BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

GETTING TO THE MOMENT OF DISCOVERY

harles H. Duell, U.S. patent office commis-sioner under Theodore Roosevelt, said, “Every-thing that can be invented has been invented.”He recommended that Roosevelt close thepatent office in 1899.

Today it’s hard to imagine that anyone couldbelieve as Duell did. As the body of human knowl-edge expands at an unprecedented rate — some

projections suggest that by 2020 itwill double every 73 days — wetake a more humble approach todiscovery. We celebrate our Eurekamoments not only for what theymake clear to us, but also for whatthey reveal about how much morewe can expect to discover.

At Binghamton, we believe in theenduring power of scholarship andresearch. Over the past three yearswe have seen a near doubling of

external funding applications to more than $100million, leading to a record $22 million in awardsthis year. From our recent hiring of a new assistantvice president for technology transfer and economicdevelopment to new programs in the life sciencesand engineering, our commitment to redefining“the possible” as a means of promoting vitality andeconomic diversity is unwavering.

We recognize, too, that research is our stake inthe future — that every partnership we pursue,every Eureka moment we enable and every curiositywe quicken becomes a part of the tapestry ofdiscovery. That’s why we aggressively pursue state,federal and private-sector investments to expandcore laboratory facilities, state-of-the-art equipment,entrepreneurial faculty and graduate stipends.

The scope of the research and scholarship fea-tured in this publication validates my belief in theimportance of the work being done acrossBinghamton University’s five schools and 35 aca-demic departments. In partnerships on and offcampus, it’s clear that our faculty and students areigniting innovation, imagination and invention inand beyond the Southern Tier.

If only Mr. Duell could see us now.

Frances E. CarrVice President for Research

ach of us has had moments of insight whenconfusion and questions gave way to newperceptions and knowledge. Greek mathemati-cian Archimedes exclaimed, “Eureka! I havefound it.”

In this issue of Inside Research, we share some ofthe many Eureka moments of our faculty. You willread about the breakthrough research of biologist

David Davies to unlock the secretsof health-threatening bacterialcolonies, the internationally recog-nized work of management profes-sor Bruce Avolio on civilian andmilitary leadership styles, and thedigital security discoveries bymathematician Jessica Fridrich. Youwill also learn about the schoolhealth report card developed at theDecker School of Nursing that isbecoming a national model, and the

insights of author Thomas Glave, whose recentwork is earning him as well as the Universitywidespread acclaim.

As biology researcher Susannah Gal points out,Eureka moments of insight and discovery comemost readily to those who have prepared well. Overthe past several years the University has focusedmore intensely on preparing and equipping ourstudents and faculty to make their own discoveriesand to improve those made by others.

We have constructed and renovated new labora-tory facilities, created new research centers andacademic programs, continued to recruit talentedfaculty and students, and competed successfully forprivate and public research funding. Our goal is toprepare our graduates for the challenges of a highlytechnological, fast-paced global economy and toencourage our faculty to contribute innovationsthat will extend economic and social benefits to all.

We are proud to share with colleagues andsupporters the bounties of our excellence.

Lois B. DeFleurPresident

E C

EDITORIAL STAFF

EditorMartin J. Doorey

Contributing WritersSusan E. Barker, Ryan Crissy, Katie Ellis, Gail Glover

DesignDavid Skyrca

PhotographyEvangelos Dousmanis

Copy editingTrudi Marrapodi

Learn more about Binghamton University:

WWW.BINGHAMTON.EDU

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

CONTENTS

2 BriefsUpdates on new grants, programs and awards

4 Tale of the bonesAnthropologist traces death and disease through skeletal remains

6 Winged warriorsTracking the West Nile virus via predator and prey

8 Digital secretsUsing technology to send, receive secret messages

10 Teaching technologyComputers, cameras replace chalk and blackboards in the classroom

12 Slime fighterResearcher seeks to unravel secrets of lethal bacterial colonies

14 Eureka!Patience, knowledge (and sometimes just luck) can trigger the moment of discovery

18 In-depth studiesResearch plumbs for better way to find buried objects

20 Quirky quarksTheorist’s questions spur search for sub-atomic particles

22 Follow meFinding out “What makes leaders tick?”

24 Making memoriesInfant exposure to alcohol may last a lifetime

26 School check-upsDecker School grades public school nurses

28 ProfileWriter uses stories to explore human rights issues

Inside Research is published annually asa joint project of the Office of UniversityCommunications and Marketing and theOffice of Research and Sponsored Programs.This is the fifth edition.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:Inside Research, Office of UniversityCommunications and Marketing, PO Box 6000,Binghamton, NY 13902-6000.

Binghamton University is strongly committedto affirmative action. We offer access toservices and recruit students and employeeswithout regard to race, color, gender,religion, age, disability, marital status,sexual orientation or national origin.

BINGHAMTON UNIVERS ITY

Lois B. DeFleurPresident

Frances E. CarrVice President for Research

John HachtelAssociate Vice President forUniversity Communications and Marketing

Denise CzuprynskiDirector of Publications

Anita Knopp DollDirector of Communications

Susan E. BarkerDirector of Communications for Research

Cover illustration: © Mark Weber/SIS

4

NIGHTSHADE’S CHEMISTRYIRRESISTIBLE TO HORNWORMS

Binghamton researchers have found evidence that the eating habits of the tobaccohornworm are affected by a chemical found in one of its favorite foods — leading toperhaps the first clear evidence of chemical sensory tuning in insects.

The work of researchers CarolMiles, an assistant professor ofbiology, and Marta del Campo, apost-doctoral fellow, regardingthe eating preferences of theManduca sexta moth meriteda report in the May 10 issue ofthe British journal Nature.

Miles and del Campo havediscovered that hawkmoth larvae,commonly known as tobacco horn-worms, respond to a chemicalstimulant in leaves of the night-shade family of plants — tomatoes, potatoes, petunias and eggplants. The stimulant isso strong that the hornworms would rather starve than switch. Nightshade leaves areso beneficial a food that the larvae’s size increases by a factor of 10 in the final four daysbefore they molt into hawkmoths the size of a bird.

The secret, Miles and del Campo have discovered, is that nightshade leaves containthe substance Indioside D, which spurs neurophysiological changes in the larvae thatalter their behavior. There is no indication that Indioside D has any significant nutritionalvalue, but the researchers’ next investigative project will look at the possibility that thesubstance is somehow integral to the insects’ development.

Their work is funded in part by a $98,552 grant from the National Science Foundation.

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH BRIEFSPROJECT WILL TRY TO CORRECT

STUDENTS’ MISGUIDED SCIENCE

When Nancy Stamp asks elemen-tary school children where the“stuff” that makes up trees andplants comes from, many immediatelyrespond “from the soil.” In fact,plants and trees, which consist mostlyof carbon, get most of the materialsthey need to exist from carbondioxide — a gas from the air, not theground.

To help end such common sciencemisconceptions, Stamp is using a$1.16 million National ScienceFoundation three-year grant to teamBinghamton University students withK-12 classroom teachers to developlessons to counter young students’most common misconceptions aboutthe world.

Stamp, a professor of biology atBinghamton, said, “There are lots ofthese basic misunderstandings abouthow the world works.”

BIG SCREEN PANELS

GET A BU BOOST

Bigger, clearer, cheaper — when itcomes to flat-screen television, it’s thehottest ticket in town. The latestdevelopments in the technology arepartially the result of research con-ducted by James Constable, professorof electrical engineering, and GaryLehman and James Pitarresi, associateprofessors of mechanical engineering,who have worked together to bondliquid crystal circuitry to glass paneldisplays to make 38-inch flat-panelTV screens.

The trio, part of the University’sIntegrated Electronics EngineeringCenter, are teamed with researchersat Cornell University and KaiserElectronics of California as part of a$2 million grant to Rainbow DisplaysInc. of Endicott to perfect the tech-nology and bring it to market. Thegrant is from the National Instituteof Standards and Technology’sAdvanced Technology Program.

THE DRIVE FOR SAFETY

WINS A GRANT

When you’re driving down theroad trying to pay attention totraffic, and speed, and weather, andstill follow the map, it can get prettyhairy and unsafe. Predicting howdrivers react under such tryingconditions — and then throwing inthe influence of the ubiquitous cellphone — has earned Universityresearchers and a Southern Tiermaker of driver simulators a$512,000 grant from the Office ofNaval Research.

Frank Cardullo, associate profes-sor of mechanical engineering, and

Harold Lewis, associate professorof systems science and industrialengineering, are working witha simulator from Doron PrecisionSystems, Inc. of Binghamton toconstruct a mathematical model thatpredicts how human factors influencetasks such as driving.

“We’ll start with simple drivingand navigational tasks; then we’llmake the navigation more and morecomplex so the driving becomesmore and more cognitive,” Cardullosaid. The Navy will apply theresearch to the complex and some-times dangerous conditions its pilotsand sailors face.

A HORNWORM SITS ON THE FINGER OF RE-

SEARCHER CAROL MILES. THE LARVA OF THE

HAWKMOTH HAS A BUILT-IN PREFERENCE FOR

LEAVES OF THE NIGHTSHADE FAMILY, WHICH

INCLUDES TOBACCO, TOMATOES AND OTHER

COMMON PLANTS.

5

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

KUDOS❚ For his scholarly indictment of the wartime emperor of Japanfor war crimes, Herbert P. Bix, a just-appointedprofessor of history and sociology, was named a winner of the2001 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Bix’s provocative

work, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan,challenges the widely held belief that EmperorHirohito was unaware of and uninvolved in WorldWar II-era war crimes. Bix, using a broad-brushapproach that began with Japan’s pre-war invasion of Manchuria in 1936,asserts that Hirohito was an active force in his nation’s conduct of the war.

❚ A newly discovered multi-millennium-old bacterium that feeds on minerals in the muckof the Dead Sea now bears the honorific name of Alex Shrift, a Universitybiologist who died in 1992. Selenihalanaerobacter shrifti represents a just-discoveredgenus and species turned up by a team from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Menlo, Calif.,laboratory. The team renamed “DSSe-1” to celebrate Shrift’s work on bacteria that feedoff the chemical selenium. Their discovery and the new name was unveiled in theArchives of Microbiology earlier this year.

❚ Four faculty members were honored for their distinguished research by State UniversityChancellor Robert L. King during the past year.

Kathryn Kish Sklar, distinguished professor of history and co-directorof the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender, was cited for work thatuses the complexity of individual women’s lives to understand the historical forces. Sklarrecently received a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanitiesto expand her highly acclaimed women’s history website.

Bruce Avolio, a 2000 winner of the University’s Excellence in ResearchAward and an internationally recognized expert on leadership, was cited for his role indeveloping a leadership school to help area schools meet a critical need for the nextgeneration of administrators. (See story, pages 22-23.)

Ronald Miles, mechanical engineering professor, whose work in developingan omnidirectional hearing aid, inspired by the ears of a fly, was cited for his ability toturn theory into practical solutions. Miles recently won a $3.15 million grant to continuehis work. In addition to the new military uses, his work has civilian applications includingsecurity devices, cell phones and teleconferencing equipment. The work will includepartnerships with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Boeing Phantom Worksof Seattle and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.

Omowunmi Sadik, assistant professor of chemistry, was cited for herwork in developing an “electronic nose” so sensitive that it can pick up even traceamounts of organic chemicals. Her work was described as “a watershed in the field ofenvironmental monitoring.” Sadik is seeking patents on new applications for this workthat will replace the use of dogs in drug- and bomb-sniffing operations.

