Administrators define the field

Administrators define the field
A panel of deans and directors from Kansas City educational institutions met at the School of Education Monday evening, affording students interested in college administration careers a chance to discuss the field’s challenges and opportunities.

The conversation was sponsored by UMKC’s Career Services Center and featured four panelists with extensive credentials in higher education administration including: UMKC’s Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Mary Lou Hines-Fritts, William Jewell College’s Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life, Ernie Stufflebean, Rockhurst University’s Assistant Dean of Students, Sean Grube, and Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley’s Dean of Administrative Services, Thomas Walker.

LiveScience: Era of Scientific Secrecy Near End
Era of Scientific Secrecy Near End / By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor / posted: 02 September 2008 11:30 am ET

Secrecy and competition to achieve breakthroughs have been part of scientific culture for centuries, but the latest Internet advances are forcing a tortured openness throughout the halls of science and raising questions about how research will be done in the future.

The openness at the technological and cultural heart of the Internet is fast becoming an irreplaceable tool for many scientists, especially biologists, chemists and physicists — allowing them to forgo the long wait to publish in a print journal and instead to blog about early findings and even post their data and lab notes online. The result: Science is moving way faster and more people are part of the dialogue.

[snip]

Open Science

The open science approach forces researchers to grapple with the question of whether they can still get sufficient credit for their ideas, said physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, co-organizer of a conference on the topic set to begin Sept. 8 at the Perimeter Institute in Ontario, Canada.

[BTW: I Will Be Attending This Unique Conference Science in the 21st Century: Science, Society, and Information Technology [http://tinyurl.com/6ll8fb] / Look For Conference-Related Postings on the _Scholarship 2.0_ Blog [http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/] within the next two weeks]

[snip]

Open science is a shorthand for technological tools, many of which are Web-based, that help scientists communicate about their findings. At its most radical, the ethos could be described as “no insider information.” Information available to researchers, as far as possible, is made available to absolutely everyone.

Beyond email, teleconferencing and search engines, there are many examples: blogs where scientists can correspond casually about their work long before it is published in a journal; social networks that are scientist friendly such as Laboratree and Ologeez; GoogleDocs and wikis which make it easy for people to collaborate via the Web on single documents; a site called Connotea that allows scientists to share bookmarks for research papers; sites like Arxiv, where physicists post their “pre-print” research papers before they are published in a print journal; OpenWetWare which allows scientists to post and share new innovations in lab techniques; the Journal of Visualized Experiments, an open-access site where you can see videos of how research teams do their work; GenBank, an online searchable database for DNA sequences; Science Commons, a non-profit project at MIT to make research more efficient via the Web, such as enabling easy online ordering of lab materials referenced in journal articles; virtual conferences; online open-access (and free) journals like Public Library of Science (PLoS); and open-source software that can often be downloaded free off Web sites.

[BTW: Several Of These Innovations Have Been Profiled In My SciTechNet(sm) Blog [http://scitechnet.blogspot.com/] and/or The Scholarship 2.0 Blog [http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/]

The upshot: Science is no longer under lock and key, trickling out as it used to at the discretion of laconic professors and tense PR offices. For some scientists, secrets no longer serve them. But not everyone agrees.

Networked Cyborgs

Just a few decades ago, as a scientist, here is how you did your work: You toiled in obscurity and relative solitude.

[snip]

However, today, more and more scientists, as well as researchers in the humanities, operate like transparent, networked cyborgs. Background research is mostly done online, not in the library. Some data and preliminary research might be posted online via a blog or open notebook. Early write-ups of the work might be announced to the public, or at least discussed online with peers. And these early write-ups might also be posted to an online publication that is not peer-reviewed in the strict sense.

[snip]

“In areas like my own subfields of theoretical physics,” said MIT physicist David Kaiser, “the only constraint [on how rapidly one generates research papers] is, ‘Did you have more coffee that day?’ We aren’t usually held up trying to get an instrument to work, or slogging through complicated data analysis.”Most people think faster is better, but there are other issues.

Is It A Good Thing?

There is “no question” that all efforts to make science more open are positive for the progress of science, says open science proponent and chemist Jean-Claude Bradley at Drexel University in Philadelphia, who posts his lab notebook online and started a blog in 2005 called UsefulChemistry where he and his colleagues regularly discuss chemistry problems as well as Web 2.0 tools and the technical and philosophical issues they raise.His online notebook and blog definitely make it easier to communicate with colleagues, he said. Such sharing also makes it easier for others to “replicate” scientists’ work — try it themselves and convince themselves that you are right. And this replication issue is one of the principles behind scientific research. Anyone who has written down a recipe for a friend knows that we all tend to spell things out more clearly when sharing them than we would if we were just taking notes for ourselves in our own shorthand.

Open science also has the potential to prevent discrimination in access to information. Arxiv, the site for posting pre-print physics papers, was started in 1991 by Cornell physicist Paul Ginsparg, then at Los Alamos National Laboratory, to help provide equal access to prepublication information to graduate students, postdocs and researchers in developing countries.

[BTW: Paul Ginsparg will be one of several Major Players attending/presenting at The Conference [http://science21stcentury.org/abstracts.html]]

[snip]

And open science benefits the public, Bradley said. He tries to keep his posts fairly accessible (although this is not the case for all open notebooks and open science blogs).

[snip]

“It’s not clear to me that professional scientists or people in academic institutions have a monopoly on good ideas,” he said. “There are very smart people outside of academia, for example hobbyists or people in industry who could contribute, and having more contributors can only help. The same applies to interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches.”

