binghamton university / research magazine / 2003

smallchange

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITYSTATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

FALL 2003

In today’s nanotech world, even thesmallest change can lead to big payoffs

hinking small is generally

not encouraged. But in today’s

nanotech world (where a human hair

is considered oversized), thinking

small — really small — is where the

future lies. It will be the key to how

we prevent and fight disease,

organize information and protect our

environment and ourselves.

As you will learn in this edition of

Binghamton Research, we value and

support these small changes that

lead to big payoffs. Whether it is

finding ways to help diabetics and

the elderly live a better life or

detecting environmental or terrorist

threats, our researchers are thinking

small.

But we are thinking big as well.

The University is moving forward on

its plan to enhance research

capabilities through the new

Innovative Technologies Complex

that will house initiatives in protein

dynamics, bioengineering and

sensors. With support from ear-

marked state and federal funds and

competitive research grants, our

research efforts are reaching new

levels. These strides are crucial not

only for the campus but to the region

and state as well, where the

University’s intellectual capital can

help invigorate and diversify the

economic base.

We are proud to share with our

colleagues, friends and supporters

some of our research successes.

Contents

smallchange10

2 Briefs

It’s not easy being greenBU, private industry team up to tackle lead-free challenge

6 Heavy metal revolution

8 Oliver’s twist

Lois B.DeFleurPresident

In today’s nanotech world,even the smallest changecan lead to big payoffs

12 The more things change

13 Good things in small packages

14 Some of BU scientists’ “little”projects in nanoscience

T

4

20Cancer curesResearcher looks for syntheticsuccessor to Taxol

22 Modeling nature’s chemistry mayhelp stop the disease

hough it’s been more than four

decades since physicist Richard

Feynman gave what is commonly

held to be the world’s first talk on

nanotechnology, his classic presentation

“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”

remains as true today as it was in 1959.

Feynman proposed that by working

from the top down, scientists ought to

be able to learn to manipulate things

at the atomic scale — to develop

miniaturized tools, design denser

computer circuitry and manufacture

microscopes that could help us

examine and produce things at a scale

smaller than ever before possible.

As you will see in this issue,

Binghamton University researchers

are stepping up to an even broader

challenge. They are looking at the

world from entirely new perspectives —

including from the sub-atomic scale,

where many of the basic laws of

physics are rewritten.

Whether they work in bioengineer-

ing, chemistry, nanotechnology and

physics or the humanities, health

care and human development,

Binghamton faculty are finding ways

to improve upon existing tools and

technologies and are creating new

knowledge across the disciplines that

can mean big payoffs.

As visible to the human eye, the

world is a very big place, full of many

possibilities. At the scale of the

infinitesimal, possibility becomes

infinite. Our institutional commitment

is to ensure that such promise will

flourish in the halls of academe.

T

Frances E. CarrVice President forResearch

24 Pumped upMiniature device has big potential

26 Putting a new spin on thingsBU research sends computing technology in new direction

28 Bone of contentionBioengineering approach points to different causes(and cures) for osteoporosis

32 Spreading the word(s)Helping teachers use keys to vocabulary building

34 Photographic memoryComputer scientist aims to better define, index digital images

38 A sense of well-beingNursing scholars develop tool for measuringan elusive quality

40 Come to the lightPhotochemistry research could lead to cleaner environment, new sensors

42 The price of uncertaintyEconomist unravels principles of world financial markets

44 Quixote questSpanish professor helps others appreciate Cervantes’ classic

To stay in touch with BU research throughout the year, subscribe to ouronline newsletter Discover-e. research.binghamton.edu/discover-e

Poetry brings joyfor National BookAward winner

For National Book Awardwinner Ruth Stone, poetry hasalways been a major part of life.Her mother read Tennyson toher as a baby. Her typesetterfather printed copies of herpoems and left them on thekitchen table for 5-year-old Ruthto find. It helped her through thepain following her husband’ssuicide and her struggle to raisethree young daughters alone.

And at 87, Stone still figuresshe’s got a lot left to say andeven more to share with the next

generation. Failing eyesight —progressive macular degenera-tion — forced her retirementfrom Binghamton University inDecember 2000, but shecontinues to teach a two-weekshort course that has become amecca for budding poets.

Stone’s sense of joy as poetsread aloud is visibly apparent asshe leans closeto catch everyword. It’s as ifshe wants toexperience thewords physi-cally. The roombecomes a sortof confessionalas raw emotionis shared.

“Every year, I keep thinking itcan’t get any better,” Stone said.“But it does. I love the exchange,the play back and forth. It’s arare pleasure.”

Stone has won countless

2 Binghamton University BINGHAMTON RESEARCH 2003

awards over a career in whichshe has published eight books of

poetry. InNovember 2002,she won theNational BookAward for poetryfor In the NextGalaxy (her mostrecent collec-tion) and, inDecember, theWallace Stevens

Prize from the Academy ofAmerican Poets.

“Out of all the teachers I’vehad in creative writing, Ruth haspulled the most out of me,” saiddoctoral student Anne Rashid,who has taken Stone’s workshopthree times. “She has a way ofopening herself up that makeseveryone comfortable. She’staught me that you have to digdeep to find art in unexpectedplaces — places that sometimescan be very painful.”

A respectful returnArchaeology center works with Iroquoisto repatriate burial remains

fter years in specimen boxes andlaboratories, burial goods and remains

of the indigenous people who once inhabitedthe region will soon come to rest among theirmodern-day descendants.

Guided by cultural icons and geography,representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy areworking with University archaeologists todetermine the cultural heritage of the NativeAmerican burial goods and develop a plan fortheir repatriation and burial.

Collected during excavation and highwaybuilding projects from Delaware to Chemungcounties over the last 40 years, the remains havebeen in the care of BU’s Public ArchaeologyFacility and the Anthropology Department.

Following provisions of the National GravesProtection and Repatriation Act of 1990, PAF iscoordinating the effort to return the items tothe appropriate descendants. After document-ing the collection and assigning preliminarycultural affiliations, PAF officials met with theHaudenosaunee Standing Committee, whichoversees burials and regulations.

“The consultation allowed us to cometogether to determine whose ancestors might

Briefs

have occupied the sites and which group couldbe affiliated with the items,” said PAF directorNina Versaggi.

Rick Hill, chairperson of the HaudenosauneeStanding Committee, commended the Universityfor its role in the process. “We were impressed bythe quality of the information that was sharedand the spirit in which that information wasshared,” he said. “There was mutual respectamong all parties.”

PAF received a National Park Servicegrant to complete the inventory, whichconsists mainly of small items,including human remains and shellbeads from six or seven sites, and alarge collection of remains salvagedfrom the Englebert Site in Nichols.The Englebert Site is a largegraveyard uncovered in theearly days of archaeology inthe Southern Tier, duringconstruction of Route 17.

When the formalrepatriation occurs,representatives from the tribes— perhaps accompanied by theirclan mothers and faith keepers —will accept the remains andother items. It’s most likely theywill return the goods to areas asclose as possible to where they were found.

A

Diplomats, governmentleaders recognize Mazrui

More than 240 guests,including a former head of stateand diplomats from around theworld, celebrated the scholasticlegacy of Ali A. Mazrui,Schweitzer Chair in the Humani-ties and director of the Instituteof Global Cultural Studies,during a two-day symposiumthis spring to celebrate hisscholarship and life’s work. Thesymposium featured a series of

Professor Ali Mazrui (left) greets formerNigerian President Yakubu Gowon.

Poet Ruth Stone works with doctoralstudent Anne Rashid.

Among the students betweenthe buildings,the color of their clothes is amirage of tulips.The lash of hot and cold upstateNew York mountain weather:April splinters like an ice palace.

— (from “Visions from My Office

Window” in In the Next Galaxy)

Binghamton University BINGHAMTON RESEARCH 2003 3

panel discussions to reappraiseMazrui’s conception of Africa as aproduct of a triple heritageencompassing indigenous,Islamic and western civilizations.

Guests included formerNigerian President YakubuGowon, Kenyan ambassador tothe United States Yusuf A. Nziboand U.N Special Rapporteur forChildren and Armed ConflictOlara Otunu.

New degree program toexplore cultural aspectsof health

As SARS and other newdiseases cross geographicalboundaries with increasingrapidity, the need forBinghamton University’s newmaster of science in biomedicalanthropology becomes evermore apparent. The program,the first of its kind, offers amulti-disciplinary approach tothe study of the transmissionand spread of infections, cellularand molecular mechanismsof disease, and the interactionof biological and socio-culturalfactors that shape healthoutcomes.

The 43-credit program, whichrequires an internship and alaboratory practicum, is expectedto draw students from disciplinesas diverse as nursing, anthropol-ogy, psychology, social work,biology and other health-relatedfields.

“Biomedical anthropologyrepresents the interface betweenmedicine and the behavioral andsocial sciences,” said RalphGarruto, research professor ofanthropology and neuroscience.“It is set up to give broad-basedtraining across disciplinaryboundaries, the interfacebetween anthropology andbiomedicine, bringing everything

• Francis J. Yammarino, professor of management and director

of the Center for Leadership Studies, and Michael M. Horowitz,

a developmental anthropologist who has advised governments

around the world, have been named distinguished professors by

the SUNY Board of Trustees. A prominent organizational scientist

who has consulted with corporations and government agencies,

including TRW, IBM, Lockheed Martin, the United Way, the U.S.

military and the Education Department, Yammarino has created

a leadership model that brings together contributions from

psychology, management and statistics. Horowitz, who founded

the independent Institute for Development Anthropology to

evaluate the effect of development projects on native people and

their environment, has worked extensively in Africa and Asia. He

has served as a consultant for various U.N. agencies, the World

Bank and other international agencies. Distinguished professor-

ships, granted only by SUNY trustees, are above the rank of

professor and are conferred on individuals who have achieved

national or international prominence.

• Subal Kumbhakar, professor of economics in Harpur College

of Arts and Sciences, is listed in the fourth edition of Who’s Who

in Economics. Kumbhakar is the author of more than 70 articles

in economics journals and the book Stochastic Frontier Analysis.

He has developed models to measure efficiency and productivity

of railroads, airlines, agriculture, banking, manufacturing,

electricity distribution, public administration and banking

around the world.

• Kathryn Kish Sklar, distinguished professor of history, will be

the Harmsworth Professor of U.S. History at Oxford University in

2005-06. The endowed professorship is the oldest post in

American history at Oxford and was established in 1922. Sklar is

co-director of the Center for the Historical Study of Women and

Gender and the Center for the Teaching of American History. An

expert on women in social movements in the United States,

especially in the Antebellum and Progressive eras, she is the first

scholar in women’s history to receive the Harmsworth honor.

• Isidore Okpewho, professor of Africana studies, English and

comparative literature, and Donald Quataert, professor of

history, have been named Guggenheim Fellows for 2003-04.

Okpewho will use his award to continue his research into the use

of African mythology in the New World. Quataert will use his

fellowship to continue his research into the everyday lives of the

coal miners of the Ottoman Empire, 1829-1922. Fellows were

chosen from a pool of 3,200 applicants.

KUDOSinto a single academic frame-work.”

Garruto said students canspecialize even further by takingelectives in subjects such asevolutionary medicine, genetics,human growth and develop-ment, population dynamics andrural health.

