Tag Archives: project

Breaking a Genocide’s Silence: Rwandan Storytelling Exhibit Centerpiece of New National Archives

By Guest PostOctober 12, 20122 commentsPolitics1994, ann arbor, catalyze, conversation, culture, david wallace, english, for, grenade, hope, kakuze josiane, marriage practices, michigan, mission, mukakayange veronique, national archives, neighbourhood, painful stories, patricia pasick, perpetrator, project, resident, resilience, rwanda history, rwandan, rwandan culture, rwandan genocide, simple question, stories, storycorps, storytelling tradition, strength, university, work history, young person

ANN ARBOR — One of the casualties of the 1994 Rwandan genocide was the culture’s storytelling tradition. Resurrecting it has been the mission of a project called Stories for Hope for the past four years.

Now 99 narratives—conversations between youths and elders—will go on exhibit at the newly built Rwandan National Archives, which were decimated during the violence. On Oct. 12, the archives open again for the first time in nearly two decades. (more…)

Bird in the Hand

By Guest PostJuly 28, 2012Culture, Generalblue feathers, blue hen, blue hen chicken, delaware, delaware state bird, elena torok, fightin blue hens, gamecocks, jack gelb, john caldwell, kent county, military regiment, paul h sammelwitz, project, radiography, revolutionary war, taxidermy specimen, university, university of delaware, winterthur museum

University art conservation student prepares Blue Hen for display

When University of Delaware Prof. Jack Gelb, Jr., was given a taxidermy specimen of a Blue Hen by a retiring colleague in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences, he realized that this particular example of the Delaware state bird was somewhat the worse for wear.

And so Gelb, who is chairperson of the department as well as director of UD’s Avian Bioscience Center, turned to the Department of Art Conservation for expert help.

“This was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn about natural history materials,” said Elena Torok, now a third-year graduate student in the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. “We happily agreed to work” on the project. (more…)

World’s Top Tech Students Go for It All Down Under

By Guest PostJuly 6, 2012Technology2012 summer games, Argentina, australia, blog entry, brazilian brothers, bubblegum, cloud computing, darkened room, eduardo, eureka, gold medals, Greece, Iceland, imagine cup 2012, kinect fun labs, korea, let it bee, london, mathdash, Microsoft, olympic athletes, Pizza, project, robert miles, roberto sonnino, roberts quest, serbia, sydney, team, team boddymusic, team catchcake, team drexel dragons, team radiant, team symbiosis, Technology, united states, walid abu-hadba, windows, worldwide finals, xbox, xbox 360

Young technologists are looking to take the world by storm this weekend at the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals in Sydney, Australia.

SYDNEY – Wrapped in the flags of their countries, the competitors climb onto the podium, beaming with joy as the cameras flash. They are young, passionate, business-savvy ambassadors of their field.

These aren’t soccer players or high jumpers, but they are no less competitors than the athletes seeking gold medals at the 2012 Summer Games in London. They are the planet’s premiere young technologists. And, to slightly alter an infamous movie line, they’ve come to change the world and chew bubblegum – and they’re all out of bubblegum. (more…)

UW Deploying Seismic Sensors in Hope of Getting to Bottom of Spokane Quakes

By Guest PostJune 29, 2012Environmentautomated earthquake, bill steele, cascades, detector, douglas gibbons, echoes, fault, geological structure, internet access, mild earthquake, motion sensor, netquakes, ocean shores, oregon, project, puget sound region, seismic network, seismometer, spokane, spokane area, university of washington, Washington, yakima

It’s been a decade since a swarm of relatively mild earthquakes shook up parts of Spokane. Now, armed with the right tools, scientists want to find out what was at fault.

“It was always something not as well understood as we thought it should be,” said Douglas Gibbons, a University of Washington researcher in Earth and space sciences, who is guiding installation of strong-motion sensors as part of a project called NetQuakes.

