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Federal government to mandate lie detector tests at Cal labs

U-WIRE

BERKELEY, Calif. - In an effort to safeguard national laboratories, the Department of Energy is planning mandatory polygraph tests for University of California and other employees with access to restricted information, a UC official said Friday.

If implemented, employees of energy department laboratories nationwide would be required to take the tests, including workers at UC-managed Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs, according to university spokesperson Rick Malaspina.

Malaspina said the lie detector tests would ensure better security, and that the university will support the government when and if it decides to implement the tests,.

"Polygraph testing is important and is a necessary part of the Department of Energy's security program," Malaspina said. "The UCs understand and support that."

He added that the lie detector proposal is likely to become law within a few months.

The suspected transfer of classified material to unclassified computers in the past prompted the energy department to suggest new rules to prevent future security breaches, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson said in a statement.

Under the new proposal, any Department of Energy employee who has access to or works with counterintelligence information, or who holds a position that grants him or her access to intelligence information would be subject to a polygraph test.

Only a few questions would be asked of each employee who falls under the proposal's jurisdiction, Malaspina said. Federal employees would administer the tests, he added.

"DOE has been very clear that questions asked of employees in certain positions are not going to be asked of every employee," Malaspina said.

The existing policy on polygraphs applies only to Department of Energy faculty members and employees, according to Lawrence Livermore lab officials.

The energy department's policy does not apply to those who are "contractor employees," such as university employees, lab spokespersons Robert Penko and Eric Steele said in a statement.

"As far as UC is concerned, it has a long-standing policy that polygraph tests cannot be used for employment actions," they said. "If DOE would bring up a proposal for UC employees, then UC would have to address the situation."

But Malaspina said the new proposal would require UC employees to take the tests.

During a meeting last April, the Society for Professional Scientists and Engineers - a laboratory employee group-raised questions about how the proposed rule could be abused or used against lab workers.

But Malaspina said the tests would not be used in any sort of retaliatory or punitive way.

"We are confident that (the tests) will be administered carefully," he said.

The Department of Energy has full jurisdiction over which UC employees get clearance and which ones do not, Penko and Steele said.

They added that if a Lawrence Livermore lab employee has his or her clearance suspended or revoked, lab officials never learn the reasons behind the suspension or revocation because of national security reasons.

The proposal is being considered despite uncertainty about the accuracy of polygraphs.

Lie detector tests are not admissible in legal courtrooms.

UCLA professor discovers mummies

U-WIRE

LOS ANGELES - After three years of excavating mass tombs at the Bahariyya Oasis in Egypt, Zahi Hawass, a UCLA adjunct professor and director of the Giza pyramids, released findings that challenge the way historians have viewed ancient Egyptian society.

Hawass and his team have already discovered over 100 mummies and are expecting to find thousands more as they continue their work, Hawass announced in his report last month.

"It's the first time in history to discover this many mummies and it's the last major discovery before the next millennium," Hawass said.

The tomb was discovered when a guard riding a donkey at the Temple of Alexander the Great fell through the desert floor. The discovery was brought to the attention of Hawass at Giza, who then began overseeing the excavation.

Hawass recalled being blinded by the reflection of the gold covering the mummies as the first tomb was opened.

"That is a moment that I will never forget in my life, and that is why archeology is so amazing," he said.

Hawass estimates that the tomb dates back to the beginning of the first century when the Roman Empire flourished.

What makes this discovery so important is the vast number of mummies that this vault contains said Antonio Loprieno, chair of UCLA's Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department.

During the excavation, Hawass' team found entire families entombed.

"Glancing in a corner, I noticed a particularly touching pair; there was a woman lying beside her husband with her head lovingly turned towards him," Hawass wrote in an account of the expedition. "It seems that the husband had died before the wife, and she had asked her family to bury her next to him, where she could gaze at him forever."

Although the Hawass will continue to study and learn from the mummies, the findings so far do give archeologists a very different picture of the social strata of Egypt at the time than what experts had believed.

According to Loprieno, Egyptologists had previously thought that Egyptian society at that time was divided into an upper and lower class with little or no middle class. But, because of the high cost of mummification, the fact that there are so many mummies shows that there must have been a much larger middle class than previously suspected.

"The traditional view is that in Greco-Roman Egypt, there was an elite of Greeks, Romans and Egyptians and then there was a lower class," Loprieno said. "This shows that we have to reckon with a much larger middle class."

The Bahariyya excavation also revealed mummies from the upper class buried alongside ones from the middle class as opposed to alone, as they had been found in other excavations. This finding revealed that the classes interacted differently than previously thought, Loprieno said.

It was also believed that the upper class was buried in individual tombs made of stone with writing, a privilege of the upper class, inscribed inside and outside the tomb.

The middle class were thought to have similar tombs of lesser quality without writing while the lower class would probably have a mass grave. Only the richest would be able to afford a golden mask, Loprieno said.

"The (excavation reveals that) the use of gold would have been limited to not only the rich, but the royal elite," Loprieno said.

