenge.In addition, Harris noted that the competition provided a “fun way” of reinforcing the many grassroots efforts to increase voter turnout and registration. If Charlottesville had beaten Falls Church, the city would have received a sassafras sapling wagered before Election Day.This year’s voter turnout percentage in both cities was not significantly different from the 2004 election, she said, but the cities both saw an overall increase in both voter registration and voter turnout.In explaining her city’s success in the friendly competition, Falls Church General Registrar Debbie Taylor noted that her city has both a small population of about 10,000 that makes differences in voter turnout more noticeable and a relatively high level of political interest because of the city’s proximity to and relationship with Washington, D.C.Harris noted that the smaller community of Falls Church regularly manages to produce a voter turnout rate five to 10 percentage points higher than Charlottesville’s voter turnout rate.Even though Charlottesville lost, Mayor Dave Norris said he believes the competition was a success overall. While he noted that it would be difficult to measure the actual impact of the rivalry, Norris said Charlottesville ultimately had “thousands more” people at the polls this year than in the 2004 election.“It was all in good fun,” Norris said. “The mayor of Falls Church was eager to put [its] reputation on the line, and this time they came out ahead, but next time will be sweet revenge.”In keeping with this spirit of friendly rivalry, Taylor joked that Charlottesville may have reservations about challenging Falls Church in the future.“I would say that’s completely up to the losers,” Taylor said of the possibility of a voter turnout rematch between the two cities. “If you want to lick your wounds and come back, that’d be fine with us.”While Norris noted that he does not plan to be the city’s mayor in 2012 and would thus not be able to arrange another competition, he said he believes that continuing to challenge a competitive community such as Falls Church, with its ability to easily mobilize voters, would be beneficial to Charlottesville.“I think it’s good for Charlottesville to raise the bar and try to get more citizens involved in the democratic process,” Norris said. “I’m out 60 bucks for a bust of Jefferson, but ... that’s a small price to pay.”
(10/28/08 6:15am)
In an attempt to reduce the effects of second-hand smoke, the University recently revised its policy on smoking in public areas to prohibit the activity within 25 feet of all building entrances, including air intakes, windows and doors.Ralph Allen, director of the University’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, explained that this new policy clarifies existing University regulations on smoking. He said the policy already prohibited smoking within buildings and in areas close to any entrances but without setting a specific distance.Allen said the revision “leaves less to the interpretation,” noting that a smoker previously could have claimed to be “two blocks” or “5 feet” away from a building but not necessarily “next to” a building’s door.“What we’re trying to do is protect people from second-hand smoke,” Allen said. “The idea was to have people who were smoking not draw air into the buildings.”Allen added that enforcing the smoking policy will largely rely on individual witnesses to bring violations to the attention of the respective disciplinary bodies for students, faculty or staff, and noted that those in charge will be initially responsible for informing their staff members of the policy clarification. University Human Resources, he said, is ultimately responsible for disciplining employees, and students who violate the policy also could face disciplinary action.“I think the intent is [that] no one wants to go around being smoking police,” Allen said of this enforcement policy. “I think individual smokers are just going to have to be responsive.”First-year College student Ahmed Sarhan, however, expressed some reservations about the new smoking policy. Sarhan said policies banning smoking in some public places might infringe upon personal choice.“I understand the reasoning behind it,” Sarhan said. “I think it’s a good cause because you’re respecting people’s health and people’s privacy.”Nonetheless, Sarhan said, individuals should have the choice whether or not to smoke. Sarhan said he believed that such an allowance would also be more in tune with the founding principles of the University.Third-year College student Kelsey Gustin, though, said she tends to favor policies prohibiting smoking in certain places.“I think to a certain degree smokers should be respectful of those around them,” Gustin said. “In public, enclosed places I’m usually in approval of non-smoking policies.”In addition to modifying its smoking policies, Allen said the University continues to emphasize smoker health as well. To aid current smokers who may consider quitting, Allen noted, the University’s health insurance plan includes coverage for smoking cessation health care.“I think it was to encourage recognizing that [smoking] is an addiction, and it takes some effort to overcome it,” Allen said. “The goal is ... if you spend some money on health care preventing lung cancer, it’s better than spending money in treating the lung cancer later.”
