UCLA

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Conference Held at UCLA

Byuclafaculty

The headline may seem odd.  Conferences are held on campus all the time.  Maybe the headline should instead be “Quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast Conference held at UCLA without construction of a new campus hotel.”  Despite the notion that without building a hotel-conference center, UCLA won’t be able to disseminate its research, such dissemination happens on campus regularly as the photo shows. As for the Forecast, here is a summary: In its fourth and final quarterly report of 2012, the UCLA Anderson Forecast’s outlook for the United States says that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow at less than a 2%…

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Mayoral campaign pledges?

Byuclafaculty

A new report by various UCLA environmental research centers presents a variety of “green” options for the City of LA including energy, transit, etc.  Nothing unusual about that.  What is unusual is the connection of the report to the upcoming 2013 city mayoral campaign. Specifically, the report (on page 4) suggests that all mayoral candidates be asked whether they will pledge to undertake some specific actions: A CALL TO ACTION VISION2021 LA seeks answers to the following questions from each of Los Angeles’ 2013 mayoral and city council candidates. *Do you share the VISION2021 LA goals for our City?   *Will…

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Did I say that?

Byuclafaculty

A look backwards: Lieutenant Governor (and ex officio Regent) Gavin Newsom was interviewed on KGO radio on Oct. 17 about Prop 30 and its relation to tuition.  In the course of the interview, he criticized Governor Brown for being late to get into the campaign for the proposition and, effectively, for not telling students the truth that their tuition would rise even if Prop 30 passed. At the time, polling (which proved inaccurate) was indicating that Prop 30’s chance of passage was marginal.  And Governor Brown had just made a campaign stop at UCLA to enlist student support.  As it…

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UCLA Forecasting

Byuclafaculty

This 1966 photo from the LAPL collection shows a local effort at forest fire prevention by getting weather forecasts through a new “weather-fax” machine. The individual in the photo is identified as Bob Helfman, 28, a UCLA graduate in meteorology. [Note: Did you think the word “fax” (for facsimile) was a more recent invention?] There will be forecasting at UCLA this coming week using more modern technology.  The UCLA Anderson Forecast conference will be held on campus on Wednesday, December 5. Info on that event is at:http://www.uclaforecast.com/event/eventDisplay.asp?iEventID=69 Meanwhile, as far as the kind of forecast for the next few days…

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More on the Stream

Byuclafaculty

The Daily Bruin today has a report that UCLA got another favorable decision regarding the use of live-streaming videos for course purposes. Live-streaming means essentially what you see on websites such as YouTube, i.e., a video (or audio) that you click on and it plays from the web.  The video is not a file that is stored on your computer.  The analogy would be that watching a TV broadcast is similar to live-streaming.  Owning a DVD and playing it on your TV is like having a stored file that you play. Background: There was a prior case in which the…

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UCLA Tells Grad Students to Stick Around

Byuclafaculty

Today’s Daily Bruin reports that a tightening in the rules on grad students taking leaves of absence (and thus not paying tuition) is meeting protests from those students: Graduate students discussed multiple ways to take action against recent changes to UCLA’s leave of absence policy at a town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon. This quarter, UCLA stopped accepting thesis or dissertation writing as valid reasons for taking time off to help graduate students complete their degree paths on time, said April de Stefano, director of academic services in the UCLA Graduate Division… The change was applied with the intent of encouraging…

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Whatever happened to grade inflation?

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times today: UCLA Medical Center gets failing grade on patient safety: Leapfrog, a healthcare quality rating group, gives an F to UCLA Medical Center for performing poorly on several measures. UCLA officials dispute the failing grade. A national report card on patient safety gave a failing grade to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, one of the country’s most prestigious hospitals and one of only 25 nationwide to receive such low marks. In a report issued Wednesday, the Leapfrog Group, an employer-backed nonprofit group focused on healthcare quality, gave a letter grade of F to UCLA Medical Center…

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More traffic woes tonight

Byuclafaculty

If traffic were not bad enough near UCLA given the problems on Sepulveda Boulevard this week (see our earlier posting), now comes this: The Sunset bridge will be closed tonight 10 pm until 6 am tomorrow.  (It also happened last night but yours truly did not get the word until this morning.) While you are stuck, you can think about happier traffic days:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77NxU0CHPw?feature=player_detailpage]