The Duke Digest - September 7, 2012


In Today's Issue:
  • NSF Renews Collaborative Math Institute (SAMSI) For Five More Years
  • Duke Live Tweets Obama's DNC Speech
  • Faculty Opinion: Unpredictable North Carolina
  • Research: Destroyed Coastal Habitats Produce Significant Greenhouse Gas
  • Competing Faculty Opinions: Romney Foreign Policy, "Sound and Sensible" or a "Dangerous Mind?"

 

NSF RENEWS COLLABORATIVE MATH INSTITUTE (SAMSI) FOR FIVE MORE YEARS
SAMSI, the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute, has received another five years of funding from the National Science Foundation, or NSF. This is the second NSF renewal grant SAMSI has received.

The institute, founded in 2002, is one of eight mathematical centers that NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences funds but it is the only one that focuses on statistics and applied mathematics.

The NSF grant that funds SAMSI is shared among Duke University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, along with the William Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science.

Read More:
Samsi Homepage (samsi.info)


DUKE LIVE TWEETS OBAMA'S DNC SPEECH
Members of the Duke community entered the Twitterverse again Thursday to live tweet President Obama's speech on the last night of the Democratic National Convention held in Charlotte, N.C.
Led by more than a dozen faculty and students, the chat started early in the evening and by the end of Obama's speech more than 100 people - including alumni, staff and Duke friends - had tweeted using the hashtag #DukeChat.

Faculty tweeters included Ken Rogerson, David Schanzer and Don Taylor of the Sanford School of Public Policy; psychology professor Gary Bennett; African American studies professor Karla FC Holloway; black church studies professor J. Kameron Carter; religion professor Ebrahim Moosa and English professor Maurice Wallace. Duke Law visiting research fellow Erik Ludwig also joined the chat.

Many of the same participants live tweeted during Republican nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech last week.

Read More:
Duke Live Tweets Obama's DNC Speech (Storify)
Duke Facutly and Students Live Tweet Romney's Speech (Storify)


FACULTY OPINION: UNPREDICTABLE NORTH CAROLINA
Michael Munger, professor of political science, economics, and public policy, presents a "DNC Primer" on the state of North Carolina: "If you think North Carolina is a typical Southern state, you don't know us."

Read More:
Unpredictable North Carolina: A DNC Primer (philly.com) 


RESEARCH: DESTROYED COASTAL HABITATS PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT GREENHOUSE GAS
Destruction of coastal habitats may release as much as 1 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, 10 times higher than previously reported, according to a new Duke led study.

Published online this week in PLOS ONE, the analysis provides the most comprehensive estimate of global carbon emissions from the loss of these coastal habitats to date: 0.15 to 1.2 billion tons. It suggests there is a high value associated with keeping these coastal-marine ecosystems intact as the release of their stored carbon costs roughly $6-$42 billion annually.

"On the high end of our estimates, emissions are almost as much as the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the world's fifth-largest emitter, Japan," said Brian Murray, director for economic analysis at Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. "This means we have previously ignored a source of greenhouse gas emissions that could rival the emissions of many developed nations." 

Read More:
Destroyed Coastal Habitats Produce Significant Greenhouse Gas (NicholasInstitute.Duke.edu)


COMPETING FACULTY OPINION: ROMNEY'S FOREIGN POLICY - "SOUND AND SENSIBLE" OR "A DANGEROUS MIND"
Peter Feaver, professor of political science and director of Duke's Program in American Grand Strategy, and Bruce Jentleson, professor of public policy and political science, write competing opinion pieces on the foreign policy strategy of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

According to Feaver, "Mitt Romney’s foreign policy would echo the best of America’s bipartisan traditions. But the desperate Obama caricature of it is just a sad indication of how much the president has failed."

Jentleson asserts, "Mitt Romney’s foreign policy isn’t an afterthought, it’s a frightening return to a bullying neoconservative ideology -- and Americans should be worried."

Read More:
Sound and Sensible (Foreign Policy)
A Dangerous Mind (Foreign Policy)