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Princeton in the News
December 6, 2000
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New Scientist, December 9, 2000Fooled Again
… Research published earlier this year claims that...failures in reasoning are a common occurrence, arising whenever we are faced with scenarios that include "falsity" - things that may not be true. For flight 007, the results were catastrophic. But according to Philip Johnson-Laird, a psychology professor at Princeton University, we also encounter the same logical meltdown in events both serious and trivial throughout our lives. …
Instead of pursuing a set of rules and following through every piece of information to its logical conclusion, Johnson-Laird believes we construct "mental models" - imaginary sketches of the possibilities of a situation - and work from these. To test his hypothesis, Johnson-Laird constructs deceptively innocent logic puzzles…
Johnson-Laird tested Princeton University students with this problem, and 99 per cent of them got it wrong. The reason for that extraordinary degree of error, he says, is that there is limited space in what researchers call "working memory": the low-capacity, short-term memory that supports language, arithmetic and reasoning. When we draw our mental models of a situation our working memory runs out of space very quickly. So, to save time, space and effort, we leave vital information off the "drawings". The pictures are all there, but the labels - like "this picture is only true if the other picture is false" - can go missing. …
The Washington Post, December 9, 2000Mei Xiang's Name Is Muddled; Said Incorrectly, the Chinese for 'Beautiful Fragrance' Doesn't Sound as Sweet
What's in a name? If it's the name of the National Zoo's new female giant panda, it all depends on how you pronounce it.
Her name, Mei Xiang, means "beautiful fragrance" in Chinese. But if you pronounce it "may sh-ONG," which is the pronunciation put out by zoo officials, it may sound as though you are calling her "beautiful bear" or "beautiful fierce" or something much less complimentary. …
Perry Link, a professor of Chinese at Princeton University, favors "may shee-Ahng." He considered, and rejected, the notion of putting an apostrophe between "shee" and "ahng," as some have suggested. Putting an "h" toward the end of the phonetic key is absolutely essential, Link said, to keep Americans from saying "she-yang," which is incorrect. …
National Post, December 8, 2000Globalization Worries Real
…From culture to environment issues to preparing for OAS meetings, the [Canadian} government is trying to address the negative unintended consequences of rapidly globalizing economies, cultural influences and environmental impacts. Last weekend, Prime Minister Chretien urged attention to local identities and cultures to counter 'Americanization.' …
What can governments and others do in response to these calls to fix globalization and better share its benefits?
The answers include more information-sharing, transparency in policy-making and negotiations, more resources for citizens to take part, and rules of engagement. There is no requirement for public consensus, rather a need for meaningful public participation. Peter Singer, Princeton University bioethics professor, says: 'There is a critique of the WTO that must be taken seriously Free trade is too important to be left to the economists.' …
Bangor Daily News , December 7, 2000World Fails in Effort to Save Environment
On Nov. 25, an international conference on global warming collapsed at The Hague and was almost completely ignored by U.S. media obsessed with the election controversy in Florida. The conference was a last-ditch effort to salvage the Kyoto Accord of 1997 and its collapse could have much greater implications for both the United States and the world than who is sworn in as President on Jan. 20. …
All industrialized nations could potentially benefit from emissions trading, but carbon sinks, at least in the short term, are of benefit only to heavily forested countries such as the United States or Canada. Older industrialized nations, such as Germany and France, are strongly opposed to giving North America "something for nothing. " Atmospheric carbon dioxide is taken up by vegetation through the process of photosynthesis. In 1992, a research team led by Princeton University 's Jorge Sarmiento said North American forests soak up so much carbon dioxide that they offset the emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuel in both the United States and Canada. If true, this would give both countries a free ride in terms of by how much they would have to reduce their emissions. …
Jiji Press Ticker Service, December 7, 2000 (Tokyo)Mori Committed to Achieving Economic Reform
Japan's Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Thursday he is resolved to accomplish thorough economic reform, which is his government's foremost task, by using information technologies as a springboard.
Mori expressed his determination in a Japanese government-hosted symposium here to discuss ways of achieving Japan's economic rebirth.
