Daily
Bulletin

Countdown to the fall term

Wednesday, the first day of open enrolment using the Student QUEST system, had its share of ups and downs. On the up side, 1,278 students logged in and made changes to their fall study lists. Many students, however, were not able to access the system because it was overloaded. IST has identified a queuing problem, which is being investigated. Also, the server capacity has been increased and we hope this will eliminate the frustrations experienced yesterday.

Meanwhile, here's the time line for the four weeks between now and the brand-new term:

Friday, August 17: Spring term grades are due from instructors. (They should be in the mail to students the week of August 27.)

Friday, August 24: Last day of work for spring co-op students. (The fall work term begins Monday, August 27.)

Monday, August 27: Fees are due for those who pay by cheque. (By bank transfer, the deadline is September 3.)

Sunday, September 2: First-year students begin moving into residence, a process now split into two days to reduce traffic congestion. Sunday is opening day for two quads of Village I, two quads of Ron Eydt Village, and one wing of the new Mackenzie King Village.

Monday, September 3: Labour Day holiday. Opening day for the remaining Village quads and the other wing of Mackenzie King Village. First Warrior football game (vs. Laurier, 7:30 p.m.).

Tuesday, September 4: Orientation activities begin.

Monday, September 10: Classes begin.

One other note: fall term parking permits are now on sale at the parking office in the General Services Complex.

Midnight Sun VI arrives at the finish line for the American Solar Challenge in suburban Los Angeles. I presume the guy in the reflective vest is not scurrying to ticket it for lack of a parking permit, but why take the chance?

Solar cars face Australian sun -- by Jim Fox

The University of Waterloo's Midnight Sun VI and Queen's University's Mirage are being tuned up for the World Solar Challenge November 18-28 in the land down under. Midnight Sun came in third and Mirage fourth in the American Solar Challenge last month. The US race was won by Michigan, with the University of Missouri at Rolla coming in fourth.

The Australian competition is this year's running of a biennial solar-vehicle race that began in 1987. It requires each solar vehicle team to cross from Darwin, on the northern tip of Australia, to Adelaide, located at the southern end of the country. The race cuts across the great continent of Australia and more than 3,000 kilometres of desert.

Unlike the American Solar Challenge, there are no designated staging areas at which the teams are required to start the race each day. Instead of checking in to a staging area, each team will camp out beside the road overnight and start the race from the point where they stopped.

As a result, it's possible to finish the race days ahead of other competitors. In 1996, the Honda Team set the record of finishing the race in four days. That record, as well as the record average speed of 89.76 km/h, is yet to be broken. The Queen's team, which was second in the Australia race in 1999, is confident it will be the car to beat, having learned from the recent trip, said project manager Jeff Bird.

UW project manager Greg Thompson said he's expecting much from the redesigned car that had Canada's best finish in the U.S. in July. Driving attention-grabbing, spaceship styled vehicles -- none of which used a drop of gasoline for the 3,700-kilometre trek -- five Canadian university teams were among those racing along the historic Route 66 to the coast.

The sun-powered vehicles, which weigh only several hundred pounds, can travel at about 60 km/h using only 1,000 watts of energy -- the same amount needed to power a hair dryer. Top speeds can exceed 120 km/h while the race speed limit was 90 km/h.

Completely redesigned since the last Solar Challenge, with improvements in aerodynamics and electrical and mechanical systems, Midnight Sun resembles an aircraft wing. It has a bubble-like cockpit in the centre, requiring a short, slim driver -- this year, mechanical engineering student Kumi Yamamoto.

The 11-day race that left Chicago July 15 was long and challenging across the flatlands of the midwest of Illinois, Missouri and into Oklahoma, Texas, the mountains of New Mexico, heat of Arizona and still more heat of 44 C in the Mohave Desert in California. While the sun kept solar batteries charged, the heat was tough on drivers in the small compartments with no air-conditioning and tires kept needing replacing. The cars are propelled by electricity generated by sunlight. No external power source was used to charge batteries as they use solar, or photovoltaic, cells to convert sunlight into electricity.

Prof promotes India-Pakistan links

One of these glimmerings came at the India-Pakistan Bilateral Conference in Delhi, July 9-10, followed by the "summit meeting" between Indian prime minister A. B. Vajpayee and Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, in Agra, July 15-16. Kapur was much involved with the Delhi conference, as was a Canadian colleague, Balbir Sahni, Concordia University economist.

Kapur has also made a contribution to understanding India today through his recent book Pokhran and Beyond, published by Oxford University Press. Pokhran was the site for Indian nuclear arms tests in 1974 and again in 1998; the book covers nuclear issues in India over the past 30 years and more. Kapur admits he took on the role of a "hawk" in the book, arguing that the country's best policy would be to exercise the nuclear option, then negotiate with other governments. "I advocated putting the nuclear question behind us, simply getting it out of the way," he summarizes. "I had come to feel that as long as the option was not exercised there would be continuous pressure on India not to do anything. Indeed, this pressure, from Pakistan and the rest of the world, had gone on for 30 years. I also came to the conclusion that once the decision was taken, the next step would be to negotiate restraint in the use of nuclear weapons."

Eventually, he notes, the Indian government made the decision to go ahead with nuclear weapons, despite international criticism. "That criticism died down within a short period of time, and the larger powers soon began a discussion with India about security, the economy, and other matters."

In recent months he has been much involved, along with Sahni, in organizing the Delhi seminar in which people from Pakistan and India came together to discuss ways to deal better with some of their many differences -- differences that have resulted in bloodshed several times.

The seminar suggested a number of ways the two countries should be able to move closer together, including improving economic and trade relations, cultural exchanges, social relations, and so forth. A few days after the Delhi seminar came the Agra conference involving Pakistan's president and India's prime minister. Although the conference was a limited success at best, the outlook for India and Pakistan is more promising today than at any time during the past 50 years, Kapur insists.

"There are still many rigidities in the thinking of the people of both countries, many complex problems," he says. "They have to find new ways to deal with these." A number of those who attended were keenly interested in finding new ways to improve economic and a variety of other links between India and Pakistan, such as making it easier for oil from Iran to pass through Pakistan en route to India. Another would legitimize the underground trade already taking place between Pakistan and India through Dubai (United Arab Emirates), cutting out the costly middlemen.

"Another feature of the conference involved a meeting of senior editors from India and Pakistan," he says. "There was also a special meeting of representatives of citizens' groups and others at which sports, economic, academic, strategic, communications, educational and cultural linkages were discussed. Still other topics included increasing the flow of scholars between the two nations, and agricultural issues. We were all amazed to learn how much common ground there is."

He suggests the experience was an excellent example of a scholarly conference contributing to top level policy development, which in turn could contribute to international stability. "I think it is interesting, as well, that two Canadians found we could play a very useful role," he says. "Our expertise could be plugged into this very complex situation and we can now see how our work can have both academic and social significance. This is very gratifying."

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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