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Duke’s global reputation weakens

18 Oct 2011, Posted by Melissa Dalis in News, 1 Comments


Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Despite Duke’s recent obsession with global expansion, its global reputation may not be as strong as its national reputation, according to U.S. News and World Report’s World’s Best University rankings published Tuesday.

Duke was ranked 19 on the list with an overall score of 89.2, which accounted for factors such as academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, international faculty, international students and citations per faculty scores.

Duke had the 13th highest ranking of any U.S. university, which is lower than Duke has ever scored on USNWR’s national university rankings.

University of Cambridge topped the list, and each of the following national universities surpassed Duke in the rankings: Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Michigan, Cornell University and Johns Hopkins University.

In the faculty-student ratio category, Duke was 4th of the top 20 universities scoring 99.8 out of 100 and following only Yale, University of Oxford and MIT.

Out of the top 20, Duke had the 10th highest citations per faculty score.

Duke’s worst performance was in the international students and employer reputation scores, and the international faculty score was listed as “N/A.”

Although Duke did manage to remain ahead of some of its peers, such as University of California at Berkeley (21), Northwestern University (24), Brown University (39) and Dartmouth College (99), it did not manage to retain its spot as 14th on the list from 2010.

Doomsday—not

17 Oct 2011, Posted by Minshu Deng in News, 0 Comments


Special to The Chronicle

Y2K. 2012. Mayan prophesies. All the bees dying out. Comets hitting the earth and killing everything. This is what apocalyptic nerds dream of.

So when Comet Elenin happened to miss Earth this weekend by 22 million miles, the world of apocalyptic rumors let out a sigh of relief probably mixed with a bit of sadistic disappointment.

The reality is that this was hardly something to get excited about, in terms of doomsday rumors at least. Henry Greenside, professor and director of undergraduate studies in the physics department, wrote in an email that he puts the event of an Earth collision into scientific perspective.

“Scientists were able to forecast [Comet Elenin’s] position with enough accuracy so that it was not rational of people to believe the comet would strike the Earth,” he said. “The human race should be fearful of a future collision, we could be driven to extinction the same way as the dinosaurs. But we should not be fearful of an “imminent” collision. There is a good chance that no collision will occur until after the human race has spread out to other planets and moons, so no one collision will destroy the human race.”

In March of 2002, an asteroid unexpectedly passed within the Earth’s close vicinity, about 1.2 times the distance of the moon from the Earth. The 70-meter-long rock would have had the impact of a 4-megaton nuclear bomb, had it collided with Earth. Even this asteroid, however, ran “an extremely low risk of Earth collision” based on the elliptical nature of its orbit.

All in all, the chances of a collision seem unlikely, and it seems doomsday enthusiasts will be left waiting until 2012 for their next thrill of the moment. Picturing it in my head, all I can imagine is all-around Mardi Gras-esque festivities and Ricky Martin on repeat. I don’t know if this is something to look forward to or not, but 2012 will come whether we like it or not. The apocalypse? We’ll see.

DevilWatch: “It was for medical purposes”

17 Oct 2011, Posted by Melissa Dalis in DevilWatch, News, 0 Comments


A report of possession of marijuana and and drug paraphernalia in Duke Hospital North was “exceptionally cleared” by the Duke University Police Department last Wednesday afternoon—maybe it was for medical purposes?

Although DUPD seems to have forgotten to report the crimes from the week of Oct. 3 to Oct. 9, they have just reported 24 crimes during the week of Oct. 10 to Oct. 16.

Bicycles were a hot commodity last week with four stolen bicycles from Lilly Library, the Social Sciences building, Southgate and Gilbert Addoms.

Other thefts this week included a Blackberry phone, two cell phones, game console, license plate, mints, stamps, TV, video console and volt meter.

Friday and Saturday night were apparently big party nights, with underage consumption reported from Shooter’s, East campus bus stop, West campus bus stop, Wannamaker fire lane and twice from Alexander St.

Other reported crimes include assault of a law enforcement officer in the Williams Ward, injury to personal property in Duke Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant and two counts of breaking and entering on Alexander St. and Swift Ave.