COMMON PLANT,

UNCOMMON RESEARCH

After almost 10 years of work withcolleagues from around the globe,Susannah Gal can take pride in beingon the first team to map a completeplant gene sequence. While theresearch was uncommon enough tobe noted in the December 14, 2000,issue of the British science journalNature, the subject of inquirywas the most common of plants,thale cress, otherwise known asArabidopsis thaliana.

Thale cress, a cousin of the cab-bage and mustard family, was chosenfor its small physical and genomesize. Its genome, the mechanism thatpasses molecules of DNA from onegeneration to another, has about25,000 genes. Gal concentrated her

SUSANNAH GAL

portion of the research on genes thatproduce enzymes, or proteases, thatbreak down other proteins. Aftercompletion, her results were submit-ted to the international Arabidopsisdatabase.

“Now everyone in the world canaccess the research conducted here atBinghamton,” Gal said. “My guess isthat we’ll start seeing the benefits ofour research in less than 10 years.”

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

Tale of the bones

Just five years after receiving herPhD, Steadman has an impressiverésumé. At mass graves in Argentinaand individual graves in Cyprus, shehas worked with human rights agen-cies dedicated to identifying victims ofcivil unrest and international conflict.At the request of police agencies in sev-eral states, she has differentiated old“trophy” skulls found in basements,attics and pawn shops from possiblemodern homicide cases.

From skeletal remains, she’s helpeddetermine poaching as the cause of anIowa bear death and dashed the hopesof several Chicago-area hunters whothought they’d stumbled onto instantcelebrity and the remains of JimmyHoffa until Steadman assured them theremains were those of deer.

Thirty to 80 percent of all remainsbrought to forensic anthropologiststurn out to be those of animals,Steadman said. But sometimes, theyare not.

In the summer of 2000, for what wasthe first time in her career, she gavekey testimony in a murder trial.Steadman told the Iowa jury about be-ing called to a scene where police wererecovering bones from the bottom of a

ot a day goes by thatDawnie Wolfe Steadmanisn’t boning up on herdiscipline. A forensicanthropologist,Steadman is trained

to identify decomposed humanremains, analyze the record ofdisease or injury etched intoskeletons during life, and trans-late the personal and communalhistories revealed by the 206bones of the human body.

NANTHROPOLOGISTTRACES DEATH ANDDISEASE THROUGHSKELETAL REMAINS

USING INDELIBLE EVIDENCE ETCHED INTO

BONES, ANTHROPOLOGIST DAWNIE WOLFE

STEADMAN IS ABLE TO SAY WHETHER DEATH

OR DISEASE PLAYED A ROLE IN THE PERSON’S

DEATH. BROADLY SPEAKING, HER RESEARCH

CAN TRACK THE EFFECT OF DISEASE ON A

CULTURE, OR MORE NARROWLY, HELP CATCH

CRIMINALS WHO THOUGHT THEIR DEEDS WERE

BURIED WITH THE BODIES.4

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

”EVERYTHING ABOUT CULTURE AFFECTS BIOLOGY AND VICE VERSA.“

well. She testified about how she hadstayed topside, putting the recoveredremains in anatomical position andguiding the search until a completeskeleton was recovered. She then tes-tified about working in collaborationwith a forensic pathologist and x-rayrecords to positively identify the vic-tim, who had been shot with two hand-guns and thrown into the well wherehis body remained undiscovered forabout 10 years.

Her reward in such cases, she said,is to help families learn the truth aboutmissing loved ones, help law enforce-ment officers resolve unanswered ques-tions and, in criminal cases, see theguilty prosecuted.

“Testifying at the murder trial wasnot something I enjoyed doing,” shesaid. “My examination uncoveredmore than 50 wounds that were gun-shots or gunshot related — woundsdue to secondary projectiles: bits ofbone or bullets. Essentially, my testi-mony allowed that person who couldnot speak to say to the court, ‘Lookwhat happened to me.’”

The human rights applications ofher work are even more powerful. In1991, Steadman worked for threemonths in Argentina with the Argen-tine Forensic Anthropology Team, at amass grave where 300 of the estimated15,000 to 30,000 people who disap-peared during that country’s “DirtyWar” of 1976 to 1983 were dumped.The experience had a profound effecton her.

In 1999 she traveled to Cyprus withmembers of Physicians for HumanRights to identify remains found in 25-

year-old graves: victims of the fight-ing between Greek and Turkish Cyp-riots. Unaccounted-for Greek Cypriotsoldiers have been at the root of majorpolitical and social unrest in Cyprus formany years, Steadman said.

Steadman, who was drawn to foren-sic work from the broader field of bio-logical anthropology (which specifi-cally focuses on the skeleton), came toBinghamton University in 2000 fromIowa State University.

In her research Steadman usesbones, some as old as 1,000 years, tounderstand the relationship betweenbiology and culture, particularly as itrelates to the cause and the spread ofdisease in prehistoric and modernhuman populations.

“Everything about culture affectsbiology and vice versa,” she said.

Cultures change in response to dis-ease, ranging from the medieval con-struction of sanitaria, where afflictedpersons were imprisoned and left todie, to public health policies that man-date vaccinations.

“If we’re doing epidemiology of pastpopulations,” Steadman said, “wecount cases and then try to understandwhat it is about this population thatallowed them to support infectious dis-ease. There’s a critical mass, a numberof people and a range of activity thatyou have to have for the disease to bepropagated, so it tells us about the liv-ing conditions of the population.”

Because many diseases leave mark-ers on bones, “counting cases” is of-ten possible based solely on skeletalremains. In its chronic form, for in-stance, tuberculosis disseminates

throughout the body and attacks theskeleton, particularly the spine. Like-wise, such chronic diseases as syphi-lis, leprosy and certain types of fungalinfections leave a lasting legacy on thebones. Signs of non-contagious dis-eases, such as some cancers, also showup on skeletal remains.

Steadman’s work most often findsitself in the spotlight when she con-sults with police or disaster manage-ment agencies. As a result, her campusspace includes a teaching lab, a re-search lab and an evidence room.

When decomposed remains arefound, she works with police and areacoroners and pathologists to establishidentities as well as cause and time ofdeath. To facilitate that process, she issetting up a research project to deter-mine how quickly bodies decompose inconditions specific to upstate NewYork.

“These are very important studies,”she said. “When remains are discov-ered, one of the most often-asked ques-tions is ‘How long have they been dead,Doc?’ Until we do enough studies tounderstand how fast or slow we canexpect things to decay in this particu-lar area of New York, we’ll just have toshrug our shoulders with everyone elseand say, ‘Gee, I don’t know.’”

Steadman is also a member of thenational Disaster and Mortuary Opera-tion Response Team, a group of expertscalled in to identify victims of planecrashes, explosions or disasters toolarge to be handled by local agencies.

The most important message shehopes to get across is that every per-son, regardless of age or cause of death,has a life history recorded in the skel-eton — that every bone, any bone, hasthe potential to be the key to identify-ing human remains.

“If a single finger bone has a pathol-ogy that can be matched to pre-mortemrecords,” Steadman said, “that’s an ID.”

5

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

An associate professor of biologicalsciences, Shepherd has been workingwith the Broome County Department ofEnvironmental Health since last sum-mer, collecting and identifying mosqui-toes for virus testing. The University’sunofficial entomologist, Shepherd re-ceived additional training in mosquitosurveillance and identification beforestarting his research.

Clark, also an associate biology pro-fessor, is extending her studies of crowsto determine their role in spreading thedeadly virus.

“It’s a common misconception thatthere are only a few different kinds ofmosquitoes,” Shepherd said, pointingout that there are about 65 species inNew York state. “Their biology can dif-fer quite a lot.”

It’s important to know the differ-ences, he added. “Different mosquitoeshave different likelihoods of carryingthe virus,” he said.

Collecting and identifying mosqui-toes has become an important element

mosquitoes can smell. Mosquitoes at-tracted to the trap are sucked into acollection net by a small fan.

The second type of trap, a Gravidtrap, is designed to capture egg-bear-ing females. Gravid-trapped mosqui-toes have fed at least once before lay-ing their eggs and are therefore morelikely to carry the virus.

The second phase of the researchinvolves identifying captured mosqui-toes and larvae. Specimens are frozenwith dry ice and identified using mos-quito guides. The mosquitoes aresorted by types likely to carry the vi-rus, including Aedes triseriatus, Aedes

Winged warriorsRESEARCHERS TRACK WEST NILE VIRUSVIA PREDATOR AND PREY

Lof the fight against West Nile, amosquito-borne virus that can causeencephalitis, a potentially fatal swell-ing of the brain. Since 1999, the virushas been responsible for eight deathsand more than 65 serious illnesses inthe New York metropolitanregion alone.

Using a $2,400 BroomeCounty grant, Shepherd andtwo undergraduate assistantscollect, identify and test mos-quitoes.

Shepherd uses small nets tocollect mosquito larvae frombreeding areas such as sewers,storm drains, swimming poolsand other sites where there isstanding water. Adult mos-quitoes are captured withboth nets and traps.

Shepherd uses two types oftraps to collect adult speci-mens. The first attracts mos-quitoes through light and car-bon dioxide emissions the

JULIAN SHEPHERD PUTS UP TRAPS TO CAPTURE

MOSQUITOES, THE BEARERS OF THE DEADLY

WEST NILE VIRUS. AFTER CAPTURING THE

MOSQUITOES, SHEPHERD MUST DETERMINE

WHETHER THEY BELONG TO ONE OF THE SPECIES

THAT TYPICALLY CARRY THE DISEASE. OF THE 65

SPECIES FOUND IN NEW YORK, ONLY A FEW

HARBOR WEST NILE VIRUS.

ike mountain climbers assailing a peak from differentslopes, researchers Julian Shepherd and Anne Clark areusing different approaches to reach a common goal.Shepherd, an expert on insects, and Clark, an authority

on the social behavior of birds, are working on two separateresearch projects that may have an impact on New York state’sthree-year-old battle against the West Nile virus.

6

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

vexans, Culex restuans and Culexpipiens, also known as the Northernhouse mosquito.

C. pipiens is the most likely vectorfor transmitting the virus to humans,Shepherd says. While it primarily feedson American crows, it will occasion-ally feed on humans and other mam-mals when the need arises. It’s this pro-pensity that increases the likelihood ofpassing the disease on.

“West Nile has been particularlyharmful to crows,” Shepherd said.

After collecting and identifyingmosquitoes, Shepherd sends selectedspecimens to Albany for testing. Lastfall, he sent in more than a dozensamples, all of which tested negative.He noted that more than a dozen birdstested positive during the same period.

Clark is investigating West Nile fromthe crow’s vantage point. Clark is col-laborating with Kevin McGowan,curator and senior research associate incharge of the ornithology and mammal-ogy collections at Cornell University,on a project to examine how socialbehavior can put crows at risk for thevirus or, possibly, protect them. Theyare currently seeking funding for theproject from the National ScienceFoundation and the Centers forDisease Control.

“Essentially, we’re marrying a threat

to crows with our interest in aviansocial behavior,” Clark said.

Since 1998, Clark has collaboratedwith McGowan on demographic andbehavioral research on crows in theIthaca area.