[snip]

Drawbacks of Open Science

One of the biggest fears of nearly all researchers is that someone else hears what you’re doing and beats you to publication. That means you wasted a lot of time (and most researchers work extremely long hours, so loss of productivity is especially painful and can also harm one’s chances for getting a job or promotion or funding for the next research project). Once you publicly reveal your thoughts, data or experimental results, some say, you lose control over ownership of that information. This topic is covered by an area of law called intellectual property, as well as patent law, and there can be significant money to be fought over when it comes to patents.

Hossenfelder, the conference organizer, says she knows of several examples in which scientists have had an idea for something, talked about it openly and then somebody else has published the fleshed-out idea first without giving any credit beyond an acknowledgment to the original idea-holder. Acknowledgments don’t advance careers.

However there are solutions to this, she said. For instance, the prominent scientific journal Nature encourages authors to include brief summaries of which author contributed what to a project. Some say that online posts provide a time-stamped record of when an experiment was documented. Those stamps can easily be arbitrarily altered after the fact, but it might also be possible to “lock” posts at a certain date after which they could not be changed without some sign-off permission to break the lock, Hossenfelder said. [snip]

Fear of Losing Peer Review

Another drawback of open science can be that results go public before they should. In science, experimental results are frequently proven wrong by subsequent work. Yet even peer review cannot ensure against this, nor can it prevent outright fraud, as proven by a 2005 case involving a South Korean scientist who claimed to have achieved the first cloning of a human embryo. A later examination of his work showed he had fabricated his results.

[snip]

“The social system of science has become so complicated, unregulated and dispersed in terms of geography and disciplines, so peer review has been elevated to a principle that unifies a fragmented field,” Biagioli said.

[snip]

And today, Arxiv, one of the most frequently cited examples of open science, has no peer review for individual papers, but it has begun to add in some constraints on allowable authors. The site used to allow anyone with email addresses associated with academic institutions to post their papers. Now, authors of research papers who post in Arxiv are vetted before they can post for the first time. In some ways, things are tightening up when it comes to openness in physics, Kaiser said. In any case, the function of print journals, in physics at least, is changing.

“Ease of sharing everything prior to peer review is flourishing, and in my opinion very few physicists are reading journals for information these days,” Kaiser said. “Journals have largely lost their information function.”

[snip]

For The Good Of Truth, Humanity, Economies?

Another argument in favor of open science is sort of a big picture issue for humanity, scientific truth and economies, Neylon said.

“Making things more open leads to more innovation and more economic activity, and so the technology that underlies the Web makes it possible to share in a way that was never really possible before, while at same time it also means that kinds of models and results generated are much more rich,” he said.

This is the open source approach to software development, as opposed to commercial closed source approaches, Neylon said. The internals are protected by developers and lawyers, but the platform is available for the public to build on in very creative ways.

“Science was always about mashing up, taking one result and applying it to your [work] in a different way,” Neylon said. “The question is ‘Can we make that as effective as samples data and analysis as it does for a map and set of addresses for a coffee shop?’ That is the vision.”

[http://www.livescience.com/culture/080902-open-science.html]

Thanks to Sabine Hossenfelder For The HeadsUp !

[http://friendfeed.com/rooms/science21]

Preserving Muscle Mass

Preserving Muscle Mass
Plant Foods for Preserving Muscle Mass - News from the USDA Agricultural Research Service

This study had escaped our eye until now - just catching up -

The study was led by physician and nutrition specialist Bess Dawson-Hughes at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.

The typical American diet is rich in protein, cereal grains and other acid-producing foods. In general, such diets generate tiny amounts of acid each day. With aging, a mild but slowly increasing metabolic “acidosis” develops, according to the researchers.

Acidosis appears to trigger a muscle-wasting response. So the researchers looked at links between measures of lean body mass and diets relatively high in potassium-rich, alkaline-residue producing fruits and vegetables. Such diets could help neutralize acidosis. Foods can be considered alkaline or acidic based on the residues they produce in the body, rather than whether they are alkaline or acidic themselves. For example, acidic grapefruits are metabolized to alkaline residues.

Erasmus Mundus Scholarships 2009/2010

Erasmus Mundus Scholarships 2009/2010
http://ec.europa. eu/education/ programmes/ mundus/projects/ index_en. html
http://eacea. ec.europa. eu/static/ en/mundus/ index.htm

Erasmus Mundus

List of Masters Courses selected under Action 1

Interested students are invited to contact the coordinators of the
courses concerned for further information on admission conditions,
application forms and scholarships. Erasmus Mundus scholarships are
available for all courses published on this site.

