Tennessee State University is continuing its efforts to help create a greener Nashville with a new series of sustainable living community workshops presented by the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Sciences.

The workshops are designed to assist area residents in saving energy and money by going green. Funded by a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Capacity Building Grant, the workshops educate local residents on water conservation, indoor air quality, and reducing waste.

“All of our workshops take a holistic approach to environmental issues. Most residents want to find ways to cut their monthly utility bills so we feature presentations on how to conserve energy and water, recycle waste, reduce storm water runoff, and more topics,” said workshop coordinator Sue Ballard de Ruiz, an assistant professor in the
College’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.

The most recent workshop held at Hartman Park Community Center, an area that was heavily affected by the floods of May 2010, featured guest representatives from Mayor Karl Dean’s Office of Flood Recovery and Office of Environmental Sustainability along with Quantum Environmental Services and the State of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. With the assistance of the local Home Depot store in Madison, participants received household items that help reduce energy consumption and improve indoor air quality such as power strips, compact fluorescent lights, and environmentally friendly cleaners.

Ballard de Ruiz, who conducts the workshops alongside fellow TSU professor Dr. Margaret Machara, said the grant funding helps the University achieve a greater mission of saving the environment.

“We know how important sustainability has become to our city, our nation, and even our world. Hosting the workshops is an active part to help sustain our communities by equipping them to go green and stay there,” she added,

The next sustainable living community workshop is scheduled for September 15, 5:30-7 p.m., at the Nashville Area Habitat Humanity Headquarters located at 1006 Eighth Avenue South. All workshops are free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Sue Ballard de Ruiz at 615-963-5623 or aballard@tnstate.edu.

Pictured: (L-R) Machara and Ballard de Ruiz display presentation tools used to explain sustainability tips to workshop participants.

Tennessee State University College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science is preparing graduate students to protect the nation against cybercrimes and intrusions with a recent grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The DHS Scientific Leadership Award for Minority Serving Institutions Granting Graduate Degrees in the amount of $301,679 will fund the University’s initiative to develop a joint research and education initiative for interdisciplinary research and education aimed protecting the United States critical infrastructure and key assets.

The project will highlight two DHS-STEM disciplines: Advanced Data Analysis and Visualization and Command Control and Interoperability.

“It is becoming increasingly important that policies are developed to deter the growing threat of cybercrime and state-sponsored intrusions throughout the nation. Through this initiative, we hope to determine which components are likely to be targeted in a potential cyber attack, investigate the intelligence of an attacker’s motivations, and determine how the intelligence improves policies,” explained Dr. Sachin Shetty, assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and principal investigator of the grant.

“The research we conduct at Tennessee State University will be carried out through video analytics, machine learning, and risk analysis research, as well as with resources and facilities that we currently have available at the institution,” said Shetty.

The research will address three inter-connected thrusts (planning, countermeasures and assessment) in the area of cyber security. The planning thrust will focus on models of effective surveillance and allocation of resources under uncertainty. Countermeasures will be responsible for proactive and defensive policies to help deter an attack and identify potential threats. Finally, assessment will be used to develop risk analysis and strategies to create defensive resources that protect critical infrastructure and key assets.

Dr. S. Keith Hargrove, dean of the College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science, hopes the initiative will develop students’ competency in homeland security in data mining, risk analysis and visual analytics research.

“By the incorporation of new courses and research seminars in the areas of visual analytics, cyber-security, and risk analysis and assessment, we believe this initiative will provide our students with an thorough understanding of the complexities associated with the protection of our nation’s critical infrastructure and key assets. Additionally, the curriculum enhancement and collaborative relationships with the Department of Homeland Security, federal labs, and related industries will help enhance our graduate program at the Ph.D. level,” said Hargrove.

The funding will also support and leverage a previous infrastructure grant received by the National Science Foundation to establish the TSU Interdisciplinary Graduate Engineering Research Institute (TIGER) and help promote research activity in one of four thrust areas.

Shetty, along with senior faculty in the College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science, will work collaboratively with graduate students to carry out the research.