Rightmire key player indebate over early man

With the finding of each newpiece in the puzzle of early man,you will generally find Bingham-ton’s G. Philip Rightmire in thethick of speculation. Rightmire,an internationally recognizedpaleoanthropologist, specializesin analyzing prehistoric skulls.

After the recent finding ofskull fragments in Ethiopia ofnewly named Homo sapiensIdaltu, 160,000 years old,Rightmire was called upon bysuch media as Time magazine,the Boston Globe and The NewYork Times to discuss its signifi-cance. Of special interest was itsrelation to the theory that allmodern people trace theirheredity to Africa.

Rightmire is firmly in the out-of-Africa camp. “All the evidenceseems to point to Africa as theonly areas in which our speciesevolved and then spread acrossEurope, Asia and eventually theNew World,” he said. In contrast,multiregional theorists arguethat modern humans evolvedsimultaneously inside andoutside Africa.


ederal environmentalofficials have beenworking for years to getthe lead out of paint

and other products, but have yet toturn their attention to the lead soldersthat literally hold together the micro-chip industry. That may be coming toan end.

With Japan and Europe poised tobegin lead-free electronics assemblywithin the decade, U.S. manufacturersmay well be forced to follow suit. Aresearch partnership betweenBinghamton University scientists and aleading microchip manufacturer couldprove critical to the future of the U.S.electronics industry.

With support from a $360,000 grantfrom the National Science Foundation,Eric Cotts and Daryl Santos are teamingup with researchers from UniversalInstruments, based in Binghamton,to find a dependable alternative.

“In principle, there’s a healthconcern, and lead-based solder mayeventually be outlawed,” said Universalproject manager Peter Borgesen. “Butwe may not be up against a law so muchas we will be up against public percep-

“Five years ago,

if you talked to

somebody in the

United States about

replacing lead-tin

(in microchips), they

would have told you

there was no way.

Now here’s a huge

can of worms and a

lot of interesting

science to explore.”

— Eric Cotts

BU, private industry team upto tackle lead-free challenge

tion. Somebody’s going to start selling‘green’ products. If we can’t, we’ll be introuble.”

In microelectronics, lead-tin solder istraditionally used to join chips orintegrated circuits to the board. TheEnvironmental Protection Agencyconsiders lead a highly toxic metal thathas been linked to everything frombehavioral problems and learningdisabilities to seizures and death.

While lead-free microelectronicsassembly means problems for manufac-turers, it’s a windfall for research, saidCotts, physics professor and co-directorof Binghamton’s materials scienceprogram.

“For a metallurgist or a condensedmatter physicist or a materials scientist,it’s a great challenge,” he said. “Youhave a problem that was essentiallysolved. Five years ago, if you talked tosomebody in the United States aboutreplacing lead-tin, they would havetold you there was no way. Now here’s ahuge can of worms and a lot of interest-ing science to explore.”

There is still much to learn about thepotential of the five most promising

F

Chemist wins EPAgrant to developnanosensors

hile conventional approachesfor detecting heavy metals

in water are expensive and not suited foruse in the field, a Binghamton Universityresearcher has developeda prototype nanosensor that can concen-trate and trap lead particles 10 timessmaller than a human hair.

The prototypewas enoughto securefunding from

the Environmental Protection Agency forchemist Omowunmi Sadik and hercollaborators to develop advancednanosensors for continuous monitoring ofother heavy metals in drinking water andindustrial effluent.

EPA’s “most wanted” list of metals ofmajor environmental concern includeslead, cadmium (industrial), arsenic(natural decomposition and industrial),chromium 6 (nuclear reactors) and copper.Cadmium and copper are industrialwastes, arsenic is produced by naturaldecomposition and as an industrial waste,and chromium 6 is a nuclear wasteproduct.

Working with Joseph Wang from NewMexico State University, who will focus onnanofabrication of the electrodes required

by the nanoreactor, and chemicalengineer Ashok Muchandani of

the University of California atRiverside, who will work onmetal reclamation, Sadikintends to develop a one-square-centimeter nanoreactor capableof detection and remediationof all heavy metals.

In order to do that, shewill first have to developspecific colloidal-metalnanoparticles that can beincorporated into a bed ofelectrically conducting

polymers. Analogous to integratedcircuits used in semiconductors, in whichmillions of microcircuits are located on asilicon chip, this nanoreactor can beviewed as comprising millions ofidentical, elementary, molecular activesites 10 times smaller than a human hair.These molecular active sites will begenerated through electromechanicalsynthesis and tailored to meet specificenvironmental or industrial needs. It isbasically an elementary, molecular,heavy metal reactor that can generatemolecular interactions, secure therecognition of the desired metal anddecide on the reaction.

Once Sadik has worked out therequired chemistry from temperatureand pH to the novel nanostructuredmaterials that will be used in thenanoreactor, she is hoping the team canproduce a simple device that could beused much like the paint-matchingsystems common to most homeimprovement stores.

“For example, if we come up with aset of conditions for the chemicals, pHand temperature for removal of lead inwater, by changing the chemistry insidethe reactor we can make it applicable forindustrial effluent,” she said. “And weshould be able to provide a template foreach of the metals in water or inindustrial effluent.”

W


It’s not easy being green

lead-free alloys — all some combinationof tin, silver or copper. One of the mostimportant changes is melting tempera-tures. Lead-tin alloys melt at 183˚C,which has become the standard of thewhole industry.

By comparison, it takes temperaturesabout 35 degrees higher to melt tin-silver-copper alloys.

“That’s a huge change for themanufacturer,” Cotts said. “You have toheat the whole substrate to well abovethat temperature. A lot of differentcomponents are now exposed to thoseconditions.”

Forsaking the reliability, predictabil-ity and manageability of lead-tin solderisn’t a choice U.S. electronics manufac-turers readily embrace, Borgesen said.“It’s certainly not a matter of tradingup. It’s not an improvement. We’re verylucky if it’s only a smallstep back.”

Even the basic chemistry of lead-tinmakes it easier to predict reactions,Cotts agreed. Lead lowers the meltingpoint and enhances the flow of lead-tinsolder, but is essentially inert, notparticipating in the joining betweenmetal and solder. That means fewervariables affect the process.

To the contrary, in proposedreplacements like tin-silver-copper,silver and copper react with the tin,forming intermetallic compounds, Cottssaid. “Furthermore, they can diffusevery rapidly in tin,” he added, “so eventhough they’re present in small concen-trations, they’re capable of participatingin and significantly altering reactions asthe solder and metal interface.”

Such uncharted variables mean highanxiety for electronics manufacturersfor whom the ability to make quantita-tive predictions about assembly yields

and reliability are more importantthan to counterparts in otherindustries, Borgesen said.

“If you build bridges, youbuild one bridge every 10

years,” he said. “Thatproduction rate

allows plenty of timeto check and double-

check every opera-tion. But electronics

Physicist Eric Cotts is one of the researchers lookingto develop lead-free alloys for use in microchips.


It’s not easy being green

manufacturing involves enormousnumbers of the same product comingoff assembly lines. We need an in-depth understanding of the issues,technologies and materials. We needto be able to have good faith in ourpredictions without being able tocheck them often. That means weneed fundamental research.”

All of which is where BinghamtonUniversity becomes a windfall toUniversal, Borgesen said.

“We need the University as aresource — for students, who workwith us in our laboratory and are asubstantial part of our researchprogram, and for the scientificsupport of the faculty, through whomwe can link to truly fundamentalacademic research, We need to have alink to that. We need more than justsome papers here and there. We needto be able to go over and talk tothem. We need to go over and askthem questions. We need to interactand provide feedback. It’s veryimportant not only that this work isgoing on over there. It’s importantthat it’s local to us, and we can haveintense daily dialog with them.”

Cotts, who studies atomic trans-port and mass transfer in thin filmmetal systems, said he looks forwardto working with Santos, an associateprofessor of systems science andindustrial engineering, and Borgesen.After exploring the evolution of themicrostructure of lead-free soldersthrough different melting andannealing heat treatments, Cottsexpects to collaborate with research-ers conducing a related Semiconduc-tor Research Corporation grant oncampus. That second-phase collabo-ration will allow researchers toinvestigate how the microstructure ofalloys affects mechanical properties.

Binghamton Universitymaterials scientist, whose

research could soon make it possibleto safely and permanently “mop up”negatively charged pollutants likearsenates, phosphates and technetates,has received the prestigious NationalScience Foundation Career Award,which is given to promising newscientists.

It’s likely to mean at least $500,000over the next five years to support theresearch of Scott Oliver, an assistantprofessor of chemistry in his fourthyear at Binghamton, who is working ona new class of microporous inorganicmaterials.

NSF award recognizes newtalent in materials research

These crystalline materials, filledwith molecule-sized holes, enjoy a $2.9billion annual global market in petro-leum refining, water treatment, airpurification, chemical processing,manufacturing, environmental controland gas processing. Oliver’s materials,however, will boast an important,heretofore unheard of, twist.

Microporous materials are naturallyoccurring minerals or syntheticcompounds that trap oppositelycharged substances within their pores.Until now, these host compounds havebeen anionic — negatively charged —so that only positively charged sub-stances could reside as “guests.” Oliver

A

Materials scientist Scott Oliver ishelping to develop new materialsto trap pollutants.

Oliver’stwist


Oliver’stwist

“Oliver’s thesis

work opened a

door into a realm

of chemistry and

materials that we

had not known

existed before.”

— Geoffrey A. Ozin,

University of Toronto

and his team, however, have synthe-sized the first of what should be a newclass of cationic — positively charged— extended metal oxides for anion-based applications.

“It opens up a whole range ofpotential applications,” he said. “We’relooking at anion trapping because mostheavy metals form anions.”

His cationic compounds could beused to trap many common industrialpollutants. Because these materials areinorganic, they are more stable thanorganic materials. They stand up tohigh temperatures or acidic/basicconditions, making them ideal forcatalyzing many industrially importantreactions. The practical applicationscould be far-reaching.

Oliver’s graduate adviser, GeoffreyA. Ozin, professor of materials chemis-try at the University of Toronto, isn’tsurprised the NSF has recognizedOliver’s promise.

“Scott’s graduate work with me wasgenuinely spectacular and deeplyunusual,” Ozin said. “His thesis workopened a door into a realm of chemistryand materials that we had not knownexisted before. He is an outstandingyoung scientist with tremendouspotential to make creative and signifi-cant contributions to materialschemistry.”

Oliver returns Ozin’s compliments:“He is one of the top material chemistsin the world, and he totally changedmy life.”

So, too, he admits, will the NSFaward. “Now I can get the equipment,the chemicals and the graduate studentsupport I need. I can really get thingsrolling.”

Oliver is working on three otherprojects that involve unprecedentedapproaches to problems in materialschemistry:

• Developing the use of organicpolymers as a template for growinginorganic materials. The organictemplate can then be stripped awayby burning or dissolving, leaving ahighly stable inorganic material withmicron-sized pores. These could beused in solar cells, water purificationand thermal insulation.

• Developing a self-assembledmonolayer (SAM) usable as the insulat-ing layer in electronic devices. Oliver’sapproach circumvents the currentexpensive process involving depositionof a metal film by thermal evaporation.It may have impact in manufacturing arange of electronics such as capacitors,displays, chips and solar cells.

