“Perdue wraps up Asia trip - Times-News” plus 4 more

Perdue wraps up Asia trip - Times-News
Hotel Owner Bans Spanish—And Workers Fight Back - In These Times
NCKU's AVM Technology Transferred to FS-Technology Company - Stockhouse
Hawaii hula master Naope dies - Honolulu Advertiser
Mission Hospital CEO Joe Damore out in Asheville - Asheville Citizen-Times

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 02:11 PM PDT

RALEIGH — Gov. Beverly Perdue is returning to North Carolina after a nearly two-week trade and cultural mission to China and Japan.

Perdue's office has said she would arrive in the state Tuesday night after leaving from Shanghai. The trip also included visits to Tokyo and Beijing and focused largely on building relationships with two of the state's top four trading partners.

The governor told reporters last week by phone she saw her first overseas trade trip as one focused on building a long-term relationship with Chinese firms and expand already fruitful ties in Japan.

Perdue leaves behind a contingent of about 20 North Carolina residents — including several legislators — visiting China on a separate trip paid by outside groups. They will return this weekend.

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Hotel Owner Bans Spanish—And Workers Fight Back - In These Times

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 07:04 PM PDT

By Emily Udell

Change your name and don't speak Spanish. These are the appalling directives a proprietor of a Taos, N.M., hotel gave the workers at his newly-acquired business. Then he fired some of them for not complying.

Workers at the Whitten Inn in northern New Mexico were instructed to anglicize their names after Larry Whitten bought the ailing business with the aim of turning it around. This prompted former workers and others to stage a protest outside the business in an effort to draw attention to the policies of Whitten, a 63-year-old Texan who says he told workers to speak English because he didn't want them to talk about him.

He says the name changes were required for workers who have difficult names to pronounce and deal with the public. Fired employee Martin Gutierrez was told not to use the accent on the last part of his name. He told the AP:

I don't have to change my name and language or heritage… I'm professional the way I am.

The national group League of United Latin American Citizens sent a letter to Whitten in support of the workers, after which messages against the group were displayed on the hotel's marquee.

Pablo Martinez, the New Mexico director for LULAC, wrote in a September letter to Whitten:

In order to settle this matter, you are encouraged to reconsider and cease these prohibited labor and discriminatory practices. It is recommended that you create a better and friendlier environment to all people of color and other ethnicities.

CNN was expected to air a piece with Whitten today, but I didn't see it posted on the site as of Tuesday morning.

Martinez released another statement yesterday, signing it, ironically, Paul "Pablo" Martinez:

The Hispanic community is outraged that Mr. Whitten has no regard for the rights of his employees, much less the sensitivity to our culture and community.

Micah McCoy, a spokesman for the ACLU in Mexico, says that organization will be participating in a protest at Whitten Inn on November 11. The demonstration aims to call attention to the discriminatory policies at the hotel and ensure that justice is served for the workers.

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NCKU's AVM Technology Transferred to FS-Technology Company - Stockhouse

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 08:01 PM PDT

TAINAN, Taiwan, Oct 27, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

NCKU President, Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, signed this morning a Technology Transfer Agreement on "Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)" with Mr. Chi-An Kao, the General Manager of Foresight Technology Company (FS-Technology), witnessed by AVM's inventor, Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng, the Director of E-Manufacturing Research Center (EMRC) and Chair Professor of the NCKU Institute of Manufacturing Information and Systems. This agreement certainly marks a successful transfer of the "Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)" from a research laboratory work to practical applications. NCKU is estimated to have a return in next few years around several hundred million of NT dollars generated from this technology transfer.

President Lai commented that the one fundamental mission of a university is, in addition to education and research, to serve the society where the university is located. Hence, in return of research outcomes and education results to the society is also a very important mission to a university. In this category of academia-industry cooperation, NCKU has excelled for many years and ranked the No 1 in the country, which has also been recognized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. That is, NCKU has played an irreplaceable role in the industrial development and economics of Taiwan. The technology transfers from NCKU to industry have certainly affirmed the irreplaceable role of NCKU. This collaboration is also a good example of industry-academia cooperation, but also a great honor of NCKU.

Mr. Kao highly praised Prof. Cheng with the invention of AVM technology. AVM technology has recorded every action of manufacturing machines at any seconds and correlated them to the quality end products. That is, the sampling techniques adopted since the 19th century will be revolutionized with the AVM techniques that could inspect every piece of final product and offer a good quality guarantee. AVM technology can shorten the producing time with high quality products. Moreover, it can be used in any industry with mass production.

