August 28, 2006
Vol. CLIX. No. 6
IFC cites several rush violations
USC receives homeland security grant
The $10.2 million grant will be divided over three years among four universities.
By J. CHRISTINA HUH
Staff Writer
Through a grant given to USC and other universities from the Department of Homeland Security this summer, USC researchers will begin researching in January 2007 efficient means to search public information for threats to national security.
“Our challenge on our side is to develop a system to analyze this data in real time,” said Patrick Pantel, co-
principal investigator from the USC Information Sciences Institute.
A total of $10.2 million will be divided over three years among USC, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Rutgers University, which will be leading the research at its Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science.
The universities will also work with national laboratories, such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The USC team proposed to set up the Center for Knowledge Integration and Discovery, or CKID, which will focus on information management
and analysis. According to the project proposal summary, the center will be based at the USC Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey and the center’s research staff will came from various USC departments.
Details about USC’s project, such as the how much of the grant money USC will receive, are still being negotiated, said Dennis McLeod, a co-principal investigator of the study.
Currently, the process of analyzing public data is “really manuaL” with mainly humans combing through data, said McLeod, who previously conducted a study on analyzing media events for patterns. The USC team will develop a means to computerize and streamline
the data analysis process.
University computer science and engineering professors will collaborate with researchers from ISI and Geosemble Technologies, a data integration solutions company started by two USC researchers.
DHS will provide the researchers synthetic text, speech and visual data for the researchers to use, McLeod said.
One key aspect about this research is that team will develop a legal plan to search for evidence of security threats, McLeod said. All the types of data used for the research are publicly available, he said.
Unusual patterns or connections I see Grant, page 3 I
INSIDE
The Women of Troy rebounded from a season-opening draw with a 4-1 win over UC Irvine. 12
IFC said none of the recruitment violations were
of serious nature and none affected pledge classes.
By CATHERINE LYONS
Staff Writer
The Interfratemity Council found several fraternities to be in violation of IFC recruitment policies last week, but they would not specify which fraternities endured infractions.
Sagar Patel, IFC vice president of recruitment, noted two specific infringements.
“One violation was not cleaning the house and one was having a member of the house near New/North (dorms),” Patel said.
The punishments, determined by the IFC judicial board, were minimal.
“They both resulted in probation, which essentially means they don’t have a capped pledge class and there were no major violations,” Patel said.
In accordance with the IFC constitution and by-laws, the hearings were held during rush week, which took place Aug. 21 to Aug. 26.
The violations, however, are not specifically mentioned in the IFC constitution as punishable offenses.
Randy Herrel, IFC president and a senior majoring in business administration, confirmed that none of the violations were of a serious nature.
“The violations that were handed out did not affect the pledge classes; it only affected the members of a house. None of them had an effect on the rushees, out of any of the houses that had sanctions handed out. (The rushees) were not at a disadvantage,” Herrel said.
Ex-prof convicted of sex crimes
Case against “father of gene therapy” revealed in recently unsealed court documents.
By JOSHUA SHARP and SARAH SPRINGER
Staff Writers
Former USC professor and world-renowned geneticist Dr. William French Anderson, 69, was found guilty of three counts of lewd conduct with a child under the age of 14 and one count of repeated sexual abuse toward a child under the age of 14 on July 19 in a Los Angeles courthouse.
A sentencing hearing will be held on Nov. 17. He faces up to 22 years
in prison.
In the meantime, Anderson is required to undergo psychiatric observations and examinations.
Deputy District Attorney Cathryn F. Brougham said she was pleased with the verdict, adding that Anderson “was held accountable for his actions.”
Anderson’s lead defense attorney, Barry Tarlow, refused to comment on the conviction.
Court documents reveal intimate details of the case, including a conversation between Anderson and the accuser secretly recorded by police.
Anderson’s accuser is the daughter of one of his colleagues in the Keck School of Medicine. Prior to
his arrest, Anderson was a professor of biochemistry and pediatrics and director of the Gene Therapy Laboratories.
The allegations
Tarlow had argued in court filings that the accuser’s mother was using the allegations of sexual abuse to destroy Anderson and “obtain access to gene therapy patents and create a business she believed would unjustly enrich her by 10’s of millions of dollars.”
The mother was second m command at the laboratories and stood to benefit if Anderson ever left his position.
The prosecution painted a differ-
ent portrait, one of a cunning professor willing and able to lure his victim into sexual activity.
Initially a tae kwon do mentor for the shy fifth-grader, Anderson brought the girl to his home for weekly lessons, according to a court filing by the prosecution.
The prosecution argued that during these visits, the relationship between Anderson, 60 years old at the time, and the girl, 10, became sexual.
The sexual abuse, prosecutors argued, included inappropriate touching, oral copulation and “simulated intercourse,” in which Anderson would rub his body against hers until he ejaculated.
I see Anderson, page 2 I
Setting the stage for a big night at the Shrine
Zachary Franklin I Daily Trojan
Red Carpet. Spectators filled the Shrine Auditorium bleachers to catch a glimpse of the nominees for the 58th Annual Emmy Awards. The event recognizes some of the best performers in television. The awards aired Sunday on NBC and were hosted by late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien.
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