University News

Albert Carnesale to Step Down as UCLA Chancellor in June 2006

UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale announced Wednesday that he plans to step down as chancellor on June 30, 2006. Following a sabbatical leave, he intends to return to his teaching, scholarship and engagement in public policy issues. Carnesale is nationally known for his expertise in international affairs and national security policy.

Carnesale assumed UCLA's top position on July 1, 1997, having come from Harvard University, where he served for 23 years as professor, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and provost of the university. Under his leadership, UCLA has risen to the top tier of the nation's research universities, competing successfully with elite private institutions that have greater resources from higher tuition, fees and endowments built over time.

University of California President Robert Dynes will conduct the search for the next UCLA chancellor.

During his tenure, Carnesale concentrated UCLA's efforts on attracting research funds and private monies, in order to sustain the university's trajectory as a top-tier research institution through an era of declining state support. Between 1997 and 2005, UCLA's annual operating budget has grown from $2.2 billion to $3.5 billion, while the state of California's contribution has shrunk from 20.7 percent to 15 percent of the university's operating budget.

An active teacher and lecturer, Carnesale holds professorial appointments in the School of Public Affairs and in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA. He is the author or co-author of six books and more than 50 scholarly articles on subjects including the control of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, international energy issues, and the effects of technological change on foreign and defense policy. Carnesale is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. He has represented the United States government in high-level negotiations on defense and energy issues, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, SALT I, with the Soviet Union.

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$16.3 Million in Federal Grants Bolster Educational Partnership Center

More than 3,000 sixth and seventh graders will see the path to college more clearly thanks to US$16.3 million in federal funds that the UC Santa Cruz Educational Partnership Center and three local school districts will administer.

The federal grants, provided over the next six years by the U.S. Department of Education's Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR-UP) initiative http://www.ed.gov/programs/gearup/index.html, will provide academic preparation and support for students in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD), North Monterey County Unified School District (NMCUSD), and Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD).

Established in 1998, the EPC has more than doubled college-going rates among its partner schools in Monterey, San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties.

With the infusion of new funds, students in the high school graduating classes of 2011 and 2012 at participating schools will benefit from augmented services beginning this fall, including:

• academic counseling from middle school through high school;
• a family involvement coordinator who will provide parent education and information about college and financial aid;
• a college-awareness curriculum for middle school teachers, who will also receive additional training in mathematics and language arts instruction;
• undergraduate academic interns who will serve as tutors and mentors for students throughout middle and high school;
• opportunities for students and families to tour college campuses and attend programs that build their knowledge about college.

Another 1,400 students in the PVUSD and at Alianza Charter School will benefit from a $6.5 million award that will build on the success of a previous GEAR-UP grant--now in its sixth and final year--administered by the EPC in Pajaro Valley.

In addition to the three school districts, the following organizations have contributed to the GEAR-UP initiative: Thomson Peterson's; Imagine College; CTB McGraw-Hill; the Monterey and Santa Cruz County Offices of Education; the UCSC Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Achievement Program; Cabrillo College Advancement Program; the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union; the UC College Prep Initiative; the Pajaro Valley Latino Business Association; Migration and Immigration in the Americas Foundation; Bridging Multiple Worlds; and the UCSC Early Academic Outreach Program.

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Yale Faculty to Direct $6.9 Million VA Study of PTSD

Yale School of Medicine will direct a US$6.9 million nationwide study into the effectiveness of an anti-psychotic medication for veterans with chronic, military service-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Yale-led study is funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the first multi-center trial to evaluate a non-SRI treatment for PTSD symptoms and the first multi-center study of the medication treatment of PTSD to focus on veterans.

PTSD is the most prevalent and costly psychiatric diagnosis treated within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said John Krystal, M.D., professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. He said there are an estimated 196,000 veterans with PTSD. Five percent of all Veterans Administration (VA) patients and 25 percent of all patients with mental health diagnoses have a diagnosis of PTSD. Thirteen percent of all VA mental health costs, or $274 million, is spent to care for veterans with PTSD.

Currently, there are only two medication treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of PTSD and both are in the same class of antidepressant, the serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRI’s).

Krystal and Robert Rosenheck, M.D., also a professor of psychiatry at Yale, will direct the study from the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven. Krystal also leads the Clinical Neuroscience Division and Rosenheck heads the Evaluation Division of the VA’s National Center for PTSD.

