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Maryland Moments, June 2010 On Campus UM Newsdesk: "Norma Allewell, dean of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences, professor of cell biology and molecular genetics and affiliate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been named interim vice president for research. Allewell will replace Melvin Bernstein, who is leaving to become the vice provost for research at Northeastern University, on July 1. Bernstein led the Division of Research for four years and helped to increase university-wide research funding to a record high of $518 million in FY09. 'Dr. Allewell is a highly respected administrator and researcher,' said President C.D. Mote, Jr., 'I am confident that she and the excellent team in the Division of Research will continue to work effectively with the university community to advance our research agenda and create research programs that serve the state, the nation and the world. Allewell has served the university as dean of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences (CLFS) since 2000." UM Newsdesk: "Engineering Professor Joseph JaJa has been named interim vice president and chief information officer of the University of Maryland, effective June 7. The appointment comes with the passing of former VP and CIO Jeff Husskamp on May 27. A distinguished researcher and administrator, JaJa formerly served as professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE)in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. He has a permanent appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). Jaja served as the director of UMIACS from 1994 through 2004. Under his leadership, UMIACS research funding grew from $2.5M to more than $18M, and long-term partnerships were established with federal laboratories, private organizations and other universities. Professor JaJa received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. His current research interests are in high performance computing, long term management and preservation of digital information, and scientific visualization. He has published extensively in several areas, including parallel and distributed computing, and serves on several editorial boards in the computing field. The recipient of numerous national awards, he was named a Fellow in the Association for Computing Machinery in 2000 and was honored with the Internet2 IDEA Award in 2006" Baltimore Sun: "The modest-looking document travels with a team of security guards and a historian and sits behind bullet-proof glass in a climate-controlled and light-protected environment. One of only 26 known original copies of the Declaration of Independence, it was on hand Monday at the University of Maryland, College Park to help launch a National History Day celebration. The event showcases the history projects of middle and high school students from across the country, who spoke of their awe at seeing the famous document. Sumika Davidson, an eighth-grader from Deal Middle School in Washington who submitted a project on Bauhaus architecture, said, 'Seeing the Declaration is very inspiring. My mother is Japanese and my father is American. Without it, I don't even think I would be here because the statement 'all men are created equal' was a large and historic step toward equality among humans.' Though this is not the first time that some form of the Declaration of Independence has been in Maryland, it was the first time that this specific copy, on loan from TV producer and philanthropist Norman Lear, has visited." Washington Post: "One of D.C.'s best orchestras played its last concert of the season on Saturday night. Too bad it convenes only once a year. Each summer, the National Orchestral Insitute at the University of Maryland draws young players between 18 and 28 from around the country -- and raves from critics. The program involves an intense month of coaching with a starry assortment of faculty members from prestigious orchestras (it would be great to hear the faculty play together as an orchestra sometime) and performances with noted conductors. Miguel Harth-Bedoya, music director of the Fort Worth Symphony, to whose name the adjective "rising" is usually appended, led Saturday. It's easy to love a youth orchestra: The stereotype, which tends to be true, is that the kids, loving the music and full of hope and ambition, have an edge over professional orchestras struggling with routine. Whatever worries one may have for the future of classical music, there appear to be more and more young musicians able to play better and better on a technical level. Put these factors together and you get the kind of sound heard Saturday: confident, unified and downright voluptuous, with chocolatey cellos and sinuous clarinets." Baltimore Sun: "Outgoing University of Maryland President C.D. Mote said Saturday morning in a telephone interview that while the search to find new athletic director will begin immediately, the final decision on who will replace Debbie Yow likely will be made by Mote's successor. Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said Friday that a new school president is expected to be hired between the middle of August and the end of September. On Friday, Yow officially was introduced as the athletic director at North Carolina State after serving the past 16 years in the same role at Maryland. 'Ideally, it takes two to three months to appoint an athletic director, so, ideally, there will be a new president at the College Park campus, if not here, essentially appointed before that happens,' said Mote, who will retire Aug. 31. 'So it�s very likely that person will actually be able to make the appointment." Baltimore Sun: "The University of Maryland has named Randy Eaton the interim director of athletics, president C.D. Mote Jr. announced today. Eaton, 49, serves as Maryland's senior associate athletics director and chief financial officer. He will assume the role of interim athletic director July 10 when Debbie Yow leaves College Park to take over the same position at North Carolina State. 'I'm happy to serve the University in this role, and I'm honored to be asked,' Eaton said in a news release. 'The entire ICA staff will be part of ensuring a smooth transition. Debbie has left us in good shape administratively. I hope to keep everything moving forward while the President's Office conducts a national search.' " Bloomberg News: "Harvard University lacrosse coach John Tillman is moving to the University of Maryland to try to guide the school to its third national title. Tillman, 41, signed a seven-year contract for an undisclosed amount at Maryland. He resigned the Harvard job with a 20-19 record in three seasons. Tillman replaces Dave Cottle, who stepped down following Maryland's 7-5 loss to Notre Dame in the National Collegiate Athletic Association quarterfinals. Cottle had a 99-45 record in nine seasons at Maryland, and guided the Terrapins to eight consecutive postseason appearances, including three Final Fours, but never took them to the championship game. Maryland's national titles came in 1973 and 1975. 'What makes this lacrosse program special is its importance to the school and the state of Maryland,' Tillman said in a press release. 'The tradition here is phenomenal.' " Baltimore Sun: "Tom McMillen knows why the University of Maryland would be an attractive target to growing conferences such as the Big Ten. 'With 7 million people in the Baltimore-Washington area, that's a very attractive market,' said McMillen, a member of the Board of Regents who starred in basketball at Maryland. But McMillen -- along with others associated with Maryland -- expressed reservations Monday about schools bolting conferences for the lure of higher annual payouts from television revenue and other sources. 'It's the almighty dollar that's running the show,' said McMillen, who introduced legislation to restore balance between athletics and academics while a member of Congress in 1991. 'For Maryland to go into the Big Ten, [consider] just the travel. You might as well forget about those kids going to class.' The Chicago Tribune reported Friday that the Big Ten remains interested in Maryland, a large public research institution with a sizeable fan following in the overlapping Baltimore-Washington television markets. The Big Ten's interest has placed Maryland in a sensitive position. While Maryland has often spoken of its loyalty to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the school believes it would be disrespectful to appear to be rejecting a Big Ten offer that has not been made. Maryland has had no contact with the Big Ten, athletic director Debbie Yow said in an interview. McMillen and others say Maryland couldn't simply ignore an offer from the Big Ten or other conference. But 'I would think it would be very, very hard for Maryland to consider it' seriously, he said." Wall Street Journal: "To Henry Kaufman, those who don't learn from past mistakes are likely to repeat them. In an effort to help prevent the next financial crisis, the New York economist is giving $1 million to create a fellowship in business history at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. The donation comes on the heels of numerous six-figure gifts for similar programs and fellowships with a focus on financial history at Columbia University, Yeshiva University and New York University. 