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NCSU researchers make new firefighter gear
College of Textiles
Photo:
New firefighting gear debuts at NCSU
College of Textiles
NCSU
search team gets tips
chancellor search forum
TV
clip: Chancellor search forum
chancellor search forum
Property
mixup coming to an end
Ben McDaniel, animal science
Tropical
spiderwort causing big trouble in Southeast cotton, peanuts
Michael Burton and Alan York, crop science
Study
of bobwhite quail funded
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $1.2 million for 11
selected studies in nine states as part of the Bobwhite Quail Restoration
Project.
Obituary:
Thomas Edward Kennedy
Board of Visitors
Property mixup coming to an end
Aug. 26, 2004
Durham Herald-Sun
By BEN EVANS
© Copyright 2004
DURHAM -- A land mixup involving a railroad, a Greek Orthodox Church and a southern Durham nature trail could be resolved soon as the city tries to work with landowners who have discovered the city owns part of what they thought were their back yards.
"It's coming to a conclusion, hopefully," said Beth Timson, the city's chief trails planner. "It's gotten messy. All railroad titles are messy."
The confusion first came to light a couple of years ago when residents along N.C. 751 just south of The Streets at Southpoint discovered that a narrow strip of old rail corridor running across their properties actually belonged to the city. Furthermore, the city was planning to build a trail on it.
The residents previously had believed that the land was simply an old easement that had been abandoned and converted to private ownership. Actually, the land had been purchased and owned by a railroad company since the early 1900s, but the residents' title searches hadn't picked up the transaction because the searches only went back 20 or 30 years.
But when the city bought the land from Norfolk-Southern railway in 2000 and began plotting the trail, the residents discovered the truth about the ownership.
"I found out when I was sitting here on the porch," said Ben McDaniel, who recalled city real estate officials walking up to his house to ask about his fence that was on city property.
McDaniel, 69, a retired N.C. State University professor of animal science and genetics, has title insurance that he hopes will protect him. But if he were to lose the land, he estimates it would cut $50,000 to $70,000 from the value of his property.
"It cuts off a big hunk of it," McDaniel said. "We eventually want to sell this place. I'd just like to get it straightened out, because nobody will buy it with this cloud hanging over it."
McDaniel bought his 4.5 acres with his wife in 1998, maintaining a semi-rural environment that's quickly becoming surrounded by subdivisions and traffic from the Southpoint mall, which sits less than a mile away. The couple has a small pond behind the house and keeps two horses. The railroad company's land runs diagonally across the property, cutting off a long corner that fronts N.C. 751, about half an acre.
From McDaniel's property, the rail land runs south onto the family property of Thurmond and Finesse Couch, skirting the couple's home. It then heads into land that the St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church recently bought for its new home.
The church, which is moving because it has outgrown its current Trinity Park location, found out about the land issue just days before it bought the property in 2001. The discovery has disrupted the church's construction plans, because the congregation needed the undisturbed railroad land to meet the city's impervious surface requirements.
John Mariakakis, who serves on the church's building committee, said the issue has been lingering for almost two years as the parties have tried to work out a settlement. He said the church is "going with the flow," because it still is not quite ready to break ground.
"We want to be good neighbors and we want everybody to be happy. ... We're a church," Mariakakis said. "We just don't want it to hold up our project."
City officials say they're trying to work out an arrangement to reroute the trail and allow the landowners to buy most of the land in question at prices similar to those the city paid for the land in 2000. The trail is a spur off the American Tobacco trail that would lead to Jordan Lake.
"People were bothered that the land they thought was theirs turned out not to be, so I think understandably everybody was distressed. But I think we have worked things out," Timson said.
Aug. 27, 2004
News14 Carolina
By Tony Jones
© Copyright 2004
Researchers at NC State unveil the next generation of gear for firefighters.
The new "turnout" gear not only provides protection from heat but chemical and biological agents as well.
Firefighters are excited about this latest and greatest gear.
"This turnout gear will afford us the protection to hopefully be able to enter a situation and save lives."
