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Awards And Certifications From September 29

WSU-Bred Researcher's Dashboard Wins Award: Wayne State University has been selected as a 2010 Digital Education Achievement Award winner by the Center for Digital Education for the university's development of the Researcher's Dashboard, a Web-based custom software that monitors and manages proposals and grants in real time. The Digital Education Achievement Awards recognize outstanding digital technology projects and programs that have enriched education for students and teachers. Nominations are submitted from around the world and are judged on their innovative use of technology, unique features and functionality. The Researcher's Dashboard seamlessly and intuitively integrates multiple applications, allowing researchers and grant administrators an improved way of monitoring and managing proposals and grants they are assigned to, ultimately providing them with more accurate information in real time. Wayne State University officials are hoping to make the WSU-developed Researcher's Dashboard available to other research universities to help them innovate and advance the efficiency of research administration processes. The university is exploring a community source-open source deployment of the Researcher's Dashboard with SunGard Higher Education. The Researcher's Dashboard was developed in a partnership between WSU's Computing & Information Technology office and the Office of the Vice President for Research. To learn more about the Researcher's Dashboard, visit http://thelink.computing.wayne.edu/researchers-dashboard.php.

Ann Arbor man wins invention contest: An entry from Ann Arbor to use regenerative power in bicycle brakes won first prize in the transportation category in the Create The Future Design contest, sponsored by PTC, Comsol and Tech Briefs Media. David Swain of Ann Arbor came up with a regenerative bike front wheel that uses hydraulics to store braking energy for later release. The contest was launched in 2002 by NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. PTC is a manufacturing management software developer, while Comsol Inc. is a Burlington, Mass.-based simulation software developer. The $20,000 grand prize winner came from Salim Nasser of Merritt Island, Fla., for a new wheelchair design to decrease upper body repetitive stress injuries from those who push their own chairs with their arms. The design uses a planetary gear system at the center of the wheel, allowing the person in the wheelchair to move forward with a pulling or rowing motion as opposed to the standard pushing motion. First prize winners in six categories won new Hewlett-Packard workstations. The event attracted nearly 1,000 innovative product ideas from engineers and students in 51 countries. Finalists were selected by senior editors at Tech Briefs Media Group and judged by an independent panel of design engineers. For the first time, teams were allowed to enter designs. Visitors to the contest Web site could vote on entries, with the 10 most popular designs awarded a SpaceNavigator 3D mouse from 3Dconnexion. Popular design winners and honorable mentions hailed from Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom, in addition to the U.S. For more information, visit www.createthefuture2010.com.

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