![[University of Waterloo]](/images/logobars/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Friday, October 28, 2005
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
The United Way today
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Ceremonies are scheduled for 1:00, with university and government officials taking place, as well as John Carrick Jr., president of McAsphalt Industries Ltd. The lab is being named in memory of his father, who founded the company. A highlight of the event will be the moment when a remote control dump truck drives the scissors into the ribbon cutting area of the lab, located in E3 room 2142.
"As Canada's federal, provincial and municipal governments face massive spending needs on physical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and airports, the newly established CPATT seeks to provide the knowledge to make the best use of the strategic investment," a UW news release explains.
"The pavement engineering lab builds on a research program that started in the mid-1960s in the Civil Engineering department. CPATT brings together leading experts in transportation, consulting, construction and materials engineering.
"In studying the preservation and replacement of Canada's $3 trillion worth of public infrastructure, CPATT's work embraces structural design, construction and maintenance technology, materials and geotechnical engineering, field evaluation methods, equipment and data processing, intelligent transportation systems and safety, as well as risk and reliability methods."
CPATT is supported through major funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust, the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund, and a number of private and public sector partners.
At today's event there will be speeches and the unveiling of a plaque, followed by demonstration of technology and tools by some of the students involved in the research. Then participants will take an excursion to the CPATT pavement test track, located at the Waterloo Region landfill site off Erb Street.
![[Ralph Haas]](/images/2005/1028rhaas.jpg)
The event today comes on the heels of an honour awarded by
Ontario's engineers to Ralph Haas (right), the
pioneer of
pavement research at UW and now a Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
Haas is among a group of Ontario engineers -- two of them Waterloo
alumni -- who have been honoured by
Professional
Engineers Ontario for their achievements.
Haas is the recipient of the association's Engineering Medal in the Research and Development category. As a researcher, educator and mentor in civil engineering, he has achieved national and international recognition for important contributions to pavement engineering and infrastructure management, PEO says.
Clearly it's a family affair: Ralph Haas's son, Carl Haas, is now a key researcher in the same field in UW's civil department.
Also honoured by PEO was Tom Chau, who received his PhD in systems design engineering from UW and won the Engineering Medal in the Young Engineer category. The association says Chau has enhanced the quality of life of children with disabilities through innovative research at the Bloorview Research Institute. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Rehabilitation Engineering at the University of Toronto. The third UW-related award winner was Tony Franceschini, who received his BASc in civil engineering from UW in 1975, and received the Engineering Medal for Entrepreneurship. He is president and CEO of Stantec Inc. Canada, based in Edmonton.
Chemical physics symposium opensScientists are meeting at UW this weekend to swap ideas and hear noted speakers at the 21st annual Waterloo Symposium on Chemical Physics. "This is the main Canadian national conference in this subdiscipline, and it has attracted a steady following in the United States," says chemistry professor Robert Le Roy. "This meeting is one of the great things which Waterloo is known for nationally and internationally."Chemical physics includes spectroscopy, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, surface science and solid state physics. Researchers in the field, Le Roy added, have earned two Canadian Nobel prizes, and the Waterloo symposium has featured at least four Nobel winners as invited speakers over the years. At the symposium, there will be both invited and contributed oral papers, as well as a poster session. The event takes place in Davis Centre room 1351 and the Davis foyer today through Sunday. |
Keynote speaker will be George Roter, a 1999 engineering graduate who is co-founder of Engineers Without Borders. His talk, "The Canadian Way? Canada's Role in the World Through the Eyes of the World's Poor", is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Humanities Theatre.
Earlier on Saturday, the 20th annual Applied Health Sciences 5-km Fun Run begins at 9:30 a.m. outside Matthews Hall. (Drivers on the ring road may find lanes closed off for a time.)
The annual Science Open House will be held in the Centre for Environmental and Information Technology, with many hands-on activities for children and adults from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A special attraction will be chemistry "Magic Shows" at 11:00 and 2:00. Also in the CEIT, a gem show will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (and again on Sunday). Emeralds and other members of the beryl gem family will be featured, along with mineral and gem dealer displays from across the province.
At 2 p.m., Carousel Players presents the interactive production "Where the Wild Things Are" in the Theatre of the Arts. The performance, aimed at children ages 4 through 8, involves kids through guided play -- participants become Wild Things themselves.
Everyone is invited to the free Homecoming barbecue from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. outside the Student Life Centre. Pre-register for tickets online or drop by Homecoming headquarters in the Student Life Centre.
Two alumni reunions are happening during the day -- one for physics, one for Conrad Grebel College survivors from the 1970s. The UW Shop will have "a special collection of UW wear" for sale in the Student Life Centre in the morning. And Homecoming wraps up with Homefest at the Bombshelter starting at 8 p.m.
![[Festival logo]](/images/2005/1001eastasian.gif)
Overlapping Homecoming,
the annual East Asian Festival at Renison College will
celebrate the culture and food of Korea, Japan and China. Things
began with a "business breakfast" today, and continue tomorrow
with Culture and Family Day, running from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Activities range from the Japanese tea ceremony to storytelling,
sword arts, children's dance and kung fu.
