WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Student Health Center administered 347 doses of H1N1 vaccine Wednesday and Thursday (Oct. 27 and 28) and is now awaiting new shipments, which are expected next Wednesday (Nov. 4).

The university is providing vaccinations for students, faculty, staff and spouses of employees. Because of the limited supply, only those in top priority groups were eligible for vaccines this week. The priority guidelines for next week will be set by the Tippecanoe County Health Department based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those who were considered top priority this week included the following:

• Pregnant women.
• Caregivers for children younger than 6 months.
• University health-care and emergency medical personnel.
• Individuals with underlying health conditions that put them at risk for complications of flu-related illness.

Individuals considered to be at risk are those who have: cancer, blood disorders, chronic lung disease (asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc.), diabetes, heart disease, kidney or liver disorders, neurological or neuromuscular disorders, or otherwise weakened immune systems.

Full-time students will not be charged for vaccinations. Others will be assessed a $12 administrative fee, which will be reimbursed for individuals covered by a Purdue medical insurance plan.

Individuals may call the Student Health Center’s Urgent Care Unit at 765-494-1724 to determine if they have a qualifying health condition.

MALVERN, Pa., and WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Signals, an innovative early intervention system that warns students that are at-risk of underperforming in a course and facilitates faculty interventions, will be enhanced and brought to higher education institutions through a joint effort by SunGard Higher Education, Purdue University and the Purdue Research Foundation.

The collaboration is among the first examples of SunGard Higher Education’s new Open Digital Campus strategy in action.

Developed by Purdue, the Signals software monitors students’ behavior patterns and academic performance to determine if they are at risk of earning a low grade and allows faculty to intervene with suggestions on actions they can take to help students improve their grades. An intuitive stoplight provides indications to students if they are underperforming and prompts the students to take action.

Today, campus sources for data about students vary greatly and come from different systems, applications and vendors. The power of Signals’ predictive modeling comes from employing multiple data sources to create a more complete picture of a student’s academic performance. That picture helps identify students at risk in a course so an intervention can happen early enough to actually make a difference – as early as the second week of class.

Officials from Purdue University, the Purdue Research Foundation and SunGard Higher Education signed a memorandum of understanding outlining key points of the parties’ collaboration efforts and have begun work on a definitive agreement. Their planned efforts will bring Purdue’s original design and expertise together with SunGard Higher Education’s development resources. SunGard Higher Education will create and market a new next-generation software product based on Signals that will be architected to work with multiple course management systems and student information systems. The solution also will provide flexibility for institutions so that they can refine and customize it to fit their needs and environment.

“The old idea of weeding out students, of ‘look left, look right, and one of you won’t be here next year,’ is an incredibly wasteful process for both universities and families. No one thanks educators if their kid lasts two years and then drops out,” said Gerry McCartney, Purdue’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer. “Signals helps us keep the students on task and focused, and offers students real opportunities for improvement.”

Signals was piloted in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years. According to Purdue, the pilot involved nearly 2,000 students, where a double-blind study found that 67 percent of students receiving a yellow or red warning improved their effort and grade. For students who received a red light only, 78 percent improved their grade and effort during the mid-term period.

“Our faculty loves Signals because it helps them quickly identify students who need help and reach out to them in an effective and efficient way,” McCartney said. “But the students love it even more, which is both pleasing and a bit of a surprise, honestly.”

“Signals provides educators and leaders in higher education with valuable information to help them meet the individual educational needs of their students,” said Joseph B. Hornett, senior vice president, treasurer and chief operating officer of the Purdue Research Foundation. “The flexibility of the Signals software is also important, enabling it to fit different needs at different institutions and be modified as new technologies are introduced to the educational environment.”

Through its recently announced Open Digital Campus vision and technology strategy, SunGard Higher Education is giving colleges and universities new flexibility to shape how technology meets their evolving needs. The open strategy helps reduce dependencies and expand an institution’s ability to choose the technologies, delivery models, open source and vendor solutions that fit its needs. In academics, an area in which SunGard Higher Education has strengthened its efforts over the past year, this includes new opportunities for collaboration such as this project with Purdue.

