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Project Spectrum: recognizing the talents of children with autism

A couple of years ago, the <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google SketchUp</a> team began hearing from a new group of users -- people on the autism spectrum. After consulting with some experts, we learned the connection between autism and SketchUp isn't particularly surprising. Many people on the autism spectrum have visual and spatial strengths, and 3D design software plays to them. With this in mind, we started a program called <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/spectrum.html">Project Spectrum</a>. As part of <a href="http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_awareness">Autism Awareness Month</a> in April, we've launched a new <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/spectrum.html">webpage</a> showcasing some great SketchUp artists (Rachel, Jeremy, JP and others). We've also created a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsfH_cyXa1o">Getting Started with Google SketchUp video</a> for anyone who wants to learn the basic tools to start modeling. More of the Project Spectrum models can be seen in the Google 3D Warehouse <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=be3de3be31be4d088aee1e8fa383e7d3&prevstart=0">collection</a>. Watch the video below to hear the story behind Project Spectrum and meet some of the kids involved: <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jw_ZW1NCQgY&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jw_ZW1NCQgY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Googlers around the world are working with the autism community to introduce kids, teachers, parents and adults to SketchUp, and we've been inspired by the results. We hope you take the time to look at Project Spectrum and share it with others in your community. For more detail, check out the <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2009/04/strengths-of-autism-continue-to-shine.html">Google SketchUp blog</a>. Posted by Tom Wyman and Chris Cronin, Project Spectrum Team

Project Spectrum: recognizing the talents of children with autism

A couple of years ago, the Google SketchUp team began hearing from a new group of users -- people on the autism spectrum. After consulting ...

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Pension Fund Scandals, Payment Agents, "Chooch" and the Anechoic Effect