Year of selection, Title, Website

2008 ASC - Master of Science: Advanced Spectroscopy in Chemistry
http://www.master- asc.org/
2008 CIMET - Color in Informatics and MEdia Technology
http://www.master- erasmusmundus- color.eu/
2008 CLE - Master/Laurea Specialistica en Cultures Littéraires
Européennes http://www.cle. unibo.it/
2008 EMAE - European Master in Applied Ecology http://www.master-
emae.org
2008 EMARO - European Master in Advanced Robotics
http://emaro. irccyn.ec- nantes.fr
2008 EMBC - Erasmus Mundus Master of Science in Marine Biodiversity
and Conservation http://embc. marbef.org
2008 EMDIREB - European Master in Diagnosis and Repair of Buildings
http://www.emdireb. eu/
2008 EMMEP - Erasmus Mundus Minerals and Environmental Programme
http://www.emmep. org/
2008 EMQAL - European Joint Master in Quality in Analytical
Laboratories http://cursos. ualg.pt/emqal
2008 EMSRHS - European Master in Sustainable Regional Health Systems
http://ErasmusMundu s.tprs.vu. lt
2008 EMTTLF - European Master’s in Transnational Trade Law Finance
http://www.transnat ional.deusto. es/EMTTL
2008 EU4M - European Union Master’s Course in Mechatronic and Micro-
mechatronic Systems http://www.eu4m. eu
2008 EUMAINE - European Master of Science in Nematology
http://www.eumaine. ugent.be/
2008 EURHEO: European Masters in Engineering Rheology
www.uminho.pt/ eurheo
2008 GIM - MSc in Global Innovation Management
http://www.globalin novationmanageme nt.org/
2008 IM in NLP & HLT - International Masters in Natural Language
Processing and Human Language Technology http://tesniere. univ-
fcomte.fr/a_ master_mundus. htm
2008 IMHS - International Master in Horticultural Sciences
http://www.imahs. unibo.it
2008 IMMSSET - International Master in Materials and Sensors Systems
for Environmental Technologies http://erasmusmimms set.webs. upv.es/
2008 MACLANDS: MAster of Cultural LANDScapes http://master-
erasmusmundus- maclands. univ-st-etienne. fr/
2008 MAIPR: Master of Arts in International Performance Research
http://www2. warwick.ac. uk/fac/arts/ theatre
2008 MATHMODS - Mathematical Modelling in Engineering: Theory,
Numerics, Applications http://www.mathmods .eu
2008 MCEMESV - Master Conjoint Erasmus Mundus en Etude du Spectacle
Vivant http://www.ulb. ac.be/philo/ artst-mundus
2008 MUNDUS URBANO - Interdisciplinary Erasmus Mundus Master Course
International Cooperation and Urban Development http://www.mundus-
urbano.eu/
2007 Comem Erasmus Mundus MSc - Coastal and Marine Engineering and
Management http://www.comem. tudelft.nl
2007 DILL - International Master in Digital Library Learning
http://dill. hio.no/
2007 EURMed (Etudes Urbaines en Régions Méditerranéennes)
http://erasmus- mundus-eurmed. univ-cezanne. fr/
2007 European Masters Course in Software Engineering
http://www.fi. upm.es/emse
2007 European Master in Animal Breeding and Genetics (EM-ABG)
http://www.emabg. wur.nl/
2007 FAME - Functionalised Advanced Materials and Engineering
http://www.fame- master.com
2007 GEMMA: Master’s Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies
http://www.ugr. es/~gemma/
2007 IMESS: International Masters in Economy, State and Society
http:/www.imess. eu/
2007 IMMIT: International Master in Management of Information
Technology http://www.immit. eu/default. htm
2007 JEMES - Joint European Master Programme in Environmental
Studies http://www.tuhh. de/eciu-gs/ pro_joint_ jemes.html
2007 LCT- European Masters Program in Language and Communication
Technologies http://lct-master. org
2007 MA Human Rights Practice (Erasmus Mundus)
http://www.roehampt on.ac.uk/ admissions/
2007 MaMaSELF - Master of Materials Science exploiting European
Large Scale Facilities http://mamaself. univ-rennes1. fr
2007 Master of Science in Computational Mechanics
http://www.cimne. com/cm-master/
2007 Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies http://geotech. uni-
muenster.de
2007 ME3 - European joint Masters in Management and Engineering of
Environment and Energy http://webi. emn.fr
2007 Mundusfor - Formation de professionnels de la formation
http://www.ugr. es/~mundusfor/
2007 MUNDUS MAPP - Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Public Policy
http://www.mundusma pp.org/
2007 OPSCITECH: Optics in Science and Technology http://www.master-
optics.eu/
2007 Philosophies allemande et française dans l’espace européen
http://www.europhil osophie.eu/
2007 SAMHC - Advanced Masters in Structural Analysis of Monuments
and Historical Constructions http://www.msc- sahc.org/
2007 SUFONAMA - Sustainable Forest and Nature Management
http://www.sufonama .net
2007 TPTI: Techniques, Patrimoines, Territoires de l’industrie:
Histoire, Valorisation, Didactique http://www.tpti. eu/
2006 AGRIS MUNDUS - Sustainable Development in Agriculture Masters
Course http://www.agrismun dus.eu/agris- mundus/
2006 ATOSIM : Atomic Scale Modelling of Physical, Chemical and Bio-
molecular Systems http://www.erasmusm undus-atosim. cecam.org/
2006 CoDe - Joint European Master in Comparative Local Development
http://www.unitn. it/mastercode/
2006 EMIN - Economics and Management of Network Industries
http://www.upcomill as.es/emin/
2006 Erasmus Mundus Master of Science in Photonics http://www.master-
photonics.org/
2006 EUROCULTURE http://www.eurocult uremaster. org
2006 Europubhealth – European Public Health Master
http://www.europubh ealth.org
2006 FUSION-EP European Master in Nuclear Fusion Science and
Engineering Physics http://www.em- master-fusion. org/
2006 IMIM : International Master in Industrial Management
http://www.imim. polimi.it/
2006 M.A. Degree in Economics of International Trade and European
Integration http://webhost. ua.ac.be/ eitei/
2006 MA LLL - European Master’s in Lifelong Learning: Policy and
Management www.dpu.dk/malll
2006 Master of Bioethics http://www.masterbi oethics.org/ index.html
2006 M.E.S.C.: Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion
http://www.u- picardie. fr/mundus_ MESC/
2006 MONABIPHOT - Molecular nano- and bio-photonics for
telecommunications and biotechnologies http://www.ens-
cachan.fr/monabipho t/
2006 MSPME, Masters in Strategic Project Management
http://www.mspme. org/
2006 NordSecMob - Masters programme in Security and Mobile Computing
http://www.tkk. fi/Units/ CSE/
2006 PHOENIX EM - Dynamics of Health and Welfare http://mundus-
healthwelfare. ehess.fr/
2006 QEM - Models and Methods of Quantitative Economics
http://www.univ- paris1.fr/ rubrique1297. html
2006 SUTROFOR - Sustainable Tropical Forestry Erasmus Mundus Masters
Course http://www.sutrofor .net/
2006 VIBOT – European Master in Vision and Robotics
http://www.vibot. org
2006 WOP-P - Master on Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology
http://www.erasmusw op.org/
2005 AMASE: Joint European Masters Programme in Advanced Materials
Science and Engineering http://www.amase- master.net/
2005 Crossways in European Humanities http://www.munduscr ossways.eu
2005 EMMAPA: Erasmus Mundus Master in Adapted Physical Activity
http://www.erasmusm undus.be
2005 EMM-Nano - Erasmus Mundus Master of Nanoscience and
Nanotechnology http://www.emm- nano.org/
2005 Erasmus Mundus Masters – Journalism and Media within
Globalization: The European Perspective
http://www.MundusJo urnalism. com
2005 EuMAS - European Masters Course in Aeronautics and Space
Technology http://www.aerospac emasters. org/
2005 EUROMIME: European Master in Media Engineering for Education
http://www.euromime .org
2005 European Master in Global Studies http://www.uni-
leipzig.de/zhs/ erasmus_mundus
2005 GEM: Geo-information Science and Earth Observation for
Environmental Modelling and Management http://www.gem- msc.org/
2005 International Master “Vintage”, Vine, Wine and Terroir
Management http://www.vintagem aster.com
2005 MA SEN, Master’s in Special Education Needs
http://www.roehampt on.ac.uk/
2005 Master of Applied Ethics http://www.maeappli edethics. eu/
2005 Master of Industrial Mathematics http://www.esim. info
2005 MESPOM: Masters of Environmental Sciences, Policy and
Management http://www.mespom. org
2005 MSc in Network and e-Business Centred Computing
http://www.sse. reading.ac. uk/
2005 SEFOTECH.nut: European MSc in Food Science, Technology and
Nutrition http://www.sefotech nut.org/
2005 SpaceMaster - Joint European Master in Space Science and
Technology http://www.spacemas ter.eu
2004 ALGANT - Algebra, Geometry and Number Theory http://www.math. u-
bordeaux.fr/
2004 CoMundus - European Master of Arts in Media, Communication and
Cultural Studies http://www.comundus .net/
http://www.mediastu dieseurope. net/
2004 EMCL - European Master’s Clinical Linguistics http://www.emcl-
mundus.com
2004 EMMME - Erasmus Mundus Master of Mechanical Engineering
http://www.emmme. com
2004 EMMS - Joint European Masters Programme in Materials Science
http://www.tuhh. de/eciu-gs/
2004 EuMI - European Master in Informatics http://www.eumi-
school.org/
2004 EURO-AQUAE - Euro Hydro-Informatics and Water Management
http://www.euroaqua e.org
2004 European Joint Master in Water and Coastal Management
http://cursos. ualg.pt/eumscwcm /index.htm
2004 European Legal Practice - LL.M. Eur http://www.elpis. eu/
2004 European Master in Law and Economics http://www.emle. org
2004 European Masters Programme in Computational Logic
http://european. computational- logic.org
2004 HEEM - European Masters Degree in Higher Education
http://www.uv. uio.no/hedda/
2004 IMRD: International Master of Science in Rural Development
http://www.imrd. ugent.be/ home/index. html
2004 International Master’s in Quaternary and Prehistory
http://web.unife. it/progetti/
2004 MEEES - Master’s in Earthquake Engineering and Engineering
Seismology http://www.meees. org
2004 MERIT - European Master of Research on Information and
Communication Technologies http://www.meritmas ter.org
2004 MSc EF Master of Science in European Forestry
http://gis.joensuu. fi/mscef
2004 NOHA MUNDUS - European Master’s Degree in International
Humanitarian Aid http://www.nohanet. org/
2004 tropEd - European Master of Science Programme in International
Health http://erasmusmundu s.troped. org

