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Art
that tickles the mind
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11/01/2007
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Rochester City
Newspaper
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Park Point housing complex at RIT
progresses
11/13/2007
Democrat and Chronicle
Daneman, Matthew
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College students
Rosmon Darisme and Turrell Jones want a little more freedom and elbow
room. The Rochester Institute of Technology students took a break from
the fall quarter's final exams on Monday to tour a model apartment at the
Park Point at RIT complex going up now.
"It's definitely more than what I expected to see," Jones said
after the two finished eyeballing the four-bedroom, two-bath suite that
still smelled of new paint.
And developers like Wilmorite Management Group, which is building Park Point,
want something, too - to tap more heavily into the college student
market.
Wilmorite's $72 million Park Point project, on a corner of land it is
leasing from RIT, is scheduled to be complete by August. It will feature
an array of apartments - being marketed primarily to RIT students and
faculty and to students at nearby schools - alongside a sizable retail
development.
University of Rochester has talked tentatively about developing a college
town-like project along Mt. Hope Avenue aimed at its students. On the
other side of the Genesee River, construction crews are putting up an
extended-stay hotel, to be followed by retail and office space for the
$23 million Brooks Landing complex. UR will occupy most of the office
space.
And going up just north of the Brooks Landing construction is the
120-unit Riverview Apartments, a private development by an Erie County
firm aimed at UR students and scheduled to open in fall 2008.
Helping set these projects in motion is the fact that once-reluctant area
colleges increasingly are willing to work with private developers, said
Realtor Robert Miglioratti, past chairman of the Greater Rochester
Association of Realtors.
Meanwhile, the growth of such institutions - with UR and RIT both now
among the area's largest employers - means increased need for commercial
services nearby, he said.
Wilmorite has almost all of its retail space rented now and expects to
announce those tenants in four to six weeks, said Vice President Dennis
A. Wilmot. A major anchor of the complex will be a new RIT campus
bookstore, to be run by Barnes & Noble.
Leasing arrangements for Park Point apartments are expected to start in
early December.
Jones and Darisme both are interested.
"It's off campus, but it's right around the corner," Darisme
said.
Copyright 2007, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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New Insights Into Cataract Formation
11/12/2007
Medical News Today
Mary Parlange
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Using the tools
and techniques of soft condensed matter physics, a research team in
Switzerland has demonstrated that a finely tuned balance of attractions
between proteins keeps the lens of the eye transparent, and that even a
small change in this balance can cause proteins to aggregate and de-mix.
This leads to cataract formation, the world's leading cause of blindness.
This work could shed light on other protein aggregation diseases (such as
Alzheimer's disease), and may one day lead to methods for stabilizing
protein interactions and thus preventing these problematic aggregations
from occurring.
The eye lens is made up of densely packed crystallin proteins, arranged
in such a way that light in the visible wavelength range can pass
through. But for a variety of reasons including UV radiation exposure and
age, the proteins sometimes change their behavior and clump together. As
a result, light is scattered once it enters the lens, resulting in cloudy
vision or blindness. There is currently no known way to reverse the
protein aggregation process once it has begun. Nearly 5 million people
every year undergo cataract surgery in which their lenses are removed and
replaced with artificial ones.
Previous research has shown that the interactions between the three major
crystallin proteins that make up the concentrated eye lens protein
solution are key to cataract formation. A team of scientists from the
University of Fribourg, EPFL and the Rochester Institute of Technology
(USA) studied the interactions between two of these proteins, at
concentrations similar to those found in the eye lens, using a
combination of neutron scattering experiments and molecular dynamics
computer simulations. They found that a finely tuned combination of
attraction and repulsion between the two proteins resulted in an
arrangement that was transparent to visible light. 'By combining
experiments and simulations it became possible to quantify that there had
to be a weak attraction between the proteins in order for the eye lens to
be transparent,' explains EPFL postdoctoral researcher Giuseppe Foffi, a
member of the Institut Romand de Recherche Numerique en Physique des
Materiaux (IRRMA). 'Our results indicate that cataracts may form if this
balance of attractions is disrupted, and this opens a new direction for
research into cataract formation.'
'Lots of studies have been done on individual proteins in the lens,' adds
University of Fribourg physicist and lead author Anna Stradner, 'But none
on their mixtures at concentrations typically found in the eye. We
modeled these proteins as colloidal particles, and found there was a very
narrow window in which the protein solution remained stable, and this was
a necessary condition for lens transparency.'
In addition to unveiling important new information about the interactions
of the proteins in the eye lens, this benchmark study provides a
framework for further study into the molecular properties and
interactions of proteins. The results suggest that these properties could
perhaps be manipulated to prevent aggregation or reverse the aggregation
process once it has begun.
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
The results are reported in the November 9 issue of Physical Review
Letters. The neutron scattering experiments were done at the Paul
Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, and the research was
supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Marie
Curie Network and the National Institutes of Health (USA).
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Environmentalists call for ban on bunker
fuel, described as toxic
11/12/2007
AP via San Francisco Chronicle
JULIANA BARBASSA
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Sticky, packed
with pollutants and slow to break down, the type of oil spilled into the
San Francisco Bay by a cargo ship is an environmental nightmare loose on
the waves, said environmentalists calling for a ban on it. 'Bunker fuel
is the dirtiest fuel on the planet,' said Teri Shore, campaign director
for the marine program at Friends of the Earth. 'Ships are being used as
waste incinerators for the oil industry.' On Sunday, the group launched a
petition asking Congress to ban bunker fuel use. About 5,000 people had
signed onto it by Monday.