Four hundred veterans with chronic, military service-related PTSD will be enrolled at 20 VA hospitals from across the United States over a two-year period. Half of the patients will receive risperidone and half will receive placebo for six months. The primary objective is to determine whether PTSD symptoms are reduced by risperidone. This study also will evaluate whether other consequences of PTSD will respond to risperidone, including sleep disturbance, violent behavior, cognitive impairment, alcohol and substance abuse, and reduced quality of life. It will also explore whether it is safe and cost-effective to prescribe risperidone to veterans with PTSD.

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MacArthur Foundation Provides $5 Million Grant for University of Chicago’s Center for Urban School Improvement

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced a US$5 million endowment grant to the University of Chicago’s Center for Urban School Improvement to support its work in strengthening urban schools.

The mission of the Center for Urban School Improvement is to transform urban schools into strong learning communities for both children and adults. The goal is to show that all children can achieve a high level of learning no matter their race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.

The center currently operates the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School and plans over the next few years to open four other charter schools on Chicago’s South Side, including Donoghue Charter School for pre-kindergarten through 8th grade, which will open this fall. The five schools will have an eventual enrollment of more than 2,500 students. No other research university in the country has made such a comprehensive commitment to creating new public schools.

Based on the model of the teaching hospital, which brings together outstanding patient care, professional training and applied research, the Center for Urban School Improvement’s charter schools will be sites of excellent education for students, training centers for teachers and school leadership and as laboratories for testing innovative and promising methods to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

The foundation’s education grantmaking is designed to support reform both in Chicago and nationally. Grants are made to improve student learning through better instruction and by sharing information about school and system practices with multiple audiences, including policymakers, practitioners and other funders. MacArthur’s new grant to the Center for Urban School Improvement is part of its support for comprehensive community revitalization on Chicago’s South side where it also is investing in affordable housing and community and economic development.

The schools will provide students with rigorous college-preparation programs, serve as sites of professional development for Chicago Public Schools teachers and instructional leaders, and play a vital role in community building in the neighborhoods where they are located.

The University of Chicago-sponsored schools will be at the heart of a network of new public schools on Chicago’s South Side that will be part of the Chicago Public Schools Renaissance 2010 plan, an initiative designed to improve teaching and learning by creating new, small schools across the city of Chicago.

The University of Chicago has made improving public education in Chicago a key institutional priority and has named the Center for Urban School Improvement—with its proven track record of effective engagement with the Chicago Public Schools—as a leader of this broad imperative. The mission of the center is to create excellent new schools and develop the people and tools that support the dissemination of effective practices within and across Chicago’s schools. The center began providing sustained professional development programs to teachers, student support staff and school leaders in 1988.

The center’s approach to professional development combines onsite coaching, demonstration classes, institutes and helpful school walkthroughs. Its technology-based tools are designed to ensure that all school personnel have timely access to student information so that instructional decisions are based on sound data.

The center conceived and administers the new University of Chicago teacher preparation program, the Urban Teacher Education Program, now in the second year. It also runs the New Teachers Network, a two-year induction program serving approximately 200 newly certified CPS teachers annually with regularly scheduled working meetings, coaching and online support. USI’s partnership with CPS Area 15 in the mid-south area is now in its third year. This initiative is providing professional development and coaching to more than 100 principals and teacher-leaders in 22 schools and has resulted in increased student achievement.

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Businessman’s Donation Boosts China Research

The University’s of Nottingham’s plans for an extensive research network in China and the Far East have been given a financial boost by Chinese businessman Mr Kin-Kwok Chung and his wife Lee Ko.

K-K Chung Education Foundation has previously supported scholarships for Chinese students to study at Nottingham and to fund an office in Shanghai. The Foundation has now donated US$3 million.

The new Institute for Global Finance at The University of Nottingham in Ningbo will be named in his honor and the Institute for Sustainable Development, also in Ningbo, will be named in honor of his wife, Mrs Lee Ko.

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Official Opening of Oxford’s Richard Doll Building

Thursday September 8 was the official opening of the Oxford’s Richard Doll Building, a medical research facility named in honor of Sir Richard Doll, the eminent doctor who discovered the link between smoking and cancer, and who died aged 92 on July 24.

The building was officially opened at noon by Professor Sir Richard Peto, Sir Richard Doll’s close colleague for more than 30 years, with introductory remarks by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood. This was followed by lunch and then an afternoon of scientific talks by colleagues of Sir Richard, including Professors John Bell, Valerie Beral, Rory Collins, Harold Jaffe, and Richard Peto.

