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Thursday, 29 May 2008
1. UC Berkeley student, researcher count people to improve safety on Alameda County streets
Oakland Tribune
May 28, 2008
Oakland — Researchers stood on a downtown street corner Tuesday counting people and bicycles as part of a project studying the effect of vehicular traffic on pedestrians and cyclists.
The project began in April and will produce a report at the end of the year under the supervision of UC BERKELEY DOCTORAL STUDENT BOB SCHNEIDER, who is studying city and regional planning, and LINDSAY ARNOLD, A RESEARCH ASSOCIATE WITH THE UNIVERSITY'S SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH.
Bicyclists and pedestrians will be counted at 50 sample sites around the county, including areas of high and low traffic density. Pedestrians are counted either manually or automatically by infrared sensors that are imbedded in the sidewalk or installed in signs....
There's a great need to know more about how pedestrians and cyclists use city streets so planners can figure out ways to keep them safe from vehicles.
"There's been a significant increase in pedestrian and bicycle issues with people's increased understanding of the importance of physical activity and rising gas prices," Schneider said.... Full Story
2. On Technology: Police Put a High-Tech Ear to the Ground
Microphone Network Detects, Pinpoints Location of Gunshots, Cutting Officer Response Time
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
May 29, 2008
Oakland, Calif.--Police departments in cities nationwide are enlisting a new system of high-tech microphones to help fight urban crime.
Through a network of toaster-sized microphones fastened to rooftops and telephone poles, police are able to detect the crack of gunshots and pinpoint the sound's origin to within 80 feet. The system then displays the location of the shots on a computer map, alerting police within 15 seconds.
The system proved its use in Oakland on a night in early March when it notified police of gunshots in a nearby neighborhood, allowing officers to arrive at the scene within two minutes and arrest a wounded man wielding a handgun with spent shell casings.
ShotSpotter Inc., the company behind the microphone system, was founded in 1994 by ROBERT SHOWEN, A FORMER PHYSICS PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who adapted sensors and software designed to locate earthquakes....
The problems Oakland faces may be common among major cities across the U.S. which are similarly short staffed and strapped for cash, making them ill-equipped to handle a host of new technologies being deployed, says JENNIFER KING, A RESEARCHER AT THE SAMUELSON AW, TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY CLINIC AT UC BERKELEY'S BOALT SCHOOL OF LAW.
"ShotSpotter, like other law-enforcement technology out there, is predicated on the idea that there's a coordinated approach to fighting crime," says Ms. King. "City lawmakers, community leaders and the police need to work together to make it work."
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
3. Citizens' Groups Step Up In China
Wary Rulers Allow Role in Quake Aid
Washington Post
May 29, 2008
Yingxiu, China -- Grass-roots organizations and informal networks of private citizens are playing a vital role in getting supplies to rescue workers and survivors of this month's devastating earthquake in China. The government, in a notable shift, appears content to let them do so.
Officially, nongovernmental organizations in China must register with the government; the larger groups are as rigid and controlled as their official sponsors. Authorities remain deeply suspicious of smaller, independent groups....
XIAO QIANG, DIRECTOR OF THE CHINA INTERNET PROJECT AND A CHINESE MEDIA EXPERT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, said some smaller, unregistered NGOs had teams of volunteers in the quake zone almost as fast as the military had troops there.
"Many self-organized social networks are not formal organizations, but altogether their numbers, resources and role in society is much larger than what the government has officially allowed in the past," Xiao said.... Full Story
4. Soaring payroll stymies 'reformer' governor
San Francisco Chronicle
May 28, 2008
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's inability to stop the growth of the state's payroll despite his pledges to reform government spending shows that he is hampered by a problem that has cursed many of California' governors before him, political observers said Tuesday....
"He came in thinking he was going to find all these ways to cut inefficiencies," said UC BERKELEY POLITICAL SCIENTIST BRUCE CAIN. "And, while he did find inefficiencies to eliminate, they were in the millions, while the budget shortfall is in the billions."
Cain and other political experts say the governor has not been able to overcome the long-standing reality of the state's budget imbalance: In lean years, revenues simply aren't enough to cover expenditures....
CAIN, THE DIRECTOR OF UC BERKELEY'S INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES, agreed that many of the budgetary problems that Schwarzenegger is now dealing with had roots in previous administrations. But, he said, Schwarzenegger doesn't seem to have confronted the basic reality of the situation.
