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.   Now formatted for portrait-orientation printing.

Upcoming Chapter/Group Meetings

Mar 3, 2005 at 11:00 a.m.   Dr. Aziz Rahman, University Research Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, will present an Industry Applications Society Distinguished Lecture entitled "Advances in High Efficiency Interior Permanent Magnet (IPM) Motor Drives", organized by our Industry Applications Chapter.   Click for details. Mar 3, 2005 at 5:00 p.m.   Dr. Shila Heeralall, MIEE, will present a seminar entitled "Telecommunication Network Architecture, taking industry to new heights", organized by our Communications Chapter.   Click for details. Mar 10, 2005 at 6:00 p.m.   Dr. Guergachi of the School of Information Technology Management at Ryerson University will present a seminar entitled "The Support Vector Machine Approach for Engineering, Applied Science and Management Science", organized by our Signals and Applications Chapter.   Click for details. Mar 14, 2005 at 6:30 p.m.   Mitchell Shnier, consultant and embedded system developer, will present a seminar entitled "Patents: From an Inventor's Viewpoint", organized by our Engineering and Human Environment Chapter.   Click for details. Mar 23, 2005 at 6:30 p.m.   Mary-Frances Fox, President of Work Creatively, Toronto, will present a seminar entitled "Claim Your Career Equity ", organized by our Women in Engineering Affinity Group.   Click for details. Apr 1, 2005 at 6:30 p.m.   Round table discussion on: "How to have an effective meeting with your manager"   +   at 7:30 p.m.   "WIE Affinity First Anniversary Celebration", organized by our Women in Engineering Affinity Group.   Click for details. Apr 7, 2005 at 3:00 p.m.   Dr. Omid Jahromi of Bioscrypt Inc. will present a seminar entitled "Biometric Identity Verification", organized by our Signals & Applications and Computer Chapters.   Click for details. Apr 8, 2005 at 5:00 p.m.   Dr. Alyssa Apsel of Cornell University will present a seminar entitled "Merging Traditional VLSI with Photonics", organized by our Solid State Chapter.   Click for details. Apr 21, 2005 at 5:00 p.m.   Dr. Ian Hastings, Director of Reactor Development Operations at Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., will present a seminar entitled "Nuclear Power Generation – Where are we going?", organized jointly by our Power Engineering Chapter and Life Members Affinity Group.   Click for details. Apr 26, 2005 at 4:00 p.m.   Dr. Luca Dal Negro, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present a seminar entitled "Silicon-based Light Emitting Nanomaterials and Photonic Structures", organized by our Circuits & Systems Chapter.   Click for details. March-April 2005   Our Life Members Affinity Group has made preliminary arrangements for a special visit to the Trillium Hospital (Mississauga Site) to tour their Cardiac Department to show us the latest technical equipment for diagnostics and treatment.   Click for details.   If you are interested, please call Wallas Khella (905-279-2976) or Sim Murthy (905-826-2553).

Upcoming Courses

Apr 9, 2005   1-day course, “Positioned for Success, Differentiating Yourself”, Celia Desmond & Carolyn Wright, lecturers   Click for details

Apr 23, 2005   1-day course, “Breakthrough Thinking”, Celia Desmond & Randy Park, lecturers   Click for details

May 7, 2005   1-day course, “Networking with Others: The most important job you will ever have”, Celia Desmond & Carolyn Wright, lecturers   Click for details

May 13 & 14, 2005   2-day course, “Project Management – Meeting those pesky Requirements”, Celia Desmond, lecturer   Click for details

May 21, 2005   1-day course, “Understanding Personality Type: Reading Character through TRUE COLORS”, Carolyn Wright, lecturer   Click for details

Jun 4, 2005   1-day course, “Essential Communications for Engineers”, Celia Desmond, lecturer   Click for details

LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld 2005 Conference & Expo, April 18 - 20, 2005, Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Your Connection to Today's Applications and Solutions - Linux overview [PDF] - Network overview [PDF]
	LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Canada & NetworkWorld Conference & Expo Canada are the #1 Linux/Open Source and Network IT events in the third largest region in North America, following New York and San Francisco.   Both events are co-located in Toronto, providing a powerful combination of education and vendors.   The conference offers dynamic keynotes, case studies, tutorials and hands on labs by renowned industry specialists, while the trade show feature high profile experts from leading vendor companies. All this under one roof - A Total Linux & Network Experience!   For more information and registration, please visit the LinuxWorld conference & expo web site and the NetworkWorld conference & expo web site.
IEEE members - free pre-registration for trade show, 25% discount on pre-registeration for conference and tutorials - use code A101 when you pre-register and show your IEEE membership card at the door.   Pre-registration is now open!

