PRO/UAW, the union that tried and failed in 2006 to organize the postdocs on the 10 University of California (UC) campuses, has received official notification that it succeeded on its second try. On 19 August, the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) faxed a letter to the organizers stating that the union, known formally as Postdoctoral Researchers Organize/International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, had submitted valid signatures from a majority of the approximately 5000 UC postdocs eligible to petition for union representation. Under state law, unionization is therefore automatic. The move brings an estimated 10% of U.S. postdocs into UAW, an AFL-CIO-affiliated national union that represents more than a million other members, including UC academic employees, such as graders, teaching assistants, and lecturers.

Read the full article at here

Submitted by kevin lindstrom Science and Engineering Liaison Librarian

Here is the NYT article from August 10, 2008 that discusses water-recycling plants. An interesting lunch-time read.

We have hundreds of books on the topic, not to mention ebooks or electronic databases… Check out the following two links:

1. Water–Purification (almost 200 books)

2. Sewage–Purification. (almost 200 books)

Moreover, we have a couple of online books about the topic, for instance – “Handbook of water and wastewater treatment technologies” from Knovel. Check those out!

** Photo by elbisreverri

New CMA Report Warns Poor Air Quality Killing Canadians

OTTAWA, August 13, 2008 – The Canadian Medical Association released staggering new data today showing that this year alone as many as 21,000 Canadians will die prematurely from the effects of air pollution. While most of those deaths will be due to chronic exposure over a number of years, almost 3,000 will be the result of acute, short-term exposure.

The CMA’s report entitled No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution, shows the effects of poor air quality based on the concentrations of two highly predictive pollutants – ozone and particulate matter – on four distinct age groups of Canadians.

“With the start of the Olympics in Beijing, much has been made about the poor air quality in China and the effect it is having on our athletes,” said CMA President Dr. Brian Day. “But we have a serious home-grown pollution problem right here and Canadians, ranging from the very young to the very old, are paying the price.”

Specific findings of the No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution report include:

* By 2031, almost 90,000 Canadians will have died from the acute short-term effects of air pollution. The number of deaths, due to long-term exposure, will be over 700,000 – the population of Quebec City.
* In 2008, 80% of those who die due to air pollution will be over age 65.
* In 2008, 25 Canadians under age 19 will die of the effects of short-term exposure to air pollution.
* Ontario and Quebec residents are the worst hit Canadians, with 70% of the premature deaths occurring in Central Canada, even though these two provinces comprise only 62% of Canada’s population.
* In 2008 there will be over 9,000 hospital visits, 30,000 emergency department visits and 620,000 doctor’s office visits due to air pollution.
* The economic costs of air pollution in 2008 will top $8 billion. By 2031, they will have accumulated to over $250 billion.

“This report shows for the first time the tragic effects of the toxic air that we breathe, whether it is in my hometown of Vancouver, or across the country in St. John’s,” added Dr. Day.

No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution used a software model first developed by the Ontario Medical Association and provides detailed health and economic data relating to changes in air quality. The study uses the best available knowledge and data on air quality, human health and economics to produce accurate forecasts of health impacts and expected costs related to changes in air quality. The tool has also been validated by a panel of international experts on health and the environment.

The full report, including provincial data and tables, is available at www.cma.ca

Posted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

In addition to the pure and applied research published in scientific journals and conferences, UBC researchers also produce a large number of patents.

Dr. Tom Troczynski’s Biomaterials Group is involved with calcium phosphate / hydroxyapatite coatings, composites and cements.

This research is of major importance for bone implants and hip replacement surgery.

Two recent patents from the Espacenet database:

Bioceramic composite coatings and process

Calcium phosphate coated implantable medical devices

Posted by kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca Liaison Librarian for Materials Engineering

The 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH) is an international conference that takes place every three years. This year’s conference took place in Vancouver from July 6-20.

Select conference papers presented at ICGH 2008 are now available online at cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Information Repository. This collection continues to grow as authors contact me about adding their papers to the ICGH 2008 archive.

Dr. Peter Englezos from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is a member of the International Scientific Committee for the 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates.

Participating organizations includes

China University of Geosciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Colorado School of Mines
Geological Survey of Canada
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan
National Research Council of Canada
Technical University Berlin
United States Department of Energy
United States Geological Survey
University of British Columbia
University of Toronto

as well as a host of other universities, institutes, organizations, and companies.

If you have presented a conference paper at the ICGH 2008 conference and would like it uploaded to cIRcle, please contact kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca directly.

The Council of Canadian Academies was asked by the federal Minister of Natural Resources to assess the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility? As a result, the Expert Panel on Gas Hydrates was appointed by the Council to address the question and provide an account of the science and technology relevant to the safe extraction and use of gas hydrates in Canada.

The expert panel, chaired by John Grace (FRSC, FCAE), held its first meeting on May 8 and 9, 2007 to discuss the question with the sponsoring department (Natural Resources Canada); to agree on an outline for the assessment report; and to coordinate research and writing tasks. The question addressed by the panel is as follows: “What are the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility?”

UBC Members of the Expert Panel include

John Grace, Chair
Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Clean Energy Processes, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

Peter Englezos
Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

The Report in Focus is now available with the Full Report to be released in August 2008 from the Council of Canadian Academies website.

Dr. Tom Pedersen has co-authored an interesting editorial published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin looking at natural sewage treatment as it relates to the city of Victoria’s current policy of discharging screened sewage into the ocean environment.

“Despite scientific evidence that there are no major environmental or human health impacts, this discharge of ‘untreated’ sewage has been a constant irritation to the city’s US neighbours and to environmental groups, has resulted in a large number of lay opinions in the popular media (radio, television, newspapers, magazines), and finally resulted (July 2006) in the British Columbia Minister of the Environment directing the CRD to move to secondary sewage treatment.”

For more on this topic, have a look at Peter Chapman’s editorial Science, politics and ideology – The Victoria (BC, Canada) sewage issue.

Dr. Tom Pederson is a professor in UBC’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

On 4 July 2008 Science had an editorial about peer-review process.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5885/15

Written by the Science editors, including Bruce Alberts – the Editor-in-Chief, it is indeed an interesting read! Have a look..

** Photo by selva

On June 15, 2008 Thomson Reuters ISI has published a short report about Canadian Science. Canada’s world share of science and social-science papers over the last five years is expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 22 fields in the Thomson Reuters ISI database. Also, Canada’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.

http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/08/jun15-08_2/

It is a very interesting read that shows that Canadians scientists are most prominent in Psychology/Psychiatry and Ecology/Environmental and least prominent in Chemistry and Physics. Frankly, the whole thing surprised me very much!

What do you see in this report? Does it surprise you?

** Photo by jmv

New types of journal metrics grow more influential in the scientific community

AT ONE POINT in his career, Nobel Laureate Sir Harold W. Kroto was the second most highly cited chemist in Britain—topped only by the University of Southampton’s Martin Fleischmann, one of the proponents of cold fusion.

Kroto, who codiscovered C60 and is currently a chemistry professor at Florida State University, declines to draw any conclusions from that experience. But given the ultimate fate of cold fusion, the anecdote suggests that citation statistics aren’t always a good indicator of scientific excellence.

Read the full article at Chemical & Engineering News