Legislative Commission on Science and Technology

Update


Speaker Sheldon Silver Chairman William Magnarelli
December 7, 2007

New York State Assembly

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Top News

IBM recycles semiconductor wafers into solar panels  IBM Corp. has invented a way to turn scrap silicon wafers into useful material to make solar energy panels. Semiconductor manufacturers discard more than 3 million wafers a year in the process of turning silicon discs into chips for computers, cell phones and other electronic gear, IBM estimates. Instead of trashing the leftover wafers in landfills, IBM said the silicon discs could instead help generate enough solar energy to power 6,000 homes a year.

Full Text Source: The Journal News

More foreign-born professionals moving Upstate  Increasing numbers of upstate and western New Yorkers were born in other countries. And in numbers disproportionate to the overall populace, they have advanced degrees and work in fields such as medicine, science and computing, according to a new analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The study is a companion piece to one the Fed did last year regarding New York City's foreign-born population. The study released Tuesday looked at the Rochester, Buffalo, Albany/Glens Falls and Syracuse/Utica regions using 1990 and 2000 census figures.

Full Text Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Industry in the Twin Tiers Corning research lab to grow  Gov. Eliot Spitzer helped Corning Inc. break ground Tuesday for a $300 million expansion and renovation at its Sullivan Park research and development complex in Erwin. "These are the type of key projects that will continue to drive the revival of the upstate economy and the Southern Tier," Spitzer said. The 150,000-square-foot addition will be completed over six years and is expected to create 300 new jobs.

Full Text Source: Star Gazette

UR center's impact on state economy continues to grow  University of Rochester's Center for Electronic Imaging Systems - a state- and industry-funded organization that links New York businesses with academic know-how - had a $120 million economic impact on the Empire State last fiscal year. That makes five straight years of increased economic importance for the center, which had an estimated $114 million economic impact on the state the previous fiscal year and $92 million the year before that.

Full Text Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Colleges join for nanotech project  Alfred University has opened a $1.8 million nanotechnology pilot plant in conjunction with Clarkson University. The project is a joint project between the New York State Center for Advanced Ceramic Technology (CACT) at Alfred University and the Center for Advanced Materials Processing (CAMP) at Clarkson University. Both are funded through the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR), which provided funding for the new plant.

Full Text Source: Buffalo - Business First

Design Concepts to Improve Collaboration and Research within Science Buildings  Building structures that contain laboratory space are becoming an important component of many entities pursuing TBED strategies. Not only are research spaces such as cleanrooms and wetlabs popping up throughout universities, but they also are being constructed within research parks and business incubators.

Related Article Source: SSTI Weekly

The Clustering of Technology-based Economic Development Organizations  The theory of spatial clustering has been very popular in the TBED field for many years, as researchers attempt to explain the transformation of places like Silicon Valley and the reasons various locales are economically competitive. Practitioners have utilized the theory as a method to describe their own state and regional economies and to support the development of specific industries. As an industry cluster grows, additional benefits of agglomeration are realized. Depending on the industry, certain benefits to co-location exist. But can these benefits of co-location be applied to the various organizations that push TBED for a particular location? Are there substantial agglomeration benefits to placing many of a state's or region's TBED players into one building or within the same block?

Full Text Source: SSTI Weekly

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