U.S. lodging executives continue to be less optimistic about present general business conditions, according to the University of New Hampshire Lodging Executives Sentiment Index (LESI) for the current month ending November 2012. The index slipped from 56.3 in October 2012 to 50.1 in November 2012.

“This decrease results from lodging executives’ less than positive opinions of the present general business conditions for their properties, as well as the continued decline in their sentiment for how they view general business conditions 12 months in the future. Expectations about room reservations during the same 12-month period also declined,” said Nelson Barber, associate professor of hospitality management who manages the index. 

Only 7 percent of lodging executives indicated current business conditions were good, down from 31 percent in October 2012, while 79 percent indicated conditions were normal, up from 50 percent during the previous month. Fourteen percent of...

The RENEW Initiative for Youth and Community, a program of the Institute on Disability (IOD) at UNH that provides school-to-career transition planning for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders, was named to the Social Impact 100 (S&I 100) of the Social Impact Exchange. Modeled on aspects of the S&P 500, the S&I 100 is the first-ever broad index of U.S. nonprofits with proof of results, aggregating top-performing, evidence-based nonprofits so that funders can have confidence that they are contributing to organizations that consistently deliver impact.  

RENEW, nominated for the S&I 100 by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, joins Manchester-based More Than Wheels as one of just two New Hampshire-based nonprofits to make the list. It includes high-profile national organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, City Year, and Teach for America. The complete list is at www.SI100.org. ...

James Ryan was observing a National Guard training drill when he began thinking  of ways to bring his research into neutrons and gamma rays from space back down to earth.  

During the drill, Ryan, of UNH’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS), watched as National Guard soldiers dealt with a simulation of a dangerous situation--radioactive material left behind by terrorists. “You could see how stressed the National Guard officers were,” he says,” and it occurred to me that we could have detected this harmful stuff from across the street.”  

Ryan and his team in EOS’s Space Science Center (SSC) already had plenty of experience using space-based instruments to study neutrons and gamma...

More Americans have claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit on their tax returns in recent years, an increase researchers at the Carsey Institute at tUNH and the Brookings Institution attribute to the Great Recession and policy changes that  broadened eligibility and increased benefits as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

“While some of these changes can no doubt be attributed to declines in income levels during the Great Recession, the data demonstrate increases across states and different types of communities that are also consistent with the tax credit expansions provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. If these expan­sions are permitted to expire, fewer working families with low incomes will be eligible for the credit, and among those who are eligible, many will see a smaller credit,” the researchers said. 

The new research is presented in the Carsey Institute brief “Share of Tax Returns...

New Hampshire Optical Systems, Inc. (NHOS), a Nashua-based telecommunications provider of fiber optic infrastructure solutions, has announced its partnership with the Strategic Technology Office of Information Technology at UNH in a project funded by NHOS and matched with a Granite State Technology Innovation Grant awarded by the New Hampshire Innovation Research Center (NHIRC).

Principal investigators at UNH will research software-defined networks that offer increased broadband speeds and capabilities to businesses of all sizes across the state. The anticipated result is that NHOS will be able to bring network technology to broadband companies who want to expand Internet and communication products to underserved and un-served areas in New Hampshire.

“We are proud of the technologies and talent we’ve employed to bring our company to this point, and the market has clearly indicated an opportunity for a next-generation service product offering,” said Rob Carmichael,...

Physicists from the Space Science Center at UNH have been funded by NASA to develop key technological components needed for instruments on board next-generation small research satellites known as “CubeSats.”  

The three-year, $369,948 competitive grant was awarded through NASA’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, Research Infrastructure Development (RID) program. The project involves three scientists from the UNH Institute the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space and department of physics, two collaborators from Dartmouth College, and several regional industrial partners.

The project’s principal investigator is research professor Antoinette Galvin, who also serves as the director for the New Hampshire NASA EPSCoR program headquartered at UNH. NASA EPSCoR establishes partnerships with government, higher education, and industry that are designed to effect lasting improvements in a state's or region'...