• A collaborative project withprofessors Jungyun Cho, BahgatSammakia and Wayne Jones, fundedthrough a seed grant from theInfotonics Consortium in Rochester,using ceramics and SAM technology toproduce coatings for various surfaces,such as micromirror arrays used byNASA.

“All these ideas are not extensions ofwhat’s out there,” Oliver said. “I haven’tseen anything like what we’re doinganywhere.”

Oliver knows his work may result indiscoveries of significant commercialimpact, probably soon: “I think if wejust keep at it, we could hit on ittomorrow.”

When that happens, it will come asno surprise to Oliver’s pre-kindergartenteacher, who used to tell his mother,“This kid is going to go far.” But Oliver,who came to Binghamton from a post-doctoral position at Harvard, isn’tplanning on going too far — at least notin trading academia for industry.

“I like both teaching and research,”he said. “Being here at Binghamton hasbeen great. It’s really worked out.”


changesmallchange


SCraig Laramee spends most dayssitting in front of his computer tryingto figure out how to get enormous datasets, populated by tiny bits of informa-tion about cellular activity, to reveal thevital information they contain aboutbiological systems. He is a bioengineer,specializing in bioinformatics. Hisalgorithmic approach is just oneexample of many new fields thatrequire researchers to think big aboutvery small stuff as they attempt to exactlarge payoffs from small change.

From healthcare and manufacturingto agriculture and consumer products,nanoscale science and engineering arepromising to change the way we live.

In today’s nanotech world,even the smallest changecan lead to big payoffs

Laramee’s focus is on developingalgorithms that allow researchers to seethe larger patterns formed by verysmall, very meaningful changes in thebody. Using new-age instruments likegene and protein arrays, he and hisresearch collaborators are able to recordhundreds of thousands of infinitesimalchanges in cellular activity. Given theright analysis, these infinitesimalchanges combine to create discerniblepatterns that can aid in the understand-ing of disease states. At present,Laramee and his cross-disciplinarycollaborators are working to under-stand how thyroid and breast cancersdevelop.

A nanometer is a billionthof a meter, 10 times thediameter of the hydrogenatom and about a hundredthousandth of thediameter of a human hair.

Small change. Though often a pejorative term suggesting some-thing is expendable or unimportant, in today’s nanotech parlance thatphrase has assumed new stature. In the world of nanoscience, whereresearchers work with materials and tools in the one- to 100-nanometerrange (at a scale five times smaller than a virus), small changes can meanhuge strides in invention and discovery and, possibly, giant leaps ineconomic potential.

Across the disciplines, Binghamton research faculty are finding waysto tease big payoffs from small change, whether at the nanometer levelor by tweaking new perspectives out of old ways of looking at things.When we consider the future, one thing seems certain: The next bigthing will come from small change.


“If you want to make a namefor yourself, get involved innanotechnology.”But like many researchers working

in the nanosciences, Laramee is farfrom single-minded. He is also part ofanother team working to model acertain class of proteins — calledextracellular matrix proteins — thatare key managers in cellular self-organization. As the name implies,extracellular matrix proteins existoutside the cell, but they significantlycontribute to the framework andtherefore the way in which cellsdevelop. Understanding them andbeing able to replicate or tweak theirassembly will afford researchers anopportunity to exert some control overcellular development.

Laramee and his research partnersare particularly interested in modelingfibronectin, elastin and fibroin, orspider silk — all of which could leadto more accurate diagnostic tools forbreast and thyroid cancer, biologicalscaffolding to grow artificial tissues,better skin care products, and newmaterials that are as strong as aspider’s drag line, the tensile strengthof which is greater than steel.

Across the board, small-scaleresearch has far-reaching applications.The U.S. government obviously agrees.It plans to spend big money on small-scale science and technology over thenext three years. President Bush isasking for $847 million for theNational Nanotechnology Initiative forthe 2004 fiscal year. About a third of

that money wouldgo to the NationalScience Founda-tion, a third to theDefense Depart-ment and theremainder toother agencies,including theDepartment ofEnergy. The NSFhas alreadyannounced aprogram seekingcollaborativeresearch andeducation projectsin nanoscalescience andengineering inareas such asnanoscalebiosystems;nanoscalestructures,devices andmaterials; quantum control; nanoscalemanufacturing processes; and studieson the societal and education implica-tions of such small but sweepingadvances.

Binghamton University research hasalso been tapped for $2.4 million infederal appropriations for sensor andprotein dynamics research, both ofwhich heavily depend on nanoscienceand engineering. In addition, the New

York State Senatehas awarded theUniversity $15million to spendon the renovationof a building atthe 21-acreInnovativeTechnologiesComplex, wherenano-research isexpected to helpenhance the localand regionaleconomy throughjob creation andtechnologytransfer.

Laramee’s placein that promisingbig picture hasbeen secured byforsaking themore traditionalresearch approachthat focuses on

finding simple, single-element explana-tions for complex biological phenomena— from cancer to wrinkles.

“It used to be researchers would belooking for a specific gene or a specificprotein associated with a tumor,” hesaid. “We’re more interested in patternchanges. We’re looking for a largenumber of small changes, rather than asmall number of large changes.

“Historically,” Laramee said, “there’s

Binghamton scientist and professor Eric Dietrich, paraphrasing 1959 advice from physicist Richard Feynman:


t’s a paradox of epic proportions:Some of the smallest things in the

world are measured in very, very largenumbers. Consider the humble mole.Unlike the furry insectivore of thesame name, the scientific mole is oneof seven base units in the Interna-tional System of Units, the modernmetric system of measurement.

“Mole” is the term that describesthe base unit of the amount of a puresubstance. Represented as 6.022 x 1023

units, it is derived from the Germanmol — short for molekulargewich, ormolecular weight.

When converting numbers fromscientific notation, the small super-script number at the upper rightcorner of the 10, which is known asthe exponent, represents the numberof zeroes to be added to the right ofthe 1. Ten to the 23rd power, then,translates into 1 with 23 zeroes afterit. Multiplied by 6.022, this meansthat one mole contains about602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000units. Though that’s a very largenumber, moles are used to measurevery small things — usually atomsor molecules.

On the other hand, while thenumeric expression of the nanometeralso contains lots of zeroes, theirplacement to the left of the 10 and tothe right of a decimal point makes itclear that they are there to represent avery tiny measurement. A nanometeris represented as 10-9. That’s onebillionth of a meter, or .000000001.While a meter is about the size of ayardstick, a nanometer is 50,000 to100,000 times smaller than the widthof a human hair.

Big numbers for tiny measurements

I

Other small measures and their interchangeable prefixes include:

Femtosecond: 10-15, one millionth of a nanosecondPicogram: 10-12, one trillionth of a gramAttomole: 10-18, one quintillionth of a moleZeptometer: 10–21, one sextillionth of a meterYoctosecond: 10-24, one septillionth of a second


a mindset that says you try tounderstand a system by breaking itup into its individual parts andunderstanding each component.”While that more traditional ap-proach often works in manufacturedsystems, such as a car or a computer,biological systems are complex,dynamic and self-organizing, heargues, and the whole is alwaysgreater than the sum of the parts.

That means that an ecologicalviewpoint — one that recognizesthat no change in the system islikely to happen in isolation, andthat most, if not all, changes willhave a ripple effect throughout thesystem — is better advised. It is anapproach, Laramee says, that issupported quite well at BinghamtonUniversity, where some of thegreatest minds in systems sciencehold faculty appointments. It is alsoan approach, he says, that representsthe future.

Eric Dietrich agrees. A cognitivescientist and philosophy professorwho works with algorithms in anattempt to enhance artificial intelli-gence and our understanding ofcognition and the human mind,Dietrich points to the past as awaystation for the future.

The first speech ever written onthe topic of nanotechnology, henotes, was a classic presentationcalled “There’s Plenty of Room at theBottom,” delivered by physicistRichard Feynman in 1959. Whileresearch of that era tended to takeplace at a macro-level, Feynmanproposed the possibility of develop-ing the general ability to manipulatethings at an atomic scale.

“This was Feynman’s point,”Dietrich said. “If you want to make a

Imagine having no memory in aworld rife with change. Everything andeveryone is brand-new to you at everymoment. You don’t recognize familymembers. You don’t recognize yoursurroundings. You don’t recognize thatyou are the same person you were as achild — or even last week. You don’tknow whether things are safe to eat ordrink, or what the darkening sky andblustering winds might foreshadow. Nopast. No future. Just a totally con-founding present in which the word“change” has lost all relevance andmeaning, because that’s all there is.

If the scenario is unnerving, that’slikely because it would probably meanthe end of life as we know it.

“Without some thread of constancy,”

agreed Eric Dietrich, a cognitivescientist and philosopher of the mind,“we’d be toast.”

According to Dietrich, what actuallyhappens for most of us is that changeand constancy engage in a mysteriousand symbiotic dance — a reel in whichthe two alternate the lead, workingseparately and in collaboration toinform our perceptions and interpreta-tions of the world. Fortuitously, thisresults in a sum significantly greaterthan the parts. It also points to the kindof properties that continue to fuelcognitive studies and perplex cognitivescientists, Dietrich said.

“You’ve got a whole bunch ofneurons doing their thing in the brain,”he said. “What individual neurons do

The more things

he meaning and nature of change has fascinated great

minds since recorded time. Today, legions of philoso-

phers and hosts of cognitive scientists continue the effort

to resolve what may be one of the world’s greatest paradoxes: How

do change and constancy

coexist in the world

and the human mind?

Binghamton University Professor Eric Dietrich is sure of

at least one thing. Our creativity, and likely our very survival,

depends on the fact that they somehow do.

T“Without some

changechange


found in analogy and abstraction, bothof which are at the heart of his currentresearch interests.

Analogy depends on and is charac-terized by an ability to draw similaritiesbetween things that are dissimilar.Abstraction, Dietrich said, is the act ofdeveloping a general sense, or “gistnotion,” from many specific pieces ofinformation. He is working in bothareas through the development ofalgorithms to inform the developmentof artificial intelligence and his studies

world chess champions,” he added.“But at the end of the game, [Garry]Kasparov can stand up and go home. Hecan tie his shoes. He can make pasta. Hecan have a conversation” — all thingsDeep Blue, obviously, cannot do.

Dietrich thinks his work helps todemonstrate that abstraction andanalogy are key to the problem ofconstancy with change. He also hopesto learn more about how both relate tothe kind of human creativity andartificial intelligence that will fuel the

thread of constancy, we’d be toast.”is very sophisticated. But it’s nothingcompared to what a whole humancan do.

“Somehow, you end up with alanguage-speaking human engaged intrying to establish world peace. That’s alittle hard to predict from neuronalactivity in the brain. We couldn’t evenpredict consciousness from the neu-ronal activity in the brain.”

Still it is minds, after all, that keepan ever-changing world from utterchaos, most philosophers now agree.

“The world is constantly changing,but humans stamp constancy on it withtheir minds,” Dietrich said. “Mindsmake an ever-changing world some-what constant. But no one is really surehow we manage to pull it off.”

