Psychology
professor Dominic Massaro (left) helps a hearing-impaired student
learn to use Massaro's computerized talking head, nicknamed "Baldi,"
at Portland's Tucker-Maxon Oral School. (Photo: Pat Stone)
Psychology
professor Dominic Massaro (left) helps a hearing-impaired student
learn to use Massaro's computerized talking head, nicknamed "Baldi,"
at Portland's Tucker-Maxon Oral School. (Photo: Pat Stone)
After years of working in a dark, windowless laboratory to understand speech perception and how speech can be communicated by machines, UCSC psychology professor Dominic Massaro is realizing his long-held dream of using advanced technology to help hearing-impaired youngsters learn to speak.
Massaro and his former student and research associate Michael Cohen have been at the forefront of the development of synthetic speech for years. Their latest crea-tion, a three-dimensional computerized talking head nicknamed "Baldi," is now being used by deaf children and their teachers at the Tucker-Maxon Oral School in Portland, Oregon.
The image on the computer screen resembles an animated mannequin, with moving eyes, brows, and mouth. When Massaro types in text, Baldi "talks." When Massaro speaks, Baldi "listens" and responds. An underlying grid allows researchers to manipulate the jaw, lips, and tongue to mimic human speech.
"It's like the face is a puppet and we've got about 60 strings we're controlling it with," said Massaro. Texture mapping allows Massaro and Cohen to wrap any still video picture over the framework to produce a more natural or familiar image.
The value of animated synthetic speech is that it provides the
visual cues that are a critical part of speech comprehension. The
same principle is at work when hearing-impaired individuals read lips
to follow
conversations.
Massaro and Cohen's technology gives students at Tucker-Maxon the opportunity to observe closely the facial movements that are used in producing spoken words, and even to strip away the "skin" of the face and study the wire framework that mimics the speech organs underlying the production of human speech.
In its transparent form, Baldi shows students the precise position of the tongue during the formation of sounds and words they've never spoken. A half-sagittal view reveals the movement of the lips, lower jaw, and tongue.
"Hearing individuals take speech for granted, but for hearing-impaired and profoundly deaf children, being able to watch how we produce words is a valuable tool for developing those skills," said Massaro.
Family, friends, and colleagues of Dean McHenry gathered at the UCSC Arboretum on April 25 to remember UCSC's founding chancellor, who died in March. Professor Emerita Mary Holmes, shown with Chancellor Greenwood, was one of the speakers at the memorial. In this issue of the Review, Dean McHenry is also remembered in a special tribute. (Photo: Greg Pio)
This
3-D image is taken from a new video that simulates the evolution of
galactic structure in the universe. (Photo courtesy of Joel
Primack)
Colorful clumps and chains of galaxies zoom past as the viewer flies through a chunk of the cosmos. The latest sci-fi epic from Hollywood? No, it's serious scientific research, which the country's top astrophysics journal has published in video form.
The video displays simulations of the evolution of galactic structure in the universe, carried out on speedy supercomputers. An IBM Power Visualization System--the same machine that adds special effects to some of those Hollywood epics--transformed the data into stunning images.
The result is a scientific video with a visual punch. It allows astrophysicists to compare theoretical models that use different assumptions about the types of matter composing the universe. It also thrills lay viewers who can imagine themselves soaring out of the Milky Way into clusters of distant galaxies.
"We can't create a video that would fly us through the real universe," said Joel Primack, professor of physics at UCSC. "We don't have that level of detail yet in our observations. However, these simulations can reproduce, surprisingly well, the structures we do see in the universe today."
A team led by Primack published its results in a video edition of the Astrophysical Journal in March.
The supercomputer simulations track millions of particles in enormous cubes, representing swaths of the universe more than 250 million light-years across. Primack's team starts each simulation with the initial conditions in the earliest moments after the Big Bang. Then, the particles interact via standard laws of physics until gravity pulls them together--during billions of computer "years"--to form galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and superclusters.
During
an open house and press conference in May, Chancellor Greenwood
demonstrates some of the new facility's high-tech features.