As we get closer to graduation season for most institutions of higher education, another story about the leadership and governance of higher education, involving an institution housing a prominent medical school, has come into view, albeit indirectly. Let me try to explain this complex story, which on its surface has something to do with the ongoing financial crisis, but nothing to to with academia, by quoting, as usual, from media coverage. We start with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/nyregion/17pension.html">an article </a>from the New York Times last week: <blockquote> The man leading the Obama administration’s efforts to restructure the auto industry has been described in Securities and Exchange Commission documents as having arranged for his investment firm to pay more than $1 million to obtain New York State pension business. Although he is not named in the documents, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said the investment executive is Steven Rattner, co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, the prominent private equity firm. The S.E.C. complaint, filed as part of an expansive state and federal investigation into corruption at the state pension fund, details the efforts of Quadrangle to gain business from the pension fund beginning in 2004. The person who received most of the $1 million-plus payment has been indicted, accused of selling access to the fund. </blockquote> Here are the details of allegations of how Mr Rattner interacted with intermediaries to get NY state pension fund investments into his company. <blockquote> Investigators are scrutinizing the fees paid by investment firms to intermediaries who arranged deals with the $122 billion pension fund. While such payments are legal, they often raise questions about conflicts of interest and would be illegal if used to bribe public officials. In a 123-count indictment issued last month, two aides to Mr. Hevesi were accused of selling access to the fund. The aides, Hank Morris, who was Mr. Hevesi’s top political consultant, and David Loglisci, the fund’s chief investment officer, have denied any wrongdoing. The S.E.C. complaint, which was released Wednesday, describes steps undertaken by the Quadrangle executive to win $100 million worth of business from the pension fund in 2005. That amount accounted for nearly 5 percent of a Quadrangle private equity fund and helped the company raise money from other investment funds. In October 2004, the executive met with Mr. Loglisci to seek the pension fund investment and Mr. Loglisci 'reacted favorably' and 'began taking the necessary steps to secure approval' for the investment, the complaint said. Two months later, in December, the same executive met with Mr. Morris, who, according to prosecutors, was working in tandem with Mr. Loglisci to generate millions of dollars in fees from the investment firms, and within weeks had agreed to a deal to pay an obscure securities firm that employed Mr. Morris 1.1 percent of any money that the retirement fund invested with Quadrangle, as a placement agent fee. That worked out to $1.1 million, of which Mr. Morris received 95 percent. The timing of the meeting with Mr. Morris was significant, the complaint indicated, because the Quadrangle executive had already met with Mr. Loglisci and would presumably not need a placement agent. In addition, Quadrangle had previously retained a separate placement agent. The executive also met with Mr. Loglisci about a low-budget movie Mr. Loglisci was producing, 'Chooch.' Soon afterward, GT Brands Holdings, a company owned by one of Quadrangle’s private equity funds, made a deal to acquire the DVD distribution rights to 'Chooch,' an agreement that made the film’s producers nearly $90,000. The Quadrangle executive called Mr. Morris after the distribution deal was closed, and told him of the deal’s 'connection to Loglisci.' Three weeks later, Mr. Loglisci 'personally informed the Quadrangle executive that the retirement fund would be making a $100 million investment' in Quadrangle, the complaint said. </blockquote> Later, the Washington Post published <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041701908.html">an article </a>which alleges possible conflicts of interest affecting Mr Rattner in his current position as "automobile czar," <blockquote> The questions around Quadrangle and Rattner follow others that came to light soon after he emerged as a candidate to lead the Obama administration's efforts to prop up Chrysler and General Motors. Quadrangle was, at least indirectly, previously involved in a deal involving Chrysler's majority owner, Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. That connection has led some Chrysler investors to doubt whether Rattner can decide without bias how the government should aid Chrysler. In the summer of 2007, Quadrangle purchased Dennis Publishing, the owner of magazines including Maxim and Blender. The estimated price was $250 million. Quadrangle's new magazine company was renamed Alpha Media and it took a loan of $125 million, much of it coming from Cerberus. A year after Quadrangle's purchase, the publishing company's profits began to plummet. The company announced last month that it would cease publication of its Blender magazine. Quadrangle has written the Alpha Media investment down to zero on its books, and Cerberus, the company's major creditor, is now effectively in control of Alpha, a person familiar with the matter said. </blockquote> This week, a NY Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22quadrangle.html">article</a> revealed that Mr Rattner and Quadrangle are facing a wider investigation, and may be a target of investor lawsuits: <blockquote> Two months after Steven Rattner left Wall Street for Washington, his private investment company is facing a widening investigation into corruption in public pension funds — and fighting for its future. As state and federal authorities examine Mr. Rattner’s dealings with the New York State retirement fund, questions are emerging about his efforts to gain business from several other public funds, including ones in New Mexico and New York City. His private investment firm, the Quadrangle Group, is moving to calm anxious pension managers, who have entrusted the firm with hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Rattner, who is leading the Obama administration’s efforts to revamp the auto industry, has left his small but prominent firm in a bind. Because he was integral to Quadrangle, investors can try to withhold additional money that they have pledged to the firm now that he has left. No charges have been filed against Mr. Rattner, who did not respond to e-mail messages on Tuesday, or against