Friday, November 9, 2001 Programming team competes tomorrow Web site helps make car pools Services for Remembrance Day What and where and when

Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca Area codes are 50 years old tomorrow

Award for co-op: UW's co-op education and career services department recently received a $5,000 award from the Yves Landry Technological Endowment Fund. UW was nominated by Robert Magee, president of the Woodbridge Group, who's seen presenting the trophy to CECS director Bruce Lumsden at a Toronto dinner a few days ago. Named after the late Yves Landry, who was president of Chrysler Canada, the Award offers Canadian high schools, colleges and universities the opportunity to showcase initiatives dedicated to achieving excellence in technological education. UW won in the category of "Outstanding Technical Co-operative Education Program -- college or university level".

Programming team competes tomorrow -- from the UW news bureau

The regional competition of the Association for Computing Machinery will be held on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Sheridan College's Sheridan Centre of Animation and Emerging Technologies in Oakville.

The event, sponsored by IBM, draws students from colleges and universities throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, eastern Ontario, and Indiana (excluding the Chicago metropolitan area). Results will be posted on the web.

The top two or three (depending on participation) teams from the region will advance to the ACM world finals, to be held in Honolulu March 20-24. UW has advanced each season from 1993-94 through to 2000-2001. UW has won the finals twice (1994-95 and 1998-99), and has placed in the top 10 for each of the last nine years.

Competing in the event will be UW's "Black" team, made up of mathematics undergraduate students Graeme Kemkes and Denis Dmitriev, as well as graduate student Ming-Yee Iu, and the "Gold" team, composed of math undergraduate students Gordon Chiu and Lars Hellsten, plus graduate student Min Yee.

"The teams are strong and well balanced. Gold and Black have challenged each other in practice," said Gordon Cormack, who coaches both teams and holds on-campus contests to select team members. "Black and Gold are up to the challenge."

In Saturday's contest, there are 120 teams for UW to overcome, including teams from universities with strong computer science programs such as Toronto and Carnegie Mellon. The three-member teams are challenged to complete six to eight "real-world" computer programming problems. The problems are drawn from high school and college mathematics and computing, as well as from everyday knowledge and problem solving.

The students rely on their programming skills and creativity during the five-hour battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance. Students attempt to solve complex problems using both traditional and new programming languages, including C, C++, Java and Pascal.

Web site helps make car pools -- a news release from the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group

Peter Marval, marketing coordinator for the Kitchener-Guelph Traffic Reduction Initiative, said the web site is very user friendly and there is no charge for using it. "The site works by users entering their schedules and clicking on where they start and end their commute on maps. The database will then search for other registered users with similar commute routes and schedules."

Marval said once there is a match, users are automatically emailed with a message to return to the site. "They can then view the match to see whether it is suitable without the identity of the match being revealed to ensure anonymity," Marval said. "If they decide the match is good, they can send that person an email through the site to arrange a meeting." He said there isn't a carpool site out there quite like this. "What sets this site apart from other carpool sites is the matching system. Most carpooling sites match users by postal code, whereas ours uses detailed maps. It's very visual and therefore easy to use."

It's also easily expandable, he said. "Currently, the site has three maps for the cities of Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph, which were supplied to us by Rand McNally," he said. "We will be working on getting the license of more maps from Rand McNally in the near future to try to encompass most of Southern Ontario."

The Kitchener-Guelph Traffic Reduction Initiative works with local commuters, surveyed through the cooperation of their workplaces, to find out what barriers they face in reducing their automobile travel and to develop and implement solutions that can overcome these barriers. One of the barriers people have expressed in reducing their automobile usage was the lack of a carpool matching service, Marval said. "We've had a lot of people express interest in carpooling but did not know how to go about finding potential ride sharers, " he said.

The site couldn't come at a better time. Last year, a Canadian Geographic study rated Kitchener with among the worst ozone and particulate matter pollution in the country.

The Kitchener-Guelph Traffic Reduction Initiative is a partnership of the Public Interest Research Groups of Waterloo and Guelph, university-based environmental and social justice groups located in the two cities. It was developed by Jennifer Neice and other PIRG volunteers who were concerned about traffic congestion and health problems caused by automobile pollution. The project is possible due to the generous support of the Cities of Guelph, Kitchener, and Waterloo, the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Human Resources Development Canada, and the Community Action Fund of the Guelph-Wellington Credit Union.

