In the News

Accidental Discovery Leads to Process Improvements

Boron subphthalocyanine polymers by facile coupling to poly (acrylic acid-ran-styrene) copolymers and the associated problems with autoinitition when employing nitroxide mediated polymerization, an article by Professor Tim Bender and Post Doctoral Fellow Benoit Lessard of the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry at U of T, is now featured in MaterialsViews.com. Read more.

Developing Materials with New Qualities for Health, Energy & the Environment

The Honourable Reza Moridi, Ontario Minister of Research & Innovation, announced $35 million in matching funding from the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) for University of Toronto researchers, including the Ontario Centre for Characterization of Advanced Materials (OCCAM), an interdisciplinary collaboration between the departments of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE) and Materials Science & Engineering (MSE). Read more.

Molly Shoichet's CRC Renewal

U of T research got a big boost on March 15, when the federal government announced $18.7 million in funding for 23 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs (CRCs), seven of which come from U of T Engineering. Professor Molly Shoichet's CRC in Tissue Engineering was one of the renewed CRCs. Read more.

March 21, 2013

In this issue:

Grad Office
IT News
Notices
Chem Eng Events

Grad Office

IT News

Apple has released Mountain Lion 10.8.3, security patches for Snow Leopard and Lion, and an update to Safari. The updates patch a number of security flaws, including a Java security hole that could affect users even if the Java web plugin has been disabled.

As of Tuesday, March 19th, Microsoft will be auto-installing Service Pack 1 on all Windows 7 PCs with automatic updates enabled. The update has been available for two years (requiring user approval before the installation) and will now be installed automatically. After April 9th, 2013, installations of Windows 7 with no installed service packs will no longer receive fixes or security updates. (Windows 7 installations with Service Pack 1 will be supported with fixes and security patches until January 2015, and will be supported with security patches only until January 2020.)

Last week, installations of AVG Antivirus were incorrectly identifying a Windows XP system file as a trojan and rendering computers unbootable if the file was removed during the course of the scan. The problem was corrected shortly after noon on March 14 with virus database 567 (AVG9, AVG2012) and virus database 6174 (AVG2013). If you are running AVG Antivirus, especially on Windows XP, verify your virus definitions database is updated to the latest version before running a scan.

Notices

Acting Chair

Graeme Norval will be Acting Chair on Tuesday, March 26.

Special Lecture

On Friday, March 22 at 2:10pm in MC102, Dr. Arun Majumdar, Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E), will be giving a lecture entitled, A New Industrial Revolution for a Sustainable Energy Future. Access to affordable and reliable energy has been a cornerstone of the world’s increasing prosperity and economic growth since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Our use of energy in the twenty-first century must also be sustainable. Dr. Majumdar's talk will provide a techno-economic snapshot of the current energy landscape and discuss several research and development opportunities and challenges to create the foundation for this new industrial revolution. The talk will also discuss policies to stimulate innovation and align market forces to accelerate the development and deployment of affordable, accessible and sustainable energy that can simultaneously power economic growth, increase energy security and mitigate the risks of climate change.

Students can Write Their Way to a $1,000 Award

Ontario students who are passionate about engineering and public policy are encouraged to enter the Ontario Centre for Engineering and Public Policy’s (OCEPP) 2013 Student Essay Competition. The competition is open to all full-time undergraduate and graduate students registered at an Ontario university. This year, students will choose from five essay questions provided. There are separate categories for undergraduate and graduate students, and the winner in each category will receive a $1,000 award and registration to the centre's 2013 Public Policy Conference, to be held in Toronto on May 31. Competition rules and winning papers from past competitions can be viewed from the “For Students” page of the OCEPP website.

Eco-Tec is Hiring

Eco-Tec, a company that manufactures innovative products and solutions related to industrial water and chemical treatment systems, is hiring for the following positions: Regional Sales Manager - Asia and Supervisor, Technical Services. Interested candidates are asked to send their resumes to careers@eco-tec.com quoting job #701-RSMA for the Regioal Sales Manager - Asia position or job # 605-STS for the Supervisor, Technical Services position.

Phones

If you are having any telephone problems at all (i.e., static, can't call out, light problems, etc.), please contact telephone repairs at 82000 and report the problem. If you are having problems with people calling you and just getting a busy signal, before you call 82000, try this - pick up your handset and dial 116. If you hear three quick beeps and then nothing, the problem may be solved. Have someone call you to check. If that doesn't clear the problem, then call 82000.

Follow Us Through Facebook, Twitter and Flickr

CHEM ENG NEWS is a weekly summary of news, events and opportunities for students, faculty and staff of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. If you have questions or comments, please contact: external.chemeng@utoronto.ca. Catch up on missed issues by visiting our archive.