About 58,000 gallons of the fuel poured into the San Francisco Bay last
Wednesday, when the ship sideswiped a support on the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, opening a 90-foot gash on the side of the
926-foot vessel and tearing open two of its fuel tanks. The spreading oil
has fouled nearly two dozen beaches and killed dozens of sea birds.
The problems posed by bunker fuel to the environment stem from its
physical properties it's gooey and thick, particularly in cold water and
from the toxins it carries, scientists said.
A byproduct of oil refining, a process that separates lighter, cleaner,
more commercially valuable liquids like gasoline and kerosene, bunker
fuel is a black, viscous substance laden with heavy metals, sulfur and
other polluting chemicals. 'If it's too thick and too complex to combust
in an engine, we make tar out of it, but if it's still able to be heated
and to flow through a pipe, we call it bunker fuel,' said James Corbett,
a professor at the University of Delaware's College of Marine and Earth
Studies.
Its main advantage to the shipping industry is that it's cheap a
cost-effective option for massive ship engines can burn fuels other
engines can't use, industry representatives said.
But if bunker fuel spills, it gums up beaches, marshes and other
ecosystems. Animals take it for food or ingest it as they try to clean
their coats, and the oil breaks through the waterproof fur or feathers
that keep them dry, exposing them to hypothermia, said Gary Shigenaka,
with the emergency response division of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
The fuel also can break up into tar balls, which create a weathered
coating on the outside and keep the oil fresh on the inside. Those can
travel far and plague wildlife and ecosystems for years, Shigenaka said.
Bunker fuel also creates problems in the air when burned.
Tiny particles of pollution and chemicals released through ship exhaust
were linked to the premature death of about 60,000 people with heart and
lung ailments in 2002, according to an article published this month in
Environmental Science & Technology, the journal of the American
Chemical Society. 'If the fuel burned by ships were cleaner, we would
prevent a significant number of deaths annually,' said James Winebrake,
professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who co-authored the
study with Corbett.
Winebrake noted that diesel sold for road use in the United States has
about 15 parts of sulfur per million, while the average sulfur content of
bunker fuel globally is about 27,000 parts per million.
Some steps have been taken to cut down on ship pollution in California,
in part because of pressure from environmental groups.
Air regulators required ships coming within 24 miles of the state's
coastline to burn low-sulfur fuel, but that provision has been challenged
in court by industry groups.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, two of the country's largest,
have encouraged approaching ships to slow down to reduce emissions.
They're also putting in equipment to let ships plug into land-based
electrical outlets and turn off their engines while docked.
But environmental groups argue that it's time to make significant
changes, such as phasing out bunker fuel altogether, not just small steps
that would allow its continued use. With the growth of global trade,
traffic of huge cargo ships around the world is on the rise, and with it,
the impact of their emissions, they said. 'There are more ships on high
seas, more ships coming into the bay,' Shore said. 'That means more
potential for accidents and more exposure to pollution.'
On the Net:
Friends of the Earth: www.foe.org/
For the Corbett and Winebrake study 'Mortality from Ship Emissions: A
Global Assessment': pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/esthag/asap/pdf/es071686z.pdf
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: www.noaa.gov/
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Policymakers urged to address concerns
about US science and technology workforce
11/12/2007
NewsRx.net
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Amidst growing
uneasiness around the United States ' ability to compete with India,
China and other nations, the Commission on Professionals in Science and
Technology (CPST) has issued a report on the state of the nation 's STEM
(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workforce and the
policy implications surrounding it. The report, Policy and the STEM
Workforce System, calls on policymakers to develop a healthy STEM
workforce system on the whole. Ron Hira, assistant professor of public
policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, is the report 's lead author
(see also ).
The report follows nearly three years of data analysis designed to
package reliable statistics on the U.S. STEM workforce. Collectively,
these reports are known as the "STEM Workforce Data Project."
These data assess trends around employment; the participation of women,
minorities and foreign-born individuals; salaries; degree production; and
employment forecasts, among others.
Policy and the STEM Workforce System analyzes these trends and summarizes
the key elements of a healthy STEM workforce system including the rewards
and risks that substantially impact the attractiveness of STEM
professions. For example, between 2001 and 2006, enrollments in bachelor
's programs in computer science dropped 40 percent. Increased risk for
job loss in IT due to offshoring and other issues was a major factor in
students shying away.
Likewise, the changing nature of employment relations can have an impact
on how attractive an individual field may be. With more employers moving
toward "on-demand" employment and an expectation of short
employee tenure, there is less incentive to invest in continuing
education. This leaves STEM professionals especially vulnerable since
keeping up with the pace of technology is critical to their
employability.
The report highlights the policy levers that affect the STEM workforce
system, including: Federal research funding Scholarships Government
procurement Subsidizing continuing education Improving participation
rates among women and underrepresented minorities Immigration policies
On-ramps and re-entry into STEM careers Improving labor market signals
"Changing one control variable, such as increasing degree
production, will have multiple effects on the entire system, some of
which may be desirable and others which may not," Hira says.
"Policymakers and analysts need to develop models to interpret how a
specific policy choice affects the overall health of the system in short,
medium, and long terms. Of course, this also means recognizing and
reconciling the conflicting values of the interested parties."
According to the report, employers have long lamented the limited supply
of domestic STEM talent, while universities have issued stark warnings
about a decreasing flow of new students. Meanwhile, although efforts have
been made to encourage women and underrepresented minorities
-collectively, the majority -to enter STEM fields, the report claims that
more effort is needed. At the same time, many STEM workers, particularly
older ones, report unemployment and underemployment.
"When employers issue dire cautions about a lack of human supply, we
intuitively expect the field in question to become more attractive, with
degree production, employment levels and salaries rising
accordingly," says Lisa Frehill, executive director of CPST.