"The sum total of this is that employee pay and the cost of government is going up beyond the taxpayers' willingness to pay for it," he said. "Yet the governor doesn't come out and say 'If we want to have this level of services, this is how much we'll have to pay for it.' " Full Story
5. Outsiders have spent big to steer state Senate vote
Marin Independent Journal
May 28, 2008
Recent political mailers aimed at state Senate candidate Joe Nation have used trick photography to picture him on his hands and knees about to be trampled by stampeding cattle and dressed in tights and a cape with the label: drug and insurance industry superhero.
Independent expenditure committees are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars both to support and oppose Nation's bid for the state Senate's 3rd District seat. The former Assemblyman is considered a prime contender in Tuesday's primary race that pits him against incumbent state Sen. Carole Migden and Assemblyman Mark Leno, two liberal San Francisco Democrats....
BRUCE CAIN, A POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, said mailers produced by independent expenditure committees are often more harsh than those sent out by opposing candidates.
"So it does contribute somewhat to the coarsening of political dialogue," Cain said.... Full Story
6. Marketplace Op-Ed: Auction off the right to pollute
NPR
May 28, 2008
Scott Jagow: Congress is thinking about climate change. The Senate's about to start debating whether we need a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions. All three of the presidential candidates support this idea. Commentator Robert Reich has these thoughts.
Robert Reich: With McCain now on board for a "cap-and-trade" system, it's a certainty that we'll have a president next year who wants to address global warming by imposing an overall cap on U.S. carbon emissions, which will drop annually. The "trade" part of the equation is that companies that find efficient ways to cut emissions can sell the unused portions of their permits to others.
But look more closely and you see a big difference between McCain and the Democratic candidates on how the permits are allocated. McCain's proposal would give the lion's share to companies that are now the biggest polluters. This does have some logic to it -- after all, as the overall cap tightens each year, the biggest polluters face the largest challenges in cutting emissions.
By contrast, Senators Obama and Clinton have both proposed allocating permits through an auction. Under this system, every company -- large or small -- would have to buy rights to pollute. As a result, the biggest polluters would have to pay the most -- thereby providing them with the greatest incentive to cut emissions right from the start....
So next time you hear about cap-and-trade, ask the all-important question: How are the permits allocated? A carbon auction gets my bid.
[Link to audio] Full Story
7. Fresh Air Op-Ed: Love and Marriage: Still Going Together?
NPR
May 28, 2008
The recent California Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage has sent people to their dictionaries, arming themselves for arguments over what the word "marriage" really means.
But as Fresh Air's resident linguist points out, even definitions aren't as cut and dried as people think.
[Link to audio] Full Story
8. Bay Area News in Brief
San Jose Mercury News Online (*requires registration)
May 29, 2008
Berkeley--UC approves projects over city's objections
Over objections by the city of Berkeley and a new group called Save Strawberry Canyon, a University of California regents committee approved two new UC-BERKELEY building projects valued at about $311 million.
"It's an environmental disaster for that area," said Betty Olds, a Berkeley city councilwoman.
Olds also said the Hayward Fault runs along the base of the Berkeley hills near both projects.
The UC regents' Committee on Grounds and Buildings voted 6-0 Tuesday to approve design and environmental review studies for the HELIOS ENERGY RESEARCH FACILITY and the COMPUTATIONAL RESEARCH AND THEORY FACILITY, both on the grounds of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
The two buildings are slated for separate areas on lab grounds at UC-Berkeley. The 144,000-square-foot energy research building, which is part of a new ENERGY BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE, is slated for the Berkeley hills in Strawberry Canyon off of Centennial Road and about a mile above the campus. The completion date is October 2011.... Full Story
9. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rises
New meaning for an old metric
eMarketer
May 29, 2008
When buying online first became mainstream, one of the most watched metrics for online merchants was the shopping cart abandonment rate. Through site security, consumer education and word-of-mouth about positive experiences, online retailers reduced the percentage of consumers who placed items in their carts but did not end up buying them.
In what may be a sign of the times, shopping cart abandonment has inched up. Consumers were slightly more likely to abandon shopping carts in Q1 2008 than they were a year ago, according to recently released data from MarketLive....
Online shoppers surveyed by PayPal and comScore were also concerned about costs. High shipping fees were the main reason for online shopping carts to be abandoned by survey respondents....
