LOCAL/STATE
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, February 18, 1999 - 3A
4ESEARCH
'U' to investigate
smart card
improvements
The University's Center for
*nformation Technology formed a part-
nership with Schlumberger Smart
Cards and Terminals earlier this month
to conduct research into smart card
technology.
Smart cards are wallet-size cards that
contain a microprocessor and electrical
contacts. The University's M-Card,
used by University students, faculty
and staff for identification purposes, is
a smart card manufactured by
Schumberger. The University has
-sued more than 94,000 currently
active M-Cards.
CITI Director Peter Honeyman said
one of the goals of the partnership is to
enhance smart card security.
University officials and
Schlumberger representatives cele-
brated the partnership at a reception
in Ann Arbor. CITI received an
unspecified monetary award from the
artnership for the duration of the
roject.
Study: Exercise
benefits new
mothers
A University study found women
benefit from being physically active
before and after giving birth.
The study, "Physical Activity and
ostpartum Well-Being," found
ctive women were more likely to
lose weight after giving birth, remain
more socially active and fell better
about themselves in postpartum
months. Carolyn Sampselle, senior
author of the study, said many nurse
practitioners, nurse midwives and
physicians do not give new mothers
advice on remaining physically active
after returning home.
* More than 1,000 women complet-
ed a questionnaire during their six-
week postpartum examinations.
About 35 percent of participants said
they exercised three times a week on
average.
Cell size may
contribute to
conflict
0 The study was published in the
January/February issue of the Journal
of Obstetric, Gynecologic and
Neonatal Nursing.
Cell size may contribute to disagree-
ment between the sexes, according to a
forthcoming book authored by SNRE
Prof. Bobbi Low.
Using research in biology, anthropol-
ogy, economics and other disciplines,
@ow analyzes the evolution of small
male and large female sex cells in the
"evolutionary" game of reproduction in
the book. Low claims the unequal cell
sizes contribute to sex-specific types of
mating behavior in mammalian
species, including elephants, deer and
human beings.
Low's book is scheduled to be
released from Princeton University
Press later this year.
4). Wisconsin
scientists build
weather gauge
A group of scientists at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison
have developed an Atmospheric
Emitted Radiance Interferometer to
predict changes in weather.
Senior engineer Fred Best, who
orks at Wisconsin's Space Science
and Engineering Center, said AERI can
measure changes in the atmosphere
that can help to predict changes in
weather patterns. The machine can also
measure the presence of greenhouse
gases and gauge the affect of the
Earth's climate.
The AERI project was completed in
1991 but continues to be developed by
Wisconsin faculty and students.
The U.S. Department of Energy is
Ling AERI to monitor long-term cli-
mate changes in its Atmospheric
Prediction Measurement Program.
- Compiledfrom staff and wire
reports.
Sending them around the world
AALPD to use computer
aided dispatch system
By Avram S. Turkel
Daily Staff Reporter
After years of using pencil and
paper to take care of calls placed to
the dispatch operators, the Ann
Arbor Police Department finished
installing a computer-aided dispatch
system Monday.
The new system will cut down on
paper work, increase availability of
old reports and "keep a history of
calls, addresses and trouble areas in
Ann Arbor," Sgt. David Strauss
said.
But 12 years ago, the Department
of Public Safety moved to the new
CAD, a discrepancy between the two
departments that Strauss attributes
to a lack of funding to AAPD.
DPS officials said they have expe-
rienced a positive difference with
the CAD system from day one.
"It takes a lot of the human error
out of the system," Director of
Public Safety Leo Heatley said. "It
helps us generate statistics, and it
also helps us track alarms a lot bet-
ter."
When anyone on campus calls
DPS, their location is immediately
displayed on a computer screen in
the dispatch center, DPS spokesper-
son Beth Hall said. Previous meth-
ods - before help from computers
- necessitated a dispatcher receiv-
ing the call, writing the location
down on a card, calling an officer or
patrol car and filing the card, Hall
said.
Both the AAPD and DPS comput-
er systems do all of the necessary
work, except inform the officers on
patrol that they need attend to a sit-
uation.
Despite the system's expansive
capabilities, DPS and AAPD offi-
cials still keep a hands-on approach
in dispatching calls.
"The dispatchers are trained to
know what is an emergency - com-
puters aren't," Strauss said.
The human element remains very
important when knowing how to
gauge the importance or urgency of
a call, Strauss said.