"But that hasn 't happened with many STEM occupations, so we need to
start looking at where the disconnects are."
The STEM Workforce Data Project is intended to provide an objective voice
in describing the current state of the STEM workforce. Policy and the
STEM Workforce System takes that information and presents the key
elements that should be considered to diagnose the health of the STEM
workforce system. With this information, policy makers and analysts are
better positioned to launch an informed debate about effective policy
measures to ensure future competitiveness.
"It is widely accepted that the STEM workforce has a
disproportionate impact on America 's ability to compete in a global
economy," says Richard Ellis, author of several of the STEM
Workforce Data Project reports. "If we 're going to maintain and
grow competitive advantage in the United States, it 's critical that our
policies reflect the full range of issues affecting STEM workers and
employers."
Copyright 2007 Health & Medicine Week via NewsRx.com
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RIT chief's inauguration a mix of joy,
grief
11/10/2007
Democrat and Chronicle
McLendon, Gary
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At Rochester
Institute of Technology on Friday, a day of tragedy turned into a day of
tradition.
The deaths of students Seth Policzer and Syed Ali Turab were clearly on
the minds of faculty during the inauguration ceremony of William Destler,
RIT's ninth president.
The beginning of the ceremony was marked by a moment of silence in honor
of the young men who died early Friday morning in a house fire in
Rochester. A third RIT student was seriously injured in the blaze.
Later, Destler's initial comments reflected on the loss.
"This day is not just about me. It's quite a moment in RIT's
history, and of course today we lost two of our family members in a very
unfortunate and tragic fire downtown. I can openly pledge to the parents
who have entrusted their students to us that we will do everything in our
power to ensure their successful completion of their studies here,"
Destler said.
Then, his voice rising with emotion, he said: "Parents send their
children to college so that they may have a better life. It's the world's
most unimaginable tragedy when they send them to college and they do not
come home."
The inauguration was upbeat moments earlier, as guest speaker Cornell
University President David J. Skorton spoke to the thousands of attendees
in the Gordon Field House and Activities Center. Skorton joked that he
still showed up for the inauguration even though RIT's hockey team
recently defeated Cornell 4 to 1.
Skorton lauded Destler, who earned a Ph.D. from Cornell in applied
physics, as a "distinguished researcher, educational innovator,
seasoned and effective administrator and generous adviser."
Destler became RIT president on July 1, succeeding Al Simone, who was
president for 15 years.
Simone and previous presidents were credited during the inauguration with
helping the school grow from one that didn't award degrees until the
1950s to one of the 15 fastest-growing private colleges in the United
States.
"RIT is now in the position to take its place among the world's
pre-eminent institutions of higher education," Destler said.
RIT is in an ideal position, he said, to become a low-cost
"corporate research and development center" for U.S. businesses
that are facing increasing global competition.
Destler then challenged the faculty to build on the progress of past RIT
presidents by expanding and coordinating the use of RIT's world-class
laboratory, design and fabrication facilities to help businesses in
research and development.
"How do we encourage the development of their minds, their hearts
and their souls in such a way that we ensure that the next generation of
humans can grow and flourish on this planet? As we work to make RIT a
real 'innovation university,' we will have to come up with good
answers," he said.
Copyright 2007, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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Ship soot is killing people, study says
11/10/2007
News Tribune
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A new scientific
analysis that blames air pollution from oceangoing ships for killing more
than 60,000 people worldwide each year could bolster international
efforts to regulate ships visiting Puget Sound and elsewhere.
The first global-scale estimate of human health problems caused by
shipping soot was published Monday, Mortality from Ship Emissions: A
Global Assessment, in the online edition of the scientific journal
Environmental Science & Technology.
The research targeted fine particulate matter, the soot responsible for
Tacomas winter air-quality problems. How much oceangoing ships contribute
to Tacomas problem is unclear. But a recent pollution inventory found
that maritime sources account for nearly one third of fine particulate
matter throughout the Puget Sound area.
Dennis McLerran, executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency,
predicts the new research will be used to persuade the international
shipping community to switch to cleaner fuels. It puts a focus on the
fact that ships are largely unregulated, McLerran said. While federal
air-quality regulations govern smokestack and land-based diesel
emissions, overseas shipping is not subject to similar rules. This is the
last bastion of inaction, McLerran said. Between 62,000 and 64,000 adults
die prematurely from cardiopulmonary diseases and lung cancers caused by
shipping-related soot, researchers found. That is between 3 percent and 8
percent of all annual worldwide deaths from fine particle pollution.
In the same study, scientists predicted the death toll from
shipping-related, fine-particle pollution will increase 40 percent by
2012. With more than half of the worlds population living in coastal
regions and freight growth outpacing other sectors, shipping emissions
will need to meet stricter control targets, said the studys lead author,
James Corbett, of the University of Delaware.
Corbett is the nations leading expert on shipping emissions, McLerran
said. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency chief said he heard Corbett
present the latest results last week at a conference in Long Beach,
Calif. Hes got it right, McLerran said. Corbetts collaborators included
scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology, Duke University and
the DLR-Institut fr Physik der Atmosphre in Germany.
To formulate their estimates, researchers performed computer analysis
with information about vessel traffic and emissions, plus the movement of
fine particles through the earths atmosphere. Scientists also used
disease and mortality estimates previously developed by World Health
Organization, EPA and the American Cancer Society.
Scientists found most of the shipping-related deaths occur near European
and Asian coastlines. North Americans account for about 10 percent.
Researchers did not try to quantify the local impact of the problem. That
would require more study, they said.
