Entries for August 2006

August 30, 2006

Marquis Who's Who on the Web - Now Available

The Kelvin Smith Library has acquired electronic access to Marquis Who's Who on the Web. It offers biographical data on leaders and achievers from around the world in the areas of business, law, science, medicine, the arts, government, entertainment and more - in one convenient source. Comprehensive biographical coverage, including birth and death information, family history, education and degrees, career history, creative works, awards, achievements, memberships, and more. Coverage includes 1985 to the present.

It is available for the CASE community from the Research Databases list.

When finished using Who's Who, please click on "log off" in the upper-right corner or the next user will need to wait 10 minutes to gain access.

August 23, 2006

Algebra by Video-On-Demand

Annenberg Media has posted all 26 half-hour video-on-demand programs from its Algebra: In Simplest Terms series. The sessions are free after registering on the website, and are designed for high school and college users.

In this series, host Sol Garfunkel explains how algebra is used for solving real-world problems and clearly explains concepts that may baffle many students. Graphic illustrations and on-location examples help students connect mathematics to daily life. The series also has applications in geometry and calculus instruction. Algebra is also valuable for teachers seeking to review the subject matter.

[About Annenberg Media]

Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. It is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation's goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.

(VIA: The Scout Report, July 21, 2006, Volume 12, Number 29)

August 22, 2006

Rallying Behind Open Access

Rallying Behind Open Access
Inside Higher Ed, July 28, 2006

If universities pay the salaries of researchers and provide them with labs, and the federal government provides those researchers with grants for their studies, why should those same universities feel they can't afford to have access to research findings? That's part of the argument behind a push by some in Congress to make such findings widely available at no charge.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 28, 2006)

August 21, 2006

ICIS Jobs - Coming Soon

UPDATE:
ICIS jobs is now available.

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ICIS jobs will be available soon, with searchable chemicals jobs and careers information.

ICIS is an information provider for the chemical and oil industry.

August 17, 2006

Chemistry World News by RSS Feed

Chemistry World's daily news service is now available as a RSS feed, joining the existing feeds for RSC Journals.

Chemistry World is packed with articles on all aspects of the chemical sciences, regular company and individual profiles, job vacancies, commercial technology reports and many fascinating features.

(VIA: SD Librarian, July 28, 2006)

August 16, 2006

Typical Engineering Day

Working Hard for Their Money by Elizabeth M. Taurasi (Design News, July 17, 2006) summarizes the results of the annual Design News salary survey. Some highlights include:

• Engineers earned an average of $73,000 last year
• Majority received a 3% increase over last year
• 83% of those surveyed stayed in the same job
• Engineers are working 46 hours per week
• More than 40% have a bachelor's degree in engineering

See the full article for more highlights and discussion, including what skills are needed to get ahead.

(VIA: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog, July 24, 2006)

August 15, 2006

Cleveland Engineering Society

The Cleveland Engineering Society (CES) is a professional organization that strives to be the leading society promoting and serving the needs of the region's technical community.

CES sponsors a wide variety of programs, seminars and tours to stimulate professional development. Professionals from varied disciplines explore the technologies and business management strategies of many different industries. Read more about CES...

Cleveland Engineering Society is committed to helping college students increase their access and contacts to professionals in the Northeast Ohio technical community. Among the benefits students receive:

• Internship/co-op, job search contacts free resume posting on our web site and assistance in your job search
• Networking with professional engineers at CES programs so you can talk with them in a neutral, comfortable environment and learn about companies, new developments and job opportunities in your field. See the Divisions/Committees and Upcoming Events pages to see what meetings and programs are of interest
• Access to annual members-only CES corporate/student career mixer
• E=mc (Engineering a More Connected Community) Committee. Once a monthy this committee gets together to plan volunteer opportunities and meet for social and business networking. A number of CES student members are involved in E=mc² and build their credentials by volunteering for projects in area schools such as tutoring and tech support
• Free/discounted rates to CES events and programs
• Mentors in your field
• All Society mailings including newsletter
• Listing in the CES membership directory
• Post resumes on Web site for free and get email notification of position and internship openings

August 14, 2006

Nanomedicine Lab Registry & Portal

The Nanomedicine Lab Registry was compiled from Medline abstracts containing specific nanomedicine keyphrases. It only includes laboratories with 5 or more publications. It uses a database of citation histories compiled from open source journal article reference lists and a major OCR (optical character recognition) campaign on their entire reference library. Labs are ranked according to the citation rate of each individual article. For articles where they do not have sufficient data or were too new to have citation data, they used historical citation data from the journal and the principal investigator. The registry currently ranks the top 382 laboratories, with Chad Mirkin's lab garnering the highest score. Pat Couvreur, Royce Murray, Dave Reinhoudt and Ralph Weissleder rounded out the top 5. Their intention with the registry is to help new graduate students and postdocs to find high impact laboratories. This information is probably interesting to the general public as well if they are interested in the most productive labs.

