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In the Headlines

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Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (May 17, 2012)
UR gets first crack at Watson
If this were Jeopardy!, the answer would be: Managing complex resources in the face of a major weather crisis.

And the question would be: What is the best way to make use of IBM Watson technology?

Four students at the University of Rochester's Simon School of Business this week won a competition designed to identify the best ways to use the computer that is so nimble it can mimic the way a human brain sorts through a lifetime of information for a correct Jeopardy! question. (Also Reported in: Information Management, eWeek)

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (May 16, 2012)
Student entrepreneurs hatch big plans at UR
Five teams of student entrepreneurs from the University of Rochester pushed their innovative ideas into the final round of the Mark Ain Business Model Competition on Wednesday.

And at the end of the judging, one team was given a check for $10,000 to move forward with its project. This was the sixth year for the competition and, for the judges, it was another tough decision to pick the best from the best.

Rochester Business Journal (May 16, 2012)
UR boosts faculty diversity, report shows
A greater number of women and underrepresented minorities were hired on the faculty at the University of Rochester during the 2010-2011 academic year, making incremental progress toward the university's goals of creating more diversity in the faculty and throughout curricula.

YNN (May 16, 2012)
Blood Vessel Health and Alzheimer's Disease
A new report is shedding light on how the gene that causes Alzheimer's disease damages a patient's brain and its connection with blood vessels.

The report was compiled by a group of scientists, including some from the University of Rochester. (Also Reported in: Science Daily, National Institutes of Health, Medical Xpress)

EconomicPrincipals.com (May 13, 2012)
History Matters
When Harvard president Drew Faust, a historian, overruled her economics department in the spring of 2008 and passed up the chance to hire the husband-and-wife team of Christina and David Romer, certain compensations were set in train.

The Harvard economics department was permitted to hire as part-time visiting professor, Stanley Engerman, of the University of Rochester, the most distinguished economic historian in the country, not counting Nobel laureate Robert Fogel, his research partner on their landmark study of the economics of slavery before the US Civil War, Time On the Cross.

Washington Post (May 13, 2012)
Ryan budget still an issue in congressional races
The issue in question is the budget proposal issued by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and what it does to Medicare in particular.

A few hours away at the University of Rochester, Rep. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) used a meeting with college students to blast Ryan's idea of cutting $200 million in Pell grants and for not initially supporting an extension of lower student loan interest rates.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (May 11, 2012)
MAG commission latest of Paley's projects
Rochester sculptor Albert Paley's towering presence on Rochester's art scene will grow next year with a 25-foot-tall sculpture outside the Memorial Art Gallery.

Located by the Goodman Street entrance, the stainless steel creation will be part of the museum's future Centennial Sculpture Park. Paley will weave shapes that he has used earlier in his career - banners, palm fronds and geometric forms - into a tall, organic design called Soliloquy, complementing the nearby Cutler Union tower.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (May 10, 2012)
UR adds supercomputer for health science center
The IBM supercomputer - Blue Gene/P - that was given the University of Rochester four years ago has the power of 4,000 desktop computers.

Blue Gene/P will soon be joined by Blue Gene/Q, which is 14 times more powerful than UR's first supercomputer. It could be here by early summer.

Rochester Business Journal (May 10, 2012)
UR receives funding for crop protection project
A biologist at the University of Rochester has received a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for research into how to protect crops without using toxic pesticides, UR officials announced Wednesday.

Rochester City Newspaper (May 10, 2012)
ART UPDATE: Paley sculpture announced for MAG park
Memorial Art Gallery announced today that it has commissioned a 25-foot stainless steel sculpture by Albert Paley as one of the anchor installations of its planned Centennial Sculpture Park. The new work, titled "Soliloquy," will sit at MAG's Goodman Street entrance, and will be installed next year as the Gallery counts down to its 100th anniversary. (Also Reported in: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, 13WHAM-TV)

13WHAM-TV (May 8, 2012)
Local Surgeon Saves 5-Year-Old Boy's Vision
The University of Rochester Medical Center is telling the story of how a local doctor helped save a German boy's vision.

According to URMC, only four centers in the United States offer corneal transplants for infants and young children. The Flaum Eye Institute in Rochester is one of them, and when a German family discovered this capability online, they contacted the Institute to inquire about surgery.

Paris Review (May 8, 2012)
A Great Stag, Broad-Antlered: Rediscovering Hyam Plutzik
In 2011 and 2012, [Hyam] Plutzik is reemerging onto the field. Last July would have been Plutzik's one hundredth birthday, and 2012 is the fiftieth year of the Plutzik Reading Series established in his memory at the University of Rochester. Wesleyan's new edition of Apples from Shinar is one of a series of projects aimed at celebrating these occasions and bringing Plutzik's work to new readers, in venues as varied as the University of Rochester and The Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach, now a literary destination whose programs feature prominent contemporary poets and scholars which, since 2010, has hosted the annual symposium of the Society for Jewish American and Holocaust Literature.

