A selection of recent media placements about USC faculty, staff and students, compiled by the USC News Service and Health Sciences Public Information Office.

A Robotic Soccer Roust

The exploits of USC's prize-winning robot soccer teams in "RoboCup97," held in Nagoya, Japan, made news around the world. CNN was on the scene Aug. 29 with coverage that included on-camera interviews with mid-size robot league world champion team leader Wei-Min Shen, and team members Sheila Tejada and Rogelio Addobatti. Other stories appeared in European wire services such as Agence France- Presse, Reuters, and Deutsche Presse-Agentur, as well as all major Japanese newspapers and wire services, the Xinhua Chinese news service, the BBC, and the American Associated Press, whose story mentioning Shen was reprinted all over the United States. (L.A.'s own City News Service began its story, " USC is not just a football powerhouse.") Coverage also appeared in major world papers such as Le Monde, the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad, the Canberra Times (Australia) and the German national paper SonntagsZeitung, which noted admiringly that, "Each with a built-in Pentium processor, the 'kids' of Wei-Min Shen shot six goals in two first round matches." Locally, the USC victories (which also included a third-place finish by Milind Tambe in the simulation division) were covered by both radio and television stations, such as KNX, KCBS (which reported USC had "trounced its first opponent") and KTLA; and network outlets, such as ABC's "Good Morning America." News of the team came as no surprise to readers of the Los Angeles Times, which ran a long feature Aug. 18 before the team left. That story, headlined "USC Sends Robot Athletes to Match in Japan," discussed in detail the efforts of Information Sciences Institute artificial intelligence expert Shen and students to field their "dream team" of five autonomous, rollerskate-sized automata, named after the five members of thecartoon family, the Simpsons.