September 10, 2002

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

New role for associate grad dean
Frosh help diamond Warriors sparkle
MAD's making maps manageable
Daily events and other notes

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

September is National Arthritis Month

[Frank]

New role for associate grad dean

Jim Frank (left), associate dean of graduate studies, is getting some new work to do, says Gary Waller, who was named interim dean of grad studies last week.

Says a memo from Waller, issued yesterday: "Jim has agreed to represent Graduate Studies in the day-to-day management of graduate affairs. Responsibilities include activities with the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies (meetings, appraisal submissions, consultants' visits and reports, etc.), Chair of the Graduate Operations Committee, Senate Graduate Council, Board of Governors, liaison with external Scholarship agencies and liaison with the Graduate Student Association.

"My primary focus over the next few months will be to oversee the consideration of, and initial responses to, the external review of Graduate Studies.

"We all appreciate very much Jim's willingness to take on these activities. I know that everyone will provide full support."

Frank, a professor of kinesiology, is the first person to hold the post of associate dean of graduate studies. He was appointed in 1999. Waller continues to be associate provost (academic and student affairs) as well as interim graduate dean.

Graduating students hear about jobs
Students who will graduate this year should plan to spend an hour in the Humanities Theatre this afternoon, as an information session will be held at 4 p.m. organized by career services.
The briefing will deal with "making the transition from university to the workplace", including "developing a personal career goal", the resources offered by career services, and the graduate job interview process.

Frosh help diamond Warriors sparkle -- by Kerry O'Brien, athletics and recreational services

Frosh week is a 24-7 commitment for almost every incoming student. There's almost always an activity, party, info session, icebreaker or whatever happening, be it with a residence or faculty. Some students don't have that luxury, however. For athletes in some fall sports, most notably baseball, cross country running and football, practices begin during (or sometimes even before) frosh week to get the team in shape for the season.

Frosh athletes don't seem to mind all that much. Brandon Wittig is a first year from Waterloo in applied health sciences who is also playing Warrior baseball this season. He says that practicing early actually augmented his initial week at UW. "Frosh is all about meeting new people, and having the practices early allowed for that to be done. Not only do you get to meet people but you also get to work on your sport."

Coach Brian Bishop agrees with Wittig, saying that frosh involved in early sports benefit from spending time with older students in their first week. "They get a feel for the campus as well as get to meet upperclassmen early to help them in their transition to the school. Part of being an athlete is sacrifice and learning how to budget your time. Baseball only practices from 5:30 until 8:00, so frosh get to do most frosh activities."

This point was hammered home by the fact that many other athletes were unavailable for interviews because of frosh activities outside of practice.

With a number of promising rookies as well as an established set of veterans on staff, it promises to be an exciting year for Warrior baseball. The team is off to a 3-1 season start, its best ever. It was a fourth-year player, pitcher Adam Beck, who earned "Warrior athlete of the week" honours after hurling a two-hit 1-0 shutout against the defending league champions, the University of Toronto.

That was after Saturday's successes, when the Warriors swept a double header against York at their home field, Jack Couch Park in Kitchener. Mark Johnston led the Warrior offence, collecting six hits and driving in four runs in the two games. Tyler Wilson was the winning pitcher in game one going six strong innings in an 8-4 effort. Starter Scott Reynolds was the winning pitcher in game two, which saw the Warriors win 10-6.

On Sunday, the Warriors traveled to Ninth Line Park in Mississauga to play Toronto's Varsity Blues. In game one, Beck threw a two-hit complete game shut out to beat the Blues 1-0. Not only did the Warriors receive excellent starting pitching, they also managed to turn their first ever triple play. Game two saw the club lose their first game of the season 9-5.

The road to the OUA championship continues on Wednesday night when the team will play the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks: 7:00 p.m. at Bechtel Park in Waterloo.

MAD's making maps manageable

Software developed in the "mapping, analysis and design" (MAD) unit in the faculty of environmental studies is being used, in tandem with commercial software, to make a world of data easily accessible from any desktop.

Brent Hall, associate dean (computing) in the ES faculty, and colleagues from MAD will be meeting next week with map librarians and cartographers from UW, the University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University to talk about using the same system to index their growing holdings of what's called "geospatial data". In short, it's the digital information from which maps are made.

[Mostly purple]
The map at centre shows Lake St. Clair north of Windsor -- one of many previews the user can select from the collapsible menu at the left of the page.
Archives of that kind of data have been around for years. Technician Scott MacFarlane, who works with Hall, will quickly explain the difference between raster or image data (based on aerial photos or satellite images, for example) and vector data (based on ground measurements) and the problems that arise when two sets of data for the same area don't quite match.