McLerran said the articles publication was timed to coincide with the
beginning of six months of meetings of United Nations International
Maritime Organization, or IMO, in London. Its the only worldwide group
with the authority to tighten shipping-fuel rules. Representatives of the
federal Environmental Protection Agency and others are expected to cite
the study as a key reason why the organization should adopt stringent
regulations. There is real concern the IMO will not act quickly on this,
Mc- Lerran said. Most oceangoing ships burn dirty, high-sulfur fuels
drawn from the dregs of the petroleum refinery process. Sometimes bunker
fuel is so thick that ships have to heat it up to make it flow through
the engines. It typically contains almost 2,000 times more sulfur than
ordinary highway diesel oil.
While some carriers have switched to cleaner fuels, only certain European
ports impose fuel restrictions on ships coming in from overseas.
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency has focused on the problem of diesel
particulate matter for about two years, McLerran said. Diesel particulate
matter from various sources not exclusively marine accounts for 78
percent of the Puget Sound areas load of airborne toxic contaminants.
Agency officials blame them for cancer, birth defects, respiratory and
immune-system problems, among others. Because of airborne toxics, the
Puget Sound region is in the top 5 percent nationally for cancer risk,
according to EPA.
The scientific article on premature deaths from shipping emissions is
available for download. To download it, go to www.catf.us.
Click on International Air Quality, then click on Mortality from Ship
Emissions: A Global Assessment at the bottom of the page.
Copyright 2007 The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.
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2 Students Die in Fire on Day a University
Inaugurates a President
11/10/2007
New York Times
Staba, David
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ROCHESTER, Nov. 9
- It was to have been a day of celebration at the Rochester Institute of
Technology. Instead it was a day of mourning for two seniors who died in
an early morning fire on Friday after flames engulfed their off-campus
house.
"This is, frankly, every parent's nightmare," said William W.
Destler, who hours after the fatal fire was inaugurated as the ninth
president in the university's 178-year history. "You send your
children to college to increase the chances that they'll have a
successful life, and you don't expect them to not come home again."
The two students who died in the fire were identified as Syed Ali Turab,
21, a communications major from New Milford, N.J., and Seth Policzer, 21,
a computer engineering student from Parkland, Fla. A third student,
Michael DiCocco, 21, a senior industrial design student from Canastota in
central New York who was rescued from a second-floor window, was
seriously injured in the blaze. Three other students escaped unharmed,
the authorities said.
The light green house is about 12 miles from campus, in a neighborhood of
century-old colonials where musicians, artists and college students live.
"It's a neighborhood where there's some partying - not crazy
partying, but when we heard screaming, it sounded like party screaming at
first," said Aaron Boucher, 34, a drummer who owns the house next
door and called in the fire at 2:39 a.m. "I ran over here, and there
were flames shooting 10 feet out the windows. I'm barefoot in my
underwear, and I'm screaming."
A Fire Department spokesman, Capt. Dan McBride, said the house appeared
to be structurally sound, leading investigators to focus on a "human
error or lifestyle." He said he was awaiting the results of autopsy
and toxicology reports before deciding on the cause of the fire.
"My kids are all in college, and college kids like to party, they
like to drink, they like to smoke and light candles," Captain
McBride said. "They come in late and cook. Those are all things we're
looking at."
Mr. Boucher said flames fully engulfed the house within minutes.
"It was fire everywhere - there was no way for anybody to do
anything," he said.
Late in the day, relatives of Mr. Turab arrived from New Jersey and
quietly looked over the scorched house and piles of charred blankets,
boards and siding in the front yard and then left.
One neighbor, Mary Lou Anderson, placed a bouquet of red roses in the
driveway and hugged Mr. Turab's family.
"In this neighborhood, you know people, but not always by
name," said Ms. Anderson, a folk singer. "They'd always say,
'Hi, how are you?' That's the beauty of a neighborhood like this."
The deaths added a somber tone to the inaugural ceremony for Dr. Destler,
as students, parents and faculty members observing 10 seconds of silence.
When he was selected president in March, Dr. Destler was senior vice
president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Maryland.
Bob Finnerty, a university spokesman, said officials were discussing whether
to hold a memorial service next week, while students are taking exams, or
wait until they return for the winter quarter in December.
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RIT students who died in fire remembered
as achievers
11/10/2007
Democrat and Chronicle
Craig, Gary
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On a day when the
Rochester Institute of Technology focused on its future, two students
with their own destinies ahead of them lost their lives in a fire that
consumed much of the city home they shared.
In the wee hours Friday before RIT was to inaugurate its president, a
blaze swept wildly and rapidly through the home at 33 Upton Park, killing
the two college students and injuring a third.
Killed in the fire were Seth Policzer, 21, of Parkland, Fla., a
fourth-year computer engineering student, and Syed Ali Turab, 21, a
fourth-year communications student from New Milford, N.J.
A third student, Michael DiCocco, was in guarded condition at Strong
Memorial Hospital, according to a hospital spokeswoman. DiCocco, a
fourth-year industrial design student from Canastota, Madison County, was
rescued by firefighters, taken down a ladder from a second-floor window.
The tragedy darkened the day on which the RIT community inaugurated
President William Destler. The ceremony went on as planned Friday
afternoon, but with a moment of silence for the dead students. A moment
of silence also was observed Friday evening before the RIT hockey game at
Ritter Arena.
"It's not completely inappropriate for the RIT community to get
together today - to celebrate what RIT has become and to mourn the
loss," Destler said Friday at a news conference.
Both students achievers
In many ways, Policzer and Turab were the very type of students who have
helped shape RIT into the recognized university it has become. Both were
from out of state and found a welcoming atmosphere at the campus; both
were academically oriented achievers, yet both enjoyed the friendships
and joie de vivre that college offered beyond the classroom rigors.