'Business and financial history are no longer integral parts of most business school education and that is a major and regrettable lapse,' says Mr. Kaufman, who received a doctorate degree from New York University's Stern School of Business. 'If I could, I would do this at every business school in the country.' " Campus Issues Chronicle of Higher Education: "Suppose a college dean wanted to predict which first-year students would remain continuously enrolled at her institution for at least three years. She might look at the students' standardized-test scores, their study habits, or whether they live on campus. Those are all factors that are known to be associated with retention rates. But she might also try asking first-year students a simple question: Do you like it here? In a paper presented here on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research, two graduate students at the University of Maryland at College Park said that students' enrollment patterns at their institution were strongly predicted by how they answered a survey question in the eighth week of their first semester. That question, which is part of a Beginning Student Survey that is regularly administered at Maryland, reads as follows: 'At present, your general attitude toward the University of Maryland is ...' followed by a five-point scale that ranges from 'strongly negative' to 'strongly positive.' Fledgling students' answers to that simple, banal question turned out to be strongly associated with their odds of dropping out or transferring away from Maryland over a six-semester period, according to the study that was presented here. If their attitude toward the university at that early date was positive, they tended to stay; if it was strongly negative, they tended to leave. The question had stronger predictive power than more-familiar variables like students' self-reported study skills or their involvement with student organizations. 'The simple message here is, Attitude matters,' said Jessica Mislevy, who wrote the paper with Corbin M. Campbell. Both are doctoral students in education at Maryland. 'The general attitude toward the campus plays a clear role,' Ms. Mislevy said. 'That suggests that students are able to detect very early whether a campus is a good fit for them.' Ms. Mislevy and Ms. Campbell looked at the experiences of more than 2,000 people who enrolled as first-time, full-time students at College Park in the fall semester of 2002." Health Scout: "Drinking and driving among college students is still a major public health problem, new research reveals, with one in five admitting to driving while drunk and 40 percent acknowledging they have ridden with a drunk driver. Equally worrisome, their tendency to drive under the influence soars when they hit the minimum legal drinking age of 21. The findings were gleaned from a study co-authored by Amelia M. Arria, director of the Center on Young Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, that followed more than 1,250 first-year college students enrolled at a large mid-Atlantic university. 'Drinking and driving endangers the safety of not only the drinking driver and passengers, but also other individuals on the road,' Arria said in a news release. 'College students have limited driving experience, making drinking and driving possibly even more hazardous. [While] other studies have examined drinking and driving among college students, to our knowledge this is the first to have examined how the behavior changes over time in the same sample of students.' Arria and her colleagues report their findings in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research." Health Canal: "Depression and lack of social support appear to precipitate suicidal thoughts and behavior in some college students, according to research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center, the University of Maryland and other institutions. The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, followed more than a thousand students throughout their college years, identifying factors linked to suicidal thinking and highlighting the importance of spotting high-risk students early on and referring them for treatment. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college-age students in the United States, with some 1,100 deaths by suicide occurring in this age group each year. The researchers conducted in-depth face-to-face interviews with more than a thousand incoming college freshmen at the University of Maryland College Park and follow-up annual interviews throughout their four years in college. Of the 1,085 students, 151 (12 percent) said they had pondered committing suicide at least once, 37 of whom (24.5 percent) said they did so repeatedly. Ten of the 151 said they made specific plans or carried out full-fledged attempts during college. Two of the 10 said they attempted suicide without ever planning to do so. Of the 151, 17 students reported attempting suicide before college, and 22 reported planning a suicide before college but not attempting it. 'Our findings are fairly grim, but there is a silver lining because we've identified risk factors that could be used to screen students and help us spot those at high risk and refer them for follow-up testing or treatment,' says lead investigator Holly C. Wilcox, Ph.D., a psychiatric epidemiologist at Hopkins Children's. ... Senior investigator on this study: Amelia Arria, Ph.D., University of Maryland Center on Young Adult Health and Development. Co-investigators on the study included Kimberly Calderia and Kathryn Vincent of the University of Maryland School of Public Health; Gillian Pinchevsky, University of South Carolina; and Kevin O�Grady, University of Maryland, College Park." Washington Examiner: "A furlough plan for state-funded employees of the University of Maryland, College Park was announced Tuesday. The plan applies to the university's 2011 fiscal year that begins July 1st, the university website said. The university community received an e-mail at 6 p.m. Tuesday from President C.D. Mote, Jr., detailing a plan that will help the school achieve a state-mandated $10.2 million cut in salaries. 'Alas, while we have succeeded in avoiding further layoffs and while many employees will experience some reduction in furlough days, furloughs remain with us for another year,' Mote said in his e-mail, referring to the slightly more severe 2010 furlough plan. Under the new plan, the university will be closed on Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010 and Thursday, March 24, 2011, an official university document included with Mote's e-mail said. Faculty and staff members whose salaries are paid at least partially by state of Maryland funds are also required to take up to ten additional furlough days, the document said. Employees who are paid entirely with funds from outside grants are not affected by the plan, the document said. The number of additional days employees are required to take depends on the amount of money an employee receives as salary from state funds, the document said. A university employee who makes less than $35,000 that is paid from state funds will have to take one additional day. Employees who are paid $250,000 or more in state funds are required to take ten additional days. Associated Press: "The University of Maryland will test two concepts for a more pedestrian-friendly campus center that include closing a section of Campus Drive. The testing will take place through Aug. 13. The university will limit access to the central part of Campus Drive from the M Circle to the intersection of Cole Field House and Union Drive. Now through July 16, Campus Drive will be open only to Metro buses, Shuttle-UM, emergency vehicles, paratransit vehicles, delivery trucks, facilities maintenance vehicles and construction vehicles. The exception is the afternoon of July 4 for fireworks. From July 17 to Aug. 13, Campus Drive will be open only to the internal Campus Connector, paratransit, emergency, construction, delivery and maintenance vehicles." Washington Post: "One year ago, the Class of 2009 left college and jumped into one of the worst job markets in history. Cautionary tales about the real world were quickly passed down to younger students: Searching six months for a job, waitressing and bartending stints, moving home with mom and dad, racking up more debt. ... To keep up with the traffic, career centers had to be creative with resources -- after all, this is not a time when universities are bursting with extra cash. The University of Maryland, College Park moved some of its career services online, shortened one-on-one appointment time slots and offered more clinics. Catholic University, in the District, upped its outreach to employers, added more walk-in and evening hours, shortened consultations to 30 minutes and reviewed more résumés by e-mail, usually from home on the weekends." Baltimore Sun: "Moving back home gives graduates breathing room as they hunt for jobs, and allows them to return to a lifestyle more comfortable than they could enjoy on their own. Matt Oster, a December 2008 University of Maryland, College Park graduate, returned home to save money, but he admitted his parents' house in Cockeysville is much nicer than any place he could afford to rent. He pays no rent and gets free meals. 