Clark says she developed a long-term interest in crows and their behav-ior in part because they aren’t migra-tory. “They maintain territories all year’round,” she said. “Instead of going outand breeding on their own, some of theyounger crows spend many years onfamily territory assisting in rearing. It’sa cooperative breeding situation.”

It’s this kind of social behavior Clarksays may help determine how the vi-rus is spread through crow populationsand shed some light on whether it’sdirectly communicable or wholly vec-tor borne. Through observation andblood testing, she also hopes to learnwhether the birds are developingantibodies rather than succumbing tothe disease.

Clark says diseases like West Nilearen’t unheard of in crows.

“Vector-borne diseases aren’t new tobirds in the Northeast,” she said, cit-ing examples such as avian malaria,eastern equine encephalitis and St.Louis encephalitis. “Birds, includingcrows, just make good reservoirs.They’re an essential part of the virus’maintenance cycle.”

In the case of West Nile, this cycletypically doesn’t include mammals,Clark said. “West Nile virus is not re-ally a mammalian disease. Mammals gethit by mosquitoes that can’t find a birdor mosquitoes that are very broad intheir food preferences,” she said.

Clark looks at West Nile as just an-other organism trying to fulfill its ge-netic destiny. She says that viruses like

West Nile need mosquitoes to carrythem to another organism where theycan replicate. The host typically devel-ops an active infection called a vire-mia, during which the virus circulatesthrough the blood stream and otherbodily fluids, waiting to be picked upby another mosquito.

“Mammals are not a very good link,”she added.

In the future, Clark says, she wantsto research disease as a long-termselection pressure on animals.

“Everybody studies predators’quality of food and space, but diseaseis an under-appreciated selection pres-sure, especially in terms of the amountof mortality it causes,” she said.

Clark says disease is overlooked be-cause its effects are often invisible.When an animal is sick, it weakens andbecomes easy prey for other animals ordies of starvation.

“Pathogens are a much stronger evo-lutionary force than previously real-ized,” she said.

Similar to Clark’s, Shepherd’s re-search has opened new avenues hewants to explore.

“There are some amazing holes inmosquito biology we’d like to fill in,”he said.

Shepherd plans to examine variousaspects of egg laying, including thechemical characteristics of the waterand how mosquitoes sense the depthat which eggs are laid. He and Clarkhope to collaborate on research on therelationship between how high mos-quitoes forage and whether birdschoose their roosting sites in relationto mosquito attacks.

“Nobody has really looked at that,”Shepherd said. “Just how we’re goingto look at it is another question.”

ANNE CLARK’S LONG-TIME

INTEREST IN THE SOCIAL

BEHAVIOR OF CROWS LED HER

TO BEGIN INVESTIGATING

WHETHER THEIR SOCIAL

STRUCTURE PLAYS A ROLE IN

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE

WEST NILE VIRUS.

7

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

RESEARCHER UNCOVERS TECHNOLOGY’SSECRET MESSAGES

hough Jessica Fridrich’s research career had itsfoundation in chaos and many of her greatestaccomplishments are invisible, scientists and nationalsecurity officials watch her work closely.

A research professor in the Depart-ment of Systems Science and IndustrialEngineering in the Thomas J. WatsonSchool of Engineering and AppliedScience, Fridrich specializes insteganography, the science of secretcommunication.

Her work has already helped to spurmajor strides in the security of digitalcommunications, including digital au-dio, video and photography, and isexpected to lead to even more signifi-cant advances, said Richard Simard, atechnical adviser to the Air Force Re-search Laboratory in Rome.

“To be completely honest, I’veworked in research and developmentfor the federal government for about28 years, and I have never seen such abrilliant mathematician who also hasthe unique qualities of being able totranslate theory to practical applica-tions,” Simard said.

Some steganographic techniques,such as invisible inks and encryption,have been around for centuries, but thefirst scientific papers on digitalsteganography and digital steganalysis— the investigation of hidden informa-

tion — were published around 1993.Fridrich’s interest in the field grew outof her doctoral studies at BinghamtonUniversity, which focused on digitalchaos, a process used to encrypt infor-mation by chaotically mixing pixelpositions and colors in digital images.

A recent $315,000 grant from theAir Force extends a six-year run of con-sistent Air Force funding for Fridrich’sresearch. During that period 13 re-search grants have been awarded total-ing more than $1.2 million.

While much of Fridrich’s researchfocuses on developing mathematicaltheory and appropriate equipment tohide information in digital communi-cations, she also works on ways tocrack encryption schemes of her ownand others’ making.

“We need to build data-hidingschemes, but not only that — we alsoneed to attack them to find out howsecure the scheme is,” she said. “Thisis, of course, very important to knowin military applications and also in ci-vilian applications.”

Fridrich’s techniques are of particu-lar interest to the military because they

help protect against and intercept se-cret terrorist communications, Simardsaid. Steganographic communiquésfrom Osama Bin Laden, termed by theU.S. State Department as “one of themost significant sponsors of Islamicextremist activities in the world today,”have already been intercepted usingsteganalysis, Simard said.

“When it comes to detecting hiddenmessages, no one else in the world cando that as well as us, and that’s becauseof Dr. Fridrich’s work,” he said.

Fridrich, who earned her PhD insystems science in 1995, already holdsthree patents. She is applying for twomore and has developed a Windows-based application, “Securestego,” thatoffers capabilities not available in othercommercial software. Though she isstill considering how best to market thepackage, several companies have al-ready expressed interest in commercial-izing it. The software includes a self-embedding capability that enables digi-tal images that have been modified tobe returned to their unmodified state.

“If you have just used a softwareproduct to re-color a car from red togreen, thinking that you now have evi-dence supporting something that is nottrue, we can tell that,” Fridrich said.“With self-embedded images, the origi-nal image can self-reconstruct, thoughthe average user would have no way ofknowing that it had survived earlieralterations.”

T

8

THE DIGITAL DECODING WORK DONE BY

JESSICA FRIDRICH WAS ONE OF THE

TOOLS USED BY NATIONAL SECURITY

OFFICIALS IN MAKING A CASE AGAINST

SUSPECTED TERRORIST OSAMA BIN

LADEN. FRIDRICH’S WORK HAS RE-

CEIVED MORE THAN $1.2 MILLION IN

U.S. AIR FORCE FUNDING OVER THE

PAST SEVEN YEARS.

Detection techniques 10 timesbetter than those used by currentlyavailable products to ferret out hiddendigital communications are also part ofthe package, she said.

Fridrich’s latest project, which willhave both commercial and military ap-plications, allows data to be embeddedin and later extracted from a digitalimage without altering the originalimage with “noise” that causes data tobe lost during extraction.

Commercial applications might in-clude embedding invisible subtitles indifferent languages within digital mov-ies for extraction by technologicallycompatible VCRs. It could also permitthe widespread use of “intelligent im-ages,” pictures embedded with theequivalent of an invisible barcode thatcan be read by a computer to allow theholder access to things like restrictedservices or websites.

Data embedded in images does notincrease the size of the image file.A one-megabyte image with a 250-kilobyte word file embedded within it,for example, would still use only onemegabyte of space, a feature that broad-ens the scope of possible applications.

The technology will also have “dis-abling” applications, includingimproved means of digitally water-mark-ing commercial movies, DVDsand MP3s, so that compliant playerswon’t read pirated media properly.

By protecting “the chain of evi-dence” and helping to ensure theauthenticity of digital images andrecordings through steganographicdigital watermarking, Fridrich also ex-pects her work to help make digital evi-dence more acceptable in court rooms.

In a separate $99,200 project involv-ing the Air Force and Eastman Kodak,Fridrich is designing a fragile water-mark for digital cameras. Unlike robustdigital watermarks, fragile watermarks“break” as soon as anything is done to

alter the original signal or image. Cam-eras equipped with fragile water-marking capabilities will help to ensurethe authenticity of digital photographs,lending them greater credibility in sen-sitive military and law enforcementapplications, Fridrich said.

Simard noted that other possibleapplications for Fridrich’s work includedeveloping assurances that digital im-ages used by doctors, military leadersand emergency response officials inmaking decisions are authentic.

“We make a lot of decisions with oureyes, by looking at images,” he said.“The military looks at images, andthey’ll make a call based on that im-age. Doctors make surgical and treat-ment decisions based on x-rays anddigital images. Civil leaders makechoices based on digital satellite imagestracking tornadoes and hurricanes. It’simperative that we be able to protectthese digital products so that we haveassurance that we will be decidingbased on good data.”

Fridrich’s work, which allowedKodak to produce its first digitalwatermarking camera, the DC-290, isalso key to Simard’s vision for a Uni-versity-government-industry consor-tium that can “push the theoretical,mathematical basis behind this newtechnology, advance exploratory devel-opment concepts of prototyping andthen move to build application systemsfor commercial or military use,” he said.

9

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

Although such approaches have ob-vious appeal for students, many teach-ers are reluctant to embrace them be-cause they don’t understand or trustthe technology. That’s where C. BethBurch comes in.

“Some of us are quite expert withtechnology, and some of us are juststarting to get over that initial discom-fort and don’t like to use it all thatmuch,” said Burch, an associate profes-sor in the School of Education andHuman Development.

Burch is using a three-year $359,000federal grant to bring teachers into the21st century. The grant, a partnershipbetween Binghamton University andthe Sidney Central and Binghamtonschool districts, has two purposes.

“The first is to create a space forcollaborative teaching with technol-ogy,” she said. “The second is to pre-pare education faculty to teach withtechnology so we can model what wewant our (student) teachers to do.”

The project’s first goal has been re-alized with the creation of EdTechSpace, an experimental classroom inSEHD. The room sports a variety ofnew tools designed to make educationflexible, innovative and possibly fun.Features include a console withMacintosh and PC platforms and aVCR, stereo system and projector thatdisplays video — no more boringblack-and-white slides. Thanks to 20laptop computers, students can viewcourse material on the Web, share filesand communicate with one another.Instructors connect through theirown laptops to project presentationsfor the whole class or to individualcomputers.

Burch said one of the best featuresof the classroom is that informationsharing is powered by a wireless trans-mitter — no more cables strewn acrossdesks or underfoot. “There’s nothingto plug in — you’re just right there atthe Internet.”

Connectivity isn’t limited to EdTechSpace, adding yet another dimensionof flexibility to the project. “Anywhereyou move the cart within the radius ofthe hub, you can have a classroom,”Burch said. “Wireless is definitelywhere it’s going. It’s the best thing forschools I’ve ever seen.”

Getting the technology in place was

COMPUTERS, CAMERAS REPLACE CHALK ANDBLACKBOARDS IN TODAY’S CLASSROOMS

Teaching technology

n Laura Lamash’s fourth-grade class at Binghamton’sWoodrow Wilson School, dry lessons about theErie Canal come to life via video. Her students makeanimated films to illustrate how the Erie Canal’s locksregulated water flow.

I

10

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

only half the battle; Burch also had todevelop a program to teach faculty howto use it. Last fall, she and her projectstaff surveyed education professors todiscover how often they used technol-ogy and what kept them from becom-ing more proficient. She discoveredthat her colleagues’ comfort levels andexpertise varied.

Based on the feedback, Burch andher team designed a technology train-ing program. “One of the things welearned is that people prefer to betaught individually or in very smallgroups,” she said. “They also wouldlike a lot of support. Sometimes you goto a workshop on a particular topic andcome away not remembering how to dosomething. So, what we’re doing is of-fering a variety of programs that in-clude technical one-on-one supportfrom research project assistants.”

