NC State In the News

3 new cases of swine flu confirmed

Journal Now (AP), 680 WPTF, WRAL.com, Channel 7 abc

June 14 – Officials at N.C. State University also said this weekend that two students there were found to have swine flu. The students live off campus in Wake County and are recovering at home, according to a university news release. The cases are not connected. The university has notified people who shared classes with the students. Nearly 100 cases of swine flu have been reported in North Carolina so far.

Woodward reassures N.C. State deans

charlotteobserver.com, The News & Observer, Niner Online, WRAL.com

June 10 – With N.C. State University caught in a double-barreled budget and leadership crisis, its newly minted interim chancellor moved quickly Tuesday to settle the campus. First, at his wife's suggestion, Jim Woodward hurriedly swapped the yellow necktie he had picked for one that was Wolfpack red. Then he immediately plunged into a long day of meetings with deans, senior administrators and faculty senate leaders. He even was master of ceremonies at an awards ceremony for university staff members, most of whom hadn't heard of him until a few hours earlier....

Accuracy Essential To Success Of XBRL Financial Filing Program

Science Daily, News Guide, EurekAlert!, e! Science News

June 8 – The largest 500 companies regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are poised to submit quarterly financial reports that, for the first time, will be tagged using XBRL code – which will allow computers to "read" their content and make it easier for people to find and analyze financial data contained in the reports....However, a new study by researchers at North Carolina State University finds that XBRL filings submitted voluntarily as part of an SEC pilot for the program contained significant flaws. If the accuracy of the upcoming filings is not significantly improved, the researchers say, these errors will undermine confidence in the XBRL program from the very beginning...."Rather than going through a report page by page to find the information they're looking for, users can plug their requests into the computer and have it pull up all relevant data," explains Dr. Eileen Taylor, an assistant professor of accounting at NC State and co-author of the recent study on the accuracy of the voluntary XBRL filings...."For example," Taylor says, "one company may refer to its 'operating revenue,' while another company may use the term 'sales of goods net,' and both mean the same thing. By using standardized tags, users can compare apples to apples, which really levels the playing field for individual investors," who may not have the time or expertise to find and accurately compare data from these reports on their own....

'Smart Grid' Powers Into Digital Age

My Fox Phoenix, The Journal Record, Concord Monitor (AP), Lubbock Avalanche Journal, Palestine Herald-Press, Next Gov, R & D

June 9 – Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet. More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age. The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress...."The meter is only the beginning," said Alex Huang, director of a grid technology center at North Carolina State University. He said that instead of power flowing from a small number of power plants, the smart grid can usher in a system of distributed energy so electricity "will flow from homes and businesses into the grid, neighborhoods will use local power and not just power flowing from a single source."...

Q&A: N.C. State's Interim Chancellor Talks About Managing in a Crisis

The Chronicle of Higher Education

June 11 – James H. Woodward's job as interim chancellor at North Carolina State University began on Tuesday, amid a deep scandal over a hiring and one of the university's worst budget crises ever. He arrived on the campus one day after the resignation of his predecessor, James L. Oblinger, and the firing of Mary P. Easley, a former governor's wife whose job has been at the center of the controversy. The university's provost and the chair of its Board of Trustees have also stepped down over the scandal. An engineer who served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for 16 years before retiring in 2005, Mr. Woodward, who is 69, was in his office on Wednesday morning, awaiting a "good wishes" call from the current governor, Beverly E. Perdue, a Democrat. He took time to speak with The Chronicle about the challenges both he and the university face....

Is House tax proposal enough for long haul?

charlotteobserver.com

June 11 – The tax-hike plan that emerged from a state House Finance Committee late Tuesday would raise $748 million in new tax revenue during North Carolina's worst modern recession. As painful as that sounds, it's the right thing to do to preserve some core state services and avoid the most damaging cuts to education and other critical programs at a time of a $4 billion budget shortfall. But the House plan is structured in a way that will not serve the state's long-term interests well, won't bring about the kind of fairness contemplated in a Senate tax reform plan, and won't give North Carolina the kind of competitive, sustainable edge this state desperately needs....Roland Stephen, assistant director for policy at the Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State University, views the House plan this way: "It's a beginning ... but it is striking how the tax rates, including income and sales tax rates, are moving in the wrong direction. That won't help the state in the long run."...

ANIGenes that affect aggression in fruit flies identified

Yahoo! India News, Science Centric, Science Daily, EurekAlert!, First Science, NewKerala.com, SmasHits.com, AndhraNews.net

June 11 – Scientists have identified a set of genes that affect aggression in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. By studying male flies from a large panel of lines, which each carry a mutation in a single gene but are otherwise genetically identical, researchers identified particularly angry and particularly placid insects, uncovering 59 mutations in 57 genes that affect aggressive behaviour. "Many of the genes we identified affect the development and function of the nervous system, and are thus plausibly relevant to the execution of complex behaviors. We studied nine mutations in extra detail and found that each had multiple effects on the size and shape of an insect's brain," study's lead author Trudy Mackay, from North Carolina State University, said....

NCSU grads invent reactor to turn brown grease to fuel

The Business Journal (Triad)

June 12 – A group of N.C. State University graduates is looking to turn sewer-blocking grease into biodiesel fuel, removing a costly hazard while at the same time producing low-cost fuel for diesel engines. The team, created out of NCSU's engineering entrepreneurial program, has built a reactor capable of turning nasty, brown, gloppy grease into biodiesel, something few others have done. They are working, many in their spare time, to perfect their reactor with plans to sell it or license the technology to biodiesel producers. "If we could pick up a couple of decent-sized producers, we could make a living off that," said Bill Knight, who serves as CEO of an endeavor named N.C. Future Fuels, which has not been incorporated....

NCSU players spend time with Marines

The News & Observer

June 12 – You couldn't wipe the smile off Cpl. Bobby Joseph's face with a beach towel and bottle of 409. The visit by members of N.C. State's football team to Camp Lejeune had that effect on Joseph and the other Marines in the Wounded Warrior Battalion on Thursday. "I was actually going to go home and sleep," Joseph said. "This was worth it."...For Wolfpack coach Tom O'Brien, who served nine years in the Marine Corps, the second annual trip to visit the Wounded Warrior Barracks, where injured and ill Marines convalesce, is a way of thanking the war veterans and adding a sobering dose of reality to his own players. A group of a dozen Marines, most age 19 to 22, spent an hour and a half talking with the Wolfpack contingent. "Our guys think they are special," O'Brien said. "I think it's important that they are around a bunch of people that are really special, that have done so much to keep us free and protect us."...