Prof. Cheng has developed many different AVM technologies, which have been issued with patent protection or right under patent examinations in Taiwan, U.S.A., Japan, Korea, China, and so on. Until now, 4 patents are granted, 3 approved but still waiting for final issue, and 10 still under examination. In addition, there are only 37 research papers about virtual metrology, as searched with a key word - "virtual metrology" in IEEE Xplore (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp). Out of these 37 papers, 23 were authored by Prof. Cheng and the NCKU E-Manufacturing Research Center. It is no doubt that NCKU is leading globally in AVM achievement.

AVM technology has been transferred successfully to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO). Indeed, Chi Mei Optoelectronics adopted AVM technology and significantly improved the yield and production, and, hence, the revenues. Furthermore, Prof. Cheng received "University Industry Economy Contribution Award - Industry Contribution Award (Individual Award)" by the recommendation of CMO.

About the application of Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM)

At the beginning, AVM technology used in panel and semiconductor industries; then used more in solar, green energy, and steel industries such as Motech Industrial Inc. All machines in the production process need to have stable and qualified operation by periodic monitoring. Take semiconductor industry for an example, where all machines are operated through the test wafer to carry out periodic monitoring of the quality measurement. It will cause a large number of cost-loss if the company produced too many defective products with the production process drifts. Therefore, the key point of all high-technology industries to increase more benefits and decrease more cost is to enhance yield products. It is essential to use AVM in all industries provide the whole service for customers.

After importing AVM technology, companies can estimate product quality and monitor the effectiveness by a machine's parameter before the real metrology. It is the way to reach the whole testing of product. In addition, AVM technology can also be used to replace part of the actual measurements, Wafer-to-Wafer Advanced Process Control, and reduce the monitoring chip consumption. AVM technology is expected to substantially increase the company's competitiveness. AVM has been defined as the essential function in wafer production of next-generation (450mm) in fab by International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI). There are many oversea companies starting to use AVM without any good products better than the one researched and developed by Prof. Cheng. Therefore, Foresight Technology Company making AVM system will create lots of business benefits.

About Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng

Prof. Fan-Tien Cheng is the Director of E-Manufacturing Research Center (EMRC), Chair Professor of Institute of Manufacturing Information and Systems in NCKU and the Convener & Director of Automation Engineering Program in National Science Council (NSC). He also had different working experiences before, such as the Secretary General in Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers, the Chairman of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Taipei Chapter, the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, and the Director of Project Office Electronics Systems Division, Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST). Prof. Cheng is diverse but versatile in research with specialties in e-manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing automation, virtual metrology, intelligent manufacturing systems, and robotics.

Prof. Cheng has received many awards, including the Chair Professor Award, Distinguished Industry-University Professor Award and Distinguished Professor Award, NCKU; University Industry Economy Contribution Award - Industry Contribution Award (Individual Award) from Ministry of Economic Affairs; Outstanding Industry-University Cooperation Award, Outstanding Research Award, Technology Transfer Award (for Contract), First-Grade Project-Director Award, National Science Council (NSC); Convener & Director, Automation Engineering Program; Board Member, Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers; IEEE Fellow Technology Transfer Award, Secretary General, Chinese Institute of Automation Engineers (CIAE); IEEE IECON'01 Best Presentation Award; Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation; Winner of Kayamori Best Paper Award in 1999 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'99); Five Hundred Leaders of Influence of ABI; International Who's who of Intellectuals of IBC; IEEE Senior Member; and Granted for Certificate of Researcher by Ministry of National Defense.

About Foresight Technology Company (FS-Technology)

FS-Technology, a NCKU's corporate spin-off of NCKU, was established in Oct. 8th, 2009 with AVM technology as their main product. Mr. Chi-An Kao , the General Manager of FS-Technology, commented that Prof. Cheng's AVM technology had earlier been transferred and leased to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) successfully when he was still working there and witnessing its great impacts on yields and quality of produced chips in the fab. After that, he realized about its potentials in market on practical applications of AVM technology, which could also provide high quality of life for humans in the future. Hence, he decided to set up FS-Technology, under the assistance of Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center, to popularize AVM technology in all kinds of manufacturing. The research group in FS-Technology has received many awards, for example, from IEEE, Ministry of Economic Affairs, and National Science Council (NSC). Their vision is to provide technology service in industry.

About NCKU Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center (NCKU TLBIC)

National Cheng Kung University Technology Licensing & Business Incubation Center (NCKU TLBIC) was founded on August 1, 2007. It was merged from original Technology Licensing Center and original Business Incubation Center. It has been recruiting several experienced experts to strength functions and services such as Technology transfer/ licensing, start-up business/incubation, and Industry-academia collaboration or school-to-work program.

