Stony Brook University professor Patrice Nganang was released Dec. 27 after being detained in Cameroon for three weeks. Photo from the Free Patrice Nganang Facebook page
A writer, poet and professor is enjoying freedom once again.
Cameroon police detained Patrice Nganang, professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at Stony Brook University, as he was leaving the country for Zimbabwe at Douala International Airport early in December. The detainment came after the Cameroonian-native and United States citizen published an article on the website Jeune Afrique. In the piece in question, the professor was critical of Cameroon President Paul Biya’s administration’s approach to the ongoing instability in Anglophone regions of Cameroon. Many have criticized the government’s response to citizen’s protests regarding marginalization in the regions
Robert Harvey, a distinguished professor at SBU, said Nganang’s wife Nyasha notified him Dec. 27 of her husband’s hearing suddenly being changed from Jan. 19 to the morning of the 27th and that he was released and all charges dropped.
“No doubt all the pressure mobilized from various sectors helped,” Harvey said.
Dibussi Tande, a friend of Nganang’s for 10 years and one of the administrators of the Facebook page, Free Patrice Nganang, which has gained more than 2,200 followers, echoed Harvey’s sentiments.
“It is a feeling of relief and pride in the amazing work done by a global team of human rights activists, journalists, civil society organizations, friends, family, etc., to bring pressure to bear on the government of Cameroon to set him free,” Tande said.
In a phone interview after his release, Nganang agreed that the pressure from outside of Cameroon, especially from the United States, played a part in his being set free earlier and being treated well while in prison. He even was given meals from outside of the jail and didn’t have to eat prison food.
“The pressure not only led to my early release, it was also such that it gave me a better condition in jail so it made it possible for me to have a more humane condition,” Nganang said.
Among the charges Nganang faced were making a death threat against the president; forgery and use of forgery, due to the professor having a Cameroonian passport despite being a U.S. citizen, as the country does not recognize dual citizenship; and illegal immigration due to not having the proper papers as a U.S. citizen.
Dedicated to writing about the conditions in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, Nganang said he was in the country for two weeks interviewing people. He said those in the western and English-speaking region of Cameroon must adhere to a 6 p.m. curfew, and the border to Nigeria is locked. He feels as a writer it’s his job to travel to the country and let people know what is going on there.
He said he always understood he might be arrested one day, “because of the kind of work I do. I’m very critical, I’m outspoken, I write editorials, etc. I’ve expressed my opinions freely for 20, 30 years. So I have always been prepared to face justice at a certain point because Cameroon is obviously a tyranny.”
According to a statement from a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), the congressman’s office had been in contact with the U.S. Department of State, Nganang’s family and Stony Brook University administrators during the professor’s detainment.
“In the face of an increasingly oppressive government, Professor Nganang has worked tirelessly for a better future for his country and family,” Zeldin said. “As Professor Nganang fights for the freedom of all Cameroonians, we fought for his. I look forward to his safe return home to his loved ones and the Stony Brook University community.”
Nganang is on leave from the university this academic year to attend to family business in Zimbabwe and to pursue a fellowship at Princeton University in the spring. During Nganang’s detainment, through a U.S. embassy representative, he sent a message to Harvey asking him to let his former students know that he hadn’t forgotten about their letters of recommendation.
Nganang said when he arrived at the airport in Washington D.C., he was greeted by a crowd of people, and he was given a ride home to Hopewell, New Jersey. The professor said he was grateful for the help he received from elected officials and representatives of the U. S. Embassy, and the support of his family, friends and neighbors. When he arrived home, he found friends at his house shoveling the driveway and filling his refrigerator.
“Coming out of jail after four weeks of a harsh ordeal and facing such an outpouring of love — my phone hasn’t stopped ringing since then because all my neighbors are concerned — guess what, it made a difference,” Nganang said.
Updated to include quotes from Patrice Nganang Jan. 4.
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson. File photo from Mather Hospital
A historic change at a nearly 90-year-old Port Jefferson institution has been finalized.
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital will officially finalize an affiliation agreement with Northwell Health Dec. 21, according to a Mather board member, who asked not to be referred to by name. Leadership from Mather Hospital signed a letter of intent to join Northwell, New York’s largest health care provider, in August, though the sides had not yet finalized the terms of the agreement at that time. It is the first time in the hospital’s history it will be affiliating with a larger health system, and a signing ceremony is set to take place Thursday, Dec. 21, at 3 p.m. in a conference room at the hospital. The board member said he expects Northwell Health president and chief executive officer Michael Dowling as well as Mather board of directors chairman Ken Jacoppi to attend the signing.
Mather Hospital is set to join Northwell Healht. Photo from Huntington Hospital
“We’re very pleased Northwell has committed to making an investment in our community and bringing their extraordinary capabilities to our community,” the board member said. “They’ve committed to preserve our culture of patient safety.”
The board member said part of the agreement is that Mather’s board and CEO will remain in place through an initial period of five years, allowing the hospital to remain “largely self-governing” during that time with collaboration and cooperation from Northwell. The Mather board member did not specify the total length or any other specifics of the agreement. A spokesperson from Mather confirmed the ceremonial signing will take place Dec. 21 and that the agreement has been reached, but declined to confirm any details relating to the contract.
The board member summed up what the change might mean for hospital patients going forward.
“In the near term the experience should not change at all,” he said. “We happen to believe that’s a good experience, generally speaking. In the long term Northwell has greater capabilities than we do and we’ll gain those. They’re committed to supporting our residency program as well.”