How is it that we develop andsustain the kind of constancy that iscritical to learning, relationships and,very possibly, our basic sanity andsurvival in an ever-changing world?Dietrich thinks the answer might be

of cognition and the human mind.In 1909, when it suddenly occurred

to Ernest Rutherford that electronsmust hold the negative charge of atomsand that they must also orbit thenucleus “like planets around the sun,”Rutherford was abstracting from bits ofdata before him — drawing an analogybetween a familiar, or “constant,” ideaand an observed phenomenon orperception to arrive at a brand-newconcept, Dietrich said. Though analogyresearch is a great success story incognitive science, Dietrich said re-searchers are still a long way frombuilding a machine that can spontane-ously do what Rutherford did.

“We have artificial neural networksthat do a good job of perceptualabstraction,” he said. “They can look atyour face and my face and, despite theobvious differences, they can abstractthe notion of ‘face.’

“We even have machines —Deep Blue — that can sometimes beat

Early debates about change and

constancy generally addressed the

two notions as mutually exclusive. In

Ancient Greece, either everything in

the world was changing, as argued

by Heraclitus, or nothing was, as

argued by Parmenides and his

followers. Heraclitus is often

credited with laying the foundation

for all other speculation on physics

and metaphysics. The Parmenidians

haven’t been heard from of late.

most promising nanoscale changes ofthe future.

“It’s one thing to know the actualstring of bases in the human genome,”Dietrich said. “It’s another thingto know what to do with thatinformation.”

The nature of change:an old argument


Eric Dietrich

smallGood things in small

electronics industry. Cheaper off-shorelabor has led to a steady decline intraditional American electronicsmanufacturing jobs and the loss ofrevenue for sustaining research anddevelopment critical to creating next-

name for yourself, get involved innanotechnology.”

In his presentation, Feynmansuggested that by the year 2000, theworld would be asking why 1950s- and’60s-era researchers had waited so longto embrace the challenges of small-scaleresearch. But as it stands, in 2003,there’s no finger-pointing. We ourselves

are just beginning to scratch thesurface, Dietrich said.

“Things are getting small across theboard with some very nice conse-quences,” he said. “DNA computing?That’s sexy stuff. And then there’squantum computing, which is really,really sexy stuff.

“All that work on chaos theory and

fractals? That was the big thing a fewyears ago, and while the hype has faded,all that work still needs to go on.”

The bottom line, Dietrich said, is thatwe need to spend more money and timeon things we can’t begin to see with thehuman eye, or even through classicmicroscopes.

“We have so much further to go, it

generation products.Without those products,companies stand littlechance of survival.

With electronicsconsumers most interestedin buying ever smaller andmore functional devices,research supporting theirdevelopment and manufac-ture is a crucial nicheuniversity research centerslike the IEEC need to fill,Sammakia said. “Theadvantage for companies to

Integrated Electronics EngineeringCenter charts new “micro” direction

R esearchers in theUniversity’s IntegratedElectronics Engineering

Center are making a big deal out ofsmall-scale electronics manufacturing.The new focus is part of the IEEC’smission to help theUnited States regainpre-eminence in theelectronics industryand to create andsustain regional jobsin electronics packagingby conducting researchand reliability testing.

“There’s no question that electronicsmanufacturing in the UnitedStates and worldwide is changing,” saidBahgat Sammakia, who has led theIEEC, a state Center for AdvancedTechnology, for the past four years.“Many jobs are leaving the country andwill not come back. Whenever aproduct becomes a very straightforwardcommodity that can be manufacturedanywhere, it will be manufacturedelsewhere.”

That reality creates a “change orperish” environment for the domestic

stay in the United States is not going tobe lower-cost manufacturing, it’s goingto be for advanced technology.”

As part of its standing commitmentto foster development of the electronicsindustry, the IEEC will move into areaswhere micro- and nano-technologies,like microelectric mechanical systems,or MEMS; optical MEMS, known asMOEMS; and nanostructured materialsare the clear wave of the future.


smallchange

packages

would be fine to spend the next 100years with everyone rushing to thebottom,” he said.

Researchers across Binghamton’scampus are taking on the challengesand embracing the promise of smallchange. The University’s world-renowned Integrated Electronics

Engineering Center is charting newdirections that will maintain itscommitment to traditional electronicspackaging while pursuing nanoscalepackaging. That’s not an easy task,because many of the rules change whenworking at the nano level. Materialsbehave in ways that scientists couldnever have predicted, and even the

Community partners

The shift by the Integrated ElectronicsEngineering Center to small-scaleresearch is compatible with its missionand its ongoing commitment totraditional electronics manufacturing.Research support and reliability testingservices provided by the IEEC haveattracted large national electronicscompanies, including IBM, ADI and GECorporate Research, and localcompanies such as Universal Instru-ments, Lockheed Martin and BAESystems, to the center’s membership.Full IEEC membership costs about$60,000 annually and provides accessto student and faculty researchexpertise, diagnostic equipment,literature, laboratories and intellectualproperty produced by IEEC. With morethan 50 other partners at participatingor associate member levels, the IEECyearly contributes $30 million to theSouthern Tier economy.

These require “a very differentinfrastructure than we have today, bothfrom the research and the manufactur-ing perspective,” Sammakia said. “Theinfrastructure we have today is suitablefor objects as small as tens of microns,where a micron is 10–6 meters. Thenanostructure scale we’re moving to istens of nanometers, or 10–9 meters:three orders of magnitude smaller.”

If you figure the old standby for

size comparisons, the human hair,is about 100,000 nanometers wide,you’ll have some idea of what micro-electronics are about.

Small-scale work creates newchallenges for researchers and manufac-turers, including the need for cleaner,more controlled environments,Sammakia said. An errant dust particlecan completely obliterate elements fromresearchers’ view. “The good news,” henoted, “is that an assembly line mayrequire considerably less space thantraditional assembly lines.”

It also requires vibration-free

“We have to look at the behavior ofmaterials and structures in a completelyfresh way. It requires not just a newphysical infrastructure, but a newintellectual infrastructure.”

— Bahgat Sammakia, director of the

Integrated Electronics Engineering Center

facilities and significantly moreaccurate instrumentation as well aswillingness to change. While basicphysics are understood at thenanostructure scale, materials andstructures can behave completelydifferently at that scale, and a defectthat could be ignored at the micronlevel probably is not tolerable atnanometer scale. It’s likely even basicassumptions about materials behaviorwill need to be rethought.

“When we model things at the largescale, we tend to consider only effectswe feel are relevant,” Sammakia noted.“When we change scales, theseassumptions are not good anymore. Wehave to look at the behavior of materi-als and structures in a completely freshway. It requires not just a new physicalinfrastructure, but a new intellectualinfrastructure.”


• Thermal management devices. Interposers andinterface materials for such applications as electronics packagingreduce thermal resistance and increase conductivity.

• Electrical interconnect systems. Using nanoscalestructures improves electrical interconnectivity betweenadhesively attached component structures.

• Protective coatings. Ceramic/organic bilayer coatingshave been developed for silicon and organic surfaces throughnovel processing techniques and microstructural design to morereliably protect silicon surfaces used in microelectromechanicalsystems (MEMS) and eliminate the need for hermetic packaging.

• A new technology for assembling core-shellnanoparticles as thin films of controlled thick-ness and interparticle morphology. The invention is anew one-step technology for the assembly of core-shell metaland nanoparticles as thin films on any type of substrate, with acontrolled thickness and interparticle morphology. Because ofthe simplicity, cost-effectiveness and applicability for the coatingof potentially any substrate, the technology may be utilized in avariety of applications, in a variety of industrial sectors involvedin computer chip manufacture, microelectronics, sensors andchemical catalysis.

• A new technology for activating core-shellassembled and alloy nanoparticles and catalysts.The invention is a new technology that allows highly efficient/effective preparation of core-shell types of metal and alloynanoparticles as catalysts.

• Fabrication of size-controlled spherical assem-bly of metal nanoparticles. In comparison with othermethods for assembling nanoparticles into spherical assembliesof different size using polymeric structures with molecularrecognition groups, the disclosed method has the ability tocontrol size, shape and inter-assembly nanoparticle specialproperties.

• Sensor arrays with nanostructured sensingmaterials for detecting nitroaromatic vapors.In this invention, core-shell nanoparticles are assembled as thinfilms and used as chemoselective array sensing probes withextremely high response sensitivity and selectivity to nitro-aromatic vapors.

• Nanofibrous fluorescent chemical sensors. Thedisclosure describes the structure and mode of preparation offluorescent conjugated polymer nanofibers having extremelyhigh surface-to-volume ratios. The resulting fibers may be usedin the manufacture of highly sensitive sensor devices.

• Gold-based alloy nanoparticles for use as fuelcell catalysts. The invention describes a new class of gold-alloy nanoparticle catalysts for fuel cell anode and cathodeelectrocatalysis.

Some of BU scientists’ “little”projects in nanoscience

• Selective protective ceramics/SAM bilayercoatings for MEMS mirror applications. Thedisclosed procedure eliminates the need for an aggressiveetching step in manufacturing the silicon mirrors used in MEMSdevices in order to provide electrical interconnection sites on themetal bonding pads. As a result, manufacturing steps aresimplified and the costs of manufacturing reduced.

• Protective ceramic/bilayer coatings used as ahermetic encapsulation on organic packages. Theinnovation addresses the need for a reliable protective coatingprocess and material to protect typical organic (plastic) packages.

• A new technology for processing the size,shape and surface of core-shell nanoparticles.The invention is a new technology that allows highly efficientprocessing and controlled uniform production of core-shell typesof metal and alloy nanoparticles. Because of the simplicity,versatility and cost-effectiveness of the technology, it may beutilized in a variety of applications, including the generation offuel cell catalysts and the production of chemical sensing andbiological labeling materials.


The NSFprojectsnanotechas a

by 2015,and manyobserversthink that’s

conservative.

$1 trillion market

effects of gravity diminish. Nanoscalemanufacturing presents new chal-lenges in the development of materi-als, tools, assembly and qualityassurance.

Elsewhere on campus, recentinvention disclosures include morethan a dozen that represent interdisci-plinary innovations in nanoscience,nanomaterials and nanotechnology,said Donald Colbert, assistant vicepresident for technology transfer andeconomic outreach.

These disclosures all have twothings in common, Colbert said.

“They all address real-timeproblems with cutting-edge technolo-gies, and almost all are interdiscipli-nary and interdepartmental. Physi-

cists working with chemists workingwith biologists working with engineersworking with philosophers workingwith anthropologists working witheducators and sociologists. Cross-fertilization is taking over wheredisciplinary isolation used to hold sway.And the snowball keeps growing, onediscovery at a time.”

What are the limits of small change?For now, at least, there seem to be no

limits on nanoscience. Binghamtonresearchers are even finding ways toilluminate questions as large as thechemistry of ancient seawater bytracking small change. Tim Lowenstein,a professor of geology specializing inlow-temperature geochemistry, and his

research team have developed ways tostudy tiny drops of seawater trappedinside salt crystals. These techniquesallow researchers to accurately analyzethe chemistry of seawater inclusions100 times smaller than with previoustechniques.

“One outcome of this research is thatgeologists are making interestingconnections between relatively smallchanges in ancient seawater salt compo-sition and the evolution of organismsthat build their shells out of calciumcarbonate,” Lowenstein said. His workhas helped to show that shell builders —for example, algae and corals — havebeen heavily influenced by smallchanges in the chemistry of the oceans,particularly when it comes to levels ofcalcium and magnesium.

