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Student Success

By Guest PostOctober 9, 2012Educationacademic support, african american, american issue, campus, center, climate, commission, delaware, diversity, energy, freeman hrabowski, higher education, hispanic, middle states, newark, patrick harker, program, social journey, success, super nerd, trabant university, umbc, university, university leader, vincent tinto

UD conference highlights diversity and student retention

Freeman Hrabowski and Vincent Tinto both believe that creating a culture of trust and support is a key ingredient in retaining students from underrepresented groups while achieving genuine campuswide diversity.

Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), and Tinto, Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at Syracuse University, shared their expertise on diversity and student retention during the Student Success and Retention Conference, held Wednesday, Oct. 3, in the Trabant University Center on the University of Delaware campus in Newark. (more…)

Microsoft Helps W3C Create Single Site for Web Standards

By Guest PostOctober 8, 2012Technologyadobe, browser, challenge, clarity consulting, css property, developer network, device, director, docs, erik klimczak, Facebook, Google, hp, html5, image, internet explorer, logo, Microsoft, mozilla, multiple browser, nokia, online resource, opera, optimize, pixel lab, rey bango, robby ingebretsen, Technology, uniformly scale, w3c, web developer, web innovation, web platform, web specification, web standard, web technology, website, windows, windows azure, windows phone

A new community-driven site provides a comprehensive and authoritative source for Web developer documentation.

REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 8, 2012 — Web innovations are emerging at a relentless pace, and Web developers face the daily challenge of finding the accurate information needed to build great websites that work across the gamut of browsers and devices. Too often, their quest can feel like a wild goose chase.

They search numerous online resources, grapple with conflicting information, and cobble together what they hope is all the information they need on the technology or specification. In the worst case, the information they get is incomplete, dated or inaccurate. (more…)

Questions for Geoff Pullum: The ‘Grammar Gotcha’ and Political Speech

By Guest PostOctober 8, 2012Politics18th century, 19th century, 20th century, ad, american understanding, ann romney, attack, bad news, Barack Obama, blogger, brown university, bubble, bush speech, bushisms, candidate, chris christie, clint eastwood, contract, david orenstein, debate, edinburgh, egotism, english, geoff pullum, george bush, grammar gotcha, grammarian, language, language log, lindley murray, lingua franca, linguist, mark liberman, noreen malone, paul ryan, pearl harbor, pennslyvania, political speech, Politics, president roosevelt, presidential, psychological, publicity, reagan, republican, republican convention, rnc, robert lowth, scriptwriter, social, spontaneous speech, syntax, tampa, technical detail, technical knowledge, todd akin, tv, university, word choice

A long campaign season with genuine gaffes and alleged misstatements began its culmination with the first presidential debate. Like many citizens, linguist Geoff Pullum, a visiting professor at Brown, was watching.

Grammarian Geoff Pullum is the Gerard Visiting Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University and professor of general linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a frequent blogger on language and politics on Language Log and Lingua Franca.

In a conversation with David Orenstein, he cited several specious analyses of word choice and syntax that have been used unfairly against candidates. The often ill-informed critiques stand in stark contrast to the way people are typically inclined to overcome the misstatements of others as they extract understanding from clumsy speech. Pullum will be listening closely to the presidential and vice presidential debates. (more…)

Doctors Wary of Studies Funded by Pharmaceutical Industry, Study Shows

By Guest PostOctober 8, 2012General, Healthaaron kesselheim, arizona, biomedical research, christopher robertson, clinical trial, doctor, fda, federal budget, good drug, good science, high quality, method, methodological rigor, nih, pharmaceutical company, physician, quality, research, trust, university

Physicians are about half as willing to prescribe drugs tested in pharmaceutical-industry funded trials than those in NIH-funded studies, a new study finds.

Physicians are less likely to trust the results of clinical trials when they know those trials were funded by pharmaceutical companies, regardless of the quality of the research, a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows.