(Pictured are Hargrove and Shetty, L-R)

From the Tennessean:

At Tennessee State University, researchers are mapping the areas around Middle Tennessee with the highest levels of dangerous radon gas, hoping eventually to help the campus and the community clear the air.

Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that has been linked to everything from asthma to lung cancer. And in Middle Tennessee, it’s everywhere.

Beeeep.

The bleat from the radon detector draws professor Tom Byl to one corner of his laboratory. He and a team of researchers from multiple disciplines are studying how, and where, radon makes its way into people’s homes and businesses. And they’re starting their research close to home, with a survey of radon levels in every ground-level room of each of the hundred or so buildings on TSU’s Nashville campus.

“Do we have radon?” Byl, a hydrologist, asked graduate student Karla Ware, who was waving the detector’s wand under a corner cabinet.

“It’s radon,” Ware confirmed, checking her readings.

No surprise. The lab sits in TSU’s Torrence Building — home to the College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science. The building is set into a hill, giving it even more surface area for radon gas to bubble up, through cracks in the soil or underground aquifers, from uranium deposits laced through the limestone and shale that run deep below all of Middle Tennessee.

But after a few minutes, the detector spits out a spool of data, with the reassuring message that the radon levels in Byl’s laboratory are low, well within the safe levels. They’ll re-test later, but for the moment, Byl and his students can breathe easy.

Concern arises

Nationwide, about 6 percent of homes and businesses have unsafe levels of radon gas. In Middle Tennessee, the average jumps to 16 percent. Metro Nashville Schools raised the alarm this spring after air quality tests at dozens of schools found radon levels high enough to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s criteria for action.

The district is in the process of testing and re-testing all of its schools. Work is under way to improve ventilation and air circulation in the classrooms with high radon levels — an open window or a moving fan can be enough to clear the air in some cases. Newer schools are being built with safeguards to vent the gas outside the building, rather than allowing it to seep into the basements and lower-level classrooms.

The EPA and Tennessee health authorities urge homeowners to do the same — test and re-test home radon levels every year. Most hardware stores sell home radon test kits for $10, or they’re available free from the Tennessee Department of Environmental Quality. TSU researchers also are offering to come over and test people’s home air quality.

“I hear people say (they don’t want to test) and I think, wow, would you rather have lung cancer?” Ware said. “A kit is $10. There’s no reason not to test. …You can’t smell (radon), you can’t taste it, you can’t see it, you can’t find it with a blacklight.”

By next year, the researchers hope to have a map of the radon hotspots on TSU’s campus. Building that map means that Ware and Terreka Hart, both graduate students in TSU’s department of physics and mathematics, must work their way across the entire campus, building by building and room by room, testing the air, water and soil for signs of radon.

From there, they hope to fan out to map the entire region’s radon patterns. The project has taken them down into Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave and out to the freshwater and sulfur springs of Bon Aqua, which pump radon into the air of Hickman County. The students and physics professor Orville Bignall recently returned from surveying radon levels in Jamaica.

Radon levels fluctuate wildly throughout the year: higher in fall and winter, or after a rain. But even someone opening a door can throw off radon readings. In buildings where radon levels are too high, the danger never really goes away. Radon contributes to an estimated 22,000 deaths from lung cancer in the United States every year.

Ninth graders at the Pearl Cohn Ninth Grade academy will have a live Skype video chat across the world with ninth graders in the Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa on Thursday May 19, 2011, 8 a.m.

The dialogue, “A Day In The Life of A Ninth Grader in Nashville and Soweto,” hosted by the Tennessee State University Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement will feature a discussion on culture, geography and technology to give the students an experience beyond the textbook.

With the design of a Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) computer lab, TSU’s Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement devoted $15,000 in grant funds to the Pearl Cohn Ninth Grade Academy to upgrade educational and technology access with computers and printers. Since the development, more than 100 students have participated in the lab project with lessons about the Nashville floods of 2010, tornado spotting, and scholarly research skills using Microsoft Access, Word, Excel, GIS mapping skills, blogging and Wikispace development.

The Skype video chat will take place in room 156 at the Pearl Cohn Ninth Grade Academy in McKissack School.