Quadrangle, whose executives declined to comment. While Quadrangle’s funds have not suffered as much as some other private equity funds, its investors have suffered losses in other parts of their portfolios. Some of them might try to capitalize on the inquiry to avoid making good on their pledges. Another crucial question, however, is whether money from one Quadrangle fund was used to lure investors to a second fund. That possibility that might expose Quadrangle to investor lawsuits. </blockquote> Furthermore, a Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042203942.html">article</a> raised the question of a failure of honest disclosure: <blockquote> Government officials are expanding their investigation of Quadrangle, the private-equity firm founded by the Obama administration's lead auto negotiator, as new details emerge about an alleged kickback scheme involving the New York state pension fund. On Wednesday, the New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said he is working with the state's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, to determine whether the city's pension funds were 'intentionally misled or deceived' by Quadrangle's failure to disclose the use of a middleman who has since been indicted, Hank Morris. New York City's comptroller on Wednesday said Quadrangle never disclosed that it had paid Morris fees in connection with the city pension funds' investment in Quadrangle. The city invested $85 million in 2005 and $40 million in 2006. The city has a rule that use of placement agents must be disclosed, but that rule was implemented in 2008 and does not apply to the Quadrangle investments. But as part of the due diligence for receiving the investment, Quadrangle said in writing at the time that it used only two placement agents, Monument Group and London-based Helix Associates, the comptroller's office said. 'We take any ethical lapses by our managers seriously and will consider any remedies available to investors,' Thompson, the city's comptroller, said in a statement. </blockquote> In response to all this, New York state government officials decided to ban middle-men from influence over pension fund investment decisions, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124040821903043595.html">according to the Wall Street Journal</a>: <blockquote> New York state said its public pension fund, one of the nation's largest, would ban the use of middlemen to help private-equity funds and other investors secure its business. The move marked a pivotal development in a burgeoning controversy that has grown from a local corruption probe to a broader examination of the tactics that investment firms used to win lucrative business from vast public pension pools. In most states, charging placement fees is legal if they are disclosed as required. But potential conflicts of interest are rife, especially for officials with a legal obligation to make informed, well-intended decisions about how pension-fund money is spent. Lawyers say a gray area emerges when finder's fees are paid to individuals or firms that do little more than trade on their access to public-pension-fund executives. Such alleged behavior is at the heart of the scandal unfolding in New York. The state attorney general and the SEC have accused a former top fund official and a political adviser of giving investment funds access to billions of dollars of state pension money, in exchange for kickbacks and other payments for personal and political gain. One such middleman already has pleaded guilty to securities-fraud charges. Some officials across the country have expressed concern about so-called pay-to-play practices -- that is, paying to influence people who direct the investments of public-employee retirement funds. Pay-to-play can range from illegal kickbacks, which in some instances have led to jail time, to legal activities such as campaign contributions to elected officials on the boards of pension funds. Pension funds are especially vulnerable to such accusations because their boards are often populated by elected officials or people with limited financial experience who need to rely heavily on outside advisers. New York state's comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, said that in light of the allegations contained in the case brought by the state's attorney general and the SEC, 'the best way to restore the pension fund's reputation is to say we won't be involved with any transactions that involved placement agents.' </blockquote> Meanwhile, several commentators raised questions about Mr Rattner's suitability to be "automobile czar." David Rothkopf, the author of Superclass, <a href="http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/17/and_now_introducing_the_kickback_czar">dubbed Mr Rattner </a>the "kickback czar" on the Foreign Policy blog, <blockquote> Are you joking? The Obama Administration somehow thought that it was okay to give a pass to Steve Rattner? They thought it was okay to appoint a guy to a key job after he apparently acknowledged to them that he was under investigation for providing a million dollar payment to pension consultant in exchange for receiving an assignment to manage a big chunk of pension fund money for New York State? They thought it was okay in the middle of a justified surge of global disgust with Wall Street to embrace a big time Wall Street player who is smart enough to be arguing the legal technicalities of the transaction but not smart enough to recognize that it might just seem to be sleazy, dubious and a gross disservice to the people who were depending on the State to use appropriate methods and metrics to find stewards for their retirement money? They even thought it was okay when part of the deal involved payments to support a movie called 'Chooch.' (What’s worse than bad ethics and bad taste all wrapped up into one sordid exchange? The New York Post called 'Chooch' which scored an amazing 00 rating from Rotten Tomatoes “the kind of vanity project that gives amateurs a bad name.”) What's more they did all this while giving Rattner the job of auto czar for which he had no material auto industry experience? I thought the way high ethical standards worked was that you didn't just bar people convicted of crimes, you tried to weed out people who had done things that were wrong or contrary to the public interest. </blockquote> On BlackStarNews, Edward Manfredonia <a href="http://blackstarnews.com/?c=121&a=5582">wrote</a>: <blockquote>I believed Rattner’s efforts to take the Times private should have disqualified him from an appointment with the Obama Administration; especially the key post of trying to stabilize the collapsing auto industry. The White House still insists that the Administration