(10/24/08 4:35am)
Last week, the community of Gita, Uganda celebrated the groundbreaking of a new academy largely supported and designed by sources within the University community.The University’s student chapter of Building Tomorrow undertook fundraising efforts for the project, while the Architecture School’s reCOVER initiative and the Engineering School’s Engineering in Context Design Program managed the design aspects. According to Maggie Kirkpatrick, Building Tomorrow assistant director for partnerships and University alumna, Building Tomorrow is an international non-profit organization that seeks to raise funds and awareness to build schools in Africa.Meredyth Gilmore, president of the University chapter of Building Tomorrow, said the Gita community is currently facing a number of social and economic problems, including an HIV/AIDS epidemic, the difficulty of providing care for a large number of orphaned children and a lack of capital to build schools and poverty. She explained that the combination of these and other factors often prevent local children from attending schools.“It’s really heartbreaking to see a 9-year-old [child] who spends his entire day [making] bricks and will probably do that for his entire life if there isn’t some sort of intervention,” Gilmore said. “Building the school helps [the community] overcome that lack of capital and provides them means by which 350 students can get into the school where they wouldn’t have been able to in the past.”Gilmore noted that the University chapter of Building Tomorrow has coordinated a number of fundraising efforts to pay for the academy. She said some of these events, such as Bike to Uganda, were hosted by the organization itself, whereas others, such as the Medical School’s pancake fundraiser and the Greek community’s Mid-Autumns Carnival, were collaborations with other groups.Kirkpatrick added that the local Ugandan community will provide 25,000 hours of labor as part of a cost-sharing agreement with Building Tomorrow. She said grandparents, parents and other individuals close to the academy’s future students are a large source of volunteers for the project.Gilmore said it would be ideal if money could be supplied to the local economy by paying the community volunteers, but budget constraints have prevented this from occurring.“Unfortunately, the reality of fundraising is that we just don’t have enough money to pay for labor, but the community members are really supportive of the school and they want to do anything they can, including helping building it to get the school in their community,” Gilmore said.Asst. Architecture Prof. Anselmo Canfora, director of Initiative reCOVER, said he worked with 18 fourth-year students and a graduate student last spring on the project after collaborating with students from another studio reCOVER group last fall. The spring 2008 studio reCOVER group, he said, worked with Engineering students and faculty participating in the program Engineering in Context. Another partner in the design efforts, Canfora said, was the U.K.-based architecture and engineering firm Arup Partners.Canfora explained that Engineering students helped to develop both a water filtration system and an electric system powered by solar energy panels that will be installed on the building’s roof. Kirkpatrick, however, noted that cost constraints have prevented the school currently under construction from including the water and power systems designed by the engineering group. She said the building’s design still allows for these utilities to be added in the future, though.Aside from cost constraints, Canfora noted that there were a number of other challenges in designing the academy, including the desire to create a positive environment while working with local materials and construction expertise.“Making the classrooms better spaces to learn ... was something we had to balance with what materials we had available to use and what were the local sorts of skill-sets,” Canfora said.Canfora said the project’s local community volunteers will be supervised by experienced local builders, including masons and carpenters.“You do have a lot of folks who maybe have not built before and are investing sweat equity for the sake of their kids, which is an amazing thing,” Canfora said.If the project is successful, more projects like it may be on the horizon. Gilmore said the University’s chapter of Building Tomorrow has set a goal of eventually raising enough money to build a new school each year.