No words can add to their fame, nor so long as gratitude holds a place in men's hearts can our forgetfulness be suffered to detract from their renown. For as the war dwarfed by its magnitude all contests of the past, so the wonder of human resource, the splendour of human heroism, reached a height never witnessed before. -- Arthur Meighen, prime minister of Canada

Services for Remembrance Day

There is no one left on the active staff or faculty at UW who served during the World Wars, although there are certainly retired professors and staff members who bore arms, and others who remember civilian life during World War II in Canada, Europe or Asia. And this year's Remembrance Day is particularly poignant because it comes, in fact, during wartime, as Canada is playing a role in the confused and shadowy war against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

UW will be represented at the City of Waterloo observations at the Cenotaph on Regina Street, starting at 10:30 on Sunday morning. Martin Van Nierop, director of information and public affairs, will lay a wreath from the university.

Two Remembrance Day services are scheduled on campus Sunday morning:

• At the Renison College chapel, a service sponsored by the UW Chaplains' Association. John Toews, president of Conrad Grebel University College, will speak.
• At the St. Paul's United College chapel.

Flu shots still available Nurses from health services gave a total of 2,569 flu shots during the recent series of clinics in the Student Life Centre, says Linda Grant of the clinic staff. "The turn-out here on campus is down from last year (we gave over 4,000 in 2000), but it is down across the region as well," she reports. Flu shots are still available, daily from 9:00 to 4:00 ("without an appointment") in the Health Services building. "We would like to have a flu free winter this year," says Grant, "and would encourage everyone, staff and students alike, to come over and get their shots!"

What and where and when

Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) training is available in a one-hour session ("video and brief quiz") at 10:00 this morning, Davis Centre room 1304. The same session will be offered November 16 at 2 p.m. and November 27 at 2 p.m.

In the co-op department, today is job ranking day for students in the teaching option. For students in the main employment stream who weren't ranked for winter term jobs, posting #1 in the "continuous phase" will go up by noon today.

Today brings the finals in the Sandford Fleming Foundation debates in the faculty of engineering: 12 noon outside POETS pub in Carl Pollock Hall.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers is inviting its members across Canada to take part in a Global Day of Action today. "The objective of the day of action is to show world-wide support for the values of solidarity and social justice, and to oppose the undermining of living standards, working conditions, and public services that trade deals and globalization have caused around the world," says CAUT president Tom Booth.

The school of optometry will hold its second annual Holiday Celebration Eyewear Show today from 2:30 to 8:00. Says a memo from north of Columbia Street: "Representatives from the most prominent frame companies will be presenting their latest frame releases, and lens consultants will be available to discuss the newest lens technology. For this evening only, prices will be 10 to 50 per cent off. There will be draws for exciting door prizes such as Adidas, Guess and Celine Dion sunglasses, $250 pair of glasses, $75 gift certificate and an OWP sweatshirt. Gourmet coffee and holiday sweets will be served." More information: ext. 6851 or 2983.

The tourism research lecture series continues with a talk today by graduate student Dan Oleson: "Religion and Tourism", at 2:30 in Environmental Studies I room 132.

Sister Kathleen Keating speaks tonight at St. Jerome's University, and David Seljak of the religious studies faculty at St. Jerome's tells a bit about her:

Sr. Keating is plain-spoken and frank (qualities in nuns that make bishops nervous). She will reflect on her long career, which included heading a Catholic College in Massachusetts, acting as head of the National Association of Women Religious (USA), teaching English in a University in Nicaragua, and acting as a barrio minister in Managua. She has seen many changes and will focus on the question of the changes for women in the Church.

Sr. Keating is a visiting scholar at St. Jerome's and it has been a privilege and a pleasure to get to know her. Her energy and her thirst for new learning seem endless. She has taught everything from English to History to Mathematics. You're going to love her.

Over the weekend: the Tamil Students' Association will mark the "Festival of Night" -- Vel, or Diwali -- with an event in the Humanities Theatre at 6:00 Saturday evening.

Also Saturday night, the DaCapo Chamber Choir, based at Conrad Grebel University College, will perform at St. John the Evangelist Anglican church in downtown Kitchener (7:30 p.m.). The concert is titled "From Death to Light: Music for a Time of Remembrance", and features work by John Estacio, Ruth Watson Henderson, and its director, Grebel music professor Leonard Enns. The choir will be joined by guest harpist Lori Gemmell.

Members of the UW retirees' association will be off to London's Grand Theatre on Sunday afternoon for a performance of "The Gin Game". The retirees' association is planning another trip to the Grand in December, for "Miracle on 34th Street", and several spring trips are in the works. More information is available from Marlene Miles at 699-4015.

Sports this weekend: the men's volleyball team is hosting the Warrior Classic Tournament, during which they'll play Guelph this afternoon (2:00) and Dalhousie tonight (8:00), Western tomorrow afternoon (1:00) and Dal again tomorrow night (7:00), all in the PAC main gym. And the hockey Warriors will host Brock at 2:00 tomorrow at the Columbia Icefield.

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