“Because these elements are involvedin skeleton construction,” Lowensteinsaid, “when the calcium and magnesiumconcentrations change in seawater, reef-building organisms change in response.”

In the past several years, Lowenstein’swork has debunked age-old presump-tions that the chemistry of seawater hadremained unchanged over 600 millionyears. His small-scale discoveries arehelping to provide new contexts for thehistory and evolution of ocean-dwellingplants and animals.

As if all of this isn’t a big enoughpayoff from small thinking, considerthis: The NSF projects nanotechnologyas a $1 trillion market by 2015,and many observers think that’sconservative.

New machines thinner than a humanhair, diagnostics that will function at themolecular level, materials that will belighter, stronger and more versatile —these are just a few of the huge rewardsBinghamton University researchersexpect to see as a result of their growingcommitment to small change.


Cancercures

he work of a Binghamton chemistry

professor is altering conventional wisdom

about the interactions of the anti-cancer

drug Taxol® in ways that could lead to

development of more effective next-generation

pharmaceuticals.

With funding from the National Institutes of

Health, Susan Bane and her research team are

working with David Kingston of Virginia Polytech-

nic Institute to learn more about the protein

known as tubulin.

“Tubulin is a target for a number of anti-cancer

drugs,” Bane said. Found in the highest concentra-

tions in the brain’s nerve cells, tubulin is critical to

cell growth and can help control the spread of

cancer, characterized by uncontrolled cell growth.

Researcher looks for syntheticsuccessor to Taxol

TResearcher looks for syntheticsuccessor to Taxol


Bane has been studying tubulin forover a decade, as well as Taxol, an anti-cancer drug used to treat many breast,ovarian and lung cancers. Once,scientists thought the synthetic portionof the Taxol molecule was key to itseffectiveness, because it binds with thereceptor. But Bane’s discovery, pub-lished in Biochemistry, is that thenaturally occurring part of Taxol doesmost of the work.

A major money-maker for Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Taxol earnsthe pharmaceutical giant around $1.5billion a year in the United States alone.By determining how anti-cancer drugs

like Taxol interact with tubulin at themolecular level, Bane is helping to pavethe way for developing better drugs.

Taxol’s convoluted origins clarifywhy producing it and understandinghow it works is challenging. In theearly 1960s, the National CancerInstitute initiated screening of biologi-cal extracts collected from variousnatural sources. One extract exhibitedsignificant anti-tumor activity against abroad range of rodent tumors. Fiveyears later, researchers isolated theactive compound from the bark of the

Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia,identifying it as paclitaxel. Almostanother 20 years passed before clinicaltrials began. Not until 1992 did Bristol-Myers Squibb’s drug Taxol receiveconditional FDA approval for treatingmetastatic ovarian cancer.

Much of that time, scientists werestruggling not only to understand andmaximize paclitaxel’s therapeuticeffects, but also to make it cost-effectiveand easy to administer. The Pacific yew,one of the slowest-growing trees, isenvironmentally protected. Becauseonly infinitesimal amounts of thecompound can be isolated from thebark, it takes six 100-year-old trees toprovide enough Taxol for just onepatient. Removing the bark kills thetree, so the cost of producing Taxolremained a limiting factor.

Fortunately, a closely relatedpaclitaxel analog was discovered in theleaves of a European species of orna-

mental shrub, Taxus baccata. Althoughextraction and chemical elaboration ofthe substance remained labor-intensive,the source was renewable, and research-ers obtained sufficient quantities forclinical trials.

By the late 1990s, Taxol’s propertieshad made it a shining star in cancertreatment. By then, too, syntheticorganic chemists had produced suffi-cient quantities of the drug to provide anon-intrusive alternative to radiationtherapy and surgery. Taxol is todayprimarily used to treat solid tumors —


“If you want to build a new drug basedon an old one, you have to know howthe original one works. We are layingthat foundation.” — Susan Bane

n an organic chemistry laboratory in the Science II building,

Scott Handy is whipping up batches of new substances

modeled after natural compounds found in sea sponges and

tobacco plants. Some of the synthetic compounds could help

in the fight against cancer and AIDS. Others could provide a safer,

more effective and affordable alternative to the traditional solvents

organic chemists use to catalyze reactions and synthesize com-

pounds, one molecule at a time.

notoriously stubborn, Bane said.As commercially available, Taxol is

semi-synthetic — consisting of onenatural and one artificial part. It is “avery big and complicated molecule,” saidBane. “The complicated core part can beisolated from the needles of the yew, asustainable source. The less complicatedpart can be made synthetically.”

Taxol binds to microtubules —protein polymers that are part of thecell’s structure — and disrupts the celldivision that enables growth. “Taxolbinds to them and prevents them fromdisassembling,” said Bane. “The celldies.”

Using natural products against canceris big business. “More than half of thedrugs we use have natural products astheir origin,” said Bane. “The next ‘bigthing’ will fight cancer as well as Taxol,but will be easier to administer and willnot produce resistance.”

To speed that discovery, Bane and herteam are determining what Taxol does totubulin, the main microtubule protein— which parts are important and whichnon-essential, as well as the shape of themolecule when interacting with theprotein. Her research progresses throughstudy and analysis of Taxol derivatives,each containing some of the Taxol atoms.

Learning how Taxol works on tubulinwill benefit scientists seeking moreeffective anti-cancer drugs. But even so,finding Taxol’s replacement may involvemany fits and starts, Bane said. Newdrugs may have low “therapeuticwindows” (the margin between toxicand effective doses), have adverse sideeffects or be difficult to administer. Still,Bane knows her work is crucial to moreeffective cancer treatment.

“If you want to build a new drugbased on an old one, you have to knowhow the original one works,” Bane said.“We are laying that foundation.”

Cancercures

Modeling nature’s chemistrymay help stop the disease

IA synthetic organic chemist, Handy

enjoys creating and nurturing things,organic and otherwise. When it comesto his research, even though synthesiz-ing molecules takes years of dedicationand patience, the success of creation isonly half the fun, he said.

“For some people, making a mol-ecule is sufficient, and that certainly isenough of a challenge much of thetime,” he said. “But what I really likeabout synthesis is that if you can makea molecule, you can make a moleculethat you can do something with. And

that’s what breathes life into things forme. It adds a level of excitement andpurpose to my research.”

That probably explains Handy’sinterest in synthesizing a family ofcompounds known as lamellarins,which are derived from marine spongesnative to the Indian Ocean. Deadly, orcytotoxic, to cancer cells, lamellarinshave shown the ability to kill cancercell lines considered multidrug-resistant.

Such cell lines have cancer’s versionof a bilge pump, Handy said — an


enzyme that transports mostdrugs out of the cell before theytake effect. The cells are thusresistant to many cancer drugsand treatments. Once introducedinto multidrug-resistant cancercells, though, lamellarins quicklydisable and disrupt the cells’ pumps.They remain in the cancer cells untilthe cells are killed off by thelamellarins or a companion drug.

Unfortunately, for all their promisein treating cancer and AIDS, wherethey have shown the ability to inhibitHIV integrase and thereby control thedisease, lamellarins, like many naturallyoccurring substances, are difficult andexpensive to obtain.

The most obvious source — rippingup chunks of coral reef to securemarine sponges — is illegal in manyplaces and is not good environmentalpractice. Even if marine sponges werereadily available, they producelamellarins in such infinitesimalquantities that collecting and commer-cializing their use is impractical.

However, after more than two yearsof work, Handy’s group has success-fully synthesized the molecularskeleton of the lamellarins — whichwill allow them to begin seeking ways

to simplify it, while maintaining oramplifying its abilities.

Each new variation of a compound isreferred to as an analog, and homing inon the best analog can be long andexhaustive, Handy said. The pharma-ceutical industry, for instance, expectsto make about 100,000 analogs before

finding acompound it cantake to clinicaltrials — thephase Handyrefers to asthe “Lego”approach.

“That’s thestage where westart taking thecompound apart

Synthetic organic chemists mightbegin their work by dumping scoops ofmaterials into large flasks, Handy said.But in the end — sometimes after 10,15 or even 20 reactions and, if thecompound is complex, two or moreyears later — they may be left with anend product needing to be measured atthe milligram level, barely visible.

The “Lego” approach allowschemists to find ways to produceeffective substances more easily andcost-effectively. Handy is also exploringhow organic synthesis can be accom-plished more safely.

Key to almost every organic synthe-sis are reaction solvents. Normallytoxic, flammable, highly volatile andpetroleum based, these substancesdissolve the different molecules that

and ask ‘What happens if we stick thedifferent parts together in a mix-and-match way?’” he said. “Now that wehave the whole skeleton figured out,we can put it together however wewant.”

That will allow Handy and his teamto isolate parts that provide the desiredactivities, in this case cytotoxicity,inhibition of HIV integrase or interac-tion with tubulin. A protein key to cellreplication, tubulin is critical inprogression of many cancers whichhijack normal cell replication and rampit up. Compounds that interfere withtubulin, however, can halt cell replica-tion, arresting cancer in its tracks.

Handy is working with another BUresearcher, Susan Bane, an expert ontubulin, to explore its interaction withlamellarins.

react to form a new molecule, helpingthis reaction to proceed efficiently.They can be costly, and, because oftheir toxicity, even more costly todispose of — which needs to be donewith troubling regularity.

Handy is developing nicotine-basedreaction solvents that seem to havenone of the drawbacks of traditionalsolvents.

“Building these things out of a bio-renewable resource, no longer based onpetroleum, is a big selling point,”Handy said. “But even more than that,these are recyclable systems, so you canuse the solvent over and over.”

Handy said his work has attractedinterest from Philip Morris Inc., whichis seeking applications for tobacco andnicotine in areas including the environ-mental sciences.

Using something analogous to a “Lego” approach,the pharmaceutical industry expects to make about100,000 variations of a compound before findingone it can take to clinical trials.

Scott Handy


26 Binghamton University INSIDE RESEARCH 200324 Binghamton University BINGHAMTON RESEARCH 2003

low-power electricallydriven pumpingdevice developedby a Binghamton

chemistry professor and a team ofstudent researchers could significantlyenhance the quality of life for diabeticsworldwide.

C. J. Zhong, assistant professor ofchemistry, is leading the effort todevelop a device that will performmicrofluidic analysis inside the body,monitoring insulin levels and deliveringprecise amounts of insulin as needed.

Zhong has dubbed it a “pumplesspump,” because it lacks mechanicalparts. A wire sends an electrical voltageto two fluid columns the width of a

detector, a tiny electrical wire, willmeasure insulin levels constantly andrespond by electrically charging thefluid in the column to make it move. Themotion triggers the injector to supplythe body with more insulin from anexternal source.

Because less time has passed betweeninjections, insulin levels do not fluctuateas dramatically as they do for diabeticswho constantly monitor blood glucoselevel and respond to insulin deficitswith injections. This system works like athermostat, analyzing a small sampleand telling other components how torespond.

Zhong’s device will be so small thatdoctors can insert it into the body. It

little fuel and producing no waste. Oneexample is the space shuttle. “If youwant to analyze water quality, you cantake as little a sample as possible,” hesaid. “If it’s a long duration, the supplyis going to run out, and astronauts haveto make sure the water is drinkable.”