In August, state Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) voiced opposition to the agreement, saying he would have preferred Mather affiliate with Stony Brook University Hospital.
“I don’t think it’s a good decision,” LaValle said at the time. “For 50 years-plus there’s been a culture in place if people needed tertiary care they would go from Mather to Stony Brook. Stony Brook will still be in place, will still offer services and people if they choose can go to Stony Brook.”
Mather Hospital vice president of public affairs Nancy Uzo said in August Stony Brook was considered an option for affiliation and offered an explanation by email.
“Our goal through this process is to ensure that our communities continue to have access to advanced, high-quality care and superior satisfaction close to home, and to serve the best interests of our medical staff and employees,” she said.
Dowling commented similarly about Mather Hospital’s reputation around the letter of intent signing in August, and as to why Northwell would be a good fit for Mather.
“Mather Hospital is known for patient-centric care both in the community and throughout the industry,” he said. “That deeply embedded sense of purpose is the type of quality we want to represent Northwell Health, along with an excellent staff of medical professionals and physicians. Together, Mather and Northwell will play a crucial partnership role expanding world-class care and innovative patient services to Suffolk County residents.”
A public relations representative from Northwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This story was updated Dec. 19 to include a Mather spokesperson’s confirmation of the signing ceremony.
BeLocal winners from left, Yuxin Xia, Luke Papazian, Manuela Corcho, Johnny Donza and their thesis advisor Harold Walker. File photo
By Daniel Dunaief
Yuxin Xia and Johnny Donza
Johnny Donza wants to use the training he’s received as an engineering undergraduate at Stony Brook University to help people 8,600 miles and another continent away in Madagascar.
The group leader of a senior project, Donza is working with Yuxin Xia, Luke Papazian and Manuela Corcho to design and hopefully help build a bridge that will cross a stream on the outskirts of the village of Mandrivany. People living in that village had been walking across a log that has broken to buy and sell food or get to a hospital.
“I wanted to be involved in something that would make an impact,” said Donza, who is studying civil engineering with a concentration in structural engineering. This project presented an opportunity to help “people on the opposite side of the world. I thought that was pretty cool.”
Donza’s project is one of 15 senior design efforts that arose from a collaboration between Stony Brook and a group called BeLocal. The company sent Stony Brook graduates Acacia Leakey and Leila Esmailzada to collect video footage this summer in Madagascar. They hoped to return with the kind of information about the needs and resources of the people they met.
“These projects create the perfect opportunity for students to manage a real engineering project,” Harold Walker, professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, explained in an email. Walker is Donza’s senior advisor on the project. “The experience the students have with these projects will be invaluable as they start their engineering careers.”
Acacia Leakey, on left
Walker said he initially expected to have one team of four to five students work with BeLocal in Civil Engineering. Instead, 13 students signed up. Walker spoke with Leakey and they decided to divide the students into three teams, each of which is working on different types of bridges. “If the bridge design can be implemented locally in Madagascar, this will improve the safety of river crossings and also provide the community [with] greater access to education and other opportunities,” he continued. “A bridge may seem like a simple thing but it can really be transformative.”
In addition to the bridge project Donza and his teammates are developing, Stony Brook teams are working on projects including rice storage, rat control, rice processing and briquette manufacturing.
Eric Bergerson, one of the three founders of BeLocal along with Mickie and Jeff Nagel of Laurel Hollow, said the group was thrilled with the range and scope of the projects. The response is “overwhelming,” Bergerson said, and “we couldn’t be happier.” Bergerson is the director of research at the social data intelligence company TickerTags.
For their project, Donza’s group is exploring the use of bamboo to create the bridge. “Deforestation in the region is a major problem,” which reduces the ability to find and use hardwood, Donza said. “Bamboo grows rampantly, so there’s plenty of bamboo we can use.”
To gather information about the structural details about this material, Donza and his team are testing bamboo they harvested from the Stony Brook campus. Leakey, who is earning her master’s at SBU after she did a Madagascar senior design project last year, said using bamboo creates a useful supply chain. “It’s such a sustainable resource,” said Leakey, who speaks regularly with Donza and other project managers who are seeking additional information about how to use local resources to meet a demonstrated need in Madagascar.
The Stony Brook team is working to model its structure after the Rainbow Bridge, which is an ancient Chinese bridge. The Rainbow Bridge has a longer span and has a more exaggerated arch than the one Donza and his classmates are designing. The group plans to build a structure that will hold several people at the same time. During monsoon season, the stream below the bridge also floods. The design may need to include nails or bolts, creating a durable, longer-lasting bond between pieces of bamboo.
The team is also waiting to collect information about the soil around the stream, so they know what kind of foundation they can construct. In their design, they are trying to account for a likely increase in the population and future windy conditions.
Donza said he and his team are excited to make a meaningful contribution to life in Madagascar. “We’re not just doing this to graduate,” he said. “We’re doing this because we have a chance to help people. They need this bridge.”
Leila Esmailzada
The BeLocal approach to the collaborations with Stony Brook involves learning what people need by observing and interacting with them, rather than by imposing expectations based on experiences elsewhere. Esmailzada said they spoke with women about various materials because women were the ones using the charcoal and firewood.
At some point, BeLocal may also foster an exchange that allows students from Madagascar to come to Stony Brook to learn from their American counterparts while also sharing first-hand information about what might work in Madagascar. “It’d be great if we could get people to come” to Stony Brook, Bergerson said. “We’re just developing relationships with universities now.”