Currently, four assistants, all gradu-ate students, spend between 15 and 20hours a week working individuallywith faculty. The assistants were se-

lected for the project based on theiracademic strength, interest in technol-ogy and ability to work with andteach others.

In addition to providing personalsupport, the project offers monthlycourses to educators. In February, forinstance, they were shown how to uselibrary databases for research. Burchsaid the course was particularly an eye-opener for those who had used data-bases but weren’t using them to theirfullest potential. Other courses have in-cluded creation of webpages and up-loading course materials to Blackboard,an electronic learning platform. Onceeducators are on board, classes will beopened to student teachers and otherUniversity faculty.

The project also supports other ven-ues for raising technology awareness.Every month Burch holds teaching lun-cheons open to University faculty,school administrators and teachersfrom Sidney and Binghamton. Recenttopics have included using digital

video and Microsoft PowerPoint in theclassroom. In June, Burch conductedan intensive technology camp whereeducators immersed themselves in thenew technology.

In the future, Burch would liketo see the program grow to includebuilding advanced classrooms similarto EdTech Space in Sidney and Bing-hamton. She also hopes to see moreteachers use technology the way LauraLamash does. “That’s what we’re look-ing for,” she said. “That’s the kind ofthing we’re trying to do.”

Although an enthusiastic proponentof technology, Burch doesn’t embraceit haphazardly.

“We’re trying to use technologywisely and critically rather than merelyadopt a ‘technology-is-good’ stance,”she said. “In all our programs we arecareful to note the advantages and dis-advantages of the technologies and torealize that the technology is a tool forteaching — a means rather thanan end.”

MICHAEL PURDY, LEFT, A PROGRAMMER

AND WEBSITE DESIGNER AT BROOME-

TIOGA BOCES, AND ROBERT FLETCHER,

RIGHT, AN ENGLISH TEACHER FROM

WAPPINGERS FALLS, TEACH THE ART

AND CRAFT OF WEBSITE DESIGN

TO OTHER SECONDARY-SCHOOL

TEACHERS AT A TECHNOLOGY

CAMP ORGANIZED BY EDUCATION

PROFESSOR BETH BURCH.

11

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

Davies, an assistant professor of bi-ology, studies biofilms, the ubiquitousbacterial communities that live justabout anywhere that water and solids,or solids and gases meet — from con-tact lenses to ships’ hulls and fromhospitals to household plumbing.Davies wants to know what makesbiofilm communities thrive despite se-rious attempts to disperse them.

Davies’ work is supported by a$38,434 grant from the National Sci-ence Foundation. He is seeking$451,000 from the U.S. Department ofHealth and Social Services and is a partof two major collaborative multi-million-dollar grant applications.

His work primarily focuses onPseudomonas aeruginosa, a biofilm-forming microorganism that is arguablythe most common organism on the

planet and which, like other bacteria,has spent the better part of the past3.5 million years evolving successfullife strategies.

Biofilms are communities of indi-vidual microorganisms created whenbacteria embed themselves in a gelati-nous structure of their own making.This “slime” is composed of organicpolymers that can grow to several cen-timeters thick and cover large areas.Dental plaque is one commonly en-countered biofilm. Anyone who hasever been up-ended by slippery rocksin a stream likely has had a close en-counter with a biofilm.

By discovering ways to effectivelyleave the bacteria either “mute” or“deaf” to the cell-to-cell communica-tion that is critical to their ability toform communities, Davies hopes

to make the bacteria more susceptibleto antibiotics and the body’s immunesystem.

Davies has a patent pending on amethod that interrupts bacterial com-munication and inhibits biofilm devel-opment. He is also working to isolate afactor that will cause biofilm coloniesto disperse, thus leaving individualbacteria easier prey to disinfectants,antibiotics and immune functions.

Preliminary studies show that whenthe natural dispersion factor is intro-duced prior to antibiotic treatment,antibiotic efficacy is increased by upto five times. The market potential fora non-toxic, biofilm-dispersing agentis enormous, and Davies’ recent lab re-sults have shown that the dispersalagent is very effective even in mixed-culture biofilms.

If the only consequence of biofilmdevelopment were slippery rocks, itwould attract little scientific interest.But biofilm colonies have proven to beenormously destructive and their nega-tive consequences can be tallied inboth dollars and lives.

Biofilms account for a wide range of

F I G H T E R

RESEARCHERSEEKS TOUNRAVELSECRETS OFBACTERIALCOLONIES

avid Davies’ work with one of Earth’s oldest living organ-isms — bacterial colonies commonly referred to as slime— is helping to improve the odds that humans, amongthe youngest organisms on the planet, will be able tohold their own in the war against germs.

14

D

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

diseases — from cystic fibrosis, an al-ways-fatal condition in which the lungsare colonized by mucoid bacteria, tocolitis and chronic ear infections. Theylurk on the surface of prosthetic andimplanted devices such as pacemakers,artificial hips and intrauterine devices.Also linked to heartburn, ulcers, andintestinal and stomach cancers,biofilms can be impervious to immunesystem attack and are insensitive totreatment by most antibiotics.

Biofilms are everywhere — even inplaces where rigorous attention is paidto germ fighting. They grow like wild-fire in hospitals and are a leading causeof hospital-acquired infections.

“You’ve got biofilms, antibiotics andnutrient sources all in this one locationand you end up with ‘super bugs’ thatform biofilms in and on people,” Daviesexplained. “It’s a real problem and hos-pitals can’t get rid of them. If you’renot sick when you go to the hospital,you’ll definitely get sick while you’rein there, if you’re there long enough.”

Those who stay in an intensive careunit for seven days or longer havenearly a 100 percent chance of devel-oping a hospital-acquired infection, theworst of which are almost always re-lated to biofilms that develop in thetubing of respirators and catheters,Davies said.

For hospitals and for the broad scope

of industries plagued by biofilms, theproblem is harrowing, Davies said.

“They treat and they disinfect andthey dose with antibiotics, but theydon’t kill off the biofilms,” he said. “Andif you don’t kill them, you make themstronger.”

When bacteria live in biofilm colo-nies they are able to exchange geneticmaterial with organisms other thantheir biological descendants by meansof horizontal gene transfer — a processin which even highly unrelated organ-isms can swap genes. One of the mostprominent manifestations of this pro-cess is antibiotic resistance, Davies said.

Because bacteria don’t have to waitfor generations to pass on antibiotic-resistant genes, but can pass them onto bacteria within their same genera-tion, they are able to confound the de-velopment of new anti-bacterial drugs.

“Any experience that a microbe canhave, it can share with another mi-crobe,” Davies said. “If humans coulddo that, when you passed people in thehallway who had read a certain book,they could simply bump into you andyou would gain their memories for thatexperience and would know whateverthey knew about the book.”

What’s more, bacteria can shareinformation in this way with verydistantly related microbial species,he added.

“They could get information or passinformation to a microorganism that ismore distantly related to them than amonkey or a tree would be to us,” hesaid.

The most modest estimates of theannual worldwide cost of biofilm in-fection and remediation are in the highbillions, costs borne by industriesworldwide. Name a manufacturingprocess and biofilms are probably a se-rious and costly issue because they areso hard to eradicate. In fact, biofilmshave even been discovered in pipes atfactories that produce prepadine, theanti-bacterial, iodine-based solutionthat doctors swab on patients to “prep”them for surgery.

Until recently, almost all researchinto ways to control and remediate bac-teria had been conducted in laborato-ries where bacteria were studied in testtubes or on petri dishes.

“In those test-tube conditions, youadd a little bleach to the culture andthe bacteria are all killed,” Davies said.“Then you go to an industrial systemwhere you have biofilms growing onthe walls of the pipes in a soft drinkmanufacturing facility, or a milk pro-duction facility, and you find that theseorganisms living in a biofilm commu-nity just don’t behave the same way.”

In fact, in a stunning display of theold adage “United we stand, dividedwe fall,” biofilms and their residentmicroorganisms are unfazed by dosesof antibiotics that are 1,000 timesgreater than the concentration thatwould kill planktonic bacteria in aliquid culture.

Davies’ work promises to change thatby providing new ways of weakeningand dispersing biofilm communities.

DAVID DAVIES’ RESEARCH DELVES INTO

THE DEFENSE MECHANISMS OF BACTE-

RIAL COLONIES COMMONLY KNOWN AS

SLIME. HE IS TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO

INTERRUPT THE ABILITY OF BACTERIA TO

FORM GERM COLONIES AND BLOCK THEIR

CELL-TO-CELL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS.

15

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

Eureka moments, most researchersseem to agree, are those rare, preciousinstances when old thinking or old waysof being — sometimes inexplicably andoften unpredictably — give way to newawareness, meaning and possibility.

Whether in large or smallways, these are the break-through moments thatchange the world or theworldview of those whoenjoy them.

Gal’s first Eureka mo-ment — discovering thatwhat she thought was aprotein was actually a pro-tease, or enzyme thatchews up protein — led tothe last two chapters of her

thesis and generated years of research.Her breakthrough was the outcome notonly of hard work, but of good fortune.“Chance favors the prepared mind,” Galnoted, borrowing a quotation fromLouis Pasteur.

Exactly how researchers and schol-ars define, experience and arrive at theirown Eureka moments may differ acrossthe disciplines, said Christopher Fynsk,

PATIENCE, KNOWLEDGE (AND SOMETIMES JUST LUCK)TRIGGER THAT MOMENT OF DISCOVERY

The setting is ancient Greece. For the mathematician

Archimedes, it’s been a tough day sweating over

equations, getting nowhere fast. Unaware that minor

calamity will soon deliver major discovery, he heads

for the baths. As he lowers himself into an almost-full

tub, the displaced water slowly rises past the rim and

spills onto the floor, revealing the answer to a problem

that has plagued him for years. “Eureka!” he shouts.

“I have found it!” His principle of buoyancy is conceived.

E U R E K A !

t’s been 15 years sinceSusannah Gal, then a gradu-ate student working at theNational Institutes of Health,experienced her first scien-tific Eureka moment. Today

an associate professor ofbiology at BinghamtonUniversity where her workin molecular genetics andcell biology could lead tomore productive crops andadvances in medicine, Galrecalls the exhilarationof that experience as if itwere yesterday.

“It felt great,” she said.“I remember looking at theanswer at 11 o’clock atnight in the lab and getting so excitedthat I called my adviser at home. Hewas an early morning person. He wasvery nice and said, ‘Yes, yes, Susannah.Maybe we can talk about it inthe morning.’ ”

“Eureka!” remains the classic her-ald of discovery — in three syllables ituncannily captures the joy and the in-congruity of discovery.

I

14

ILLU

STR

ATI

ON

: © M

AR

K W

EB

ER

/SIS

SUSANNAH GAL’S WORK ON PLANT

PROTEINS BENEFITED FROM A BREAK-

THROUGH MOMENT THAT CHANGED THE

SCOPE OF HER RESEARCH.

ENGINEER RONALD MILES WRESTLED

WITH THE MYSTERY OF HOW PARASITOID

FLIES’ OMNIDIRECTIONAL HEARING

WORKS BEFORE FINALLY ARRIVING AT A

SIMPLE ANSWER.

chair of the Comparative LiteratureDepartment. Fynsk thinks that languageis always key to the discovery process— either as a help or a hindrance —and he believes that the humanities canmake a unique and valuable contribu-tion to even the most scientific inquiry.