He said the pumping device can alsobe remotely controlled. “One lab we’reworking with is interested in metalcontaminants from nuclear waste,” saidZhong. “Their current technology is togo in the field, take samples of contami-nated soil and analyze them back in thelab. We want to make remote-controlledportable chip devices that sit in thefield.”

The technology rests on making labmachinery smaller and more efficient.Just as computers have evolved intosmall and fast models, Zhong hopes tocreate what he calls a “lab on a chip” byshrinking the machinery in a chemistrylaboratory to the size of computer chips.

The benefits are numerous. Smallerequipment uses fewer resources andcreates less waste because it requires lessfuel. Zhong’s new pump runs on anelectrical current supplied by a tinybattery. A conventional pump couldrequire the power of a generator, whichneeds gasoline and emits toxic fumes.

Design is a big advantage to Zhong’sdevice. While mechanical parts need

Miniature device has BIG potential

A

human hair. Applying opposite chargesto each side of the column causes thefluids to oscillate, simulating the actionof a pump.

The pumping device will be the sizeof a computer chip, perhaps as small asan adult’s fingernail, said Zhong. Itincludes a detector, a column filled withmoving liquid and an injector. The

will be wireless, powered by a smallbattery pack. He stresses that the pumpis not an “artificial pancreas,” but ismerely one part of a system that couldsomeday be just that.

Diabetics are not the only ones whomay benefit. Every small, closedenvironment, said Zhong, can benefitfrom miniature equipment requiring

maintenance and repair, a pumplesspump doesn’t need lubrication, repairsor spare parts — and is practicallyweightless.

The invention is still in the proto-type state, but mass production is notfar off. “This is going to take off veryfast,” Zhong said — perhaps withinthree to four years.

C. J. Zhong is leading an effort to develop aminiature device to monitor insulin levels.


pintronics may evokeimages of a whirring,robotized top, an electro-mechanical BattleBots

gladiator or a glitzy high-tech toy. Butfor Binghamton University condensedmatter physicist Jian Wang, it is a high-tech gift of a different kind.

Wang has received a room-sized$1.4 million ion beam depositionsystem to further his research inspintronics — a spin-based electronicsthat is fueling quantum leaps incomputer technology. The machinearrived with $200,000 in researchmaterials donated to the University bycomputer hard drives manufacturerSeagate.

Only a decade old, spintronicscombines physics and electronics byharnessing the “spin” of electrons tocontrol current and store information.It is a direction that will likely revolu-tionize the computer industry.

“Professor Wang’s research inadvanced spintronics devices andconcepts is very important,” said PatRyan, executive engineering directorfor Seagate. “It could give Seagatevaluable, direct knowledge for futureproduct development and lead to afundamental change in magneticdevices, storage and computing.”

Within the next five years,spintronics should offer computer usersthe ultimate gift: a guarantee against

losing files, even in a catastrophicpower outage.

How does spintronics work? Inaddition to mass and charge, electronshave a quantum property called spin.Imagine them as perpetually spinningmarbles. In ordinary electronic circuits,the orientation of the electrons’ spin,labeled either “up” or “down,” israndom, not affecting current flow,which is controlled only by the charge.In spintronic devices, however, adefined magnetic field is used tomanipulate spin and, in combinationwith the electron charge, to control thecurrent.

This allows dynamic use of informa-tion stored by electrons as a particularspin orientation. Like digital comput-ers’ 0s and 1s, spintronic bits arewritten as “up” or “down” orienta-tions. Spintronics could allow computermanufacturers to replace dynamicrandom access memory, Pentium chipsand hard drives with a single chip.

BU research sends computingtechnology in new direction

S


The use of spin itself is not new.The recording industry has long usedmagnetic media to store information inbits comprising electron spin. But thatapproach provides slow access andprocessing times, Wang said.Spintronics actively manipulates spinto control current, so that informationis stored as it is processed.

In today’s computers, internalmemory processes information andexternal memory stores files and data.The two are uncoupled and shufflingtime between them is slow. Once youshut your computer down, anythingbeing processed that has not yet beenshipped to external memory is lost.

“The idea of spintronics is toeliminate the boundary betweenexternal and internal memory,” Wangsaid. “Information being processed is

never lost.”Wang researches technologies using

spin as the controlling mechanism inquantum communication and comput-ing. The ion beam deposition systemmakes ultrathin magnetic films in anultraclean environment, which controlsthe quality of the interface between thesemiconductor and electrode layers in aspintronic device — critical to fabricat-ing electrode structures at the nanom-eter scale. Producing the films requiresvaporization of metal target materials ina vacuum so that vapors settle on acompletely smooth substrate surface,like fog on a mirror.

These films are nano-thin. (Thewidth of a human hair is about 100,000nanometers.) Incredibly, vaporizing aone-pound metal target would probablyproduce more than enough film that

thin to cover every surface of everybuilding on the 887-acre BinghamtonUniversity campus. That’s why smallquantities of target material are actuallyvaporized during production.

Seagate’s donated equipment, andmore than 50 pounds of “target”materials from which films will bevaporized, will enable Wang’s lab toproduce in one hour samples it wouldhave taken a week to make without it,he said.

Wang and his team will now beworking to keep up with assessing thequalities and characteristics of the hostof samples they expect to produce.That’s important, Wang said, in deter-mining how economically spintronicdevices can be made. The microelec-tronics industry has already developedprototypes of non-volatile randomaccess memory based on the technology.Wang’s research may ensure thatspintronic devices find their way out ofthe laboratory and into the marketplace.

Within the next five years, spintronicsshould offer computer users the ultimategift: a guarantee against losing files,even in a catastrophic power outage.


Boneof

contention


Bioengineering approach pointsto different causes (and cures)for osteoporosis

F or years, popular media have preached — especially to

women — that dietary calcium and exercise prevent

osteoporosis, with warnings that ignoring this fact will

result in rapid bone loss.

But neither weight-bearing exercise nor calcium supplements —

not even a combination — is capable of triggering bone growth. So

says Kenneth McLeod, chair of Binghamton’s Bioengineering Depart-

ment and a leading researcher in tissue development, healing and

adaptation.

But, thanks to McLeod, this doesn’t mean everyone needs to

prepare for a life of dealing with chronic bone weakness and disfig-

urement in old age. Help may come: an electromechanical device that

strengthens key muscle tissue and promotes bone growth.


A past president of the Bio-Electromagnetics Society and theSociety for Physical Regulation inBiology and Medicine, McLeod says it’stime for engineers and biologists toabandon fractured approaches toosteoporosis and recognize that boneloss is a natural, arguably “normal,”adaptive response to systemic bodychanges.

“Osteoporotics are, in most cases,perfectly healthy,” he said. “This is nota disease, but an adaptive conditionsignaling some change in the internalenvironment. The bones ofosteoporotics are adapting to theirenvironment.”

Recognizing this, he said, is key tounderstanding what is happening. Anapproach that targets the bone-lossmechanism probably offers real hope ofavoiding or reversing the devastatingeffects of this increasingly “predict-able” adaptation, he said.

A major health threat for more than44 million Americans, osteoporosisdisproportionately affects females — 80percent of those with the condition arewomen. Estimated national expendi-tures for hospital and nursing homecare associated with osteoporotic andrelated fractures was $17 billion in 2001— $47 million a day.

Fifty-five percent of the population50 years of age and older have depletedbone mass and face an increased risk ofdeveloping osteoporosis and relatedfractures, according to the NationalInstitutes of Health. Characterized bylow bone mass and structural deteriora-tion of bone tissue, osteoporosis leadsto bone fragility and an increasedsusceptibility to hip, spine and wristfractures.

McLeod said that while biologistsmight want to look for the gene forosteoporosis, and engineers to treat

osteoporotic bones as parts of a failedmechanical system, osteoporosis cannotbe fully understood by either approach.“There is not necessarily anythingwrong with the bone,” he said. “Whatwe need to know is what has changedin the environment — what is themechanism for bone loss?”

What researchers know for sure,McLeod said, is that an individual witha dietary calcium deficiency cannotmake bone.

“But just because you take calciumdoesn’t mean you’re going to makebone,” he added. “Calcium is necessary,but not sufficient. There has to be asignal to make bone. It turns out that ifyou don’t have adequate fluid flowacross your bone, you’re not going tohave adequate cell metabolism totrigger bone formation.”

Calcium’s limitations in addressingbone loss have been made most appar-ent in the space program, McLeod

Kenneth McLeod is using hisengineering perspective to rethinkthe cause and cure for osteoporosis.


noted. “Astronauts have a very seriousproblem with osteoporosis. They go upin space and there is no signal to makebone, so they start dumping bone. [Yet]they have all sorts of calcium in theirblood — so much so that they are likelyto form kidney stones. You can over-dose on calcium to the point where youhave kidney stones, and still haveosteoporosis.”

The only way to maintain bonemass, McLeod said, is to maintainadequate fluid flow across bone tissue.That requires adequate muscle activity,which affects lymphatic flow andcardiovascular activity. But weight-lifting, jumping jacks, running or longwalks won’t help reverse osteoporosis

by triggering bone growth or evenslowing its deterioration, he added.

“It could well be that there arecertain exercise regimens that will turnout to be very important,” he said. “Butright now, we’ve tried all sorts of things— Tai Chi, aerobics, walking — andnone of these works effectively inadults to increase bone mass inosteoporotics.”

McLeod’s research suggests that akey to reversing bone loss and trigger-ing growth is training one type ofhuman muscle fiber, Type II A fibers.Also called fast-oxidative fibers, theycontain mitochondria and are sur-rounded by many blood capillaries.Type II A fibers are pink, have a

medium contraction velocity and arefatigue resistant. By comparison, redType I muscle fibers contract slowlyand are highly fatigue resistant. Themore common II B fibers are white andcontract at high velocity, but fatiguequickly.

With appropriate stimulus, McLeodsaid, Type II B “fast-twitch” or “fast-glycolytic” fibers can be trained intoType II A muscles. He has developed adevice that sends low-level vibrationsinto the body to stimulate II A develop-ment, enhance fluid flow through thebones and stimulate bone growth. Thedevice is in clinical testing in advanceof seeking Food and Drug Administra-tion approval.

Meanwhile, McLeod said, althoughwalking is a healthy exercise, if youthink it grows bone, forget it. “We arepretty confident now that walking haslittle influence on bone growth inadults,” he said.

“There is not necessarily anything wrongwith the bone (of people with osteoporosis).What we need to know is what has changedin the environment — what is the mechanismfor bone loss?” — Kenneth McLeod


esearch shows that a large vocabulary is vital to reading comprehension and communica-

tion ability. It even affects how others perceive us. But, says Karen Bromley, a professor in

the School of Education and Human Development, vocabulary building has been largely

ignored by elementary-grade teachers. Their students are, literally, at a loss for words.

“We need to rethink the way we teach vocabulary,” said Bromley, a former third-grade teacher and

K-6 reading specialist who conducts research on how children acquire and expand on language skills.

Research from the 1940s to today, she says, indicates that vocabulary constitutes about 80 percent of

language comprehension and 65 percent of fluency — the ability to read, speak and write it confidently.