(Photo: Don Harris)
What may be the classroom of the future is in use today at UCSC, where faculty are incorporating videoconferencing and advanced computer technology into courses ranging from network engineering to Hebrew.
At a news conference and open house in May, UCSC administrators demonstrated the high-tech teaching facilities--installed on the campus and at a UCSC Extension site in Cupertino. The new classrooms have been used since January to provide live interactive instruction to students at remote locations, to bring guest lecturers into classrooms from distant sites, and to support other types of interactive learning and collaboration.
Called "distance learning," this approach is not a new concept so much as a reinvented one. As early as the late 1960s and early 1970s, UC campuses offered a simple form of distance learning, using one-way video and one- and two-way audio to transmit some classes.
However, the advent of fiber optics and superfast computers in recent years makes a radically improved approach possible--one in which people hundreds of miles apart can interact almost as if they were in the same room.
"The innovative use of distance learning technology at UCSC is expanding the boundaries of the university," noted Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood.
The centerpiece of the new facilities is the high-tech classroom in UCSC's Applied Sciences Building. The seamless integration of a broad range of multimedia technologies into a user-friendly environment sets this classroom apart from other such facilities.
The audio system in the room uses small microphones in the ceiling to pick up sound and automatically adjusts to accommodate the volume of the speaker's voice and the speaker's location in the room.
Another special feature is the ability to capture course content, including not only audio and video but also materials presented on the "electronic white board," an interactive touch screen, computer monitor, and electronic chalkboard all rolled into one 72-inch-diagonal screen.
The screen can serve as a display monitor for the main instructor's workstation, the instructor's laptop, or a student's laptop.
The UCSC Extension facility in Cupertino has a "mirror" classroom with most of the same features.
Paul
Whitworth in his award-winning role as Richard III (Photo: David
Alexander)
Shakespeare Santa Cruz was awarded nine Drama-Logue Critics Awards recently for its 1997 season. The coveted awards, presented each year for the past 21 years by the Hollywood-based weekly theater review and casting magazine Drama-Logue, recognize exceptional theater produced in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas during the previous year.
San Francisco Bay Area critic Dean Goodman recognized Shakespeare Santa Cruz's production of Richard III in the following categories: overall production, direction, costume design, performance, original music, scenic design, and lighting design. Shakespeare Santa Cruz's production of As You Like It was recognized for original music and performance.
Shakespeare Santa Cruz, based at UCSC, is a nonprofit theater company dedicated to exploring and shaping the new American voice in the performance of Shakespeare.
The 1998 festival season opens July 23. It features Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Marriage of Figaro by French playwright Beaumarchais. For more information, call (408) 459-2121 or go to the following web site: http://www.shakespearesantacruz.org/.
UCSC is ranked 24th in the country in an Internet magazine's survey assessing the computer environment of American colleges and universities. The results of Yahoo! Internet Life's second annual survey appeared in the magazine's May issue.
Among UC campuses that were ranked in the "America's 100 Most Wired Colleges" survey, only UCLA--at No. 23--finished ahead of UCSC. UC Berkeley was ranked 42nd in the county.
"In rating this year's schools, we took all aspects of the wired campus into account--infrastructure, social life--but we focused primarily on the academic benefits of using the Net," a spokesman for the magazine said.
Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers and national chair of the NAACP, came to Santa Cruz earlier this year to deliver the keynote address for the 14th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation. In a campus reception before the event, Evers-Williams met with some of the nearly 200 high school students from the Monterey Bay Area, San Jose, and the San Joaquin Valley who attended the convocation. During a stirring speech later, Evers-Williams challenged the students--and others in the audience of 1,200--to realize their potential and to work to create a level playing field for all people. (Photo: Victor Schiffrin)
UCSC has leased a 130-acre parcel at the former Fort Ord military base to Dynasty Farms, Inc., of Salinas, which will operate a certified organic mixed-vegetable farm on the site.
Dynasty will hold the lease for a minimum of five years, said Lora Lee Martin, director of UC's Monterey Bay Education, Science, and Technology (MBEST) Center at Fort Ord.