The meeting brought together such experts as Heizo Takenaka, a professor at Keio University, Motoshige Ito, a professor at the University of Tokyo, Ushio Inc. <6925> Chairman Jiro Ushio, Alan Blinder, a professor at Princeton University of the United States, and Edward Chen, president of Lingnan College of Hong Kong. …
The New York Times, December 7, 2000Economic Scene; A study shows committees can be more than the sum of their members.
WHEN Alan Blinder returned to academia from his post as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, he was convinced that the committee nature of the Fed made it slow to recognize and respond to changes in the economy. There was no research on the topic. So he and a Princeton University colleague, John Morgan, conducted an experiment to test whether committees performed worse than individuals.
Their results pointed in the opposite direction: At least in a laboratory setting, groups were just as quick as individuals to detect changes, and their collective judgment was substantially better than that of the individuals who made up the groups.
The researchers actually carried out two experiments. To highlight the decision problem in as stark a way as possible, the first was quite artificial. The second mimicked the type of decision the Fed's Open Market Committee makes regularly. The results of both experiments, which were strikingly similar, are reported in their study, "Are Two Heads Better Than One?" (available from the Web site, www.princeton.edu/rjmorgan/working.htm). …
The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 7, 2000ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) suffers the special hell of the eponymized _ folks whose names become adjectives, and whose life, work and thought become one thought. Who can locate Franz Kafka after Kafkaesque? Who grasps George Gordon (Lord Byron) after Byronic?
And where could one hope to find the wry, stoic, good-natured and freedom-loving Niccolo Machiavelli after Machiavellian took on the meaning of "characterized by unscrupulous cunning, deception or expediency"? In a further form of humiliation, the Florentine theorist serves today as uber-model for scores of business handbooks _ e.g., "On the Manner of Negotiating With Princes _ aimed at middle-management climbers seeking advancement through cunning alone.
To a rescue of sorts rides Maurizio Viroli, a politics professor at Princeton University. Perhaps out of Italian solidarity, he remembers that Machiavelli began as a human being, and a surprising one for those who know only the stick figure. …
As a proto-Italian centuries before the unification of Italy, Machiavelli exuded patriotism. "All his life," Viroli notes, "Machiavelli spared no effort to persuade the powerful men of Italy to free the country from foreign domination, from the outrages of invading and occupying armies."
But Machiavelli the personality, Viroli writes, was "mischievous, irreverent, gifted with an exceedingly subtle intelligence; unconcerned about questions of soul, afterlife, or sin; fascinated by practical affairs and great men." His vision of life encompassed "a rich blend of generosity, enthusiasm for great deeds, intense passions, comprehension of the fragility of life, and a love of beauty that sprang in part from a deep understanding of life's harshness and human malice." …
Bridge News, December 6, 2000From Europe, Skewed Impressions of the U.S. Election
ROME--Sitting in a restaurant in Rome as the U.S. presidential recount, and recriminations, continue is revealing in unexpected ways.
Based on the Italian political experience, the American election appears as a comic strip consistent with recent voting patterns in Italy and European stereotypes of the United States.
The French, with their reflexively anti-American sentiment, view the American election as a Woody Allen saga: One choice gives you tragedy; the other, disaster. French spokesmen have seemingly transformed a contested election into a form of national humiliation. …
Fred Greenstein, presidential scholar at Princeton University, noted that critics who anticipate an enfeebled presidency "underestimate the resiliency of American institutions." The Italians and the French may be laughing about the United States today but, as history attests, the last laugh resides with Americans. …
Newsday, December 5, 2000Decoding How the Brain Works, in One Word
In an attempt to simulate the workings of the human brain, Princeton University and New York University researchers have created a computer model-Mus silicium, an artificial neural organism-to test a simple property of brain function: The recognition of language. In this case, how the brain responds to a single word: "one."
John J. Hopfield, in Princeton's department of molecular biology, and Carlos Brody, at NYU's Center for Neural Science, have created a computer-generated "organism" built on a network of simulated "neurons and synapses" and have programed the network of electronic "cells" to fire in response to the word one.