The new gear will not only save the lives of the public but possibly firefighter's as well. And since the events of 9/11, firefighters know their role is even more critical.
Capt. William Bristle of the Raleigh Fire Department said, “With all the terrorism now we're the first line of defense and when we respond if we get in a situation where we feel like we need some extra protection for chemical and biological up until now we have not had that protection."
Researchers at NC State's College of Textiles have designed a suit firefighters can use when confronted with chemical or biological hazards.
The new suits also afford better shielding for heat and weigh five percent less than the standard turnout suit.
However firefighters, like J.J. Roof, who have tested the new suits, said they're a time saver during an emergency.
"If we realize it is a WMD situation or a chemical or biological release we'll have everything on us already that we can don and have that extra layer of protection that we don not have today."
Suits already in use can cost upwards of $1,500 each. And though no price has been set everyone believes the new suits are worth their weight in gold.
Chief Willam Bristle said more tests must be done before the new gear is distributed to all firefighters.
Aug. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By TIM SIMMONS
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- The open forums are over, and the first finding is apparent in N.C. State University's search for a new chancellor: Someone is going to be very disappointed.
Search committee members spent 90 minutes Thursday listening to special and conflicting interests regarding the most important qualities the next chancellor must possess.
Taken together, the group of about two dozen speakers said the next chancellor should understand North Carolina like a native but not necessarily come from the state. The next chancellor should be a leader who stands above it all but isn't afraid to eat lunch at Fountain Dining Hall.
And when the chancellor isn't busy pushing the university to new heights, it would be nice if the person could figure out why there wasn't enough business to keep the Starbucks Coffee shop open on Hillsborough Street.
"We hear you," search committee chairman Bob Jordan said after the final speaker of the afternoon. "But I don't know that one person will fill the bill."
With the last of the three forums now completed, search committee members will catalog the public comments and begin the next phase of the search. That phase will include contacting possible candidates who have not formally applied and talking with references before moving on to formal interviews, Jordan said.
A new chancellor is expected to be named by the first of the year to replace Marye Anne Fox, who was named in April to the top administrative post at the University of California, San Diego.
A few themes did emerge Thursday from several speakers who stepped out from the crowd of about 100 people gathered at the Talley Student Center. Chief among them was an interest in making sure NCSU continues its push to compete with the elite ranks of research institutions.
"Please give us a chancellor that will not be satisfied with just presiding over what we already have here," said Terry Wood, vice chancellor for university advancement. "The new chancellor should lead ... and believe there is no better place and no better job."
Speakers also urged the board to make certain the winning candidate not only values diversity among students and faculty but is willing to be a champion for the cause.
And several speakers reminded search committee members that budget cuts have made it increasingly difficult to offer the class sizes, schedules and academic counseling that determine the quality of students' experiences, regardless of who is in charge.
"If we bring [students] here and then we can't put them anywhere, then we really aren't serving our students," said Andrea Irby, director of the virtual advising center in the office of the vice provost.
TV clip: Chancellor Search Forum
Aug. 27, 2004
WRAL
By staff writer
© Copyright 2004
The chancellor search forum was mentioned on WRAL.
Photo: New firefighting fear debuts at NCSU
Aug. 27, 2004
News & Observer
By Chuck Liddy
© Copyright 2004
Raleigh firefighter Jeff Silver helps fellow firefighter Corey McGee adjust his hood at N.C. State University's College of Textiles, where a prototype of gear was revealed. The new suit adds features such as more thermal protection and a breathable membrane. NCSU partnered with Globe Manufacturing and DuPont on the project.
For a copy of this photo, contact News Services at 5-3470.
USA : Gen-next fire protection gear
Aug. 26, 2004
Fibre 2 Fashion, India
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
North Carolina State University’s College of Textiles researchers are set to unveil a prototype of the next generation of firefighter turnout gear that not only offers increased protection from fire, but also provides protection from chemical and biological agents.
A joint effort of researchers and Raleigh firefighters who assisted with the project and NC State partnered with Globe Manufacturing and DuPont for the project awarded by the Department of Homeland Security and the Technical Support Working Group.