Leakey said Stony Brook students have shown genuine interest in life in Madagascar and, as a result, have found some surprises. People across various disciplines assume incorrectly that developing nations progress along the same technological path that America did, which leads them to the inaccurate expectation that Madagascar is 100 years behind the United States. When engineering students learned that “people in Madagascar have smartphones” with Twitter and Facebook accounts, “their jaws fall. It’s important to recognize that so you can realize it isn’t a simple story that you’re innovating for and that there is this mixture of technology that’s familiar in a lifestyle that’s unfamiliar.”
Even while these projects are still in the formative stages, with students continuing to gather information and refine their projects, Walker suggested they have already provided value to engineering students. “The students have already learned a great deal,” Walker explained. They appreciate how their classroom skills “can really transform the lives of people across the world.”
Three Village residents were treated to a local holiday favorite Dec. 10 as the Three Village Holiday Electric Parade traveled down the streets of East Setauket. The parade kicked off at 5 p.m. with a variety of vehicles and floats adorned with lights that added a festive feel to the chilly night. Presented by the Three Village Kiwanis Club, the event featured floats from students from the Three Village Central School District and the participation of Scout troops and various businesses and organizations from the area, including Shine Dance Studios and North Shore Jewish Center. Cheerleaders, pep squad members, athletes and Stony Brook University mascot Wolfie also participated. After the parade, families gathered at the Kiwanis Park next to Se-Port Deli for the chance to visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus, who arrived in a train replica decorated with colorful lights.
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Three Village Kids Lemonade Stand volunteers participate in the 2017 Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Laura Mastriano
Founders of the Three Village Kids Lemonade Stand, Maddie and Joseph Mastriano, participate in the 2017 Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Laura Mastriano
One of the floats in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
One of the floats in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
One of the vehicles in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Participants in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
One of the floats in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Frosty the Snowman and friend at the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
One of the floats in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
One of the vehicles in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Santa and Mrs. Claus in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Santa's train in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Santa's train in the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Children patiently wait for Santa Claus after the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Children pose with Santa Claus after the Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Students from Stony Brook University participate in the 2017 Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Bruce Larrabee
Members of Shine Dance Studios participate in the 2017 Three Village Holiday Electric Light Parade. Photo by Bruce Larrabee
Parade coordinator Cheryl Davey, historian Beverly Tyler and committee member Mike Owen before the parade. Photo by Bruce Larrabee
Stony Brook University professor Patrice Nganang has been detained in Cameroon. Photo from Stony Brook University's website
By Rita J. Egan
A Stony Brook University professor discovered firsthand the difference between freedom of speech in the United States and in the country of Cameroon in Central Africa.
On Dec. 6, Cameroon police detained writer, poet and professor Patrice Nganang as he was leaving the country for Zimbabwe at Douala International Airport, according to a press release from PEN America, an advocacy group that fights for writers’ rights to freedom of expression. The detainment came after the Cameroonian-native and U.S. citizen published an article on the website Jeune Afrique. In the piece in question, the professor was critical of Cameroon President Paul Biya’s administration’s approach to the ongoing instability in Anglophone regions of Cameroon.
Stony Brook University administration officials were notified of the detainment immediately, according to the university.
“Stony Brook University is aware of the situation, and we are working around the clock with the appropriate authorities and elected U.S. representatives to help facilitate the safe return of Professor Nganang,” university president Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. said in a statement.
Nganang is one of a number of writers who recently have been questioned, detained or imprisoned by police in Cameroon after commenting unfavorably on political or human rights issues, according to PEN America.
“Detaining an important independent voice like Patrice Nganang, who has used his writing to investigate the consequences of violence, is indicative of a movement by the government to silence all political criticism and dismantle the right to free expression,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, PEN America director of Free Expression at Risk Programs. “We condemn Nganang’s detention and call on the Cameroonian authorities to release him unharmed immediately.”
According to writer Dibussi Tande, one of the administrators of the Facebook page, Free Patrice Nganang, on Dec. 11 a prosecutor postponed the decision to determine if there was enough evidence to proceed to trial until Dec. 13. On the same day, Nganang’s lawyer Emmanuel Simh was notified that the charge of contempt for the president was dropped. Tande said as of Dec. 11 the three remaining charges are for making a death threat against the president; forgery and use of forgery due to the professor having a Cameroonian passport despite being a U.S. citizen as the country does not recognize dual citizenship; and illegal immigration due to not having the proper papers as a U.S. citizen.
Tande said Nganang has been in isolation in the offices of the judicial police in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé. A representative of the U.S. Embassy visited Nganang Dec. 11.
“This is essentially a political witch hunt by folks in government who want to punish him for his decade-long activism on behalf of democracy and the downtrodden in Cameroon,” Tande said. “However, with negative international attention that his arrest has brought on Cameroon, some elements in government think it would be better to simply expel him from Cameroon on grounds that he entered Cameroon illegally.”
Robert Harvey, a distinguished professor at SBU, said it was a relief when the contempt charge was dropped, and he remains hopeful. The embassy representative contacted him with a message from Nganang. He wanted his former students to know that he hasn’t forgotten about their letters of recommendation. Harvey said Nganang was on a leave of absence this semester to attend to family business in Zimbabwe.
“He’s a popular teacher,” Harvey said. “He’s impassioned; he’s effective.”
On his SBU profile page, the professor wrote that his intellectual work covers scholarly activities, writing and essayistic interventions.