According to the study, which appears this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the neural organism responded "robustly" to the word "one," and to many different voices saying the word, but did not respond to other single, one-syllable words. The principles underlying the recognition of speech, Hopfield says, "could be applied to aspects of vision, touch and olfaction." …
The Plain Dealer, December 5, 2000WALKING IN FOOTSTEPS OF CIVIL WAR HEROES GIVES HISTORY MEANING
Edwin Bearss, chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service, has devoted most of his 77 years to breathing life into Civil War history, whipping up interest and excitement from those who hear him speak.
Bearss will regale the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable tomorrow with his contagious enthusiasm as he talks about the Battle of Shiloh. In addition to discussing the battle's importance, and offering vignettes on some of its military players, "I will also cover just how terrible this battle was. More men were killed, wounded or missing after Shiloh than all wars fought to that date. I'm talking about the American Revolution, 1812, the Mexican and Indian wars and every Civil War battle fought up to April 6, 1982." …
"Ed will deny this, but he has a photographic memory containing an enormous range of information," said James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author of "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era" and a Princeton University history professor. "I have known him for 15 years and toured many battlefields both as a participant and as a co-presenter, with Ed providing the narrative and me as the color man. I have learned a great deal from him. He has an enormous wealth of knowledge, not just on the Civil War but in every aspect of history." …
Engineering News-Record, December 4, 2000SEEKING SOLID SOLUTIONS FOR STONE
Climbing down after examining deteriorating limestone on a building, George Scherer is looking for new chemical solutions for better preservation of building materials. Scherer, a professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at Princeton University, and his class of 35 students are experimenting to find new solutions to prevent weather-related damage to stone or repair it once damage has occurred. Scherer has spent most of his career at Dupont and Corning research labs, having already developed a compound that lines the pores of stone to prevent salt crystal growth and its subsequent damage. He has been at Princeton, in central New Jersey, since 1996, focusing on the development of the underlying principles of stone conservation. His current work also includes testing materials for use by Greek conservationists on the wall of Rhodes.
U.P.I., December 4, 2000Rugova Needs More Time before Dialogue with Belgrade
TIRANA, Albania, Dec. 4… Last weekend, the main ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro were assembled in an unofficial international panel organized by Princeton University. Kosovo Serb leaders and the interior minister of Yugoslavia were also included and discussed the topic: of Albanians in the Balkan minority and majority.
Albanians supported an independent Kosovo while Serb representatives supported substantial autonomy inside Serbia. Veton Surroi -- the editor of Koha Ditore, a Kosovo Albanian daily paper -- told the panel that talks could only start between the Kosovo and Serbia's legal representatives who would emerge Serbian elections in December and parliamentary elections in Kosovo next spring.
Africa News, December 3, 2000United States and Africa; Will the Us Presidency Still Be the Same?
Folabi Lawal in Washington DC, This Day (Lagos)
… Increasingly, it's looking like, whoever eventually wins this election between Vice President Al Gore of the Democratic Party and Texas Governor, George W. Bush of the Republican Party would be seen by many to have emerged victorious through an unfair process. Such a perception would definitely have a very negative effect on the US Presidency. A controversy that borders on the integrity and transparency of the electoral system is quite rare, though not altogether unheard of, in American politics. …
There are those who believe all this election drama would not necessarily have any negative impact on the office of the President. A Democratic pollster, Doug Schoen, told The Washington Post that "I don't believe for a moment that either Bush or Gore need to have his influence curtailed by the drama over who rightfully earned Florida's 25 electoral votes. I'd make almost the opposite argument, whether it's Bush or Gore. The possibilities for creating a degree of consensus and popularity are greater than in a conventional moment." In the same paper, a presidential scholar at Princeton University, Fred Greenstein said those who anticipate an enfeebled presidency "underestimate the resiliency of American institutions. The presidency is like one of those cartoon characters that splats and then gets up and keeps going.There could be a perverse twist to the election controversy which is that because it looks like we are going off the cliff, the expectations have nowhere to go but up." …
The Boston Globe, December 3, 2000SOLD ON SPIRITUALITY RELIGION IS EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA THESE DAYS. BUT IS FAITH REALLY DEEPENING, OR IS IT JUST BEING MARKETED BETTER?
