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Currents
THIS ISSUE POSTED June 26,
2001
CURRENTS VOLUME 18, ISSUE 18
To submit material to Currents, e-mail currents@d.umn.edu
Campus Events
Campus News
Faculty/Staff News
TWEED MUSEUM EVENTS
The Tweed Museum of Art is proud to announce the upcoming exhibition
"Shared Passion: The Richard E. and Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of
American Indian Art" beginning July 10. This exhibition features beadwork,
basketry and weavings, and a large group of works by contemporary American
Indian artists including Frank Big Bear, David Bradley, George Morrison,
Norval Morrisseau, Fritz Scholder, and others. This exhibit will be on
view through October 14.
A free exhibition reception is planned from 2 - 5 p.m. on Saturday,
July 14 at the Tweed Museum of Art. The reception will feature a
performance of unique Native American Folk Music by Frank Montano at 3
p.m. Everyone is invited.
Now through July 15, Marcie Macintire and Vernal Bogren Swift are
featured as part of the museum's Regional Project Series. This ongoing
series is devoted exclusively to the presentation of artists from the
region and/or art about the region. Macintre presents her own work and
examples of traditional beadwork drawn from area collections. The
exhibition also features the batik decorated fabrics of Swift, an artist
from Bovey, MN.
GLENSHEEN NEWS
Glensheen Historic Estate offers tours from 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. daily
during the summer. Tour reservations and further visitor information may
be obtained by calling 726-8910 or toll free at 888
454-GLEN, by internet at www.d.umn.edu/glen or by e-mail to
glen@d.umn.edu
GOLF CLASSIC
The UMD School of Medicine will be holding their Fifth Annual Golf Classic
on Monday, July 23 at the Northland Country Club. The format will be a
four-person scramble with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. Dinner and a program
will follow. Donations and student sponsorships are welcome and will go
towards the Medical Student Research Fund. For registration or donation
information, contact Lori Isaacson at 218-726-7572 or
lisaacso@d.umn.edu.
SUMMER MINNESOTA REPERTORY THEATRE
The Minnesota Repertory Theatre has two presentations this summer, one of
the longest running Broadway smash-hit musicals, "Man of LaMancha" and
Neil Simon's biggest comedy hit ever, "The Odd Couple". The season, with
rotating shows, starts June 27 and ends August 4. All shows are at 8 p.m.
All performances will be in the Mainstage Theatre at the Marshall
Performing Arts Center. Reservations can be arranged by calling the Box
Office at 726 8561, open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
ALWORTH INSTITUTE
This fall share your travelling experiences with your local community by
offering an Alworth Institute Brown Bag Lunch. Presentations are offered
at noon on Thursdays in a variety of formats which include travelogues,
discussions of research, reflections on social, political and economic
situations, etc. The Alworth Institute is happy to cover the costs of
making slides, transparencies, etc. If you are interested, contact Cindy
M. Christian at 726-8616 or alworth@d.umn.edu
UMD FARMERS MARKET
The UMD Farmers Market is open beginning at 2 p.m. every Wednesday under
the Dining Center on Oakland Avenue just outside of the Kirby Student
Center. The market will run through September or October if there is
enough product. If you want to participate as a seller or have questions
contact Deb Shubat at 726-7258.
GLENSHEEN ADOPT-A-ROOM
Another chapter of history was written in May at Glensheen as Bill Berke,
son of Glensheen's original wallpaper craftsman Louis Berke, hung the
first sheet of wallpaper in the North Maid's Room. The event marked the
completion of the first room in Glensheen's "Adopt-a-Room" campaign. The
restoration is estimated to cost $300,000. Individuals and businesses
wishing to sponsor entire rooms or make a contribution to the program may
obtain information by calling 726-8910 during regular business hours.
TOP 10 BEST DEPARTMENT
UMD's Office of Admissions was named one of the 'Top 10 Best Departments
to Work For' at the U Staff Day event held in May. The office
collaboratively submitted a nomination detailing the office's strengths in
areas such as inspiring leadership, promoting a sense of purpose and
meaning in work, creating a safe a respectful work environment, etc.The
office was recognized with a certificate of achievement which is now
displayed in the Admissions office reception area.
