Open house will explain fire centre

Plans for the Erb Street site: the red structure is the UW fire research facility, and the grey concrete one is the Region of Waterloo Fire Fighter Training Tower.

The fire research centre is "a two-storey structure" resembling a house, inside a larger, empty building with fans to create controlled wind conditions. "The house will be a reusable structure," says mechanical engineering professor Beth Weckman, who heads the UW fire research group along with colleagues Allan Strong and Dave Johnson. It will have steel walls that will survive fires, and a roof that can be altered in shape for experiments. Sensors and other equipment will be installed through the house to test temperature, smoke and other effects of a fire.

Using the same house repeatedly, and being able to control the environment, will do wonders for research about how fire spreads and how it can be controlled, Weckman said. Until now, researchers have had to do their tests where they could find an opportunity, and conditions would never be the same twice.

The facility will include a "clean" control room, with a viewing window facing the house inside the big enclosure. There will also be a laboratory for researchers from applied health sciences who are interested in the ergonomics of fire-fighting.

Every year in Canada, says Weckman, "fire accounts for over 2,500 deaths and injuries, as well as capital losses on the order of billions of dollars, not to mention the related economic burdens of fire insurance, fire suppression and building fire protection systems. Indirect costs of fire emissions and groundwater contamination on the environment are immeasurable. Reduction of these costs can be realized through research and development into fire-safe products, detection and suppression systems and innovative equipment for the protection and emergency response industries."

Fire research has been going on at UW for more than a decade, and has "led to significant technology transfer to the fire service", according to UW's office of research. "However, it is extremely difficult to gain access to facilities in which controlled, realistic, large-scale, live-fire research can be conducted. . . . The new Facility will allow fire fighters and researchers to combine forces in investigating and modeling fire behaviour, fire suppression and detection systems, and fire fighting strategies. Results will facilitate advancements in fundamental fire research at the small-scale, as well as large-scale research with direct application to fire service and fire safety issues, performance-based building codes and occupational health in the fire service.

"Similar capability does not exist elsewhere in the world."

Funding is coming from local government, industry, and grants of $2.1 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and $2.1 million from the Ontario Innovation Trust.

The Emergency Services Complex, including UW's research centre, is to be built next to the regional landfill site on Erb Street at the western edge of Waterloo. It's sponsored by a combination of local fire departments, the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and other agencies. Previous open house sessions about the project haven't drawn many people, says Weckman. Waterloo Region staff invited her and her colleagues to mount a bigger display this time. "We figured it could not hurt, and would underline the close collaborations of UW with the Region and local fire departments," she says. Displays will include drawings of the planned building, as well as "a collage of the research that we do".

Tonight's event runs from 5:00 to 7:30 at the Chinese Alliance Church, 612 Erb Street West (corner of Erbsville Road).

Jim Sloan and his world

New centre for atmospheric science

The story, by Barbara Elve, says the facility will be the focus of "an atmospheric research and analysis program involving industry, academic colleagues and public sector atmospheric scientists from Canada and the United States," according to Sloan.

"The Centre will also provide the state of the art tools and knowledge to our industrial partners to help them grow and be competitive while maintaining the highest air quality standards."

With the kind of smog levels seen in southern Ontario during the past summer, Sloan adds, there are "strong pressures" for the university to play a role. That role, he believes, is to "make the best information available to all the parties, especially the public".

As part of the Centre, the Atmospheric Aerosol Research Laboratory will study the chemical composition of high-level clouds and aerosols -- in the stratosphere (11 to 48 kilometres above the earth's surface) and upper troposphere (about seven kilometres from the ground) -- using satellite data. As well, researchers will develop new instruments that can be used on earth to measure the chemical composition of urban smog or emissions from large industrial facilities. These same instruments will be used in planetary explorations -- to analyze the dust on Mars, for example. Laboratory work will also be conducted on aerosols -- tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in air -- to learn how they form, their evaporation and growth rates, when they freeze, what sort of chemical reactions happen on their surfaces.

The Regional Atmospheric Modelling Facility will provide information on air pollution to policy makers dealing with such issues as disputes between neighbouring jurisdictions about the source and movement of pollution -- the "transboundary smog issues". UW will be the only university in Canada to have "the biggest and most sophisticated computer model of tropospheric air pollution in the world".