fully supports Rattner; that reminds me of Bush proclaiming backing for Don Rumsfeld when it was clear he should have been shown the door as defense secretary. Here's why Rattner deserves the boot. An even more egregious form of activity that what I previously covered has become public. Rattner, who has extensive ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has been identified in several published news reports as the Quadrangle Fund executive who paid $1.1 million to receive more than $100 million from New York State’s multi-billion dollar pension fund to manage. The manner in which the payments were made leaves no doubt that they were meant for 'pay to play', which is illegal in my opinion. </blockquote> Not surprisingly, a NY Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/opinion/22wed1.html">editorial</a> was milder, but did allow, <blockquote>Mr. Rattner showed some bad judgment in the 'Chooch' deal, and the public has a right to expect more of him in his new, highly sensitive position. </blockquote> It's an interesting story, with implications in many areas, and it has hardly played out. Anyone reading this far is probably wondering, however, what this has to do with leadership, governance, and ethics in health care. None of the articles quoted above mentioned anything related to health care, or academics for that matter. Here is where I pull the rabbit out of the hat. Steven Rattner, in fact, has an important leadership position relevant to academics, and to academic health care. He is a <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Info/Corporation.html">member of Brown University's Board of Fellows</a>, the "upper house" in the university's bicameral board of trustees, called the Brown Corporation. Brown University includes the <a href="http://med.brown.edu/">Alpert Medical School</a>, and the Division of Biology and Medicine. (Full disclosure: I am an alumnus of the College at Brown, and of the Medical School. I am a former full-time Brown faculty member, and currently a voluntary Clinical Associate Professor.) And thus the issue here is really about the <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2007/08/bling-bling-poltical-correctness-and.html">anechoic effect</a>. Even though this convoluted case raises issues about Mr Rattner's role at Brown analogous to the issues it raises about his role as "automobile czar," there has been to date not even any media mention of his role at Brown, much less discussion of its implications for the university, academic leadership and governance, etc. To survey the local coverage, the Providence Journal has not published any relevant news stories so far. It did print an <a href="http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_rick15_04-15-09_DJDVGHK_v17.3e650b1.html">op-ed </a>questioning Mr Rattner's suitability for the "automobile czar" position, which had to do with the lack of sympathy an "investment banker" might have for the United Auto Workers. The Boston Globe ran <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/04/18/auto_task_force_chair_tied_to_investment_investigation/">a story </a>from the Washington Post about the case, but one that had nothing on the local, or the academic angle. The Brown Daily Herald published a two news stories (<a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/2.12235/alum-may-become-obama-s-car-czar-1.1668270">here</a> and <a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/2.12235/alum-to-advise-treasury-on-bailout-of-u-s-automakers-1.1667893">here</a>) about Mr Rattner's appointment as "automobile czar," which did note he is a "corporation member," but has not covered the current controversy. I am aware of no recent open discussion, or any discussion at all of Mr Rattner as a member of the Board of Fellows, in light of the recent unpleasantness. Thus, our local angle on the New York pension/ placement agents/ Quadrangle/ "Chooch" affair mainly demonstrates how at many academic institutions, it is simply not done to bring up issues that question leadership and governance, especially at the highest levels. Parenthetically, we have posted many times, most recently <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/04/investment-bankers-strike-back.html">here</a>, about the leadership and governance of Dartmouth College. Some might have interpreted these posts as hostile to that institution. They were anything but. In fact, it has only been possible to discuss leadership and governance at Dartmouth so thoroughly because that institution is much more open about its leadership and governance than is the typical US academic institution. Half of the he Dartmouth Board of Trustees, as we noted, used to be elected by vote of the alumni. The alumni could nominate their own candidates for the Board, through a petition process. The successful attempt to decrease the overall proportion of elected Trustees sparked a tremendous amount of open discussion and debate. Issues of leadership and governance at Dartmouth seem to be frequently discussed in local publications, on blogs, and sometimes even in the national media. I suspect that a governance system at Dartmouth marked by more than average representativeness and accountability has lead to much more vigorous debate and discussion of academic governance and leadership than occurs at more typical universities. (Note that even after the "board packing," Dartmouth still has a larger proportion of alumni-elected trustees than does the typical university, and it is still possible for alumni to put people on the ballot via petition.) Brown University, on the other hand, is lead by a Corporation most of whose members are appointed by the Corporation itself. While a minority (14 of 42) of the Board of Trustees (the lower house) of the Corporation are <a href="http://alumni.brown.edu/about/elections/trustee_bg.html">elected by alumni</a>, to my knowledge, all the election candidates are hand-picked by the Brown Alumni Association, and there is no provision for petition candidates. Although a few fiesty students occasionally call for more light to shine on the Brown Corporation, (e.g., see <a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/2.12227/ben-bernstein-09-why-the-corporation-matters-and-how-they-get-paid-1.1667634">here</a>), for the most part, questioning the leadership and governance of the university is simply not done. Thus, Brown seems to be typical of most major US academic organizations. However, more transparent, accountable, governance, clearly guided by ethical principles and the organization's mission might allow US academia, and academic medicine to address some of the problems that we too often have opportunities to discuss on Health Care Renewal.

