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Dallas Innovates: SMU, UTA Profs Named National Academy of Inventors Fellows

Election as a National Academy of Inventors fellow is the highest professional honor given to academic inventors.

Dallas Innovates covered the naming of Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering Professor Bruce Gnade as a Fellow to the National Academy of Inventors.

Journalist Lance Murray noted that SMU’s Gnade holds 77 U.S. patents and 55 foreign patents, and is the author or co-author of more than 195 refereed journal articles. Currently, his research focuses on flexible electronics with applications ranging from radiation sensors to microelectronic arrays for cellular recording.

The Dallas Innovates article, “SMU, UTA Profs Named National Academy of Inventors Fellows,” published Dec. 12, 2017.

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EXCERPT:

By Lance Murray
Dallas Innovates
Bruce Gnade, executive director of the Hart Center for Engineering Leadership and clinical professor within Southern Methodist University’s Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, and Dereje Agonafer, Jenkins Garrett professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington received the honors.

The professors were included in a group of 155 fellows nationwide named Tuesday by the academy.

Election as NAI Fellow is given to academic inventors who have shown a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.

NAI fellows are named as inventors on U.S. patents, and are nominated by their peers based on their contributions to innovation in areas such as patents and licensing, innovative discovery and technology, significant impact on society, and support and enhancement of innovation.

PROFS’ WORK COVERS FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS, SEMICONDUCTOR RESEARCH
SMU’s Gnade holds 77 U.S. patents and 55 foreign patents, and is the author or co-author of more than 195 refereed journal articles. Currently, his research focuses on flexible electronics with applications ranging from radiation sensors to microelectronic arrays for cellular recording, according to SMU.

Prior to joining SMU, Gnade held leadership positions at Texas Instruments and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he served as a program manager overseeing influential technology research projects for the Department of Defense. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

His academic career includes faculty appointments at the University of Maryland, the University of North Texas, and the University of Texas at Dallas.

Gnade is a member of the Materials Research Society and the Society for Information Display, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a fellow of the American Physical Society.

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New York Times: Is Spanking a Black and White Issue?

The New York Times asked SMU Psychologist George W. Holden to give his opinion on corporal punishment for the newspaper’s “Room for Debate” column.

A professor in the SMU Psychology Department, Holden is a leading advocate for abolishing corporal punishment in schools and homes and recently led organization of the Global Summit on Ending Corporal Punishment and Promoting Positive Discipline.

For his outstanding dedication and service to the mental health needs of children and adolescents, Holden will be honored Sept. 21 with The Lightner Sams Foundation Child Advocate Award presented by Mental Health America of Greater Dallas.

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EXCERPT:
By George W. Holden

The question of who spanks their children and who doesn’t goes far beyond race. Psychological and sociological studies on child-rearing disparities between black and white parents don’t provide clear answers: Although many studies find that black parents do spank more often, other research finds no differences between races.

Parents most adamantly committed to spanking tend to be from the South; they have less education and less wealth, and they experience more stress.

More revealing are the studies that take into account other critical factors, like the parents’ upbringing, stress levels, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status and region of the country. These have shown that parents most adamantly committed to the practice of spanking tend to be from the South. They have less education and less wealth, and they experience more stress. They are likely to take literally the Proverbs’ call for a “rod of correction,” and they typically were spanked by their own parents.

Parents who spank — black or white — do so because they inaccurately believe that corporal punishment results in improved child behavior. The pressure to spank can be loud and forceful, amplified by frustrating child behavior and unexamined child-rearing assumptions, along with misguided advice from extended family members, neighbors, teachers and preachers.

Yet research on the consequences of spanking children of every race could not be more clear. Beyond its immediate impact on behavior, spanking increases children’s long-term aggression toward peers and others. Parents who spank are, in fact, modeling violent behavior, which young children in my own studies have described as unfair and ineffective. Spanking also is linked to a host of harmful effects on children’s well-being: increased anxiety and depression, impaired cognitive development and academic performance, lower self-esteem and, sometimes, bruises and broken bones.

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The Wall Street Journal: Help for Hyperventilating

A new treatment that helps people with panic disorder to normalize their breathing works better to reduce panic symptoms and hyperventilation than traditional cognitive therapy, says SMU psychologist Alicia E. Meuret.

Shirley S. Wang, a health reporter for The Wall Street Jounal, interviewed the SMU psychology department’s Meuret for an article about her research findings that the feeling of suffocation that comes with panic attacks can be alleviated by breathing less — not more.

The Feb. 8 article “Help for Hyperventilating” tells readers that deep breathing reduces carbon dioxide in the system, which in turn increases hyperventilation — that scary feeling of suffocating.

The findings, “Respiratory and cognitive mediators of treatment change in panic disorder: Evidence for intervention specificity,” appeared in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Meuret, who developed CART, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at SMU and co-directs the department’s Stress, Anxiety and Chronic Disease Research Program.

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To book a live or taped interview with Alicia Meuret in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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The study pitted CART against a conventional cognitive therapy treatment, or CT. Traditional CT teaches patients techniques aimed at helping them change and reverse catastrophic thoughts in order to reduce fear and panic.

In the CART-CT study, 41 patients were assigned to complete either a CART or CT treatment program for panic disorder and agoraphobia, a fear of being trapped with no means of escape or help.

EXCERPT:

By Shirley S. Wang The Wall Street Journal Researchers are developing a new therapy for panic attacks by turning the current treatment for one of the most uncomfortable symptoms — hyperventilation — on its head. Instead of urging sufferers to take long, deep breaths when they feel they can’t breathe, as many were taught for years, researchers from Southern Methodist University say a more effective strategy is to take slower, shallow breaths. In the throes of a panic attack, sufferers experience symptoms like heart racing, profuse sweating and feelings of suffocation. They may think they are having a heart attack or believe they will faint or die. It’s unclear if hyperventilation is a cause or a consequence of panic attacks. Some 10% to 15% of the U.S. population experience occasional panic attacks, usually during a stressful situation, but about 2% develop panic disorder, in which people become so anxious about having attacks that they begin avoiding situations for fear for having one, according to anxiety expert David Barlow, a psychology and psychiatry professor at Boston University. Only about two-thirds of patients respond to current treatments, says Dr. Barlow. These include medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive-behavioral therapy. The latter teaches sufferers to refrain from thinking catastrophic thoughts when they experience the physiological symptoms and to accustom themselves to the sensations to show that they aren’t harmful.

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