Thanks to the Associated Press
Twisted Terminal: Tornado tears into St. Louis airport
Real Butterfingers: Sergio Ramos drops the Copa del Rey, literally!
The Madness Continues: Fighting resumes in the Ivory Coast
]]>Thanks to the Associated Press
Twisted Terminal: Tornado tears into St. Louis airport
Real Butterfingers: Sergio Ramos drops the Copa del Rey, literally!
The Madness Continues: Fighting resumes in the Ivory Coast
]]>
You all remember “Super Size Me” – the shock documentary on the negative health effects of a McDonald’s diet.
Well, while McDonald’s fails the health test, it is trying to provide nutrients for the economic recovery.
McDonald’s decided to splurge out on a hiring spree by adding 50,000 employees to its locations nationwide. Hopefuls from all age groups lined up outside neighborhood McDonald’s to drop off applications in a job-hungry economy. Although starting at $8 an hour may seem skimpy, in this economy every job seems like a valuable job.
This was also a grand PR campaign for the company. McDonald’s would like to dispel the notion of the “McJob” – a recently coined term for a low wage position which the Oxford English Dictionary calls “an unstimulated, low-paid job with few prospects.”
While the term “McJob” may be negative to many, the company counters that several of its current executives started out with the same low-level jobs and have climbed their way to success.
Among the possible merits of the job, McDonald’s points to improved English skills for foreign workers, customer service experience, the promise of employer recommendations and the chance to advance in the hierarchy of McDonald’s employees.
But if you have seen the movie “Super Size Me” the only thing employees should not do is eat the food.
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Master's Thesis Defense Announcement
Problem Selection of Program Tracing Tasks in an Intelligent
Tutoring System and Visual Programming Environment
David Walser
2:00pm Thursday, 28 April 2011, ITE 325b
Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) have been shown to be an effective supplementary teaching tool or aid for many domains. Applying ITSs in open-ended domains such as computer programming is especially challenging, most notably when trying to assist with the process of programming itself. Existing ITSs for programming focus on a very limited set of problems and concepts and are only useful early in an introductory CS course and a few limited places afterward. Visual programming environments are another tool that have been used in introductory CS courses to help students learn basic concepts. The key idea behind my work is the recognition of the importance of students' ability to read, understand, and trace code in order to write programs successfully. A broader goal of my work is to show that an ITS based on a visual programming environment can be used to support students throughout an entire introductory CS course, without being severely constrained and limited to a small number of concepts and to low-level, simple tasks. In my system, called RUR-ITS, students are given a program and are asked to predict the robot's behavior when running this program in a given environment. RUR-ITS allows each problem to be assigned a difficulty level and multiple concepts that it involves within the conceptual model. RUR-ITS can then use a problem selection algorithm to choose a problem that is most able to help the student master the concepts that they have not yet mastered.
Thesis Committee:
USA Today has an article on the increased recruiting by technology companies, Tech jobs boom like it's 1999. Potential employees are being lured with good salaries, bonuses, and perks, and some predict that almost 150,000 technology jobs will be added in 2011.
"Nearly 150,000 tech jobs are expected to be added this year, says Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. In February, there were about 6.1 million tech jobs in the U.S., up 2.4% from a year ago. Yet there’s a lot to make up for: From the second quarter of 2008 through the first quarter of 2010, during the economic swoon, 308,000 tech jobs were lost."
Companies such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are recruiting students to try to hire them before they graduate, says former Google software engineer Gayle Laakmann McDowell. Some economists see the boom in tech hires as a good indication that the overall U.S. economy is on the rise, since technologies such as wireless, computing, and energy have a big impact on other sectors.
"A surge in tech hires in California could portend an upturn for the overall U.S. economy, says Jesse Harriott, chief knowledge officer at online job site Monster.com. That’s in part because what’s good for tech will touch related industries. Areas such as wireless, computing and energy have an effect on “a substantial part of the economy, such as logistics, inventory management, enterprise coordination, even hybrid autos, says Shane Greenstein, a management professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists foresee growth in wireless apps, online gaming and clean tech, he says. “It is not a classic tech boom, led by a big new opportunity like (Internet) browsing or Web 2.0, but a mixture of a few big and unrelated trends,” Greenstein says.
We've seen the increased interest in our students here in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department and it includes both undergraduates and graduates. The demand is up not just for science, engineering, mathematics and technology majors but also for majors in the liberal arts and other areas who have acquired a portfolio of math and technology skills.
]]>In a video recently released by Second Nature, Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow recalls a conversation with a New York Times reporter who said: "Who cares whether or not the colleges and universities reduce their carbon footprint? You only got 2 or 3 percent of the carbon footprint in the country.”
"Well, yeah, that's true," Crow answered the reporter. "But we have 100 percent of the student footprint."