The original Technology Licensing Center was established in October 2000, delegating grant research outcomes to universities in line with Science & Technology Basic Law. It has been the single contact window of managing and applying intellectual properties in NCKU. The Original Business Incubation Center was established in December 1997, subsidized by Small & Median Enterprise Administration. It is based on joint R&D with tenant companies and then extended to business development-related services.

Realizing the importance of collaboration between industry and school, Ministry of Education (MOE) vigorously promotes "Three-year effectiveness plan on urging collaboration between industry and school." The plan is intended to build up an organic cooperation between industry and academia by assisting schools setting up comprehensive mechanisms. Having plentiful R&D capacity and strong foundation of industry-academia collaboration, NCKU is honored to receive the encouraging reward from MOE for the year 2008. In order to utilize government resources effectively, the center hired a senior manager with profound experiences in top 100 enterprises as CEO and formed a professional team to manage NCKU R&D outcomes and intellectual property. The center will also establish a network by setting up strategic alliances with important entities inside and outside NCKU. By doing this way, we can expect to increase interaction and create synergy between industry and academia.

About National Cheng Kung University (NCKU):

NCKU is located in the ancient city of Tainan, the historical and ancient cultural capital city of Taiwan, which boasts more than 50 national relics sanctioned by the government and is approximately 250 kilometers south of Taipei. It is connected to all major cities in Taiwan by the recently initiated state-of-the-art Taiwan High Speed Rail. Further, this historical heritage is the pride of Tainan City and represents a rich cultural resource to NCKU. The technological sectors in the Southern Taiwan Science Park offer students at NCKU with a stage to apply what they have learned into practice.

With three quarters of a century of distinguished history, with well over 130,000 powerful alumni now dotting the globe, many have achieved supreme successes in arts, business, education, science, technology and healthcare and are ready and willing to assist the 22,000 academic selective students and 1200 academic faculty members. Currently, both have an international flavor, with enormous regional support, and there is a permeating culture of proactive intellectual growth on the world's stage NCKU in Tainan, Taiwan, has evolved from its engineering genesis into a powerful and comprehensive research international university in the Asia Pacific.

Since NCKU's establishment in 1931, it has developed into a research intensive and comprehensive university with integrated academic fields in nine colleges: Liberal Arts, Sciences, Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Planning & Design, Management, Social Sciences, Medicine, and Bioscience & Biotechnology. NCKU currently offers 40 undergraduate programs (excluding the Program of Bachelor's Degree), 78 master's degree programs, 54 doctoral programs and 20 master's degree programs for working professionals.

Photo: http://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/cvpread.aspx?ID=41501

SOURCE: National Cheng Kung University

For further information contact: NCKU Julia (Ying-Chen) Liu, +886-6-275-7575 ext. 50042 Press Officer yingchen@mail.ncku.edu.tw

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Hawaii hula master Naope dies - Honolulu Advertiser

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 07:40 PM PDT

One of hula icon George Na'ope's goals was to introduce hula to people around the globe, something he was able to accomplish when the Merrie Monarch Festival he co-founded with Doris "Dottie" Thompson grew into the world's premiere hula competition.

Na'ope, 81, died yesterday morning at his Waiakea Uka residence in Hilo after a long battle with cancer.

"His body was just shutting down this past week," said Jacqueline "Skylark" Rosetti, a family friend. Naope last year had a portion of a lung removed and recently he'd been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, Rosetti said.

As news of George Lanakilakeikiahialii Na'ope's death spread through the hula community yesterday, kumu hula who studied under him remembered his significant contribution to Hawaiian culture, referring to him as a hula lo'ea, a hula master.

"He was our last living hula master," Rosetti said.

Kumu hula Rae Fonseca recalled coming to Hilo from O'ahu in the early 1970s to learn hula from "Uncle George."

At the time, George Na'ope's Hula Studio was on the second floor of the KHBC radio station building on Keawe Street across from the downtown Hilo KTA store, said Fonseca, kumu hula of Halau Hula O Kahikilaulani.

By then, the Merrie Monarch Festival had begun to take off in popularity, especially after male hula and hula kahiko, or ancient hula, became part of the weeklong event.

Fonseca said Na'ope was a bridge between the hula masters of the past, such as 'Iolani Luahine, Lokalia Montgomery and Tommy Hiona, and the younger generation of kumu hula whose names became popular largely as a result of the festival, such as Johnny Lum Ho, Aloha Dalire and Fonseca himself.

"We were able at that time to meet these great kumu hula and learn from them also," Fonseca said.

Kumu hula Leina'ala Kalama Heine agreed. "As far as I was concerned, he was the last link between that time and today," said Heine, kumu hula of Na Pualeiolikolehua. "I regard him as a lo'ea. He is one of the great masters of our time."