“Through the Open Digital Campus, we are collaborating with our customers and working to deliver more modular and specific components that address precise institution needs, like course success,” said Tom Wagner, vice president at SunGard Higher Education. “We will build on the Purdue team’s outstanding work to offer a flexible solution that helps institutions extend the value of their investments, improve student success and further the core mission of the institution.”

Signals will complement SunGard Higher Education’s existing Banner Enrollment Management Suite by focusing on improving student success within a course, while components within Banner Enrollment Management focus on retaining the student at the institution or within a particular degree program and creating a loyal relationship that lasts beyond graduation. Data from Signals about student risk within courses will feed into Banner Enrollment Management to help create a complete picture of the student’s education experience.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A Purdue University agricultural economist and energy policy analyst has changed his tune on renewable fuels.

“We don’t just talk about ethanol. We talk about biofuels,” said Wally Tyner.

“Ethanol is the product from corn, but you also can produce gasoline and diesel directly from cellulosic feedstocks. And when you bring up the blending wall for ethanol, that means the door may be open wider for processes that will take us directly from corn stover, switchgrass and Miscanthus to biogasoline and biodiesel. We need to be thinking in those terms.”

Tyner and fellow Purdue agricultural economist Steven Wu will discuss biofuels and the future of renewable energy during Growing the Bioeconomy: Solutions for Sustainability. The Dec. 1 conference is a collaborative effort between Purdue and sister land-grant universities in 11 other Midwest states.

Purdue Extension and Purdue’s Energy Center at Discovery Park are hosting a conference viewing site in Stewart Center on the university’s West Lafayette campus. The conference also can be viewed online.

The event is geared toward anyone with an interest in biofuels. Conference topics range from advances and breakthroughs in biofuels to biochar, which is the leftover material after cellulose is converted into fuel.

Tyner said there’s still a future for ethanol, but much of the future growth will be in cellulosic biofuels. Cellulose for liquid fuel comes from plant material, including the non-grain parts of corn.

Ethanol growth is restrained by a “blending wall” – the amount of ethanol gasoline companies are permitted by law to blend with petroleum-based fuel. Current federal standards set the amount at 10 percent of gasoline consumption.

No such blending limit exists with cellulosic biofuels, Tyner said. There are other differences between biogasoline and ethanol, he said.

Biogasoline is produced through a refining process and is chemically similar to petroleum-based gasoline, while ethanol is produced by a fermentation process, Tyner said. Biogasoline can be transported through gasoline pipelines; ethanol is corrosive to pipes and must be transported by rail or truck.

However, cellulosic biofuels face three challenges, Tyner said.

“You’ve got market uncertainty, technology uncertainty and government policy uncertainty,” he said.

There are no commercial cellulosic biofuels plants operating in the United States, Tyner said. Getting them built likely will require biofuels companies to enter into new kinds of contracts with the farmers supplying the feedstock. Dedicated energy crops like switchgrass and Miscanthus, a similar grass, produce for 10-15 years. A 50-million-gallon biofuels plant would need a truckload of cellulose every 10 minutes from day one.

“These plants cost $400 million to build, and nobody’s going to sink $400 million into concrete and steel until they’ve got a guaranteed supply of feedstock,” Tyner said. “And getting a guaranteed supply of feedstock means convincing farmers that they are going to be there 10 years from now to take their Miscanthus or switchgrass. The plant has to be convinced that the farmer is going to be there 10 years from now, as well. It’s a whole new ballgame.”

Government subsidy programs for renewable fuels would need to change, as well, for the biofuels industry to take off, Tyner said.

“Right now, everything in the U.S. is on a per-gallon basis. So today, for cellulosic biofuels you get $1.01 per gallon whether you’re producing ethanol or biogasoline,” he said. “Biogasoline has 50 percent more energy than bioethanol, yet it gets the same subsidy. We could consider moving to the kind of system Europe has, where everything is based on energy content. That would level the playing field.”

Wu’s presentation follows Tyner’s. Wu will discuss contracting issues for second generation perennial energy crops.

The conference’s keynote speaker is James Lovelock, a renowned thinker on global environmental science. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu are invited speakers.

The conference runs from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. EST.

