THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2002
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3A
Events promote land mine detection
By Justin Henning
jhenning@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Each year, 18,000 people are killed or maimed by land mines, according to the Canadian Land mine Foundation and the United Nations Association of the United States of America.
This fact led to the creation of an annual dinner called Night of a Thousand Dinners. Today, people all over the world will participate in the fundraising dinners to aid land mine detection and removal technology.
University of Kansas' Graduate School and Office of International Programs will host a dinner at Abe & Jake's Landing, 8 E. Sixth St., from 6 to 9 tonight. A suggested minimum donation for the event is $15 per person or $25 for two people. Students may
attend for $10 individually or $15
for two students.
"We want to create awareness among the students, faculty and staff about countries with land mines," said Diana Carlin, dean of graduate students and international programs. "It will also allow us to focus on the research of two KU researchers."
Those researchers, Stiles and Dobson, have been working at the University on two separate tools to detect forgotten land
In addition, a public forum will take place at 12:30 p.m. today at the Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. It will feature presentations by KU researchers Jim Stiles, Jerry Dobson and Deborah Netland, a U.S. Department of State official in charge of the Office of Humanitarian De-Mining Programs in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
mines.
Stiles, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, helped develop a radar system using electromagnetic waves to locate mines by penetrating the ground.
His system improves on older versions of a similar technique, which had a hard time distinguishing land mines from rocks. The new system uses electromagnetic waves, which are low-frequency light waves not visible to the human eye, to determine the size and measurements of buried objects.
The radar determines the difference between rocks and land mines by the symmetry of the object. Rocks have jagged edges, but land mines would have a geometric symmetry to them.
Sites said this was one of many projects being developed for land
mine detection
"It's like a demining golf bag," he said. "Ideally, we will create one device that uses all of these technologies simultaneously, that we can use all the time in any conditions."
Dobson, a research professor with the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing program at KU, helped to develop a database of groups of populations that were in particular danger of land mines.
Carlin said it was important for people to be aware of this international problem.
"This is the aftermath of any war," she said. "And lots of innocent people are being injured and killed by these daily."
For more information, visit www.1000dinners.com.
Edited by Jessica Hood and Kattie Toske
New Web site offers University history
By Vonna Keomanyvong
vkeomanyvong@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Aftertwoyears of planningand research, the KU Memorial Unions finally launched kuhistory.com, a date-driven history of the University.
The site, launched Nov. 25, includes 123 articles about memorable moments in KU's history. It includes stories about a KU graduate who was not only the first student to be killed during World War I, but also the first American officer killed during the war. Other articles are about the underfunding of women's athletics, as well as segregation on campus and in Lawrence that occurred during the 1950s.
Henry Fortunato, Overland
Park graduate student and project director of the site, said the site allowed users to chart their own course through the school's history.
"The hardest thing about history is keeping it in sequence," he said. "With this site, you thread in your mind what you want to connect to. You decide what you want to learn about."
Each article contains a section called KU History InfoZone, where users can read related articles on the site, and KU Connections, which includes links outside the site.
"It's not just putting words on paper onto a screen," Fortunato said. "It's using the power of the medium to learn and explore. It connects the University to the widerworld."
Kathleen Neeley, assistant archivist of the University Archives, said she was pleased with the site's launch.
"Although we have more to offer than what's on there, they've made available a good bit of information about historic people and activities on the site," Neeley said.
Since last week, the site has received more than 3,000 individual visits. On average, visitors spent about nine minutes there
April Fleming, Los Alamos, N. M., junior, said she had visited the site twice since it went live. Fleming saw an advertisement about the site at the Kansas Union and said she found the Civil Rights pictures on the poster interesting.
"I like Lawrence's history." Fleming said. "I'm glad that it's
there, because it's easily assessable and it's useful."
Besides including historic pictures on the site, Fortunato said, he planned to include a section called "Archives Alive!" The section would include old University Daily Kansan articles and primary source documents such as letters, speeches and student essays. Fortunato estimated the section would go live in about three months.
The site was funded by Kansas Memorial Unions, Student Senate, KU Endowment and CocaCola.The total cost is estimated at $110,000,expended over portions of three fiscal years that paid for salaries of graduate students and Web designers who worked on the site.
Edited by Amanda Sears
Money running out but meetings remain
By Caleb Nothwehr
cnothwehr@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Student groups who want to receive funds from Student Senate should ask soon, because the money is running out, Senate finance committee members say.
After last night's meeting, Senate had approximately $28,000 left in its unallocated account, which will have to cover the spring semester as well. The unallocated account is reserved for student groups who appeal for the money.
"The way things are going, we're going to run out before the end of the school year," said Ryan Evans, Senate treasurer and Great Bend senior.
Some senators said they were in a worse financial situation this year than past years.
"We overspent last year and we're going to overspend this year," said Eric Braun, finance committee member and St. Louis senior. "But at this point last year, we had a substantial amount more."
At one point in the meeting, an embittered finance committee member sarcastically suggested an amendment to spend all of the remaining funds.
"Let's go ahead and zero it out tonight," said Kyle Johnson, finance chair and Wichita junior.
Groups receiving top dollar were the Student Lecture Series and the Asian American Student Union. At the evening's end, about $25,000 was allocated between the two.
In other news:
After a semester of rejection in committees, a form of online voting legislation passed last night. The bill provides for campus-based online voting in the Spring 2003 Senate elections.
The system will go through a trial run in February 2003. Senate will review the results of the trial and decide whether to implement it for the spring election.
Kit Brauer, holdover senator and Denver junior, who had pushed for online voting all semester, said he was happy with the outcome.
"I feel like we accomplished something that empowers students," Brauer said.
The legislation also requires Senate to implement a full scale World Wide Web version of online voting — where KU students anywhere in the world can vote — for Spring 2004.
Senate allocated about $16,000 to the Student Lecture Series, who will use the money to invite and pay for author Maya Angelou to speak in the spring on the KU campus.
Student Union Activities officials said it was likely that Angelou would accept the invitation.
"The chances are good because her agent is keeping the dates open for us," said Fallon Farokhi, SUA president.
If Angelou doesn't accept the invitation, Farokhi said Gloria Steinem or Noam Chomsky were possible alternates.
— Edited by Katie Teske