“I investigate the diverse ramifications of violence, and I am particularly interested in what is commonly referred to as the ‘colonial archive’ (pictures, books, instruments),” Nganang’s profile said. “I have published and lectured extensively on this topic. I have also published on numerous topics related to postcolonial African literature, theaters and cultures.”
This article was updated Dec. 12 to include quotes from Free Patrice Nganang Facebook administrator Dibussi Tande and Dec. 13 to included quotes from SBU distinguished professor Robert Harvey.
Small business owners like Marion Bernholz, who owns The Gift Corner, above, are trying to find ways to compete with big box stores. Photo by Marion Bernholz
By Kyle Barr
For 40 minutes each morning when Marion Bernholz, the owner of The Gift Corner in Mount Sinai, opens her shop she lugs out all the product she keeps on the front porch all by herself. She does it every day, hoping the colors and interesting items will flag down cars traveling on North Country Road.
Thanksgiving day she was closed, but on Black Friday she put out her flags, signs, decorations, not expecting many customers at all, she said. Black Friday is perceived as a day for gaudy sales for the bigger stores with nationwide brands, or the Amazons of the world, though it has become just the appetizer for a weekend synonymous with shopping.
Ecolin Jewelers in Port Jefferson is co-owned by Linda Baker. Photo from Linda Baker
Instead, people flooded Bernholz’s store the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the customers kept streaming in even after Black Friday was days passed.
“We were busy on Friday, way busier than we had been since the bust, when the economy went down,” Bernholz said, beaming with excitement. “Wednesday was a spike. Friday was a major spike. It was so busy Saturday that people couldn’t find parking. There was a line out the door.”
At Elements of Home, a home and gift shop in St. James less than 12 miles from Gift Corner, the situation was different. Owner Debbie Trenkner saw Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday float by with only a small bump in sales, she said.
Though she advertised, Trenkner said that she only received a moderate boost in sales that weekend with only 27 people walking through her door on Black Friday, and only about 70 Saturday when she said she expected to see hundreds.
“After speaking to other retailers or feeling through the grapevine, all major events this year, Mother’s Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, we’ve done half the amount we’ve done in the past,” she said. “People do not shop local. Those that do are your 50-and-over crowd who do not like to order online. Younger people these days they are so attached to their phone, it’s their lifeline, in my opinion. It’s unfortunate because this is what communities are based on.”
“People do not shop local. Those that do are your 50-and-over crowd who do not like to order online. Younger people these days they are so attached to their phone.”
—Debbie Trenkner
The similar local stores had polar opposite experiences during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the holiday season, though businesses overall this past Small Business Saturday, an event first sponsored by American Express in 2010, did very well though they fell short of 2016 numbers in total. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, 108 million consumers spent $12.9 billion Nov. 25.
Despite the slight dip from 2016, the data shows a much higher number of consumers are making the conscious decision to shop locally on the biggest spending date of the year for small businesses.
Stacey Finkelstein, an associate professor of marketing at Stony Brook University, said in a phone interview she has used psychological and behavioral economics to inform people about marketing problems, and she said a battle between instant gratification and the desire to support local stores is being waged for today’s consumers.
“Another tension for a lot of consumers who face this dilemma layered on top of this is this ethical quandary, which is ‘I want to support businesses that are consistent with my code of ethics and the values that I have as a consumer,’” Finkelstein said.
That value-based sales pitch is important, especially when it comes to the services offered. Many local businesses surveyed after this Black Friday weekend across the North Shore agreed the services they provide, whether it’s free gift wrapping or the ability to make a custom product, or even the ability to offer hands-on help to customers trying to figure out what gift is best, are the types of factors that neither online nor most large stores can match.
Fourth World Comics in Smithtown. Photo by Kyle Barr
“I think the most important thing to do besides creating an emotional experience and offering, obviously, great service is to really think about the values of those consumers in the local town and try and tap into those local values, such as if a town is really interested in sustainability, or ethically sourced food,” Finkelstein said.
One of the biggest questions that small business owners ask is whether young people are still willing to shop local. The consensus is they are the “plugged-in” generation, but that fact can be harnessed to work in favor of small business owners.
“Social issues are particularly important for a lot of millennials,” she said. “You tend to see a lot of that. I definitely don’t think millennials should be written off. I’m big into knitting, and if you ask what’s the stereotype for knitting, for example, is that grandmas knit, but actually there’s this active and large youthful contingent of knitters that are really driving and shaping that industry in a completely fascinating way. I think what it’s about is that millennials have these ethically laden values where they want to buy things that are local, that are environmentally sustainable.”
While many stores surveyed said this Black Friday weekend was “better than average” to “great,” there were several stores that did not see anywhere near the same boost in traffic. While the weather was nice, stores that didn’t meet expectations cited insufficient support from their local governments, or locations with little foot traffic, as their main deterrents.
Reactions from local store owners
Port Jefferson—Ecolin Jewelers
Co-owner Linda Baker:
We tend to run our sales to support our loyal customers, support our repeat customers. We had 20 percent off many items in the store, not all. That hasn’t been a big motivation to shop. In our industry
either they know us or they don’t.
The village was decorated nice and we had a good weekend. Black Friday for most retailers, for independent mom-and-pop retailers, has not been a big day for us. Our business is the last two weeks of the year. I think Black
Friday is when mom and dad go to look at televisions or cars — one big
purchase. It’s not a downtown thing. I don’t compare same day to same day from years before. I think there are too many variables, whether it’s the weather
or the news. Though I’d say this year was better than last year across the board.