Around 60 of the mummies discovered so far have gold masks and gilded waistcoats while others are covered in linen or are entombed in human-shaped coffins made of pottery.

The fact that all these objects are combined in this discovery may give Egyptologists a clearer view of ancient Egypt.

Many of the mummies have depictions of gods in ritualistic scenes painted onto their torsos and portraits painted on their faces underneath the golden masks that many of them wear.

Each tomb consists of an entrance hall, a delivery room - used in burial rituals - and a burial chamber.

Hawass and his team have excavated four such tombs already and he plans to continue to unearth four more each year until the entire area has been revealed.

Already, Hawass has moved five mummies to the Inspectorate of Antiquities at Bawiti, the capital city of the Oasis, so visitors can view them.

He has also transported one of the mummies, nicknamed "Mr. X," to a lab in Cairo. X-rays revealed that the mummy had been a 35-year old man without any sign of injury or disease.

"I would like to tell people that the Egyptians were people like us and we must learn from them to make a better life," Hawass said.

Bad posture, computer positioning may explain that pain in the neck

U-WIRE

TAMPA, Fla. - Extensive hours of surfing the Internet and writing long, time-consuming research papers could be causing computer users to develop cumulative trauma disorders.

Factors such as poor monitor placement or chair adjustment contribute to avid computer users' development of CTDs, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, back and neck problems and shoulder tendonitis.

Researchers say they have a solution - ergonomics, the science of fitting the job to the worker. Ergonomics is applied in the design and development of toothbrushes, aircraft cockpits, baby carriages and computer workstations to prevent CTDs in musculoskeletal systems.

The concept originated during World War II to overcome performance failures due to human error in high-tech defense systems. Ergonomics gained widespread recognition in the mid-1980s and interest in the field continues to grow among researchers.

Working in ergonomically designed workplaces or using ergonomically designed products reduces distraction due to discomfort, frustration due to inconvenience, and stress due to excessive physical demands, resulting in tiring less quickly.

But most important, researchers believe the use of ergonomics reduces the rate of CTDs. These disorders affect almost all occupations, ranging from the meat-packing industry and aviation to retail and clerical jobs.

According to Dr. Steven A. Field, an orthopedic surgeon and assistant professor for the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health's Division of Occupational Medicine, there are three major factors leading to CTDs - force, repetitive motion and duration.

A total of 6.1 million injuries and illnesses were reported in private industry workplaces in 1997, according to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Disorders associated with repeated trauma, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and noise-induced hearing loss, were the dominant types of reported illnesses.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration estimates that work-related musculoskeletal disorders account for more than 647,000 injuries and illnesses and more than one-third of workers' compensation costs - an estimated $15 to $20 billion in direct worker's compensation costs in 1995 and an additional $45 to $60 billion in indirect costs.

Under USF's advised guidelines, if an employee complains of a CTD, USF safety engineers or industrial hygienists will investigate for ergonomically appropriate workstations.

Ideal computer stations should include appropriate lighting, height-adjustable keyboards facilitating a 90-degree angle at the elbows with the wrists naturally extended from the forearm, height-adjustable chairs providing firm lower back support, an appropriate mouse pad placed adjacent to the keyboard to prevent the need for reaching and a document holder attached to the left side of the monitor to prevent neck strain.

After he evaluates university workstations, Cliff Knox, senior environmental health and safety specialist for USF's Division of Environmental Health and Safety, recommends a variety of daily lifestyle changes - ranging from an increase in exercise to the use of ergonomic furniture.

"Generally, people don't exercise or take breaks, which puts extra strain on the musculoskeletal system," Knox said. "Five-to-10-minute breaks should be taken every hour. But sometimes the solution is as simple as adjusting the back support on the chair."

Although evaluations usually result from worker's compensation claims, any university department on any regional campus can request a workplace evaluation.

"We'll go into any of the departments if we are asked," he said. "Students should definitely be thinking about their keyboarding positions."

Most students remain unaware of the problems caused by poor posture or workstation design, issues not limited to USF campuses.

"I don't believe that any university has addressed the student problem," Field said.

OSHA is developing a program-based ergonomics standard to help employers reduce the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in their workplaces. The plan will reduce workers' compensation costs and increase employee production. The agency is considering management leadership and employee participation, hazard awareness and employee training, medical management, job hazard analysis, hazard prevention and control, program evaluation and documentation in the program.

The proposed ergonomic standard, which OSHA plans to publish in the Federal Register in September, is currently undergoing small-business and governmental review.

"In developing the ergonomics rule, OSHA promised to focus first on jobs where injuries are high and solutions are well demonstrated," said Charles Jeffress, a speaker at the Second Annual Applied Ergonomics Conference in Houston.

"OSHA's draft specifies that employers in general industry with workers involved in production operations ... or manual handling are automatically covered."

Although OSHA standards will prevent work-related injuries, it could be costly for industries and universities to comply. Many, however, are gradually replacing old furniture with new ergonomic furniture.