Pension Fund Scandals, Payment Agents, "Chooch" and the Anechoic Effect

As we get closer to graduation season for most institutions of higher education, another story about the leadership and governance of higher...

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Try out new features in Google Toolbar Labs

One of the best things about working on the Google Toolbar team is that when someone says "Wouldn't it be great if Toolbar could...," our answer is usually "Yes! Let's build it!" And then it's just a question of when. To test these ideas more easily, today we're introducing <a href="http://toolbar.google.com/labs/intl/en/index.html">Google Toolbar Labs</a>. Just as <a href="http://www.googlelabs.com/">Google Labs</a> and <a href="http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/introducing-gmail-labs.html">Gmail Labs</a> are playgrounds for new ideas, Toolbar Labs was built to get ideas out there quickly to see how you like them. And now we're ready to roll out our first two Labs versions of Toolbar. Drum roll, please... Google Toolbar with My Location Back in September, the Mobile team launched <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/09/introducing-mobile-search-with-my.html">Mobile Search with My Location</a>. Looking at this, we wanted to figure our how we could bring the same convenience of typing fewer words to computer users. With Toolbar with My Location, both Google Maps and the included Maps gadget automatically center on your current location. Similarly, you can just do a search like [thai food], and you will receive a list of nearby restaurants and more local Google search results. This feature is similar to<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-becomes-more-local.html"> IP-based local search results</a> announced earlier this month, except Google Toolbar with My Location can determine a more accurate location by using nearby Wi-Fi access points. This is done without associating location information with a user's Google Account. Google Toolbar with My Location is only available in the U.S. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwuoM_yy0RoN-CScnaLaiB5BJHgDdFjwsvFM8droXgToHleJ37IPtCjKOvXfda2EtlxKRnMHa3OYdFnF0Bi8yMjiZ9IenIxlG675kKRWaIj-1lTq9sWkls6JUmDAciVM3UcSyYfMYpnUCq/s1600-h/twml_blogpost.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328022918568020722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwuoM_yy0RoN-CScnaLaiB5BJHgDdFjwsvFM8droXgToHleJ37IPtCjKOvXfda2EtlxKRnMHa3OYdFnF0Bi8yMjiZ9IenIxlG675kKRWaIj-1lTq9sWkls6JUmDAciVM3UcSyYfMYpnUCq/s400/twml_blogpost.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 165px;" /></a> Google Simplified Chinese Toolbar We recognize that due to differences in local language structures, users who speak other languages may have specific needs for browsing the web. To address this, our team in China developed a slightly different Toolbar concept called the Google Simplified Chinese Toolbar (Google工具栏简体中文版). We updated the user interface to use the space more effectively, and users will be able to translate pages with a single click and manage bookmarks with a new sidebar. This toolbar is only available in Simplified Chinese. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09p6k2h1Z4-1758LW6cCPgmLZSDerWN4EdpF-BevTMZtXgOcMJMTrHCyGoG5IUPasPZ_ZZVdAMkzMI1PBIKYTKxDejIXSTKgug1xsrZ4DqraFs_nOzWKRaWEKPvsrnb1hnvy9hYPfvtlF/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328023403952800866" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09p6k2h1Z4-1758LW6cCPgmLZSDerWN4EdpF-BevTMZtXgOcMJMTrHCyGoG5IUPasPZ_ZZVdAMkzMI1PBIKYTKxDejIXSTKgug1xsrZ4DqraFs_nOzWKRaWEKPvsrnb1hnvy9hYPfvtlF/s400/Picture+1.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 158px;" /></a>A few things to keep in mind as you check out Toolbar Labs: It's a forum to test out new ideas, so some of these ideas will make it into the standard Toolbar, but others may not. Also, Labs versions are not as well-tested as beta versions, so they may be slightly more unstable. And Toolbar Labs is currently available for Internet Explorer only. We hope to bring you the next batch soon. Meanwhile, we look forward to <a href="http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/request.py?contact_type=feedback">hearing your feedback</a> on these <a href="http://toolbar.google.com/labs/intl/en/index.html">two new toolbars</a>! Posted by Aseem Sood and Susan Taing, Toolbar Product Team

Try out new features in Google Toolbar Labs

One of the best things about working on the Google Toolbar team is that when someone says "Wouldn't it be great if Toolbar could......

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Congratulations to NSF CLuE Grant awardees