“Some surveys suggest that kids from impoverished homes learn, maybe, 3,500 words a year,” she

added. “Kids from more privileged homes learn about 5,000 words a year. And even if kids move out of

the poverty level, their word-learning rate doesn’t increase. It’s always lower.”

R


Schools can help bridge that gap.But textbooks and basal readersBromley has examined mainly teachvocabulary through word lists, whichteachers cover through study and drills.Bromley’s research indicates thatsuccessful vocabulary building requiresteachers to help students actively usetheir own current knowledge to learnunfamiliar words.

“If you just give kids the pronuncia-tion and the meaning, they haven’tlearned the word,” she said. It’s bestlearned by being spoken, written andused to create sentences and stories.

“When teachers teach a word, theydefine it, and maybe use it in a sen-tence,” she said. “But if I were going toteach you the word intercollegiate, Iwould think aloud for you, by tellingyou how I figure out and rememberwhat it means.” When teachers leadstudents to consider what they mayalready know — that interstate refers toa highway that runs among states; thatcollegiate sounds like college; and thatthe -ate suffix denotes an adjective —they can deduct the meaning ofintercollegiate: “among colleges.”

“Sixty percent of word meaningscan be inferred from looking at theGreek and Latin roots,” Bromley said.But often, teachers don’t point this outbecause many lack basic knowledge ofEnglish word origins and structures —and too many lack passion for thelanguage altogether.

In a Bromley survey of 100 teachers,when asked what made them goodvocabulary teachers, only three cited alove for words. “That was disquietingto me,” Bromley said, “because a

reading teacher ought to love thelanguage.”

Approximately 70 percent of thewords students need for their everydayreading and language use, she says,have multiple meanings. But beyondmeaning, “kids need to be activelyinvolved with words in a variety ofcontexts, so that they learn the struc-ture, the grammatical function, thevisual components and use,” she said.

“Right now, vocabulary is at theforefront of what we’re understandingought to be an important component ofreading,” Bromley said. “It’s part of theReading First initiative of the No Child

Left Behind Act.” (The Reading Firstinitiative, created by the U.S. Depart-ment of Education, has the goal ofensuring that all American childrencan read by third grade.) She suggestsother ways teachers can teach vocabu-lary: introducing word games, lettingchildren act out meanings of words,and encouraging them to talk witheach other more in class — forexample, about results of scienceexperiments.

Children who don’t grow upspeaking English face greater vocabu-lary obstacles. Bromley suggestspairing them with native speakersto correspond via “buddy journals.”Often, both students’ skills improve.Bromley gives an example of a studentin the Johnson City School District,diagnosed as learning disabled, whowas paired with a Kurdish student.After the two boys had worked ontheir buddy journal for severalmonths, Bromley was surprised todiscover writing by the American boythat looked like Arabic. The Kurdishstudent had taught him to write,“How are you? Will you come to myhouse this weekend?” in anotherlanguage and alphabet.

Teacher education, Bromley said,needs to sensitize future teachers tothe lives of each student. Diversitytraining, she says, is making signifi-cant inroads. “When we understandwhere students are coming from —what they live with day by day — wecan better accommodate their needs.”

As for parents, they can help theirchildren build vocabulary by readingwith them — and, yes, by turning offthe TV. “Engage your child in conver-sation, because vocabulary flows fromthe spoken to the written word,” shesaid. “Kids need to be actively engagedin vocabulary learning.”

Helping teachers use keysto vocabulary building

Educator Karen Bromley says we need torethink the way we teach vocabulary.


onsider a photo of a couple standing infront of their house. Behind the house isa large tree. Several shrubs, trees andplants are in the front yard, which is

enclosed by a fence. In the background, there arehills and clouds. Now, imagine what the people arewearing, what they are doing, that one is white andone is black, and the problem comes into sharperfocus. “Looking at such an image, what are the keywords in defining what you see?” asks computerscientist Zhongfei “Mark” Zhang. “‘Couple’? ‘Man’?‘Woman’? ‘House’? ‘Tree’? ‘Fence’? It’s almost impos-sible to use words to describe the net content of theimage, including its shapes, colors and textures. Ittakes the power of extensive computer analysis andprocessing to manage this kind of task.”

Computer scientistaims to better define,index digital images

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From personal and commercialdigital image libraries and multimediadatabases to data-mining programs andhigh-tech security and defense surveil-lance, our need for more effective waysto index, retrieve and manipulatecomplex video or images is pressing.Verbal cues — whether key words ormultiple-page abstracts — just aren’tcut out for the job, and neither coercionnor clichés can change that, Zhang said.

“It’s very difficult to capture theentire content of a picture with anynumber of words,” Zhang said. “Andyou certainly can’t capture an imagewith a single word or with a few keywords. In terms of effectiveness, this isnot a good approach.”

Still, so far, there is no commercialproduct available that can index suchlarge-scale imagery or non-textualdatabases in their own modality. Almostall multimedia database programs workat the keyword level.

And that is the problem that Zhangis determined to solve in this age ofinformation proliferation. Such applica-

tions could not only make informationsearches on the Web less frustrating,but even track and bust internationalterrorist schemes.

Zhang is involved in a number ofresearch projects that seek to optimizethe indexing, retrieval and use ofimages based on algorithms that relyon the semantics of the images them-selves. His work is funded by industryand defense agencies.

An expert in image understandingand multimedia indexing and retrieval,Zhang has worked on image indexingand retrieval issues with EastmanKodak Company and on issues ofmultimedia indexing and retrievalof patient records with SUNY UpstateMedical University. He also continuesto pursue research on facial recogni-tion. His progress on all fronts isimpressive.

Zhang has filed an inventiondisclosure on his prototype forimproved content-based image re-trieval. The system involves the use ofa novel fuzzy logic-based indexing

scheme, as well as a novel user-relevance feedback algorithm. Basedon semantic similarity within theimages themselves, it can rapidly andeffectively retrieve images from hugedatabases or the Internet.

The system, which Zhang hasdubbed “FAST” — for Fast AndSemantic-Tailored image retrieval —also “learns” from user feedback aboutthe relevance of images it retrieves.Zhang has already been approachedabout the prototype by the AmericanMuseum of Natural History in NewYork City, where databases of thou-sands of images could become moreaccessible through better indexing andretrieval.

With funding from the U.S. AirForce, he is also working to develop asystem to recognize independentmotion in compressed surveillancevideo, like that shot from unmannedsurveillance aircraft such as thePredator. When video is shot from amoving plane, extensive analysis isneeded to detect what elements in agiven frame are moving independently.Currently, that analysis requiresdecompression, followed by tediousinspection of large archived imagedatabases by human image analysts.

If successful, Zhang’s technologywould automatically detect indepen-dent motion from an archived databaseor directly from the remote sensor inreal time.

“If you have a still camera and wantto detect motion, all you have to do isdetect the difference between twoindividual frames,” Zhang said.“However, in many scenarios, espe-cially in military surveillance, typi-cally the camera is also in motion, soeverything is in motion from frame toframe. We have developed a prelimi-nary prototype system to robustly and


automatically detect independentmotion directly from the compressedvideo domain.”

Perhaps Zhang’s most challengingproject to date is his new work onautomatic model generation in an areacalled information fusion. With supportfrom the U.S. Air Force and the NationalInstitute of Justice, the goal is auto-matic detection of money-launderingschemes.

“This is a completely new researchproblem,” Zhang said. “I used to workon computer vision and image under-standing focusing on imagery andvideo data. Now my research horizon isextending to incorporate data mining ingeneral, and in this project we arefocusing on the text data modality inparticular.”

To investigate money-launderingcrimes, Zhang’s research team has accessto a significant amount of textual data,ranging from court reports, financialrecords and bank statements to per-

sonal communications and newsreports.

Zhang and his students are develop-ing robust data-mining techniques toautomatically build money-launderingmodels by scanning large collections oftextual documents. Current investiga-tion techniques require at least severalmonths to build the model because it isgenerated manually. The prototypeZhang’s group has developed takes onlyminutes to generate.

“The government is extremelyinterested in automating, or at leastsemi-automating, this investigationprocess to significantly save themanpower in law enforcement agenciesand to expedite crime investigation andprosecution time,” Zhang said.

“Considering the threat of globalterrorism, preventing money launder-ing becomes ever more important tostop the financing of terrorist activi-ties,” he added. “I can tell you that thisresearch has great potential.”

“It’s very difficult to capture the entire content of a picture with any number of words.And you certainly can’t capture an image with a single word or with a few key words.In terms of effectiveness, this is not a good approach.” — Zhongfei “Mark” Zhang


ell-being. We may have a sense of it, but can

we measure it?

Gerontologist and dean of the Decker School

of Nursing Sarah Gueldner and a team of

international colleagues have developed a unique research tool

they say can measure almost anyone’s sense of well-being —

even those who can’t talk. The instrument, which has been refined

across four countries and three continents with the help of more than

3,000 study participants, looks as if it was torn from a children’s color-

ing book and could be completed with a crayon. If the tool, known as

the Refined Index of Field Energy (IFE-R), sounds simplistic, Gueldner

is just fine with that. Prior tools to measure well-being have tended to

be far more erudite and, for some populations, not worth the paper

they were written on, Gueldner said.

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“The usual tools that people giveyou to measure well-being ask ques-tions like, ‘Do you feel more pragmaticor visionary . . . more finite or tran-scendent?’” she said. “Can you imaginegoing into a nursing home and askingpeople that?

“Many people, particularly in oldergroups, have no research voice becausethey can’t respond to those kind ofquestions. But they can to mine.”

Gueldner is convinced, and earlystudies seem to confirm, that her simpletool — consisting of 10 pairs of linedrawings of everyday images likebutterflies, balloons, eyes, puzzle piecesand water faucets — will help nursesand other providers learn more aboutthe sometimes silent populations theyserve.

The survey pairs oppositional images— a sharp pencil vs. a dull pencil, aturtle vs. a butterfly, a lion vs. a mouse.In the space between the images areseven unnumbered boxes that allowparticipants to mark the place on thescale that best describes how they feel.

Results are scored for each set fromone to seven, with one being the lowestand seven the highest. Completed testsrange from 10 to 70, with 70 indicatingthe respondent has a high sense of well-being and 10 showing a low sense.

Based on the success of trials inAfrica, Taiwan and Japan and its highcorrelation with other measures,Gueldner is confident the tool will holdup as perhaps the first internationalproduct of its kind.

Even more important is its potentialto reach broad populations, includingpeople who have poor eyesight, limitedformal education or language skills, orwho may be too sick or frail to respondto more complex surveys. In one fieldtrial, children with cerebral palsycompleted the survey with crayons.

Gueldner suspects the test will evengive a research voice to people withmild to moderate cognitive impairment.

Well-being, Gueldner says, isrecognized as “a relative sense ofharmony and satisfac-tion in one’s life.”

By measuring theperceptions of apopulation, such asthe houseboundelderly, practitionerscan try and then testsimple interventions.For example, taking ahousebound personoutside for regularwalks or arranging tohave a friend or familymember call or stop byevery day may have asignificant effect onwell-being.

“People just need tohave one good friend,”she said. “They canmanage the losses ofold age, as long as theyhave somebody they

can see and talk to every day, catch ameal with or just be with.”