'It's actually really nice to come home to a nice house with a lot of the comforts that I might not have if I were on my own,' he said. Oster, an analyst for AOL, said he moved home after college to help pay for law school at Cornell University in the fall. He said he had planned to go last year, but deferred because of the slow economy and the elimination of many of the high-paying law firm jobs. Living at home, he said he expects to save $20,000 to use toward graduate school. But Oster said living at home is not his first choice. Most of his friends are in Baltimore, where he spends many nights. 'I've been a big couch moocher,' he said. And he said that the shock of life after college might have been more severe than if he had moved out. 'It was hard at first,' going from life as an undergraduate in College Park where friends were within walking distance, to life in suburban Baltimore County with a morning commute down the Jones Falls Expressway. But Oster said his parents have not reverted to treating him like a high-schooler. The 24-year-old said his parents let him come and go as he pleases and that they are 'happy' to have him home." WTTG-TV, Washington: "A 22-year old student at the University of Maryland has accepted a plea bargain in connection with his conduct the night many students rioted in March following the basketball game against Duke. After the Maryland victory, a huge crowd of students took to the campus and surrounding streets. Fires were set, buses were rocked, and traffic was blocked. It took 150 police officers to restore order. Junior Joseph McQuillan has now pleaded guilty to a single count of disorderly conduct. The prosecutor said the state would have proved that McQuillan attempted to ignite a Duke jersey following the game, and, when he encountered a fire in a trash can, he pulled off his own t-shirt and added it to the blaze. Joseph Lamari, McQuillan's attorney characterized his client's behavior as a 'bad lapse of judgment,' adding that the young man, 'has learned an extreme lesson.' McQuillan apologized for his 'irresponsible' behavior. District Judge J. Lawrence Hill, Jr. accepted the plea agreement, which included a suspended 60-day sentence and a suspended $500 fine. The judge did order 20 hours of community service and court costs. McQuillan also faces a hearing at a Conduct Board hearing on campus. About eight other students are facing charges in connection with the disturbances. Federal officials and the State's Attorney's office are also investigating a video that shows Prince George's Police officers apparently beating an student who was not resisting. Off Campus Annapolis Capital: "Archaeologists have uncovered artifacts -- bones, shells, ceramics, nails, glassware and a button from a naval uniform -- at the downtown Annapolis home of a man who went from being a slave to serving as assistant to at least eight Naval Academy superintendents. The teams from the University of Maryland also have excavated the home of perhaps the first Puerto Rican to graduate from the academy. Findings at the first house at 99 East St. show the daily life of an African-American family in the 1800s and 1900s, the scholars said. The house belonged to James Holliday, a south county slave who was born around 1809 and freed in 1819, more than 40 years before the Civil War. Holliday moved to Annapolis and served as a courier for at least eight academy superintendents, according to historians and his descendants. University of Maryland professor Mark Leone, who founded the Archaeology in Annapolis field school program in 1981, said one interesting finding this summer has to do with the diet of 19th-century African Americans. Judging from the bones and shells found in two areas of the backyard, the Holliday household ate beef, lamb, mutton, poultry and oysters. 'There was very little pig, very little pork, though the stereotype was that blacks ate mainly pork,' Leone said." Washington Post: Brecken Chinn Swartz is a lecturer in Honors. "As she sat in a sea of beggars outside a (Beijing) television station, Zhou Lin caught the eye of Brecken Chinn Swartz, a University of Maryland doctoral student. Swartz put her hand on the malnourished girl's leg. 'Our eyes met, and she seemed very familiar to me,' Swartz, now 41, recalled. 'My life changed in that moment.' Swartz gave the family her business card. The next day, she met with Zhou Lin's father. Other beggars swarmed, but Swartz told them she could help only one family. Swartz gave the father $200 after a translator helped him write a simple contract: I will spend all of this money to send my daughters to school. Two years later, Swartz arranged for Zhou Lin to fly to Boston for treatment at the Shriners Hospital for Children. Zhou Lin's mother and a teacher came with her. The experience overwhelmed them: Sweet cherries at Whole Foods Market. The Harvard University campus. An Imax movie about dolphins. The beeping hospital machines." Business Gazette: "Tracy Foster was snapping photographs while vacationing in South Africa several years ago when she realized her bulky camera bag could use some style improvements. After returning home to Bowie, she searched but found few models that were discrete, functional and stylish. So Foster, 28, decided to make her own. This month she launched her self-funded designer camera bag company, ONA, with its first model. Just as the company launched, Foster got a nice boost for it: She received word she had taken second place -- and $30,000 -- in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Campaign for Free Enterprise video contest, 'I am Free Enterprise.' The contest is part of the chamber's multiyear campaign to support free enterprise through national advertising, public engagement and research. In her video, Foster relates her experience in launching ONA and her plans for it. ... Foster majored in communications at the University of Maryland, College Park, and has worked for AmeriCorps Vista and as a human assets fellow for Teach for America in New York. She hopes to bring a nonprofit arm to ONA once the business is more stable." Garden Center Magazine: "Steve Black, founder of Raemelton Farm in Adamstown, Md., is not afraid to ask 'why.' His determination to find improved production practices has led him down an interesting path filled with meters, monitors and autonomous vehicles. Black's approach to try new or underused ideas allows him to implement techniques while his nursery is still relatively small. 'We're an infant in the industry, and it's a whole lot easier to adopt new practices when you're small, rather than when you're huge,' Black said. His goal is to find practices and tools that minimize labor expenses and environmental impacts, while maximizing plant growth. ... His progressive plans and willingness to try new things will only fuel the nursery's growth, said Stanton Gill, extension specialist at the University of Maryland. 'He's a progressive, thinking grower who doesn't follow the crowd,' Gill said. Gill has been involved in several experiments at Raemelton Farm. Black credits Gill with helping the nursery avoid common startup mistakes. 'Stanton was the first to conduct pest control trials at the farm and has been a huge resource for me,' Black said. 'No other person outside our operation has been so important to our nursery.' The farm exclusively uses drip irrigation, which certainly cuts down on water usage. But when Black first began his nursery he wanted to know how much water to apply. 'No one could answer my question. I got a lot of "it depends" or "1 inch per acre every week," which seemed to be the go-to answer,' he said. 