"This agreement reflects MBEST's emerging role in the regional economy and contributes to the growth of the organic farming industry in the Monterey Bay region," said Martin. "This unique collaboration between MBEST, UCSC's Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, and Dynasty Farms, which is a major national distributor of produce grown on California's Central Coast and elsewhere, promises to bring new opportunities and jobs to an expanding marketplace."
As part of the agreement, Dynasty will make several acres of the parcel available for university research projects that are in keeping with the company's overall farming objectives. Opportunities for student internships will also be available.
"This particular piece of ground and the tie-in with the university really presents an opportunity for large conventional growers and organic growers to come together and hopefully build the marketplace for sustainable agriculture," said Tom Russell, president of Dynasty Farms. "We'll be able to share information, and this gives us a chance to be on the cutting edge of new technologies. It's in everybody's best interest if sustainable agriculture grows."
Technical advisers who will oversee operations at the site include
UC Cooperative Extension and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as
well as UCSC's Center for Agroecology, which has earned an
international reputation for its leadership in the development of
sustainable growing
practices.
For the fourth time in a highly successful 10-year run, the men's
tennis team at UCSC has captured the
national title. Traveling to Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the
season-ending tournament in May, the Banana Slugs returned with the
NCAA Division III crown after a 4-2 win over host and previously
undefeated Williams College.
The tennis championship was UCSC's third in four years and fourth since coach Bob Hansen orchestrated UCSC's first title in 1989.
In an all-UCSC final, the Banana Slugs also netted the doubles crown, as Brian Cummings and Thomas Oechel narrowly defeated Peter Gladkin and Josh Goodley, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
UCSC's
freshman class this fall is expected to be more diverse, in part
because of the campus's successful outreach efforts. Above, a student
attends UCSC-supported "Saturday College" at an area high school,
improving her math and English skills. (Photo: Shmuel Thaler)
More than 2,500 students have indicated they are planning to attend UCSC as freshmen this coming fall. The entering class is expected to be more ethnically diverse in spite of new rules that eliminated the use of race and ethnicity from UC's admissions decisions.
Actual enrollment numbers for freshmen--and the entire student body--will not be known until classes begin this fall. But by the May 1 deadline, UCSC had received Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) notices from 2,532 prospective freshmen--up from the 2,257 who filed notices at this time last year.
Of the total number of freshman SIRs received, 859 identified themselves as African American, Chicano, Latino, American Indian, Asian/Asian American, or Filipino/Filipino American--students whose ethnicities are underrepresented at UCSC--compared to 721 from those ethnic groups last year.
The increase in the number of underrepresented students comes despite passage of Proposition 209 by state voters in November 1996 and SP-1 by UC's Board of Regents in July 1995. Within the UC system, both measures banned the use of race, ethnicity, and gender in admissions decisions.
"In no small part the reason that the underrepresented student numbers increased this fall was the extra efforts made by our student organizations and their members to lay out a welcome mat for our prospective students," said Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood. "Faculty and staff efforts were also essential to our success--writing letters, making telephone calls, and meeting with visitors to our campus."
Laurie
Garrett (©Erica Berger)
UCSC biology alumna Laurie Garrett (Merrill '75) has been honored for the second time in recent years for her work as a science journalist.
Garrett, a science and medical reporter for Newsday, was one of 13 journalists recently awarded a prestigious Polk Award for 1997.
Garrett won the foreign reporting award for her 25-part series on tuberculosis and AIDS in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. The Polk Award comes on the heels of Garrett's 1996 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for her reporting on the Ebola virus outbreak in Zaire.
Aucsc postgraduate researcher has received a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from the Cancer Research Fund of the Damon Runyon&endash; Walter Winchell Foundation. The fellowship, worth a total of $101,500 over a three-year period, supports researcher Jamie Cate's investigation of ribosomal structure.
Large, complex molecules, ribosomes are responsible for synthesizing proteins in cells. Scientists, however, don't know much about the structure of the ribosome. "When we want to design biochemical or genetic experiments, it's like trying to hit a curve ball with your eyes closed," said Cate, who collaborates with other researchers in the lab of Sinsheimer Professor of Molelcular Biology Harry Noller.