NetQuakes will install a half-dozen seismometers in the Spokane area by the end of June, mostly in volunteers’ homes, to help improve understanding of what lies beneath the city. (more…)

Global Health: Students Build Wiki of Medical Devices Designed for Low-Income Countries

By Guest PostApril 20, 2012Education, Scienceamir sabet, anemia, appropedia project, autologous blood transfusion, blood sample, caitlin winget, communication vehicle, database, diime, dynamic compendium, education, electricity, filtering syringe, ghana, hemafuse, humboldt state university, iran, james azazili, kathleen sienko, knowledge, lonny grafman, medical device, megan bland, new wiki, nicaragua, open source inventory, policymaker, project, rachel strauss, salad spinner centrifuge, sofia merajver, startup, Technology, turkey, university of michigan, wiki appropedia, world

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— In parts of the world without reliable electricity, a pedal-powered nebulizer could provide life-saving asthma treatments. Small wax-filled sleeping bags could keep premature infants warm. A salad spinner centrifuge for blood samples could help clinicians diagnose anemia.

University of Michigan researchers have cataloged more than 100 such technologies in a new wiki of medical devices designed for resource-limited settings. The Global Health Medical Device Compendium, an open-source inventory, is hosted by the popular appropriate technology wiki Appropedia. It is expected to serve as an important communication vehicle for end users, non-governmental organizations, researchers and others to help advance such technologies. (more…)

The Tales Top Bosses Tell To Keep Ahead of The Game

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2012Politicscharles harvey, economic crisis, exeter, mairi maclean, movers and shakers, newcastle, project, robert chia, saxon kings, self construction, society, Steve Jobs, storyteller, storytelling, strathclyde, top boss, winston churchill

Top bosses are expert storytellers who tell versions of the same four stories to keep ahead of the game, experts have found. Researchers from Exeter, Newcastle and Strathclyde universities have discovered four powerful messages are built into the often subtle and sometimes self-deprecating stories leaders tell about themselves.

The messages are about defying the odds, staying the course, succeeding through talent and giving back to society. The overall effect of this image-enhancing cocktail is to legitimise their positions as captains of industry.

Storytelling has long been recognised as a way leaders such as Winston Churchill or Steve Jobs maintained legitimacy. However, this research goes further, revealing how and why these stories are such a potent way of keeping stellar careers on track. (more…)

What is The Real Meaning of Christmas?

By Guest PostDecember 22, 2011Culturebest seller, Bible, biblical material, biblical stories, biblical text, brian j turner, christian background, christmas, curriculum materials, david spriggs, during phase 1, eleanor holmes, esther reed, exeter, key stage 3, king james version, project, rob freathy, stories in bible, university of exeter, visual artist, world

There are thousands of stories in the Bible and a visual artist in Exeter is currently on a 30-year mission to paint the whole lot.

The University of Exeter is incorporating some of what will eventually be a series of up to 3,000 artworks by Brian J Turner into new school curriculum resources that explore how biblical stories are read and interpreted.

The Art of Narrative Theology in Religious Education project is being led by Drs Esther Reed and Rob Freathy from the Department of Theology and Religion and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter. The aim of the project is to get school pupils to investigate biblical stories and how people, whether from a Christian background or not, interpret and use them to make sense of their world and their role within it, particularly how they can live a good life. (more…)

Pine Island Glacier: A Scientific Quest in Antarctica to Determine What’s Causing Ice Loss

By Guest PostNovember 10, 2011EnvironmentAntarctica, bismarck, cold, glacier, glacier melt, global sea level rise, harsh, hazards, ice shelf, international polar year, ipy, logistics hub, mcmurdo station, models to predict glacier acceleration, NASA, national science foundation, north dakota, nsf, ocean cavity shape, ocean currents, oceanographic instruments, pine island glacier, pine island glacier ice shelf, project, ross island, scott borg, sea-level rise, stormy climate, united states antarctic program, warmer ocean water, Washington

*Researchers study heat delivered by ocean currents to bottom side of glacier that releases more than 19 cubic miles of ice each year*

An international team of researchers, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, will helicopter onto the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, one of Antarctica’s most active, remote and harsh spots, in mid-December 2011–weather permitting.

The project’s mission is to determine how much heat ocean currents deliver to the underside of the Pine Island Glacier as it discharges into the sea. Quantifying this heat and understanding how much melting it causes is key to developing reliable models to predict glacier acceleration and therefore predict how much ice will be delivered from land into the ocean thus contributing to sea level rise. (more…)