Rosetti said Na'ope wanted to spread the message of hula throughout the world. Besides helping create Merrie Monarch and other hula festivals in Hawai'i and around the world, Na'ope made it a point to go to places such as Japan to teach hula, Rosetti said.

"That was his mission, to bring hula to the world," she said.

spreading a message

Etua Lopez, another of Na'ope's students, said Na'ope "believed in the word aloha," and helped spread that message throughout the world through hula.

"He thought hula would help not only the Hawaiian people learn about their culture but he thought it would help people around the world understand their own nation and their languages and cultures," Lopez said.

In 1981, with the help of the Tokyo Hula Association, Na'ope began the Japan Merrie Monarch Hula Festival.

Naope was born in Kalihi on Feb. 25, 1928, and his family moved to Hilo when he was a youth. He began his hula studies when he was 3 under Mary Kanaile Fujii, mother of Edith Kanakaole.

As a young adult, Na'ope traveled the world as the featured chanter for the Royal Hawaiian Review and the Ray Kinney Band.

Besides co-founding the Merrie Monarch Festival with Dottie Thompson in 1962, Na'ope also helped create the Lili'uokalani Keiki Hula Festival and its sponsor, the Kalihi-Palama Cultural and Arts Society, as well as Kalakaua Invitational Hula Festival, the Kaua'i Mo- kihana Festival and the Kupuna Hula Festival. There are also hula festivals in the Pacific Northwest and California named after Na'ope.

In later years, Na'ope was known not just as a kumu hula, but as a raconteur, a dapper man decked out in bright clothes and huge rings. A fixture at the festival and its many auxiliary events, he was adored by hula-loving visitors, often seen in a huge peacock-style chair having his picture taken with visitors from Japan.

In latter years, when he crept up the ramp to the Merrie Monarch stage to perform a hula during the finale, the crowd would go wild.

He was called "The Menehune," for his small stature, or sometimes "Dandy," a reference to King Kalakaua's hula master Dandy Ioane, also a dapper dresser.

Na'ope is survived by a brother, Francis Na'ope; sisters, Aileen Crum, Bernie Konanui and Emma Werley; and hanai grandson, Hoapili Na'ope.

Services are tentatively scheduled for the evening of Nov. 6 and the morning of Nov. 7 at the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium, near the Edith Kanaka'ole Tennis Stadium that has been home to the Merrie Monarch for nearly the last half century.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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Mission Hospital CEO Joe Damore out in Asheville - Asheville Citizen-Times

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 08:01 PM PDT

ASHEVILLE — Mission Hospital CEO Joe Damore has resigned, according to a spokeswoman with the hospital.

The news comes after a closed door meeting of the hospital's board Monday night.

Hospital statement

Damore will step down effective Jan. 31. In accepting his resignation, the board thanked Damore for his five years of service to Mission, his commitment to quality health care at an affordable cost, and for his unselfish decision made in the best interests of patients, the hospital and health system.

"Under Joe's leadership Mission has achieved national recognition for its outstanding clinical care and innovation, while maintaining a sound financial foundation for our growing health system," said Mission Health System Board Chair George Renfro. "We are very appreciative of his many contributions, not just to Mission's success these past five years but also to the greater Asheville community. He has given generously of his time and his resources and made Asheville a better place for all of us."

Renfro expressed the board's appreciation to Damore for preparing Mission for the future.

"Joe has built upon our strong culture of quality, provided sound financial stewardship and has further developed Mission as an integrated regional health system advancing the well-being of the people who call Western North Carolina home."

The board will initiate a search for an interim leader, who will work closely with Damore to ensure a smooth transition.

Renfro noted that in recent months, the board has been engaged in a broad and thoughtful evaluation of how it can work with the administration and medical staff to meet the needs of the region's patients in today's rapidly changing healthcare environment. As part of this process, the board has accepted the report of the special Hospital/Physician Relations Committee, which was formed in late July and has conducted interviews with more than 100 physicians and 19 management team members. The board will begin work immediately evaluating the specific recommendations in the report and assessing how best to move forward.

In implementing these changes, Renfro noted that Mission will build on its clinical, financial and operational strengths.

"Mission is a healthcare system with nationally ranked clinical quality, a reputation as one of the best health systems in the nation for combining high quality and low cost, a stable financial outlook that has earned us continued AA ratings from all three major bond rating agencies, and long-standing community partnerships," Renfro said. "We will draw on these strengths as we continue to meet Western North Carolina's growing healthcare needs."

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Cultural

Tuesday, October 27, 2009