Registration is $75 for those viewing the conference at Stewart Center and $50 for online viewing. Complete registration information is available by visiting the Purdue Conference Division’s upcoming events page at https://www.cec.purdue.edu/ec2k/Upcoming.asp and clicking on the link to Growing the Bioeconomy: Solutions for Sustainability. Registration is recommended by Nov. 24.

For a complete conference agenda, visit the conference Web site at http://www.bioeconomyconference.org. Additional information also is available by contacting Chad Martin, Purdue Extension renewable energy specialist, at 765-496-3964, martin95@purdue.edu.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The NEXTRANS Center, with the assistance of the government of Canada (avec l’appui du gouvernement du Canada) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), will host a Nov. 16 conference on U.S.-Canada border trade, security and mobility challenges.

The daylong event — titled In Step, In Line, On Time: Regional Strategies for Trade, Security, and Mobility Challenges at the U.S.-Canada Border — will provide an opportunity for researchers and private-sector stakeholders in the Great Lakes region to engage in a dialogue with high-level officials of the U.S. and Canadian government.

The conference will run from 7:30a to 5:30p in the Purdue Memorial Union. Registration is $50, but students are admitted free. For a complete agenda, online registration, hotels, travel information and sponsorship information, go online to http://www.purdue.edu/dp/nextrans/tech/borderconference.php

Indiana, known as the Crossroads of America, has a vested interest in the efficiency of the U.S.-Canada border. U.S.-Canada merchandise trade totaled $535 billion in 2007, supporting nearly 150,000 Hoosier jobs. In addition to an immediate need for a more secure and trade-efficient border, there is a longer-term need for building a transportation infrastructure for 21st century trade and commerce.

Greg Nadeau, deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, will deliver the keynote address. Robert Noble, Canadian Consul General at Detroit, and Kevin Johnson, U.S. Consul General in Toronto, will speak on the significance of a seamless and secure border with regard to bilateral trade between the two countries.

Paul Haddow, director general of strategic policy and governance for the Canada Border Services Agency, will speak on security issues. Industry presenters will include David Bradley, chief executive officer of the Canadian Trucking Association. Additional border trade, security and mobility experts from the public, private and academic sectors will join them to discuss:

• Major challenges and opportunities to achieve the right balance between trade goals and security needs from the perspectives of the U.S. and Canadian governments.
• Regional strategies for developing major gateways and corridors with collaborations between transportation stakeholders at the federal and state-provincial levels.
• The “thickening” of the border from the perspective of manufacturers and carriers and the feasibility of short- and near-term measures by border agencies.
• How academia can fill the data and information gaps to facilitate integrated, coordinated and performance-based operation and governance of the border region.
• Short-, medium- and long-term opportunities for collaboration and joint actions among government, industry and academia in the region and between the two countries.

NEXTRANS is the U.S. Department of Transportation Region V Regional University Transportation Center, led by Purdue and administered by Purdue’s Discovery Park. The center was established in 2007 through the USDOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration to lead a multidisciplinary program of transportation research, education and technology transfer.

Organizations assisting in the conference development include the Federal Highway Administration; Transport Canada; Customs and Border Protection; General Services Administration; Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada; Detroit Regional Chamber; Indiana Department of Transportation; Michigan Department of Transportation; and Ministry of Transportation, Ontario.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Student Health Center dispensed 147 doses of H1N1 vaccine Wednesday (Oct. 28) and has just received an additional 200 doses that will be available to students, faculty, staff and employee spouses beginning at 8:30 a.m. Thursday (Oct. 29).

Because of the limited supply, only those in top priority groups are eligible. They include

• Pregnant women.
• Caregivers for children younger than 6 months.
• Individuals with underlying health conditions that put them at risk for complications of flu-related illness.
• University health-care and emergency medical personnel.

There is no charge for full-time students. Others will be assessed a $12 administrative fee, which will be reimbursed for individuals covered by a Purdue medical insurance plan.

Priority groups are set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Tippecanoe County Health Department. Individuals considered to be at risk are those who have: cancer, blood disorders, chronic lung disease (asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc.), diabetes, heart disease, kidney or liver disorders, neurological or neuromuscular disorders, or otherwise weakened immune systems.

Individuals may call the Student Health Center’s Urgent Care Unit at 765-494-1724 to determine if they have a qualifying health condition.