<div style="font-style: italic;">(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/congratulations-to-nsf-clue-grant.html">Google Research Blog</a>)</div><div> </div>The first goal of the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/let-thousand-servers-bloom.html">Academic Cluster Computing Initiative</a> was to familiarize the academic community with the methods necessary to run very large datasets on massive distributed computer networks. By <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/supporting-cluster-computing-in.html">expanding that program</a> to include research grants through the National Science Foundation's Cluster Exploratory (CLuE) program, we're also hoping to enable new and better approaches to data-intensive research across a range of disciplines. Now that the NSF has <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/progSearch.do?SearchType=progSearch&page=2&QueryText=&ProgOrganization=&ProgOfficer=&ProgEleCode=7782&BooleanElement=false&ProgRefCode=&BooleanRef=false&ProgProgram=&ProgFoaCode=&RestrictActive=on&Search=Search#results">announced the 2009 CLuE grants</a> in addition to some previous <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05053/nsf05053.jsp">Small Grant for Exploratory Research</a> (SGER) grants, we're excited to congratulate the recipient researchers and wish them the best as they bring new projects online and continue to run existing SGER projects on the Google/IBM cluster. The NSF selected projects based on their potential to advance computer science as well as to benefit society as a whole, and researchers at 14 institutions are tackling ambitious problems in everything from computer science to bioinformatics. The institutions receiving CLuE grants are Purdue, UC Santa Barbara, University of Washington, University of Massachussetts-Amherst, UC San Diego, University of Virginia, Yale, MIT, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Carnegie-Mellon, University of Maryland- College Park, University of Utah and UC Irvine. Florida International University, Carnegie-Mellon and University of Maryland will continue other projects with exiting SGER grants. These grantees will run their projects on a Google/IBM-provided cluster running an open source implementation of Google's <a href="http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html">MapReduce</a> and <a href="http://labs.google.com/papers/gfs.html">File System</a>. We're excited to help foster new approaches to difficult, data-intensive problems across a range of fields, and we can't wait to see more students and researchers come up with creative applications for massive, highly distributed computing. Posted by Jeff Walz, Head of University Relations, and Andrea Held, Program Manager

Congratulations to NSF CLuE Grant awardees

(Cross-posted from the Google Research Blog ) The first goal of the Academic Cluster Computing Initiative was to familiarize the academic c...

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Smarter shopping on smartphones

This weekend my wife and I went shopping for a birthday present for our 5-year-old nephew, and as usual we were looking for a gift at the last minute. We found ourselves in the toy aisle of a local store, unsure what to buy or how much these toys should cost. It could have been a stressful experience, but luckily I was able to reach into my pocket and use Google Product Search on my G1 to quickly see that the price of a building set was reasonable and that the reviews for a DVD were generally positive. I'm happy to announce that as of today, when you type a product query on Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser, you'll get Google Product Search results nicely formatted for your phone. You can see online ratings, reviews, prices, and product details if you're out and about, or just do some mobile web surfing from your couch. Whether you're trying to decide between two digital cameras while you're in a store or checking out prices for a new product that you've just seen on TV, we hope Google Product Search for mobile helps you to make better-informed shopping choices. Below, you can see Rob, one of our engineers, go on a shopping adventure at our Mountain View headquarters.  <object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y20cmESMZWo&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y20cmESMZWo&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object> Visit the <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-product-search-for-android-and.html">Google Mobile Blog</a> or <a href="http://google.com/support/mobile/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=21638">Help Center</a> to learn more. Or try it out by going to Google.com on your Android or iPhone device, type in a shopping query and then select the 'Shopping results' link. (Note that the experience is enabled for U.S. and U.K. users only.)<div> Posted by Yury Pinsky, Product Manager, Google Mobile team</div>

Smarter shopping on smartphones

This weekend my wife and I went shopping for a birthday present for our 5-year-old nephew, and as usual we were looking for a gift at the la...

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The "Investment Bankers" Strike Back: A Dissident is Thrown Off the Dartmouth Board