Even without OSHA regulations, the State of California has already initiated standards of its own, and the University of California at Berkeley is one of many universities nationwide taking steps to protect its employees.

Berkeley's computer ergonomics program was designed to promote an ergonomically safe and healthy workplace for campus computer users as well as to reduce and prevent the human and financial costs of computer-related health problems caused by hazards caused by poor ergonomics.

But as industries and universities make strides to improve workstations, employee conditions remain top priority.

"Students are always the lowest on the list," Field said. "They pay tuition, but those who are getting paid are given better conditions."

Play now, pay later: Cost of higher education leads some into debt

U-WIRE

BOULDER, Colo. - When Vince Patarino, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Colorado-Boulder, graduates from school, he will have accumulated more than $100,000 of debt from student loans. He is only one of the thousands of CU students who depend on financial aid to support their college education.

"When you know your debt is so high, you just want to ignore it," Patarino said. "I've been pushing it off because I have no way to afford it. I can't pay it off because (as a full-time student) I can only work part-time or as a TA."

With the amount of required expenses that freshmen face in their first year at college, more than half of CU students need to use financial aid. Student loans have become an inevitable part of many students' college education.

Incoming freshmen at CU incur the most required expenditures. Not only is it mandatory to live in student housing for their first year, freshmen also must sign up for the most expensive meal plan CU offers. An out-of-state freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences will pay at least $10,754.99, which includes only tuition, student fees, and double capacity room and board. This amount, however, excludes the required textbooks and additional living expenses.

"Think less of the pizza you want to order and more of how you're going to pay off the loans on the other end," advises Patarino. "Only take what you need. Don't let it become a lifestyle."

The loans available to students hardly begin to cover the cost. According to CU's financial aid office, freshmen can receive Stafford loans up to a $2,620 in their first year of school. The amount a student can have loaned increases with each year completed at college. A sophomore can borrow up to $3,500, while juniors and seniors can be loaned up to $5,500. Graduate student Stafford loans top out at $8,500. Students oftentimes need to take out more than one loan to cover all their expenses.

The financial aid office claims that when students graduate from CU, they can have accumulated up to $23,000 in loan debt. The figure from the financial aid office seems to be somewhat low, however, based on the required costs of living for incoming freshmen.

Graduate students such as Patarino, who have pursued more than a bachelor's degree, face much higher debts.

Student loans have become increasingly more common since the end of the Reagan administration in '87. Patarino experienced the dramatic difference in the amount he needed to borrow when he entered graduate school in '88. This time marked a transition from student grants to student loans, a trend which has forced thousands of college students into long-term debt, he said.

George Washington U. puts alcohol laws to use

U-WIRE

WASHINGTON - George Washington University administrators will use federal legislation to contact the parents of students who commit severe alcohol violations, Senior Assistant Dean of Students Mike Walker said.

In the wake of creating an official policy about when to notify parents, administrators made one phone call to the parents of an incoming freshman who was hospitalized during Colonial Inauguration, Walker said.

GW administrators also called parents of students who committed severe violations last spring when the federal legislation permitting universities and colleges to notify guardians about alcohol violations was first implemented.

The Alcohol Task Force, which was created last year to examine GW's alcohol policies, suggested the parental notification rule, and the rest of the university adopted it.

Student Judicial Services defines a "severe violation" as an instance when a student who is under the influence of alcohol "vomits and/or exhibits incoherence, is unconscious, needs or receives medical attention, loses bodily control or exhibits memory loss."

Administrators also will deem a violation severe if the student has acquired minor violations in the past or seems to abuse alcohol regularly.

Administrators said the new legislation is meant to benefit students.

"The parental notification rule is not intended to be punitive," Substance Abuse Prevention Center Manager Candace Miller wrote in a university press release. "The idea is that we need a team approach to help students in trouble."

Walker said the university merely informs parents and guardians that their children committed violations. Any further communication about judicial procedures or health concerns is the responsibility of the child and parent.

"GW wants to balance this new law with the belief that the student is an adult," Walker said.

In addition to the policies about parental notification, the Alcohol Task Force made recommendations to curb the use of alcohol on campus. Members suggested that university administrators and student leaders form the Alcohol Advisory Committee, now that the task force has disbanded, to examine alcohol-related issues as they arise.

Among the recommendations is that GW students participate in a Southern Illinois university survey to assess the level of alcohol use on campus.

In addition, other parts of the community are helping to alleviate the presence of alcohol on campus, Walker said. The Coffeehouse Series and other alternative programs are offered to combat the problem, he said.

Students have also shown interest in being part of the solution, said Matthew Patashnick, office assistant in SAPC and Student Peer Initiative Resource Intervention Team member. Patashnick said SPIRIT and SAPC seek to educate students about alcohol and drug use and abuse.

Patashnick also works with "Time Out," a student-led discussion group for students who commit minor alcohol violations.

He said GW is far from having a serious alcohol problem but said students need to get the message about taking responsibility for their habits.

Walker agreed and said the university is doing its best.