Vol. 17, No. 7Oct. 16, 1997

A selection of items in the national and local media about the University-its faculty, staff and students:

Durham, N.C., Herald-Sun, July 20/Greenwich, Conn., Time, July 22/Atlantic City, N.J., Press, Aug. 5. Itching for answers. "In May, Pennisi's itch center introduced the Lanacane Summer Itch Index to give pe ople fair warning of what to expect in their areas. Updated weekdays by the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research, it calculates the rating of three itch culprits-mosquito breeding; prevalence of poison ivy and poison oak; an d ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn."

Kingsport, Tenn., Times-News, Aug. 17/ Anchorage, Alaska, Daily News, Aug., 20. Knight-Ridder Service. "Prisoners who commit crimes because of drugs most often resume their criminal activity after release from jail. But the cyc le may be broken, thanks to a pioneering project at the University of Delaware's Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies. Focusing on comprehensive treatment of 448 drug-addicted prison inmates, followed by after-care upon release, the program reduced the re-arrest rate by 57 percent and the likelihood of returning to drugs by 37 percent."

San Juan, Puerto Rico, Caribbean Business, Aug. 21. International School of Tourism/Hotel Management is 'school.' "Along with the 133-credit bachelor's programs in Hotel Management and Destination Marketing and Sales, CUE-ISTHM will o ffer a 76-credit associate's degree in Hotel Operations and Travel Operations and certification in those same studies for 37 credits.... New York University's Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Travel Administration, the University of Delaware and George Washington University all have expressed interest in alliances with CUE-ISTHM in projects concerning tourism, environment and technology applications, including regional research and training centers and exchanges of faculty and students. 'Our goa l is to tap into the strengths of these institutions,' Smith said. 'For instance, the University of Delaware's strength is in distance learning [teleconferencing via satellite campuses], which is on our agenda.'"

Plattsburgh, N.Y., Press-Republican, Aug. 24. Journalism text showcases the best storytellers. "I had a real problem writing this column: I kept getting lost. The subject is The Art of Fact, an anthology of the best literary jo urnalism through the years, edited by Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda, who teach English and journalism at the University of Delaware. It's a wonderful book. That was the problem. Each time I opened it to skim through and extract something, I'd get sucked into reading another example of how extraordinary our craft can be, in the right hands."

Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch, Aug. 28. Supercomputer. "Space missions may provide the blueprint for a new supercomputer that would be a million times more powerful than the fastest of today's personal computers....The space-capsule c oncept should help bridge the gap, says Dr. Guang R. Gao [electrical and computer engineering] of the University of Delaware."

College Store Executive, September. Delaware faculty get present from administrators. "University of Delaware administrators have set out to bridge the gap between mainstream faculty and the utilization of new technology via a program where instructors with all levels of computer understanding and competency are trained as creative technology users. The program, known as Practical Resources for Educators Seeking Effective New Technologies, or The Present for short, enables the school' s faculty to apply the newest technology to their own unique classroom environment. 'We perceived a gap between faculty understanding this technology and their ability to apply the technology to the classroom,' explained Janet deVry, manager of inf ormation technology/ user services at the Newark, Del., school."

Austin, Texas, American-Statesman, Sept. 1/Irwin, Pa., Standard-Observer, Sept. 1/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Sept. 1/Shreveport, La., Times, Sept. 1/Nashville Tennessean, Sept. 1/ Maysville, Ky., Ledger-Independent, Sept. 1/Lewiston, Maine, Sun-Journal, Sept. 1/Birmingham, Ala., News, Sept. 1/Baton Rouge, La., Advocate, Sept. 1/Racine, Wisc., Journal Times, Sept. 1/ Wheeling, W.Va., Intelligencer News-Register, Sept. 1/Grand Island, Neb., Independent, Sept. 1/Providence, R.I., Journal-Bulletin, Sept. 1. From the Associated Press. Debate still hot: Use AC or not. "The b attle between air-conditioning fans and foes has been waged since the turn of the century: Even among people who can easily afford AC, some just don't like it.... Like it or not, air conditioning can save lives, said Larry Kalkstein, a professor at the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research. It could prevent up to 25 percent of the 1,500 heat-related deaths recorded in America's 15 largest cities during a normal summer, he said."

Washington, D.C., Analytical Chemistry, Sept. 1. Lateral Motion. "Despite the popularity of liquid chromatography, there are many details about organization and the dynamics of stationary phases that have yet to be understood. To eluc idate more details on these phases, Mary J. Wirth and John M. Kovaleski of the University of Delaware tracked the lateral diffusion of the fluorescent adsorbate acridine orange across an interface of water and octadecylsiloxane (C18) monolay ers by using the technique of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching."

Springfield, Pa., Press, Sept. 3. Hall of Fame. "Janet Smith [physical education] was inducted into the new University of Delaware Athletics Hall of Fame. She was the head coach of the women's lacrosse team which won three nati onal championships."

Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 10. A book never written. "I should have pushed Rich Ashburn harder about sitting down and doing a book, but the timing was wrong either for him or for me.... There is no way to know what kind of book it would have been by the standards that critics use to measure literature. But it would have been Rich Ashburn talking. And that alone would have made it memorable.... At my end, University of Delaware English professor Kevin Kerrane was sorting tho ugh 31 years of my writing to put together, Batting Cleanup, Bill Conlin."

New Fuels & Vehicles Report, Sept. 12, New Scientist, Sept. 13, From similar articles. Evs can sell power back to electric utilities, study finds. "Electric vehicles (Evs) can be used as auxiliary power sources by selling electricity back to utilities at night before recharging, a scientist from the University of Delaware has found. The process could make centrally located utilities obsolete, said Willett Kempton, the author of the study. When ma jor utilities are in need of extra power at peak times or emergencies, Evs plugged into special charger/discharger units in an owner's garage could supply the extra energy."

Australian Broadcasting Corp., Sept. 19. Willett Kempton, policy scientist with the University of Delaware's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy was interviewed for its morning show. The introduction follows: "We all complain about the same thing with our cars-they cost us too much. But, a different future might lie in store for us if Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware fulfills his vision: The owners of tomorrow's electric cars won't just buy electricit y from their power company, they will also sell it back when the car is idle!"

--Compiled by Barbara Garrison