Warrior athletes visit schools again

from the department of athletics and recreational services

The athletics department at the University of Waterloo and The Record will be launching a new initiative this season as part of The Record Team-Up community outreach program. In its 12th season, the program has partnered with Brady Brady Inc. Waterloo Warrior student-athlete speakers will provide a set of Brady Brady books to all schools that participate.

The new partnership is a perfect fit for The Record Team-Up program, which has been extremely successful in Waterloo Region since its inception in 1997. Team-Up speaks to young students about "Keys to Success" and now will add the Brady Brady philosophy of "making reading a fun goal" to the presentation.

The newly enhanced program will kick off for 2008-09 with a launch party today at Northlake Woods Public School in Waterloo starting at 2:00. Student-athletes from the Warriors will be in attendance, in addition to representatives from Brady Brady. Both mascots, King Warrior and Brady Brady, will also be on hand. Approximately 400 students will be present as the first audience.

Team-Up is a community outreach program where UW student-athletes visit schools and youth groups and talk to kids about "Keys to Success." Student-athletes tell their personal stories of growing up and focus on areas such as setting goals, having a positive attitude, and working hard. This program provides younger students with positive role models in the classroom. In 2007-08, athletes spoke to 75 groups and over 6,000 students. This program is free and suitable for grades 3-8.

Brady Brady Inc. is the exclusive publisher for a bestselling Canadian children’s illustrated book series. Mary Shaw (author) created Brady Brady in 2000 to encourage her son to read. Together with Chuck Temple (illustrator), she produced 14 sports-themed children’s books for readers aged 4 to 8 including hockey, football and baseball. Scheduled new releases over the next year expand into soccer and basketball. The series is distributed internationally and is translated into French. Brady Brady Inc. is based in Waterloo.

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Surface tension makes cells cluster

from a Vanderbilt University news release written by David F. Salisbury

What does a mixture of two different kinds of cells have in common with a mixture of oil and water? The same basic force causes both mixtures to separate into two distinct regions.

That is the conclusion of a new three-dimensional computer model of the cell sorting process produced by Shane Hutson, assistant professor of physics at Vanderbilt University, and three colleagues at the University of Waterloo in Canada that is described in the October 3 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. The three Waterloo researchers involved are civil engineering professor G. Wayne Brodland and graduate students Justina Yang and Denis Viens.

The force in question is surface tension — a property of liquids that arises from intermolecular forces — specifically an effect called the Plateau-Rayleigh Instability that explains the tendency of water to form droplets.

Mechanical interactions between cells play an important role in a number of biological processes, including the development of embryos and the spread of cancer. Understanding these interactions is particularly important in current efforts to create artificial tissues. “In order to design and control the building of artificial tissues of any sort, we have to understand how cell/cell interactions drive shape and structure formation at a very deep level,” Hutson says.

Currently, these interactions are often modeled using analogs from fluid mechanics including viscosity and surface tension. “What we have shown is a fascinating new role for surface tension in the process of cell sorting — the ability of random mixtures of two cell types to spontaneously sort themselves into two distinct domains,” Hutson says.

Previous 2-D and 3-D models of cell sorting had indicated that surface tension alone was not powerful enough to drive this “unmixing” process by itself, leading researchers to propose that the cells themselves must also change shape randomly to keep the process from grinding to a halt before it is completed.

The new computer model looked at the structure of the 3-D mixtures in greater detail. It showed that in mixtures where the minority cell type makes up at least 25 percent of the mix, more than 95 percent of the minority cells are in direct contact with other minority cells instead of being totally surrounded by majority cells. It found that this contact enhances the surface tension effect, allowing it to drive the sorting process without assistance from cell fluctuations.

The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation and the Human Frontier Science Program.

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Quotes from this morning's ticker

Look in this morning's Globe and Mail (the Report on Business section) for an advertisement in which UW boasts about its recently appointed chancellor-elect, financier Prem Watsa. Coincidentally, Watsa is also quoted at length in a rather grim front-page story in the same publication dealing with the latest tribulations of the stock market.

The Record newspaper has reported that UW staff represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793 — about 300 people in the plant operations and food services department — were to take a strike vote last Friday. "This is just a normal part of the process," says UW director of communications and public affairs Martin Van Nierop. Union members have been without a contract since a two-year pact expired last spring. Negotiators called in a conciliator from the Ontario ministry of labour last month.

The engineering faculty's e-newsletter announces that Ralph Haas, the Norman W. McLeod Engineering Professor and distinguished professor emeritus of civil engineering, recently received the inaugural Distinguished Service Award from the Transportation Association of Canada. He was also appointed a National Associate of the National Research Council of the National Academies in the United States for his “extraordinary service” to the council. Haas is only one of five Canadians to receive the National Academies honour that covers areas ranging from science to engineering to medicine.

"The staff association has a few events coming up," writes Sue Fraser, long-time chair of the association's social committee. She itemizes them, starting with the November 7-9 "fifth annual shopping trip" to Erie, Pennsylvania, home of tax-free clothing. ("There are a few spaces left.") Then comes the annual craft sale, scheduled for November 27-28 in the Davis Centre lounge. "Only items that are personally hand-crafted are permitted," Fraser notes; within that rule, UW staff, faculty and retirees are invited to take a table, and can reach her at fraser@uwaterloo.ca for details. As in the past, 10 per cent of sale revenue goes to UW student awards on behalf of the association. Just a few days after that comes another highlight of the year's social calendar, Winterfest, to be held December 7 at the Columbia Icefield. "The event is a skating party for UW families and friends," Fraser notes. "There will be gifts from Santa, face-painting, and a craft room set up for the children. Everyone is free to skate." Details will be on the association's web site shortly.

"We have a new Staff Relations Coordinator," writes Neil Murray, director of staff and labour relations in UW's human resources department, referring to the group of HR staff who form the major point of contact with departments and staff members. He writes: "Rochelle Davies started on September 29 and fills the vacancy created by the departure of Renee Radigan. Rochelle will assume the client group that Renee previously held. Rochelle is a proud graduate of UW, and has her certificate in Human Resources Management from Conestoga College. She is also in the process of obtaining her Certified Human Resource Professional designation. She has 12 years of progressive Human Resources experience and was the Human Resources Manager for all of the Holiday Inn and Staybridge Suites locations in Guelph."

Officially named director of UW's new Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change is Claude Duguay, who's based in the department of geography and environmental management. • Registration is under way (the fee is $45) for an English conversation class that will be held Friday afternoons, starting this week, in Waterloo International in Needles Hall. • The UW Recreation Committee is organizing a tour of the Gus Bakos Observatory, atop the Physics building, for interested staff, faculty and retirees, Wednesday at 8 p.m.

CAR

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