"Consumers are quick to walk away from online purchases when merchants don't fully disclose critical information, particularly related to cost," said ARTURO PEREZ-REYES, PROFESSOR OF E-COMMERCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.... Full Story
10. New-Media Scholars' Place in 'the Pool' Could Lead to Tenure
Chronicle of Higher Education
May 30, 2008
Re:Poste, a Web application that encourages academics to pick apart online articles from the mass media, is only in its infancy. But the program has already generated buzz on a social-networking Web site called the Pool.
"The way you have thought this through is impressive," writes Jon Ippolito in the Pool. He is an associate professor of new media at the University of Maine at Orono.
Re:Poste is one of 600 creative works — games, art, and more — by new-media students and faculty members, most of them on the Orono campus, described in the Pool, which also contains about 2,000 reviews of those works....
Mr. Ippolito, who is also an artist and a curator at the Guggenheim Museum, in New York, is so passionate about sharing among scholars and students that he added to his curriculum vitae, "Taught students to cheat using the Internet."...
Even so, the notion of sharing is what attracted RICHARD J. RINEHART, DIGITAL-MEDIA DIRECTOR AND ADJUNCT CURATOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY ART MUSEUM, to the Pool. He and his Berkeley colleagues tested and helped to refine the Web site.
"You can share pieces of your own creation with other people," he says. "That doesn't work with sculpture. You can't give a piece of it to someone else. With digital art forms, you can reuse the actual materials."
Mr. Rinehart says he is considering using the Pool to develop an open-source museum of digital art. Visitors, he says, would download the software code for various projects and use it for teaching and research. They could use the site to archive digital art, too.... Full Story
11. Digital arts festivals take over Bay Area
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
May 28, 2008
In the ever-changing world of digital arts, one thing remains constant: The Bay Area is North America's new-media hub....
Starting Sunday, the UC BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE will host Berkeley Big Bang 08, a three-day event featuring talks, digital arts displays and an open house. Big Bang 08 is timed to precede a bigger event in San Jose, the biennial 01SJ: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge (June 4-8)....
RICHARD RINEHART, DIGITAL MEDIA DIRECTOR AND ADJUNCT CURATOR AT BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE, says digital arts is the current "avant-garde," a hot topic in art circles and on the UC Berkeley campus. Big Bang 08 gives the public a chance to get to know what this art form is and critique it.
"People will have an improved understanding of digital media art and where new media is allowing artists to go," he says.
Big Bang 08 features work by media artists Trevor Paglen, Jim Campbell, Lynn Hershman Leeson and Scott Snibbe. Rinehart says he is particularly excited about Snibbe's work, "Falling Girl," being installed now at the Berkeley Art Museum near UC Berkeley.
...Big Bang 08 participants will have an opportunity to hear talks about the popular 3-D environment Second Life from UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY HUBERT DREYFUS; participate in immersive alternate reality games; and learn about the museum's new digital media art program, DMAX, which is open to the general public....
The Berkeley event is hosted by BAM/PFA and the BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA, and some events require online registration.... Full Story
12. Scientists Probe Lucas Valley for Quake Clues
KTVU Online
May 28, 2008
San Rafael, Calif. -- Scientists searching for ways to predict the next major Bay Area earthquake took their quest to Marin's Lucas Valley Wednesday, using a 40-foot tall drilling rig to dig deep into the earth to check on the movement of the plate boundary....
UC BERKELEY GEOPHYSICIST PEGGY HELLWEG said measuring stresses deep in the earth hold the key to predicting quakes.
"Why are there earthquakes?" Hellweg said. "Can we see something that happens before an earthquake? Perhaps?"
The researchers say they will be drilling the hole in Lucas Valley for a week and then move on to the East Bay. Overall, the National Science Foundation will be funding some 80 bore holes to be drilled in earthquake prone areas. Full Story
13. Make Way for Superfrog
Science
May 28, 2008
X-Men fans rejoice: Wolverine has come to life, as a frog. When the comic book warrior faces a fight, metallic blades spring forth from his hand. A new study concludes that certain African frogs are similarly equipped, having sharp, claw-shaped bones that pierce through their own fingertips when the animal is threatened.
More than 100 years ago, scientists observed the mysterious bony appendages in museum specimens of the Arthroleptidae frog family, but they had no idea what to make of them. Some speculated that the protrusions were an artifact of the preservation process. Harvard University biologists David Blackburn decided to solve the mystery once and for all after having the frequent misfortune of being injured by the amphibians while doing field research in Cameroon. "The frogs will start kicking and drag these claws against your skin," he says. "I've gotten bloody scratches from them many a time."...