Gueldner’s broader goal is to use theindex to collect research data that canhelp redefine societal notions of wellnessand spur human service and healthcarepolicy changes that allow people to livemore enriched lives.

Her own parents set a good example,she said. By being part of a closecommunity, they were not only able toremain at home until their deaths, butalso to experience a high quality of lifeeven when they were ill, she said.

“They lived to be 83 and 86, wellbeyond their life expectancies, and theydid it right,” Gueldner said. “They did itabout as well as you can. They hadawful, really major, things wrong withthem. But they never did lose their willto live — their will to live well.”

By identifying people who have a lowsense of well-being and measuring the

effectiveness ofsimple interventions,she hopes that perfecthealth will no longerbe the perceivedrequisite for a goodlife.

“They say by thetime we’re 50 every-body has some typeof chronic illness,”Gueldner said. “Aswe add years to lifeexpectancy — veryrapidly, really — wejust have to think ofhealth in a differentway. We have tobegin to recognizethat even withserious illness, thereis always the chancefor well-being, for agood life.”

Elements ofthe IFE-RSarah Gueldner built her well-being assessment tool on theRogerian nursing model, whichdefines well-being by fourfactors:

• Energy, also known asfrequency, is akin to life force.

• Awareness of oneself asenergy, or an understandingthat the body is only the shapeof the energy we represent.

• Action, or the choice to dosomething, whether physical orcognitive, with that energy.

• Power, which essentiallyrefers to whether you canchannel your energy towardgetting what you need in life.


vDean Sarah Gueldner

listair Lees spendsmuch of his researchtime hoping to see thelight. Using tools that

improve by several orders of magnitudeon the accuracy of microscopes andstopwatches, Lees is working at themolecular level to explore the effect oflight on chemical systems. The field iscalled photochemistry, and Lees’ effortscould help to find cheaper ways toproduce gasoline, make the environ-ment cleaner and safer, and enhance thequality of microcircuitry and theequipment that relies on it.

While most chemists work withmolecules in their ground or normalstates, Lees has spent the past twodecades working with “excited”molecules, a state attained whenmolecules absorb light, known as“second chemistry.” The reactions thatoccur during these excited states areincredibly fast — typically about onetenth of one quadrillionth of a second.To be studied, they must be slowed orin some other way inhibited, and Leeshas developed a unique approach.

Excited-state molecules generallyemit light, give off heat or break intofragments as they return to the groundstate. Relying on this, many chemists— like forensic experts who determinethe nature of an explosion by studyingresulting debris — use a techniquecalled matrix isolation to study thefragments produced immediately after amolecule emits light.

Lees has instead synthesized wholenew molecules that do not fragment in

their excited states. When cooled, hiscreations remain intact and displayluminescence, giving him an unprec-edented chance to study the secondchemistry involved. This approach hasopened the door to the development ofseveral promising applications.

orange to yellow, signaling appropriatecuring and an optimal bond. Themicroelectronics industry is keenlyinterested in this research. If adhesivesaren’t completely set during the assem-bly process, machines fail, parts breakand production costs soar. The aerospace

Come to the

Photochemistry research could leadto cleaner environment, new sensors

Excellence in Research

AWorking with $1.2 million in grants

from the Energy Department and theAmerican Chemical Society, Lees isstudying hydrocarbon activation,particularly how some new rhodiumand iridium compounds act as catalyststo break apart the bonds of methane.The reaction suggests the possibilitythat the small methane molecule couldbe built up to the size of the larger oilmolecule. Methane, or natural gas,usually does not react with othercompounds, but because it is bothabundant and recyclable, it is anattractive alternative to oil. Lees’preliminary research indicates it mightsomeday be able to replace oil in theproduction of many fuels, as well as ahost of other products, includingplastics and pharmaceuticals.

Lees’ research is also likely to helpmanufacturers of a wide range ofproducts. Supported by a grant fromIBM, Lees is incorporating some of hislight-emitting molecules into adhesivepolymers. As the adhesive sets, itsluminescence changes from red to

and automobile industries are alsointerested, Lees said. “Clearly, it’simportant when you’re riding in a caror a plane that it not fall apart,” he said.

Another application is photo-initiators. “We found that some of ourorganometallic compounds actuallyinitiate polymerization reactions whenexposed to light,” he said. Lees iscollaborating with General Electric andIBM to learn more about how thistechnique might enhance microcircuitryproduction.

Another application is likely to stemfrom supramolecular chemistry. Lees isfinding ways to insert luminescentcompounds into the cavities of somelarge molecules. Because the lumines-cence of such molecules changes sub-stantially in reaction to their environ-ment, they make excellent sensors.

Recently, Lees and his team found acompound that is a good sensor forcyanide. Others, he said, are sensitive tohydrocarbon vapors, which could helpdetect pollutants, another importantapplication in today’s industrial world.


light

Alistair Lees’ research inphotochemistry holdsexciting promise forsensors, pollution controland materials science.


The price of

uncertaintyEconomist unravels principlesof world financial markets

The price of

uncertainty

ike any good physicist, Kristian Rydqvist has an eyeout for real-world data that can be used to test thetheorems of universal law. But the rules Rydqvistworks to prove or disprove are those of economics, not

Einstein, and the basic questions he asks are not about the nature ofmatter but about what matters in the nature of financial markets.

“Thousands of economists over the last 100 years have worked atthe theory of supply and demand,” Rydqvist said, “and there aresome well-established implications that we expect to hold. I, alongwith many others like me, go out in the world and search for num-bers that will allow me to test these implications.”

L42 Binghamton University BINGHAMTON RESEARCH 2003

A Swedish-bornfinance economist,Rydqvist joinedthe faculty ofBinghamtonUniversity lastsemester as theZurack Professorof Finance andEconomics.

As a finance economist, Rydqvistdeals with applied aspects of econom-ics. When is it wiser to spend? Whendoes it make better sense to save? Theproblem is the same in all societies,even where currency takes the form ofcrops, livestock or oil. Ultimately, hesays, interest rates establish the pivotpoint on the scales of such decisions.

the longer you have to wait to reclaimyour investment, and the higher theinterest rate you would require to saverather than spend your money ondesired consumables today.

Interest rates, therefore, are com-monly viewed as something akin to thefair-market cost of uncertainty. Theo-retically, that means that where there isno uncertainty or where it can befactored away through diversification,interest rates should not be a factor inpricing. Conversely, where there is ahigher level of irresolvable uncertainty,interest rates should increase commen-surately.

Still, as Rydqvist and his collabora-tor Rick Green of Carnegie MellonUniversity have recently shownthrough an examination of data setsinvolving the sale of Swedish lotterybonds, it ain’t necessarily so. In theSwedish bond lotteries, if someonewere to buy all the tickets, that personwould know exactly what he or shewould win, so there is no aggregate riskand it should not be factored intopricing.

But, to Rydqvist’s surprise, carefulreview of the data showed that was notthe case — not only in the Swedishdata but, more recently, in data fromsimilar Danish lottery bonds. Hisfindings are turning heads.

Though he declines to count himselfamong them, Rydqvist knows a lot ofvery smart people, with very high IQs.He does rank himself high in creativity,and sees it as key to his professionalaccomplishments and academic success.

“This is the little bit of differencebetween IQ and creativity,” Rydqvistsaid. “With high IQ you can take agiven theory and understand it, take agiven problem and solve it. Withcreativity you can look upon a theoryand change it.”

“It is a matter ofshuffling money overtime, a matter ofsavings and invest-ment,” Rydqvist said.“If you borrowmoney, you get moneytoday and pay it backin the future. If youhave more thanenough money fortoday, you save it andyou get it back in thefuture, hopefully withsome interest. Yourchoice is basicallyalways the same:Should I use themoney I have rightnow, or save it for thefuture?’”

The act of saving ismore controversialthan it might seem.Giving away cashtoday in hopes ofreceiving it back witha little extra tacked onin the future is riskybusiness — all themore so as the term ofyour investmentincreases.

“You have no ideawhat the world isgoing to look like in25 years. In fact, evenovernight there was a

recent case in Japan of a negativeinterest rate,” Rydqvist said. “So thebiggest question in finance is, what isthe price of uncertainty? How big arate of interest do you require to risksuch uncertainty?”

Generally speaking, the implicationsof supply and demand suggest that theriskier and more uncertain the future,


Supported by grants from theNational Endowment for the Humani-ties, Fajardo held his first summerseminar in 1992. Students from alldisciplines gather biennially to discussthe adventures of the elderly Quixote,who, inspired by tales of chivalry, setsout on a personal journey to provehimself as a knight.

Although the seminar is designedprimarily for teachers, Fajardo acceptsanyone with an interest into thediscussion group. “Participants includeEnglish and foreign language teachers,but I’ve also had math instructors,school administrators and principals,”he said. “And because many partici-pants come from other areas anddisciplines, I’ve also learned much.”

According to Fajardo, the seminarprovides a much-needed respite.“Participants really want to have anintellectual experience while enjoyingtheir stay,” Fajardo said. “The seminarprovides intellectual conversation.When you give intelligent people achance to have a serious conversationon a text that is so subtle, so multi-layered, they really enjoy it.”

Why Don Quixote? What lessons canbe learned from the fictional 16th-century gentleman who careens aroundthe Spanish countryside tilting at

Spanish professor helps others appreciate Cervantes’ classic

Quixote quest

windmills and challenging sheepto battle? Fajardo says Quixote’squest, as comically absurd as itmay seem, is the timeless journeyof an idealist.

“[The book] has a generousview of humanity, coupled withan acute understanding of ourown foibles,” Fajardo said. “It ispart of that view of humanitythat believes ‘Yes, we can dogreat things.’ For a Spaniard likeme, it is the sum of what thelanguage can do as well.”

As Quixote lived his life withpassion and discipline, so toodoes Fajardo. “I feel a missionaryzeal for this book because it’ssuch an extraordinary text,” hesaid, “a manual on how to readliterature — a text to teach us whattexts are.”

Don Quixote continues to inspireseveral books and hundreds of articlesyearly, including this year a newSpanish edition on Don Quixote co-edited by Fajardo. “Of the few greatclassics in literature, after the Bible, it’sprobably the book that has beentranslated most,” Fajardo said.

Like Faulkner, Fajardo said he re-reads the classic text every year. “Nomatter how many times I read it, I still

find something new,” he said. “And Ialways laugh.

“This is a book that produceschanges. It causes people to look atthings differently. We in the humanitieshave the view that part of our missionis to give students some background onhow to be a complete human beingthrough literature, art and music. It isimportant that children have access touniversal texts. Don Quixote is the kindof book that can make an impact on aperson’s life.”

F or Salvador Fajardo, teaching Miguel de Cervantes’Don Quixote de la Mancha is more than a job; it’s apassion. And the Spanish professor has beenpassing on his love for the classic work to other

teachers at special summer workshops for more than a decade.


Editorial Staff

EditorSandra Paniccia

Contributing WritersSusan E. Barker, Ingrid Husisian,Trudi Marrapodi, Sandra Paniccia

DesignDavid Skyrca

PhotographyEvangelos Dousmanis

Copy EditingTrudi Marrapodi

Illustrations/Cover IllustrationAshok Subramanian

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Binghamton University Organized Research Centers

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