Related is the Nanomedicine and Nanobiology Research portal that includes recent high impact publications, recent nanomedicine jobs, recent nanomedicine news, top ranked nanomedicine scientists, nanomedicine links, featured nanomedicine books, and nanomedicine conferences.

The Lab Registry is maintained by Ion Channel Media Group, and it operates a number of life science portals. It is founded by J. Christian Hesketh, who is trained in classical biophysics in Canada.

August 13, 2006

Northern Ohio Energy Management Conference in Akron, Ohio

The Northern Ohio Energy Management Conference will be held at the John S. Knight Convention Center (Akron, Ohio) on October 3 and 4, 2006. It will include a tradeshow and workshops for professional development credit hours.

Examples of sessions include:

• National Energy Policy and the Role of Manufacturing Plays in Promoting Effective Use of Our Energy Resources with John Egler, President & CEO of the National Associationof Manufacturers and former Governor of Michigan
• Fuel Cells: Making Ohio Number One with Ken Alfred, Executive Director of the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition
• True Benefits of Hybrids and Alternative Fuel Vehicles

See the conference brochure (PDF) for more details.

This conference is sponsored by the Cleveland Engineering Society and MAGNET - Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network.

August 12, 2006

CIA Fires Blogging Contractor

CNET News.com (July 21, 2006) reported another blog related firing. A software contractor for the CIA was fired after she posted her views on the Geneva Conventions and torture at an blog site only accessible internally.

August 11, 2006

Civil Engineering Professor Receives Award

Adel S. Saada, professor of civil engineering, has been selected by the Cleveland Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers to receive the 2006 G. Brooks Earnest Award. Established in 1977, this award is annually given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of civil engineering.

(VIA: Case Daily, May 8, 2006)

Center for Science in the Public Interest

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science. Its award-winning newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America, providing reliable information on nutrition and health.

Resources focused in these subject areas:

• Alcohol Policy
• Biotechnology
• Eating Green
• Food Safety
• Integrity in Science
• Nutrition Policy

(VIA: The Scout Report, July 21, 2006, Volume 12, Number 29)

August 10, 2006

Employers Blogging

The New York Times (May 25, 2006) looked how corporations are addressing the blogging habits of new interns or employees. Public relations and trade secrets are always in jeopardy with the ease of internet publishing.

While there are differences in laws among jurisdictions, from a legal perspective, he said, it is generally accepted that companies have the right to impose controls on their employees' use of computers and other equipment used for communication.

(VIA: Slashdot, May 25, 2006)

Science Play Comes of Age

The Scientist in the article Science Plays Come of Age explores the art of scientific storytelling with Lauren Gunderson - a playwright, screenwriter, short story author and actor based in Atlanta, GA.

My career as a science playwright started when I asked my undergraduate physics professor to let me write a play instead of a term paper. Luckily he agreed, and the result was a time-twisting play called Background, based on cosmologist Ralph Alpher. Unexpectedly, the play not only satisfied my physics professor, it went on to receive awards and inspire productions across the country.

August 09, 2006

Biomedical Image Award Gallery

The Biomedical Image Awards 2006 is a striking display of shapes and patterns, and illustrates the microscopic structures of living organisms in a spectacular variety of ways.

Selected by a team of expert judges from recent acquisitions by the Medical Photographic Library of the Wellcome Library, the winning images show a wide variety of subjects, most invisible to the naked eye, revealing new layers of complexity.

My favorite might be the cross-section of an old specimen of rhinoceros horn.

The MySpace Ecosystem

Business Week (July 25, 2006) documents the amazing growth of MySpace and how 3rd party participants are investing in its future.

• In the past year, MySpace went from 17 million unique monthly visitors to 54 million unique monthly users
• Generates more page views than any other site on the Web, except for Yahoo!

(VIA: Slashdot, July 21, 2006)

August 08, 2006

Polymer Researcher Wins Award

The Case Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering announces that John Bobiak, a research associate with the department, has won the 2006 Jack Koenig Spectroscopy Award for his outstanding performance in the development of laser Raman Imaging.

(VIA: Case Daily, May 22, 2006)

Fuel Cells in 2007

CNET News.com in Big Tests For Fuel Cells Coming in 2007 looks at the future of fuel cells.

Next year fuel cells could take a significant step forward, according to a CEO of one of the leading manufacturers of the technology.

Predicted 2007 milestones:

• U.S. military will conduct field tests of hybrid power systems, which combine lithium ion batteries and methanol fuel cells
• Prototypes of fuel cell to power Samsung cell phones

August 07, 2006

Polymer Professors Win Awards

David Schiraldi, associate professor of macromolecular science and engineering, received the Case School of Engineering Research Award for senior faculty for his pioneering work in the area of clay-based aerogel composite materials. Schiraldi also was awarded startup funds for commercializing these materials when he won the North Coast Nanotechnology Business Idea competition last semester. A team of two Ph.D. students and three undergraduate researchers are currently developing new light weight composites based on the clay aerogels. Schiraldi received a citation for dedication in undergraduate teaching from the Case School of Engineering this year, along with associate professor Stuart Rowan.