“Language is not just representative,but creative,” he said. “Every questionis informed by social construct. Someof the critical work that has been donein the humanities in recent years is try-ing to show how language shapes ourway of framing questions and our wayof pursuing them.”

The way questions are framed cangreatly ease or impair the pathwaysthat lead to the Eureka moment.

As the first step toward discovery,the framing of research questions doesmore than reflect the perspective of

researchers, Fynsk argues. It also helpsto shape their views in ways that canlay tripwires along the road — waysthat are easily camouflaged becausesocial and cultural conventions insidi-ously affect and infect language,he said.

“Because they tend to think of alanguage as a fairly transparent tool,scientists may lose the sense of its his-torical and social embeddedness andmay not be aware of how much theyare being manipulated by their ownlanguage,” Fynsk said.

“The ‘scientific’ languagethat is used to talk about fer-tilization, for instance, is com-monly filled with sexual meta-phors and gender construc-tions of passivity and activity,all of which are dubiously per-tinent to the chemical pro-cesses that are going on.”

Similarly, computer systemstheory imports such organicmetaphors as “virus” into atechnical domain where theirrelevance is highly debatable, Fynsksuggests. “This might tell us a greatdeal about life. Or it might tell us a greatdeal about technicity. Or it might justbe extremely confusing.”

Fynsk thinks the humanities havemuch to offer the sciences preciselybecause of their differing perspectiveson knowledge and meaning. The hu-manities don’t seek concrete answersand solutions, Fynsk observes. Instead,through the analysis of culture thatengages the fundamental human expe-riences of life, mortality, love, sexual-ity and the like, the humanities afforda different variety of Eureka moment.

“I would say the Eureka momentin the humanities is probably moreoften related to a moment of wonder,”Fynsk said. “It’s not a discovery in thesense of an object; it’s wonder beforewhat precisely cannot be described,finding yourself at the very limits ofknowledge.”

From Fynsk’s perspective, the verydifficulty we have in articulating anobject of inquiry is key to the senseof discovery implied by the momentof insight.

“When we think about a Eurekamoment, we tend to think of some ge-nius having a creative idea, out of theblue, that changes everything,” Fynsksaid. “I don’t think it works like that. Ithink it’s about somebody who isdeeply afflicted by a fundamentalquestion. I think it is a much more com-plex process involving the passion ofthe researcher and the resistance of theobject.”

For Gal, who this year was one of aninternational team of biologists thatsequenced a plant’s genome, a kind ofserendipity-aided leap is part and par-cel of a Eureka moment.

“Sometimes in research,” she said,“things creep up slowly and all sup-port a particular hypothesis that youare building. It just feels like walkingforward, step by step. It’s rewarding,but it doesn’t carry with it the excite-ment of ‘Eureka!’”

Some very clear result that refutesmajor presumptions or a serendipitousoutcome that leapfrogs experimenta-tion over hundreds of other possibleapproaches — “that’s what I considerthe Eureka moment,” Gal said.

Biology professor Nancy Stamp,whose course on research strategieshelps students develop research andcareer approaches, is never surprisedto hear colleagues vividly recall theirEureka moments.

“That’s a hugely fun part of sci-ence,” Stamp said. “But you can’t planfor it. If you’re lucky, your career ispunctuated by a few of those ‘Eurekas!’That’s the icing on the cake.”

Stamp advises prospective research-ers not to focus on Eureka moments astheir primary goal.

“If they focus on that, then they’renot focusing on all the details that canoccasionally provide that,” she said.“What we try to do is to get them to

16

think more of a career strategy, so thatif they don’t get to that ‘Eureka!’ theywon’t be stumbling around in thedark.”

Omowunmi Sadik, an assistant pro-fessor of chemistry whose research fo-cuses on microelectrode biosensors ableto detect trace amounts of organic ma-terials, agrees with Stamp. With twopatents pending for her work, Sadikfinds the enduring “desire to know”much more compelling than the short-lived excitement of discovery.

“The most rewarding thing in mycareer is sharing the excitement of this‘desire to know’ with students,” she said.

Sadik’s research accomplishmentshave involved several Eureka moments,arrived at by and large as a result ofturning the traditional approach to sen-sor development on its head. Shethinks risk-taking and luck play an im-portant role in discovery and that noscientist need ever feel afraid of chal-lenging conventional wisdom.

“Science,” she said, “is the great

equalizer. In science, it’s not who isright, but what is right.”

Gal, Stamp and Sadik say Eurekamoments refer as much to discoveringnew connections as concrete discover-ies. Each has experienced these newconnections at Binghamton, where in-terdisciplinary approaches to researchare both encouraged and supportedthrough organized research centers,seminars and workshops. Gal notes thatconversations in two different meetingsclicked for her in a way that she ex-pects will soon lead to a leap in herDNA-computing collaborations withmathematics professor Thomas Head.

“I really believe in interdisciplinaryapproaches for just this reason,” Galsaid. “When you get people talking toeach other who don’t have precon-ceived notions of how you do some-thing, big leaps are very possible.”

Stephen Gilje, associate vice presi-dent for research, says the 19 organizedresearch centers are one of the primaryways that Binghamton University pro-motes intra- and inter-disciplinarycommunication that provides a plat-form for discovery. “We also offer awide range of support services that canhelp faculty make connections amongtheir colleagues and to identify andapply for external funding to supporttheir work.”

Nearly a third of the new facultyhave also availed themselves of an ori-entation program that offers trainingon everything from teaching strategiesto research support services, Gilje said.“One of the things we try to do is tohelp interested faculty frame their re-search questions in ways that will havethe best chance of being understoodby sponsors,” he said. Often that meansnarrowing the focus, he said, “makingsure they don’t use too large a frame.”

Ronald Miles, chair of the Mechani-cal Engineering Department, knowssomething about Fynsk’s “resistance ofthe object” notion. Miles, whose cur-rent research in acoustic sensors andsystems was inspired by the ears of theparasitoid fly, said it took him a while

to figure out how the fly managed di-rectional hearing with ears located soclosely together.

“It was very mysterious for a verylong time,” he said. “A lot of things thatturn out to be very simple require anawful lot of work to get to,” he joked.“What that probably means is thatwe’re not all that smart.”

Miles’ Eureka moment with the flyhas led to a series of multi-million-dollar grants and is expected to resultin the commercial availability of theworld’s smallest directional hearing aidwithin the next four years.

Like Miles, chemist Wayne Jones,whose work focuses on molecular ar-chitecture that could lead to the next-generation of miniaturization in elec-tronics, said he has experienced sev-eral Eureka moments. All have in-volved some degree of serendipity andnone has been a “capsule” experience.

“I hope the Eureka moments keepcoming,” he said. “They’re awesome. Ilike breaking through. I like the feel-ing of understanding. But it’s as ifyou’re on the inside of an onion, peel-ing your way out. As you get througheach layer, the whole sphere behindyou becomes clear, but the sphere infront of you is larger, and that becomesyour next set of questions.”

Echoing Fynsk’s notion about theconstrictions of culture and language,Jones said, “We all have structures,pre-defined constructs that we’re com-ing from. In research, as in life, to dis-cover something new, you’ve usuallygot to break out of the constructs. Youhave to let go of something that you’veheld on to.”

The “Ah-ha” moment becomespossible, Jones said, when individualsbecome willing to let go of the assump-tions that have guided their thinkingand framed their perceptions tothat point.

“I would like to think,” Jones said,“that the euphoria you get from reallyunderstanding something, from trulygrasping it, exists regardless of what‘it’ is.”

RISK TAKING AND LUCK PLAY A MAJOR

ROLE IN NEW DISCOVERIES FOR

OMOWUNMI SADIK, A CHEMISTRY

PROFESSOR WHO ADVOCATES

CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL THINKING.

17

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

Richard Plumb, professor and chairof the Watson School’s Department ofElectrical Engineering, doesn’t wear asuperhero’s cape, but his work involvessomething akin to x-ray vision. It’s thatwork that promises to make the worlda safer place.

Plumb’s expertise is in ground-penetrating radar (GPR), orsubsurface imaging, atechnology thatholds significantpromise in a num-ber of militaryand civilian ap-plications. On themilitary side,among other usesGPR can be ex-pected to help ferretout underground com-mand and control bunkers,land mines and unexploded ord-nance. On the civilian side, it can helplocate and monitor underground stor-age tanks, as well as ensure the qualityand integrity of road construction.

With $160,000 in funding from aDefense Advanced Research ProjectAward, Plumb is working withLockheed Martin in Syracuse to de-velop models and algorithms that willprovide the best possible images fromGPR readings. This is a challenge be-cause radar behaves differently whenit is aimed at the ground than it doesin the air. He also recently completedwork on a separate $732,367 grant forthe U.S. Army.

In the air, where it is travelingthrough a relatively homogeneous me-dium, radar is effective in trackingobjects from hundreds of miles away.Even Doppler radar, which monitorswater particles in the air, works withtargets “in the far field” — that is, dis-

tant from the key elements of anyradar system: the transmit-

ter and receiver.Unlike air

radar, GPRdeals with a

very heteroge-neous medium,the ground, andseeks targets “inthe near field,”

generally within 10meters (approximately

33 feet) of the surface.From one location to the

next, when GPR is aimed at theground, it can encounter different soiltypes and conditions, each of whichmay differently affect the transmittedelectromagnetic signal. Geological fea-tures can also cause scattered signals,sometimes creating significant interfer-ence in a search for underground man-made objects.

“Our challenge is to try to developalgorithms that take the raw data andgenerate — based on the electrical andmagnetic properties of the soil — thebest possible image of whatever is inthe subsurface,” said Plumb.

Like all types of radar, ground-penetrating radar involves the trans-

mission of an electromagnetic signaland the reception back of a scatteredor echo signal that can be recordedand analyzed.

“You transmit a particular wave-form, receive back a waveform, and bycomparing the transmitted to thereceived waveforms, you try to infersomething about the object,” Plumbsaid. “It’s like taking a CT scan ofthe ground.”

Ground radar signals can be trans-mitted and received from both ground-based and airborne systems or a com-bination of the two. Setups includemonostatic systems, in which the trans-mitter and receiver are both in the samelocation, and bistatic systems, in whichthe transmitter and receiver are al-lowed to move separately, as is the casewhen a transmitter is mounted on aplane or helicopter and a receiver islocated on the ground. Determining thebest method to configure the sendingand receiving units based on condi-tions is also key to Plumb’s research.

“Using computer modeling, we’retrying to determine the best configu-ration of transmitter receiver locationsfor different kinds of terrain and soilconditions,” he said.

Maximizing performance and datagathering based on conditions is im-portant because ground radar imagequality is poor to begin with, Plumbsaid. GPR uses low-frequency signalsto achieve the best penetration, butlow-frequency wavelengths are gener-ally large compared with their targetobjects, guaranteeing a fuzzy image.

“If I take a picture of your face, Isee the minutest detail, because interms of wavelength, we are enormousin size,” Plumb said.

RESEARCH PLUMBS FOR BETTERWAY TO FIND BURIED OBJECTS

In-depth studies

H is work helps protect the planet’s natural resources, cleanup the environment, spare life and limb — and, oh yes,promote world peace.