What's new from MAD is the ease with which data can be accessed over the web -- by students and researchers at Waterloo and, potentially, anywhere else in the world. Hall explains: "A geographic information system (GIS) software tool known as ArcIMS -- Arc Internet Map Server -- allows us to serve live maps up on the web for browsing and some simple on-line queries and other functions." He says there is perhaps one other university in Canada or anywhere else that's done that much so far.

But that's not all. "In conjunction with this," says Hall, "we have been developing our own spatial metadata standard." Metadata is the information about the data that can help a user understand and evaluate the information a digital map contains in order to make good use of it -- things like when and how the data was collected, data resolution or accuracy, and what permissions are needed for using it.

Software for entering the metadata (if you own a collection of digitized geographical information) has been developed mostly through the work of students in Hall's lab, most recently Mike Leahy (who customized the web-based map browser and wrote the metadata editor software) and Phil Lam (who developed the online search mechanism for data resources held by MAD). The standard they've developed is, says Hall, "based on and a subset of the de facto world standard set by the US government's Federal Geographic Data Committee", except that the US standard allows for much more detail than UW users are ever likely to need.

He says, "Most of the digital spatial data holdings in our faculty -- both GIS-based vector maps and also remote sensing imagery -- have been documented and are now served up to the web for inspection. For students looking for thesis, project data or for other potential users, this resource will be invaluable."

The collection is available for anyone to browse. "The data can be previewed on-line," says Hall, "but unless we explicitly allow for clip-and-ship functionality, then a potential user has to contact the unit" to get access to the actual data. "For data we own, there is a standard non-liability required, and for data we do not own but house, there may be restrictions and covenants on use."

Job subsidy still offered
The co-op department says funding is still available to support some student jobs in labs and other research areas this fall. And students to take those jobs can also still be found. The funding, from an Undergraduate Research Internship program created last spring, will pay $1,200 towards the four-month salary of a co-op student. Faculty interested in hiring a student with the help of that subsidy can get more information from the co-op department at ext. 3782.

Daily events and other notes

Apologies, first of all, for a mistake made yesterday by my flying fingers. The company that's presenting the first of UW's "smarter health seminars" for this fall is Mitra Inc., not "Nitra". Mitra, based on Phillip Street, will send two speakers for a September 18 session on "Innovations in Medical Image Management".

The co-op cycle just keeps cycling. Starting today, coordinators in the co-operative education and career services department will be holding "return to campus interviews" for students who were away on the job in the spring term. "Students should," a memo says, "check schedules posted on the CECS bulletin boards on the first floor of Needles Hall for their interview time." Also today, "Co-op 101" sessions begin for new co-op students -- at least, those who will be going on a work term as of January.

"Welcome Week" continues for new graduate students. Today (and tomorrow and Thursday) will be "Info Day" from 11:00 to 1:00 at the Graduate House, with displays from various campus services. (Campus tours will also be available at 10:00 and 3:00 today.) Tonight, the Grad House dart league gets into competition at 7:00 ("all skill levels"). And from 8:00 this evening, it'll be Games Night at the Campus Cove in the Student Life Centre, with "unlimited games, limited pizza" for GSA members, which means all graduate students.

The senate undergraduate council will meet at 12 noon today in Needles Hall room 3004. Agenda items include "Streamlining and Efficiency Issues".

Optometry students' orientation events continue, in between classes. Today, a mass dinner at Johnny Fiasco's (just off campus on University Avenue) will be followed by a wine-and-cheese semiformal in South Campus Hall.

The International Student Association resumes its traditional Tuesday night social events this term, starting this evening. The party starts at 9:00 at the Weaver's Arms pub on Phillip Street. Says a memo from the ISA committee: "We hope to see you there whether you are a new student or have been here for many years, and bring your friends (international and Canadian)!"`

Tomorrow brings an open house for the campus recreation program based in the athletics department. "Join us," says special events coordinator Michelle Robinson, "for freebies and giveaways, and learn more about the programs offered by Campus Recreation. We will have information on our leagues, instructional programs, fitness, aquatics, tournaments and clubs, plus general information on Campus Recreation including information on using the Physical Activities Complex and Columbia Icefield. We are also having some demonstrations from our clubs, and we are hoping for performances from the UW cheerleaders and UW Band." Tomorrow's open house is scheduled for 3 to 7 p.m. on the patio of the Physical Activities Complex.

Finally, a reminder: books borrowed from the UW libraries on term loan this spring (before the beginning of August) are due on Thursday.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
September 10, 1972: Ike and Tina Turner play the Physical Activities Complex. September 10, 1975: An all-candidates meeting is held in the Theatre of the Arts, eight days before a scheduled provincial election. Among the candidates is Jack Kersell of the political science department, the NDP candidate in Waterloo North.