'But oaks don't use the same amount of water as a maple. So I had to keep looking to find the optimum number.' Black became a participant in a project funded by a USDA grant using real-time soil moisture monitors. The project is led by John Lea-Cox of the University of Maryland's department of plant science and landscape architecture." Gazette Newspapers: "The Shakespeare Camp is in its eighth year and engages children ages 11 to 14 in Shakespearean theater. It is co-sponsored by the University of Maryland, College Park's Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Karen Nelson, the associate director for the university's Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, said campers memorize lines, make costumes and scenery and learn stage chorography. At the end of the second week, campers perform a Shakespeare play. 'They learn how to work as a team in this specialized setting,' Nelson said. 'They grapple with hard language -- they figure out what the words are, what the words are saying.' Nelson said some campers may have a better understanding of Shakespeare after the camp, which is important because most middle and high school curriculums include Shakespeare. 'Shakespeare carries such cultural capital,' Nelson said. Jeneanne Hunter, the arts coordinator for the M-NCPPC, said campers learn how timeless and universal Shakespeare plays are. 'I think it makes Shakespeare accessible for the campers. They get to learn about the characters and they adopt a character,' Hunter said." Gazette Newspapers: "The Hashims are among the first home buyers to benefit from the city's Work and Live College Park program, which aims to sell foreclosed homes at below-market value to people who already work in the city. The program launched last June and has counseled about 139 applicants, four of whom have thus far closed on homes. 'We were really pleased by the number of people,' Amy Neugebauer, executive administrator of the College Park City-University Partnership, which helps run the program, said of the interest expressed. 'I think a lot of people see this as an opportunity.' The program -- which is also sponsored by the city, the College Park Housing Authority and the University of Maryland, College Park -- received $750,000 in federal funds from a state grant last year and has set out to provide training for potential home buyers and financially assist those who decide to purchase homes. Buyers, who have to work within the city and meet certain income requirements, can receive as much as 10 percent of a home's purchase price -- up to $35,000 -- which goes toward down payment and closing costs." Inside Science News Service: "When the dust clears after the World Cup concludes next month, it's likely that the champion will not be the team that played the best, said Gerald Skinner, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland in College Park. Following up on a lunchroom discussion with his avid fan tablemates, Skinner, who admits not being a great sports enthusiast, published a research paper in 2009 that worked out the details of his claim using statistical techniques familiar to astronomers. The findings backed up his posturing. 'It's not entirely a random process, but the result of an individual football match has got a very large element of chance and randomness in it,' said Skinner. The average World Cup match in 2006 featured a combined total of 2.3 goals. By analyzing the number of goals and their distribution, which is best described by a statistical phenomenon called a Poisson distribution, Skinner was able to show that if a match were replayed, the number of goals in a match and even the winner could vary considerably even if both teams played exactly as well -- partially because soccer is such a low-scoring game. For a team that won by a commanding score such as 3-0, fans can be pretty certain that the better team won, but Skinner said that a 2-1 or 1-0 game is not as clear-cut. For example, he found that for 2-1 matches almost one-third of the time the better team does not win. That uncertainty influences the entire tournament. Skinner said that the first round of the World Cup will likely identify the better teams because each team plays each of the other three teams in the group. But the following rounds are single elimination, and the uncertainties of the outcomes of four successive games add up. Skinner found that the likelihood that the best team would win the World Cup is around 28 percent." Engaged Students Washington Examiner: "A University of Maryland team took first place in a NASA engineering contest, for the third straight year. The team won the undergraduate division of NASA's 2010 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage, a contest that challenged students to solve real-life space exploration challenges. The Maryland group teamed up with students from the Arizona State University for their entry, 'Project RAVEN: Robotic Assist Vehicle for Extraterrestrial Navigation.' Judged by NASA, industry and academic experts, the team competed against 19 other schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, Princeton University and Harvard University." Honors Business Journals: "The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, the Maryland Technology Development Corp., RSM McGladrey Inc. and Saul Ewing LLP named the winners of the tenth annual Incubator Company of the Year ceremony in Baltimore Tuesday evening." UM's prize winner: "Technology Transfer Company of the Year -- FlexEl, LLC (Technology Advancement Program, University of Maryland College Park) Commercializing a low-cost, high energy density power source for use in devices that require thin, safe, lightweight and flexible batteries. www.flexelinc.com." TMCNet: "Sterling Infosystems, Inc., a provider of employment and background screening services, announced that founder and CEO William Greenblatt was honored by the University of Maryland Alumni Association and presented with its 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The event was held at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Greenblatt founded Sterling in 1975 to provide pre-employment testing. Now, the privately held company is a provider of employment and background screening services. Sterling handles over 15,000 transactions a day, and provides on-demand, 24/7 screening and report access to more than 7,500 mid-size to Fortune 500 companies around the world. From its headquarters in New York City; Roseville, CA and Mumbai, India; and additional regional offices in Atlanta, Bloomington, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; Sterling offers background screening in over 200 countries." People Associated Press: President Obama appoints alumnus to post of Director of National Intelligence -- NAME - James R. Clapper Jr. EDUCATION - "Bachelor's in government and politics, University of Maryland; master's in political science, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas." EXPERIENCE - "Nominated Saturday by President Barack Obama to be director of national intelligence; defense undersecretary for intelligence, 2007-present; director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 2001-06; after military retirement, served as an executive in private industry for companies including Vredenburg, Booz Allen Hamilton and SRA International; retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant general, 1995; director, Defense Intelligence Agency, 1991-1995; assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Air Force headquarters, Washington, 1990-91; deputy chief of staff for intelligence, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., 1989-1990; director for intelligence, Headquarters U.S. Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, 1987-89; assistant chief of staff for intelligence, U.S. Forces Korea, and deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Republic of Korea and U.S. Combined Forces Command, 1985-87; commander, Air Force Technical Applications Center, Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., 1984-85." QUOTE - "We have the largest, most capable intelligence enterprise on the planet, and it is the solemn, sacred trust of the DNI to make that enterprise work." -- at the White House on Saturday after he was introduced by the president." Knoxville News-Sentinel: Maryland women's basketball coach Chris Weller goes into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. ... "In 27 seasons at Maryland, Weller set a school record for victories by a women's coach with 499. Her teams won eight Atlantic Coast Conference championships and advanced to three Final Fours. She was the Naismith coach of the year in 1992 and a two-time ACC coach of the year. She retired in 2002." Vibrant State Business Gazette: "After 60 years of mutual collaboration, the University of Maryland, College Park, and Lockheed Martin have signed a formal strategic agreement that will allow them to share resources and jointly pursue business opportunities. C.D. Mote Jr. president of the university, and Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, signed the memorandum of understanding Friday, kicking off Lockheed's $1 million annual commitment for the next three years. 