“This prototype incorporates all the goals we had for the original design, which was to develop a suit that not only had the fire protection, but also a level of chemical and biological protection,” said Dr. Roger Barker, head of the Textile Protection and Comfort Center (TPACC) at NC State’s College of Textiles.
The new suit has all the functional features of a traditional suit, but with added protection. The thermal liner that is the main component in heat protection was developed at NC State. According to Barker, it utilizes a new non-woven thermal material that incorporates new fiber technologies offering better protection from heat.
“Our suit is going to take protection to an entirely new level with a wider range of chemical resistance at higher levels,” Barker said.
TPACC will also test the suit to ensure it meets all the required standards for protection, but also test for comfort and ergonomics – making sure it’s easy to put on, wear and take off. Other tests will determine the level of harmful vapor infiltration.
Tropical spiderwort causing big trouble in Southeast cotton, peanuts
Aug. 26, 2004
Southeast Farm Press
By Sharon Durham
© Copyright 2004
Like the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors," a little-known weed is growing fast. Tropical spiderwort, inconsequential for seven decades, has recently spread in alarming proportions in fields in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.
First detected in the United States in the 1930s, the weed has made major gains in Georgia, according to Agricultural Research Service Agronomist Theodore Webster of the Crop Protection and Management Research Unit in Tifton, Ga. Webster and his colleagues — Michael Burton and Alan York of North Carolina State University, and Stanley Culpepper and Eric Prostko of the University of Georgia — are monitoring the weed's advances.
In 1999, it was found in five counties in southern Georgia. By 2002, 41 Georgia counties reported tropical spiderwort was present, and 17 listed it as moderate to severe.
A 2003 survey revealed that tropical spiderwort was entrenched in Georgia, affecting 52 counties, with 29 counties listing the weed as moderate to severe. More than 195,000 acres in Georgia are infested. It's now widespread in Florida, and has been discovered on about 100 acres in Goldsboro, N.C.
Tropical spiderwort, Commelina benghalensis, is now the most troublesome weed in Georgia cotton and the second most problematic weed in peanuts. The weed competes with crops for water and nutrients, and smothers the crops at the same time. One reason for the surge in the weed's growth is its resistance to the commonly used herbicide glyphosate. Conservation-tillage and reduced use of soil-applied herbicides may also be contributing to the problem.
According to Webster and his colleagues, tropical spiderwort spread has coincided with resurgent cotton production in Georgia. Cotton acreage in the state increased from about 260,000 acres in 1989 to nearly 1.5 million acres in 1995, in part due to the success of the boll weevil eradication program. Most cotton grown in Georgia is tolerant to glyphosate, allowing growers to spray the chemical on cotton crops to control weeds.
Webster and his colleagues are studying the biology and management of tropical spiderwort and will continue to monitor its presence in the Southeast.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
Study of bobwhite quail funded
Aug. 26, 2004
Mississippi Business Journal
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
STARKVILLE — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $1.2 million for 11 selected studies in nine states as part of the Bobwhite Quail Restoration Project. The project is being implemented in conjunction with Mississippi State University (MSU) and includes involvement from the Southeast Quail Study Group and Quail Unlimited.
The project evaluates the effectiveness of conservation practices in the restoration of northern bobwhite and its habitat and develops technology that assists field staff in working with landowners. The grants program supports studies and demonstration projects that evaluate bobwhite population response to conservation programs and practices.
MSU is receiving approximately $147, 949 for the evaluation of native grass field border width on northern bobwhite and grassland songbird abundance and nesting success. Other grantees are Tall Timbers Research Station (Fla.), North Carolina State University, Southern Illinois University, University of Tennessee, Clemson University, Nemours Wildlife Foundation (S.C.), Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Missouri Department of Conservation, Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University.
Obituary: Thomas Edward Kennedy
Aug. 27, 2004
News & Observer
THOMAS E. KENNEDY, 80, Cary, Aug. 25. Arrangements by Brown-Wynne Funeral Home.
For a copy of this obituary, contact News Services at 5-3470.