Mount Sinai—The Gift Corner
Owner Marion Bernholz:
I don’t think Black Friday is as big of a thing anymore. We had people coming in at 10 a.m. and I asked them why they weren’t out shopping and they would say, “Oh, we don’t do that anymore.” I think people just don’t like to rush anymore, plus all the deals are available all week long, so there’s almost no point. Maybe, eventually, people will be able to have Thanksgiving dinner with their family, that’s the hope.
Though this was one of the best Black Fridays I’ve had since the bust in 2008, I went back and I looked at the papers for how it was in 2005. I couldn’t count it all — it was like the funds were flowing like water. It’s never
going to be 2005 again.
Half the people who came in my store on Saturday had no clue [about Small Business Saturday]. We’d be like, “OK, now we’ll explain it to you. Good that you’re here, and this is what it’s about.”
Rocky Point—Rocky Point Cycle
Owner Gary Wladyka:
We didn’t advertise but had in-store deals. We had discounts on shoes and sunglasses. There were more customers that Friday because more people had Friday off.
We’re always trying to get more customers, but we’re more of a
destination shop rather than a “Let’s go take a look” type thing.
This is the beginning of the end for small business. It’s going to continue to demise with people wanting to do
everything on the internet. The way new consumers are, it’s going to be hard to grow it. We try to provide service. You’re not going to get service online.
Setauket—All Seasons at Ari’s Treasures
Owner Jeff Aston:
We have an online presence. We did very well online over the course of the weekend. The store was busy. I’m a Christmas shop, so it’s kind of the height of our season now. We were offering 20 percent off storewide, we had some 25 percent-off items, some 50 percent-off items. We definitely went along with trying to capture that audience.
We do custom sign making and engraving, and it’s a little more of a custom product. I’m not sure how Black Friday helped us with that part of the business, but overall it was a good weekend. I’d say it was comparable to last year.
People want personalization, they want customization. You have to see the expression on people’s faces when they see our work. I’ve been in the Christmas business for 40 years, and I’ve never done anything more rewarding for my customers than what I’m doing now.
Young people today push a button and they get what they want. I’ve gotten away from the similar product you will see on Amazon. The beauty of the internet is that we can put our product out online. We’re on Etsy, and for the small business person who’s creating something themselves, Etsy is the way to go.
Smithtown—4th World Comics
Manager Terence Fischette:
“We didn’t do too much in sales. We did a lot of half-price items, took out a lot of stuff we wanted to get out of the back room. We don’t really compete with any of the big stores when it comes to Black Friday. We ended up doing a lot better than a normal Friday because people are out and in the shopping mood. The weekend was kind of normal, but it was one of the better Black Fridays that we’ve had in years.
You see some regular customers, you see some new people. Comics are definitely more popular now, people see the sign and they pull over. It’s a lot more gifts and toys. Whenever a new superhero movie comes out you’ll see kids coming in who want the new Captain America or the new Thor book. Black Friday is more of just toys, T-shirts and stuff like that.
We have our own holiday sale on Dec. 16 and that’s one of our biggest holiday sales of the year.”
Smithtown
4th World Comics (Comics, figurines and memorabilia)
Manager Terence Fischette:
“We didn’t do too much in sales. We did a lot of half-price items, took out a lot of stuff we wanted to get out of the back room. We don’t really compete with any of the big stores when it comes to Black Friday. We ended up doing a lot better than a normal Friday because people are out and in the shopping mood. The weekend was kind of normal, but it was one of the better Black Fridays that we’ve had in years.
You see some regular customers, you see some new people. Comics are definitely more popular now, people see the sign and they pull over. It’s a lot more gifts and toys. Whenever a new superhero movie comes out you’ll see kids coming in who want the new Captain America or the new Thor book. Black Friday is more of just toys, T-shirts and stuff like that.
We have our own holiday sale on Dec. 16 and that’s one of our biggest holiday sales of the year.”
Northport—Einstein’s Attic
Owner Lori Badanes:
“We did great, it was wonderful. We offered a lot of in store promotions. We had an Elf on a Shelf here, we read a story to the kids and the kids got a notebook and a pencil. They got to fill out a wish list, then all the kids got to make an ornament. We had giveaways, and make your own putty on Saturday.
We started planning this in the summer, back in August. We do it every year.
We did better this year than other years — 17 percent better. It was a nice jump. One thing is that we offered some light ups for an outdoor event. The kids got a lot of things to take home. I feel we’re a community-based business, and we support our community every chance we get.”
Huntington—Cow Over the Moon
Owner Brian Drucker:
“I feel like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, definitely did better than previous years. I didn’t do any specific specials that I can think of offhand.
It was a mixture of new people and regulars coming through. The big thing about a store like this being here for 23 years is that we have a steady number of regulars, but I saw a good crop of new customers come in.
One of the things I also do is sports memorabilia, and Aaron Judge [who plays for the New York Yankees] is one of the hottest, hottest things in the world. He had one of the greatest rookie seasons ever in baseball, so we sold a bunch of Aaron Judge autographed memorabilia, some pretty expensive stuff.
It’s hard to explain … why we did well. You never can tell you know, there was just a lot of people walking around. The townwas pretty booming.”
Above, Israel Kleinberg, right, with Mitch Goldberg, president of Ortek Therapeutics
By Daniel Dunaief
What if dentists could see developing cavities earlier? What if, once they discovered these potential problems, they could help their patients protect their teeth and avoid fillings? And, to top it off, what if they could do this without exposing their patients to radiation from X-rays?