'We're collaborating with an academy partner that we have a long history with to be the best in science, technology and engineering, while at the same time bringing this partnership to the state of Maryland. It's taking our relationship to the next level,' Johnson said. Lockheed already supports university research on laser plasma filaments that enhance multiple applications of high-power laser beams and on cultural modeling to help troops perform in unfamiliar environments. 'The true lasting value of this partnership is the ability to bring together thought leaders in the industry,' Johnson said. Johnson said the community's workforce is essential to supporting Lockheed and this agreement ensures that workforce will be sound. 'It's a marriage of technical opportunity,' said Brian Darmody, the university's associate vice president for research and economic development. 'We are the largest producer of [Science Technology Engineering and Math] grads, and they are one of the largest STEM companies. It seems natural to marry them up.' " FDA: "Despite the industry's efforts to clearly communicate the specific scope of a fresh produce recall -- even when no illness have been linked to the recall -- consumers in many cases over-react or are unaware of the situation at all. How the media reports on the issue greatly influences consumers' responses as well. In the hopes of drafting better messages to consumers during recalls, the Food and Drug Administration is preparing a survey, and asking for the industry's comments on subject. Notice of the pending survey was in the June 18 Federal Register and interested parties have until Aug. 17 to send comments. Ray Gilmer, vice president of communications for Washington, D.C.--based United Fresh Produce Association, said in an e-mail the FDA should be aware that media can distort the agency's message. Gilmer also said the distinction between retail and foodservice distribution is sometimes lost in the reporting. 'The FDA can help journalists understand the specificity of food safety actions and make sure the reporting doesn't generalize or distort the scope of the situation,' Gilmer said. 'Also, because so many recalls are precautionary, it's important to communicate that just because there is a recall that does not suggest there has been an impact on public health.' The agency said the proposed 'Survey on Consumers' Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Food Recalls' will be undertaken by Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the Center for Risk Communication Research at the University of Maryland. In the Federal Register, the agency noted that food recalls have varied effects on consumers. 'Existing data show that many consumers do not take appropriate protective actions during a foodborne illness outbreak or food recall,' the notice said." Chesapeake Bay Journal: "It's easy to see why everyone is excited about the prospect of biofuels. After all, getting oil from foreign countries hasn't worked out that well for the United States. And domestic means of extraction are problematic, too. Natural gas drilling is fraught with problems known and unknown. Coal-fired power plants are major polluters. And offshore drilling has more than lost its luster as an oil spill of epic proportions threatens Gulf Coast marine life and its habitat. No wonder burning cornstalks and switchgrass is starting to look pretty good. Eco-hydrologist Kenneth Staver doesn't want to be the skunk at the biofuels garden party. Indeed, he's a believer in switchgrass, having used the fast-growing native plant to fuel the boiler that heats the maintenance complex and greenhouses at the University of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center along the Wye River. But Maryland's Eastern Shore simply doesn't have enough agricultural land to make switchgrass a viable biofuel that could significantly reduce Maryland's dependence on oil for vehicles and homes, Staver said. If the region got into biofuels in earnest, it couldn't make a large-scale effort with locally grown crops. Instead, he said, the real benefit of switchgrass is that it sucks up excess nitrogen, a key Bay pollutant, better than just about anything else. And, if farmers could plant the grasses in their riparian buffers and harvest some to heat their own greenhouses and farms, the crop could address two significant environmental problems. ... Staver would like to see more farmers plant switchgrass and willow in their buffers. But few states have programs that allow the use of the plants as biofuels. Pennsylvania and New York have limited efforts. If more states did, Staver said, the farmers could use the switchgrass to supply on-farm heating needs while also meeting ever-stricter nutrient reduction goals. That, he thinks, is a more realistic future for the wonder grass, if the will is there to make a change. 'We're trying to find a way for the biofuel value to help pay for the water quality benefits,' Staver said. 'If oil is cheap, this won't happen on its own...how well it works from an economic standpoint depends on the price of oil.' " Financial Times: "It is a familiar scene; an advertising break is shown during a television programme and viewers promptly use it as an opportunity to do something else before the programme resumes. For advertisers, who will have paid tens of thousands of pounds to air their commercials, finding out why viewers do not pay attention is obviously extremely important. Now research by a trio of academics may have come up with the answer. Using eye tracking technology which measures attention, they have discovered that a brand's presence in the frame, its size and how often it appears, all contribute to viewers skipping over the advertisment. Thales Teixeira as assistant professor in Harvard Business School's marketing department and co-authors Michel Wedel, professor of consumer science at the Robert Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and Rik Pieters a marketing professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands have come up with a couple of suggestions for advertisers. By changing the pattern of brand exposure and adopting a 'pulsing' strategy so that the product appears briefly and intermittently during the commercial, viewers are more likely to pay attention, they say. 'If the brand is woven into the story line -- not too overt, not too in-your-face -- it's more likely that the consumer will get used to it and not have the urge to zap,' says Prof Teixeira." Global Community NBC News's Ron Allen reports from Sierra Leone: "When our driver asked for directions to the school, the man standing by the side of a badly rutted dirt road lifted both arms and seemed to be pointing to the sky. "Go up that steep green hill, with what passes for a road," he was saying. It was more trail than road. But eventually we got there. It was June 16, the International Day of the African Child, an annual moment of recognition that has been observed across the continent since 1992, when scores of South African school children who were demanding a better education in the South African township of Soweto were massacred by apartheid-era security forces in what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. It's a terrible piece of history that seems far removed from the World Cup competition happening in the same place where Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in prison for his civil rights activism, is now a former President. We were visiting the Abigail D. Butscher Primary school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, a place where the children need a decade of recognition, perhaps two -- not just a day. The school was built by Madieu Williams, Butscher's son, a man better known for his work Sunday afternoons for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings than for his efforts in West Africa. Williams is why we are here. The family came to the U.S. when he was just nine years old. Now, he's a rising football star, a Free Safety for the Vikings. When he's not trying to stop the NFL's best receivers, he's a philanthropist, humanitarian and world citizen, who's back where he was born, trying to make a difference. ... A humanitarian award and football brought the two organizations together. Healing Hands' director, Dr. Jamie Flores, is a surgeon based at the University of Miami. He's a big guy with a vice-like handshake grip who played football -- defensive tackle -- at the University of Maryland, as did Madieu Williams. The school recently honored both for their humanitarian efforts. After the event, the two former players decided to team up. We watched as Dr. Flores and his team examined children with cleft palates. Another had burns over much of his body from a household accident with boiling water, his mother said. Another child's face was swollen by a cancerous tumor. Flores plans surgery for several of the kids -- routine procedures that will take less than an hour and are taken for granted in the United States. Here, as one of Flores' colleagues put it, surgery is so rare, it's like magic." Indo Asian News Service: "With an investment of over $ 7 billion in 2009, India is emerging as the third-fastest-growing foreign investor in the recession-hit US economy, according to a senior US official. Citing a soon-to-be-published report by India-US World Affairs Institute and the University of Maryland, Holly Vineyard, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for Africa, the Middle East and South Asia acknowledged the positive Indian contribution. 