The only arrest this week was for one count of possession of Marijuana in “Parking Garage 2.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Total crimes: 24

Crimes after sun down: 14

Thefts: 13

Weekend crimes: 10

Underage consumption: 6

Stolen bicycles: 4

iPhone upgrade: iOS 5

15 Oct 2011, Posted by Andrew Luo in News, 1 Comments


Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

The new iPhone operating system iOS 5 caused quite a stir when it was released Wednesday. Apple iPhone consumers have been eagerly awaiting for this upgrade since it was announced in June, and many rushed to download the iOS 5 just hours after it became operational online.

Here are some of the new features in Apple’s iOS 5 system.

iMessage
iPhone users are now able to send messages via WiFi and mobile data plans instead of SMS text messages. With this change, you will be able to chat with friends and family who are also using iOS 5 devices without worrying about text messaging capacity. Also, if you happen to be linked on WiFi—which is basically anywhere on Duke’s campus—the new iMessage will not even count as part of the mobile data plan. This new texting system is not only convenient to use but also gives the added benefit of saving money.

Wireless sync
For many, freedom from plugging their iPhones to their computers is a huge plus. The iOS 5 allows users to sync with iTunes wirelessly to load music, movies, applications and documents. Additionally, you can also download upgrades to the iOS 5 operating system straight to your phone without using a cable.

Centralized notifications
Instead of having the clutter of notifications at one time, the iOS 5 combines all notifications together under a single Notification Center. This change creates a central location to get all your notifications instead having the frequent popups from previous iPhone versions, effectively getting rid of the slew of annoying notifications.

iCloud
Think Dropbox—but better. The iCloud is Apple’s cloud storage system where photos taken on your iPhone can be loaded directly to your computer without syncing. Also, iCloud gives users 5GB of space for free, which is more storage than Dropbox. Much like iOS5’s feature of wireless syncs, the iCloud gives the iPhone more freedom and convenience.

For Duke students, reactions toward the new iPhone iOS5 operating system produced varied sentiments.

On one hand, some students grew a quick fondness to iOS5.

“I downloaded iOS 5 the day it was released,” said freshman Jay Canarick. “I really liked the new notification center—it was convenient and easy to use.”

However, other students still are not so sure about the switch.

“I heard that the download time for iOS 5 is really long,” said freshman Lucie Yang. “And I’ll also have to re-sync all my data.”

It is still too early to decide whether the iOS 5 is going to be a success or not. Consumers have already begun to file complaints against the new operating system. According to a Washington Post article, installation of the iOS 5 produced an array of errors on certain phones. Some consumers claimed that installation of iOS 5 erased all previous data on the phone. Others noted that iOS 5 simply would not install. Nevertheless, the positives still stand firmly. The new features of the iOS 5, as well as the concurrent release of the iPhone 4S, are certainly going to be strong consumer products in the following months to come.

RandomICEation

14 Oct 2011, Posted by Arden Kreeger in News, 0 Comments


It’s hardly random that Kari Lock skated her way into Duke’s department of statistical sciences.

The newly appointed assistant professor of the practice of statistics, Lock spent seven years as a professional ice skater before developing a new theoretical framework for randomization in scientific experiments.

“[Randomization] is kind of the backbone of scientific research,” Lock said.

As a graduate student at Harvard University, Lock focused her research on improving randomization in randomized experiments—experiments designed to determine causation between two or more factors.

“If you want to see whether something causes something else, you randomly determine who gets which level of the variable, and see whether there’s an effect,” said Lock.

In a randomized experiment, it is possible that experimental groups will not be diverse enough after initial randomization efforts, she said.

“My research is looking at a way of checking [experimental group compositions] before [one does] the experiment, and [re-randomizing] if you get a bad randomization,” said Lock.

Lock was a competitive figure skater until she graduated high school, when she began performing professionally. For two years she toured full-time with a show called Holiday on Ice, traveling around Europe, Asia and Central America.

Lock said her experiences as a skater provided her with important insights for her academic pursuits.

“Just because something doesn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it’s never going to work,” said Lock. “You always fall the first 100 times you’re doing a jump [on ice], but if you keep working at it, you perfect it and it becomes second nature.”

Although Lock plans to continue her research, her focus at Duke is on undergraduate education.

“A lot of my time, and where my passion lies now, is in education,” she said. “I think a lot of my efforts are going to be towards making undergraduate statistics classes fun, informative and useful for everyone who takes them.”

Lock believes her work can help Duke faculty improve their research.

“I’m hoping to work with people in other departments because there are many different disciplines that work with randomization,” she said.