We have posted frequently on the governance and leadership of academic medical organizations. While one would think that health care organizations, and especially academic health care organizations ought to be held to a particularly high standard of governance, we have noted how their governance is often unrepresentative of key constituencies, opaque, unaccountable, unsupportive of the academic and health care mission, and not subject to codes of ethics. How the governance of organizations with such exemplary missions and sterling reputations got this way has been unclear. We have often come back to the example of Dartmouth College, of which Dartmouth Medical School is a significant component. We most recently summarized <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/04/hedge-fund-u-version-2.html">here</a> an ongoing dispute about the extent that the institution's board of trustees ought to represent the alumni at large, or instead, ought to be a self-elected body not clearly accountable to anyone else. When we first addressed the dispute, we noted that the self-elected, or "charter" members of the board were mostly leaders in finance, and when they succeeded increasing the proportion of self-elected members, the additions were again, mainly from finance. The latest development at Dartmouth is that the board, whose majority is now self-elected, is going to boot off one of the few members who was elected by the alumni at large after being nominated by petition of alumni. As described in <a href="http://thedartmouth.com/2009/04/17/opinion/zywicki/">an editorial in the college newspaper, The Dartmouth</a>, <blockquote> We were dismayed to learn of the Board of Trustees’ decision not to reelect Trustee Todd Zywicki ‘88 for a second term ('Board votes not to reelect Zywicki ‘88,' April 7). Even in the wake of Zywicki’s open letter to the Dartmouth community on Tuesday ('Zywicki ‘88 criticizes Board in open letter,' April 15), the Board has yet to provide the Dartmouth community with a sufficient explanation for the removal. Since 1990, when the power to reelect alumni trustees was transferred from alumni to the Board itself, reappointment to the Board for a second term has generally been routine; Zywicki is the first trustee in recent history to be denied reelection. Zywicki said in his letter that comments he made during an address at the John William Pope Center in October 2007 'might have been' one of the reasons behind the Board’s decision. In the address, Zywicki made a series of controversial and inflammatory statements, including calling former College President James Freedman 'truly evil.' Assuming that no egregious act remains undisclosed (and there has been no indication that this is the case), Zywicki’s removal disregards the will of the alumni who put him on the Board, and contradicts the democratic manner in which alumni elect trustees. Dissenting opinions are essential to the operation of any governing body. While Zywicki may have behaved unprofessionally, the public reprimand issued by the Board was sufficient punishment. It is one thing to reprimand a trustee for making statements against the College in a public forum, but to remove dissenting opinions from the boardroom is to undermine the will of the alumni who voted in support of those very views. </blockquote> Further <a href="http://thedartmouth.com/2009/04/20/news/haldeman/">news coverage in The Dartmouth </a>suggested a flawed process was used to get rid of Zywicki, <blockquote> Trustee T.J. Rodgers '70, who like Zywicki was nominated to be a candidate for the Board via petition and was successfully reelected at the April meeting, compared the reelection process to a 'witch-hunt trial' and said it was 'an affront to due process' in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. '[Zywicki] was ejected by a secret vote — he was not allowed to know the vote count or even the reasons behind his ejection,' Rodgers said in the e-mail. Rodgers added that he believes the decision not to reelect Zywicki was 'an embarrassment for the Board.' 'The effect of Todd’s ejection has been to warn me and any other trustee likely to speak his or her own mind to watch our step,' he said in the e-mail. </blockquote> Finally, Mr Rogers wrote his own <a href="http://thedartmouth.com/2009/04/22/opinion/rodgers/">commentary in The Dartmouth</a>, <blockquote> 'Hang one, warn a thousand' says the ancient Chinese proverb. In its April meeting, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees hanged Todd Zywicki '88, thus warning the petition trustees — and any others tempted to express independent views — not to cross the party line. The Board’s action was coldly deliberate. The legal machinery by which it was achieved took two years to construct. Every 20 years or so, when a majority of the alumni body decides that the College is ignoring a critical problem, it elects petition trustees to promote change. That tradition, a healthy method of governance that sets Dartmouth apart, goes back to 1891, when alumni were formally granted one-half of Dartmouth’s Board seats in return for financing the College. [After Rogers' election,] Subsequently, the alumni elected three more petition trustees with views similar to mine: Peter Robinson ‘79, Todd Zywicki ‘88 and Stephen Smith ‘88. It was no accident that each of them was a university professor or scholar. The Board Majority, predominantly composed of investment bankers, could have benefitted greatly from the new trustees’ education-first viewpoint, but instead, we were treated as if we were attacking the College. We were actually called a 'radical cabal' trying to 'hijack' the College by the Board member whose seat I had taken. The petition trustees had successfully overcome the penny-ante counterattacks, such as denying us the ability to mail our petitions to alumni to request signatures, and raising the required number of petition signatures, so it came time for the Board Majority to fix the petition trustee 'problem' permanently. First, the Majority Board members simply declared the right to double their number from eight to 16 without adding an equivalent number of alumni trustees, despite an Association of Alumni poll of 4,000 alumni, who responded in favor of alumni trustee parity, 92 percent to eight percent. Then, the Majority threw its weight and College funds into a campaign to remove the Association leaders who had sued the College for breaking the 1891 Agreement. In the boardroom, the Majority rewrote the 50 year-old Trustee Oath into an oath of loyalty, which was designed, in part, to limit trustees’ ability to express dissenting viewpoints without the direct threat of being ejected from the Board. And finally — fatally for Todd Zywicki — the Majority installed a formal review process that judged trustees against the new oath on a line-by-line basis. On the day of his trial, Zywicki was asked if he wanted to make a statement. He apologized again for his Pope Center speech and exited. In order to maintain the confidentiality of board proceedings, I cannot give details. However, I can say from personal knowledge that many of the statements made in that meeting about Todd Zywicki were factually incorrect, but Todd was not there to respond. In my opinion, all of the issues, including his speech, did not rise to the level of negating the votes of the alumni who elected Todd. Despite my objection, the vote — for the only time in my five years on the Board — was secret. Todd Zywicki’s greatest achievement as a Dartmouth trustee may well be having the personal courage to force the Board Majority to take responsibility for a political lynching. </blockquote> Since I started writing about the governance of health care organizations, I used <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2007/09/oceania-in-new-hampshire.html">the example of Dartmouth</a> (again, really a university with a medical school as a major component) as an example of governance that was more representative and accountable than that of many other health care organizations. Most universities that contain medical schools, for example, do not allow alumni to vote on the membership of more than a few board seats, and most only allow them to vote for alumni candidates hand-picked by the administration, not nominated by alumni petitions. However, since I started writing about Dartmouth, it seems that the self-elected majority of its board has done its best to make the board less representative and less accountable. Furthermore, it seems that some of the board's self-elected members regard anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy of the institution. Thus, their attitude seems to be: "l'universite c'est moi." However, the duties of boards of trustees include the duty to uphold the institution's mission, not the board members' personal whims. When I first started writing about these issues, I was surprised to find that the majority of the Dartmouth's boards self-elected, that is, "charter" trustees were from the finance sector. Now, having seen poor, sometimes arrogant, greedy, or even corrupt leadership of that sector bring down the world economy, I ask again whether people brought up in that culture ought to be dominant among the leadership of higher education?

