Research Prizes and Honors
[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]
BUSINESS PROFESSOR’S PAPER WINS ETHICS AWARD
Robert Prentice, business law professor, received the Investment Management Consultants Association’s 2008 Richard Davis Ethics Award for his paper “Ethical Decision Making: More Needed Than Good Intentions.” It appeared in the November/December 2007 issue of Financial Analysts Journal. The award honors the author of an article that makes a significant contribution to advancing the understanding and knowledge of ethics in the investment management consulting profession.
News and Information
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN FORMS PARTNERSHIP WITH AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY
The University of Texas at Austin has established a five-year exchange agreement with Aga Khan University (AKU) in Pakistan, which has campuses in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The agreement includes research collaborations, special events and lectures, secondary teaching training programs, and faculty and student exchanges.
William Powers, Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin, and Firoz Rasul, president of Aga Khan University, signed the agreement on Saturday, April 12, at a private ceremony hosted by Texas Governor Rick Perry. Also present were His Highness the Aga Khan, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, and Richard Flores, senior associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, who facilitated the agreement.
Research areas identified for collaboration include: liberal arts; architecture and human settlement; management, government, public policy and civil society; economic growth and development; tourism and leisure; media and communications; education, science and technology; continuing education; health sciences, including joint research and training; and human development.
QuotedUT Researchers in the News
[A sampling of recent quotes by university faculty members and researchers. To be included in this section, let the Research Alert know when you or a colleague have been quoted.]
The New York Times
April 17, 2008
HEADLINE: Challenges Remain for Lethal Injection
Executions in Texas, Alabama and other Southern states with large death rows are likely to resume shortly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday upholding Kentucky’s method of putting condemned prisoners to death.
But the fractured decision may actually slow executions elsewhere, legal experts said, as lawyers for death row inmates undertake fresh challenges based on its newly announced legal standards.
”The decision will have the effect of widening the divide between executing states and symbolic states, states that have the death penalty on the books but rarely carry out executions,” said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas.
Los Angeles Times
April 17, 2008 Thursday
HEADLINE: In some L.A. County libraries, video games — and noise — are welcome; About half of the public facilities now reach out to youths with game nights. Some teenagers return to read books.
The American Library Assn. is giving games its stamp of approval this year. The group designated Friday the first National Gaming @ Your Library Day.
That doesn’t mean libraries will turn into arcades, said Loriene Roy, the association’s president and a professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Information. Roy said libraries established themselves as places for both education and entertainment more than a century ago when they created controversy by beginning to lend fiction books.
Now libraries circulate all manner of items other than books, including music albums, tools, toys, cake pans, even animals.
“Libraries are about providing public access to resources, in whatever format,” she said. “It goes back to what people want.”
Research Opportunities
Important university research deadlines:
Awards and Grants
Limited Submissions
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Software Development Tools for Improved Ease-of-Use of Petascale Systems
Deadline: Letter of Intent, May 12, 2008; Application, July 18, 2008
Support Of Advanced Coal Research At U.S. Colleges And Universities – Area of Interest 1B – Process/Equipment Co-Simulation Advanced Fossil Energy Plants
Deadline: June 10, 2008
Support Of Advanced Coal Research At U.S. Colleges And Universities – Area of Interest 2A – Novel New Materials for Energy Conversion from Coal
Deadline: June 10, 2008
Support Of Advanced Coal Research At U.S. Colleges And Universities – Area of Interest 2B – Computer-Aided Development of Materials
Deadline: June 10, 2008
Support Of Advanced Coal Research At U.S. Colleges And Universities – Area of Interest 1A – Multiphase Flow Research
Deadline: June 10, 2008
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Modeling of Infectious Disease Agent Study Information Technology Resource
Deadline: Letter of Intent, June 2, 2008; Application, July 1, 2008
Targeted Approaches to Weight Control for Young Adults
Deadline: Letter of Intent, Sept. 2008; Application, Oct. 10, 2008
Studies of Antimicrobial and Prebiotic Activity of Oligosaccharides
Deadline: Letter of Intent, Oct. 14, 2008; Application, Nov. 14, 2008
NIA Administrative Supplements for Translational Research Leading to New Interventions, Health Practices, and Policies
Deadline: Dec. 5, 2008
Structural Analyses of the Ligand-Binding Properties of Taste and Smell Receptors
Deadline: Jan. 8, 2009
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Geophysics Program
Deadline: June 1, 2008
Long Term Research in Environmental Biology
Deadline: July 9, 2008
Biological Research Collections
Deadline: July 25, 2008
Partnerships in Astronomy and Astrophysics Research and Education
Deadline: Aug. 3, 2008
Chemical Oceanography
Deadline: Aug. 15, 2008
Decision, Risk and Management Sciences
Deadline: Aug. 18, 2008
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Global Research Collaboration
Call for Research in Environment, Safety and Health
Deadline: White Paper Submission, May 15, 2008; Proposal, Aug. 7, 2008
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
INTERACTION OF EMBRYONIC AND ADULT EXPERIENCE
FACULTY: David Crews, professor, Section of Integrative Biology, principal investigator
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $120,000
Using the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) as a model system, experiments will investigate the mechanisms involved in mediating the interaction between embryonic and adult experience.
Our understanding of the process by which individuality emerges is still rudimentary, but it is clear that the environment in which the individual develops, and the individual’s sociosexual interactions as an adult, are central to this process.
This project addresses how the experiences passively acquired as an embryo interact with those of the adult, when the individual has a degree of behavioral regulation of its own environment. Behavioral and neural plasticity are at the root of these individual differences. Thus, the overall goal of the proposed research is to determine how embryonic experience and sexual experience later in life interact to affect adult male sexual behavior, and to reveal how this, in turn, effects the neural circuitry underlying behavior.
Obvious candidate mechanisms have two properties: they are influenced by the embryonic environment and they are capable of affecting sexual behavior and learning during adulthood. The mesolimbic dopamine system satisfies both these criteria and it is hypothesized that varying extent of embryonic hormone exposure organizes this system and the resulting differences mediate how the two morphs respond to experience.
These studies are long-term and will involve the participation of undergraduate and graduate students for their execution. Students will be expected to present their findings at national meetings and be co-authors on papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
