Thursday, May 26, 2016

By-election called for graduate student senators

A by-election has been called to fill two graduate student senator vacancies, both with terms ending April 30, 2017.

The Secretariat & Office of General Counsel has opened nominations for this by election, and these will be accepted beginning today.

To submit a nomination, please complete the nomination form and deliver to Emily Schroeder in Needles Hall, room 3060.

Completed nomination forms must have five nominators' signatures, as required by Senate Bylaw 3, and must be received no later than 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1.

Please refer to Senate Bylaw 3 for more information on nominations and elections. Any questions relating to any of the above may be directed to Emily Schroeder at extension 32749.

Learn, Make, Play: The GI Jam is fast approaching

Are you interested in game design and game play? The GI Jam is a multi-day event hosted by the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute from Friday, June 3 to Sunday, June 5 that focuses on creating innovative new games.

Each GI Jam follows the motto "Learn, Make, Play."

• LEARN: you can hear talks from invited experts about the tools and techniques involved in the design and creation of games.
• MAKE: you can try your hand at building your own games from scratch along with helpful advice and guidance from our GI mentors.
• PLAY: You can explore new kinds of games, try out some of the brand-new games that were made at the G.I. Jam itself, and give/receive feedback on yours and others' creations!

If you’re interested in attending this event, simply RSVP and be sure to bring your own laptop and any other supplies you might need (construction paper and markers will be provided in limited supply).

The event will cost $15 at the door, and visa and debit are accepted.  If you have any questions about the GI Jam, you can contact the organizers by sending an e-mail to gijam@uwaterloo.ca.

This event is brought to you by The Games Institute, UW International Game Development Association (UW IGDA), IMMERSE and UW Game Development Club (UW GDC).

Study boosts argument for legible pill bottle labels

Results of a recent study from the University of Waterloo and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) bolster the argument for changes in the way pharmacies print instructions to patients.

The researchers tested prescription labels based on recommended guidelines and found a significant improvement in their readability over the ones currently in use. 

The study appears in a recent issue of Canadian Pharmacists Journal and is the first to show how improved legibility translates into significantly faster reading times for people with normal vision and with vision loss. When drug labels are easier to read, patients may be better able to adhere to their prescription instructions.

“For Canadians with vision loss, it is essential that prescription drug labels follow clear print guidelines,” said Diane Bergeron, executive director of strategic relations and engagement at CNIB. “People who cannot read prescription labels or distinguish amongst different medications are at risk for misusing their medication and potentially putting their health in jeopardy.”

Researchers asked 71 adult patients ranging in age and visual acuity to read prototype labels versus sample labels from a pharmacy, with both types of labels containing standardized prescription information. They created the prototype labels using recommended guidelines from CNIB. The sample labels came from 12 different pharmacies, reflecting the disparities patients currently see on prescriptions and used all uppercase lettering for the instructions, problematic for patients who have issues with their vision.

The prototype labels followed recommended guidelines for font size, use of bolding, justification, sentence case and spacing and led to patients reading the prototype labels between three to eight seconds faster than the pharmacy samples. Patients with vision loss struggled a full 10 seconds longer to read the pharmacy samples, compared to the prototype labels.

“Improving the legibility of prescription labelling would help make labels much more accessible to people who are sighted or have low vision,” said Dr. Susan Leat, a professor in the School of Optometry and Vision Science at Waterloo. “While uppercase is great for emphasizing one word, it actually presents a barrier when overused.”

Patients preferred the prototype labels with characters in the largest possible font (16-point), along with numbers in the instructions printed in uppercase and highlighted in yellow for emphasis.

This is the second phase of this research, which previously showed that more than half of prescription labels fail to meet recommended legibility standards in terms of font size and use of uppercase or lowercase.

The collaboration also involved Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy and was funded by CNIB.

Make Cystic Fibrosis history and other notes

Former Governor General of Canada the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson addressed campus yesterday afternoon on belonging, community and diversity.

This Sunday, May 29, join the University of Waterloo along with 70 communities and thousands of fellow Canadians in support of a world where cystic fibrosis is no longer a progressive, life-shortening disease.

Students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to sign up with the UW Foot Brigade for the CARSTAR Walk to Make Cystic Fibrosis History at Waterloo Park.

All funds raised will be invested in innovative research to help Cystic Fibrosis Canada pursue the next medical breakthrough and provide the highest standard of care for cystic fibrosis patients. If you cannot join us for the walk on May 29, please consider donating to this important cause through the University of Waterloo team. Interested participants can contact Team Captain Dana Gies, for more information.

Professor Melanie Mitchell of Portland State University and the Santa Fe Institute will be the featured speaker at a Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation talk entitled "Using Analogy to Recognize Visual Situations."

"Enabling computers to recognize abstract visual situations remains a hard open problem in artificial intelligence," says the talk's abstract. "No machine vision system comes close to matching human ability at identifying the contents of images or visual scenes, or at recognizing abstract similarity between different scenes, even though such abilities pervade human cognition."  

In her talk, Professor Mitchell will describe her research on getting computers to flexibly recognize visual situations by integrating neural networks for low-level vision with an agent-based model of higher-level concepts and analogy-making.

The event takes place in DC 1302 at 2:00 p.m. today.