The study, led by Dr. Aaron Kesselheim of the Harvard Medical School in Boston and co-authored by University of Arizona associate professor of law Christopher Robertson, evaluated physicians’ confidence in the results of drug trials conducted with a high, medium or low level of methodological rigor. It then looked at how their confidence in those same results changed when a trial’s funding source was revealed as either the National Institutes of Health or a company in the pharmaceutical industry, versus when no funding source was disclosed. (more…)

Fluid Cathedrals: Gels Under the Microscope

By Guest PostOctober 8, 2012Science3d maps, bandage, basilica, cables, computer simulation, correlation, di, discovery, dollop, engineering researcher, error, florence, flow, fluid, geodesic dome, hair gel, high tech, labyrinth, lilian hsiao, manufacturer, michael solomon, michigan, particle, pedestrian, pressure, railroad bridge, richmond newman, rigid structure, rods, roof, santa croce, sharon glotzer, tensegrity, trial

ANN ARBOR— A dollop of hair gel might not look like much, but Michigan Engineering researchers have found that it’s a labyrinth of chambers and domes, constructed by the particles inside. These structures allow the gel to hold its shape and determine how much pressure it can withstand before it starts to flow.

While manufacturers currently use trial and error to develop gels with a particular degree of solidity, this discovery could provide a way to design gels for particular applications. (more…)

USGS Releases First Assessment of Shale Gas Resources in the Utica Shale: 38 trillion cubic feet

By Guest PostOctober 7, 2012Environmentappalachian basin, barrel, brenda pierce, conventional oil, domestic, first assessment, gas liquid, geological survey, greater, green, hydrocarbon, marcellus shale, maryland, methodology, natural gas, new york, ohio, Pennsylvania, petroleum basin, protocol, recoverable oil, river basin, rock formation, source rock, southwestern wyoming, tcf, unconventional oil, united states, upper ordovician, US, usgs, utica shale, virginia, west virginia

The Utica Shale contains about 38 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas (at the mean estimate) according to the first assessment of this continuous (unconventional) natural gas accumulation by the U. S. Geological Survey. The Utica Shale has a mean of 940 million barrels of unconventional oil resources and a mean of 208 million barrels of unconventional natural gas liquids.

The Utica Shale lies beneath the Marcellus Shale, and both are part of the Appalachian Basin, which is the longest-producing petroleum province in the United States. The Marcellus Shale, at 84 TCF of natural gas, is the largest unconventional gas basin USGS has assessed. This is followed closely by the Greater Green River Basin in southwestern Wyoming, which has 84 TCF of undiscovered natural gas, of which 82 TCF is continuous (tight gas). (more…)

Brilliant 10

By Guest PostOctober 7, 2012Education, Sciencebody parts, brilliant 10, california irvine, capability, cars, computational algorithm, computer engineering, computer vision, delaware, deva ramanan, flat photography, honor roll, human template, identify, image recognition, monitor, patient, pedestrian detection, popular, rehabilitation, science magazine, self driving, software, system, teaches, three-dimensional, uci, ud alumnus, university, videogame systems, young scientists

UD alumnus one of Popular Science magazine’s ‘Brilliant 10’ Young Scientists

University of Delaware alumnus Deva Ramanan has been named one of Popular Science magazine’s “Brilliant 10” Young Scientists.

The designation places Ramanan on the magazine’s annual “honor roll” of the 10 most promising scientist for 2012.

Ramanan, who earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at UD in 2000, is an associate professor of computer science at the University of California Irvine (UCI). There he is working to improve a computer’s image recognition capability, or in simpler terms, a computer’s ability to “see people.” (more…)

Ancient Mollusk Tells a Contrary Story

By Guest PostOctober 7, 2012Natureancient marine life, ancient mollusk, fossil evidence, worm like mollusks

A fossil unearthed in Great Britain may end a long-running debate about the mollusks, one of life’s most diverse invertebrate groups: Which evolved first, shelled forms like clams and snails, or their shell-less, worm-like relatives? (more…)

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