(VIA: Case Daily, May 18, 2006)

How Much Education is Needed for Engineers?

Inside Higher Ed (July 28, 2006) explores the debate surrounding if engineering graduates should need a Masters degree like doctors or lawyers.

Do you think the engineering bachelor degree should be more like the pre-med or pre-law degrees? Are engineering graduates able to get into other fields with only a bachelor degree?

It does appear that evidence suggests a Masters degree does open more doors. But, do these Master's graduates also have professional work experience which we warp the results?

(VIA: Case Daily, July 28, 2006)

August 04, 2006

Case Supports Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

Case has offered their support in this letter (PDF version).

UNIVERSITY SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC ACCESS ACT EXPANDS
Library groups commend twenty-three provosts for joining recent surge of support

Washington, DC – August 3, 2006 – Just one week after more than two dozen leading universities declared their strong support for the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S.2695), provosts from an additional 23 universities added their backing in a letter issued by the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and in individual correspondence. This brings the total to at least 48 universities that have gone on record as favoring the measure.

The Federal Research Public Access Act was introduced on May 2, 2006 by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). It requires federal agencies that fund over $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles that stem from their research publicly available on the Internet. The U.S. government funds an estimated 50% of university research, making this a particularly important cause for the higher education community.

The GWLA letter reads, in part: “Access to publicly funded research facilitates the open discussion needed to accelerate research, share knowledge, improve treatment of diseases, and increase human understanding. [The Public Access Act] is a crucial step in realizing this goal…”

“With the passage of this bill, researchers across the United States will have access to the results of work supported by federal government funding, which will help advance scientific understanding at a faster rate,” said David Pershing, Senior Vice-President, Academic Affairs, University of Utah. “No longer will knowledge created using public funds be limited to the wealthiest institutions and corporations. With everyone having access to up-to-date information, I am confident we will see a higher level of scientific research and innovation. This is a remarkable opportunity for educators and students across the nation.”

Signatories of the GWLA letter include provosts and vice presidents for state and non land-grant institutions, such as the University of Washington and Rice University. Their names are added to those of another twenty-five institutions, including Harvard University and Arkansas State University, who on Friday jointly issued “An Open Letter to the Higher Education Community.”

“The time is ripe for this legislation,” added Rodney Erickson, Executive Vice President and Provost of The Pennsylvania State University, who signed the Open Letter. “Many of us in the academic community believe the process of making the findings of publicly supported research more widely available will stimulate further research and education, and that is our primary mission as universities.”

“GWLA member libraries and administrators support the Public Access Act in principle and in practice,” said Adrian Alexander, Executive Director of the Greater Western Library Alliance. “The implications for research stemming from this bill are widespread, profound, and utterly positive. We are pleased to add our voices in support.”

Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition), added, “This groundswell of commitment from the provost community is a significant indication that the Federal Research Public Access Act has strong support in the higher education community in the United States.”

The GWLA letter, available online today, is at http://www.gwla.org/provostletter.html.

The Open Letter to the Higher Education Community signed by twenty-five provosts and issued on July 28, 2006 is online at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/Provosts_openletter_06-JUL.pdf.

The American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, Association of College & Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Greater Western Library Alliance, Medical Library Association, SPARC, and The Special Libraries Association encourage taxpayers and other stakeholders in the scientific process to add their support for this important legislation. Details are online at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/.

###

Contact:
Jennifer Heffelfinger
SPARC
jennifer@arl.org
(202) 296-2296 ext.121

August 03, 2006

Google Accessible Search

Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually impaired users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping you find the most accessible pages in that result set.

(VIA: CNET News.com, July 19, 2006)

August 02, 2006

Fuel Cells and the Hydrogen Economy

From ScienceBase:

Hydrogen fuel cells have been relatively neglected through insufficient support from industry and government, according to a study published today funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Read the full commentary at ScienceBase looking at fuel cells as disruptive technology or browse the documents related to the research at ESRC.

Award Name: The Development and Diffusion of Fuel Cell Technology as a Disruptive Innovation
Award Holder: Prof Chris Hendry
Programme Name: Sustainable Technologies
Co-applicant(s): Dr P Harborne, Prof C Arcoumanis

August 01, 2006

Recruiting Engineers at Case

Caterpillar Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines, has selected Case as one of its "portfolio" schools for recruiting engineering graduates. This means that Caterpillar will now be actively recruiting Case graduates via the Case Career Center. For more information on Caterpillar Inc., visit http://www.cat.com. To find out more about the programs and services at the Case Career Center, visit http://studentaffairs.case.edu/careers/.

(VIA: Case Daily, July 28, 2006)