Running Rings Around Olympic Preparations

This is a very special event for China. We will enhance NC State’s research relationship with China by helping ensure they have a successful Olympics.Shu-Cherng Fang, professor of industrial engineering and operations research

When the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games open in August, Dr. Shu-Cherng Fang will have handed off his torch to Chinese organizers while Dr. Lian Xie will be moving to the starting line for his Olympic challenge. The two NC State professors have parlayed contacts and faculty appointments in China into research efforts and consulting roles in the country's biggest international event in decades.

While most of the Olympic events will be clustered in and around Beijing, the sailing competition will take place in the Yellow Sea near the city of Qingdao. Xie, a professor of meteorology in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, is developing a model to predict wind speeds off the coast so officials know which days are best to set sail. Sustained winds of at least 7 miles per hour for at least two hours are needed for a sailing event, he says. Xie is working with Drs. Sujit Ghosh and Montserrat Fuentes of the Department of Statistics to refine a model created by Chinese forecasters in which the margin of error is considered too great to be trusted on days with light wind.

"We don't have time to create something entirely new," Xie said. "But we're trying to produce something better than what they have."

The project is Xie's second with the Beijing Games. While the Chinese were putting their bid together to host the Olympics several years ago, he was asked to serve as scientific adviser to the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, which was developing a model to forecast Beijing's air quality. After monitoring pollution levels across the region for several months and analyzing meteorological and pollutant emission factors, the panel recommended abandoning the municipal approach to pollution abatement previously used to address the problem and adopting a regional tack.

"Compared with cities like Raleigh, the air quality was pretty bad," Xie said, "but it's improving rapidly."

In a separate project, the logistical challenge of hosting thousands of international athletes and millions of spectators over two weeks took Fang to China. The Walter Clark Chair and Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor in the Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) at NC State, Fang helped coordinate two symposia for Beijing organizers to help them get a better handle on issues ranging from transportation to trash recycling to terrorism. ISE professors Salah Elmaghraby and Xiuli Chao also took part in the events, which were hosted by NC State partner Tsinghua University.

"This is a very special event for China," Fang said. "We will enhance NC State's research relationship with China by helping ensure they have a successful Olympics."

140字符网络小说获奖

"精练推动创新", 37Signals的一本倍受欢迎的书《Getting Real》有这样一句话. Copyblogger's的Twitter写作比赛也是这种精神的体现. 比赛要求写一篇140字符的短小说, 不多不少, 要刚好 140字符（正好是一条Twitter短消息的字符数）, 有300余篇作品参赛, Copyblogger发布了获奖名单.

"限制在140字符可以激发你的创造力, 并促使你在遣词造句上力求精练." Copyblogger的Brian Clark在比赛前这样说, 最终, 一个叫Ron Gould的一篇科幻小说获得一等奖, 这是一篇紧凑的, 有着优美结构的杰作.

"Time travel works!" the note read. "However you can only travel to the past and one-way." I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

“时光旅行是真的”，纸条上写道，“然而你只能单程回到过去。”当发现那是我自己的笔迹时我不寒而栗。

这次比赛让人联想到海明威的著名六字小说，“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”（出售：童鞋，全新）。据说，海明威将这篇小说看作自己最伟大的作品。两年前，连线杂志曾找来一批畅销书作家让他们每人写一篇六字作品。

这里可以看到其他获奖者的作品.

这也让我想到以前英国的一个短文征集  要求涵盖英国王室 丑闻 性.  最佳作品是:"靠 女王怀孕了 谁干的?"