By PAMELA ELLERMANN Staff Writer pelle@dailypennsylvanian.com A recent study has found that annual HIV infection rates are higher than originally anticipated. A report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention revealed HIV incidence - the number of new infections that occur per year - to be 40 percent higher than first estimated for the year 2006.

Filming of the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took place on campus June 10-15, drawing large crowds of passersby struck by the Hollywood scene and hoping to catch a glimpse of the film's director Michael Bay and star actor Shia LeBeouf. The Transformers 2 production crew was "overwhelmed" by their reception at Penn, University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman said.

Penn has fallen from the top five in this year's U.S. News & World Report national university rankings. Now ranked as the sixth best national research university, Penn ties with with the California Institute of Technology and places right behind Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Students returning to Penn will probably notice some of the bigger changes - new faculty, more housing and even a building name change. Even with the new developments, Penn's still the same exciting place you've grown to love. As for the Class of 2012, welcome! With higher SAT scores and impressive leadership experiences, you're as talented as they come.

The School of Arts and Sciences has seen a "drastic drop" in the number of student e-mail accounts compromised by a wave of spam messages that targeted Penn students' inboxes this summer, university officials said this week. In late July and early August a round of spam e-mail attacks - known as phishing scams - that mimicked official University messages were sent out to students.

The Blackstone Group and AlliedBarton Security Services announced on July 25 that the private equity fund managed by Blackstone will acquire AlliedBarton, the University's security partner since 1997. The details of the pending deal are not yet announced.

A number of violent crimes plagued the area around Penn's campus in the weeks before students returned for the fall semester. Police are still looking for the man who robbed Cosi, located at 140 S. 36th St., at gunpoint on Aug. 9. Two Cosi employees reported that a black man robbed the re

For the third straight year, the Quakers will have a chance to dig their heels in as they go toe-to-toe with North Carolina, who reached the Final Four last season and feature the reigning National Player of the Year, Tyler Hansbrough. The Tar Heels announced on Tuesday that they will host Penn at 4 p.

Alicia Puglionesi is a College senior from Havertown, Pa. Her e-mail address is puglionesi@dailypennsylvanian.com.

There are two things wide-eyed freshmen can't seem to get enough of during NSO: drinking and advice. The former will be concentrated in periodic outbursts of debauchery, but the latter will be unforgivingly relentless, largely unhelpful and almost uniformly corny.

Over the past four decades, not only has Penn's campus changed, but so have its students. Click through this slideshow to see a few examples of what has changed and what hasn't.

Although winning a slew of scholarships in high school sounds like a great way to fund a college education, a combination of federal regulations and institutional policies often prevent students from seeing where their money goes. If the total amount of scholarship money exceeds $300, that money must go toward reducing need-based financial aid awarded by the school, according to Mark Kantrowitz, director of advanced projects for the scholarship-searching Web site FastWeb.

Women's soccer coach Darren Ambrose has some unexpected opinions. For one, despite all 19 letterwinners returning from last season, Ambrose believes this year's squad won't have the same feel. "There's a different team, a different chemistry," he said. "There are 29 players.

After almost eight years and seemingly endless delays, SEPTA's $710 million Market Street Elevated Reconstruction Project is nearly finished. The project replaces 11,000 feet of El support structure from 44th Street to Millbourne Street, renovates six stations and includes the construction of two new train control buildingsProxy-Connection: keep-alive

After his first losing season in a decade, coach Al Bagnoli knew some changes were in line for Penn's storied football program. He brought in nutritionists and fitness gurus, and his players reported to Penn on their own three weeks before training camp. But more than anything, his role as team psychologist has a markedly different tone.

The fate of the Penn field hockey seaons rests with seven upperclassmen. Rachel Eng, Christina Ferrier, Meredith Moran, Stephanie Ragg (who also writes for The Daily Pennsylvanian), Kathryn Rose, Kelsey Tahan and Sarah Warner have combined for just seven career goals and 13 assists.

For the second straight season, Robert Irvin is battling back from severe shoulder surgery. And once again, the quarterback - who started all 10 games as a sophomore in 2006 - must vie for his old job. Gone is Bryan Walker, who as a senior lost last fall's preseason competition only to step up when Irvin suffered a torn right labrum against Villanova in the second game of the year.