Evidence of the negative impact of air pollution on human health continues to mount, says Sloan. Larger smog particles of carbon and soot reduce visibility and leave deposits on exposed surfaces. But smaller aerosol particles "have the greatest health effects because they penetrate deeply into the lungs, carrying with them a wide variety of harmful substances". He quotes an Ontario Medical Association study stating that air pollution "caused 9,800 hospital admissions, 13,000 emergency room visits and 46.4 million sick days in Ontario during the year 2000."

Sloan's new centre has working agreements with four other universities already, and he sees the potential for collaboration with UW faculty and graduate students from science, engineering, mathematics, environmental studies and applied health sciences. He has several funding proposals pending.

Flaherty here today UW gets a visit today from Ontario treasurer (and deputy premier and leadership candidate) Jim Flaherty, who will make "a major funding announcement involving the University of Waterloo Research and Technology Park". The announcement -- with refreshments and followed by a lab tour -- will start at 9 a.m. in the Davis Centre lounge. Ontario government funding for the north campus park, under the SuperBuild program, was announced this fall to the tune of $13.4 million. Officials said then that the only remaining piece of the budget puzzle was a federal government grant.

Quest shutdown is complicated

Details: from tonight at 8:00 until Monday (December 17) at 8 a.m., PeopleSoft SA (the PC desktop client), Astra Schedule (room bookings) and myQUEST (web access used by students) will be unavailable. This down-time will affect student users, IST says, but also staff in the registrar's office and other administrative departments, and faculty users doing course catalogue maintenance.

And from 8 a.m. on Saturday until 8 a.m. on Tuesday (December 18), the WINQ application will be unavailable. "This application," says IST, "is used by individuals in almost every department across campus."

On the bright side, IST now says Quest won't be entirely out of operation over the Christmas holidays. "With the exception of the 'Class Enrolment' aspect of the myQUEST service, the Quest system will generally be available; however, there will be no help desk or technical support during this period."

King Warrior chaperones a dinner at McDonald's for Amy Hoffman of Waterloo and football Warrior running-back Mike Bradley. Hoffman was the winner in a Kids' Club contest run by the athletics department, and Bradley was the Warrior athlete and dinner companion of her choice. Photo by Laurie Nicholson, UW Athletics.

Notes on a foggy morning

The turkeys in the residences -- oops, sorry. Turkey will be eaten in the residences today, as Christmas dinner will be served in both Mudie's (Village I) and the Ron Eydt Village cafeteria. The menu runs from turkey and ham (plus lamb, in REV anyway) to mincemeat tarts and all those other good things. There's also mention of a vegetarian option.

There's a free movie showing in the Student Life Centre tonight -- the first of a number, I understand, that are planned for the Christmas season, especially for people who need distraction. The lights go down at 9:00 tonight for "Bambi's Revenge" and then "Casablanca".

There will be a delay in announcing the results of the recent graduate student referendum, says Sabesh Kanagalingam, president of the Graduate Student Association. "The impartial authority in charge of the referendum, Ms. Elena Ferrari-Newman is under some undue stress," he writes, "and the GSA Executive has decided to wait a few more days to announce the results. . . . Ms. Ferrari-Newman is in temporary absence from school and as she holds the ballots at this time, the GSA has no option but to wait till she returns to school." Graduate students voted by mail in November on whether to impose a fee in order to create a grad student endowment.

Tomorrow night will bring something unusual to Siegfried Hall at St. Jerome's University: "Song: A Celebration of Community", which is apparently both a concert and a lecture, starring the 9:30 choir of UW's Catholic Community. I'll say more tomorrow about this event, which starts at 7:30 Friday night.

And allow me to remind you that if you're paying winter term fees by cheque, the deadline date is tomorrow. Or you can pay by bank transfer and take thirteen days longer (to December 27). I had e-mail the other day from a student who had run into considerable trouble trying to pay through her bank, which is now TD Canada Trust. "You may pay your fees at a bank teller with cash or money order at any Canadian financial institution," the official instructions say, "even if you do not have an account at that institution." The annoyed student told me that this statement "is false and misleading". Well, there may have been problems in the fall term, but they're all cleared up now, says Jane Manson, UW's director of finance. "We have confirmed with the banks that these kinds of payments will indeed be accepted, so hopefully there won't be any other problems."

CAR