Most days, Sam wanders the streets. He has no home or job, and doesn’t attend school. He owns only one set of clothes, which are tattered and torn. Without work he has little money; but what he gets, he squanders. He has difficulty retracing his steps, and is unable to discern one day from the next. But in Sam’s mind, he leads a normal life.

In his mind, he’s studying to become a detective. He thinks he has a close group of friends, but actually they’re illusory voices with whom he interacts. To Sam, the life he lives inside his head is much more real than the one he lives outside of it. Anyone who tells him otherwise is out to sabotage his plans.

Sam’s name has been changed, but his story has not. Sam is schizophrenic – a condition characteristic of intense paranoia, compromised cognition, auditory delusion and reduced social functioning. It afflicts one in every 100 people in all communities the world over. The causality of this neurological disorder is not well recognized, but its name very much is.

The complexity and prevalence of this condition has sparked the interest of Michael Minzenberg, MD, a UC Davis assistant professor of clinical psychiatry. He has devoted much of the last 10 years of his professional career to understanding its pathology.

For his work as a physician scientist, he is now the recent recipient of a 2009 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award, which will help further fund his progressive research that seeks to evaluate treatment for schizophrenia, and more specifically, understand the neurochemical mechanisms that regulate the negative cognitive, emotional and social functioning processes associated with it.

“It’s a fascinating condition that can lead to great insight about the brain and how it works,” he said. “Ultimately we want to understand which brain system is modulating schizophrenia for both an understanding of the disorder and the efficacy of medication.“

Minzenberg was nominated by UC Davis officials after an application process, and then selected as one of only 14 physician-scientist recipients nationwide. As a member of the laboratory for Translational Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (TCAN), he will earn $135,000 per year for three years for his research.

“The workings of psychiatry and brain function has traditionally been a black box,” said Jong Yoon, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and member of the TCAN laboratory. “Our research is trying to unpack that black box.“

There are many symptoms associated with schizophrenia which may be present or absent to varying degrees in those who suffer from the disorder, explained Peter Yellowlees, M.D., UC Davis Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

These include “positive” symptoms – hallucinations and illusions – most associated with schizophrenia that are thought to be a product of “cell malfunction,” he said. Then, there are “negative” symptoms, which are thought to be associated with “cell loss and decay.” These are much more difficult to assess and treat.

Minzenberg is most interested in the “negative” cognitive symptoms associated with the disorder – disorganized thinking, difficulty understanding and expressing thoughts, poor concentration and memory.

“Medication is the mainstay of treatment for schizophrenia,” Minzenberg said. “But these drugs do not effectively treat the cognitive problems. They are the single most unmet symptom.”

Minzenberg’s award will help fund his efforts to assess the effects of acute and sustained doses of modafinil on the cognitive symptoms in schizophrenics. Modafinil is a mild stimulant thought to induce the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, which are crucial components to attention and memory function.

The drug is relatively new, and not traditionally used to treat schizophrenia, but by performing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which, simply, looks at the brain while it works, his research will assess the drug’s impact on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that moderates actions associated with correct social behavior.

“This type of study between sustained versus acute treatment using fMRI technology has not been seen in psychiatry,” he said. “It may lead to an eventual understanding of the underlying pathology of the condition, which hopefully will have bearing on how to optimize treatment for schizophrenia.“

DAVID LAVINE can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

You get what you give – or in the case of UC, you may get slightly more, with interest.

After state budget cuts left no money from bond sales to support important building projects, UC will now rely on interest from a $199.8 million loan to fund ongoing construction at eight of the 10 UC campuses.

The General Obligation Loan was paid for with the sale of commercial paper, which raised the $199.8 million. The state will pay back the loan with a 3.2 percent interest, which will total to approximately $200 million by the end of the three-year long loan period.

“In the end we’ll possibly be earning,” said UC spokesperson Steve Montiel. “But we look at it as a wash because the interest rates could rise.“

The funds will go toward time sensitive and voter-approved projects, such as construction for buildings already underway or in danger of losing funding.

