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Santa Rosalia Seen and Heard
"Santa Rosalia," which hangs in Penn State's Palmer Museum of Art,
has inspired a cantata by music professor Bruce Trinkley and doctoral
student Jason Charnesky. The cantata, for four singers,
harpsichord, and the Pennsylvania Quintet, combines the true story
of Rosalia, a 12th-century Sicilian nun and patron saint of Palermo,
with an interview with the painter, Ferdinand Botero. According to
reviews, the libretto "builds from comic lightness to religious
and historic weight," while the music incorporates Trinkley's signature humor.
Faculty Scholars
The 1997-98 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding
Achievement were awarded to James L. W. West III (arts and
humanities), Jerry L. Workman (life and health sciences),
Wolfgang E. Ernst (physical sciences), and Lynn S. Liben
(social and behavioral sciences). William Styron: A Life
(Random House, 1998), West's fourth book in five years, has
been praised as brave, brilliant, and discreet, as well as authoritative
and dependable. Workman illuminated the function of chromatin, the substance
that forms the chromosomes, in the regulation of gene expression
in a cell. Ernst developed a laser spectroscopy-based
apparatus and discovered that the sodium trimer (a molecule
composed of three simpler molecules) does not show
the geometric phase predicted by theory, a finding relevant to
all small metal clusters. Liben's studies of how children understand
and use maps, aerial photographs, and other such
graphic representations opened a new field in cognitive
psychology. The Faculty Scholars Medals, established
by the Board of Trustees in 1980, recognize scholarly and
creative excellence.
Bluprints
The multimedia CD-Rom "PA BLUPRINTS" (Best Land Use
Principles & Results, Interactively Shown) won the Current
Topic Award from the Pennsylvania Planning Association.
BLUPRINTS helps communities plan their futures, illustrating
the best approaches to land-use regulations. Created
by the department of landscape architecture and several
consultants, it's meant for solicitors, developers, engineers,
and citizens looking at economic impact or land-use issues.
Sea Grant
A U.S. Department of Commerce Sea Grant to study Lake
Erie "will allow us to monitor the ecology of the coast and
Presque Isle, as well as to promote environmentally
friendly manufacturing and development," says ecologist
Robert Light of The Penn State Erie, Behrend College.
Light will direct the project for two years.
Million-Dollar Ideas
Led by a hydrophone used in marine oil exploration, an asphalt
testing device, and Penn-Mulch, a turf management
product, inventions brought $1 million to the University
this year. The money is largely reinvested, with 40 percent of
the royalties (after expenses) going back to the faculty and
student inventors. Since 1989, the Intellectual Property Office
has filed more than 400 patent applications and has had 105
U.S. patents issued. It now receives about 180 invention disclosures
per year from Penn State researchers.
Twin Views
For five years Keith Whitfield will be seeing double. With support
from the National Institute on Aging, the assistant professor
of biobehavioral health and his team will be studying African
American twins aged 65 and older. This population has
experienced different environmental influences than any
other racial or ethnic group. By assessing their mental and
physical health, personalities, cognition, and social milieus,
Whitfield hopes to sort out the effects of genetics and environment
on aging.
Corporate Ethics
Most Fortune 1000 firms don't take corporate ethics seriously,
says a recent survey. Though 137 of the 254 firms have an
ethics officer, half of these ethicists spend not more than
10 percent of their time on ethics-related activities. Similarly,
while 98 percent of the firms distributed a written code
of ethics, only 54 percent required annual compliance
Heart Help
Heart researchers are divided between the total artificial
heart and the left ventricular assist device (LVAD). While
most LVAD systems require wires or tubes traversing the
skin, the LVAD developed by Alan Snyder's team in Penn
State's College of Medicine is completely implanted, allowing
the skin to remain intact. With the number of donated
hearts available satisfying only 10 percent of the demand,
LVADs, commonly used to keep patients alive while awaiting
a transplant, are being considered for long-term use.
Snyder's team will begin formally testing one such long-term
LVAD this year. from their employees. Says organizational
behaviorist Linda Klebe Trevino, "Formalized
ethics programs may now be the societally taken-for-granted
method for fostering corporate ethics, but just because they are
taken for granted is no guarantee that they alone are adequate
to the task."
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