Nifong Trial Verdict
Breaking News: Durham DA Michael Nifong was found guilty on 27 of the 32 ethical charges brought against him by the NC Bar. An AP report indicates the following:

Mike Nifong broke numerous rules of professional conduct during his disastrous prosecution of three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, committing “deceit and misrepresentations,” a disciplinary committee ruled Saturday.

Selected Videos:
David Evans Sr. State Bar Testimony
Mary Ellen Finnerty State Bar Testimony
Nifong Says He should Be Disbarred
Disciplinary Board Disbars Nifong
Duke Lacrosse Defense Attorneys News Conference
Selected articles:
Comments of Disciplinary Panel’s ChairmanThe New York Times
Bar Accepts Nifong’s Offer to Surrender Law License WRAL
N.C. panel disbars Duke prosecutor AP
Former Duke Prosecutor Nifong Disbarred June 18, ABC News
Bar strips Nifong of his law license Newsobserver
Findings KC Johnson
Duke prosecutor: He should be disbarred AP
Nifong Accepts Disbarment KC Johnson
Committee: Duke prosecutor broke rules AP
Verdict KC Johnson

English & Neurolinguistics: Post Doc, UK Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK

English & Neurolinguistics: Post Doc, UK Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK
University or Organization: UK Medical Research Council Department: Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit Job Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom Web Address: http://www.mrc- cbu.cam.ac. uk

Job Rank: Post Doc
Specialty Areas: Neurolinguistics; Neurocognition of Language and NLP
Required Language(s): English (eng)
Description:
Ref CBSU08/347

Applications are invited for a three year post-doctoral position, based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, to conduct neuro-imaging research into the dynamic neural systems underlying human language comprehension, working in an interdisciplinary cross-linguistic research environment, with access to state-of-the art MEG (306-channel Elekta/Neuromag VectorView) and MRI (Siemens Trio 3T) imaging facilities.