"He really loved the college experience," said Perinton resident
Kevin Foody, a quality assurance manager at Blue Tie Inc., where Turab
worked this past summer for college credit. "He liked hanging out
with his friends. He liked going to class."
Turab's work at Blue Tie was so exemplary that the software company
offered him a part-time job with a flexible schedule so he could return
to RIT, Foody said. But Turab wanted to be on campus full time.
Policzer also carried a sturdy course load, participating in a five-year
computer engineering program that leads to a bachelor's and master's
degree with its culmination.
"Anybody who can get on the (five-year master's) track, that means
their performance is really outstanding," said Kenneth Hsu, a
computer engineering professor at RIT. "Industry likes that kind of
graduate."
Father describes his son
Seth's parents, Dr. Joel Policzer and Madeleine Policzer, were perhaps
the most surprised that their son transformed into the student he did.
"He always was the child we had to get to school at gunpoint,"
Joel Policzer said Friday in a telephone interview from his Florida home.
"Then in the seventh grade he discovered computers."
Computers became his passion, though recently Seth did have some second
thoughts about his career path, his father said. During a recent conversation,
Seth said he might like to focus his future on biomedical engineering.
"He said, 'I realize computers are very good, but I want to help
people,'" said Policzer, who is originally from Auburn, Cayuga
County.
Policzer has worked as an oncologist and is now nationally recognized for
his work in palliative and end-of-life care. But that work did not brace
him for Friday's news, he said.
"It's different when it's your own," he said.
Though miles from RIT, the home at 33 Upton Park is the sort of location
favored by college students - within the Neighborhood of the Arts and
close to the liveliness of Park Avenue and the East End.
Apparently, five RIT students lived in the rental home; a sixth person
was visiting when the fire broke out Friday morning.
The firefighters' view
The first call of a fire at the home came in about 2:40 a.m., and within
minutes firefighters were at the scene. Three people had managed to
escape; two of them leapt from a porch onto the hood of a car in the
driveway. While anxious and distraught, the three were able to tell
firefighters where the others might be trapped inside, said fire Capt.
Kenneth Gippe. In interviews Friday, the firefighters portrayed the next
few minutes as a time that put their training to the test. Realizing that
some of the students inside were on the second floor, they carried a
24-foot extension ladder to the rear and laid it upon a second-floor
window.
At first, the rear of the house showed only some signs of smoke. But by
the time the first firefighter had scaled the ladder, the flames were
dancing dangerously from the windows.
In an episode more typical of a Hollywood script, the two firefighters
who broke out the window and climbed through were 19-year veteran Dan
Caufield, the brother of Fire Chief John Caufield, and probationary
firefighter Guy Higgins, on the job for only nine months.
"The visibility was pretty much zero," Caufield said. He went
to the right, and Higgins went to the left. Inside a bedroom, Higgins
found DiCocco on the floor and yelled for Caufield. The two lifted the
unconscious student to other firefighters, who carried him down.
Before the Upton Park fire, Higgins had helped hose out blazes but had
not waded into a situation as dire as what he confronted Friday.
"It was a lot of great communication (between firefighters),"
he said, admitting that he slept little before returning to the Monroe
Avenue station Friday evening for his next shift. "You play it over
in your mind all day."
The thick smoke was so dense and the heat so intense that the
firefighters could not pull Turab and Policzer to safety in time.
Deputy Fire Chief Bill Curran said one victim was found on the first
floor of the residence and another on the upper floor.
Craig DelGiorno, 19, lives next door to the Upton Park house and said he
was awakened by the commotion.
"People were screaming; it was chaos," he said. "People
were coming out of the building, just collapsing. Guys were jumping off
the roof. In a matter of minutes, the whole house was up."
DelGiorno said he and his landlord started breaking windows to help get
the students out, but the fire prevented them from getting too far.
DelGiorno said he often hung out with the students who lived in the
house. "They were fun-loving guys, never bothered anyone."
Hector Perez, 43, of Rochester said he was watching television at his
girlfriend's nearby apartment when he smelled smoke.
"It was almost like a dream, like not real," he said.
"They was all good kids. They didn't bother nobody. I feel bad for
them."
Firefighters had the blaze under control in about 20 minutes. According
to firefighters on the scene, it appeared that the fire started in a
first-floor bedroom. The cause is still unknown.
"Three got out with the smoke alarm. We do not know what happened
with the other three yet," Curran said. "This is too early in
the time frame to be speculating what happened."
Caufield said the working smoke alarm helped saved lives.
Early Friday an e-mail reminder went out to RIT staff members, reminding
them that "today's the day" - the inauguration of its ninth
president. Shortly after, another e-mail broke the news of the deaths.
RIT made grief counseling available to relatives and friends of the
students, as well as to students on campus.
"We have full counseling services available," Destler said
Friday. "We can provide counseling services to students who were
friends of these students or colleagues and try to help them through this
difficult time."
Friends in disbelief
Yousuf Khan recalled when he saw Turab on Thursday. They discussed
weekend plans.
For both technical communications majors, the plans involved a lot of
studying and getting ready for finals week.
"We were both talking about how stressed out we were about school,
and Ali had to give a presentation for his quantitative research methods
class Monday," said Khan, 25, of Rochester. "When I heard about
a fire on Upton Street and I knew Ali lived there, I thought, no, it
can't be him."
For friends of Policzer, there was also disbelief.
Rabbi Paul Plotkin of Temple Beth Am in Margate, Fla., where the Policzer
family attended synagogue, presided over Seth Policzer's bar mitzvah. He
said that at RIT, Seth Policzer "fully blossomed into an
intelligent, socially active, independent and mature man who has a
brilliant career ahead of him."
