Professor named ACM Distinguished Scientist

by Anna Beard.

Ihab Ilyas, a professor with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science has been named an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist.

"The award is well deserved recognition of Ihab's excellent research contributions in database technology, in particular rank-aware query processing, uncertain data management, and data cleaning," said director Mark Giesbrecht and fellow ACM Distinguished Scientist, in an e-mail to members of the school.

Professor Ilyas's research interests are in area of database systems, with special interest in top-k and rank-aware query processing, managing uncertain and probabilistic databases, self-managing databases, indexing techniques, and spatial databases. Professor Ilyas's research is systems-oriented with an emphasis on prototype development and experimentation.

The ACM Distinguished Scientist award recognizes ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience (including some education experience) and five years of continuous professional membership who have achieved significant accomplishments or have made a significant impact on the computing field.

Professor Ilyas joins fellow ACM Distinguished Scientists Don Cowan, Mark Giesbrecht, Anna Lubiw, and Jeffrey Shallit, and ACM Distinguished Fellows Frank Tompa, Tamer Ozsu, Srinivasan Keshav, and Ian Munro.

 

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REEP celebrates 15 years; hands out awards

REEP Green Solutions, which got its start as a pilot project at the University of Waterloo, celebrated a decade-and-a-half as a successful sustainability organization with an awards event at the Victoria Park Pavilion in Kitchener Tuesday entitled "Celebrating Community Action: REEP’s 15 Years."

REEP Green Solutions, formerly named the Residential Energy Efficiency Project, is an environmental charity and social enterprise that serves Waterloo Region. REEP was founded at the University of Waterloo in 1999 and has since conducted 14,000 home energy evaluations, helping residents reduce 21,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually. In 2010, the organization opened the REEP House for Sustainable Living, a demonstration home and education centre located at 20 Mill Street, Kitchener. In 2011, REEP initiated a ground breaking rainwater management education program across all sectors in Waterloo Region. Between 2011 and 2013, REEP co-led the creation of the Climate Action Plan for Waterloo Region along with Sustainable Waterloo Region, area municipalities and local utilities.

The event celebrated people who "made exemplary energy efficiency and stormwater improvements" while bringing together funders, community members, businesses and elected officials to recognize the community's shared accomplishments.

“This is our way of saying thank you to the ordinary homeowners, teachers and organizations who are making our community more sustainable,” said Mary Jane Patterson, executive director of REEP Green Solutions. “We have been so inspired by the work we see at homes, churches, schools and businesses! We want to recognize that good work and share these stories to inspire others to do the same.”

Thirteen Community Action Awards were presented in categories including Energy, Stormwater and Education.

Among the winners was Mary Louise McAllister, associate professor and Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Environment, who took home the "Energetic Educator Award, Post-secondary School" award. Professor McAllister has been a longtime REEP supporter, bringing 132 students to the REEP House for Sustainable Living since 2013. "Mary Louise is a strong advocate for experiential learning," says the award citation. "This ties in with one the main goals of REEP House: to provide a hands-on experience where students can see classroom concepts brought to life."

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Latest Drama offering an Earnest affair

The Department of Drama and Speech Communication is bringing Oscar Wilde's timeless farce The Importance of Being Earnest to the stage of the Theatre of the Arts.

Described as a "subversive and cockeyed mirror held up to Edwardian English society that still manages to reflect back our society in the 21st century," the play is being directed by Stewart Arnott, a 35-year veteran of the stage. As a director, Arnott's recent credits include The Swearing Jar (Prairie Theatre Exchange), Tuesdays With Morrie (Campbell House Museum), Vincent River (Cart/Horse Theatre), the world premiere of Pobby and Dingan by Paula Wing at YPT, The Piper and Unity (1918) at Ryerson Theatre School, and Amadeus and The Mystery of Irma Vep for Theatre Aquarius.