'India is the third fastest growing foreign investor in the US,' she said at an event here on Monday noting Indians invested $ 4.5 billion in the US in 2008 and their investments grew by an estimated 60 per cent in 2009. The joint study also found Indian companies had made 372 acquisitions worth $ 21 billion in the US between 2004 and 2009 and created an estimated 40,000 jobs in the country. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) secretary general, Amit Mitra noted that Indian companies made 127 green field investments worth $ 5.5 billion in the US. 'So these are huge numbers that India is contributing to the US economy.' " Science & Technology Baltimore Sun: "Crayfish are surprisingly complex decision makers, according to a new study from University of Maryland researchers, who believe the information may help the understanding human brains. The Maryland psychologists say it's tough to study the human brain this way. And they have concluded that they may be able to adapt what they learn about the neural circuitry and neurochemistry of decision making in the crayfish. Specifically they took a look at individual crayfish neurons invovled in value-based decisions by presenting a food source and a predator that was either very threatening or less threatening. The study was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 'Matching individual neurons to the decision making processes in the human brain is simply impractical for now,' said University of Maryland psychologist Jens Herberholz, the study's senior author, in a statement. 'History has shown that findings made in the invertebrate nervous systems often translate to more complex organisms. It's unlikely to be exactly the same, but it can inform our understanding of the human brain, nonetheless.' He said the researcher may inform other studies in rodents and primates. In the crayfish study, the tanks were wired to pick up electrical signals that allowed researchers to identify activation patterns of specific neurons as the crayfish made decisions. A presence of a strong predator overrode the crayfish's desire for its next meal, showing that the crayfish actually consider the circumstances. A judgement, just like a human." NASA: "In May a University of Maryland-led team of scientists reported some previously unknown features in the energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei, which have been studied for almost 100 years. Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 with an electroscope carried on a manned hot air balloon. The current observations were made with a NASA-funded balloon-borne instrument that has flown for 156 days above 99.5% of the atmosphere in five separate long-duration flights high over Antarctica, the first for a record-breaking 42 days. Researchers from the Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) collaboration have reported a difference between spectra of protons and helium and a hardening (flattening) of all nuclei spectra at about 200 GeV/nucleon. These new observations contradict the current paradigm for the origin of cosmic rays in supernovae, which in its simplest form leads to a simple power law spectrum for all elements. Details of the cosmic ray origin and acceleration mechanism are not yet completely understood. 'Whether or not the proton spectrum is the same as that of heavier nuclei has long been a tantalizing question, but the spectral flattening was a surprise,' said Eun-Suk Seo, Principal Investigator for the CREAM project and professor at the University of Maryland. 'We were looking for a spectral cut off, evidence of the supernova acceleration limit, but instead found a relative increase in flux with energy.' Such features could not be observed before, because the energy ranges of previous experiments were limited, and cosmic-ray particles are very scarce at high energies. Different types of sources or acceleration sites could explain the observed difference in protons and helium spectra." The Register, UK: "A NASA space probe famous for bombing a comet five years ago made a final 'flyby' past Earth last night, changing its orbit around the Sun with the aid of the planet's gravity. The renamed 'EPOXI' craft (formerly 'Deep Impact') swooped low just 19,000 miles above the South Atlantic at 11pm UK time last night. ... After the successful 2005 strike in which the then Deep Impact smashed a probe into the comet Tempel 1, NASA assessed that the probe still had plenty of manoeuvring fuel left and that, by means of judicious low passes above Earth, it could be steered to a new rendezvous with another comet. The Hartley intercept, however, will not involve an impact probe like the Tempel rendezvous. 'There is always some gravity boost at a flyby and in some cases, like this one, it is the main reason for a flyby. The last Earth flyby was used primarily to change the tilt of the spacecraft's orbit to match that of comet Hartley 2, and we are using Sunday's flyby to also change the shape of the orbit to get us to the comet,' says astronomer Michael A'Hearn, boss boffin for both Deep Impact and EPOXI." Physics Today: "Superfluid liquids -- ultracold, zero-viscosity liquids that creep over vessel walls-- manifest a kind of Bose--Einstein condensation. They are subject to quantum constraints that might be thought to thwart both the onset and dissipation of turbulence. Before superfluid turbulence was first seen in 1958, Richard Feynman posited the generation and reconnection of quantized vortex lines, tornadolike topological defects that would allow turbulent eddies to form and dissipate in superfluids. The quantized line integral of the fluid velocity around any loop enclosing a single vortex line would be h/m, where m is the mass of the relevant boson. For the next half century, the existence of such vortex lines was assumed but never directly seen. But techniques recently developed in Daniel Lathrop's lab at the University of Maryland render the vortex lines and their reconnection events visible in superfluid helium-4. Injected hydrogen gas forms micron-sized hydrogen-ice particles that attach themselves to the vortex lines and scatter illuminating light, allowing the Maryland team to film reconnections. Grist Magazine: "Spring certainly seems to arrive earlier these days than it used to. But is it a sure sign of global warming or just natural variability? After decades of careful research on wildflowers, University of Maryland ecologist David Inouye has some definitive -- and disturbing -- answers. This summer Inouye returns to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory for the 40th consecutive year to study changes in wildflower populations some 9,500 feet high in the Rocky Mountains near Crested Butte, Colo. His work offers some of the most detailed understanding yet about climate change and its effects on alpine plant and animal species. Each growing season for the past four decades, Inouye and his team have tracked changes every other day on some 30 separate 2-meter-square plots of land. He and his team have recorded the health and welfare of roughly 4 million individual wildflowers-and they correlate that data with variables such as air temperature and snow-melt dates. It turns out that you can learn a lot by looking at the same pieces of land so closely for so long. First of all, Inouye explains, the technique offers precise data about the area's "phenology" -- scientists' fancy term for seasonal rhythms such as bloom times and bird migrations. The changes in bloom times are glaring in Inouye's Rocky Mountain plots. "Just 10 years ago, this project was perfectly timed