Media report SOM's Zerhouni to be named next head of NIH

After two years with a vacancy at the top of the National Institutes of Health, President Bush is said to be ready to nominate Elias Zerhouni, vice dean of the School of Medicine, to the post. The story was widely reported last week in publications including The Washington Post and The New York Times. An official announcement is expected to be made early this week.

Annual JHU Press book sale takes place this week

For two days only, they're worth their weight in dollars. On Friday and Saturday, $2 will buy you a pound of books published by Johns Hopkins University Press and other university presses.

The book sale, sponsored by the JHU Press Staff Development Fund, will take place from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, March 15, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 16, in the Great Hall at Levering, Homewood campus. Parking is free on Saturday. Proceeds support professional development for Press staff. For more information, call 410-516-6900.

Community Conversation features anthropologist

The fourth Hopkins Community Conversation following the events of Sept. 11 will bring to the Homewood campus Valentine Daniel, a professor at Columbia University and a leading authority on questions of ethnic strife and societies that have to live with violence and terrorism. An anthropologist, he has worked extensively in Sri Lanka and South India. His talk is titled "The Coiled Force of Power, Belief and Shame."

The event will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 14, in the Sherwood Room of Levering Hall. For more information, call 410-516-6158.

SAIS hosts international crisis simulation for high-schoolers

More than 80 D.C. public high school students participated in Crisis Simulation 2002, held Saturday at SAIS. This year's exercise involved the internal conflict in Sri Lanka and focused on the issues of autonomy, refugees and the reintegration of militia groups within that country. Six teams represented Sri Lankan organizations, interested foreign governments, NGOs and U.N. agencies.

In the weeks preceding the event, SAIS students, acting as coaches, worked with faculty sponsers to familiarize students with the crisis and the country they would represent, in addition to teaching basic negotiation and conflict resolution skills. On the day of the event, the coaches acted as mentors for their delegations.

The annual crisis simulation provides students with knowledge about international affairs, public speaking skills and conflict negotiation experience. SAIS D.C. Student Outreach, the graduate school's community service group, hosts the event. More than 50 SAIS students have been involved in organizing and running the event.

New book's co-author to tell tales of Chessie Racing

Tales of high-sea adventure during the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race will be the subject of a noontime talk on March 13 as Kathy Alexander, former press officer for the yacht Chessie Racing, recalls the excitement of racing port to port during the nine-leg, 31,600-mile race.

Her lecture will be based on the Johns Hopkins University Press book Chessie Racing: The Story of Maryland's Entry in the 1997-1998 Whitbread Round the World Race, which was written by the craft's skipper, Baltimore businessman George J. Collins, and Alexander, who is now regional publicist for JHU Press.

Chessie Racing, was the first Chesapeake entry into the Whitbread Round the World Race and became the focus of local and national pride. Baltimore and Annapolis were included as a combined stopover in the race, which started and ended in Southampton, England.

Of all the ports visited during the race, the Maryland stops garnered the highest attendance, with more than 500,000 visitors at the Whitbread Race Village in Baltimore and 60,000 touring the Race Village in Annapolis.

This lecture is part of the Wednesday Noon Series presented by the Office of Special Events and is co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It will take place in Shriver Hall on the Homewood campus. For more information, call 410-516-7157.

Peabody offers two casts, two productions of one opera

Mozart's Cosi fan tutte gets a novel twist this week when Peabody Opera Theatre and the Peabody Concert Orchestra present two casts performing different productions on alternate nights.

"The ending of Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutte presents its interpreters with a dilemma," says Roger Brunyate, stage director. "Everyone gets married and lives happily ever after, more or less, but who gets married to whom?"

The possible answer comes on four nights: Wednesday, March 13, Thursday, March 14, Friday, March 15, and Saturday, March 16, all at 7:30 p.m. in Friedberg Hall. Tickets are $22, $11 for senior citizens and students with ID. Call the Peabody box office at 410-659-8100, ext. 2.

APL licenses flight navigation software technology

The Applied Physics Laboratory has exclusively licensed its Rapid Terrain Visualization, Navigation Planning and Flight Management software package, known as APL-NAV, to Optech Inc.for use in its Airborne Laser Terrain Mappers.

APL-NAV is a fully integrated flight management package that can graphically plan surveys on user-configurable maps, control system hardware, provide real-time navigation, track real-time coverage, manage pilot displays and provide operator training. Optech's ALTMs are used for rapid, high-accuracy, topographic survey applications.

Kevin Murphy, an engineer at APL, developed the software for the U.S. Army to assist in planning and executing aerial photography and mapping.