“Canada at a glance” presents the current Canadian demographic, education, health, justice, housing, income, labour market, economic, travel, financial, and foreign trade statistics.

This booklet also includes important international comparisons, so that readers can see how Canada stacks up against its neighbours. Updated yearly, Canada at a glance is a very useful reference for those who want quick access to current Canadian statistics.

Access it in free full-text PDF on the Stats Canada website – “Canada at a glance”

** Photo by jpctalbot

The Open Atmospheric Science Journal is an open access, peer reviewed, online journal, which publishes research articles, reviews, and letters in all areas of climate research and atmospheric science. It aims to provide the most complete and reliable source of information on current developments in the field. The emphasis will be on publishing quality papers rapidly and freely available to researchers worldwide.

http://www.bentham.org/open/toascj/index.htm

UBC Professor Douw Steyn and Stefano Galmarini from European Commission Joint Research Centre have published “Evaluating the Predictive and Explanatory Value of Atmospheric Numerical Models: Between Relativism and Objectivism” in this new open access journal.

** Photo by selva

Dr. Erich Vogt
In addition to an outstanding career as a top researcher and scientist in the field of nuclear physics, Dr. Erich Vogt was one of the founders of the TRIUMF project at the University of British Columbia, the largest university-based scientific laboratory in Canada for particle and nuclear physics.

Dr. Vogt is a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of British Columbia, where he has taught thousands of students who have excelled under his enthusiastic mentorship and influence. Dr. Vogt has also served on many high-level advisory committees in the field of nuclear and accelerator science in various world-class institutes. He is an internationally renowned scholar, and has published many research papers on theoretical physics

For more information, go to Day of Celebration in Honour of Dr. Erich W. Vogt.

Tentative Program

Sunday, May 4, 2008

12:30 – VOGT SYMPOSIUM – Hebb Theatre
12:30 Hon. Stan Hagen (MLA, Comox Valley) – Introduction
13:00 Nigel Lockyer “The Future of TRIUMF: Building on the Past Successes”
13:40 Art McDonald “TRIUMF and UBC in the SNO experiment”
14:20 BREAK
14:40 Carlo Rubbia “Beta beams and ion cooling: the future of accelerator driven neutrino oscillations?”
15:20 Walter Kohn “Density and Density Functional Theory of Nuclei and Other Self-bound Fermi Systems”
16:00 Erich Vogt Summary
16:30 – RECEPTION – SUB Party Room
16:30 Semi-Open Microphone (sign up in advance)

Biotechnology for Biofuels is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal featuring high-quality studies describing technological and operational advances in the production of biofuels from biomass.

www.biotechnologyforbiofuels.com

We are pleased to announce a new open-access journal, Biotechnology for Biofuels [1], published online by BioMed Central. Biotechnology for Biofuels will emphasize the research and application of biotechnology and synergistic operations to improve plant and biological conversion systems for the production of fuels from lignocellulosic biomass, and any related economic, environmental and policy issues.

The need for this journal is evident: the recent explosion in research on the production and subsequent use of biofuels has huge implications for science and future policy directions, yet Biotechnology for Biofuels is the first open-access journal featuring research dedicated to this exciting and expanding field, thereby filling a vacant niche. We are convinced that a communication will facilitate scientific progress in this extremely important area, and will also help to promote informed public debate. Biotechnology for Biofuels will ensure public availability of high-caliber peer-reviewed research, reviews and commentaries on all aspects of biofuels research and any related political, economic, and environmental issues.

The benefits of publishing in an open access journal are manifold: open access enables free and universal access to articles online, at no cost to the reader, allowing research to be disseminated by as wide an audience as possible. Submitted manuscripts undergo rapid peer review by internationally renowned experts, drawn in part from our Editorial Board [2]. Articles are published immediately upon acceptance and, soon after, listed in PubMed [3]; the communication of research is therefore not postponed until the collation of an ‘issue’.

The interdisciplinary nature of biofuels research makes the benefits of open access particularly attractive, as it ensures that biologists, chemists, engineers, genomicists, and biotechnologists (to name just some of those involved) all have shared access to the latest biofuels research in each of these areas.

UBC’s Dr. Mark Halpern gave a presentation on Thursday April 17 about WMAP and some of the results from their five years with of data.

The audio and pdf presentation is available at
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/730

Abstract:

We have released maps and data for five years of observation of the cosmic microwave background with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and I will review the main results in this talk. A simple 6 parameter cosmological model continues to be an excellent fit to the CMB data and to our data in conjunction with other astrophysical measurements. In particular a running spectral index is not supported by the data, and constraints that the Universe is spatially flat have increased in precision. Increased sensitivity and improvements in our understanding of the instrumental beam shape have allowed us to measure for the first time a cosmic neutrino background. Neutrinos de-coupled from other matter earlier than photons did. While they are expected to have a 2 Kelvin thermal distribution today, they comprised 10% of the energy density of the Universe at the epoch of photon de-coupling. The data also allow tighter constraints on the shape of the inflationary potential via the amplitude of a gravitational wave background new constraints on features of cosmic axions. Recorded at TRIUMF on Thursday April 17, 2008.

Here is a recent presentation by Dr. Harvey Richer. Here is an abstract:

White dwarf stars are the burnt out remnants that remain after a star like the Sun has completed its nuclear evolution. In such a star there are no remaining nuclear energy sources, so the star evolves by simply radiating its stored thermal energy out into space. This may seem rather uninteresting, but in fact there is a wealth of physical phenomena that occur during this part of a star’s life – from getting kicked at birth, to neutrino emission in early life, to some interesting high density physics, through to functioning as precise clocks that can provide an age for some of the oldest know stars in the Universe. Some of these phases will be illustrated with detailed observations taken recently with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Click here to play mp3 file and here to view to presentation slides.

Moreover, you can play the file using the small gadget below:

As of April 1, 2008, UBC Library supports an institutional membership to the Public Library of Science (PLOS). This membership entitles UBC authors to a 10% discount on article submission costs for PLOS journals.

We are listed as institutional members on the site which includes a link to UBC authored articles.

** Photo by selva