March 2007: Dispatches
PORTLAND
About 800 Freightliner
employees will be laid off by the end of the month. The
manufacturing plant currently employs 1,700 workers.
Freightliner, known for its heavy-duty name-brand trucks as
well as the Western Star brand and military trucks, will cease
making Freightliner trucks at its Swan Island location. Company
spokesperson Amy Sills says the layoffs are the result of a
reduction in demand for the company’s trucks. The decline
in demand is due to new EPA diesel emissions standards that are
a heavy burden to the truck manufacturing industry.
New ideas and research about successful aging may soon come
from a partnership between Oregon Health & Science
University and Intel
Corp. OHSU’s Oregon Center for Aging &
Technology is the first center to receive funding from the
Behavioral Assessment and Intervention Commons, part of
Intel’s Digital Health Group program. The $1 million goes
toward research into behavioral changes that could indicate a
future need for health-related products and services. Through
sensors and a computer monitoring system researchers can study
elderly participants over a long period of time in their
natural setting: their own homes.
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