NEWS FROM UMD STORES
The summer hours for Campus Books are 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. Monday - Friday.
The summer hours for the Bulldog Shop, Computer Corner and the Marketplace
are 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Monday - Friday. The general book and textbook areas
of Campus Books will be closed on June 27 for inventory. Campus Books,
Bulldog Shop, Computer Corner and Marketplace will be closed on June 28
and June 29 for inventory. Campus Books is now stocking an exciting new
line of decorative papers
and accent pieces! In July, they will be adding more new decorative papers
to our collection. For information, call Arlene at 726-8777 or e-mail
alodahl.
LABO AWARD RECIPIENTS
Seven Labo Award recipients for the 9th Annual Joel Labovitz
Entrepreneurial Success Awards were announced on May 23.
Beth and Immanueli Magomolla, with Magomolla Enterprises, Duluth,
received the Emerging Entrepreneur Labo Award, which recognizes an
entrepreneur who made the transition from unemployment or underemployment
to starting a business.
Dean Poll, with Cabin and Timber, Ely, received the Start-up
Entrepreneur Award, which recognizes a business owner who has created and
operates a business with growth in revenues and number of employees,
profitability and impact on the community or region.
Dave Kasper and Wendy Johnson, with Kasson Manufacturing, Babbitt,
received the Mature Entrepreneur Award, which recognizes a business owner
who has demonstrated initiative, success and creativity in developing,
growing and sustaining a business.
David T. Adams with D.S.R. Sales, Inc., Crane Lake, received the
Exploring New Technology Emerging Regionally Award (ENTER), which
recognizes the inventor of technology that shows extraordinary promise in
meeting a societal or economic need.
Joe Sertich, president of Northeast Higher Education District,
Chisolm, received the David A. Martin Entrepreneurial Leadership Award,
which recognizes an individual who has a history of leadership in economic
development, who is a leader/innovator in the development, delivery and
support of programs that assist entrepreneurs in the region and who is a
mentor/role model for small business owners.
Two individuals: Robert S. Mars, Jr., with W.P. and R.S. Mars, and
Nick Smith, with Northeast Ventures Corporation, received Lifetime
Achievement Awards, which recognize individuals whose lifetime
achievements include significant entrepreneurial accomplishments.
CURRENTS SCHEDULE
Currents is printed regularly throughout the school year. The last Summer
2001 issue schedule is:
Deadline: Wednesday, July 18; Print Date: Tuesday, July 24. Submit items
to Currents via e-mail at currents@d.umn.edu. Communication student Lisa
Beelner helped edit this issue of Currents. Questions? Contact Cheryl
Reitan at 726-8996. Currents can be viewed at www.d.umn.edu/currents.
Ron Marchese, professor, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, presented a
paper at the 36th Annual Medieval Conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan on the
topic "Constantinople: The Missing Link in Understanding Church Textiles."
He also presented two papers at the 19th annual Ars Textrina international
conference in textile studies in June. Both papers cover research
conducted in the Middle East on nomadic material culture, and the
religious textiles of the Armenian Apostolic churches of Istanbul. The
latter was presented at the general session with his co-investigator
Professor Marlene Breu of Western Michigan University.
Neil Storch, professor, Department of History, received the Outstanding Academic Advisor Award at a UMD ceremony in April.
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE NEWS
Annette Boman, assistant professor, Department of Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology, Olga Zhandina, research associate, Nicole L. Strand,
first-year medical student, and John Redmond, UMD 2000 graduate in
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, published "Yeast GGA proteins
interact with GTP-bound ARF and facilitate transport through the late
Golgi" in the journal Yeast, 18, 1-18 (2001).
Boman has received a grant from the American Heart
Association-Northland Affiliate for research entitled "Expression Levels
of ARF and GGA Proteins in Post-ischemic Rat Cerebral Cortex." The award
of $80,000 spans two years. Boman recently presented a paper entitled
"Yeast Gga Proteins Facilitate Transport through the Late Golgi" at an
international conference on Membrane Trafficking. The conference was held
in Airlie, VA in March.
