The Business News Network in Canada recently contacted NIU seeking to videotape an interview with history professor David Kyvig on the topic of the Great Depression. Kyvig, a Distinguished Research Professor, is a nationally known expert on the subject, having written extensively on that period of American history.
There was one problem, however. The Toronto-based BNN didn’t want to travel to DeKalb for the interview.
Enter NIU’s Division of Media Services, which quickly found a solution that might be best described as the next best thing to being here.
Video production manager Ed Pierce, producer Kevin Meyer and graduate assistant Pamela Wicks taped the interview in Kyvig’s office as a reporter from the BNN asked questions over the telephone. The video was then digitized to BNN’s specifications and uploaded to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site on the Internet, where the Canadian news network could download the interview for its broadcast.
“It’s a good example of how we’re increasingly merging different technologies to solve problems,” said Jay Orbik, director of Media Services. “It’s also good for the NIU community to know we have these technologies available.”
The interview ran Feb. 18 on the BNN, which has the potential to reach more than 5.5 million Canadian households.
Federico Sciammarella, a professor of mechanical engineering in the NIU College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, has been named a recipient of the A.F. Davis Silver Medal Award.
The award recognizes the best paper published in “The Welding Journal” in 2008. Sciammarella’s paper, titled “Cladding in Marine Applications Using Direct-Diode Lasers,” appeared in the September 2008 edition of the magazine.
The award demonstrates the growing reputation of NIU’s expertise as a leader in the field of maintenance cladding and hardfacing.
Sciammarella’s work will help promote the laser cladding technology being developed by NIU’s ROCK program in Rockford. The device offers a cost-effective way to repair expensive worn parts, such as components of river locks, rail cars or propeller shafts of warships that otherwise would be discarded.
Milivoje M. Kostic, of NIU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, visited China Golden Triangle, the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo area, in January.
Kostic presented two invited lectures about energy fundaments, applications and future outlook at two prestigious Chinese universities: Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU-Energy Research Institute) and Zhejiang University (ZJU-Institute for Thermal Power Engineering) in Hangzhou, the latter hosting the State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization.
He also presented two invited plenary lectures – as well as three conference papers co-authored with NIU collaborators – at the sixth WSEAS International Conference on Fluid Mechanics in Ningbo. One of the papers, “Computerized, Transient Hot-Wire Thermal Conductivity Apparatus for Nanofluids,” written by Kostic and Kaylan Simham, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, was named the best conference paper.