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'Turbo dating'at USC HiiUl brought students from different colleges together. 8
Football travels to Arizona to face the 2S Wildcats. 12
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INSIDE
Nicole Davis and the USC womens volleyball team
host No. 7 Stanford and No. 9 Cal. 12
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Siitce 1912
nm\.daily trojan.com
Friday, November 14,2003
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Vol. CXLIV, No. 57
Student wins award for novel Web idea
A graduate student of computer science reversed MapQuest-like searches.
By MEGHAN PATKE
Contributing Writer
It started out as a clever idea for a class project and turned into a prize-winning paper.
Shou-De Lin. a graduate student specializing in computer science, won the best paper prize at the 2003 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Web Intelligence Consortium International Conference in Halifax in mid-October.
The project, called the geocoder," is the reverse of Web sites such as MapQuest, said Craig KnoWock, Lin's computer science professor. It allows people to put in latitude and longitude coordi nates into a Web search engine, and the search engine generates a corresponding address to match the given coordinates.
The project was designed to integrate Web agents with search engines and deal with the limit* tions of Web agents, Lin said “(Lin) had a clever idea about essentially combining different
services on the Web together, and the thing that was interesting was that he was able to take a service that was not reversible and add components to make it so," said Knoblock, an associate professor of computer science.
Knoblocks course is concerned with information integration on the Web. He encourages all his students to be creative and to research for their own projects.
“(Knoblock) encouraged me to generalize th^method and publish it," Lin said. *An excellent grade in a final exam can at most earn somebody an A. But an excellent course project that turns into a publication will bring one some reputation internationally. As a Ph.D. student, I pay much more attention on the course projects than other course requirements, which seems to work."
Lin was in Knoblocks class last year, and is the first student to receive such an award "As a teacher, it was very rewarding." Knobloek added The computer engineering conference was originally sup posed to be held in Beijing but was moved to Halifax. Canada, and held last month. Lin said
> see Ami* page 1 1
of war
Students, staff from the Middle Hast and Yugoslavia share war experiences.
By RACHEL GALLEGOS
Slull Writei
A panel of students, staff and alumni shared their personal experiences of growing up in a country of war in a discussion titled “Living in the War Zone” Thursday night at Topping Student Center.
About 60 people attended the panel discussion, which was moderated by Professor Robert English and sponsored by the Office of International Services. Students from Israel, Yugoslavia, Palestine and Kuwait, a staff member from Iran and a USC alumnus from Iraq all spoke about their horrifying experiences living with war.
“The psychological effects still linger," said Bashaiar Al-Sanaa, a mas ter’s student in communication management who lived through the Iraq invasion olKuwaTt in 1990.
Al-Sanaa's brother was imprisoned for almost two months during the invasion. The family is "not hoping anymore” for her step-uncle’s return — he has been missing for almost 14 years, Al-Sanaa said.
During the invasion, Al-Sanaa said she heard that she should go to higher floors to avoid a chemical attack and to the basement to avoid the dangers of bombings.
But because she feared both, Al-Sanaa and her family members “didn’t know whether to go up or down" to the different floors their apartment building when they heard sirens, she said.
Fear was prevalent in children and adults alike during this time, Al-Sanaa said.
“1 don't think anyone has the right to make children feel that way," she said. “War is never the answer.” .
Sharif Ossayran, a 1983 USC graduate in civil engineering, grew up in Iraq. While he disliked Saddam Hussein, he is now "totally against the war” because the people in Iraq have suffered tremendously, he said.
“The war happened for the wrong reasons." he said.
The war was for economic reasons, not solely for liberating the Iraqis, he said.
Ossayran discussed how his sister, who still lives in Baghdad, had to live for three months in the summer with no gas for cooking and little water.
“The situation is not improving, the situation is getting worse,” Ossayran said.
Several of the panelists spoke about their experiences since they came to the United States and how it was different from their experiences in their homelands.
Fida Shafi, a masters student in public administration from Palestine, said that she did not know what freedom was until she came to the United
I	see Panel, page 3 I
Latinos score low marks in L.A. schools
Although a racial majority in LAUSD, Latinos fare the worst in academics.
By KRISTIN MAYER
Contributing Writer
Latino students, who make up more than 50 percent of the students in the Los Angeles public school system, are faring poorly compared to other racial groups, according to a study conducted by USCs Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.
“The educational performance of Hispanic students in Los Angeles County is considerably less than optimal,' the study states.
The study calls for awareness of the school experience and action to improve academic aspirations. The so< lal and economic success of society depends on the success of Latino youth because they make up such a large percentage of the pop illation, according to the study.
"It’s not all bleak," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomds Rivera Poliry Institute “There is complexity here What is needed is the political will to undertake an understanding of what’s working I s«« atudy page 7 I
Kathenne Beck I Daily Trojan
ts her personal story of
Israel. Marija Strohm, left, spoke about her lif£during the Balkan conflicts.
Violent tales. As part of a six-member panel, Maya Sabatello, right, recounts her personal story of living in war-torn
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By LINDSEY DAVIS
ContrlbuUng Writer
For poet Kathy Fagan, it’s all about the words.
“1 am word struck.” she said.
Sometimes her head fills with images or rhythms when she's writing a poem, but more often her poems come from one source — the words. Fagan said.
“They’re about language and the surprising thing that language can do," she said.
Fagan, the director of creative writing at Ohio State University, read from her collection of poetry Thursday night to a crowd of about 60
students and faculty members at Doheny Library. Poets Dan Bellm and Susan McCabe, an associate professor of English at USC. also participated in the readings.	-
The event was held in correlation to the exhibit “Out West LA.’s Role in the Lesbian and Gay Movement." on display at the library until Dec. 18. The display, sponsored by USC and the ONE Institute and Archives, explores LA.’s involvement in the lesbian. gay. bisexual and transgender communities' struggle for equal rights.
“We try to enhance the exhibition experience by bringing in people who I see Poetry, page 7 I