M. K. Froberg assistant professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, along with S. Zhou, A. Starkov, R. L. Leino, Senior Research Associate, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, and K. B. Wallace, professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, published "Cumulative and irreversible cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction induced by doxorubicin" in Cancer Research, 61, 771 777. (2001)
Joseph R. Prohaska, professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular
Biology, recently presented a plenary lecture on "Functional Genomics of
Copper Homeostasis using Transgenic Mice" at a FASEB summer research
conference in Whitefish, Montana. The plenary lecture led to a feature
story in the National Academy of Science Proceedings which included a
commentary by Prohaska, a cover photo of mice and the following two
articles.
Along with I. Hamza, A. Faisst, J. Chen, P. Gruss, and J.D. Gitlin,
Prohaska published "The metallochaperone Atox1 plays a critical role in
perinatal copper homeostasis" in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science, USA 98, 6848-6852 (2001).
Prohaska, along with J. Lee and D. J. Thiele, published "Essential
role for mammalian copper transporter Ctr1 in copper homeostasis and
embryonic development" on pages 6842-6847 of the same issue.
Prohaska recently received three years of funding totaling nearly
$500,000 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
for his research on nutritional copper status and the nervous system.
He also chaired a symposium on "Copper" at the national Experimental
Biology 2001 meeting in Orlando, FL.
Prohaska published "Long-term functional consequences of malnutrition
during brain development: Copper" in
Nutrition, 16, 502-504 (2000).
Prohaska and W.T. Johnson published "Gender influences the effect of
perinatal
copper deficiency on cerebellar PKC gamma content" in Biofactors, 11,
163-169 (2000).
Kendall B. Wallace, professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, was recently elected as president of the board of directors of the American Board of Toxicology (ABT). The ABT is an international 2,500 member professional association of practicing toxicologists.
NRRI NEWS
Subhash Basak participated in the conference "Issues and Applications in
Toxicology and Risk Assessment" organized jointly by the Food and Drug
Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Air
Force Research Laboratory, US Army, US
EPA and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in
Dayton, OH.
He also gave a presentation "Use of Biodescriptors and
Chemodescriptors in Predicting Toxicity of Chemicals: A
Mathematical-Cum-Computational Approach," at the Air Force Office of
Scientific Research Predictive Toxicology Review and Planning Workshop, in
Dayton, OH, recently.
Basak also gave an invited lecture "Quo Vadis QSAR?" at the
International Workshop on Molecular Structure-Property Relationships,
organized at Wright State University. He then continued with his trip to
Detroit, to give presentations and discussions on the role of QSAR in
anticancer drug design with colleagues at the Josephine Ford Cancer
Center, and Long Island College Hospital, New York.
Brian Gute, Gregory Grunwald, Denise, Mills and Basak published the
paper "Molecular Similarity Based Estimation of Properties: A Comparison
of Structure Spaces and Property Spaces" in SAR and QSAR in Environmental
Research, vol. 11, pp. 363-382, 2001.
Basak and his collaborators published the following papers in the
May/June 2001 issue of Journal of Chemical Information and Computer
Sciences: "On the Characterization of DNA Primary Sequences by Triplet of
Nucleic Acid Bases," M. Randic, X. Guo and Basak, 41, 619-626; "A New
Descriptor for Structure-Property and Structure-Activity Correlations,"
Randic and Basak, 41, 650
656; "QSAR with Few Compounds and Many Features," D. Hawkins, Basak, and
X. Shi, 41, 663-670; "Prediction of Mutagenicity of Aromatic and
Heteroaromatic Amines from Structure: A Hierarchical QSAR Approach,"
Basak, D. Mills, A. T. Balaban, and B. Gute, 41, 671-678; "Interpretation
of Quantitative Structure-Property and Activity Relationships," A. R.