The "Investment Bankers" Strike Back: A Dissident is Thrown Off the Dartmouth Board

We have posted frequently on the governance and leadership of academic medical organizations. While one would think that health care organiz...

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Happy Earth Day, Earthlings

Googlers around the world are celebrating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day">Earth Day</a> today by participating in events from green-themed film screenings in Singapore and Hyderabad, to a local food event in Kirkland, WA and Bike to Work Day in London. At our Mountain View campus, we're holding an environmental fair and hosting talks all week long as part of our Green@Google speaker series. We're also giving employees in most of our offices around the world next-generation, super-efficient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode">LED</a> light bulbs to encourage energy efficiency. (LEDs use up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs and 50% less energy than a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp">CFL</a>.) In the average U.S. home, lighting accounts for about 20% of the electricity bill. If every Googler changes out one incandescent light bulb for one of these LEDs, the combined impact would be the equivalent of taking over 4,000 cars off the road for one year! Of course, installing efficient light bulbs is just one way to cut down on energy consumption and costs. Just in time for Earth Day, the <a href="http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/">Climate Savers Computing Initiative</a>'s <a href="http://www.powerdownfortheplanet.org/">Power Down for the Planet</a> pledge campaign aimed at colleges and universities wrapped up last week. More than 17,000 students took <a href="http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/individual-join/">the pledge</a> to support more efficient computing. The <a href="http://www.umf.maine.edu/">University of Maine at Farmington</a> won the challenge, beating out 18 other schools with more than 24% of their campus community taking the pledge. You too can help save energy by enabling <a href="http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/learn/saving-energy-at-home/">power management</a> on your computer and buying <a href="http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/tools/smarter-computing-catalog/">more efficient computers</a>. As you take a moment today to think about how you can make our lovely patch of blue and green a little more healthy, we encourage you to explore a <a href="http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&preview=on&cat=featured">special gallery</a> of Google Earth layers we compiled to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. With the power of Google Earth, we have the ability to visualize geo-spatial information and help us better understand the true impact humankind has on the planet. For example, you can visualize the <a href="http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&preview=on&cat=featured&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmapplets.googlepages.com%2Fnsidc_glaciers_ocean.xml">changes in glaciers over the years</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&preview=on&cat=featured&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fmapfiles%2Fmapplets%2Fearthgallery%2FVancouver_Sea_Level_Rising.xml">rising sea levels</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&preview=on&cat=featured&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmapplets.googlepages.com%2Fmohc_defra_layer_ocean.xml">climatic change and rising temperature</a> from the feature KMLs in our Gallery. Like <a href="http://www.google.com/musics?lid=czFiCbCKRfL&aid=y_c5CseS6gP&sid=3DKfG6zozZP">others have said</a> before us, we like to think that every day is Earth Day. But on this 39th anniversary of the official Earth Day, we're showing Mother Earth a little extra love and care, and hope that you'll be doing the same. Posted by Lacy Caruthers, Green Business and Operations Strategy

Happy Earth Day, Earthlings

Googlers around the world are celebrating Earth Day today by participating in events from green-themed film screenings in Singapore and Hyd...

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