AMPHIBIAN RESEARCHER AND BIOLOGIST DAVID WAKE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, says that this type of weaponry appears to be unique in the animal kingdom. But David Cannatella, a herpetologist at the University of Texas, Austin, questions whether the bony protrusions are meant for fighting. They could allow a frog's feet "to get a better grip on whatever rocky habitat they might be in," he says. Full Story
14. Are low salaries causing a brain drain from UW-Madison?
The Capital Times [Madison, WI]
May 28, 2008
When Alta Charo received a job offer in February from the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY that included a raise of roughly $45,000, many assumed the high-profile law and bioethics professor would join the list of talented people leaving town for seemingly greener pastures....
"There were a lot of reasons to take the job," said CHARO, WHO SPENT 2006 AS A VISITING PROFESSOR AT BERKELEY. "I have family now in the Bay Area. San Francisco and Berkeley are fantastic places to live -- San Francisco in particular is just the dream city in terms of urban excitement and the serendipity of what you see on the street. The law school there has an extraordinarily good reputation, one of the top 10 schools in the country by every measure."...
Charo eventually turned down UC Berkeley's offer for professional and personal reasons, but the close call once again brought to the fore the question of whether UW-Madison faculty members' relatively low pay makes the campus vulnerable to talent raids from schools with deeper pockets....
According to an annual survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors, the average salary of a full professor at UW-Madison for the 2007-08 school year was $106,981. In its peer group of 12 similar institutions -- which include UCLA, UC BERKELEY, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Ohio State, Minnesota, Washington, Michigan State, Indiana and Purdue -- the UW ranks last. Purdue is next to last at $111,300.... Full Story
15. Review: The Political Mind by George Lakoff
New Scientist
May 28, 2008
In The Political Mind, GEORGE LAKOFF, AN EMINENT COGNITIVE LINGUIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, sets out to provide a mind science primer for progressive US politicians. His hope is that, come November, they might defeat the conservatives who, if Lakoff is to be believed, already stealthfully deploy the latest wisdom from cognitive science.
According to Lakoff, the 18th-century Enlightenment painted a portrait of humans as thinkers: rational, logical and attentive to facts. Progressive politicians buy into this, and thus offer facts and logical arguments to sell their policies to the public.
But humans are not rational, at least not fully so. We are affective-epistemic kludges- Rube Goldberg devices that negotiate reality with all kinds of imperfect, unconscious and emotion-laden tricks for getting by and getting ahead. According to the cognitive science cognoscenti, we don't just reason, we reason with passion....
[Link to full text by subscription only] Full Story
16. El Cerrito woman's 'Jeopardy!' run ends
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
May 28, 2008
El Cerrito resident LARISSA KELLY's historic run on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" came to an end Wednesday evening.
Kelly made a valiant effort to recover from a huge first-round deficit, but came up short after wagering $0 in the "Final Jeopardy!" round.
She finished her six-day run with $224,597 in total winnings.
This week, publicists for the long-running show announced that Kelly has joined the Jeopardy! Hall of Fame as its third-biggest money winner, behind all-time champ Ken Jennings ($2,520,700) and David Madden ($430,400)....
KELLY, A GRADUATE STUDENT IN THE HISTORY PROGRAM AT UC BERKELEY, had become a favorite of the online community that follows the popular game show after becoming its all-time winningest woman....
[This story also appeared in the Contra Costa Times] Full Story
17. Johnnie To retrospective at Pacific Film Archive
San Francisco Chronicle
May 29, 2008
It was February 2003 at the Berlin International Film Festival and Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To was watching the world premiere of his noir crime drama "PTU." Even he was seeing it on a big screen for the first time, as he had finished editing it just days before.
"I can't say I am at my creative peak," he said, as giddy as a film-school student, bursting with pride and enthusiasm. "There are so many other things I want to do and experiment with in the future. My final goal is that, first of all, my movies have a value in history, but also a commercial appeal."
Five years later, history seems secure. THE PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE in Berkeley has curated a nine-film retrospective of his recent work, which begins tonight with his masterpiece, "The Mission" (1999). It plays with "Fulltime Killer" (2001). The series ends June 27 with the delightfully creative "Mad Detective," which was in Hong Kong theaters a scant six months ago....
Tonight through June 27. UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-1124. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. Full Story