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Daisy
Moore (middle), owner of Hairsmith's, talks
with the students who designed her Web site:
Jennifer Soldner (left) and Alesha Spallone
(right)
Photo
by Charlotte Eudy McConn—Penn State
Altoona
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There is a saying: The better you look, the better
you feel. For cancer patients and others dealing
with hair loss from medical treatments, a good
wig can lift spirits.
Daisy Moore knows all about that. As owner and
operator of Hairsmith's II Wigmasters Ltd., which
specializes in wigs, hairpieces and extensions,
she has fitted many patients with wigs.
"Cancer patients are emotional when they
come in," she said. "When they understand
that we can solve their hair problem, their whole
attitude changes. I really enjoy working with
them. It's fulfilling and soul gratifying."
Thanks to Penn State Altoona, Moore is able to
reach more cancer patients. Students in the New
Media and the Web course, taught by Charlotte
Eudy McConn, designed a Web site for Moore so
she could reach more customers in the Altoona,
Pa., area and beyond. "I knew Penn State
was a university that reached out to the community,"
said Moore, explaining why she turned to the University
for help in expanding her business.
McConn says the service-learning project in turn
helps her students. The course, which focuses
on problem solving, communication and teamwork
skills in addition to information technology and
Web site design, offers students real-world experience
designing Web sites for small businesses and nonprofits.
"Working with clients gives students a new
perspective on what we're teaching them,"
she said.
Projects
in Cyberspace
Students in another class—the Penn State
Sailplane Class—helped to develop a Web site
to answer questions for those fascinated with
all things that soar ( http://www.soaring.psu.edu).
Students worked with faculty and staff, the Penn
State Institutes for the Environment, the Office
of Remote Sensing of Earth Resources, the Pennsylvania
Spatial Data Access, and other University units
to create the site, which offers information on
everything from raptors to Orville Wright.
"Working
with clients gives students a new perspective
on what we're teaching them."
—CHARLOTTE
EUDY MCCONN
NITTANY
LIONS ANSWER
BUSINESS CALL
Students
in a Penn State Altoona class, New Media
and the Web, have provided free Web site
design for these local organizations:
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And Erie County residents now have access to
free, in-depth information about the county's
demographics and economy, thanks to a Web site
designed by faculty and staff at the Economic
Research Institute of Erie (ERIE), an outreach
center of the Sam and Irene Black School of
Business at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.
"Having accurate and easily accessible
information about the region is an important
part of Erie County's economic development plan,"
said Dr. James A. Kurre, co-director with Dr.
Barry Weller of ERIE.
The site (http://www.ERIEdata.org),
which can be used for purposes such as grant
applications and business plans, covers productivity,
exports, patents, building permits, cost of
living and other information on the region.
ERIE developed the site in collaboration with
the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership,
with initial seed money from the Erie Community
Foundation.
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The
Sloan Digital Sky Survey is producing a three-dimensional
map of part of the universe.
Image
courtesy of Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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Just like the U.S. Census Bureau gathers information
about the nation's population, the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey is systematically collecting data about
everything visible in one-quarter of the entire
sky. When this celestial census is completed,
there will be about 15 terabytes (trillion bytes)
of data, rivaling the information content of the
Library of Congress.
The survey is investigating fundamental issues
in extragalactic astronomy—objects outside
of the Milky Way Galaxy. For the best view of
these distant objects, scientists from Penn State
and institutions around the world are studying
the region of the sky that is not covered by the
stars, gas and dust of the Milky Way and that
can be viewed from the survey's telescope in New
Mexico.
"The survey is a tremendous treasure for
the scientific community," said Dr. Donald
Schneider, professor of astronomy at Penn State
and chair of the survey's Quasar Science Group,
one of nine groups studying items related to the
survey.
As part of the survey, Schneider and his colleagues
discovered several of the most distant objects
ever observed in the universe. These objects,
called quasars, are extremely luminous—often
more than 100 times brighter than the Milky Way
Galaxy—and are believed to be powered by
supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies.
Schneider said another spectacular finding of
the survey was the detection of the start of the
reionization era of the universe—when the
first galaxies and quasars were forming.
The goal of the survey is to generate a three-dimensional
map of the distribution of galaxies and quasars,
which will help scientists determine the ultimate
geometry, evolution and nature of the universe.
Scientists are already using the data from the
survey for a wide range of scientific fields,
from the discovery of unusual types of stars to
gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing is
the bending of light from distant objects by intervening
large galaxies, which enables scientists to study
quasars and the basic geometrical properties of
the universe.
So far, team members have completed a map of the
locations of more than 200,000 galaxies and collected
about 40 percent of the data they are seeking.
The proposed observations will be completed by
2007.
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Nobel Prize-winner John Forbes Nash Jr.
(left) with Penn State Statistics Professor
Dr. G. Jogesh Babu.
Dave
Shelly—Campus Photography |
Nobel Prize-winner Dr. John Nash Jr., the inspiration
for the book and film A Beautiful Mind,
visited University Park to deliver three public
lectures. In one of the lectures, which were hosted
by the Eberly College of Science, he discussed
his theory on currency: he believes that if there
were fewer major competing currencies, monetary
systems would be more efficient. Statistics Professor
Dr. G. Jogesh Babu, who coordinated Nash's visit,
reports that the event was so popular that 300
people had to be turned away.
The soft-spoken senior mathematician from Princeton—who
won the Nobel Prize for his modern game theory,
strategy to essentially make all parties happy
in negotiations—sat down with us for a few
minutes to discuss the importance of sharing scientific
research with the public.
Q: How has your
research been applied in the practical sense?
Nash: My game theory is applied
very much. People apply it to many areas in economics.
An example is the design of auction procedures
for state and federal government agencies.
(Editor's note: In 1994, Al Gore implemented
the theory to auction off large portions of air
waves to be used for wireless telephone pagers
and high-definition TV transmissions. The auction
raised more than $7 billion dollars. In contrast,
a similar auction in New Zealand without a game-theoretic
design was disastrous.)
Q: National Science
Foundation (NSF) now requires that all grant proposals
include criteria for disseminating basic research
findings to the public. What are your thoughts
on this?
Nash: It is logical. Research
in general needs to be communicated to be of value.
This is comparable to the Patent Office. You have
to patent an idea, and you must publish the patent.
Communicating these discoveries and valuable ideas
is important. NSF wants research to lead to value.
Q: Why is it important
for you to share your research with the public?
Nash:
Scientists are always working to find something
of value. For example, in medicine, if someone
found a cure for a disease like SARS and didn't
communicate it, no one would benefit from the
discovery.
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