Section News

Report on Women in Engineering January 12 event - Self-defense was the theme of WIE's January meeting.   Ms. Deb Parent, senior instructor with the "Wen-do Women's Self Defence" organization, was our guest speaker.   Her speech and workshop were very interesting and informative.   Fifteen enthusiastic women attended this meeting, listened and practiced what Ms. Parent said and taught that evening.   Ms. Parent brought us published articles and recounted real life stories that made us more aware of the potential dangers in our modern world.   She then provided us with very practical exercises which can assist us in our quest for personal safety.   While we practiced kicks, blocks and releases in groups of two we also learnt that many situations can be avoided by means of correct communication.   Many thanks to Ms. Parent for providing our group with this informative workshop.   Thanks also to all the participants for their fruitful discussions and good spirit!   submitted by Visda Vokhshoori

IEEE Canada President Bill Kennedy visited Toronto on Feb 25 to present a seminar entitled "Power Systems for the Non-Power System Engineer" and then meet with your Section Executive Committee to discuss (a) recent changes to the governing process within IEEE Canada and (b) his desire to have all Sections help their members to attain the highest membership grade they are entitled to.  

The seminar room was packed with both members and guests.   Bill's presentation explains the basics of power engineering to those who are working in the power utility business but who have not taken "power systems" courses in their studies (or who need a refresher!).   The photo on the left is of the audience, while the one on the right is a group photo taken after the break.   From the left is Mo El-Hawary from Halifax (past IEEE Canada President), Bob Hanna from Mississauga (past Toronto Section Chair and IEEE Canada President-Elect), Bill Kennedy from Calgary (IEEE Canada President) ... and on the far right Ron Chen (Power Engineering Chapter Chair and the event organizer).

Student News

IEEE Toronto LEOS Paper Prize   May 6, 2005 is the deadline for students members of the IEEE Toronto LEOS Chapter to apply for the award for the best student technical paper in the areas of lasers, electro-optics, optical communication or networks, or nonlinear optics.   Click for details.

Student Ethics Competitions are planned for all 10 IEEE Regions - The IEEE Ethics and Member Conduct Committee wants to raise the ethics awareness of IEEE members while they're still in school.   To this end, the committee is launching the IEEE Student Ethics Competition, which will provide student members with experience in applying ethical concepts to situations that might arise in the workplace.   Find out more at this IEEE web site.

IEEE News

Free Papers on IP Telephony from IEEE Communications Society   18 Feb. -- More than 20 IEEE Communications Society journal and conference papers on IP telephony technology are available free online for a limited time.   Topics include voice quality measurement and predication in the Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) environment, VoIP network admission control and VoIP network reliability.   For more information, visit the IEEE Communications Society Tech Focus web site.

Insight - IEEE has partnered with Insight, Inc. to provide discounts on over 250,000 computer hardware/software products available on the site.   IEEE members receive discounts on all products presented here, and this discount will vary by item.   IEEE members always receive Insight’s best price – the lesser of the discount price or their advertised special price.   Insight hosts three separate websites for their company in Canada, USA and UK.   Click on the Insight image on the left to view their web site and get more info, then click on the Canadian flag to apply for your personal Insight account and use IEE491261 for your password to get your discount. There is no obligation to buy when you create your account, but it will give you access to view the IEEE member discounts.

myIEEE - your personal IEEE web page - click on the myIEEE image on the left, and login to your unique personalized page.   You will need your IEEE web account to login - if you don't have one yet, get one right now - its free - click here.   This is a new IEEE service - with limited capabilities at present - it is using the IEEE membership data base to automatically create links to IEEE services that reflect your geographic and technical choices.   Look for more features in future.   As the main IEEE web site becomes more sophisticated, you will find navigation simpler and tailored to your personal preferences.

Membership

Future Senior Members of the IEEE Toronto Section   Have you been in professional practice for at least ten years and have shown significant performance over a period of at least five of those years?   You should be an IEEE Senior Member.   Need help in obtaining your three references?   We will help you - just contact Alex , our membership chair.   Please click this link to find out the advantages, the requirements, and an explanation of the process including key links to apply online.

Volunteers Invited

Volunteering a few hours a month is a very rewarding experience - we have a great group of about 45 volunteers who contribute to the smooth running of our Section - by distributing the workload over many Section members, the individual load is kept small - we are looking for a few additional members to help out in the following specific areas:
- Webmaster for an IEEE international conference to be held in Toronto in September 2006.
   If you are interested, please contact Alex
- Vice Chair & Secretary for our Power Engineering Chapter   If you are interested, please contact Ron
- Vice Chair & Secretary for our Women In Engineering Group
   If you are interested, please contact Visda
- Vice Chairs for our Engineering and Human Environment Chapter with specific Society responsibilities - one each for the Education Society, the Engineering Management Society, the Professional Communication Society, and the Reliability Society.   For descriptions of these positions refer to this position profile.   If you are interested in volunteering as a chapter Vice Chair please contact chapter chair Ed

Advertising

The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertising for items deemed to be of interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter, please contact the editor.

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