“UC is in a bind in trying to finish these facilities,” said Tim Timar, professor of education and an expert in education finance and governance. “The longer you wait with construction projects like these, the more expensive they get. So the strategy seems like a good one, given the difficult financial situation the state and UC and facing.“

The bond issues were approved by voters in 2004 and 2006 and are designated for educational uses. Critics have scrutinized the usage of the loan because it funds construction, and not student fees or employee pay, which have endured harsh cuts, but the funds could not be transferred, Timar said.

“People who think that the university has money sitting in a piggy bank and they’re using it to build instead of tuition – it’s not about that,” he said. “The money couldn’t be used for these things anyway.“

At UC Davis, $35.1 million of the $200 million will fund a four-story Telemedicine Resource Center. The center will provide health care advice from UC Davis Medical School for rural clinics and hospitals via teleconference.

“In order to improve health-care delivery, especially in smaller, rural communities that have never had the same access to quality care that urban residents enjoy, doctors will need to have considerable expertise in the use of advanced information technology,” said Thomas Nesbitt, executive associate dean for administration and outreach and founder of the UC Davis telemedicine program.

“The new center will provide the resources and training necessary for helping improve both health care and health for all patients.“

The facility, expected to break ground before the new year starts, will house the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology, in addition to a virtual hospital for training and education, and technology-smart classrooms. It will also serve as a resource and learning center for the members of UC system.

Planners originally believed that funds from Proposition 1D would support construction, however the proposition’s failure in the polls prevented groundbreaking. The interest money will completely fund the $35 million facility.

“The programs that will be available at the Center will prepare future doctors in the use of telecommunications technologies and allow today’s physicians to stay abreast of the latest advances in medical science,” Nesbitt said.

LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

After weeks of dismal budget updates, UC Davis got a bit of good news last week. The California Energy Commission announced a grant of nearly $2 million to support the development of the West Village community housing project.

University officials say the grant, which totals $1,994,322, will help planners analyze, design and implement new energy technologies with the ultimate goal of having a “zero net energy” community.

When completed, the $280 million West Village project will house an estimated 4,350 people, including 3,000 students along with 500 faculty and staff and their families.

“When it became clear that we were serious about this project and that we were going to commit a sizeable amount of campus land to this new community, we strived to create a plan that was a model of sound environmental design,” said outgoing Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef at a press conference.

West Village will be a “living laboratory” for UC Davis affiliates studying all aspects of sustainable development, Vanderhoef said.

For example, buildings will be designed to take advantage of cooling breezes in the summer and the warmth of the sun in the winter. Bicycles and buses will be the focus of the transportation design.

In addition to solar-generated electricity and solar-heated water technologies, planners will also evaluate more experimental renewable methods. These include a biodigester that was developed at UC Davis and the use of biogas coupled with a fuel cell to generate electricity.

The energy commission is “very pleased” to see this development at UC Davis, where it will serve as an example for students, researchers and other communities, said commission chair Karen Douglas.

“This grant looks to incentivize building that builds together a community-scale system,” Douglas said. “This project is a manifestation of community-scale energy thinking and design that could enable us to significantly reduce our dependence on imported energy, particularly fossil fuels.“

Chevron Energy Solutions is leading an energy team that will develop a strategy to meet the university’s goals. The team also includes Pacific Gas and Electric and local energy consulting firm Davis Energy Group.

UC Davis experts from eight research centers are also contributing to the project. These include the UC Davis Water Efficiency Center, the UC Davis Energy Institute, the UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center, the UC Davis California Lighting Technology Center, the UC Davis Biogas Energy Project and the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship.

Last week’s press conference officially marked the start of construction on the project, which will take several years to build. Workers are paving roads and installing other infrastructure that will connect the community on the west side of Highway 113 to the central UC Davis campus.

Construction on the first phase of student apartments – housing 600 students – will begin in spring 2010 with expected occupancy by fall 2011.

JEREMY OGUL can be reached at campus@theaggie.org. 

Students may have to open their wallets a little wider this year before they can bike to class.

Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) recently announced that it is raising the fees for bike registrations. New licenses will increase from $8 to $10 and a license renewal will increase from $4 to $5. This is the first fee hike for licenses since 2000.

Bicycle Program Coordinator for TAPS David Takemoto-Weerts said that the increase in license fees is necessary in order to support the increasing costs of maintaining the bicycle program.

“TAPS is a self-supporting program, which means that it does not receive any tax dollars,” he said. “The bicycle program receives some money from the revenue generated by parking fines, but it is primarily funded through the bike auctions and the sale of bike licenses. The cost of doing business is constantly going up and the fee hike reflects this.“

A bike license is valid until the end of the second year after it is purchased. All students are required to have a current license on their bike according to a university policy, which is intended to help TAPS deal with the large number of bikes on campus during the school year, Takemoto-Weerts said.

“It is really a matter of being able to identify who a bike belongs to,” he said. “During the course of the school year, (TAPS) is dealing with 15,000 to 20,000 bikes on campus. We have to deal with many bikes that are lost, stolen or illegally parked, so it is really helpful for us to identify bicycles through their registrations.“

Although TAPS does not impound bikes unless they are illegally parked or abandoned, it does require that students obtain a license before retrieving an impounded bike or before receiving any services from TAPS, such as lock-cutting, Takemoto-Weerts said.

“If we provided our lock-cutting services to unlicensed bikes, we have no way of knowing if the bike actually belongs to the student requesting the service … the policy is meant to protect students,” he said.

Takemoto-Weerts said that students can also be issued a “fix-it ticket” if they are pulled over for disobeying traffic laws on campus by a UCD police officer and have an unregistered bike. The fix-it ticket would require them to obtain a license and then show proof of the purchase to the police department.

Lieutenant Matthew Carmichael of the UC Davis police said bike licenses are particularly helpful for his department in recovering stolen bikes.

“Often times stolen bikes are recovered based on the fact they are actually registered which provides owner information just like a car,” he said. “Without this program I am confident our recovery rates would be much lower. It also reminds the would-be thief that this bike can be traced based on registration alone.“

However, some students still question the need for bike registrations.

“To be honest, I think it is really just an excuse for TAPS to make money,” said Patrick Hanners, a senior psychology major.

Hanners, who often builds bikes for himself and friends, said he disagrees with TAPS claim that licenses aid in bike retrieval.

“First of all, if you’re a smart thief, you are taking the registration sticker off the bike,” he said. “I almost guarantee that the [recovery rate for stolen bicycles] is no better for registered bikes.“

He also said that increasing the cost of licenses is only going to discourage students from purchasing them.

“There is already a low amount of compliance among students … many never register their bikes,” he said. “Raising the cost is only going to lower the compliance level.”

ERICA LEE can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

With California’s hard-hitting budget cuts this summer, some are proposing drastic changes for the University of California system.

Before UC President Mark Yudof met with the Board of Regents July 16, 23 department chairs from UC San Diego wrote a letter to Yudof suggesting possible methods to aid UC. The most controversial suggestion: shut down UC Merced, Santa Cruz, and Riverside.

“We suggest … you drop the pretence that all campuses are equal, and argue for selective reallocation of funds to preserve excellence, not the current disastrous blunderbuss policy of even, across the board cuts,” read the letter, acquired by the Merced-Sun Star. “Or, if that is too hard, we suggest that what ought to be done is to shut one or more of these campuses down, in whole or in part.”

Professor Andrew Scull, chair of the sociology department at UCSD, headed the letter writing. He said that he considered the UC schools in three tiers: Berkeley, LA and San Diego in the first, Davis, Irvine and Santa Barbara the second, and Santa Cruz, Riverside and Merced in the last.

“Rather than destroying the distinctiveness and excellence at Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD by hiring temporary lecturers to do most of the teaching (and contribute nothing to original research, nothing to our reputation, nothing to the engine of economic growth a first rate university represents), we propose that you urge the President and Regents to acknowledge that UCSC, UCR and UC Merced are in substantial measure teaching institutions,” according letter.