The festival winds up with a gala dinner and silent auction Saturday night
at Federation Hall (tickets are sold out). Details are
online.
Other sportsThe Warrior swim team has its alumni meet in the PAC pool starting at 11:30 tomorrow. Other Warrior teams are all out of town: badminton at Ryerson; cross-country at the OUA championships in Kingston; men's hockey at Western; women's hockey at Queen's (and again Sunday); women's rugby at Brock in the OUA bronze medal game; women's soccer at Ottawa in the OUA playoffs; men's soccer at Western in an OUA quarterfinal. |
Finally, it's a Warrior Weekend, with activities in the Student Life Centre on Friday and Saturday nights focused on having fun without alcohol. Plans this time include Hallowe'en movies tonight, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" Saturday, dance lessons, crafts, an "amazing race" competition and a costume show. "We have had an amazing turnout so far this fall," says Karyn Nelson of the student life office, who's in charge of organizing Warrior Weekends. She says more than 800 students took part in the first event, and about 600 last time (when competing attractions included Oktoberfest).
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Winter term co-op job rankings open this morning
on JobMine, closing Sunday
night.
Student exchange to Austria information session 10:30, PAS (Psychology) room 2086. Japan Video Topics and other films on Japanese culture, monthly showing, 12:10, Renison College chapel lounge. Wilfrid Laurier University fall convocation 1:15, Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex, honorary degrees to Heather Munroe-Blum, principal of McGill University, and Nobel economics winner Myron Scholes.
Department of anthropology Silver Medal Lecture honouring graduate student Leslie Monteyne: Marcel Danesi, University of Toronto, "The X-Factor: The Unconscious Power of the Pictograph in Pop Culture", explaining the proliferation of the symbol X, 4:00, Arts Lecture Hall room 105. Annual Trivia Challenge at St. Jerome's University, 7 p.m., SJU Community Centre, tickets 884-8111 ext. 8277. Special invitation from science alumni services to faculty, staff, family and friends: event at the Waterloo Regional Children's Museum, Sunday 10 a.m. to noon, $2 at the door, Hallowe'en costumes encouraged. Tourism lecture series: Michael Hall, University of Otago, New Zealand, "Space Tourism: The Final Frontier of Tourism Mobility", Monday 9:30 a.m., Arts Lecture Hall room 105. Sandford Fleming Foundation Debates for engineering students, faculty-wide competition Monday and Tuesday 11:30, Engineering II room 3324, Wednesday 11:30, Doug Wright Engineering room 2534; finals November 4, Carl Pollock Hall. Engineering Shadow Days welcome high school students, Tuesday and Wednesday. Town hall meeting with president and provost for UW faculty and staff, Tuesday 4 p.m., Humanities Theatre. UW Day open house for future students and their parents, Saturday, November 5, 9:00 to 3:00, details online. |
University leaders met with the House of Commons finance committee yesterday, as part of the annual hearings that precede a federal budget, and they took along the new document, which details universities' collective progress in meeting research, commercialization and knowledge transfer targets and the benefits that accrue to society from these efforts.
Momentum: The 2005 Report on University Research and Knowledge Transfer delivers on a promise AUCC made in 2002, a news release says: to demonstrate the concrete returns on investments in university research by the federal government and other partners. The report "clearly shows that universities are on track to exceed these commitments", AUCC says.
"Canada's universities are committed to being accountable," said AUCC president Claire Morris. "Canadians have told us that they want to know more about the groundbreaking research happening on university campuses, and this report will help highlight universities' research, commercialization and knowledge transfer efforts across this country."
Momentum also catalogues the R&D investments in Canada made by the federal government since 1997, including $11 billion in funds that have gone to universities for research. "That's a lot of money," says Morris, "and politicians, policy makers and the public deserve to know how Canada is benefiting."
The report says university research made up 38 per cent of all research activity in Canada in 2004, and all sectors -- including governments, the private sector and not-for-profits -- have increased their investments in university research over the past 10 years. It also says research funding is showing results: between 1999 and 2003, universities saw an 84 per cent increase in the value of their industrial research contracts, an 82 per cent jump in the number of new licences, a 91 per cent increase in new patent applications, and a 25 per cent increase in the number of spin-off companies.
Says AUCC: "Canada is being branded internationally as a hot spot for research, and as an important research partner, with Canadian university researchers successfully attracting substantial international funding and ranking among the top in the world in scientific publication in areas such as business and economics, psychiatry and psychology, and environment."
But the report points out that Canada faces major competition internationally as other countries continue to invest in R&D to fuel competitiveness, economic prosperity and quality of life. "Countries like Sweden, Finland and Japan continue to be world leaders in terms of their overall investment in R&D as compared to their GDP."
CAR
![[Caldicott]](/images/2005/1027caldicott.jpg)
Helen Caldicott (left), peace activist, lecture for
students only, 2 p.m. today,
Conrad Grebel University great hall, organized by peace and conflict studies.
Public lecture, "The New Nuclear Danger", Sunday 4 p.m., Centre for
International Governance Innovation, 57 Erb Street West, all welcome.