Monday, August 15, 2016

Coming Soon: a new Employee and Family Assistance Program

A message from the EAP Committee

The University of Waterloo is excited to launch a new benefit for eligible employees and their family members at no additional cost to employees. An Employee & Family Assistance Program (EFAP) provided by Homewood Health will be launched effective September 1, 2016.

The EFAP provides services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Access to confidential, short term, counselling services are available in your community in person, online, or by telephone. In addition to counselling services, the EFAP will include other tools and resources that contribute to individuals’ health and wellbeing.

More information will be provided in early September, including a schedule of information sessions for employees presented by Homewood Health to highlight the full suite of services available through the EFAP.  

Waterloo device now on International Space Station

This article was originally posted on the Faculty of Engineering news site.

A sophisticated optical imaging device developed by a company with strong ties to Waterloo Engineering has been sent into orbit for use by researchers aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The spectrometer from P&P Optica, a Waterloo company headed by alumna Olga Pawluczyk, was on a SpaceX rocket launched earlier this month to deliver supplies and research equipment under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

It uses light to determine the chemical composition of substances and will be employed on the ISS for experiments mainly involving the atmosphere and sunlight.

A graduate of systems design engineering at Waterloo, Pawluczyk  became chief executive officer of P&P, which was started by her father and her brother, in 2004. Its workforce has since doubled.

The company’s spectrometer – described by Pawluczyk as the “next logical step after the camera” – splits light into multiple colours to indicate the chemical structures of an item and has applications in the mining, oil and gas, defence and health-care fields.

After delivering about 2,250 kilograms of cargo to the ISS earlier this month, the Dragon spacecraft – launched from Cape Canaveral via the Falcon 9 rocket – is scheduled to return to Earth in late August.

Media.doc opening new services in STC and SCH

A message from the Book Store & Media.doc team 

A new Media.doc location opened on August 2 in the new Science Teaching Complex. This Media.doc offers 3D printing, Science branded beaker mugs, lab coats, lab essential supplies in addition to the traditional print services including oversize poster printing in colour or black and white.   During the soft opening, the staff have received overwhelming positive feedback about the new Science concept store.

This September, the Media.doc print services in Dana Porter Library will move to the Book Store in South Campus Hall. Since 2009, when the Book Store installed the Espresso Book Machine, customers expected additional print services to be available. In response to these requests and to improve printing services for the south side of the campus, the relocation of the Media.doc DP services aligns with the Book Store’s Print on Demand and Custom Publishing strategy.

To improve services and open in new locations, Media.doc DP and Media.doc CEIT have closed and the space has reverted back to University Space Management.

Grand opening dates for Media.doc STC and Media.doc SCH will be announced this fall.

Monday's notes

The latest event in the WISE Public Lecture Series will take place tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in CPH 4333. Professor Kobra Gharali, a Waterloo Engineering alumna, will deliver remarks entitled “Wind Turbine Dynamic Stall & Solar Car Cooling Systems.” 

Gharali is an assistant professor at the University of Tehran.

"Dynamic stall is a phenomenon which occurs in wind turbines causing significant energy waste," notes the lecture abstract. "In more extreme incidences it has also been known to lead to wind turbine failure. The first part of this lecture will discuss how to deal with various environmental factors that can cause yaw loads leading to dynamic stall aerodynamic forces."

"The second part of the lecture will move on to focus on an introduction to two solar applications. I will also touch upon the subjects of solar cooling systems and their applications in my work for the MAPNA Group in Iran and other solar competitions such as Ghazal III."

This event is free and open to the public.

Plant Operations has announced that a large crane will be delivered and assembled on Tuesday, August 16 on the north side of Engineering 5 by the Anechoic Chamber.

The crane will lift a chiller unit into E5's mechanical penthouse between Wednesday, August 17 and Thursday, August 18. The chiller will serve the new Engineering 7 facility.

Emergency pedestrian egress will be maintained and well as access to the stand pipes on the east side for the Fire Department. Garage door access to the student bays or the chamber will not be available during this time.

There will be an electrical shutdown at UWP from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, August 19 at UWP affecting all buildings - Woolwich Court, Beck Hall, Wellesley Court, Waterloo Court, Wilmot Court and Eby Hall. A tie-in to the new residence buidling will be installed. Please ensure that all computers are shut down properly before the work is carried out.