The Electronic Cavity Detector
That’s exactly what Israel Kleinberg, a longtime Stony Brook University dental researcher and the founding director of the Division of Translational Oral Biology at SBU, recently developed. Called the electronic cavity detector, this new tool was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The device monitors mineral loss in enamel of molars and premolars. Powered by a battery, the handheld ECD uses electrical conductance to diagnose and monitor lesions. Tooth enamel does not conduct a signal. A lesion or crack in the enamel, however, will allow the ECD to record an early indication of a developing cavity.
“The ECD can detect lesions that are microscopic and [detect them] much sooner than X-rays,” Kleinberg explained in an email. Other research has shown that “X-rays are not very effective for diagnosing incipient enamel caries [cavities], though the technique is very useful for diagnosing deeper lesions.”
Ortek Therapeutics, a small company based in Roslyn Heights, supported the research to develop the technology over the last 10 years. Ortek is developing plans to commercialize the ECD, which could be available at a neighborhood dentist’s office by the middle of next year.
Mitch Goldberg, the president of Ortek, said the response to a positive reading on the ECD will depend on the dental practitioner. A very low conductance number could suggest a dentist pay further attention to the specific tooth. It might also lead a dentist to suggest improving oral care, brushing better or prescribing a fluoride rinse, among other options.“If the number is higher, the dentist will decide the appropriate treatment option, which could include minimally invasive procedures,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg, whose firm invested over $1 million in the work, is excited about the prospects for the ECD, for which Ortek filed and received a patent and then went through the FDA approval process. “It’s a painless” way to monitor teeth, Goldberg said. “There’s no radiation [involved].”
To be sure, he said the ECD won’t replace X-rays, particularly for teeth that already have a crown or other dental work or that are already known to have cracks or fissures. Still, Goldberg said this device could help monitor back teeth, where tiny lesions would not be causing a patient pain. The examination itself will require a short exam by either a hygienist or a dentist, who can put a probe in the bottom of a groove and gently move it along the tooth.
Any dental professional could be “trained on this in about 15 minutes,” Goldberg said. “They do similar types of work when they are probing and cleaning” teeth. Practitioners would likely understand the approach quickly, he said.
To operate the device, a dentist places a lip hook in the patient’s mouth. The dentist then puts a cotton roll between the tooth and the cheek, then air dries the tooth, Kleinberg explained in an email. The dentist lightly touches the tooth with the ECD probe and testing is completed in seconds.
Israel Kleinberg
Kleinberg, who has been developing this device for 14 years, suggested that the most common potential causes of false readings might be failure to dry the surface and operator error. The researcher developed this product with Stony Brook University Research Assistants Robi Chatterjee and Fred Confessore.
The partnership with Stony Brook has been a “win-win” for Ortek. Indeed, Kleinberg also developed a product called BasicBites. The chewable BasicBites provide a pH environment that supports healthy bacteria in the mouth. At the same time, BasicBites makes it harder for the bacteria that eats sugars and produces acids that wear away minerals on teeth to survive. The product make it tough for the acid-producing bacteria to eat food leftovers stuck between or around teeth.
Kleinberg, who has been with Stony Brook for 44 years, still works full time and shows no signs of slowing down. The researcher is the founding chairman of the Department of Oral Biology and Pathology. He stepped down from that position in 2009. Goldberg said he speaks with Kleinberg several times a week and calls his partner in cavity fighting an “inspiration,” adding that Kleinberg is considered the grandfather of oral biology.
Goldberg said he has a great sense of satisfaction when he goes to a pharmacy. “I take a glance at some of the products on store shelves that came out of Stony Brook and Ortek and it does give me tremendous pride,” he said.
Goldberg said he can’t disclose the market size for the ECD. He added that there are over 100,000 general dentists in the country who treat people of all ages. “There’s a tremendous opportunity for us,” he said, suggesting that dentists could check for any signs of early tooth decay before putting on a sealant.
Taking a similar approach to the BasicBites work, Kleinberg, with support from Ortek, is also researching skin-related technology for fighting MRSA-related infections and body odor. Goldberg said unwelcome bacteria often contribute to unpleasant smells that come off the skin. Ortek is also promoting the growth of healthy bacteria that reduce those scents.
While still in the early stages of development, Kleinberg has “developed a patented cutaneous or skin microbiome technology that promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria while crowding out harmful microbes,” Goldberg said. By exploring the microbiome, Kleinberg can promote the growth of better bacteria in the feet and under the arms.
In the battle against cancer, doctors and scientists use targeted drugs to treat the disease. They also employ radiation, starve it of the nutrients it might need to grow, block key metabolic pathways in its development and encourage the immune system to attack these genetically misdirected cells that grow out of control. A developing field in this battle includes the use of computers, artificial intelligence and math.
Joel Saltz, the Cherith Chair of Biomedical Informatics at Stony Brook University, recently teamed up with researchers from Emory University and the University of Arkansas and won an $8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to coordinate radiology and pathology information in the battle against cancer.
“By gathering more information, researchers can understand better what’s happening, what might happen and how best to treat cancer,” Saltz said. The grant will be divided equally among the three institutions over the course of five years. Saltz will be collaborating with Ashish Sharma at Emory and Fred Prior at the University of Arkansas.
Saltz has been working with Sharma for several years, when the two were at Ohio State and then moved together to Emory. This is Saltz’s first major grant with Prior, although the two have also known each other for years and have been working in the same NCI program.
Prior has considerable expertise in radiology, while Saltz is adding his pathology background to the mix. Radiology has used digital imaging for a long time and, until recently, pathology data was collected on glass slides. Saltz is helping bring digital pathology to this effort.