The tragedy will always be inexplicable, Plotkin said.
"One thing you can't do is ask why," he said. "For one,
you will never find an answer. And two, you will only make yourself sick
mentally. You can't find significance in death, but only in the
life."
Includes reporting by staff writers Victoria Freile, Chad Roberts, Ernst
Lamothe Jr., Jeffrey Blackwell, Justina Wang, Jim Mandelaro and Brian
Sharp.
Copyright 2007, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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Disability and employment need greater
focus
11/09/2007
CommunityCollegeTimes
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What is a job?
What does it do for the individual? For the community? Lets define a job
as work done in an occupation or profession that benefits an individual
financially, personally, socially and psychologically. And in our
communities, jobs are an economic driver, as we see when monthly
employment statistics are released.
The motivation for career success is as strong for people with
disabilities as for anyone else. Jobs relate to an individuals sense of
self and self-worth, and we, administrators and educators in our nations
colleges, have both the awesome responsibility and the intense
satisfaction of being on the front lines in job preparation, job search
and placement for all of our students.
October is designated by Congress as National Disability Employment
Awareness Month. The purpose of this designation is to highlight the
contributions and skills of American workers with disabilities and
increase awareness of issues related to disability and employment.
We should take the opportunity to step back and ask ourselves if our
colleges are focusing enough on issues related to disability and
employment, and if we have a workable plan.
There is no question that a successful college experience is a critical
step on the path to a successful career. But Im sure you would agree that
career success, often defined as a good job, relies not only on the
students education but also on other services that colleges provide.
Colleges that actively plan for successful educational and life
experiences for students with disabilities take a lead role in three
critical areas.
First, they ensure that students with disabilities have full access to
their educational experience, and by that I mean that colleges provide
the educational, technological and personal support that students with
disabilities need in order to learn. Whether its interpreters,
notetakers, tutors, physical plant renovations or computer hardware or
software that brings learning within reach, accessibility is key.
Seventeen years ago, President George H. Bush signed into law the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), guaranteeing equal opportunity for
people with disabilities. As a profoundly deaf individual who went
through high school and college without any support or access services, I
know first hand how important the ADA is in ensuring access to an
education for individuals with disabilities. And while colleges have put
into place the policies and services to comply with ADA, many could do
more to ensure that students with disabilities are getting the services
and support they need for full and equal access to the education that
will serve as the foundation for the rest of what they do in life.
Secondly, with a national unemployment rate for workers with disabilities
that is significantly higher than the national average, colleges that are
actively engaged do all that they can to foster career opportunities for
students with disabilities.
Many placement offices do great work, and in this era of focus on
outcomes, many point to their placement rate as evidence of their
success. But how well are college placement offices doing at placing
students with disabilities? If, instead of reporting their overall
placement rate, colleges reported their placement rate for students with
disabilities as a separate group, would the rate of success be the same?
Placement officers and disability service directors know that students
with disabilities may need extra assistance in learning how to market
themselves to employers. Colleges need to look at their placement offices
and determine if their services offer adequate help to students with
disabilities to successfully search for jobs. If not, then expanding such
services is essential.
For example, in addition to traditional services such as job postings and
resume help, placement offices could provide focused advisement and even
practice interviews to give students with disabilities experience with
the challenges they may face in job interviews. Colleges also could host
a targeted job fair, specifically designed to connect employers and
students with disabilities. If that isnt practical, then colleges could
set time specifically for students with disabilities to connect with
employers during a regular job fair.
Finally, an actively engaged college uses employer development tactics to
maximize opportunities for students with disabilities. Cultivating
employers and educating them about the value of hiring students and
graduates with disabilities can be a key factor in job placement success.
College employment specialists can walk employers through the process,
answer their questions, dispel myths and help them feel comfortable in
addressing the challenges.
Hurwitz is a vice president of Rochester Institute of Technology (New
York) and is CEO/dean of the institutes National Technical Institute for
the Deaf.
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Shipping emissions may kill 60,000 a year
11/08/2007
United Press International
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NEWARK, Del., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Shipping-related emissions may
cause approximately 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary and lung cancer
deaths worldwide annually, a U.S. study found.
James Corbett of University of Delaware, in Newark, and James Winebrake
of Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York, said the study
correlates the global distribution of particulate matter -- black carbon,
sulfur, nitrogen and organic particles -- released from ships smoke
stacks with heart disease and lung cancer mortalities in adults.
Ships run on residual oil, which has sulfur content thousands of times
greater than on-road diesel fuel, explained Winebrake.
'Residual oil is a byproduct of the refinery process and tends to be much
dirtier than other petroleum products,' Winebrake said in a statement.
Corbett and Winebrake mapped marine pollution concentrations over the
oceans and on land, estimating global and regional mortalities from ship
emissions by integrating global ship inventories, atmospheric models and
health impacts analyses.
Shipping emissions death rates in Europe are estimated at 26,710, 19,870
in East Asia, 9,950 in South Asia, 5,000 in North America and 790 in
South America.
The findings are scheduled to be published in the Dec. 15 issue of
Environmental Science and Technology.
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Determination, fascination drive new Hard
Rock Hotel's GM
11/07/2007
San Diego Union-Tribune - Online
Crabtree, Penni
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Friends and
colleagues attribute Robert Todak's success in the hotel business to a
killer work ethic, a passion for detail, and a flawless sense of style.
But Todak, general manager of downtown San Diego's new Hard Rock Hotel,
tells it differently.
"I've been really fortunate. I had a lot of good breaks. And it all
stems from the day that I went into the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the
Rockette liked me," Todak said, with deadpan delivery.