The impact that students can have on the environment is one of the founding reasons behind Earth Day. That, and a faith in students to influence change. Inspired by the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," happening on college campuses all across the nation in 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson decided to organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to the environment. The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 was targeted to higher education campuses in an effort to raise awareness and appreciation for the natural environment.
Earth Day has since expanded to a global event coordinated by the Earth Day Network and Earth “Day” is often celebrated on campuses with weeks of panel discussions, volunteer opportunities, film screenings and other events that envision a sustainable future. New York University, for example, organized too many events to fit into one week and is now hosting a supersized Earth Week from April 11 – 26.
While higher education students, faculty and staff make significant strides in the campus sustainability movement year-round, Earth Day is a chance to step back and celebrate these achievements, to be inspired by sustainability leaders and success stories, and to recognize the work still ahead. Here is a snapshot of some of the campus sustainability efforts initiated in honor of Earth Day, Week, Month and Year:
University of Chicago
Playing off the horror film “Children of the Corn,” the theme for this year’s Earth Week hosted by the University of Chicago was “Food: You are what you eat. Do you know what you are?” The main goal of the week was to draw attention to the “serious food issues facing the world today, including the prevalence of corn in our food.” Events included a film screening of “Carbon Nation,” a lecture titled “Adam, Malcolm, Martin and Food: Inalienable Resources,” an e-waste drive and a volunteer work day at a community garden.
George Washington University
For the duration of April leading up to Earth Day, George Washington University (DC) focused on its commitment to water sustainability. Students were encouraged to download an Earth Month passport, an April calendar containing a variety of actions to help reduce water consumption, and participate in the GWater Challenge. Events raised awareness about global water issues, water quality, bottled water and water footprints.
University of Richmond
The University of Richmond (VA) kicked off Earth Week with Gordon Stillman talking about the Virginia Sustainable Agriculture Documentary Project, which explores local food in central Virginia through photography. Students had the opportunity to plant plots in the community garden and attend a screening of "Avatar." Festivities ended with a celebration that included rock climbing, music, pottery and a visit from Sierra Club representatives.
American University
American University (DC) highlighted a different sustainability topic each day of Earth Week. Topics included energy and climate, transportation, food and water, and a day of service. The events concluded with an Eating Green conference that included the panel discussion, “A Conversation about Food, Sustainability and Social Justice.”
Queens University of Charlotte
Queens University of Charlotte (NC) held its third annual “Power Down Day” in honor of Earth Week. The campus community was advised to unplug as many electrical devices as possible for the day to reduce the amount of energy consumed. Students also had the opportunity to plant trees in the residential quad.
Oregon State University
"Earth Day Every Day" at Oregon State University spread conservation awareness during its Earth Week. The university hosted more than 25 events including a green resume writing workshop, EarthFaire, e-waste recycling collection and a PeaceCorps information session.
Appalachian State University
In addition to formally renewing its commitment to sustainability, Appalachian State University (NC) hosted a wide variety of events leading up to Earth Day. Events included an evening mixer for local farmers in which stories, tips and techniques were shared, presentations by local sustainable businesses, a campus clean-up day, free item and clothing swap, Operation Medicine Cabinet, tours on campus renewable energy and many more.
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
The Living Classroom was unveiled during the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Earth Day celebrations. Serving as a bridge between traditional educational resources, the larger community and the natural environment, the Living Classroom was created to educate and demonstrate how society can adapt to the challenges of population growth, resource depletion and climate change. A series of events were held throughout the day to welcome the new project.
Texas State University-San Marcos
Texas State University-San Marcos partnered with PSC Environmental Services for this third annual e-waste recycling event, which so far has collected and recycled more than 40,000 pounds of electronics from the community. All net proceeds from the event support sustainability efforts on the campus and the international charity World Bicycle Relief.
University of Idaho
In addition to a host of other events, the University of Idaho's College of Natural Resources and Sustainability Center co-hosted a free screening of a new film called “Green Fire,” the first full-length documentary film about legendary conservationist Aldo Leopold. The film was preceded by the public seminar, “Aldo Leopold, Phenology and Climate Change in Wisconsin,” by Stanley A. Temple, Beers-Bascom professor emeritus in the Conservation Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Indiana University
With events including the annual "Green Day" kickoff festival, lectures, film screenings, a poetry slam, a garden planting and a bike maintenance and safety training day, Indiana University Bloomington's "WasteD" week speaks to adapting a mindset about consumer output to ensure the security of natural resources for the future. "By choosing a theme like 'WasteD' that has a double meaning, we were able to connect the relationship between typical college experiences with issues of sustainability," says SustainIU Coordinator Lauren Kastner.
Moravian College
To promote sustainability and celebrate Earth Day on campus, Moravian College (PA) is hosting a series of green events throughout April, culminating with a free public presentation, “Reconciling the Science and Economics of Climate Change,”
This is just a small snapshot of the thousands of events happening across world in celebration of Earth Day. Tell us how your institution celebrated Earth Day!