“We had been on panels for many years with NCI saying we need to do this sort of” collaboration, Saltz added, and now the trio is putting that idea to work.
Yusuf Hannun, the director of the Cancer Center at Stony Brook, sees the potential for this type of collaboration. “This is a very important effort that builds on several areas of outstanding strength” at the Cancer Center, the director explained in an email.
Exploring information from digitized radiology and pathology samples will “allow us to understand individual cancers at a much higher level. It should improve accuracy in diagnosis [and offer an] ability to provide better informed prognosis” and individual therapy, Hannun continued.
Researchers on the current grant, which is part of the Information Technology for Cancer Research, plan to expand resources for integrative imaging studies, build on the capacity to acquire high-quality data collections, dedicate resources to support reproducible research and increase community engagement.
Saltz will use the portion of the Stony Brook funds to develop new software integration tools and curation and work with researchers to analyze and understand their patient data. Over time, he will also hire additional staff to build out this expertise. He has collaborated with Kenneth Shroyer, chair of the Department of Pathology at Stony Brook, on pancreatic and ovarian cancer and on breast cancer with pathology professor Patricia Thompson, who is also director of basic science at the Cancer Center. Shroyer “plays an important role” in all his research, Saltz said.
“Digital pathology will supplement that art of surgical pathology with quantitative data, to improve diagnostic accuracy,” Shroyer wrote in an email, which will “inform decisions on how to optimize therapeutic intervention for the treatment of cancer and many other diseases.”
Shroyer interviewed Saltz before Stony Brook hired its first bioinformatics chair. “Based on his research focus, including his pioneering efforts in digital pathology, he clearly stood out as my top choice.”
Saltz and Shroyer have generated maps of patterns for immune cells in tumors. “We and others have shown that these are related to how patients respond to treatment,” Saltz said. He described his work with these scientists as “basic clinical cancer research,” in which he develops and enhances technology to understand various types of cancer.
This particular grant is “more about technology and curation,” Saltz said. “People are developing new algorithms, in artificial intelligence and machine learning.” By making this information available, scientists from around the world who have insights into the specific types of cancer can use it to predict responses to treatment and develop and refine the algorithms that underlie the computer analysis.
Using specific cancers from radiology and pathology studies is akin to sitting in a football stadium and examining a blade of grass from the bleachers, Saltz suggested, borrowing from a phrase he’d heard at a recent panel discussion with Liron Pantanowitz from the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
“What we do is we create catalogs of every blade of grass and every worm and weed,” Saltz added. “It’s a huge database problem” in which he is integrating software development.
Hannun, who has been working to help Stony Brook University earn a National Cancer Institute designation, suggested that this bioinformatics work is “a critical component of our plans” and represents an area of exceptional strength.”
Cancer bioinformatics is “one of the main pillars of our research program and it integrates well with our efforts in imaging, metabolomics, improved diagnostics and improved therapeutics,” Hannun explained.
As for his department, Saltz said Stony Brook will have its first biomedical informatics Ph.D. graduate at the end of 2017. Yanhui Liang joined Stony Brook when Assistant Professor Fusheng Wang came to Long Island from Emory. Xin Chen will graduate in May of 2018.
The doctoral program, which launched last year, has five current students and “we’re hoping to get a bigger class this year,” Saltz said. “Informatics involves making techniques for better health care,” Saltz said. People with medical degrees can do fellowship training in clinical informatics.
A resident of Manhasset, Saltz lives with his wife Mary, who is an assistant clinical professor of radiology at Stony Brook University. Over the course of the next five years, Saltz said he believes this grant will continue to allow him and his collaborators to develop tools that will help provide insights into cancer research and, down the road, into personalized cancer treatment.
Youthire.org provides an easy way for Stony Brook University students to find odd jobs in the surrounding areas. Photo from Thomas Cerna
An established job resource website will now enable young adults in the Three Villages to make some extra cash, proving the adage “There’s an app for that” to be eminently true.
More than three years ago, Thomas Cerna created Youthire America to provide more opportunities for young people between 16 and 26 years old to earn cash while gaining work experience. The entrepreneur set up the website www.youthire.org where Sea Cliff, Glen Head, Glenwood Landing and Glen Cove students could connect with homeowners and business owners. Now the nonprofit organization is extending the same opportunities to Stony Brook University students and residents in the surrounding areas.
“It’s a really great way to connect kids with adults in the neighborhood, and they’re making money doing odd jobs,” Cerna said.
Although a mobile app doesn’t yet exist, the website serves as a hub offering work opportunities in four separate categories — internships, volunteer projects, traditional employment and odd jobs.
Cerna said he got the idea to partner with the university when he noticed a homeowner from Setauket posted a request. He reached out to the poster and discovered they were informed about the site by Joanna Durso, senior career counselor with the university’s career center, who lives near Cerna and was familiar with Youthire.
Brian and Travis Danoski clean out a shed after finding the odd job on www.youthire.org. Photo from Thomas Cerna
Durso said the site makes it easier for the career center to help residents who need help, especially since the school is unable to promote jobs that need to be done inside private homes on its website.
“In addition to offering SBU students another source of job listings, Youthire is helpful for us when we hear from local residents who want to hire students for household work, baby-sitting, and so on,” Durso said.
Students set up profiles on the site and are notified by email when jobs within five miles are posted. If a student is interested in a task, the homeowner receives an email and can check the student’s profile page, which includes a photograph, narrative and past work history, before contacting them.