MSNBC (May 7, 2012)
1 in 8 teens misuses prescription painkillers
One in eight older teens has used powerful painkillers when they weren't prescribed - and many of them start misusing the medications earlier than was previously assumed, according to new research.

"The non-medical use of controlled medications in (teens) has surpassed almost all illicit drugs except for marijuana," said pediatrician Dr. Robert Fortuna, from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. (Also Reported in: Chicago Tribune, Fox News, Sun-Sentinel, WHTC, RN Web)

New York Times (State Version) (May 5, 2012)
Zvi Zeitlin, Violinist Who Championed Modernist Composers, Dies at 90
Zvi Zeitlin, an internationally renowned violinist known for interpreting the work of contemporary composers, died on Wednesday in Rochester. He was 90. His death was announced by the Eastman School of Music. At his death, Mr. Zeitlin was distinguished professor of violin at the school, which is part of the University of Rochester.

Mr. Zeitlin, who had announced his intention to retire from Eastman this summer, had taught there since 1967. Simultaneously maintaining an active concert schedule, he was for decades part of a triumvirate of sought-after violin pedagogues - the others were Dorothy DeLay of the Juilliard School and Josef Gingold of Indiana University - teaching at major American conservatories.

Over the years Mr. Zeitlin appeared as a soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras, under conductors including Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel and Antal Dorati. (Also Reported in: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Oregon Public Broadcasting)

New York Times (State Version) (May 5, 2012)
Books From Japan and Poland Win Translation Awards
A novel from Poland and a collection of Japanese poetry have received prizes for best translations. Winning authors and translators will divide $20,000 in prize money donated by Amazon.com.

The awards were announced Friday by Three Percent, an online resource for international literature based at the University of Rochester. (Also Reported in: ABC News, CBS News, NPR, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle , Seattle Times, The Miami Herald, Newsday, P.E.I. Journal Pioneer, Medicine Hat News)

USA Today (May 5, 2012)
CDC has yet to respond to lead-standards recommendation
Four months ago, a federal scientific advisory panel made a landmark recommendation that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut by half the amount of lead in a child's blood that should trigger protective actions by doctors, health departments and parents. Yet the agency still hasn't responded, raising concerns among some advisers and health organizations whether politics is delaying the action and putting children at risk.

"Clearly the committee made this recommendation expecting some response back from CDC," said Deborah Cory-Slechta, co-chair of the workgroup at CDC's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention that wrote the Jan. 4 report recommending the change and giving CDC a 90-day deadline to respond.

"I think this is causing a lot of stomach acid. I think that's what's happening," said Cory-Slechta, a professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester.

UPI (May 4, 2012)
Stroke patients not getting diagnosed
A study of 40,777 stroke patients found 42 percent underwent brain imaging within the recommended 25 minutes of hospital arrival, researchers say.

Lead author Dr. Adam Kelly, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said brain imaging is an essential tool in the diagnosis of a stroke and determines which treatment to pursue. Strokes caused by a blockage in one of the arteries that serve the brain -- ischemic strokes -- are candidates for the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator, which can restore blood flow and improve clinical outcomes.  (Also Reported in: iStock Analyst, Medcompare)

YNN (May 4, 2012)
Design Day at the University of Rochester
Partnering with local companies and institutions some University of Rochester students are coming up with ideas to tackle some real-world problems. They got to show off their products during today's Design Day at the school.

MSN Health & Fitness (May 4, 2012)
Many Breast Cancer Patients in Their 40s Aren't 'High-Risk': Study
More than half of women in their 40s diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram had no family history of the disease, finds a new study that may add to the debate over the timing of breast cancer screening.

Family history usually means a first-degree relative with the disease (parent, sibling or child). Of those without family history who were found to have breast cancer, "64 percent of these women had invasive disease," said researcher Dr. Stamatia Destounis, a radiologist at Elizabeth Wende Breast Care Center and a clinical associate professor at the University of Rochester in New York. (Also Reported in: U.S. News & World Report, Newsday, Your Total Health, Health.com)

Huffington Post (May 1, 2012)
Mindfulness Meditation May Help Doctors Provide Better Care, Study Suggests
Mindfulness meditation doesn't just lower stress and regulate our emotions -- it could also improve a doctor's ability to care for his or her patient, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that training doctors in mindfulness meditation helped them to listen better and not be as judgmental both at home and at work. The study will be published in the June issue of the journal Academic Medicine. For the study, doctors in Rochester, N.Y., participated in a mindfulness meditation training course that consisted of eight weekly two-and-a-half-hour sessions, one all-day session, and then 10 monthly two-and-a-half-hour sessions of mindfulness training. The researchers interviewed 20 of these doctors after the training program.