with the academic calendar," he explains. In mid-May, as soon as Inouye wound up his teaching duties at the University of Maryland, he would head out to his beloved mountains just in time to track wildflower blooms. But now some of the flowers he studies begin blooming by mid-April. To continue his research, Inouye has had to pay assistants to track flowering that occurs before he is able to arrive on site." Technology Review: "Graphene is one of the more extraordinary materials discovered in the last few years. This carbon chicken wire has properties that make it a superhero in the materials world. It is a superb thermal and electrical conductor, it has a high melting point and it is stronger than almost any other known substance. And yet measuring these properties is tricky because graphene flakes inevitably have to sit on some kind of substrate and this interferes with the results. What to do? Now Bruce Kane at the University of Maryland makes the case for suspending charged flakes of graphene in an electric field ion trap. That allows the graphene to sit in a vacuum while it is prodded and poked in whatever way physicists can think of and without the interfering effect of any substrate. Kane has even achieved this feat by injecting flakes suspended in liquid into a quadropole electric field vacuum. By shining polarised light on the flakes he can make them spin and accurately measure their rate of rotation. This suggests some interesting experiments. Kane says that spinning them fast enough would test the strength of the flakes as centrifugal forces tear them apart. That will require rotation rates measured in GHz, much faster than the MHz rates he has been able to measure so far. It should also be possible to measure a flake's chemical and physical properties at high temperature. These measurements are difficult when the flake rests on a surface that has a different properties. 'Very little is known about the melting of graphene or how defects will behave at high temperatures,' points out Kane." Australian Broadcasting Company: "A team of astrophysicists have developed a formula for how to gaze into the strange and unknown workings of one of the most powerful forces in the universe -- a black hole. Ted Jacobson from the University of Maryland and Thomas Sotiriou from the University of Cambridge examined what is needed to peer inside the black hole, beyond a theoretical boundary known as the event horizon. Their paper appears on the pre-publication website ArXiv.org. The event horizon is a region where a black hole's gravity is so intense, nothing can escape its grasp. It also hides the inner workings of the black hole known as the singularity. Removing it raises the exciting prospect of exposing the bizarre and exotic physics it contains, which Jacobson and Sotiriou say would provide access to the unobserved physics of quantum gravity. The researchers say the mathematical condition for the existence of a black hole with an event horizon is defined by an equation known as an inequality, which includes mass, angular momentum and charge. According to Jacobson and Sotiriou, removing the event horizon involves increasing the angular momentum and charge until the inequality is reversed. But they admit getting rid of the event horizon could also change the singularity, making it different from what was originally there." 21 Australia Broadcasting Society & Culture Wall Street Journal: "A throwaway line in a widely read NY Times article on mulitasking published Monday speaks volumes about how children's lives have changed in recent years. Lily, a second-grader, is allowed only an hour a day of unstructured time, which she often spends with her devices. The laptop can consume her. 'You can holler her name all day and she won't hear,' the article quotes her mother as saying. The idea that kids should have lots of unstructured time to relax, play freely and choosing their own leisure activities, seems to be waning. The notion that kids are overscheduled and stressed was a big controversy early in this decade, springing partly from a popular book by child-development expert David Elkind, 'The Hurried Child.' In the latest edition, Dr. Elkind argues that widening Internet use only increases the pressures on kids to hurry up, grow up, and think and act like adults. It is true that kids' time is more structured than in the past. Research has found kids spend more time studying and taking part in youth groups and religious activities, compared with the past. Children of working mothers tend to have less free time; they do more studying and also spend more time in child care. About one in four American kids ages 9 to 12 are involved in three or more activities, putting them in Dr. Elkind's 'hurried children' category, according to research by Sandra Hofferth, director of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland and a leading researcher on children's use of time But the idea that busy kids are stressed has been partly eclipsed by findings that kids involved in a lot of activities actually do better on some important measures of psychological health. It is actually the least active children who show more signs of withdrawal, inability to get along with others and low self-esteem, Dr. Hofferth found in a study of 331 children." Kansas City Star: Robert Nelson, professor of public policy, writes an op/ed: "One would have to be heartless not to be moved by photos of pelicans, sea turtles and other Gulf of Mexico wildlife mired in oil muck. The story line -- man interfering with nature and now paying a heavy price -- is biblical in its imagery. But is it scientific? Oil is a common, natural presence in the environment, including in the Gulf of Mexico. A 2009 article in Environmental Science and Technology reported that the naturally occurring Coal Oil Point seep field off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. has leaked 150 to 200 barrels of oil into the Pacific every day for probably thousands of years. Yet marine organisms still prosper there. In 1942, in less than a month, eight tankers were sunk by German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico, releasing 75,000 barrels -- or nearly 2.3 million gallons -- each. Not many years after those tankers went down, few traces of the oil remained, though the spill wasn't cleaned up 'quickly' by today's standards. This comes as no surprise; oil spill impacts largely dissipate in one to five years. Less active currents and colder water temperatures made Prince William Sound, site of the Exxon Valdez spill, less 'resilient' than the Gulf of Mexico. Still, since the 'disaster,' more than half the key species have completely recovered and all but two of the rest are close to full recovery. Ironically, some of the greatest damage was caused by Exxon's panicked response. Exxon literally washed the rocks and beaches clean, harming clams and other organisms in the process." New York Times: "There is also no easy way to conquer a dependence on technology. Nicholas Carr, author of the new book 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,' says that social and family responsibilities, work and other pressures influence our use of technology. 'The deeper a technology is woven into the patterns of everyday life, the less choice we have about whether and how we use that technology,' Mr. Carr wrote in a recent blog post on the topic. Some experts suggest simply trying to curtail the amount of time you spend online. Set limits for how often you check e-mail or force yourself to leave your cellphone at home occasionally. The problem is similar to an eating disorder, says Dr. Kimberly Young, a professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York who has led research on the addictive nature of online technology. Technology, like food, is an essential part of daily life, and those suffering from disordered online behavior cannot give it up entirely and instead have to learn moderation and controlled use. She suggests therapy to determine the underlying issues that set off a person's need to use the Internet 'as a way of escape.' The International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland asked 200 students to refrain from using electronic media for a day. The reports from students after the study suggest that giving up technology cold turkey not only makes life logistically difficult, but also changes our ability to connect with others. 'Texting and I.M.'ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,' wrote one student. 