This position is funded by an interdisciplinary EPSRC (UK) grant to Lorraine Tyler (Centre for Speech Language and Brain, Cambridge), William Marslen-Wilson (MRC-CBSU), Anna Korhonen (Computing Lab, Cambridge) and Paula Buttery (Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics) , which aims to integrate research in cognitive neuroscience, experimental psycholinguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Modern advances in NLP provide much more realistic analyses of the statistical properties of language use. The aim of the project is to integrate these analyses with neuro-imaging investigations of how brain systems respond to variations in the statistical properties of linguistic inputs at different levels of description (morphological, syntactic, semantic).

You should have doctoral training in neuro-imaging with a strong interest in studying the neuro-cognition of language, and a willingness to take on the challenge of systematically relating the statistical properties of linguistic inputs to the statistical properties of the dynamic neural
response to these inputs.

The starting salary will be in the range of £25,368 - £31,048 per annum, depending upon qualifications and experience. This is supported by a flexible pay and reward policy, and optional MRC final salary Pension Scheme. We offer 30 days annual leave entitlement. On site parking is
available.

For informal discussion, contact William Marslen-Wilson, CBSU Director, by email provided below. Further information on the unit can be found on our website.

Applications for this role must now be made online (see application URL below). Please ensure that you upload a current CV and covering letter with your application. If you do not have internet access or experience technical difficulties please call 01793 301158.

Application Deadline: 10-Oct-2008

Web Address for Applications: http://jobs. mrc.ac.uk
Contact Information:
William Marslen-Wilson
Email: w.marslen-wilson@ mrc-cbu.cam. ac.uk

PhD in DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data-NLDA/Delft

PhD in DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data-NLDA/Delft
Ph.D. Research Assistantship to Explore the Potential of DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data at the Netherlands Defense Academy and Delft University of Technology

With today’s digital signal processing capabilities, it becomes possible to optimize the performance parameters of a navigation system for a particular set of intended applications. The Netherlands Defense Academy and the Delft University of Technology are providing an opportunity of a Ph.D. research assistantship to explore opportunities in the field of Terrain Reference Navigation (TRN) by using digital signal processing techniques that were originally developed for the acquisition and tracking of GPS signals.

The goal of the research is to contribute to the creation of a design framework which can be used to match technology and processing concepts to a particular set of navigation system performance requirements. The focus lies on exploring the potential of various digital signal processing concepts for matching a set of distance measurements with a stored database of the environment.

The candidate should hold a Master’s degree in electrical engineering, computer science,
applied mathematics or any other relevant study with substantial knowledge on data
processing. Research will be conducted both at the Netherlands Defense Academy and at
Delft University of Technology. Leaders of the project are established researchers in the
field of applied mathematics, geomatics and electronics. Contact Prof. P.J. Oonincx, Netherlands Defense Academy, at [pj.oonincx AT nlda.nl]. More information about the Netherlands Defense Academy can be found here http://www.nlda. nl

Beasiswa S2 USA: Master Programme in Advance Management Studies at JAIMS
THE FUJITSU ASIA PACIFIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
A full-tuition Scholarship For Management Training in Hawaii.

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace, established the Fujitsu Asia Pacific Scholarship Program in 1985. The Scholarship was established to enhance international understanding and cross-cultural communication through management education and training. Fujitsu is committed to promoting the development of both technology and human resources at global level.

East-West Knowledge Leader Program (EWKLP)
An intensive three-month Graduate diploma program at JAIMS in Honolulu, Hawaii. JAIMS is a nonprofit postgraduate institute that has been a pioneer in intercultural management education since 1972. Over 22,000 participants from 59 countries have come to JAIMS to learn skill essential for success in the international arena.
JAIMS

* Intercultural Business Leadership
* Global Marketing
* Cross-Cultural negotiation and Problem-solving
* Business Plan Development and Entrepreneurship
* Business Communication
* One-week field study in Japan

Program Information: www.jaims.org

Application Deadline: January 31st, 2009

Please send your application letter and CV to:
PT. FUJITSU INDONESIA
Wisma Kyoei Prince 10thFloor
Jl. Jend Sudirman Kav.3-4
Jakarta 10220
Indonesia
Attn: Mr. Raditya Padmawangsa
Ms. Ella Lamzia
E-mail: scholarship@id.fujitsu.com
Scholarship information: www.fujitsu.com/scholarship

Announcements and a Follow Up

Announcements and a Follow Up

One of the groups sponsoring KC Johnson’s address, Duke Students for and Ethical Duke (not to be confused with the equally estimable Duke Students for an Ethical Durham) is a new group dedicated to making sure that the appalling treatment of certain Duke students by the administration and a few of their professors is not forgotten and does not go unaddressed. They are pledged to “defend the dignity and the academic and legal rights of Duke students, both individually and collectively, whether threatened by other students, faculty, or administrators alike.” Here is an article from the Chronicle.

This is a very encouraging development. The fact that the number of groups focusing attention on these issues is growing and not decreasing with time should indicate to the trustees and administration that these issues are not going to go away. It is also good that the students themselves are getting involved. We at FODU are certainly concerned for Duke as an institution. However, most of all, we have done what we have done for the students. Those of us who are alumni want present students to enjoy what we enjoyed while at Duke: a university committed to the care, nurturing and dignity of ALL students. Those who are parents want these things for their children.

