The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news
about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and
Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest
occuring in Toronto and surounding areas. Posted every month.
Profile on Tom Brzustowski
This month we profile Tom Brzustowski, the featured speaker at the
opening plenary session of the 2004 Canadian Conference on Electrical
and Computer Engineering, which runs from May 2 - 5, 2004, in beautiful
Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Tom Brzustowski is President of NSERC since 1995. An engineer, he
graduated with a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of
Toronto in 1958, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton
in 1963. He was a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering
at the University of Waterloo from 1962 to 1987, teaching and carrying
out research in thermodynamics and combustion. He served as Chair of
Mechanical Engineering from 1967 to 1970 and as Vice-President, Academic
of the University from 1975 to 1987. After that he served as deputy
minister in the Government of Ontario from 1987 to 1995, first in the
Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and later in the Premier's
Council. He was appointed President of NSERC in October 1995, and
reappointed in 2000.
Tom Brzustowski holds honorary doctorates from several institutions,
namely, Alberta, Concordia, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Guelph,
McMaster, Ottawa, Royal Military College of Canada, Ryerson, and
Waterloo, and received the Engineering Alumni Medal from the University
of Toronto. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the
Canadian Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society of Canada.
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Upcoming Chapter Activities
March 10 Professor Kevin Robbie of Queen's University in
Kingston, Ontario will present a seminar on "Order and Chaos in Atomically
Assembled Photonic Crystals" organized by our Circuits and Devices Chapter
(IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society). Click for details.
March 10 Dr. Alireza Sadeghian of Ryerson University in
Toronto, Ontario will present a seminar on "Engineering Applications of
Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Networks" organized by our Neural Networks Chapter.
Click for details.
March 16 Professor Chennupati Jagadish of the
Department of Electronic Materials Engineering at the Australian National
University will present a LEOS Distinguished Lecture on "Quantum Well and
Quantum Dot Intermixing for Optoelectronic Device Integration" organized by
our Circuits and Devices Chapter (IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society).
Click for details.
March 17 Tony Orsi of the law firm, Bereskin & Parr, in
Toronto, Ontario, will present a seminar on "An Introduction to Intellectual
Property Protection" organized by our Communications Chapter. Click for
details.
March 23 Professor David Rutledge of Caltech in Pasadena,
California will present a seminar on "Transmitters for Wireless Communication"
organized by our Electromagnetics and Radiation Joint Chapter.
Click for details.
April 2
The first general interest meeting of the "Women in Engineering" Affinity
Group in Toronto is to be held at the University of Toronto.
Visda Vokhshoori, interim chair, and the organizing committee
ask your support in attending this meeting where a slate of officers will be
proposed. Click for details - an update with the room location and slate of officers
will be posted by March 15. Please reserve this evening in your calendar.
April 20 Dr. Bob Alden, Consultant, Mississauga, Ontario,
will present a seminar on "Using the Internet to Access IEEE Services"
organized by our Life Members Chapter. This first LM meeting for 2004
is a result of the feedback from our survey of life members conducted
last year. Click for details.
Student Awards Deadlines
- March 15 - IEEE LEOS Explore Your Science Program Award - up to
US $1000 to attend the CLEO conference - details
- March 15 - IEEE Canadian Foundation Scholarships - up to
$3500 to students active in IEEE McNaughton Learning Resource Centres - details
Section Initiatives
IEEE Toronto is expanding its activities and services with two initiatives:
- A new Affinity Group for Women in Engineering - is being
formed and the first meeting is described above - check out the new web page
for more information. Note, this group is not for women only.
- A new On-line Community site to complement this Section web site
has been created. This is a relatively new web-based IEEE service to help
folks communicate. You can now chat on-line and post discussions on the
site which is linked from the left side navigation bar - here is a direct
direct link. Why not click the
link, join our on-line community, and start interacting with members you
know and ones you don't (yet). Post your views start the discussion. There are
a number of topics at present, more can be added - you tell us.
There is also a "Polls" feature so we can find out what you think about
various topics. There is a help page (which is also linked
from our FAQ page) on our web site (in addition to the help window on the
community site) for those not familiar with this type of service.
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Action on Energy Proposed
John De Groot, a member of our LM committee, writes...