'When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.' " MarketWatch: "A new report finds America's public libraries posted gains in provision of public computer and Internet resources. Libraries nationwide report they've seen an increase in public use of online services, particularly to support job seeking and e-government transactions, and have made some gains in adding public computers and improving Internet connections available to patrons. However, snowballing funding cuts at state and local levels are forcing thousands of libraries to literally lock away access to these resources as they reduce operating hours. The national 2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study provides data on job and career resources, as well as tracking a significant jump in e-government use. >From unemployment benefits to state tax forms, more government information and services are moving online, often without a print alternative. Responding to growing demand from people for assistance using these new forms of government services, nearly 79 percent of libraries (up from 54 percent one year ago) provide assistance to patrons applying for or accessing government services, according to the report released today by the American Library Association. Conducted by the ALA and the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland, the study provides a 'state of the library' report on the technology resources brokered by libraries and the funding that enables free public access to these resources. The study features the most current national and state data available on technology access and funding in U.S. public libraries. The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the ALA, can be found online at www.ala.org/plinternetfunding" PBS: "Rolling Stone's profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal stirred a storm of controversy that cost the leader of military operations in Afghanistan his job, but also raised questions about how the media operate. Michael Hastings was a freelance reporter on assignment for the magazine and gained intimate access to the general and inner circle of aides. He reported on their criticism of the Obama administration and their policy in Afghanistan. Politico raised the idea that Hastings' position as a freelancer allowed him greater freedom than a full-time staff writer to print disparaging remarks. Gordon Lubold and Carol E. Lee wrote: '...Hastings would be considered a bigger risk to be given unfettered access, compared with a beat reporter, who would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal's remarks.' Politico later removed that section from an article -- a move that stirred a debate of its own. To explore the question of whether beat reporters -- assigned full-time to cover a topic or institution -- are more reticent to publish controversial remarks in order to maintain good relations with sources, we spoke with Jamie McIntyre, former Pentagon correspondent for CNN. He now teaches journalism at the University of Maryland and writes The Line of Departure blog for military.com. And we hear from Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in St. Petersburg, Fla." Maryland Daily Record: "Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's move to designate more than a dozen public transit stations as spots that will receive money for mixed-use development has piqued the interest of real estate developers. With the state assistance, real estate developers say they are more likely to be part of the movement to integrate more retail, office and residential space within close proximity to public transportation hubs. 'This is very forward thinking for state government, which is doing what they can do to encourage development at transit stops,' said Toby Bozzuto, president of Bozzuto Development Company in Greenbelt. 'We're increasingly in an environment where public transportation is becoming important and necessary.' But state officials have some forces working against them, including a sluggish economy and some developers who still need some convincing about these projects. ... Real estate developers say state and local funding for these types of projects is essential because of the high cost of building around public transportation sites and the requirement that the site include parking, which comprises the biggest chunk of the price. Most transit-oriented mixed-use projects feature below-ground parking or large parking decks, which are the most expensive types of parking structures to build, developers say. Transit-oriented development is also fairly complicated because of the special building regulations around public transportation and the various approvals and studies that need to happen. All this has prevented developers from doing these kinds of projects without some public funding, even with the potential upside many advocates see. 'You'd think the developers would be fighting for the chance to develop around transit stations,' said Gerrit Knaap, executive director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland. 'But if you do develop around these stations, land is odd-shaped, there's lots of coordination, lots of players involved. The institutional obstacles are formidable.' ... Knaap conceded that not all developers will be jumping at the chance to work on a transit-oriented development. The state's outreach and marketing to real estate developers will be critical because of the sputtering economy, which shows signs of life one week only to seemingly backslide the next amid a new batch of financial indicators. 'Having developers put up capital is not an easy thing,' Knaap said." Business Journals: "The last of the Louisiana Gulf shrimp is sitting in Frank's Seafood's freezer. Don't worry. There's no BP oil involved. The shrimp were caught before the BP oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico's seafood industry. David Webb, the seafood retailer's manager, expects that will be the last of his Gulf shrimp for a long while. Waters contaminated by oil have been closed down, and many Gulf fishermen have put their nets aside to take jobs cleaning up the spill. 'I used to be able to make a phone call at any time and order 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of shrimp,' Webb said recently at Frank's Jessup store. 'You can't do that now. Boats are tied up to the dock.' Webb and other seafood retailers are counting on Texas and East Coast seafood to replenish their supply. But whether catches in places like Maryland and North Carolina will be big enough to contain climbing prices through the fall holiday season is still a question mark in many retailers' and wholesalers' minds. Some even worry that shifting production efforts toward local seafood markets will result in over-fishing. ... Quantifying what the impact will be on locally caught seafood is difficult, with Maryland's oyster season beginning in the fall. Crab season kicked off in May but will stretch until December, and female crabs won't be available for another month due to conservation requirements that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources says has made the population boom by 60 percent over last year. DNR officials aren't worried about a run on Chesapeake Bay crabs because the state regulates how many fisherman can crab commercially, said Lynn Fegley, of the agency's fishery service. Doug Lipton, a marine economics expert at the University of Maryland, College Park, added that the state has been trying to control over-fishing by buying up licenses that aren't being used. However, some people might start using those licenses if the demand for local seafood is up, he added. 'On a purely theoretical basis, if everyone who had a license decided to use it at its full capacity this year, that would be worst-case scenario, that would decimate the population,' Lipton said." ABC News: "President Obama lost the argument. His G-20 colleagues decided here in Toronto to turn their economic attention from spending on stimulus to cutting deficits. That is exactly what Obama warned against, arguing that turning off the stimulus spigot could stop the fragile global economic recovery in its tracks. Despite all the president's cajoling and arm-twisting, the host of summit of the world's industrialized and developing economies delivered the message that it is time to stop spending. 'Advanced countries must send a clear message, that as our stimulus plans expire we will focus on getting our fiscal houses in order,' Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. ... Some economists said they fear today's decision will reverberate around the world and could quite possibly lead to a double-dip recession. 'Europeans cutting their budgets now could thrust the global economy into a double-dip recession,' University of Maryland professor Peter Morici said. The prospects of a new recession look menacing, he said. 'It will be very difficult to recover from that,' he said. 'Then we start to get into depression-like conditions.' "
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