thebattalion
news for you campus New interim vice president Thomas H. Taylor was named as interim vice president for administration replacing H. Russell Cross beginning today. Taylor will be coming out of retirement to fill the interim position. He graduated with a degree in accounting and worked for the University for 36 years as the chief budget officer. Cross will resume his faculty position in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
● thursday,
july 15, 2010
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2010 student media
psychology messina hof
Vineyard of the valley
Research finds families face struggles raising children with disabilities. Austin Meek
texas Coppell mayor commits suicide Police in Coppell said they have found four notes at the home where the town’s mayor and her teenage daughter were shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide. The medical examiner has ruled that 55-year-old Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The death of her 19-year-old daughter, Corinne, was ruled a homicide.
Visitors spend the morning picking grapes and participating in a grape stomp. The festival includes themed dinners and an interactive seminar about how to pair wines with meals.
The Big Kahuna Competition awards the person who picks the most interesting and unique grape cluster of the day.
lowest gas price
www.texasgasprices.com
nation &world Beijing gates poor areas China’s capital has started gating and locking 16 of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock. It’s Beijing’s latest effort to reduce rising crime often blamed on the millions of rural Chinese migrating to cities for work. Staff and wire reports
Politics as usual: Episode VI: Return of the Podcast
Hear Richard Creecy and Ian McPhail discuss the Blagojevich scandal. James Cavin checks in with his segment, Cavin Fever.
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The Battalion Aaron Resch and five with the Texas A&M University Center on Disability and Development have concluded three years of research that demonstrates family members of children with disabilities are in need of significant support as they deal with the children’s behavioral issues. In 2007, the researchers conducted statewide focus groups of families who had children with disabilities. The children were diagnosed with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and mental disabilities. Researchers had meetings in every corner of the state, in order to gain the widest variety of participants. “We were trying to figure out what the parents’ needs were,” Resch said. “When they talked about the challenges they were facing, they never brought up the children themselves. They usually talked about problems they encountered in their communities and surrounding environments.” Many families had run into the same issues. Accessing health care, undergoing speech therapy, taking swimming lessons, See Resch on page 5
business
Courtesy photos, graphic by Evan Andrews — THE BATTALION
$2.49 CITGO at 101 S.W. Pkwy. & Wellborn Road.
Families need support
Harvest Festival combines art of fine dining with science of winemaking
I
t might still be in the Brazos Valley, but the Messina Hof Winery in Bryan makes for a worthwhile trip with its annual Harvest Festival. For five weekends, visitors can discover how grapes become wine, or learn the answers to other pressing — fictional — questions at one of the mystery dinners. From vineyard to dining room, the event makes learning fun, not to mention delicious.
David Harris | The Battalion
see story on page 2
16 miles Tank of gas ◗ This story is part of the series “There and back on a tank of gas.” A staff member will travel to a different city each week and document the trip. To suggest a great place to visit, e-mail your ideas to metro@thebatt. com.
engineering
Students research helicopter blade erosion Caroline Ward | The Battalion Aggie students in the aerospace engineering department have been working to solve one of the front-running problems for the U.S. Navy. In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the desert sand has been eroding helicopter blades. “This has been a severe problem in recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Ramesh Talreja, aerospace engineering professor. The Helicoptor Erosion Project addresses the problem in areas of maintenance, design of the blades and develop special coatings to prevent erosion, with the goal of leading to safer operation of helicopters during wars where conditions lead to erosion of blades. Graduate students Nirmal Sigamani and Sourav Banerjee participated in the 2010 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. The federal government presented Sigamani and Banerjee with $1,000 stipends to present papers based on their work on helicopter blade erosion. “Both Nirmal and Sourav worked on the
Sourav Banjeree, a graduate student of aerospace engineering, shares his research findings at the 2010 Aircraft Airworthiness and Sustainment conference. Courtesy photo
same project, the former dealing with the experimental part. Sourav’s work tackled the difficult task of computer-based modeling of the particle erosion of blade coatings,” said Amine Benzerga, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Banerjee’s adviser. Sigamani received his master’s de-
gree in May, and Banerjee will receive his in fall 2010. Both will begin their doctorate degrees. “In this conference itself I had a chance to meet so many Aggies working in the top companies and they loved to share their memories [from] Aggieland,” Sigamani said.
Religion might affect ethics Caroline Ward The Battalion Research conducted by Mays Business School professors Sean McGuire, Thomas Omer and Nathan Sharp showed corporations in religious areas were less likely to commit fraud or “misstate” financial statements. “I became interested in the project because I do some archival audit research and this was an interesting look at what might be one of the determinants of financial statement irregularities,” Omer said. “Research in accounting has investigated the how and The specific why of finan- denomination cial statement matters irregularities much less for many years, than whether and this was religion is a chance to important to consider how a person. a social norm, Nathan Sharp, religion, might professor alter individu- of accounting als’ incentives to misrepresent their firm’s financial statements.” The research process began last fall, using data from Gallup Inc. The study represented 50 states and analyzed 4500 U.S. public corporations. Evaluation of results was based on theories and models from previous research. McGuire, Omer and Sharp See Ethics on page 4
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