Thirty years ago, religion, as a force in American life, was eulogized as a relic of a bygone age. …
Today, religion, ever more infused with spirituality, has become a hyperactive toddler crawling over the furniture, commanding our attention. Online stock brokerages want a piece of it, purveyors of preventive medicine proffer its wisdom, and the news media cannot seem to get enough of it. …
Opinion polls about religion can be unreliable, but they do provide a clue to some of what drives the current boom. A Gallup Organization poll, included in a new book, The Next American Spirituality: Finding God in the 21st Century, by George Gallup Jr. and Tim Jones, found that the percentage of Americans who said they "felt a need . . . to experience spiritual growth" grew from 58 percent in 1994 to 78 percent in 1999. A survey of 91,530 adults conducted last year by Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow found that 43 percent said that their interest in spirituality had increased over the previous year. …
"People are less afraid to explore new kinds of spirituality," says Princeton sociologist Wuthnow. "May be before, television producers or filmmakers or publishers or whatever were a little nervous about playing with religious themes, fearful that religious authorities would come down on them. Today, with the declining power of central religious authorities, they don't fear that as much." …
The New York Times, December 3, 2000JERSEY FOOTLIGHTS; Princeton Combos Mix It Up
A familiar quip about changeable weather is, "If you don't like it, wait a few minutes." The same might be said of a Princeton University event that pushes the 20th-century concert envelope so far that it can't be given a name. Works by Stravinsky and Ravel fit into the envelope neatly. A concerto by a graduate student, informed by the resonances of the Norwegian folk fiddle, stretches the envelope some, but universities often give exposure to campus composers. The big rarity in Thursday's concert, to be repeated in Richardson Auditorium on Saturday, joins the Princeton University Orchestra and its Concert Jazz Ensemble in Duke Ellington's "Tone Parallel to Harlem." It's academe meets mondo classico meets jazz. …
News & Record, December 3, 2000Managed Carer Spanning the Globe; UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina Are Sharing Secrets of Success &emdash; And Even a Song &emdash; witth a Sister Company in the Philippines
GREENSBORO…Two years ago, UnitedHealth acquired an equity stake in PhilamCare Health Systems Inc. UnitedHealth now owns 50 percent of the HMO, the largest in the Philippines. UnitedHealth wanted to ensure PhilamCare would thrive, so it called on one of its best-performing health plans, UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina, and asked for its help. …
UnitedHealth is unusual in that only a few of the large U.S.-based insurers have gotten involved in other countries' health care systems, said Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist. The international health care market, he added, can be hard to tap. …
The Record, December 2, 2000N.J. Architect Recognized as the Best
Michael Graves, a professor at Princeton University, will become the 58th recipient of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. He will join the ranks of Frank Gehry, Thomas Jefferson, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
New York Law Journal, November 27, 2000Solo Practitioner Dogged About Animal Rights
ELINOR MOLBEGOTT's devotion to animals began in high school, when she swore off eating meat. That devotion only increased with time, prompting Ms. Molbegott, now a Long Island solo practitioner, to devote her legal career to advocating for animal rights.
Since 1977, Ms. Molbegott, who represents various animal rights organizations and shelters, has been battling to convince her colleagues and the public that animals deserve rights, and to get laws passed that protect those rights. …
"Our society exploits animals in every way possible," said Peter Singer, who is widely recognized as the father of the modern animal rights movement. "Elinor is committed not only emotionally, but she also understands that this is an ethical issue," said Mr. Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University and the President of Animal Rights International. "She is a great source of advice," he said. …
Network World, November 13, 2000Separate, but together at AT&T?