Todak is not only a guy who knows how to tell a good story more on the
Rockette later he also has plenty of stories to tell. The hotelier honed
his trade at the side of hotel czar Ian Schrager, half of the team that
created the iconic 1970s New York City nightclub Studio 54 and who later
pioneered the concept of the boutique hotel.
While with Schrager, Todak was part of the team that launched the
Paramount in New York, a groundbreaking hotel and home of the
celebrity-laden Whiskey Bar, the first in a series of chic night spots
created by Rande Gerber, the husband of supermodel Cindy Crawford.
Later, Todak served as vice president of Ian Schrager Hotels Miami,
overseeing the South Beach landmark resort Delano. Along the way, Todak
also served as director of operations for music mogel Chris Blackwell's
Island Outpost hotel group, running The Tides, The Marlin and other South
Beach landmark boutique hotels whose regular clientele included U2,
Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffett and Grace Jones.
Well-versed in the concept of hotel-as-theater, Todak is now charged with
bringing some rock 'n' roll glamour to the Gaslamp Quarter in the form of
the Hard Rock Hotel, which opened last week.
The 420-room hotel, which includes 17 lavish Rock Star Suites with
individual features such as a fire pit and an outdoor hot tub, will host
two Gerber bars, the Asian fusion restaurant Nobu and a live music venue
dubbed The Vault.
True to its brand, Hard Rock will cater to the occasional rock 'n' roll
or film celebrity, as well as the average Joe who just hopes to get a
peek at one. And in glam hotel veteran Todak, the Hard Rock has a general
manager who understands the allure of celebrity and the public's
fascination with it.
"When I was living in New York City, I was a shy person, and I
remember going to this really famous club, standing out on the other side
of the rope, in the rain, for an hour, and thinking 'I am never in my
life going to do this again,'" said Todak, with a laugh. "And
the beauty of working for a Hard Rock or a Delano is you never have to
wait in the rain on the wrong side of the velvet rope."
Growing up in Amsterdam, N.Y., there wasn't much velvet rope to be had.
For Todak, the chief virtue of the tiny, faded factory town was that it
was only three hours from New York City.
Todak developed a taste for travel and glamour at an early age. While in
grade school, he created a mini-travel agency in his room, writing hotels
to get brochures, snagging maps from gas stations, and filing it all by
country, state and city in filing cabinets.
"I was fascinated by travel and hotels. I guess it was an escape, a
way to get away from home," said Todak, who planned the family
vacations. "I always had a palate for more sophisticated things than
Amsterdam had to offer."
Todak also had a zany streak and was at the center of a small, close-knit
group of friends who shared a desire to get the heck out of Amsterdam,
recalls childhood friend John Centi.
Centi remembers how in high school Todak frequently got hauled into the
principal's office for doing Elvis impersonations, and, occasionally,
wickedly dead-on impersonations of the principal.
"The other kids would egg him on and (when he did impersonations)
they basically had to break up a riot," Centi said. "Robert is
unpredictable; he can be very straight-laced and tight, and then he flies
off and is this really funny, entertaining guy."
After graduating from high school, Todak decided to turn his fascination
with travel and hotels into a career, and he enrolled in the Rochester
Institute of Technology's hospitality management program.
By the time he graduated in 1983, the country was in recession, and the
only company that came to the school to interview hotel management
candidates was the Days Inn motel chain.
Depressed but "determined to get to New York City," Todak hit
the pavement, cold-calling on all that city's elite hotels but getting no
where. Until he walked into the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria and met the
Rockette.
"It was a really hot day in June, and it was after 5 p.m. on a
Friday, and I walked in without an appointment," Todak said. "I
went to the assistant manager's desk and there was this one woman who
took a real liking to me, I forget her name but she was a former
Rockette, I'll never forget that.
"The human resources department was closed, but she looked at me and
said she'd make a call and I was doing the 'please, please, please' under
my breath," Todak said. "She could see I was an eager guy who'd
had a rough day and she was really, really kind."
The former Rockette got him a spur-of-the-moment interview, and Todak
landed his first management job, a gig in housekeeping overseeing 400
rooms, four union supervisors and 100 employees.
Todak quickly rose in the ranks, and after five years with the Waldorf
and another Hilton Hotels property, Todak received a call from a
management headhunter about a unique project being developed by Ian
Schrager and his late partner, Steve Rubell.
The partners had emerged from federal prison in 1981 after serving
sentences for Studio 54-related tax evasion convictions, and they were
newcomers to the hotel industry. But by 1988 they'd opened the successful
Morgans Hotel and Royalton, launching the high-design boutique hotel
movement, and Todak was recruited for their latest project, the
Paramount.
Colleagues warned Todak not to chuck a promising career with the Hilton
chain to join Schrager's upstart Morgans Hotel Group. But Todak wanted to
be part of the new alternative to boring chain hotels and the traditional
grand hotels.
"It was risky, but I was 100 percent sure I wanted to do it,"
Todak said. "There was a whole new world happening in the hotel
industry and to be there at the very onset, which this was, made my
career. If I'd stuck with Hilton, I'd probably have been successful but
in a Hilton kind of way."
The Paramount, which opened in 1990, was a huge hit, and, with the
addition of Gerber's first Whiskey Bar, soon became one of New York
City's hottest night spots, drawing celebrities and locals alike.
For 10 of the next 15 years, Todak worked for Schrager, running various
hotels in New York and Miami, and helping to spread the Schrager culture.
"Schrager wanted things to be beautiful, he wanted his staff to be
beautiful, and he wanted beautiful clients and that was really what it
was all about," said Todak, with a smile.
Operationally, it was executives such as Todak who provided the substance
behind the style, making sure that the hotels ran smoothly, said Gerald
Inzerillo, the former president of Morgans Hotel Group.