UC Merced Associated Students President Juan Carmen said the suggestion to close his university was upsetting.

“To have those select professors disregard the tremendous amount of work that many of my fellow students and I have put into our academics all while initiating some of the first clubs and organizations contributing to the student life of our campus,” Carmen said in an e-mail interview. “We are the campus of the 21st century … to stymie this growth would be the loss of a prototype for other universities to come.”

President Yudof responded with a letter to all UC chancellors July 9 explaining that although difficult times lie ahead for the UC, such a closure would not happen.

“Well meaning as such suggestions might have been … each time in the past such a suggestion has been understood to be short-sighted,” Yudof said.

All ten campuses will continue to carry out the university’s mission of instruction, research and public service, he said.

Scull, who has been at UCSD for 31 years and attended Oxford University, said that prospects look dire and preserving the excellence of research institutions should be a top priority.

“The question is under those circumstances can you sustain ten research campuses at the level of excellence you want? Our argument is that you cannot,” Scull said.

Scull said he has seen staff in his department leave due to better job offers elsewhere. He said he too received an offer overseas, and has considered taking it.

Yudof started a Commission for the Future of UC after the July regents meeting in response to the financial hardships that the UC will be facing.

“The next few months will undoubtedly be a difficult time for both the University of California as well as families across the state,” said Yudof in a press release. “However, I remain confident that by confronting our challenges squarely, and working together to tell our story, we will emerge from this crisis with a more viable, sustainable plan for remaining a world-class research and teaching institution.”

ANGELA RUGGIERO can be reached at features@theaggie.org

Summer school students enjoyed an extra week-and-a-half with their beloved ASUCD Coffee House, as contracting legalities caused a brief delay in construction.

The Coffee House began moving to its temporary locations on the east wing of the Memorial Union yesterday; however, construction may not begin for another four to six weeks.

The delay was caused by a bid protest among competing contractors, which will be settled in a hearing on Friday. Protests in construction can legally occur under state bidding contract laws, when the second-lowest bidder finds issue with the lowest bidder’s plans.

University officials will hear the protest in Oakland on Friday and will decide the validity of the protest within two weeks.

Should the university find that the lowest bidders‘ plans do, in fact, contain errors, the next lowest bidder will take over the project.

“What’s being questioned here is whether the lowest bidder properly listed all the subcontractors,” said Alex Achimore, senior project manager for architects and engineers. “The competing bidders have every right to look over the low bidder’s submittal very carefully and ask these kind of questions, so this is not unreasonable.“

The lowest bidding contractor priced the total cost of construction at $3,651,687. The next lowest bidder priced the construction at $3,699,409.

“Protests are pretty common with state projects,” said Catherine Buscaglia, another senior project manager with the Architects and Engineers department. “Especially now, when [economic] times are tough, because if the bids are close, the bidders are going to make sure things are done fairly.“

The delay in construction has not entirely slowed the project down, Achimore said. With the Coffee House equipment and traffic vacated, the construction team has been able to begin slight tasks without a contractor, such as prepare a truck dock for construction materials to arrive through.

“We’re taking advantage of the time to get a few things done before construction really starts,” Achimore said.

Coffee House employees have also used the delay to their advantage, bringing in revenue over the summer and testing new recipes for the temporary facilities, to be opened Monday.

“We didn’t have to get out as quickly,” said Sharon Coulson, Coffee House director. “There wasn’t a big rush to get out for the construction to begin. We got to stay longer and get used program.“

The delay, she said, allowed employees to launch a “pre-interim” program, sampling new grab-and-go meals to determine their success.

“By the time we move to our temporary locations,” Coulson said, “we’ll know how [the grab-and-go items] sell, what’s selling, what’s not selling and how many we need to make.“

The protest should not delay the final date of completion more than a quarter, or 10 weeks, Achimore said. After Friday’s hearing, the department will be able to better determine a new date.

“This kind of project – renovation and food service – is messy and difficult, but we do it all the time, and are confident it will turn out great,” Archimore said. “Delays are frustrating, but we will work through them.“

LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.