…More shouting over online music
Well, maybe the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) will work after all. Despite hacker claims to the contrary, the recording industry says the codes worked, which could pave the way for releasing rafts of digital music to consumers over the Web - for a price, of course. SDMI issued a public challenge to hackers in September offering $10,000 to anyone who could successfully attack one of six SDMI technologies. Leonardo Chiariglione, executive director of SDMI, says of the six technologies that were offered up for potential sacrifice in the contest, only two were successfully attacked. Of those two, only one of the attacks could be reproduced. However, one of the most public groups to claim successful attacks of the SDMI technologies is not convinced. The team, led by Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten, announced in early October it had succeeded in defeating the four watermarking technologies offered in the challenge. Although that claim was disputed by SDMI, Felten and his team are standing by their findings. …
Network World, November 13, 2000SDMI announces hack challenge results
…In October, the online magazine Salon.com reported that a number of the SDMI technologies had been successfully hacked. Wednesday's announcement seems to contradict this report. However, one of the most public groups to claim successful attacks of the SDMI technologies is not convinced.
The team, led by Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten, announced in early October that it had succeeded in defeating the four watermarking technologies offered in the challenge. Though that claim was disputed by SDMI, Felten and his team stood by their findings and issued a statement Wednesday reaffirming them. …
Network World, November 13, 2000Net Election: Voters are takin' it to the 'Net to fix Florida mess; Using e-mail and Web sites, activists are mobilizing to force a re-vote in Palm Beach County.
While all eyes turned to Florida's recount of presidential ballots Thursday, political activity on the Net soared as e-mail demanding a re-vote crossed the nation and Web sites organized protests and offered affidavits to use as ammunition for a lawsuit. …
Meanwhile, e-mail messages began flying across the country calling for a re-vote. Sean Wilentz, an American Studies Professor at Princeton University, fired off an e-mail calling for signatures to accompany a one-page ad scheduled to appear in Friday's New York Times (NYT). "The electoral outcome of last Tuesday is threatening to produce a constitutional crisis," a draft of the ad reads. It goes on to suggest that a precedent set in the disputed election of 1876 could require a bipartisan National Electoral Commission of Congress and the Supreme Court to settle the matter. But it concludes by saying that nothing less than new elections in Palm Beach County can "preserve the faith of the people upon which our entire political system rests."
Wilentz called on recipients of the statement to sign by responding by e-mail and spread the word. "Now is the time to cash in a chip with the most famous people you know - as well as to build grassroots support," he wrote. "This is, as you will know, an utmost urgency."
Research Technology Management, November 2000Creativity and Technological Innovation in the United States
…My thoughts on research, creativity and technological innovation have been greatly influenced by my many years of research in an industrial setting. More recently, the requirements for a supportable project inevitably require a predictable outcome and utility as described above. These projects are frequently judged by managers who have neither the scientific background nor the desire to provide long-term support. Basic research entails risk and herein lies the problem for industry. It is easier and certainly less risky to say "no" to a basic project than to support it. Yet, Princeton University president Harold T. Shapiro put the risk element in perspective when he said: "The risk of failure is intrinsic to significant accomplishment," and "A willingness to occupy new ground always involves the risk of losing your footing along the way" [(8)]. …
Black Issues in Higher Education, October 26, 2000Toni Morrison Society Event Draws Scholars from Around the World to Honor the Literary Legend
Approximately 130 scholars from around the globe gathered for three days in Lorain, Ohio, last month for one purpose: to honor and celebrate Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and her work.
The second biennial Toni Morrison Society conference, Toni Morrison and The Meanings of Home, was held in this steel town on the banks of Lake Erie, which is Morrison's birthplace and the setting of Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye. …
The conference, held at Lorain County Community College, explored the unique and numerous ways Morrison portrays the home in her novels and drew scholars primarily from the fields of American literature, African American literature and English. …
Morrison is currently the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University in New Jersey. In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, Morrison has received numerous literary awards including the National Book Critics' Circle Award in 1977 for Song of Solomon and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988 for Beloved. She also has written many books of essays and in 1999 co-wrote a children's book, The Big Box.
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