The Richard Doll Building houses the University’s Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU); the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit (CEU); and part of the Department of Public Health. It facilitates the uniquely large-scale collaborative projects in which they specialize.

Sir Richard Doll’s work helped define the field of epidemiology and clinical trials. As Regius Professor of Medicine (1969–1979), Sir Richard built one of the strongest medical schools in the world, with particular strengths in population-based studies of disease.

With major funding from a Joint Infrastructure Fund grant, a Science Research Infrastructure Fund 2 grant, Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation, The Wolfson Foundation and the University, construction on the £23 million (US$42 million) Richard Doll Building began in January 2003. Designed by Nicholas Hare Architects, the project is part of the University’s Medical Sciences Campus development on the Old Road site in Headington.

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Giant Optical Telescope in South Africa Comes Online

Five years after breaking ground on a South African mountaintop near the edge of the Kalahari desert, astronomers today (Sept. 1, 2005) released the first images captured by the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), now the equal of the world's largest optical telescope and a prized window to the night skies of the southern hemisphere.

With a 10- by 11-meter hexagonal segmented mirror and state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation, the new telescope was constructed by an international consortium of universities and government agencies. Partners include the National Research Foundation of South Africa, UW-Madison's College of Letters and Science, Poland's Nicolas Copernicus Astronomical Centre and Rutgers University, among others.

The new $18 million observatory will provide unprecedented access to the astronomically rich skies of the southern hemisphere. Objects such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own Milky Way, will come into sharp view through the concerted focus of the 91 hexagonal mirror segments that comprise the SALT Telescope's primary mirror array.

Moreover, studies of thousands of individual stars in the Magellanic Clouds are planned to trace the history of those nearby galaxies. The results of those studies, Wilcots explains, can be extrapolated to galaxies in general, providing a more refined life history of objects like our own Milky Way.

Other southern sky objects of interest, according to Kenneth Nordsieck, a UW-Madison astronomer now in South Africa to help with the SALT Telescope's commissioning, include Eta Carina, a nearby massive star that has been racked by a series of enigmatic and spectacular explosions over the past century; Omega Centauri, a globular cluster of stars in the Milky Way that some astronomers believe may be the fossil remains of another galaxy consumed long ago by the Milky Way; and Centaurus A, a nearby galaxy that recently experienced an explosion at its core.

A critical advantage for the SALT Telescope, according to astronomers, is its location in one of the darkest regions of the world. With no nearby cities or towns, the observatory will be little affected by the light pollution that seriously hampers many observatories in the Northern Hemisphere.

Together with Rutgers University, another member of the SALT consortium, Wisconsin astronomers and engineers have constructed and are now integrating into the observatory the primary scientific instrument for the telescope, a device known as the Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph. When in place six stories above the primary mirror array, the $5 million device will give the SALT Telescope specialized capabilities to capture and analyze starlight in unprecedented ways.

Spectrometers are designed to parse light into its constituent wavelengths. The spectra they obtain are revealing, providing astronomers with far more information than simple images. They can help show the chemical makeup of objects, depict motion, and some wavelengths of light enable astronomers to see through the obscuring clouds of dust and gas that permeate space.

The images released this week through the South African Astronomical Observatory, the SALT Observatory's parent organization, were taken with a digital camera known as SALTICAM. They include stunning pictures of the Lagoon Nebula, a luminous stellar nursery; the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae; and NGC6744, a barred spiral galaxy that astronomers consider almost a twin of our own Milky Way.

A critical upcoming milestone will be the integration of the Wisconsin-built Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph, envisioned as the workhorse instrument for the SALT Telescope. Capable of capturing high-resolution pictures, movies and the telltale spectra of objects such as stars, galaxies and comets, the device will be perched high above the light gathering primary mirror array at the heart of the new telescope.

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UCSD Scientists Propose Ethical And Scientific Guidelines For Study Of Captive Great Apes

With genome maps adding new appreciation of the very close relationship between humans and the great apes, scientists at the University of California, San Diego have proposed a series of ethical and scientific guidelines for the expected increase in research on these, our closest evolutionary cousins.

The newest genome-mapping has shown that human beings and chimpanzees share more than 99 percent sequence identity in genes and proteins, while having accumulated more differences in the rest of their DNA. Indeed, the great apes – chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans – are now grouped with humans in the family Hominidae . Their close kinship to us makes them interesting to scientists, and research institutions, sanctuaries, zoos, private owners and the entertainment industry together house more than 2,000 great apes, most of them West African chimpanzees.