(10/20/08 4:05am)
University research suggests individuals with greater sensitivity to bitter tastes are less likely to develop a dependence on nicotine than those with a lower sensitivity to such tastes.“If a person is a [sensitive] taster, then that person is less likely to become a smoker,” said lead investigator Ming Li, professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences. “In other words, [being a] taster is kind of protective and [being a] non-taster is kind of like a risk factor.” Li explained that the research project consisted of two components, the first of which was published in the Journal of Medical Genetics and the second of which was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The first component of the research focused on genetic analysis of DNA samples taken from more than 2,200 human subjects over a period of nearly 10 years, Li said. The individuals taking part in the study were classified as tasters, non-tasters or intermediate, Li said. If a person was classified as a non-taster, he or she was more likely to become a smoker. The second component of the research introduced a mathematically based methodology that provided a novel method of detecting gene-gene interaction for other human genetic researchers, Li said, and was used to analyze genetic data on two taste receptor genes, known as TAS2R16 and TAS2R38. The researchers found that these two genes interact with each other in the development of smoking dependence. This component of the research extended the finding of the first report, and together the research offers a “complete story,” Li said.Jamie Mangold, a former research assistant in Li’s lab who was primarily involved in the first component of the study, commented that the development of the research between the two publications focused on the role of the taste receptor genes.There was evidence in earlier research, Mangold said, indicating that people who are more sensitive to bitter substances are less likely to be smokers and drinkers. Mangold said she looked through the literature and thought that taste could be a major factor.“With publication of the first paper, we kind of decided that the TAS2R16 gene was not a primary player ... but after the second paper we realized that the TAS2R16 gene may also be important through its interaction with TAS2R38,” Mangold said. Li explained that older methodologies could only handle either binary traits, such as whether a person did or did not have a disease, or continuous traits, such as height. Moreover, Li said, these methods could not account for all the variables that may affect an individual’s characteristics, such as age, gender and ethnicity.“With our method, you can correct [the algorithm] for all [factors] that you think may affect this disease,” Li said. Xiang-Yang Lou, assistant professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences and first author of the second paper, said his portion of the study showed a relatively small, but still noticeable, relation between the two interacting genes and nicotine dependency. Lou explained that this is likely because smoking is a complex, multivariable behavior; however, he emphasized that the findings in his report were noteworthy because they had a low level of statistical error for the relatively small quantities with which they dealt.“This new method is better than [the previously] existing method and able to detect even a relatively small difference,” Lou said. “Genetic researchers are very interested in finding these kinds of interactions these days.”While the two components of the project were largely independent efforts within the research group, Lou noted, the second paper referred to data that had been examined in the first. In contrast to the size and longevity of the sample for the first project, Lou said he used data from more than 600 families in a simulation of the algorithm to validate the new method and data from about 400 families in the final nicotine dependence study.Ultimately, Mangold explained, the new findings may prove valuable for future medical use.“This in particular would be a useful way to screen out for those who would be more susceptible,” Mangold said. “So early on before smoking behavior begins, if one is screened for this genotype, we may actually be able to predict who may become dependent and then actually target more preventive programs toward them.”
(10/10/08 8:28am)
The University’s Inter-Sorority Council recently reported increased participation in its informal fall recruitment process. Rising interest in both fall and spring recruitment has led ISC officials to consider the initial stages of a potential two- or three-year expansion process.Vice President for Recruitment Ashleigh Carson said 86 women registered for informal fall recruitment via the organization’s Web site this year. Seven of 15 sororities contacted girls this year, she said, noting that this was an increase over previous years featuring a fall rush. The eight sororities that did not register any fall rush participants already had met their quotas, Carson said, explaining that as of this year, ISC sets limits on house membership.“The total number [of allowed pledges per sorority] is decided each spring, so the coming fall [the new membership limit] decides whether houses will have the opportunity to take new members,” Carson said, adding that sororities not meeting the spring limit have the opportunity to offer membership in the fall to meet their houses’ quota.“We did [fall rush] to make sure all the houses had around the same number of people,” Carson said, noting that the ISC would prefer to see membership increase across the board, not just at specific sororities. ISC President Stuart Berkeley noted that fall recruitment efforts thus far are indicative of an overall increase in sorority involvement seen in recent years as well as heightened interest in Greek life. “I think that people are generally realizing that ISC is a great benefit to their time and experience at the University,” Berkeley said. Carson noted that in 2007, 755 women participated in spring rush, while 829 participated this past spring.Carson and Berkeley both said a number of factors could be contributing to the recent increase in fall rush participation. Carson noted that the online registration process is a new feature implemented to manage the overall trend of increased interest in sorority membership and may have beneficial consequences.“It helped girls who are new to the school or unfamiliar with the registration process know where the houses are,” Carson said, also noting that it helped upperclassmen identify houses they might not have known about otherwise.Carson also noted the more intimate nature of the informal recruitment process used during the fall, saying it is a potentially more valuable opportunity for upperclassmen to become acclimated to the Greek system than the more traditional system employed during the spring. That informal recruitment process might have played a role in increasing the participation, she said. Moreover, she noted, the fall recruitment process, which required a significantly lower budget commitment than formal spring recruitment, also received positive feedback from the houses recruiting members.“Houses were just able to contact the girls individually and invite them to rush events that weren’t so regulated and weren’t so costly [as compared to spring recruitment], such as going to Arch’s [Frozen Yogurt] or hanging out at the sorority house and getting to talk to the people informally,” Carson said. “I think they really appreciated that.”One side effect of the increased interest, Carson and Berkeley said, is that the ISC must now consider the possibility of expansion through the addition of another sorority house. “We’re in the midst of looking into a two- or three-year expansion process,” Berkeley said, noting that adding another house might be required to keep sororities at a manageable size. Berkeley also said, though, that “at this point we are just in the initial stages.”