Everyone using the site goes through a background check and screening for misdemeanors and felonies.
Cerna said he decided to start the nonprofit after
remembering the odd jobs he worked while growing up in Mamaroneck. His high school had a career services center where students could sign up for odd jobs.
The founder said he believes working at a young age
creates personal responsibility and a good work ethic, and in a society where drug use has skyrocketed, he said he feels it can keep kids out of trouble.
“It’s something that could steer a kid in the right direction for a kid going in the wrong direction,” Cerna said.
Kevin McDonagh, of Glen Head, said he used Youthire to clean out his shed. He said with his own children in college, he needed help with the big job and remembered making signs for Cerna at the sign shop where he works.
“It was a really satisfying experience,” McDonagh said. “They came in, they did the job. Not only did the job, but they were proactive in the work. I didn’t have to direct them every step of the way.”
One of the students who worked on his shed was Brian Danoski. The senior at Stony Brook University, who is studying to be an entrepreneur, said he discovered the site on his own a few years ago.
“It’s building my experience and desire for learning new things,” Danoski said.
The college student said he likes that the site easily connects him with those who need help and allows flexibility, especially with the demands of his class schedule. He said the site is also perfect for high schoolers.
“[Cerna’s] really passionate about it,” Danoski said. “That’s why it’s going to succeed because he wants the youth to get out there and do more and learn about the world.”
Minghua Zhang spent a sabbatical year in China trying to improve climate models, which included analyzing errors of current models.
A professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, Zhang focused on the Southern Great Plains of the United States. He explored how the current models did not accurately simulate convection, which created a warm and dry bias.
In convection, heat and moisture get carried upward. The models account for summer rainfall but do not calculate the organizational structure of the convective systems, which led them to simulate insufficient precipitation.
By adding in the new information, Zhang predicts in recent research published in the scientific journal, Nature Communications, that the projected warming in the region would be 20 percent less than previously thought. Precipitation, meanwhile, would be about the same as it is today, instead of the drying that was previously anticipated.
“The resolution of the models is not high enough to predict the change of the convection with a high degree of precision,” Zhang explained in an email.
He suggested that using 10 times the specificity of model calculations, he expects a clearer picture of the likely climate by the end of the 21st century. This is like looking through binoculars at a nondescript moving shape in the distance. By adding focal power to the lens, the image can become sharper and clearer.
The climate is a big picture view of trends over the course of many years. That is distinct from weather, which involves day-to-day variations and which meteorologists describe each morning and evening with colorful images of cold and warm fronts on local maps.
“You have many things you can’t see and now you have better binoculars,” he suggested. “This tiny thing in the binoculars can make a bigger impact. What we see is that these [variables] actually matter.”
Zhang suggested that a climate model that better accounts for summer rainfall still includes higher temperatures in this sensitive region. “The warming is going to be there and will be significant,” he said. If carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current rate, the warming will still be about five degrees by the end of the century, he suggested. That, he predicted, will still have a significant impact on agriculture.
Edmund Chang, a professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook who was not involved in this study, said this research addresses “a specific bias of the model that needs to be taken care of.” He added that researchers know that the “models are not perfect” and suggested that the “scientific and climate modeling community is trying to refine and improve” these tools.
Chang agreed that the refinement “doesn’t change the fact that we still project a large increase in the temperatures over the central United States.”
The Southern Great Plains region has some unique elements that make climate predictions challenging. It has considerable organized convection, which increases the occurrence of tornadoes. There’s also a large coupling between the soil moisture and the clouds, which means that whatever happens on the land has feedback for the atmosphere.
Zhang said his research focus is on climate simulation modeling. He knew the models had problems simulating convective events, which is why he started exploring this specific region. “The way the models are constructed, the granules are not small enough,” he said.
Chang expected that this work would “spur more research on trying to understand this mechanism. Model developers will need to try to find out how to improve the physical model.”
Zhang has been working for the last two years with scientists from Tsinghua University in China, which included his time on sabbatical. “When you are on sabbatical, you have more time to really think about problems,” he said.
Chang added that sabbaticals can provide some time to focus on specific scientific questions. During a typical semester that includes administrative responsibilities and teaching, professors “are very busy,” He said. “We really don’t have an extended period of time to focus on one project. The sabbatical gives us a chance to focus.”
Zhang hopes this study “motivates people to think about how to improve their models in describing” other climate systems.
One of the many challenges scientists like Zhang face in developing these climate models is that their computers are still not powerful enough to resolve elements like clouds, which not only dot the landscape and provide shade during the summer but also send the sun’s energy back into space.
The system he’s studying is “chaotic by nature,” which makes accounting for elements that change regularly challenging. He suggested that these studies were akin to the butterfly effect. Scientists have suggested that someone who went back in time and committed a seemingly trivial act, like killing a single butterfly, might return to his familiar time and surroundings to discover profound changes.
While that’s an exaggeration, that’s still the kind of system he said researchers are confronting as they try to account for, and weigh, climate defining factors. That’s why he’s looking for statistical, or probabilistic, predictions that are averaged over time periods.
The United States, China and the European Union are all pursuing more powerful computers for these kinds of applications, Zhang said.
Zhang, who is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, has been involved in an advisory capacity with the United States Department of Energy in developing these models. A
s for this specific effort, Zhang said he was pleased that the paper pointed out a research direction to refine models for climate in this area. “What we see is that these things [including convection] actually matter,” he said. “That’s the main contribution of this paper.”
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