Follow up to Duke and the Police

First, a Duke official contacted me after I posted the last update and took issue with two statements I made there. I repeated information that had been told to me personally and which had also been widely reported. However, this official says these two statements are inaccurate and offers an alternative view. As the other bloggers in this case have done, I reproduce this person’s comments below in order to allow a fair opportunity to reply. I also appreciate this person’s willingness to respond and engage us in a dialogue, something lacking among Duke officials up to this point.

1) No one in the university “hired” Wes Covington. In fact, I was the unfortunate agent who brought him into contact with the players. When I met with them on March 17th and first learned of the police search, I was surprised and concerned that they had neither told their parents about it nor retained counsel. I told them to call their parents and consult with them about a lawyer. I said that I would also find out if there was anyone locally who could help them. I then asked Sue Wasiolek for a recommendation and she pointed me to Covington. I was the one who passed his name along to the four captains. They met with him at least once that I am aware of but to the best of my knowledge, he was never formally retained by any of them. I would be surprised if anyone in the administration other than Wasiolek knew anything about this until much later. By 3/24 (the day after the NTO was served) he was entirely out of the picture as far as I know.

2) The persistent rumor about “student/teacher privilege” is somewhat inaccurate. This came up in a meeting between the captains and Trask, Pressler [and] Alleva . . . on 2/24. By then, the players had all retained counsel and been advised not to speak about the matter without the presence of counsel. Trask had been sent down to athletics (I think) to assess the situation and report back to Allen Building. When he asked the players to tell him everything that had happened, they responded that they had been advised not to speak (in fact, they were dying to tell anyone who would listen what had (or hadn’t) happened). Trask responded that they could call their lawyers to come over and that he would wait for them. The players (specifically, David Evans) then said they would go ahead without representation. At that point, Trask said “We could argue that it (their account of the evening of 3/13) is a protected educational record. We might lose that argument.” The players then went on to detail what had happened at the party. Incidentally, it was clear . . . that Trask was absolutely certain that nothing had happened and that the players were innocent; I’m not sure that he played much of a role in what ensued in the following weeks.

Either way, my larger point remains unchanged. Officials of Duke University–and, in a couple of cases at least, I do think genuinely–were indicating to the players their belief in their innocence at the same time that the University was surreptitiously passing protected personal information about them out the back door to police officers with questionable motives and disputed integrity.

The problems with Mike Nifong and his conduct were manifest as I mentioned in the last post. However, Duke had every reason to be very suspicious of the motives of the police as well. Before that interview with the victim occurred, the original police investigator assigned to the case spoke with Sergeant Mark Gottlieb and they agreed that he would take over the case. As detailed last September in both the News and Observer and the Chronicle, Sergeant Gottlieb had been the subject of numerous allegations involving the violation of the rights of Duke students and use of thug-like tactics against them because of some particular animus he had against Duke students. Days before the lacrosse case incident, Durham Police Department officials had moved Gottlieb from patrol to investigations in District 2 apparently in response to these complaints. Duke officials had been notified of the complaints against Gottlieb no later than February. Now Gottlieb was back chasing Duke students, having in his own words “adopted” the lacrosse case. And into Gottlieb’s very hands, Duke personally delivered this protected information without a subpoena.

Second, in the comments, someone asked why turning the key card data over to the police was prejudicial to the players. Sure it was illegal, but how did it harm them? A good investigator will gather as much information as possible and then form a theory. However, that is not how it is always done. Some police investigators unfortunately do not go wherever the evidence takes them. Instead, they make up their mind what happened and then go out and try to find evidence that supports their theory while ignoring all else. Sometimes they will even make up evidence. Even “good” cops sometimes do all this. No better illustration of these problems can be found than the way Durham police actually conducted the lacrosse case investigation.

Let me be clear. There is nothing inherently sinister about police. Most police officers are dedicated, honest professionals who want to make a difference in the community. As in every human organization, there are some who do not live up to these ideals. In the middle are a bunch of people who see police work as just another job. Even under the best circumstances, the role of a defense attorney, as with any other type attorney, is to protect against the worst case scenario. They do that by forcing police to establish probable cause and preventing opportunities for fishing expeditions.

In investigating an alleged crime, the police must establish two things: whether a crime occurred and who did it. In the context of the lacrosse case, the police had skipped over the first step and were already trying to find three people to indict. This was despite their initial skepticism about the accuser’s story. In fact, throughout the entire case, they specifically avoided looking for corroborating evidence to test the accuser’s claims, evidently afraid of what they would find. Remember that the application for the Nontestimonial Order sought by police stated that the dna evidence would “immediately rule out any innocent persons, and show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are. . . .” Yet, the police did not wait for the results of the DNA testing to come back before inducing Duke to give them the keycard information. The keycard data helped police establish who was at the party and, more importantly, who was not. As described in the Pressler/Yeager book, the police were afraid that the accuser would pick someone out of the lineup who was not at the party and that is exactly what she did.

It is not that information protected by FERPA can never be obtained by police. All police have to show is that they have some particular need for the information, i.e. that it would be helpful to them in their investigation. That is a very low threshold, yet the police and Nifong were unable to make that showing with regard to the key card data. That they were unable to do so demonstrates that no legitimate reason existed for them to have this information.

PhD Computational Analysis of Regenerative Strategies in the Intervertebral Disc - Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

PhD Computational Analysis of Regenerative Strategies in the Intervertebral Disc - Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
PhD Computational Analysis of Regenerative Strategies in the Intervertebral Disc
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Department of Biomedical Engineering
Eindhoven, (Noord-Brabant) , 40 hours per week

Job description

This project is a part of the consortium on New Early Therapies for Intervertebral Disc Diseases: Drug Delivery and Augmentation through Smart Polymeric Biomaterials in the Biomedical Materials Program. Our previously developed osmoviscoelastic model of the disc and mechanoregulation of tissue regeneration will be combined to develop an adaptive biological model of regeneration strategies combining biomaterials, local slow releasing molecular therapies and injectable cell therapies. Model parameters will be determined from in vitro experiments, and the model will be validated against in vivo experiments, mostly conducted by partners in the consortium. Finally the model will be used to select strategies for further development and optimization for use in the clinic.