(10/07/08 6:01am)
As a result of uncertainty surrounding the commonwealth’s current economic situation, the University’s Board of Visitors decided last week to defer action on the issue of supplementing faculty salaries beyond the 2-percent increase called for in the current commonwealth budget.For the past five years, according to Leonard Sandridge, University executive vice president and chief operating officer, the Board has augmented salary increases from the commonwealth. Sandridge stated in an e-mail that this augmentation is not likely to occur in the 2008-09 year for economic reasons.The salary increase currently called for in the commonwealth’s budget also is uncertain.“The current state budget includes salary increases for faculty and staff effective November 25,” Sandridge stated. “However, given the current economic stress the state and the nation are facing, we are not sure what the state might do to reduce spending in 2008-2009 and we do not know whether there will be any impact on the planned salary increases.”The competitiveness of the University’s faculty salaries could be impacted by changes in government funding.“Many of the other schools, particularly state schools, are under similar or more severe budget pressure,” Faculty Senate Chair Edmund Kitch said. “The $2.9 billion [deficit] has to come from somewhere, but there are some things that can’t be expected to go down.”Kitch also said prospective faculty members may receive offers from a number of institutions, noting “salaries are part of the package that the University uses to try to attract a competent faculty.” He said, though, that faculty members already working in Charlottesville already have some investment in the University, which could factor into decisions about whether to accept offers from another college or university.According to Sandridge, the Board’s plan for supporting faculty salaries will next be addressed in June 2009 as part of the discussion for the following academic year’s budget.“We had been asked to recommend a plan for continuing our multi-year efforts to keep faculty salaries at competitive levels,” Sandridge stated. “We recommended that the next five-year plan be included in the University’s budget for 2009-2010.”
(10/02/08 6:01am)
The Charlottesville area reported its highest unemployment rate in the past six years, 4.1 percent, in figures released Tuesday.This statistic represents the unemployment rate in mid-August for Charlottesville’s metropolitan statistical area, which includes the city and the surrounding counties of Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna and Nelson. One year earlier, in August 2007, the unemployment rate was 2.7 percent.As is standard for figures of unemployment rates, the statistics reflect the number of people who have not found a job despite actively searching for one.“When you go out contacting employers, sending out resumes, that is considered actively looking for work,” said William Mezger, chief economist at the Virginia Employment Commission.Total employment in the area this August was 99,700 as opposed to 99,800 the previous year, Mezger said, noting, though, that such figures may be flawed. The statistics for total employment do not necessarily reflect a decrease in total employment in the area, Mezger explained.“August is the lowest month [for employment] in both the University and other school systems,” Mezger said, noting that the University is the largest employer of Charlottesville area residents.Because the University, including the Health System, employs about one-fifth of the area’s labor force, such a seasonal fluctuation would likely have a noticeable effect on total employment statistics, Mezger said.Mezger also noted the importance of the timing of the report. Because the data were collected from Aug. 10 to 16, they do not reflect the most recent crises in the financial sector.“They probably reflect what was going on at the time: the decline in the real-estate market, the decline in vehicle sales, and the general poor economic conditions,” Mezger said, noting that in the spring, Charlottesville was one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in terms of total employment.Chris Engel, assistant director of the Charlottesville Office of Economic Development, said there have been no large-scale layoffs of employees in the City of Charlottesville and noted that much of the growth in unemployment rate can be attributed to the increasing reluctance of employers to hire new workers.Mezger noted that some industries could have a disproportionate influence on unemployment figures.“Since the Charlottesville area supports construction workers [working in] other parts of the state, probably some of the increase in unemployment is caused by construction workers [returning to] the Charlottesville area,” Mezger said.According to Susan Carkeek, the University’s chief human resource officer, the University has not historically laid off a large number of workers in any of its departments.“We’ve said that that’s not the way we balance our budgets,” Carkeek remarked. “We try to manage more proactively so we do not end up in that situation.”Like other employers in the region, the University has responded to tighter budget conditions by not filling as many of the vacancies that are left over from its high rate of labor turnover. Carkeek also noted the complex nature of University funding creates some difficulties in providing new opportunities.“Not all of our funds can be moved around, so we have to honor the source of the funds for many of the positions that are targeted specifically to a particular purpose,” Carkeek said.Though the current conditions in Charlottesville may seem concerning, Engel stressed the importance of keeping the situation in perspective.“It wasn’t too many years ago that having a 5-percent unemployment rate was considered full employment and actually quite healthy,” Engel said. “The unemployment rate within the past several years has been within the 2-percent range, which is very, very low.”The current unemployment rate in Charlottesville remains among the lowest of any metropolitan area in Virginia, second only to Northern Virginia.The current situation also allows for hope that there may be growth in certain sectors, Engel noted, adding that whether those hopes will materialize, though, is far from certain.“It’s something we need to pay attention to,” Engel said of the area’s employment figures, “but it’s not something we need to be overly concerned about at this point in time.”