18

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

The detail in a generated image isdetermined by the size of the wave-length in comparison to the size of thetarget — the smaller the wavelengthin comparison to the target, the betterthe image. Photographic quality is pos-sible only because electromagneticwavelengths in the optical spectrum areminiscule compared to the size of ob-jects they encounter. In GPR, however,because the wavelengths are large, ageometric-based algorithm must beused to turn the received data from anunrecognizable image into a useful one.These “migration” algorithms essen-tially decode the data and allow for thegeneration of a shadow-like image ofthe subsurface target, Plumb said.

One of the potential applications forGPR is the safe detection of land mines,Plumb said. According to UNICEF,there are an estimated 110 million ac-tive land mines buried in 70 countries:one for every 52 people in the world.

About 2,000 people are injured in land-mine accidents every month, onevictim every 20 minutes. Around 800of these will die, 30 to 40 percentof them under 15 years ofage. The remainder willbe maimed.

The currentstate of the art forland-mine detec-tion consists oftwo methods:scouring a poten-tial mine fieldwith dogs, whichcan sniff out theexplosive because theirsense of smell is 1,000 timesbetter than that of humans, orsending out people with metal detec-tors to scour suspected areas.

“Basically we’re talking a souped-upRadio Shack metal detector,” saidPlumb, who calls the method unsafeand inefficient.

“If you think about it, land minesare usually used in battlefields, andwhat’s inside a battlefield but scatteredmetal and shrapnel all over the place?So you send two guys out, one withthe detector. If the detector goes off,the second guy gets down on his handsand knees, gets out his bayonet andchecks the ground until he finds theland mine.”

At the current rate at which landmines are being removed, assumingthat no more are laid — and until re-cently, 2 million more were beingplanted every year — it would take1,100 years to rid the world of them.Using the currently available tech-niques, one mine clearer is killed andtwo are injured for every 5,000 minescleared.

The only other way to remove minesis countermining or blowing a paththrough a suspected minefield, a

method that has obvious limitationsin populated areas.

Ground radar alsohas engineering

applications suchas ensuring thatroad contractorslay down theproper depth of

asphalt, determin-ing subsurface de-

terioration on bridgedecks or locating

buried storage tanks,Plumb said.

Plumb said his research on GPRhappily marries the experience hegained working on radar systems atGeneral Electric in Syracuse and hisdoctoral studies in electromagnetics atSyracuse University. Plumb came toBinghamton in 1998 from the Univer-sity of Kansas, where he was an associ-ate professor.

Plumb’s field has mushroomed in thepast seven years with the growth in po-tential military and environmental ap-plications. The field has also gotten aboost from the technological advancesthat allow for small, portable radar sys-tems. All this makes GPR a wave (form)of the future.

RICHARD PLUMB’S WORK IN PERFECTING

THE USABILITY OF GROUND-PENETRATING

RADAR SYSTEMS HAS WIDE APPLICA-

TIONS — FROM UNCOVERING BURIED LAND

MINES AND UNDERGROUND STORAGE

TANKS TO DETECTING UNSEEN WEAK-

NESSES IN STEEL BRIDGE DECKING.

19

CHARLES A. NELSON2

00

1INSIDE RESEARCH

each electron having a built-in “mag-net” that arises because of their chargeand spin.

If Nelson is correct, his work couldspur a change in the standard modelof particle physics, the name given tothe theoretical framework that de-scribes the current level of human un-

derstanding about the interactions be-tween the elementary building blocksof matter and energy.

Discovered experimentally in 1995,top quarks are the sixth and, accord-ing to the standard model, possibly thelast, of the quarks. They are as small,compared to the atom, as the atom isto the human body. Other members ofthe quark family bear the names “up,”“down,” “charm,” “strange” and “bot-tom.” Up and down quarks make upprotons and neutrons. Electrons are a

THEORIST’S QUESTIONS SPUR SEARCHFOR SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES

harles A. Nelson spends his time looking for quirks inquarks. At the end of the day, if he ends up with morequestions than answers, he’s done his job well.C

Quirky

Nelson, a theoretical physicist whoexplores the world of quarks and lep-tons — the basic particle buildingblocks of the universe — was awardedthe 2000 University Award for Excel-lence in Research.

Not content to rest on his reputa-tion, Nelson thinks his latest researchquestion could be the most importantof his 33-year career. The question isrooted in some curious results obtainedwhile working with data regarding topquarks, a mercurial variety of one ofthe two elementary building blocks ofmatter, quarks and leptons.

While “tuning” a calculation re-garding the polarity of the top quark,Nelson realized that three resultingnumbers, in which he originally hadno particular interest, were agreeing toa tenth of a percent.

“This is the thing I am most curiousabout in my career,” he said. “Thisthree-number puzzle is potentiallyvery important. It is an inconsistencynot explained by anything heretoforeknown.”

Nelson suspects that the numberscould mean that top quarks, which areproduced only in particle acceleratorsand decay almost instantly (10-24 sec-ond — which would be expressed as adecimal point and 24 zeroes followedby a 1), have a property analogous to

22

excellence in research

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

variety of leptons which, along withup and down quarks, make up theentire periodic table.

Looking for quirks in quarks isn’tthe only thing Nelson does. As a theo-retical physicist, he is always lookingfor new holes in the standard model,hoping, like all physicists, that a gapmight prove to be a doorway to adeeper understanding of the basic in-teractions of matter and energy.

“I’m sure there is much more thatwe don’t know,” Nelson said. “I don’tthink we’ll ever find a theory of ev-erything. I’m excited, however, to beinvolved in the process. I guess that itreally is a lot better to be on the jour-ney than to have arrived.”

If Nelson’s major challenge was sim-ply to find holes in the standard model,his work would be easy. Physicists uni-versally agree that the model is incon-sistent and incomplete. Gravity, for in-stance, the most familiar force on earth,is still not accounted for. Even the par-ticle that carries it, while alreadynamed graviton by theorists, has yet

to be discovered experimentally.“The standard model has about 20

parameters that you just stick in byhand — the mass of the electron, themass of all these quarks,” Nelson noted.“The standard model doesn’t explainwhy these things exist, and it doesn’texplain the value of the numbers thatyou stick in to make things work. Ide-ally, you’d like to have a theory thatexplained these numbers.”

For theorists like Nelson, then, thereal work is not in coming up withquestions, the challenge is proposingpossible answers. The answers take theform of questions that are plausibleenough to pique the interest of experi-mental physicists, who ultimately mustvalidate or invalidate the work oftheorists. Theorists attract the attentionof experimentalists by publishing theirwork in refereed journals. Nelsonhas seen close to 100 of his articlespublished.

Experimentalists who have taken upNelson’s theories look to prove or dis-prove his work by colliding atoms athigh speeds and then analyzing theresults. These collisions are staged inthe world’s largest laboratories — su-perconducting particle acceleratorsand colliders like those at Fermi Na-tional Accelerator Laboratory in Chi-cago and CERN in Geneva, Switzer-land. Particles are raced around circu-lar underground tracks that range fromabout four to 10 miles in circumferenceuntil they reach velocities near thespeed of light. They are then slammedtogether so that the particles split intotheir component parts — and in someinstances end up forming new par-ticles. These violent collisions are re-corded by particle detectors the size ofapartment buildings that gather a

record of the collision and its particlebyproducts.

“If you were to collide twoLamborghinis at high speed,” Nelsonsaid, “you’d get everything flying out— the steering wheels, the trunk lids,everything. In this particular case, be-cause you’re colliding them with somuch energy, it’s as if you can make awhole different car by doing this.”

While the experiments to validateNelson’s work typically involve largeinternational collaborations and teamsof more than 300 people, Nelson andother theorists generally work aloneor in small groups, often with paperand pencil or a personal computer.Federal funding for theoretical particleresearch is competitive. Over the pastseven years, Nelson has secured morethan $400,000 in federal grants.

In Nelson’s parlance, even the simplequestion “What’s the matter?” be-comes a double entendre. His work,populated as it is by quarks, leptons,fermions and bosons, sounds to manylike some alien landscape. His calcula-tions look, to untrained eyes, like atroubled marriage between hieroglyph-ics and algebra.

Nelson’s feet, nevertheless, aresecurely planted and his curiosity iskeenly focused on the nature of matterand energy in this universe. In fact, it’shis appreciation for the balance in theworld that awakens in him such ques-tions as, “Why are there not particlesother than fermions and bosons?”

Fermions are particles, such as elec-trons, protons or neutrons, that obeystatistical rules requiring that no morethan one occupy a particular quantumstate. Bosons, such as the photon, pion,or alpha particle, obey statistical rulespermitting any number of identicalparticles to occupy the same quantumstate. Nelson wonders why it is thatthere are no particles in a middle camp,where two or three could pile into thesame “telephone booth,” he said. He iscurrently working on that algebraicallycomplex question with associates in thePeople’s Republic of China.

SURROUNDED BY PAPERS AND FILES

REPRESENTING MORE THAN 30 YEARS’

WORK, CHARLES A. NELSON POSES

QUESTIONS, THE ANSWERS TO WHICH MAY

HELP EXPLAIN HOW THE UNIVERSE CAME

TO BE, AND WHAT PART LEPTONS, QUARKS

AND OTHER SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES STILL

PLAY IN ITS DEVELOPMENT.

Follow me2

00

1INSIDE RESEARCH

For more than 15 years, Bruce Avoliohas been trying to answer these andother questions. A professor of manage-ment and co-director of the Center forLeadership Studies, Avolio has made acareer of studying leaders. His researchearned him the 2000 University’s Ex-cellence in Research Award.

“Leadership can be difficult to de-fine,” said Avolio. “There isn’t just onedefinition, nor should there be. One ofthe challenges in defining leadershipis that it’s often described differentlyin terms of expected behaviors by dif-ferent cultures. For example, what maybe an inspirational and motivationalbehavior in one culture may befrowned upon or not understoodin another.”

Over the last 10 years, Avolio andhis team have developed a universalmodel of leadership. Called the FullRange of Leadership Development, themodel examines how leaders, using thesame styles and behaviors, influencefollowers across cultures. The modelidentifies three leadership styles —transformational, transactional andlaissez-faire.

Transformational leadership is mostoften associated with leaders likeMohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther KingJr. and Nelson Mandela, Avolio said.Transformational leadership falls into

four categories: idealized leaders whoset high moral and ethical standards;individualized, consideration-focusedleaders who bond with and challengethe people they work with to exploittheir potential; inspirational leaders,who motivate followers through theexample they set; and intellectuallystimulating leaders who challenge oth-ers to think differently.

“Studies have shown that leaderswho use transformational skills aremore likely to produce significantlybetter results and be rated higher bytheir followers,” Avolio said.

In the middle of the model are trans-actional leaders who establish “con-tracts” with their followers. The con-tract clearly defines each party’s rolesand performance expectations, rewardsand consequences. The American mili-tary uses transactional leadershipwidely in addition to the transforma-tional style, Avolio said.

Transactional leadership includestwo additional categories of leaders —those who actively manage by excep-

tion and those who take a more pas-sive approach. Leaders who manage byexception closely monitor and correctdeviations from the established set ofrules. These leaders tend to spend agreat deal of time dealing with perfor-mance and the process of how work isactually accomplished, Avolio said.Passive management by exceptionoccurs when leaders step in to fixproblems after they occur. Passive-exception leaders are just as concernedwith performance, but less concernedwith process.

At the bottom of the model are lead-ers who take a laissez-faire approach.These leaders are typically avoidant —they delay decisions and often lack di-rection. “They may be nice people towork with, but they don’t foster muchproductivity,” Avolio said.