"What the AAPD is getting into now,
and what we've been doing for years,
makes things just a lot easier on dis-
patchers," said DPS Communications
Lt. Gary Hill.
The first step by DPS was taken in
1987, when all campus phones
became traceable by DPS central
command. In 1990-91, when DPS
officers were deputized, an
enhanced 911 system was intro-
duced. This system allowed all
phones - campus and public - to
be traced immediately by the CAD
system.
"Students used to harass other stu-
dents all the time," Heatley said.
"Now they don't do it so much
because we can track the call."
With DPS receiving more than
85,000 calls a year, Hill said, sorting
of the calls, the points of origin of
the calls and the callers would be
extraordinarily difficult without the
Internet-based CAD.
"We get cross streets, priority,
and history," Hill said. "The
University put a lot of money into
the Internet and piggy backing on
the Internet has paid us big divi-
dends."
Strauss echoed Hill's pro-CAD
sentiment.
"If a person has a history, the
address'will light up in red on the
computer screen, and when the offi-
cers look up why, they'll know what
to expect."
I
DHA1RNI JONES/DLaiy
Former Peace Corps volunteers Robin Martiz and Steve Smith discuss the
opportunities the Peace Corps offers at a recruitment meeting last night in
the International Center.
eeConstitutionrat
defiense strat Segy-
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,OA 4
* Ninth Amendment
used to justify assisted
suicide as former doctor
begins his own defense
PONTIAC (AP) - Making good
on his promise to aid in his own
defense, Jack Kevorkian argued that
assisted suicide is allowable under
the Ninth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.
The retired pathologist will face
trial on March 22 on charges of
first-degree murder, assisting a sui-
cide and delivering a controlled sub-
stance. The charges stem from the
Sept. 17, 1998 death of Thomas
Youk, a patient suffering from Lou
Gehrig's disease.
In a motion filed Tuesday in Oakland
County Circuit Court, Kevorkian wrote
that the Ninth Amendment gives any
mentally competent adult the right to
ask for final relief.
Kevorkian said it also gives doctors
the "inalienable unenumerated" right to
"voluntarily ... provide that compas-
sionate relief through appropriate med-
ical intervention."
Kevorkian, whose Michigan medical
license was suspended in 1991, called
the Ninth Amendment the "forgotten
amendment."
The amendment states: "The enu-
meration in the Constitution of certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the peo-
ple."
Kevorkian wrote, "When a hap-
less, fully conscious and fully
informed patient in the throes of
subjectively intolerable physical dis-
tress, verified to be irremediable by
objective medical assessment, tena-
ciously beseeches a competent and
sympathetic physician to intervene
professionally to end the patient's
suffering through death which the
latter fervently and fearlessly
desires, the act and the result are not
crimes."
Kevorkian's arguments are unfound-
ed, Assistant Prosecutor John Skrzynski
said. "The constitutional issue has
already been decided by the Michigan
Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme
Court ,' he told The Oakland Press in a
report yesterday.
David Gorosh, one of the attorneys
on Kevorkian's legal team, disputed
Skrzynski's claim.
"It's certainly colorful language, but
it's an intelligent motion," Gorosh told
the Pontiac newspaper. "He has a firm
understanding of the Ninth
Amendment. It's sort of unorthodox in
some respects."
Circuit Judge Jessica Cooper met
briefly Tuesday
with lawyers
and will issue a
written opinion
on the motion
soon, Gorosh
said. She also
set a Jan. 29
deadline for all
motions to be
filed, while
Kevorkian arguments will
not be heard
until March 3.
Kevorkian has been free on bond
since he was ordered in December to
stand trial in the death of Youk, of
Waterford Township in Oakland
County.
Kevorkian videotaped several of
his meetings with Youk, including
one in which he allegedly gave a
lethal injection to the terminally ill
man.
Portions of the tapes, including
Youk's death, were shown in
November on CBS in front of a
national television audience on "60
Minutes."
Kevorkian has acknowledged
involvement in 130 or more suicides
since 1990. He has been acquitted in
three assisted suicide trials involving
five deaths. A fourth trial ended with a
mistrial.
Taking the April GRE?
Classes begin Saturday!
# The Princeton Review
1-800-2REVIEW
Correction:
U LSA first-year student Jeremy Peters was misidentified in the letters section of yesterday's Daily.
What's happening in Ann Arbor today
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