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Sept. 19, 2007

 

Carolina in the News

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

International Coverage

Pain ratings fail sufferers
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)

It may be a painful truth, but a new study suggests that attempting to measure pain on a scale of 0 to 10 may not help doctors effectively treat the suffering. The findings, published in the October issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, claim the commonly used numeric rating system failed nearly a third of the time to identify patients whose pain was serious enough to impair their day-to-day functioning. … Researchers analyzed 275 people who visited physicians at a University of North Carolina medical clinic and were pre-screened, as is customary in the United States, for pain symptoms. All of the participants were asked to rate their level of current pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being "no pain" and 10 being the "worst possible pain."

Regional Coverage

Hooked on caffeine (Commentary)
The Vindicator (Youngstown, OH )

Chicago Tribune: Not that we tend to be conspiracy theorists, but doesn't there seem to be a drive to sneak caffeine into every ingestive aspect of our daily lives? Potato chips. Doughnuts. Ice cream. Bagels. Chocolate. Yogurt. Caffeine lurks in some brands and flavors of all those foods, conspiring to keep us watching dreadful infomercials to while away sleepless nights. … "If you're a teenager and you're not used to drinking Red Bulls, you could end up with serious heart palpitations or could have more than that," said Barry Popkin, a nutrition scientist at the University of North Carolina.

Researchers working to stop drug-resistant bacteria from spreading
WIS-TV (Columbia, SC)

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are using drugs called bisphosphonates, usually used for bone loss, to block the enzyme that helps "fertile" bacteria exchange genes for drug resistance.

State & Local Coverage

Your Life: Ovarian Cancer, Silent Killer
NBC-17 (Raleigh)

Hilda Pleasant never gets sick. But the 62-year-old began feeling very fatigued one day. “I had some stomach pain, but I just kept thinking it was going to get better,” she said. It didn’t. During her annual physical doctors discovered the problem: ovarian cancer. … There is no screening test to detect ovarian cancer. Dr. Wesley Fowler, who performed Pleasant’s surgery, said women need to listen to their bodies and know the symptoms. "Early stage disease we do extraordinary well,” he said. “If you want to talk about overall survival rate, in late stage of the disease were about 30 percent."

UNC panel aims to balance safety, privacy
The Herald-Sun (Durham)

A full committee meeting of the UNC Campus Safety Task Force provided a glimpse Tuesday of the topics that will inform recommendations presented to the Board of Governors in November. Task force members — including administrators, counselors, law enforcement officials and chancellors from throughout the UNC system — wrestled Tuesday with how best to train staff to deal with threats, as well as how much potentially sensitive information can be shared among departments.
Related Links: http://www.newsobserver.com/1565/story/708388.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/vatech/story/708666.html

UNC, council spar over center location
News & Observer (Raleigh)/The Chapel Hill News

University of Florida researchers created Gatorade at the request of a football coach in 1964. More than 40 years later, the sports drink is worth more than $1 billion a year in annual sales. It's that kind of success story that has UNC eager to build a new Innovation Center off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. But last week the Town Council threatened to put a crimp in UNC's plans, spurning a request to expedite review of a development plan for the center.

Siemens, RTP Nanotechnology Startup Xintek Launch Joint Venture
WRAL-TV (CBS, Raleigh)

Siemens Medical Solutions is teaming up with RTP-based Xintek for a joint venture targeting development of new imaging technology. Xintek is a spinout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep07/zhouxinray091907.html

WFU business school ranks No. 2 on regional list
The Winston-Salem Journal

…Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill was ranked sixth among the 19 business schools in the national category, and Fuqua School of Business at Duke University was 13th. The rankings also featured the top 25 international business schools.

Is it something in the water? (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News

For reasons we cannot fathom, Chatham County seems to have an inordinately hard time fully embracing the concept of open government. In the past few years, county commissioners, elections officials and county attorneys have all run into trouble meeting the spirit and the letter of the state's open meetings and public records laws. … Chatham County's need for a special policy apart from the public records law is far from clear. As UNC media law professor Cathy Packer put it, "Most local governments don't have a separate policy. They have the law."

Issues & Trends

Report: College students bomb civics quiz
The News & Observer (Raleigh)

College students in North Carolina and nationwide failed a recent test of civic literacy, a report out today shows. The 60-question test on America's history, government, economy and international relations stumped the 14,000 freshmen and seniors who took it last fall and earned an average score of 53 percent. … UNC-Chapel Hill came in 19th with an average score of 58 percent. Pfeiffer University came in 40th, with an average of 44 percent. …At UNC-CH, seniors scored four points higher than freshmen, dropping the school's ranking only slightly to number 23.
Related Link: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/708744.html

Mooneyham column: Pay gap is growing in public sector, too
The Salisbury Post

For the chancellors at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University, these are good times indeed. The University of North Carolina Board of Governors recently announced that UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser and N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger would be given 15-percent salary increases, boosting their annual pay to $390,835. … Those figures may shock some people. They shouldn't. The salaries reflect what's happening in the private sector. UNC system president Erskine Bowles ($463,250 per year) made that clear. Defending Roper's salary, he pointed out that the head of private Duke Medical Center is paid $1.3 million.

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