Daily Bulletin

Tuesday, November 25, 1997

Two chairs in cryptography

Such chairs, which are getting to be almost a habit at UW, are sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and corporate supporters. The two new positions will be the NSERC/Certicom Industrial Chair in Cryptography and the NSERC/Pitney Bowes Industrial Chair in Cryptography.

The chairholders will be Scott Vanstone of St. Jerome's and the department of combinatorics and optimization (the Pitney Bowes chair) and Douglas Stinson, now of the University of Nebraska, who will arrive next July 1 to join UW's C&O department. "We believe," an announcement says, "that by combining the complementary strengths of these two world leaders we have a strong basis to become the leading academic research and advanced training centre in this vital information technology area. As an umbrella for the substantial activities, both theoretical and applied, we plan to form the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. A junior faculty member has also been hired in cryptography, returning to Canada from the University of Auburn."

The chairs are also sponsored by Communications and Information Technology Ontario, one of the "centres of excellence". A launch celebration for them has been announced for December 15 at 3 p.m. in the Davis Centre lounge.

The innovation centre does help

Thomas Astebro, of the department of management studies, surveyed a group of CIIC clients for his study on the economics of invention and the success of the centre's Inventors' Assistance Program. The study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's joint program in management of technological change, and by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Astebro, who is with the Institute for Innovation Research at UW, surveyed 21 per cent of the more than 11,000 new product ideas or inventions submitted to the program for evaluation between 1977 and 1993 and received 1,095 responses. He found that seven per cent of the reviewed inventions succeeded in reaching the market, with the average sales for those who succeed at $213,600 a year. Astebro found that most inventions can be expected to lose money, not make it, but there is profit for those ideas given the go-ahead or deemed worth commercializing after a review under the program. However, only two per cent of all inventions assessed by the program get such a rating.

"The overall probability that the IAP advises correctly is about four in five, which is better than R and D (research and development) managers' ability to predict the success of their own projects," Astebro said.

Gordon Cummer, chief executive of the CIIC, said he was pleased: "This independent study confirms our long-held belief that our Inventor's Assistance Program is as effective, if not more so, than private industry in being able to predict the future success of early-stage innovation projects."

"We have always strongly felt that the program has been an excellent investment from the government's point of view in providing net benefits to society, in terms of jobs and economic growth," said Gary Svoboda, Innovation Centre marketing vice-president. The study showed that for each dollar spent by the government on the program, the return to society was between $1.72 and $1.96. That amounts to $30 million to $35 million during 1977 to 1993 while the cost of running the program was $5.9 million.

It's worth it, it's worth it

"The biggest mistake that people make," Stager told the Star, "is saying they can't afford to go to university, or they can't afford to send their kids to university. The answer is you can't afford not to."

His approach was to calculate the (after-tax) rate of return on the money invested in a university degree -- not just tuition fees but living costs and "foregone income", the money you don't earn by holding down a job while you're a full-time student. The annual rate averaged 13.8 per cent for a bachelor's degree earned by a male student, 17.6 per cent for a female student's degree. "That's better than the stock market by a long shot," Stager says. The figures vary by field of study, from around 7 per cent for humanities, fine arts and biological science degrees earned by men, to more than 21 per cent for women's degrees in commerce, mathematics, and physical sciences.

The talk of the campus

UW police report that an undisclosed amount of money was taken from a safe during a weekend break-in at the Bon Appetit Food Fair in the Davis Centre. The theft probably occurred Saturday night or Sunday morning, police think.

The Waterloo Advisory Council continues its fall meeting at UW today. The council was established -- as a successor to the earlier Industrial Advisory Council -- to bring advice from Canadian industry, business and government to UW "in the continuing development of its education, research, and administrative programs and in particular co-operative education. The membership represents employers of students and alumni consistent with faculties served."

Local authors will be available to sign local books at UW's bookstore tomorrow. Ken McLaughlin will sign his book about the university itself, Waterloo, The Unconventional Founding of an Unconventional University, to 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and Geoffrey Hayes of the history department will be there from 12:30 to 1:30 to sign copies of his new Waterloo County: An Illustrated History.

The staff association's annual Winterfest is scheduled for December 7 at the Columbia Icefield, and the deadline for tickets was supposed to be last Friday, but it seems lots of people didn't meet the deadline. "I'd like to remind people that if they haven't handed in their registration, they should do so as soon as possible," says UWSA office manager Barb Yantha. Association members and their partners get in free; tickets are $3 for other adults, $5 for members' kids and $10 for other children (the kids' prices include a gift from Santa). Also present will be -- well, I thought that said "Elvis", but it seems to be "Elves", and somebody will be making hot chocolate.

An open house about "the next generation campus network" is scheduled for Friday morning. Paul Snyder of information systems and technology provides this explanation -- I think it's an explanation, anyway:

The technologies to enable the next-generation campus network centre around transmission-layer and network-layer integration comprising Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet switching with IP routing, IP multicast, and IP bandwidth reservation and Ethernet quality-of-service delivery mechanisms. The technologies will extend to include IP address-assignment control, network-port user authentication, and IP-based applications software for electronic commerce, for voice-over-IP computer-telephony integration, and for video-over-IP desktop videoconferencing and distance education.

Finally . . . yes, Jake Willms will be back on campus to lead Christmas carols this year. He may be retired, but he wouldn't miss that moment of music and joy, which this year will happen Wednesday, December 10. As usual, the carols start at 12:15 (and finish by 1 p.m.) in the lobby of the Modern Languages building; everybody is invited, and the dean of arts will provide light refreshments.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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