Requirements

Required education/skills: University Graduate

We are seeking a candidate facile with computational analysis and knowledgeable of biological processes. The candidate should be recently graduated from a MSc. program in biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, (bio)physics or a related field, with,

*
Knowledge and experience in biomedical science and technology,
*
Strong affinity for multidisciplinary research and engineering science,
*
Experience with finite element modeling,
*
Capacity to write and communicate fluently in English.

Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s) :
- Research trainees, non-tenured lecturers, researchers

Organization
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
Department of Biomedical Engineering

The Department of Biomedical Engineering is a joint-venture of the Eindhoven University of Technology and the University of Maastricht. Education and research focus on the most complex and fascinating quot;system quot; known to date: the human body. Biomedical Engineering plays a key role as a new discipline, interfacing and integrating engineering and biomedical sciences. Education and research have been organized around 3 profiles: Biomechanics amp; Tissue Engineering, Molecular Bioengineering amp; Molecular Imaging and Biomedical ImagingImaging amp; Modeling.
Conditions of employment
Estimated maximum salary per month: eur 2000 - 2500
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: 4 years
Maximum hours per week: 40

Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:

Prof.dr. K. Ito
Telephone number: 31(0)402473851

Or Y. Bloemers-Kluijtmans
Telephone number: 31(0)402472030
E-mail address: pzbmt@tue.nl

Or additional information can be obtained through the following link:

* About the organization (http://www.tue. nl)

Application
You can apply for this job before 01-11-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
W-hoog 1.108
Mr. J.M.R. Debeij
Postbus 513
5600 MB Eindhoven
Nederland
E-mail: pzbmt@tue.nl

When applying for this job always mention the vacancynumber V50.096.

Petronas Scholarship for Undergraduate Study
The application for Undergraduate Programmes is open. Deadline for July 2009 intake is on the 3rd of March 2009.

The Government of Indonesia through its Oil and Gas Department or MIGAS and The National Education Department or Depdiknas in collaboration with Petronas is offering full time scholarships for studies in Malaysia towards the following degrees :

• BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (HONOURS)
1. Electrical & Electronic Engineering
2. Mechanical Engineering
3. Chemical Engineering
4. Civil Engineering
5. Petroleum Engineering

• BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY (HONOURS)
1. Information & Communication Technology (ICT)
2. Business Information System (BIS)

General selection criteria are as follows;
1. Age Not exceeding 23 years old on date of application
2. Marital Status Single
3. Academic Qualification Must have passed High School Level Examination (GCE O’Level/ SMA equivalent), and / or Tes Potensi Akademik from major universities in Indonesia
4. Language Proficiency Good command of English (oral & written)
5. Course of Study To follow any one of the above courses offered by Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP)

The scholarships are offered to students to further their education and upon completion to serve either with Petronas or the Government of Indonesia in any of the designated departments, subsidiaries, companies, organizations or institutions for a period to be agreed upon.

Kindly download and complete the UTP Application Form (attached in this email) which can be obtained from the website at www.utp.edu.my, completed application form need to be submitted with your latest (non returnable) passport size photograph together with your contact number, address, curriculum vitae and relevant copies of full academic report to:

Petronas Representative Office Indonesia
Level 27, Citibank Tower
Bapindo Plaza
Jl. Jend Sudirman Kav 54-55
Jakarta 12190

Regards,

Desi Dwistratanti Sumadio
Msc IT - Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS
(Research area: HCI, virtual reality, augmented reality in education)

Social Science Research Network: Everyone Can Be A Star

Social Science Research Network: Everyone Can Be A Star
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.

SSRN Research Networks:

Accounting Research Network (ARN)
Economics Research Network (ERN)
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Health Economics Network (HEN)
Information Systems Network (ISN)
Legal Scholarship Network (LSN)

Submitted abstracts and by soliciting abstracts of top quality research papers around the world. We now have hundreds of journals, publishers, and institutions in Partners in Publishing that provide working papers for distribution through SSRN’s eLibrary and abstracts for publication in SSRN’s electronic journals.

The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 188,200 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 151,200 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat pdf format. The eLibrary also includes the research papers of a number of Fee Based Partner Publications.

The Networks encourage readers to communicate directly with authors and other subscribers concerning their own and others’ research. To facilitate this we publish detailed author contact information including email addresses for authors of each paper. We also provide electronic delivery of the papers when authors wish us to do so from the SSRN eLibrary. You may also Browse the SSRN eLibrary, view our current Top Papers or search the electronic library for papers by Title, Author, or Journal/Topic.

Source

[http://www.ssrn.com/]

SSRN eLibrary Statistics

Papers & Authors

Abstracts: 189,513
Full Text Papers: 152,264
Authors: 94,912
Papers Received in
Last 6 months: 20,336

Paper Downloads

To date: 21,683,352
Last 12 months: 5,370,136
Last 30 days: 587,886

CiteReader

Papers with Resolved References: 113,727
Total References: 3,772,715
Papers with Cites: 92,267
Total Cited by Links: 1,868,324
Papers with Resolved Footnotes: 14,355
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[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/DisplayAbstractSearch.cfm]

Definitions of Measures Associated with References, Cites, and Cited by

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/about_citereader.html]

Related

NYTimes: Now Professors Get Their Star Rankings, Too.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09link.html]

CHE: Online Network Is Established for Scholars in Humanities

[http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i10/10a00102.htm]

PhD researcher Environmental toxicology and chemistry - Utrecht University

PhD researcher Environmental toxicology and chemistry - Utrecht University
PhD researcher Environmental toxicology and chemistry (1,0 fte)
Utrecht University
(Utrecht), 38 hours per week

Job description
The objective of the PhD project is to get a better understanding of the sorption and bioavailability of cationic surfactants in sediments. This knowledge is essential for improving the environmental risk assessment of this class of contaminants. The project is funded by the European Chemical Industry Council and will be performed in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig.

