Peabody's Friedberg Concert Hall to get new seating

The Peabody Conservatory of Music's Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall will be retrofitted this summer with new seating and two new side aisles to replace the center aisle. This marks the first renovation to take place in the hall since 1983.

The new seating has been funded by a $75,000 gift from the Peabody chapter of the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association.

The institute's 2000-2001 concert season begins on Sept. 28 with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra's performance of works by Samuel Barber, Shostakovich and Brahms.

Morocco bestows high honor on SAIS professor

I. William Zartman, director of African Studies and Jacob Blaustein Professor of International Organization and Conflict Resolution at SAIS, was recently bestowed the title of Commander of the Wissam Alaouit, the second level of the nation of Morocco's highest honor. The award, conferred for civilian or military merit, acknowledges Zartman's efforts in scholarly research on Moroccan policies, in promoting the revitalization of the area in and around the city of Tangier, and analysis of the country's claim to the Western Sahara that borders on neighboring Mauritania.

Ownership of this desert region is currently in dispute and is a major foreign policy issue for Morocco. Zartman testified as an expert witness on this matter before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Zartman was officially presented his title and award on June 21 in Washington, D.C., as part of Morocco's King Mohammed VI's visit to the United States.

The author and editor of several books on the region, Zartman began his research work in Morocco, and he is the founder and former director of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, an organization devoted to the study of Northern Africa. Zartman also is president of the Tangier American Legation Museum Society, which operates the American overseas research center in Tangier city.

Policy change for Bayview to East Baltimore shuttle route

Effective Aug. 1, the Bayview shuttle route will be dedicated for employee use only due to ongoing problems including abuse to drivers and staff, illegal riders and panhandling.

Only those with a JHMI identification badge will be permitted to ride these shuttles. Patients who use the shuttle are directed to use the cab and bus vouchers issued from their specific program area.

APL developing radar tracker to hunt down drug runners

Staff at the Applied Physics Laboratory radar tracker for the U.S. Customs Service's P-3 Airborne Early Warning aircraft, which is used to help catch drug runners.

Customs Services locates candidate targets with the aircraft's APS-135 radar and IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) interrogator.

APL's tracking software automatically sorts the IFF and radar returns in near real time, discarding irrelevant information and allowing Customs to pinpoint and monitor the route of their target.

The tracker is currently undergoing acceptance testing in Texas, where it recently helped track a smuggler to a remote landing site, resulting in the confiscation of several million dollars worth of illegal drugs.

Journal Molecular Medicine now available via the World Wide Web

Article abstracts and tables of contents may be viewed by anyone, but only users at subscribing institutions can access full-text articles. Institutions who have registered their technical details with the Press can now access the full content of the journal at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/molecular_medicine.

Founded in 1994, the journal provides a forum for research concerning the molecules that are key to the normal functioning of the body and those related to the fundamental mechanisms of disease. The press began publishing Molecular Medicine in January 2000, in collaboration with the Picower Institute Press.