Using the full-range model, Avolioand colleagues have worked with or-ganizations around the world to trainleaders to be more transformational.Recent projects have included a four-year $750,000 grant funded by the U.S.

eaders. They’ve existedin every culture andevery period. Theirnames flow off the

tongue — Sun Tzu, Joan ofArc, Winston Churchill, MartinLuther King Jr. But what makesthem tick? What makes peopleleaders, and how do theyinfluence others to follow?

L

BRUCE AVOLIOexcellence in research

24

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

Army Research Instituteto train senior officers.

“We’re challengingthe notion that you can’tteach leaders new waysto lead, regardless ofwhere they are in theircareers,” Avolio said.

In addition to work-ing with the U.S. military, Avolio hasresearched and worked with the Israeliand South African armies. This workwas successful in demonstrating thatpeople can be trained to be better lead-ers on the high end of the full rangemodel, Avolio said.

“After we concluded the experimen-tal training in Israel, the chief of staffof the Israeli military came to us andsaid, ‘This will be the model everyonewill learn.’”

For the last seven years, Avolio hasstudied the relatively new phenomenonof electronic or e-leadership.

“There are teams all over the worldworking together through electronicchannels who have never met in per-

son,” Avolio said. “Someoneis leading them and thequestion we have is, ‘Howare they getting thingsdone?’”

Although the fundamen-tal principles are the same,e-leadership differs in sev-eral ways.

“Interactions through technologyare different,” Avolio said. “For ex-ample, if you haven’t built a relation-ship with someone, questioning theassumptions they’re using to solve aproblem might be seen as offensive.They might say, ‘Who are you to ques-tion what I think?’ But, if you’ve builta face-to-face relationship, doing thatmight be seen as ‘Wow, you’re helpingme think about the parameters of thework.’ A lot of our evidence about face-to-face relationships suggests that lead-ers who do this get people to be morecreative. When it’s done through tech-nology, at least in the early stages ofthe relationship, there isn’t a basisof trust.”

Teaching teachers to be leadersOne of the newest efforts of Bruce Avolio and the Center for Leadership Studies is a

cooperative venture with local school districts to identify and encourage teachers tobecome administrators.

Begun last November, the Southern Tier Leadership Academy was created in response toan expected wave of retirements among school administrators over the next five years.

Nearly 60 percent of the state’s 800 superintendents are eligible for retirement during thisperiod, said Richard Mills, New York’s education commissioner. The state needs torecruit leaders rather than wait for teachers to decide to pursue school administra-tion, he said.

The academy uses interviews and a series of assessments to identify teacherswith leadership abilities. Teachers are evaluated on their ability to set priorities,work in teams and handle difficult issues. Those who continue with the programare paired with current school administrators in a mentoring program and askedto develop leadership plans to enhance their potential as future leaders.

Academy participants also attend four leadership seminars and participatein peer learning groups that discuss issues via the Internet.

The academy won’t replace the certification process that traditionallygenerates administrators, said Avolio. “The objective is to identify teachers withleadership potential and spark their interest in making the transition from teacherto administrator,” he said.

FINDING OUT“WHAT MAKESLEADERS TICK?”

Many e-leaders must also overcomecultural differences.

“A particular approach or style ofleadership that works in one culturemay not work in another. E-leadershave to take this into account wheninteracting with their teams,” Avoliosaid.

“For example, we’ve found that ano-nymity in groups, especially early on,tends to lead people to be more chal-lenging and collaborative. This hasproven particularly true in Asian cul-tures where people are normally veryuncomfortable with challenging some-one in higher authority. It’s like enter-ing a chat room on the Internet. Peoplemay say things they would never sayface-to-face.

“There’s still a lot we don’t know,”he said.

Avolio and his colleagues were re-cently notified they will receive a two-year $150,000 grant from the NationalScience Foundation to study e-leader-ship and virtual teams working in part-nership with the UNISYS corporation.

SCHOOL OF MANAGE-

MENT PROFESSOR

BRUCE AVOLIO HAS

SPENT THE PAST

15 YEARS STUDYING

AND DEFINING THE

ESSENCE OF LEADER-

SHIP. HE WAS RECOG-

NIZED FOR HIS WORK

AS A RECIPIENT OF

THE UNIVERSITY’S

EXCELLENCE IN

RESEARCH AWARD

FOR 2000.

© C

HR

IS A

NG

RIS

AN

I/SIS

23

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

For more than 30 years NormanSpear and his colleagues have been at-tempting to figure out how learningand memory develop for infants andwhether early memories of alcohol ex-posure might contribute to later abuseof alcohol.

The work by Spear, distinguishedprofessor of psychology, and colleaguesEvgeniy Petrov and Elena Varlinskaya,both physicians and research professorsat Binghamton University, and JuanCarlos Molina of the Institute Ferreyrain Argentina may help unlock the se-crets of alcohol dependency. The re-search has been funded for more than30 years by the National Institute onAlcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the

Making memoriesINFANT EXPOSURE TO ALCOHOLMAY LAST A LIFETIME

he remembered associations surrounding an infant’sfirst meal — smells, sounds and taste — are so deeplyembedded and powerful they can last a lifetime.

TNational Institute of Mental Health.Current NIH grants to Spear exceed$2.5 million.

Working with rat pups, some onlyhours old, Spear and his colleagueshave discovered that even at its firstmeal, the newborn’s behavior can beinfluenced by olfactory and taste cues.The next question is how well the ratsremember those lessons as they mature.

Spear says that Sigmund Freud hadit wrong when he postulated thatadults could not remember thingslearned as infants — he termed it “in-fantile amnesia” — because thoseevents were associated with sociallyundesirable events.

“Freud was wrong about it,” Spear

said. “It was not a social problem. Allaltricial mammals, those born withvery immature brains, forget the eventsof their infancy more completely thanlater events, and with animals it is un-likely that social standards are in-volved.”

However, Spear is finding that thememory for things learned in conjunc-tion with the infant’s first meal may notbe forgotten as rapidly as other eventsof infancy. “Things learned then seemto be special,” he said.

Spear and colleagues have testedtheir theory on hours-old rats that weredelivered by cesarean section. The ratpups were given a drop or two of milk,preceded by a sniff of lemon oil. “Thatgives the odor a lot of power,” saidSpear.

Later, when presented with a drynipple after a lemon-scented cottonswab, the rats suckled for about 80 per-

24

alcohol’s pharmacological “buzz.” Or,when the rat pups nurse, the milk iscontaminated with alcohol.

While Spear’s work is with rats, theimplications extend to humans. For in-stance, the research involving rat fe-tuses that absorb alcohol via an intoxi-cated mother may have implications forunderstanding Fetal Alcohol Syndromeand the less extreme Fetal Alcohol Ef-fect, two conditions that affect childrenborn to alcoholic mothers. Spear notesthat Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was onlydefinitively identified and labeled assuch less than 30 years ago, so researchinto the underlying issues of alcoholand fetus-infant development is still inits infancy.

Scientists have judged that morecases of mental retardation are due toprenatal exposure to alcohol than to anyother single cause. Fetal Alcohol Syn-drome generally affects one of every1,000 newborns and two per 1,000births in some socioeconomic groups.Fetal Alcohol Effect, which has mildersymptoms, is far more prevalent. Be-cause of structural and neurochemicalchanges in the brain caused by the pre-natal ingestion of alcohol, these chil-dren have learning and behavioral dif-ficulties that hamper them their entirelives. In many instances these childrenalso have a high predisposition towardalcoholism in later life.

Along with the basic research regard-ing alcohol, Spear is advancing science’sunderstanding of the role of prenatallearning, the importance of senses inlearning, and the link between thesenses, memory and learning.

Spear, who came to Binghamton in1974, received a bachelor’s degree inmathematics and another in psychologyfrom Bowling Green State University.He earned his master’s and doctoraldegrees in experimental psychologyfrom Northwestern University. Prior toteaching at Binghamton, Spear servedon the faculty of Rutgers University,one of the nation’s premier schools foralcohol studies.

“What the newborn rat can tell usabout the human condition is very, veryimportant,” said Spear.

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

cent of a 10-minute period. Rat pupsin control groups not exposed to thelemon-milk pairing suckled only about20 percent of the time.

Spear’s team repeated the lemon-milk pairing with another group of ratpups, but this time allowed a minuteto lapse between the presentation ofthe lemon scent and the milk. In spiteof the time lapse — which in older in-fants would not result in a conditionedpairing — the rat pups became condi-tioned to suckle in response to thelemon scent.

Spear concludes that the condition-ing in the newborn might be especiallyrobust for at least two reasons. First,in natural circumstances an odor and anipple are the cues that direct rat pupsto their first meal, so newborn ratsmight be predisposed to learn the odor-nipple association. Or, Spear says, itcould be that the pups are blank sen-sory slates aside from their fetal expe-rience, and the first significant sensoryinformation they encounter — thelemon odor and the milk taste — formsa special bond due to its primacy.

In either event, the experiment dem-onstrates that even primitive events,such as suckling at a newborn’s firstmeal, are learned and offer clues as tohow the mechanics of memory and re-inforcement operate.

Spear is working on a concurrentseries of experiments with rat pups andethanol, the form of alcohol that is thebasic ingredient in commercial alco-holic beverages.

“What we’re working on now,” hesaid, “is the question, ‘Is alcohol re-warding to infant rats and fetuses?’”In particular, he is asking how earlyexposure to alcohol, both prenatallyand postnatally, affects later respon-siveness to alcohol, including alcoholabuse.

The first challenge in the postnatal-exposure experiments is to get the ratpups to drink alcohol. (Spear notes thatolder rats don’t like alcohol: “You haveto trick them into it.”) Then he chartsthe physiological and learning effectsunder various conditions when alco-hol is the reward for learning.

“What we’re finding is that withinthe first two weeks after birth, infantsreadily drink more alcohol,” he said.“They consume two to three timesmore alcohol than water. What we’re

able to show is that alcohol is reward-ing, and at some concentrations, it’s asrewarding as milk.”

The second form of exposure thatrat pups get to alcohol is via the motherduring gestation or nursing. Duringgestation, alcohol gets into the amni-otic fluid and the fetus is exposed di-rectly to both the flavor of alcohol and

SPEAR WINSWARREN MEDAL

Norman Spear has been awardedthe Howard Crosby Warren Medalfor 2001 by the Society of Experi-mental Psychologists, a divisionof the American PsychologicalAssociation. He received the awardat the society’s annual meeting atPrinceton University earlier thisyear. The medal, established in 1935,is given annually for distinguishedscholarship in the field ofexperimental psychology.

25

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

The answer may lie in a report cardthat grades public school health ser-vices that was developed for New Yorkstate by the Roger L. and Mary F.Kresge Center for Nursing Research ofthe Decker School of Nursing. The re-search team was led by Gale Spencer,director of the center; A. Serdar Atav,manager of the center’s informationand research systems; and YvonneJohnson, a research associate.

“We tended to grade tough,” saidJohnson, who helped to analyze howschool health services fared in 11key areas.

Johnson said that while most of theschools received a passing grade, many

performed very well on high profiletasks such as policies for handlinginfectious diseases, but did less well inensuring that their students had visionscreenings.

The data were gathered from 140public schools across the state, exclud-ing New York City. Locally, the randomsample included schools in the JohnsonCity, Deposit and Margaretville dis-tricts. The sample included high-,average- and low-need schools in bothurban and rural areas. Using schoolnursing practice and national healtheducation standards as the guide,schools were judged to be below stan-dard, standard, proficient or distin-guished. The $9,150 study was fundedby the Statewide Advocacy for SchoolHealth Services Center, a unit of theState Education Department. The cen-ter had used a previous $7,500 grantto develop and refine the final survey.