Jonathan
Beecher (Photo: Don Harris)
A UCSC professor of history has received the French government's highest honor for academic achievement.
Jonathan Beecher has been awarded France's Palmes Academiques--a decoration given to those who have advanced the cause of French culture, education, and the arts. The Palmes Academiques was established in 1808 by Napoleon and is the most prestigious decoration a scholar can receive from the French government.
Beecher teaches French history and European and Russian intellectual history. The medal honors his work on French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Beecher's research on Fourier resulted in the publication, in 1986, of the book, Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World. The book was translated and published in France in 1993 as part of the popular biographical series published by the Librairie Fayard in Paris.
"I'm thrilled," Beecher said. "I was particularly eager for the book to be read and well received in France, and I think it was."
Beecher is the second UCSC faculty member to be awarded the Palmes. UCSC's first recipient is lecturer in French Hervé Le Mansec. France's Consul Honoraire for San Jose and Silicon Valley, Le Mansec received the medal in 1993.
"The Palmes Academiques is rarely awarded to foreign scholars," Le Mansec said. "But Jonathan is considered a leading researcher on socialist and French utopias. This award recognizes the importance of his book, which is regarded as the best work to date on Fourier."
The medal is being presented to Beecher by the French cultural attaché from San Francisco in a private ceremony.
Conservation plans advocated by many organizations to protect the world's biodiversity could leave half of all terrestrial species vulnerable to extinction, either immediately or in the near future, according to Michael Soulé, a UCSC research professor of environmental studies, and M. A. Sanjayan, who earned a Ph.D. in biology from UCSC in 1997 and now works for Round River Conservation Studies.
In the March 27 issue of the journal Science, Soulé and Sanjayan argued that conservation targets are too often determined by politics, rather than by science. International commissions and organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and the World Conservation Union have called for the near-term protection of at least 10 or 12 percent of the total land area in each nation or in each ecosystem, said Soulé.
"Dedicating 10 percent of the land in many tropical nations would be a heroic accomplishment in the face of current trends, but even that would be a prescription for a massive extinction similar to the one 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs went extinct," Soulé said.
By failing to acknowledge the true scale and gravity of the impending extinction disaster, the 10 to 12 percent goals contribute to "an atmosphere of public complacency and political denial," the researchers wrote.
Traveling
in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, Asteroid San Jose is estimated
to be 10 to 15 miles across--about the same size as the city for
which it is named. (Photo courtesy of UC Observatories/Lick
Observatory)
Representatives of UCSC and Lick Observatory presented the San Jose City Council in May with a commemorative photograph of an asteroid that has been named in honor of the Silicon Valley city. The naming designation was done to acknowledge the city's longtime cooperation with Lick staff, particularly San Jose's efforts to control the type of light its neighborhoods emit. Too much of the wrong kind of light can impair an observatory's ability to capture clear and concise images from the night sky.
Observatory staff and the asteroid's discoverer, S. J. Bus, had successfully petitioned the International Astronomical Union to name the asteroid after San Jose. Presenting a framed digital image of Asteroid San Jose--and an accompanying short essay about the celestial body--to the city council were Chancellor Greenwood and Joseph Miller, director of UC Observatories/Lick Observatory.
Rand
Miyashiro (left), surrounded by other members of the class of '78,
and Steven Jung, 1997&endash;98 president of the Alumni Association,
hold a "check" representing the gift.Jonathan Beecher (Photo:
Shmuel Thaler)
In honor of its 20-year reunion, UCSC's class of '78 has donated $40,462 toward a scholarship program for students with financial need.
It is the largest gift ever made by a UCSC alumni class.
Kevin James, a member of the class, presented the check to Steven Jung, president of the UCSC Alumni Association, at the class's 20-year reunion dinner during UCSC's annual Banana Slug Spring Fair in April.
While presenting the gift on behalf of his classmates, James emphasized the importance of all gifts. "Not everyone can make a large contribution, but what matters most is that people have participated as donors by giving what they can," he said. "It has been a group effort."
The $40,000 gift brings the scholarship endowment to more than $400,000. (For a related story on the Alumni Association Scholarship Fund, see the Alumni News section of this issue.)