Katritzky, R. Putrukhin, D. Tatham, Basak, E. B. Enfenati, M. Karelson and
U. Maran, 41-679-685; "Quantitative Structure
Property Relationships (QSPR's) for the Estimation of Vapor Pressure: A
Hierarchical Approach Using Mathematical Structural Descriptors," Basak
and Mills, 41, 692-701; "Comparison of Neural Net
Based QSAR Algorithm (PCANN) with Hologram- and Multiple Linear
Regression-Based QSAR Approaches: Application to 1, 4 - Dihydropyridine-
Based Calcium Channel Antagonists," V.N. Viswanadhan, Basak and J. N.
Weinstein, 41, 505-511; "Characterization of DNA Primary Sequences Based
on the Average Distance Between Bases," M. Randic and Basak, 41, 561-568;
"On Structural Interpretation of Several Distance Related Topological
Indices," Randic, A. Balaban and Basak, 41, 593-601; and "On Use of the
Variable Connectivity Index 1 Pf in QSAR: Toxicity of Aliphatic Ethers,"
Randic and Basak, 41, 614-618.
Iwao Iwasaki visited Japan recently at the invitation of Tohoku University in Sendai to serve as a member of an external evaluation team for their Earth Engineering curriculum. While in Japan, he also visited Kobe Steel and Kawasaki Steel to discuss the iron nugget project currently under way at the CMRL.
SEA GRANT NEWS
Douglas Jensen, exotic species information center coordinator, co-hosted a
new youth program at Munger Landing in May to help combat the spread of an
invasive plant, purple loosestrife. Thirty-three youth and adults from
several area 4-H clubs, a Boy Scout Troup, and a group from Woodland Hills
potted purple loosestrife taken from an infested area. They took the
loosestrife home and will care for them in kiddie pools. In June, the
plants will be inoculated with beetles. In July, the youth will release
the beetles at several purple loosestrife infestations on the St. Louis
River and wetlands in other areas.
Jensen gave a presentation "Exotic Species: The St. Louis River's
Most Unwanted" to the St. Louis River Citizens Action Committee Board and
meeting participants in May in Duluth.
Barb Liukkonen, water resources educator; Cindy Hagley, environmental quality specialist; Scott Robertson, former graphic designer; Debbie Bowen, information specialist; Cory Josephs, student graphic designer; Zhuikov; Sharon Moen, editor; and Teri LeFaive, office assistant, received a gold award for the "Minnesota Shoreland Management Resource Guide" Web site (www.shorelandmanage ment.org) in the 2001 national competition by the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals.
Carl Richards, director, gave a presentation at the North American
Benthological Society Meeting in May in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, entitled
"Multi-scale mechanistic indicators of stream integrity using
macroinvertebrates." John Hutchens, Jeff Schuldt, Lucinda Johnson, and
George Host of NRRI were co
authors.
Richards also presented a paper entitled, "The Role of Sea Grant
Coastal Research in the Development of Regional Monitoring Efforts" in
April at the Coastal Monitoring Symposium in Pensacola, Florida. The paper
was coauthored by Leon Cammen of the National Sea Grant Office.
Richards was recently awarded a grant from the National Science
Foundation entitled, "A Geomorphic Trophic Hypothesis for Arctic Lake
Productivity" in conjunction with co-PI's Anne Hershey, Chris Luecke, John
O'Brien, and Steve Whalen. The $1.3 million award will be cover three
years of research.
Minnesota Sea Grant staff hosted a learning station on the annual River Quest cruise. They distributed educational publications, and taught 800 sixth-graders from Duluth and Superior about exotic species that live in the Duluth-Superior harbor. The station was hosted by Charlene Johnson, publications assistant; Jeff Gunderson, assistant director; Glenn Kreag, tourism specialist; Moen, Bowen, LeFaive, Josephs, and Zhuikov.
Two University of Minnesota Sea Grant projects have earned awards in
national competitions. The "Stop Exotics, Clean Your Boat" video,
co-produced by Doug Jensen, Exotic Species Information Center coordinator,
and Marie Zhuikov, communications coordinator, earned first place for
video productions among Sea Grant programs. The award was presented at Sea
Grant Week in Hilton Head, South Carolina in March.
The video also received a bronze award in the 2001 national
competition by the Association of Natural Resource Extension
Professionals, to be presented in Naples, Florida in June, 2002.