(09/25/08 4:17am)
The Engineering School is building a working relationship with Fortune 500 company Science Applications International Corporation that is expected to involve scholarships for students, collaborative research and a cyber-security speaker series.SAIC — a scientific, engineering and technology applications company — is partnering with the Engineering School through a five-year master research agreement, according to SAIC spokesperson Melissa Koskovich.Koskovich described SAIC as a company that uses its “deep domain knowledge to solve problems of vital importance to the nation and the world,” focusing on national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure and health. One portion of the partnership includes an exchange of research resources between the two institutions, Engineering Dean James Aylor said.“We’re working on trying to come up with some sort of standard research agreement so that [SAIC researchers can] come here and say ‘I want to do research on this particular topic,’” Aylor said.Koskovich also described the value of the partnership, noting that it could enable prompt funding of research for both the company and the University.The partnership will also involve sharing information through a cyber-security speaker series, Aylor explained that one SAIC researcher will lecture at the University each month in the next four full months of the academic year, while University researchers would eventually do the same at SAIC locations.Aylor also noted that the company will sponsor a research scholarship for both undergraduate and graduate Engineering students. According to Koskovich, these scholarships will consist of $5,000 to $20,000 stipends to support projects of concern to SAIC and its customers.“Both organizations have a lot to gain from this alliance,” Koskovich said. “SAIC is going to continue to find great talent in the graduates of the Engineering School, and we in turn are going to support another research initiative.”When discussing the process that led to the strengthening of ties between the University and SAIC, Aylor said the University was “fortunate to be one of those three or four universities” selected by SAIC after a series of presentations given in Northern Virginia by competing institutions, each of which wanted to strengthen its relationship with the research firm.“SAIC is a major player in the intelligence community, so we feel very fortunate to be selected as one of their strategic partners in terms of university research relationships,” Aylor said.He explained that the University has much to gain from the new relationship, both in funding and the school’s long-term goals.“I think it is important for universities to form partnerships with corporations to solve some of the critical issues facing society, such as cyber-security and energy,” Aylor said.
(09/22/08 4:03am)
Though some students may believe the practice commonly described as “Facebook stalking” is limited to their own generation or potential employers, a Kaplan survey has found that social networking profiles are also sometimes reviewed by undergraduate and graduate schools’ admissions offices. Ten percent of the 320 undergraduate admissions officers in Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions’ survey reported they had looked at the profiles of applicants to help them make decisions about applicants. The rates for their counterparts in business, medical and law schools were 9, 14 and 15 percent, respectively.The survey involved one admissions officer at 320 of the top 500 colleges during July and August, according to Glen Stohr, Kaplan director of pre-law programs. Stohr noted that there may be some significance in the higher rate of monitoring by law school admissions officers.“I think one of the reasons you see more of this for law schools is that they almost never do face-to-face interviews, like [medical] schools and MBA programs,” Stohr said. “The other side of it is that in the legal profession, as you’re getting ready to pass the bar, your character is evaluated rigorously by the bar association.”Officials at both the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Office of Law School Admissions said their officers do not actively search through social networking Web sites.“It’s very rare that we would have the time to look at something like that,” College Admissions Assoc. Dean Greg Roberts said.Moreover, Roberts said, his office does not put much stock in those sites because he believes many students tend to exaggerate on their personal Web sites.“There are some things that are alarming, certainly, but we wouldn’t take them at face value,” Roberts said. “We would go to the student or school first, but in the end, we want good students and good people, so you never know if it could make a difference.”Jason Trujillo, senior assistant dean for admissions and financial aid at the Law School, said his committee does not actively monitor students’ social networking profiles for information contradicting what is in their applications. He added, however, that the practice will not necessarily be ruled out in the future.“I would advise students to be careful about anything that they put online,” Trujillo said.Regardless of the policies of individual institutions, however, the potential monitoring of Facebook and MySpace profiles by graduate schools proves to be an issue of concern to University students, some of whom consider this practice an invasion of privacy.