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Thursday, April 8, 2004

  • Rundown on construction projects
  • Research includes creativity, brochure says
  • Grad student conference winners
  • Good Friday and a long weekend
Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

Wesak, birthday of the Buddha

Rundown on construction projects

In a brief report to the UW board of governors, the board's building and properties committee summarized UW's current construction projects "and potential capital projects". Here's how the report listed and described them:

Student Life Centre and Columbia Icefields -- additions completed.

SuperBuild financed construction (4 projects) -- completed. (The report doesn't list the four, but they are the Tatham Centre; the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology; Rod Coutts Hall; and the Engineering III addition.)

Columbia Lake Village townhouses -- 90 built and occupied; 54/106 will be on stream in May/September; potential for another 50 depending on uptake.

UW Place court renovations -- will be completed for September '04; two more court renovations planned. (Work on Wilmot Court is scheduled for the spring term.)

Hallman Applied Health Sciences addition -- underway and on schedule (early '05).

St. Paul's College -- 200-bed addition under construction.

Research & Technology Park -- multi-tenant/accelerator facility has conditional provincial approval; federal approval still required. Site plan has been approved for a 3rd prospective tenant (estimated date of occupancy October '05). Sybase building is now closed in.

School of Pharmacy -- Kitchener City Council approved in principle the land grant plus $30 million; challenge will be getting provincial approval.

School of Architecture -- City of Cambridge has discussed the possibility of another property (for use by Engineering and close to Architecture's site; for use by Civil's building science, with linkages to Architecture).

[Artist at work]

Research includes creativity, brochure says

Research in the fine and performing arts is part of "the full spectrum of research" at Waterloo, says the third in a series of brochures produced by the office of the vice-president (university research). Previous brochures dealt with research for the automotive industry, and work in the arts and social sciences.

"Research in the Fine Arts, along with expert instruction, results in an unequalled learning opportunity at Waterloo," the booklet's front page says. "Applied research is expanding to take into account factors influencing entrepreneurship and creativity."

Inside, fine print spread across two pages describes some of the areas of research, including the Centre for Cultural Management, creative work in the music department at Conrad Grebel University College, and research by fine arts professor Robert Linsley about abstract painting.

"Human interactions in the digital age" is the heading on one paragraph. It explains: "Leading researchers from Drama and Speech Communication, such as Dr. Diana Denton, are studying how people interact with each other, both in face-to-face and in technologically mediated environments. She uses videotaping technology and video-conferencing to investigate spoken and gestural communication in the contexts of leadership, interpersonal communication, conflict management and theatrical production. The challenges of technology can distance people from face-to-face interpersonal interaction and create barriers and misunderstandings. She and Dr. Andrew McMurry study how to humanize technology to enhance communication and performance."

Other items in the brochure note that Jane Buyers of fine arts has been commissioned to do a bronze sculpture for Waterloo's RIM Park; that the UW-published journal The New Quarterly has received multiple gold medals from the National Magazine Awards; that UW has work going on in film studies, theatre production and drama history, computer graphics, African music and public speaking.

"Four UW graduates and a former adjunct professor have won Academy Awards for scientific and technical achievement," the brochure also mentions.

Grad student conference winners

In the wake of last week's Graduate Student Research Conference, the graduate studies office has issued a list of ten students who were the winners for their presentations about their work.

Oral presentations were judged on "delivery and design and content criteria, e.g., eye contact with your audience, movement and exposure, expression and articulation, the pace of your talk, clarity of your presentation, organization, audience analysis, summation and expressed research potential/world relevance".

The winners for oral presentations: Environment, Candace Newman, geography, "Communicating for Management: Evaluating Remote Sensing as a Communicative Tool." Health, Kevin van Doorn, optometry and biology, "Optical Quality Changes of the Ocular Lens During Induced Parr-to-smolt Metamorphosis in Rainbow Trout." Information Technology, Ali Ghodsi, computer science, "Local Tangent Space Representations for Manifold Learning." Materials and Systems, Jonathan Teichroeb, physics, "Protein Deposition on Hydrogels Determined by Quartz Crystal Microbalance." Society and Culture, Lorie Scott-Robertson and Robin Blanchard, health studies and gerontology, "A Comparison of Women's Chat-Room Discussions Regarding the Use and Health Implications of Hormone Replacement Therapy to the Current Scientific Literature."

WHEN AND WHERE
Technology art exhibition continues, Davis Centre room 1301 and East Campus Hall front gallery.

Instrumentation and control user group meets 10:30, Carl Pollock Hall room 1346.

Wireless systems brown-bag seminar, Amir Khandani, electrical and computer engineering, 12 noon, CEIT room 3142.

Mature students end-of-term lunch, University Club, noon, reservations ext. 2429.

'If It Rained Knowledge' lectures by Russell Hardin, New York University, wind up with "The Epistemology of Culture and Liberalism", 1:30, Humanities room 373.

Survey research lecture, Mary Thompson, statistics and actuarial science, "Design and Analysis of Longitudinal Surveys", 3:30, Math and Computer room 5158.

Hydro shutdown cancelled in arts and environmental studies buildings tonight; will be rescheduled after exams.

Bojangles dance competition all day Saturday, Humanities Theatre.

Environmental studies dean's office will be "functioning at a minimum level" Monday-Thursday during carpet installation; messages can be left and calls will be returned.

'Why Re-Invent the Wheel?' Workshop on "generic learning tasks", Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology, 10 a.m. April 13 and 28, information ext. 5902.

Poster presentations were judged on "setup and visual appeal, clarity of your introduction, organizational flow, conclusion statements, audience analysis, and convincing proof of research potential and world relevance".

The winners for poster presentations: Environment, Catherine Desloges, mechanical engineering, "A New Microscale Model to Determine Local Transportation Emissions for Urban Air Quality and Human Exposure Assessment." Health, Laura Grin, kinesiology, "The Effects of Voluntary Arm Raises on the Recovery from Unexpected Rotational Perturbations." Information Technology, Rick Ha, electrical and computer engineering, "Simkeys: An Efficient Keypad Configuration for Mobile Communications." Materials and Systems, Eerik Randsalu, mechanical engineering, "Measurement of Fuel Regression Rates in Jet Fuel Pool Fires in Crosswinds." Society and Culture, Marjan Maleki-Tehrani, psychology, "Love without Pity: Understanding Tourette's Syndrome."

Good Friday and a long weekend

Tomorrow, April 9, is Good Friday and a holiday, bringing UW a long weekend. University offices and most services will be closed tomorrow, and no exams are scheduled. Of course some key services continue as always:
Correction: The Dana Porter Library will be open 8 to 8 on Good Friday; the Davis Centre library continues 24-hour operation.
The libraries will be open limited hours tomorrow: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (circulation services noon to 4 p.m.). The libraries will be open their normal hours on Saturday and Sunday.

Easter Monday is a normal working day for the university.

Quite apart from being a holiday weekend, this season is a solemn and exciting time for practising Christians, commemorating as it does the crucifixion (on Good Friday) and resurrection (on Easter Sunday) of Jesus of Nazareth. Special services will be taking place UW's Renison College (Anglican) and St. Jerome's College (Roman Catholic) as they are at places of worship around the world:

And the congregations will hear such texts as the words of Luke (chapter 24, verse 5): "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

CAR

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