In August 2009, the World Health Organization reported more than 182,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu (H1N1) in some 30 countries around the world. At least 1,799 people have died from the disease. Since the first cases emerged in spring 2009, H1N1 has become a pandemic. With the northern hemisphere heading into flu season this fall, some researchers are concerned H1N1 may be similar to the virus behind a 1957 pandemic that killed two million people worldwide.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Approximately 60 new doctoral students will receive support at Washington State University over the next five years to conduct cutting-edge research in critical research areas in the environment and health as part of two prestigious National Science Foundation grants.

The Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program, NSF’s flagship interdisciplinary training program, will provide $6 million to WSU to develop two multi-disciplinary doctoral programs.

"These IGERTS are an immense step forward in meeting the strategic goals of the Graduate School and Washington State University,’’ said Howard Grimes, vice president for Research and dean of the Graduate School. “Having three active NSF-funded IGERTs puts us in an elite position in the US.” 

by MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist

Humans are creatures of habit, as a sensor-stuffed apartment at Washington State University in Pullman knows. The smart home can learn the ways of its inhabitants simply by observing how they walk around and use different appliances.

The technology could be used in houses to support people with cognitive difficulties or dementia with their daily living needs, or to make things easier for healthy people.

The apartment can, for example, recognise when a person is performing actions associated with making breakfast. If the person absent-mindedly leaves a stove burner on, the system can spot the anomaly and prompt them with audio and video signals to return to the hob.
Quick learner?

Diane Cook and colleagues developed the computer system that analyses the sensors' output, known as Casas.

Show your creative side with Paint.net Paint.net has a checkered past as a free open source solution. Originally released as a completely open source project, its developers were forced to scale back to a more restrictive Creative Commons License (still freely available, but without source code) after unscrupulous parties decided to rename the original and try to resell it for profit.

SANDEFJORD, Norway & OXNARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nevion (www.nevion.com), a leading video transport solution provider for broadcasters, telecommunications service providers and government entities worldwide, announced today that Chin Koh has been named director of product management for its Ventura product line.

Working from Nevion’s USA headquarters in Oxnard, CA, Koh has global responsibility for the development and placement of the Ventura suite of modular video transport solutions.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a talent such as Chin at Nevion,” said John Glass, Nevion’s executive vice president of marketing. “Chin brings a unique blend of business and technical expertise to our advanced video transport solutions. His product acumen, enthusiasm and natural inclination for innovation will greatly enhance the continued development of our Ventura product family.”

PALO ALTO, Calif. – July 28, 2009 -- VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at Washington State University has upgraded to VMware vSphere 4 and identified several specific features, including VMware vStorageTM Thin Provisioning, VMware Fault Tolerance and VMware High availability (HA), that make VMware vSphere™ 4 a strong platform for the School of EECS’s implementation of cloud computing.

PULLMAN - A  team of WSU engineering faculty and assessment specialists won the prestigious American Society for Engineering Education Best Overall Conference Paper award for “A Direct Method for Teaching and Assessing Professional Skills.”
 
 Ashley Ater Kranov, Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology and Robert G. Olsen, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education for the College of Engineering and Architecture, received the award at the 2009 ASEE conference in Austin Texas on June 18.  Carl Hauser, Computer Science faculty, and Laura Girardeau, assessment specialist, were co-authors.
 

Blog by Kristina Grifantini of Technology Review
Today kicks off the three-day MobiSys 2009 conference in Krakow, Poland--a showcase of emerging mobile and wireless technology. And one paper that caught my eye comes from Washington State University and the U.S. Geological Survey. WSU Researchers will present a paper that shows how an air-dropped mesh sensor network can monitor volcanoes in real time.

PULLMAN, Wash – Partha Pratim Pande, assistant professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award to design a tiny and sophisticated wireless communications system – all on an integrated circuit that measures only about 20 millimeters on each side.

With the five-year, $450,000 award, Pande and his research group are working to develop a wireless network on a multicore computer chip. With hundreds of computer processors on present-day integrated circuits, the conventional metal wires that connect them have become an increasing problem. The traditional metal wire-based communication between two distant cores in a single chip gives rise to high latency and energy dissipation.

Last fall, junior Yusuf Surur did something he didn’t think he would be doing when he was a freshman: rooting for the Cougars in the Apple Cup. Surur started his college career at the University of Washington, but after a couple years started to feel he would have more opportunities and get more of a complete college experience at WSU. “UW life is kind of like a large community college in the middle of a city,” he said. “I like the atmosphere over here more.”