![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Thursday, August 4, 2005
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
The University of Waterloo Magazine also brings alumni up to date with the doings of their classmates (including one who toured war-torn Afghanistan two years ago to research a book about Doctors Without Borders), reminds them of alumni career services, and provides a brief roundup of campus news.
"Within a few years," Bow writes in the nanotechnology article, "miniaturized instruments like the ones being developed in Vassili Karanassios' lab in the Department of Chemistry will change the way we respond to environmental crises." Here's more:
"'Until now, the usual way of doing environmental analysis has been to travel to the site -- which may be very remote or hard to reach -- collect the sample, and take it to the lab for analysis,' Karanassios says. 'In Canada's vast geography, the lab might be thousands of miles away, and results may not be available for days.' Conventional analytical instruments, such as the mass spectrometer in his lab, don't travel: they can weigh nearly half a ton and consume two kilowatts of electricity. Their cost -- $100,000 and up -- also restricts their use.
"Step by step, Karanassios is miniaturizing analytical instruments by reducing the size of components while maintaining or improving performance. His recently developed hand-held device for testing vehicle emissions, for example, runs on two nine-volt batteries and does the job of a much larger, more energy-hungry machine. He anticipates that sophisticated instruments with some nano-sized components will soon be both portable and inexpensive. In future when an environmental crisis strikes, whether in a remote community or a crowded city subway, the lab will go to the sample, and results will be available on the spot.
"Andrei Sazonov, electrical and computer engineering, says that soon even the electronics we use in our daily lives could look different. Working with Arokia Nathan in the Giga-to-Nano Lab, Sazonov plans to replace stiff, expensive, largecrystal silicon with thin films covered with silicon nanocrystals, each crystal less than 20 nanometres across. 'The film would be inexpensive, because it would use much less material, and because it would be so easy to manufacture,' Sazonov explains. 'You could make sheets metres wide and kilometres long.'
"Once the nano-crystalline material is perfected, perhaps within ten years, it could be everywhere. Imagine computer monitors you could roll up and stick in your backpack, inventory chips in product packaging to track goods and flag best-before dates, and jogging suits with built-in blood pressure monitors. Workers in hazardous environments might wear clothing that would detect toxic fumes or radioactivity, or the nearness of dangerous machinery."
Among other researchers whose work is discussed in the article are Dale Henneke of chemical engineering, Tong Leung of chemistry, Leonardo Simon of chem eng, Linda Nazar of chemistry, Pu Chen of chem eng, John Yeow of systems design engineering, and Mark Morley of systems.
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology presents Mark
Morton of LT3, "Cui Bono? A Review of the Literature Pertaining to the
Efficacy of Online Instruction", 2:30, Needles Hall room 3001,
registration online.
Waterloo Public Interest Research Group general meeting 5:30, Student Life Centre room 2134, information online. Centre for International Governance Innovation presents Stephen Toope, Trudeau Foundation, "Can the UN Really Protect Human Rights?" Friday 11:45, 57 Erb Street West, free tickets 885-2444 ext. 226. Certificate in University Teaching research presentations by graduate students, Friday 1:00, Math and Computer room 5136. Audience registration online. Inter-University Symposium on Infrastructure Management sponsored by transportation group, department of civil engineering, Saturday in the Davis Centre, details online. |
She is the 2004 recipient of the Wayne Fox Ontario Graduate Scholarship, established through a $1 million gift from Wayne and Isabel Fox. Her $5,000 award provides the matching funds required by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program. The magazine notes that Moulton was chosen "because she exemplifies excellence in both her academic work and her extracurricular activities", including volunteer work with community organizations.
Another brief article reports a gift to St. Paul's College from Chartwells, the food services company that operates the college's cafeteria (and serves more than 600,000 students across Canada). "This spring," says the magazine, "the company announced a gift of $350,000, all of it aimed at benefitting students."
A first installment of $200,000 arrived this spring, earmarked for bursaries, and was immediately matched by Ontario government funding. The remaining $150,000 is expected later and will be used by the college "to modernize its food service facilities".
![[Spring issue's cover]](http://www.alumni.uwaterloo.ca/alumni/pubs/images/magazine.jpg)
Writer Linda Kenyon reports that Bonner is examining the work of well-known travel writer Jan Morris in an attempt to gain insight into the particular cultures of Toronto and Montréal. "While many scholars prefer to take what Bonner refers to as 'the scopic view,' which creates the illusion of seeing the city as a whole from a critical, scholarly distance, Bonner argues that there is much to be learned about the identity, character, nuance, and history of the two cities from first-hand accounts by writers such as Morris."
Bonner, a professor of sociology and -- until July 1 -- dean of St. Jerome's, says Morris "describes her essays as reflections of a traveler and not as guides for the tourist. She searches for images, vignettes, and analogies and uses metaphors to capture the spirit of a place." Morris, a prolific writer about places who has visited and written about all the great cities of the world, captures the essence of a place by catching it off guard, says Bonner. "She has the talent to see the city when it is just being itself, when it is not oriented to managing impressions."
In her writing, Morris notes some striking similarities between Montréal and Toronto. Boulevard St-Laurent in Montréal, which for generations has separated the French from the English, has now become more or less identical to major streets in other cities. "For where in the Western world," she says, "is there not a Lebanese restaurant, a Ukrainian baker, a Turkish confectioner cheek by jowl with a Korean greengrocer?"
She notes a similar state of affairs in Toronto, where she "was invited to try the Malaysian vermicelli at Rasa Sayang, the seafood pierogi at the Ukrainian village or something Vietnamese in Yorkville." Yet despite these similarities, which, Bonner notes, make sense from the political economy perspective, Morris discerns significant differences in the "feel" of Toronto and Montréal. Montrealers, she says, have a spontaneous charm and are very passionate. Even the Anglos are "not as shy as most other Canadians. They smile more easily, and perhaps cry more easily too. They are less numb than their counterparts in Toronto or Vancouver: in short, not to put too fine a point upon it, they are more like the French." Toronto, by contrast, she describes as "a city of undertones and surmises rather than certainties and swank."
Says Bonner: "Whatever the manifold reasons for the difference, when we move away from the political economy perspective and look at the local story, both Montréal and Toronto show themselves in their own relation to events, helping us recognize some of the more unique aspects of the two cities."
The feature articles from the UW Magazine are available in full online.
CAR