One of the tasks is to improve the analytical procedure for measuring the freely dissolved concentration of cationic surfactants in environmental samples, including sediment suspension. Sorption studies will be performed to elucidate the contribution of sorption to clay minerals to the overall sorption capacity in natural sediments. Measuring freely dissolved concentrations in the pore water phase of a sediment toxicity test will clarify whether adverse effects to biota are solely controlled by the freely dissolved concentration in the pore water.

Requirements
Required education/skills: University Graduate
We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate carrying a master’s or equivalent degree in biology, chemistry or geochemistry with a background in environmental toxicology or chemistry and an affinity for analytical methodologies.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s) :
- Research trainees, non-tenured lecturers, researchers( Scientific discipline: Health)

Organization
Utrecht University
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
The Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) is an interfacultary research institute from the faculties Veterinary Medicine and Medicine, and the departments Biology and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Science faculty at the Utrecht University. The mission of IRAS is to provide research and education on human health risks of exposure to potentially harmful agents in the environment, at the workplace and through the food chain. IRAS has three research divisions. The Environmental Epidemiology division performs epidemiological research on respiratory, cardiovascular and carcinogenic health risks in relation to biological and chemical exposures. Within the Veterinary Public Health division research is conducted to identify and study possible adverse health effects from microbial and non-microbial agents occurring in food derived from the animal production process. Research within the Toxicology division covers the part of the risk assessment in which the availability and dose – adverse health effect relationships of toxic substances are studied. The aim of IRAS is to perform quality research with a high relevance for society.
PhD researcher Environmental toxicology and chemistry

Conditions of employment
Estimated maximum salary per month: eur 2500 - 3000
Salary: scale 10.
Maximum salary amount in Euro’s a month 2558
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: 1,5 year
Maximum hours per week: 38
Additional conditions of employment:
The IRAS can offer you a temporary full-time appointment of one and a half year with the perspective of prolongation with another 2½ years. The gross salary starts with € 2,000.- per month in the first year and increases to € 2,558.- per month in the fourth year of employment (salary scale “P” Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities) .

Secondary benefits, based on the Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities are excellent in general and include e.g. a pension scheme, flexible employment conditions and salaries are supplemented with a holiday bonus of 8% and a year-end bonus of 6.4% per year.

As a partner in the Postgraduate Education in Toxicology (PET) programme, IRAS offers the opportunity to follow courses in this programme with the aim of obtaining the possibility to register as a toxicologist with the Dutch Society of Toxicology as well as with EUROTOX.

Additional Information
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:

Dr Joop Hermens
Telephone number: 31 30 2535337
E-mail address: j.hermens@uu. nl

Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:

* About the organization (http://www.vet. uu.nl/viavet/ viavet_english)
* About the function (http://www.iras. uu.nl/)

Application
You can apply for this job before 09-10-2008 (dd-mm-yyyy) by sending your application to:

Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
J.C.M. Schoonenberg
Yalelaan 1
3584 CL Utrecht

E-mail: vacatures1@vet. uu.nl

When applying for this job always mention the vacancynumber 12875.

Why bad times mean good times for IT

Why bad times mean good times for IT
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news about the federal government bailing out the financial markets. OY. But while it’s making headlines, what’s happening now in the economy is contained within the mortgage banking and real estate industries. Infotech has, so far, defied the current trend.

Forrester, however, projects that 2009 IT budgets are about to get whacked. But I think Forrester still can’t see the forest for the trees. The economic problems extend only so far as they impact the ability of non-RE (real estate) and non-banking businesses to borrow.

With the exception of the dot-com era, which was all about IT and an IT investment bubble, infotech typically weathers downturns. That’s because investment in software, hardware, data centers, security, application development, etc., fuels increased efficiency and business competitiveness. In other words, sound investments in the IT infrastructure can, typically, save money and boost revenue.

Also, remember this aspect of IT: People gotta’ upgrade. They will need larger disk space, more memory, better graphics, higher bandwidth, apps that better align to their business workflow and strategy, etc. Management and users alike need and want more mobile e-mail, more Blackberrys, more mobile line-of-business apps, more wireless access, etc.

To cut operational costs and reduce capital investments, many companies will ditch locally hosted e-mail and apps and go with managed services and SaaS instead. Same with VoIP, video conferencing over IP, unified communications, etc.

Instead of high capital outlays for servers, software, and network infrastructure (not to mention payroll costs for the care and feeding of that aspect of the data center and help desk), they have a low monthly operational expense — and, often, just one neck to choke.

Likewise, companies will consolidate data centers using virtualization, blade technology, and more modern 6-core CPUs in an effort to cut energy costs and save on rent (by reducing the data center’s square footage). ROI trumps again. And don’t forget the “forced upgrades” that IT vendors can often push on their base (anyone for VB.Net?).

Then there’s security and, by extension, privacy. Companies MUST invest to harden their systems when holes are discovered or to comply with new legislation that comes down the pike. And for pure Web plays, when the economy tanks, Internet advertising becomes an even more cost-effective, and thus attractive, option for