The production stars Brendan Stehouwer as Algernon, Emma Mann as Cecily, Kelly Hornung as Gwendolen and Alan Shonfield as Jack.

Set designer Bill Chesney and costume designer Sharon E. Secord have created a beautiful homage to the Edwardian period.

The plot goes something like this:

"Whenever Jack Worthing slips away to London from his Hertfordshire estate he says he is going to see his wayward brother “Ernest”. Once there he keeps his privacy by calling himself Ernest - luckily so, as his beloved Gwendolen declares she could only love a man with that name! Her cousin Algernon is the one person who knows Jack's secret and one day he travels down to the estate, announcing himself to Jack's attractive ward Cecily as bad brother Ernest. Cecily is much taken with him and with his name, so upon Jack's return home, and Gwendolen's unexpected arrival, it becomes clear there are both too many and too few Ernests earnestly courting."

The absurd farce is considered one of the truly great comedies in the English language almost 120 years after its debut in London.

"Join us for this light-hearted, romantic and whimsical comedy as we witness ten people doing anything, and everything they can to get what they want," writes production manager Janelle Rainville.

The show runs from Thursday, November 13 to Saturday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts. General admission is $17, with students and seniors paying $13. High school student matinees will take place at 12:00 p.m. on November 12 and 14.

 

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Thursday's notes

The University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) is celebrating the launch of two exhibitions that will run until December 20.

In Gallery One is the work of Zeke Moores, entitled "Dispose." Moores' sculptures draw inspiration from everyday life and are modified and manipulated in unexpected ways. Moores reclaims ordinary and mundane objects—cardboard boxes, wooden crates, milk crates, and a blanket—as cultural artifacts of our time, recreating them in bronze and aluminum. Moores develops each work by hand, drawing on his knowledge and skills in foundry production and fabrication. The exhibition is curated by Srimoyee Mitra and Bruce Johnson.

In Gallery Two is an exhibition by Kelly Jazvac entitled "Anthropophotogenic." Jazvac creates abstract assemblages out of discarded materials reclaimed from the advertising and plastics industries. Sculptures and wall works propose connections between these synthetic materials and the larger social, environmental and economic systems that foster them. Jazvac’s current focus is a plastic pollution-focused research group, which includes an interdisciplinary collaboration with geologist Professor Patricia Corcoran and oceanographer Charles Moore. Their work centres around the discovery and study of a new stone that have termed Plastiglomerate, a mix of natural materials—sand, coral, volcanic rock— and melted plastic debris that washes ashore from the ocean. They consider this research to be evidence of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch in which human progress has left an indelible mark upon the fossil record.

There is an opening reception at the UWAG in East Campus Hall tonight from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

"Do you wait until the last minute to get your assignments done? Don't let procrastination hold you back! The Federation of Students is hosting the Long Night Against Procrastination with the Student Success Office, the Library, and the Writing Centre," writes Jacqueline Martinz. "All undergraduates are able to attend four informative sessions including one on time management that begin at 8:00 p.m. More information is available online."

uw-unsecured, we hardly knew ye: The dependable yet dicey campus wi-fi network "uw-unsecured" will be discontinued on January 5, 2015. uw-unsecured differs from its more secure companion networks like eduroam in that there is no encryption of Wi-Fi traffic and is such vulnerable to certain types of attacks, says Information Systems & Technology (IST). Historically, the network catered to some older operating systems that did not support the more advanced protocols necessary for more secure networks. According to IST, all modern devices now support WPA2 Enterprise Wi-Fi authentication, which is the standard used by Eduroam.

IST recommends that all users move to the eduroam Wi-Fi SSID before January 5, 2015. The uw-unsecured login page now features a notice that highlights the deadline and contains instructions for switching to Eduroam before uw-unsecured disappears into the Ethernet for good.

Anyone with issues and concerns should email request@uwaterloo.ca or contact the IST Service Desk (the CHIP) at extension 84357.

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