You may have seen the article in the Globe & Mail this week titled
"ENERGY PLAN FUMBLED, PROBE SAYS". If you did not read the article,
it says that Ottawa fumbled a $24 million federal initiative to create a
stand-alone green energy industry because it backed mostly non-competitve
techniques. The outside audit raised question about whether Natural Resources
Canada should be promoting technologies such as solar power through this
program at all. It said the six year old Renewable Energy Deployment initiative (REDi)
is not cost effective because it's promoting systems that mostly "have
little chance of becoming price competitive and developing into
sustainable industries".
These conclusions are in the 111 page draft report on the REDi that was
delivered to Natural Resources late last fall. But the government
largely excised them from a much abreviated final version on its website
in late December.
Natural Resources Minister John Efford makes no apologies, saying that
he disagreed with some of the outside probe's findings. He says Ottawa
has to fund green technologies even if they don't show any promise of
becoming self-sustaining in the short run.
The draft report was written by the Ottawa offices of Gos Gilroy Inc.- a
management consulting firm that has done extensive work for the federal
government.
My comment is that I have no confidence in the federal government's (or
any government's) energy policy. We, as electrical engineers should act
as a knowledgeable apolitical group to go public with a paper describing
energy need and policy. Any volunteers?
Our new on-line community is the best way to respond to John's proposal -
use this link. If John's
discussion is on the "What's New" page, click on the "Action on Energy
Proposed" link and use the "Reply" link on the right. If not,
click on "Discussions", then "Technical Topics", then "Power & Energy,
then "Action on Energy Proposed", read the discussion, and use the
"Reply" link on the right.
Career Services
Our new career programme now has a regular link on the left side navigation bar
of our web site. also The latest posting is a link to a database for "retired
academics" - maintained by the Association of Commonwealth Universities - it
seems that many universities are looking for engineers with some academic
teaching experience to fill vacancies on a short-term basis
- check out the link on our careers page for more information.
Upcoming Conferences
2004 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer
Engineering, May 2 - 5, 2004, Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Highlights - as they are announced
- Sunday afternoon - preconference event - "IEEE Milestone in Electrical
Engineering and Computing" - dedication ceremony at Decew Falls
- Sunday evening - welcome reception
- Monday morning - plenary session - NSERC President Tom Brzustowski
- Monday evening - IEEE Canada Awards Banquet - includes the McNaughton Medal presentation
- Tuesday morning - plenary session - the 2004 McNaughton Medalist
- Tuesday Student Awards Luncheon - speaker - Terry Peach of GE Canada
- For those authors completing their papers - the deadline to submit
camera-ready paper, IEEE copyright form, and to complete the full registration
at a non-student rate for each paper is now extended to Friday, March 5,
2004.
- Student members - check out our subsidy program.
- More details and links - Check out the
conference web site.
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2004 RTAS Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Application
Symposium, May 25 - 28, 2004, Le Royal Meridien - King Edward Hotel, Toronto,
Ontario. Submission deadline is January 12, 2004.
For more information, please visit the conference web site.
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PQ Logic is pleased to announce 2 new
professional level seminars
- full details [PDF]
For more information and registration, please visit the PQLogic web site.
3 Day Power Quality Seminar
March 22-24, 2004 -- Niagara Falls, Ontario
This 3-day course will equip the participants with the "right"
train-of-thought needed to identify the Root-Cause of Power Quality problems.
Participants will be able to establish the basic analysis criteria and learn
proven mitigation techniques. The third day will consist of sessions
delivered by industrial specialists.
2 Day Short Circuit Analysis Seminar
March 25-26, 2004 -- Niagara Falls, Ontario
Based on "A Practical Guide to Short Circuit-Calculations" by Conrad St.
Pierre, two-day course has been designed as a step-by-step reference for
engineers planning on calculating short-circuits currents in electrical
power systems. The course deals exclusively with ANSI guidelines.
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RWL04 Real World Linux 2004 Conference & Expo,
April 13 - 15, 2004,
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Ontario.
Your Connection to Today's Applications and Solutions
- overview [PDF]
Attend Real World Linux Conference & Expo, April 13-15, 2004 Canada's
only national comprehensive event focusing on Linux and Open Source operating
systems for business, government and education users, resellers and
developers. For more information and registration, please visit the conference web site. IEEE members - free pre-registration for
trade show, 25% discount for conference/tutorials.
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interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter,
please contact the editor.
Thanks For Reading
That's all for now, hope to have you visit again next month ..... Bob Alden,
Editor
Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to the
editor at this email
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