"New York is chock full of exceptional talent, but what stood out
with Todak was not only his sense of enthusiasm and willingness, and that
he was exceptionally bright, but that he was game," Inzerillo said.
"In football terms, he was 'throw me the ball.' You could rely on
him."
After five years with Schrager, Todak was feeling burned out and decided
to move to Miami's South Beach to open a travel agency. He got the firm
off the ground, but in the process met and was recruited by Island
Records founder Chris Blackwell to help run his Island Outpost hotel
chain.
At the time, Miami's South Beach was still transforming from a decaying
retirement community into a resort mecca for the rich and fashionable.
"When we first started working together in the 1990s, South Beach
was literally a 'no go' area," Blackwell said. "It now seems
impossible that only 15 odd years ago the whole area was virtually
derelict, but Robert was one of the key behind-the-scenes people who made
it happen."
Todak took charge of the Marlin, where U2, Aerosmith and others stayed and
recorded in its in-house studio, and he later led the company's South
Beach expansion with the Cavalier, the Leslie and the Tides hotels.
Eventually, Todak rejoined Schrager's Miami operations, taking charge of
the world-renowned Delano, a South Beach resort whose Philippe Starck
design and white-on-white decor became the benchmark for cool.
After almost a dozen years in Miami, Todak believed his career had taken
permanent root. But in 2004, a recruiter for the Hard Rock hotel chain
persuaded him to look at their recently opened Chicago property.
Todak loved the restored art deco property and the city, and took the job
as general manager. But he was tapped again in 2005, this time to lead
the construction and management of San Diego's Hard Rock Hotel.
In some ways, Todak said, San Diego's downtown scene reminds him of
Miami's South Beach in the early days, when a few unique hotels and
nightclubs helped spark an urban renaissance and lure the rich and famous
to come out and play.
"San Diego is really growing up, with downtown hotels like the Hard
Rock, the Ivy, the Keating, as well as nightclubs like the
Stingaree," Todak said. "It is not so much starting a rebirth
as a repositioning. San Diego is becoming a world-class destination."
Copyright 2007 The San Diego Union-Tribune
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New devices open communications for deaf
11/06/2007
USA Today - Online
Seth Sutel
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Five years ago the
staff at Ken Gan's auto repair shop told him they needed to find a better
way of communicating with customers who were deaf. 'I said, let me go
shopping I'll buy you whatever's out there,' said Gan, of Rochester,
N.Y., which has a significant community of deaf people.
For three months, Gan came up empty-handed. There wasn't anything in the
market to facilitate face-to-face communication in a situation such as a
shop or office.
So Gan hired some electrical engineers and a patent attorney and came up
with the Interpretype. The small device with a keyboard and display hooks
up to another Interpretype or a PC, allowing a hearing person and a deaf
person to type messages to each other. It turned out to be such an
improvement over passing scribbled notes that Gan gets up to 30 deaf
customers a month, up from two to three per month before.
Gan started a business above the shop that has sold more than a thousand
Interpretypes to schools, libraries, government offices and businesses.
The basic setup starts at $995.
With roughly 1% to 2% of the U.S. population either deaf or hard of
hearing, new technologies like Gan's device are coming into wider use.
They allow deaf people to overcome many frustrations in simple commercial
situations such as asking: What's wrong with my car?
Or if you want to rent a car. James Barons, manager an Enterprise
Rent-a-Car branch in Rochester, said he's seen interactions with deaf
customers improve markedly after installing one of Gan's text-exchange
devices. 'It made the whole transaction of renting a car a lot smoother,'
Barons said. Other technologies are also making inroads in bridging the
gap between hearing people and the deaf.
Jason Curry founded a company in Independence, Mo. with his father that
makes a communications device similar to the Interpretype. The UbiDuo
uses two portable units, connected by wireless technology. A pair, which
can be folded together, starts at $1,995.
Curry has already sold hundreds since starting sales at the beginning of
the year, and expects to sell several thousand next year. He said he's
talking with Starbucks about getting UbiDuos installed in coffee shops.
Curry, who is deaf, said that he was able to directly communicate with
his wife's family for the first time last Christmas by using one of the
devices. Not having his wife interpret was a 'life-changing experience'
for him, he said. 'Deaf people have a lack of power to sit down across
from a hearing person and have a conversation without a third party
interpreting for them,' Curry said through a sign language interpreter.
Another technology that has seen even greater growth in recent years is
the video relay service, which allows a deaf person to telephone a
hearing person using a sign language interpreter. The interpreter and the
deaf person communicate in sign language using a broadband video
connection, while the interpreter speaks with the hearing person over a
speakerphone.
Deaf people say video relay services mark a major improvement over the
previous telephone method available, which involved an operator reading
text that a deaf person would type into a device called a TTY a
technology more than 20 years old that exchanged basic text over phone
lines using a modem.
Norman Williams, a senior research engineer at Gallaudet University, a
school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing in Washington, D.C., uses a video
phone every day for a variety of calls including talking to his kids'
teachers, arranging doctors' visits or ordering pizza. 'I can't imagine
living without it,' Williams said in an interview using a video relay
service. 'Before we could use TTY, but that's a really slow process.
Right now I can sign, just like somebody is speaking, so it's more like
real-time conversation.' Video relay services have only come into common
use in the last three years or so, and usage is growing rapidly, having
jumped from about 1 million minutes per month in August 2004 to about 6
million minutes in August of this year, according to the National
Exchange Carrier Association.
Under federal law, phone companies are required to offer those and other
telecommunications services for people with disabilities, funded by the
charges at the bottom of your phone bill.
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