“The use of Facebook and MySpace profiles to determine the outcome of admissions to graduate school is an unfair practice,” first-year College student Robert Denney said. “But because the information is publicly posted online, they can use it.”Nevertheless, such information should not be used to rule out a potential applicant, Denney added.Fourth-year College student Tracee James also expressed some discomfort with the practice.“I think that graduate schools’ use of Facebook profiles, if they can get access to them, could be an invasion of privacy,” James said.This type of monitoring could be helpful to those whose profiles “reflected qualities and characteristics that were not expanded upon in their application,” she said, but harmful to those whose profiles portrayed an incomplete picture of the applicant or reflected an undesirable trait such as extreme dishonesty.“Overall, it really brings up the question of how Facebook users use their profiles,” James said.The issue of honesty in particular was, Stohr said, one of the most important factors for those law schools who had monitored applicants’ online profiles during their evaluations.“Law schools understand that young people make bad decisions at times, but ... that doesn’t make you a bad character,” Stohr said. Stohr said 52 percent of law school admissions officers who had monitored social networking profiles said what they saw had negatively impacted the applicants’ chances of admission, but noted that other factors remain much more important in the admissions process.“Seventy percent of law school admissions officers said that the LSAT is the single most important factor in evaluating an applicant’s admission to law school,” Stohr said. “Social networking at this stage is so new and has grown so explosively that it’s sort of like the Wild Wild West for admissions, and it’s not likely to do a lot to get you in, but it could be something that gets you out.”
(09/16/08 4:37am)
Linwood Holton, a former Republican governor of Virginia, has formally endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the ongoing presidential race. The former governor appeared yesterday at the University’s College at Wise on behalf of Obama’s campaign.The appearance at the College at Wise was the first of a number of scheduled appearances for Holton and his daughter, Virginia First Lady Anne Holton, at community forums throughout the southwestern part of the commonwealth.According to Clark Stevens, communications director for Obama’s Campaign for Change in Virginia, the forums — all of which are titled “Change We Need” — focus on, among other things, Obama’s plans to “provide real tax relief and put an end to the failed policies of the Bush administration.”Stevens said the former Virginia governor has an independent policy record that speaks to Obama’s own record and ability to put American families above partisan politics.Hoos for Obama President Sam Shirazi said he thinks “having such a prominent Republican support him will be one of the pieces in the puzzle for making sure Obama wins Virginia.”Hoos for McCain President John Sweeney, however, disagreed. “I don’t think this will have much of an impact,” Sweeney said. “Linwood Holton has endorsed Democratic candidates since 1974, so this doesn’t come as much of a shocker.”Linwood Holton served as governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974.
(09/10/08 4:00am)
The University’s Harrison Institute for American History, Literature and Culture is in the process of receiving artifacts from the historic Flowerdew Hundred Foundation that will expand upon an existing collection and become a new resource for students and faculty interested in researching the history of Virginia.The collection from the Flowerdew Hundred farm, located on the James River between Richmond and Williamsburg, contains tools and household goods from communities ranging from Native American settlements to 19th-century settlements, Harrison Institute Director Hoke Perkins said.“Examples of these include cannonballs, English wine bottles from the early 17th century, clay pipes, farm implements and Civil War artifacts,” Perkins said.Excavations by scholars from Virginia and around the world have, over the past 30 years, produced the current set of artifacts, Perkins noted.University Libraries Communications Director Charlotte Morford expects the artifacts will attract a large number of visitors as well as significant professional interest from the academic community. She said she also expects it to be a useful resource for University faculty and students.“It is one of the most comprehensive resources for the study of Virginia history,” Morford said.The Flowerdew Hundred Foundation chose the University to house the collection, in part because of the Foundation’s long relationship with the University. Late University alumnus David Harrison, who owned the Flowerdew Hundred farm, was a long-time benefactor of the University, and his children have continued that relationship. Though this relationship has been important, Morford explained it was not the only reason for choosing the University’s library.“Special collections are one of the strengths of the University library,” Morford remarked. “They give you a way to see the actual historical item, whether that is a letter or another artifact.”Perkins noted that the foundation also wanted to make sure the artifacts would be actively used for research, teaching and learning. “Our father was determined that the important material discovered at Flowerdew would live on, and we feel that the University will prove to be a wonderful home for the collection,” Mary Harrison Keevil, Harrison’s daughter and a member of the Foundation’s board, stated in a University press release.Keevil is currently out of the country and unavailable for comment.