Modifiers vote held
The faculty voted electronically on the grade modifiers proposal last week. The vote concluded on Monday, April 26.
Faculty Senate President Cheryl Geisler refused to disclose results of the vote until today’s Faculty Senate meeting. The meeting is scheduled for today from 2 pm until 5 pm in the Russell Sage Dining Hall.
The proposal that the faculty voted on called for the modifiers to be phased in beginning in Fall 2005 with modifiers being used in 1000 and 6000 level classes. The following fall, professors of 2000 level classes will begin assigning modifiers, and in the fall of 2007, all classes will have modifiers worked into their grading scale.
Immunizing computers
Assistant Professor Biplab Sikdar of the Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department was recently awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award by the National Science Foundation. Also known as a CAREER award, he received a grant for over $400,000 to work on ways to “immunize” computer equipment to try and slow the spread of viruses.
Sikdar’s research focuses on trying to take facts from biology about patterns associated with epidemic diseases and using that information to help computers find instabilities. Once these are located, it is hoped that routers will be able to stop the flow of the infected information and thwart the virus from infecting other machines.
According to Arthur Sanderson, outgoing vice-president for research at Rensselaer, “Homeland security and the economy have become increasingly dependent on computer networking. As networks continue to grow in size and complexity, Sikdar’s research is designed to help minimize the danger and risk associated with rapidly spreading computer viruses”
