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Daily DigestMercury Spill
The Berkshire Eagle is reporting a minor mercury spill at Hillcrest Educational Centers in Great Barrington.
Do you know what's happening? Tell us at info@iberkshires.com. |
New Contest!
 Try for an awesome ski package at Ski Butternut! Scroll down the page to iBerkshires Trivia! |
Duff'em If You've Got'em
 North Adams Regional Hospital went smoke-free Monday — so did all its sister sites, from Sweet Brook to Northern Berkshire Family Practice to the Women's Exchange. No ashtrays, no smoking: No butts about it. |
Meetings
The Drury High School Council meets Tuesday, Jan 13, at 6:30 in the conference room. Agenda items include AYP, school grant, laptop initiative and PowerSchool updates. |
Wanted: Eagle Eyes
 MassWildlife's annual eagle count runs Dec. 31 to Jan. 14. Anyone sighting one of the regal birds in Massachusetts is asked to participate.
Send date, time, location and town of eagle sightings, number of birds, whether juvenile or adult and observer's contact information to Mass.wildlife@state.ma.us. |
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Like to Write?
 iBerkshires accepts submissions about local events, news and opinion pieces. There are openings for freelance work, too, for qualified candidates. E-mail tdaniels@iberkshires.com to find out more. |
Work at the State House
Sen. Benjamin Downing is looking for college-level interns to assist at his State House office this semester. Send your resume and cover letter to Bethann Steiner, chief of staff, Office of Sen. Benjamin Downing, State House, Room 413-F, Boston, MA 02133. |
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Obama TransitionOther StuffMars Rovers Mark 5 Years
 Spirit and Opportunity have been trekking the red planet for half a decade. Spirit hit the 5-year mark on Sunday; Opportunity will on Jan. 24. |
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Williams Computer Science Professor Awarded $200,063 NSF Grant - November 24, 2008
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Brent Heeringa, assistant professor of computer science at Williams College, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant in the amount $200,063 for his work on "Models and Methods for Information Organization."
Heeringa's research focuses on three specific problems related to human-friendly organization of Internet information: optimal and approximation algorithms for information organization, dynamic models of information organization, and new models for categorical data. These are briefly explained below.
Heeringa will develop new optimal and approximation algorithms to organize hierarchical data like directory structures and websites. Hierarchical data is organized into a tree-like structure, where each data item has a single "parent" and zero or more distinct "children." Additionally, the optimal and approximation algorithms work on highly-constrained hierarchies. Heeringa's project includes a new optimization criterion called deliberation cost that characterizes a search path in terms of the number of choices along a path, as opposed to just the length of a search path.
Dynamic models of information organization define new models in dynamic, real-time settings, crucial for dealing with trends in data. Maintaining certain properties of the data, such as optimal search cost and constraint satisfaction, are also being investigated.
New models for categorical data are crucial to organizing and presenting information for human search, given the prominence of tagged data available on the Internet.
"A central goal when organizing and presenting information is creating a system where the desired information is quick and easy to find," said Heeringa. "Extending this criterion to human traversable organizations means arranging data so that the organizational structure is intuitive and the search is efficient." Heeringa will offer a new tutorial at Williams College on advanced algorithms, in addition to incorporating this research into his other computer science courses.
Heeringa, who has taught at the college since 2006, is teaching Theory of Computation this fall. He has also taught courses on Algorithm Design and Analysis and Digital Communication and Computation.
His work has been published in the International Journal on Intelligent Data Analysis, and other peer-review conferences, the most recent being Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems. Heeringa received his B.A. from University of Minnesota-Morris in 1999 and his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2006. His dissertation, titled "Improving Access to Organized Information," introduced new models for making information in hierarchical organizations more accessible to users. Heeringa received the Chancellor's Award, Allen W. Edson Award, and Scholar of the College distinction from the University of Minnesota-Morris. |
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