The UCSD scientists want to make sure that the biomedical community recognizes the great apes’ unique status as near-kin. Pascal Gagneux, James J. Moore and Ajit Varki of UCSD argue in Nature that “the study of great apes should follow ethical principles generally similar to those for current studies on human subjects who cannot give informed consent,” and they acknowledge the many grey areas that still perplex researchers.

Is it acceptable, for example, to do “reversible harm,” such as causing a mild, treatable infection, or to sedate a chimpanzee (as you might a child) so as to allow therapeutic procedures? Such issues, they say, “deserve much further dialog among all concerned.”

Some areas aren’t grey for the scientists: Alternatives to potentially harmful forms of research on living chimpanzees should be found as soon as possible; genomic data should never be used to produce “transgenic” apes (as is routinely done with mice); and all biomedical studies on great apes should be carried out in ways that support further improvements to their care.

Noting that both a National Research Council Commission report and a recent Federal Register Notice reemphasize researchers’ obligation to provide the “best and most humane care possible” for apes under study, the UCSD scientists argue that “the time has come to establish broadly accepted guidelines for systematic, humane and ethical studies of captive great-ape populations that also contribute to the well-being of the apes themselves. These studies should be carried out at all levels, from genetics to biochemistry to physiology to behavior and culture.”

Gagneux, a scientist in cellular and molecular medicine who also does endangered-species research for the Zoological Society of San Diego; Moore, a professor of anthropology; and Varki, a professor of both medicine and cellular and molecular medicine, make it very clear that their proposal applies only to the great apes, “and not to other primates, nor other animals.”

And, they assert, their concern is “not about animal ‘rights’ but about ethical and scientific challenges specific to great apes in captivity.”

The scientists recommend several practices and policies for research to protect the great apes, even while making fuller use of their contributions to biomedical discoveries:

• Account for each great ape with a name and a unique identifier, and collect complete medical records in a standardized way, using searchable databases, while maintaining the privacy of researchers and institutions.
• When a captive ape dies of natural causes, or is humanely euthanized to end incurable suffering, conduct a thorough autopsy and organ-sample collection for genetic, transcriptomic, proteomic, biochemical and histological studies.
• Preserve and analyze the musculoskeletal system, as well as body fluid and tissue samples, “to maximize the information we obtain from them, rather than treating them as single-use, disposable tools.”
• Build on the NIH’s Chimpanzee Management Program and such sanctuaries as Chimp Haven to establish a collaborative network of facilities involving all interested scientists. “Already,” they note, “leaders from institutions in the U.S. holding most of the chimpanzees have established the National Chimpanzee Resource Committee, which meets regularly to discuss issues of mutual interest. The increased cost of supporting all such facilities will be more than justified by the knowledge gleaned from the study of healthy, socially integrated great apes – and can potentially contribute to the ultimate survival of some of these species.
• Use such a national network to help train and support scientists interested in the “standardized accumulation of all relevant biological data.”
• Have all newly proposed research studies on great apes approved by specialized ethical oversight groups advised by the new national network, incorporating aspects of human- and animal-subjects committees currently active at most institutions.

The UCSD scientists know that their proposal is just the beginning of a potentially contentious process, “unlikely to please everyone currently interested in the great apes,” but hope that the resulting dialog in the research community will help develop a mutually acceptable solution for all concerned, including the great apes.

The work of Gagneux, Moore, Varki and members of the UCSD Project for Explaining the Origin of Humans is funded by the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation.

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U. T. Dallas EE Graduate Student Wins ‘Best Poster Paper’ Award at International Conference

Chandan Gope, a Ph.D. graduate student in the Electrical Engineering Department in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), won one of the four “Best Student Poster Paper” awards presented at the 2005 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks held earlier this month in Montreal.

Co-authors of the paper with Gope were Dr. Nasser Kehtarnavaz, a professor of electrical engineering in the Jonsson School, and Dinesh Nair, principal software architect at National Instruments. The paper was written as part of the National Instruments-sponsored research and teaching program in signal and image processing at UTD.

More than 330 poster papers and 230 oral papers were presented at the conference, which was jointly organized by the International Neural Network Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computational Intelligence Society.

The Gope-Kehtarnavaz-Nair paper discusses a software system designed to more effectively classify EEG (electroencephalography) signals based on independent component analysis, time-frequency features and neural network classification. It also utilizes the NI LabVIEW graphical programming environment to achieve an interactive software design.