Daily Bulletin

Exams postponed to December 22

The official closing means that exams scheduled for today won't be held. The date listed in the calendar for rescheduling cancelled exams is Friday, December 22. So today's exams are now scheduled to be written at the same hour on December 22.

I've been hearing from a number of students whose pre-Christmas travel plans are being upset by the rescheduling. Registrar Ken Lavigne says students should get in touch with the course instructor to discuss other arrangements for getting the exam written, if necessary.

The registrar also noted that academic assignments that were due today -- take-home exams, for example -- are now due at the same hour tomorrow that was to be the deadline today.

Other effects of the winter storm

The procedure says that staff members, except those responsible for "essential services", get the day off with pay. Essential services are defined as food service in the residences, policing, the central plant (powerhouse), snow removal (grounds crew), emergency repair and maintenance, and animal care. The procedure gives details about how departments are supposed to apply the rules about time off for staff.

UW police said about 8 a.m. that the campus was quiet. The ring road is "fine", thanks to steady work by the overnight shift of the grounds crew, but parking lost are "rough" at best, I was told. Blowing snow may make them still worse as the day goes by.

The biggest problem being faced by the police, sergeant Marshall Gavin told me, was constantly ringing phones with people wanting to know whether UW was closed. He urges people to listen to the radio or check UWinfo rather than phoning.

Across campus, food outlets will be closed today (except of course in the Villages) and so will the libraries and just about everything else. Among today's events-that-were-to-be:

• A talk by Bernie Roehl in the LT3 centre, about "3-D Virtual Worlds".
• Performances of "The Nutcracker" in the Humanities Theatre (there are more shows tomorrow, 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.).
• The computer store's Customer Appreciation Night, which has been "postponed until further notice".

Towards a 'health informatics' program

"It's our first-ever meeting," said Nick Cercone yesterday. He is chair of the computer science department, and invited representatives of various hospitals as the department moves along with plans for several related programs in the new field of health informatics.

Cercone is among those who think that Waterloo has much to offer in a field where much is needed. UW president David Johnston -- who was to be one of the speakers at this morning's meeting -- raised the subject in a public forum earlier this year, recalling a meeting in April at which university and hospital experts talked over the ways better information and communication could make health care more efficient and effective. The great majority of patients arrive at teaching hospitals without information about previous tests and previous treatments, Johnston said then; and only 15 per cent of Ontario physicians use e-mail in their work. "We have a role to play," he said. "We are perfectly positioned as a university to respond to that need."

Besides Johnston, provost-to-be Alan George was to be speaking to today's visitors, along with Mike Sharratt, dean of the faculty of applied health sciences.

Cercone is foreseeing several developments in health informatics at UW. Already being organized is a "diploma program" for people working in the field, modelled on the Education Program for Software Professionals. Later would come a "technical master's degree" in the CS department, and possibly an undergraduate option in the AHS faculty.

"We offered a graduate seminar last term, just to see," said Cercone, reporting that it was very well received.

Answers to the trivia contest

And here are the approved answers (for which I'm relying on Harry Froklage of St. Jerome's University, coordinator of the recent trivia party from which all this material was borrowed).

1. Police force -- Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
2. Novel by Bulwer-Lytton -- It was a dark and stormy night
3. Caesar and Cleopatra -- Sonny and Cher
4. Max Yasgur -- owned the land where Woodstock was held
5. bustle in your hedgerow -- Stairway to Heaven
6. rodent -- beaver
7. Irish-born writer -- George Bernard Shaw
8. apple logo -- Granny Smith
9. Blue and White Nile -- Sudan (Khartoum)
10. tails -- whales horizontal, sharks vertical
11. not in the UN -- Switzerland
12. Beethoven's operas -- one
13. Lapland -- Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia
14. legs, waistline, nose -- all insured by Lloyd's of London
15. Agamemnon and Marat -- both murdered in the bathtub
16. lowest body of water -- Dead Sea
17. oldest Parliament -- Iceland
18. Steven Page et al. -- Barenaked Ladies
19. 'Tonight Show' theme -- Paul Anka
20. Barney Fife's pocket -- one bullet
21. married to both kings -- Eleanor of Aquitaine
22. musical inspired by Chagall painting -- Fiddler on the Roof
23. asparagus -- lily family (but see below)
24. black performer -- Bill Cosby ("I Spy")
25. most popular name -- Muhammad

Asparagus is in the Asparagaceae in the Asparagales according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. Their conclusion is based on several very large DNA studies of all flowering plants. Most books place the genus Asparagus in the Liliaceae (the lily family), which is an artificial assemblage of genera from more than a dozen families and two orders as now understood by modern experimental plant systematics. I pass this information on only in the interest of accuracy and because this is the kind of thing professors do!

There were three entries to which I'd award 23 points, three more with 22 points, and others with lower scores but, in some cases, interesting guesses. I'm grateful to everybody who took time to enter -- in the middle of exam season.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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