Pumpkin carving was all new to the members of the International Spouses' Group, who got together last Thursday to try out this strange North American art form. They show off the results in the Columbia Lake Village community centre. "Only one person had ever carved a jack-o'-lantern before," reports the group's coordinator, Nancy Matthews, who says a great time was had by all. "Countries represented that day included Iran, China, Korea, Italy, Russia and Libya."

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Health services offers annual flu shots

As sharp as ever, the staff in UW's Health Services are ready to stick it to you, with the announcement that flu shots are available this week for "high risk" people and later this month for students, faculty and staff at large.

Anybody in the "high risk" group can visit the clinic (it's in the white building overlooking the pond across from the Student Life Centre) and see a nurse any time between 9 and 5 Monday to Thursday, 9 to 4 Friday.

Among the people who might be on campus and are officially classified as "high risk":

• UW Police, Daycare workers and Optometry students currently in clinic.
• Persons 65 years of age or over.
• Those with diabetes or other metabolic disease, chronic cardiac or respiratory conditions (asthma), cancer, kidney disease, blood disorders or anyone whose immune system is weakened.
• Anyone who lives, works or volunteers in a nursing home, retirement home or chronic care facility.
• People who live in the same household as, or are in close contact with, a person who is at increased risk of the flu’s more serious effects.

For the "healthy" population — everybody who's not classified as high-risk — flu immunization clinics will be held in the Student Life Centre on November 23, 24, 27 and 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Office space for grads is approved

UW's board of governors gave approval last night for "the conceptual design" of a new wing that will provide office space for about 100 graduate students. It'll be an addition to the PAS (Psychology) building, linking it to Environmental Studies I across a flat blank stretch of grassland.

Watch for construction equipment to move in some time next year, with the building to be ready in the fall of 2008. Three other building projects are also on the cards to start next year: the Quantum-Nano Centre between Math and Computer and Biology I, the new Accounting wing of the Humanities building, and an addition to Optometry. Meanwhile, the Photovoltaic Research Centre at the north end of the main campus (right, photo by Barbara Elve) is getting close to completion.

Estimated cost of the new wing at PAS is $7.4 million, the board of governors was told. It's being designed by the Hamilton firm of Atkinson Engineering.

The proposed building has been described in the past as a hive for grad students, some of the more than 700 additional grads whom UW seeks to attract in the next two years on the way to eventually doubling the graduate enrolment. But the board was told yesterday that the construction also provides an opportunity to redesign the animal care areas in the PAS building, which are adjacent to it, and some functions may be shuffled between the new wing and the existing building.

"We're actually designing the building envelope," said vice-president (administration and finance) Dennis Huber, adding that the dean of arts, Ken Coates, will get to make some decisions about what goes inside it. Drawings presented to the board show a two-storey brick building occupied mostly by rows of 140-square-foot offices.

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Faculty take year-long sabbaticals

Here’s the latest list of UW faculty members who are on sabbatical leave. These individuals began year-long sabbaticals on September 1, 2006. The summaries of their work are what was submitted to the UW board of governors, which must give approval to each sabbatical.

Laurie Hoffman-Goetz, health studies and gerontology: “Enhancement of knowledge in public health through short courses. Upgrade of course materials for Health Studies MPH curriculum. Development of five year plan in exercise immunology and public health informatics research, including grant proposals to support envisioned research.”

Gerald Schneider, mechanical and mechatronics engineering: “I plan to extend my current computational fluid dynamics (CFD) all-speed flow algorithms to higher speech flows (Mach>~3). The cause of instability needs to be determined and solutions sought. I also plan to investigate how my previous CFD experience can be applied to microfluidics, including DNA analysis, lab-on-a-chip, and drug delivery.”

R. P. Sundarraj, management sciences: “During the sabbatical I anticipate the pursuit of three research streams including the application of advanced computing tools to solve optimization problems; the application of optimization approaches to improve the methodology underlying Internet negotiation systems; and the assessment of consumer attitudes toward Internet privacy.”

Jonathan F. Sykes, civil engineering: “The research focus of the planned sabbatical is the development of numerical models that can be used for the characterization and safety assessment of deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste including both used fuel and low and intermediate level waste. The leave will be spent based at the University of Waterloo.”

Leonard A. Curchin, classical studies: “My sabbatical project, funded by a SSHRC research grant, is to study the origin and meaning of the ancient place-names of Spain and Portugal, with a view to elucidating the cultural history of the region. The project aims to document, through linguistic evidence, how the variety of successive cultures in the region superseded and transformed one another.”

Colin I. Mayfield, biology: “The sabbatical will be used to carry out research on a metadata-based water information software system, and to design and implement the United Nations Water Virtual Learning Centre.”

CAR

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