Looking at the overall results,schools in New York rated a C+ (a 2.87score on scale of 4.0), said Spencer.None of the 140 schools was in the dis-tinguished class; 39 percent (55schools) were rated proficient; 50 per-cent (71 schools) were standard; and10 percent (14 schools) were belowstandard. Some schools rated distin-guished in individual categories buthad lower overall scores.

Spencer said the grant’s purposewent beyond just grading the schoolsand sought to correlate the grades withthe funding needs and grade levels.

PAT WEINRUM, THE

SCHOOL NURSE AT

JOHNSON CITY’S

LINCOLN ELEMENTARY

SCHOOL, PERFORMS A

BLOOD PRESSURE CHECK

ON STUDENT TEZIA

WEBSTER (CENTER)

WHILE BROTHER KEITH

WEBSTER AND SISTER

TAZ PATCHEN LOOK ON.

THE STUDY BY THE

DECKER SCHOOL’S

KRESGE CENTER FOR

NURSING RESEARCH

MEASURED HOW WELL

THE STATE’S PUBLIC

SCHOOL NURSES RATE

ON A SET OF NATIONAL

STANDARDS.

hen kids get sent to the school nurse’s office because ofa headache and a fever, can a parent feel confident that thenurse will know the difference between an allergic reactionto a spider bite and a spring cold?

School check-upsDECKER SCHOOL STUDYGRADES PUBLIC SCHOOL NURSES

W

26

B I N G H A M T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

(The needs of elementary, middle andhigh school students are all different.)The study also linked health care qual-ity grades to such variables as atten-dance rates and educational perfor-mance measures.

Spencer said the study, now beinganalyzed by state policy-makers, gar-nered considerable national interestafter the research was presented to theAmerican Public Health Associationlast November. A paper describing thestudy and its findings is also being pre-pared for submission to the Journal ofSchool Nursing, and Spencer is seekingfunding to conduct a national study.

While it is not surprising that nearlya quarter of the high-need schools —as determined by the State EducationDepartment — were below standard,the study found that 15 percent ofthe low-need schools also fell belowthe standard.

Johnson noted that while theseschools did quite well in many areas,they were deficient in the scoliosis-screening category. In fact, saidJohnson, most schools fared relativelypoorly in this category, pointing outone of the study’s key findings. Howwell a school performs in certain cat-egories depends on what grade level isinvolved and how “routine” the taskis — such as performing screeningsor recording a student’s height andweight.

Scoliosis screening, which detectsabnormal curvature of the spine, istypically done only in junior high(sometimes referred to as middleschool) or high school. In general,Spencer said, health needs in middleschool or junior high suffered, oftenbecause school nurse staffing levelswere inadequate. The study found a

direct correlation between the numberof registered nurses a school had, itsgrade span and its performance on theschool report card.

Staffing levels tend to be highest in

and weight screenings can be impor-tant tools in spotting health problemsearly.

Researchers found a significantrelationship between a school’s healthranking and its scores on the eighth-grade language arts test, meaning thatlower scores and higher scores on eachtest tended to be related or parallelone another.

A similar significant relationshipwas found between the percent of Re-gents diplomas earned in a school andits performance on the health test. Nocorrelation was found between thegrades on the fourth-grade languageand math benchmark tests and thehealth grades. These correlations, theresearchers agreed, were further proofthat as students progress throughschool, health resources decrease.

Looking ahead, the researchers be-lieve that the survey rubric they de-veloped is capable of generating a solidhealth report card for larger pools ofschools — regionally or nationally.Reflecting on their accomplishment oftaking a rough draft of a self-surveyoriginally crafted by others and turn-ing it into an instrument capable ofsuccessfully measuring and analyzinglarge amounts of data, Atav said,“What came to us was a shell and wewere able to develop it.”

The project also gave Decker gradu-ate students the opportunity to partici-pate in a full-fledged research effort.In addition to the research team, sixmaster’s and doctoral students assistedwith various components of the projectover the two-year period. “Our stu-dents are very lucky that way,” saidAtav. “They work with real data andreal people and get to see the results oftheir work.”

“Health is taken care of in small children. Adolescents are really a lost population unless there is some crisis.”

FROM LEFT, JOHNSON, SPENCER, ATAV

elementary schools and high schoolsand lower in middle schools, which of-ten share one nurse between severalbuildings, Spencer said. Middleschools had the lowest average overallgrade, 58.2 percent, when compared toelementary schools, which had a 71.3percent average, and high schools,which had a 68 percent average.Schools that encompassed pre-kinder-garten through 12th grade had thehighest average of all at 73.5 percent.

Spencer added that the health needsof pre-teens and adolescents often getshort shrift. “Health is taken care ofin small children. Adolescents arereally a lost population unless there issome crisis.”

Johnson cited another example fromthe report card: “Routine” tasks suchas recording student heights andweights were not as well attended toas such higher profile tasks as havingprocedures for administering medicine.In fact, said Johnson, height andweight screenings are often ignoredcompletely. While this is often afunction of short staffing as the workis time-intensive, she noted that height

27

the award. The first was James Baldwinin 1959.

While he finds the attention grati-fying, Glave admits it distracts from hiswriting. Glave is in love with words —listening to them, writing them, and,on tours, reading them aloud.

“I’ve always loved the power ofvoice, written and spoken,” he says.“Whenever I hear a character’s voice,I feel their energy and try to translatethat energy — the voice itself — withintegrity onto the page. It’s difficult.”

A dancer for several years with theDance Theatre of Harlem, Glave isacutely conscious of the rhythm inwords. The writer’s job, he says, is tocapture those rhythms.

In his classes, Glave pays particularattention to how students hear and seeas a means of expanding their listen-ing and seeing skills in concert withtheir writing. He has asked studentsto memorize prose passages and recitethem to him during weekly meetings.

“They often know song lyrics byheart, so why not texts?” Glave asks.The practice, he says, helps the stu-dents absorb the ebb and flow of thewords into their very being.

“I want them to be able to get dif-ferent forms of writing into theirbody,” he says. “I strive to familiarizethem with how language is processed— paragraph by paragraph, sentenceby sentence, word by word.”

Memorization and recitation, he

says, offer “a way of exposing the me-chanics of language, of getting intimatewith narrative forms, of reading withdedicated intent and focus.”

When Glave talks about “dedicatedintent and focus,” he’s getting at theheart of his view of the world. Hisworldview reflects the intersectionof being gay, African, American andCaribbean.

Before graduating with honors fromBowdoin College in 1993, Glave trav-eled throughout Central and SouthAmerica, including visits to Peru,Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentinaand Bolivia. He became attuned, first-hand, to the political repression facedby many, and by gays in particular.

Those experiences led Glave andothers (in 1998-99 while he was in Ja-maica on a Fulbright Fellowship) tofound J-FLAG, a forum for the island’sgay, lesbian and straight communities,to do human rights work.

These concerns find their way intoGlave’s classroom. “I think about theimportance of being ‘out’ as a gay man,a politically conscious gay professor,and a gay professor of color,” Glavesays, adding, “The students, reallyappreciate that openness.”

20

01

INSIDE RESEARCH

THOMAS GLAVE, WHO GREW UP IN

JAMAICA AND THE BRONX, WON CRITICAL

ACCLAIM FOR WHOSE SONG? AND OTHER

STORIES, A COLLECTION OF STORIES THAT

AMPLIFY GLAVE’S ONGOING HUMAN

RIGHTS ACTIVISM AND HIS ARTISTIC

VISION OF THE RHYTHM OF WORDS.

Singing outWRITER USES STORIES TOADVANCE HUMAN RIGHTS

IFor Glave, 36, assistant professor of

English and newly published author,it was a far cry — literally and figura-tively — from the Bronx where he wasborn and Kingston, Jamaica, where hespent much of his childhood. But withhis book, Whose Song? and Other Sto-ries, published in October 2000 by CityLights Books, hitting its stride in themarketplace, the tour was worth a se-mester off from teaching and writing.

Whose Song? is a collection of ninestories set in locales that include Bronxand Jamaican cityscapes, the ruralSouth and — in an eerily brutal story,“The Pit” — a country that could beany of a number of Caribbean or LatinAmerican venues where political massmurder could occur. The stories are byturns expansive, almost free-form, andtight. Some are tender, but most havethemes of dark violence — emotionaland physical.

Glave’s work has excited consider-able attention. Months before the bookwas published, the Village Voice’s Lit-erary Supplement named him one ofeight “Writers on the Verge.” Oncepublished, the book was reviewed bythe New York Times Book Review, TheWashington Post and many majorpapers, and featured on NationalPublic Radio.

The acclaim is Glave’s second brushwith literary notoriety. In 1997 he wonthe O. Henry Award for fiction, becom-ing the second black, gay writer to win

n the middle of February Thomas Glave found himself atthe top of the cultural bill of fare in frigid Stevens Point,Wisconsin — a small college town in the middle of thestate — more than 100 miles from “liberal” Madison, butonly a third of that distance from the home of the lateSen. Joseph McCarthy, right-wing political icon.

THOMAS GLAVEprofile

28

CENTER FOR COGNITIVE AND PSYCHOLINGUISTIC SCIENCES

Director: Richard Pastore, Est. 1987

CENTER FOR COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES

Director: Kanad Ghose, Est. 1993

CENTER ON DEMOCRATIC PERFORMANCE

Director: Edward McMahon, Est. 2000

CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY

Director: Norman Spear, Est. 1987

CENTER FOR THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF WOMEN AND GENDER

Co-Directors: Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, Est. 2000

CENTER FOR INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

Director: Harold Lewis, Est. 1995

CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP STUDIES

Co-Directors: Bruce Avolio and Francis Yammarino, Est. 1988

CENTER FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING

Director: Wayne Jones, Est. 1996

CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

Director: Charles Burroughs, Est. 1966

CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

Director: TBA, Est. 1987

CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN TRANSLATION

Director: Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Est. 1987

FERNAND BRAUDEL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF ECONOMIES,HISTORICAL SYSTEMS, AND CIVILIZATIONS

Director: Immanuel Wallerstein, Est. 1976

ROGER L. AND MARY F. KRESGE CENTER FOR NURSING RESEARCH

Director: Gale Spencer, Est. 2000

INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Director: John Baust, Est. 2000

INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL CULTURAL STUDIES

Director: Ali Mazrui, Est. 1991

INSTITUTE FOR MATERIALS RESEARCH

Director: M. Stanley Whittingham, Est. 1988

INSTITUTE FOR PRIMARY AND PREVENTATIVE HEALTH CARE

Director: Gary D. James, Est. 1998

INTEGRATED ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING CENTER

Director: Bahgat Sammakia, Est. 1988

PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY FACILITY

Director: Nina Versaggi, Est. 1972

Binghamton University Organized Research Centers

The Campaign for Binghamton University,dedicated to advancing Binghamton’s excellencein education, research and public service.

R E S E A R C H A N D S P O N S O R E D P R O G R A M S

UP 8.01

www.binghamton.edu

PO Box 6000

Binghamton, New York 13902-6000

research.binghamton.edu

Non-Profif Org.

US Postage

PAIDPermit No. 61

Binghamton, NY