From the Province – http://www.theprovince.com/sports/soccer+robot+competes+World/3150084/story.html

Thanks to Michael White, Patent Librarian extraordinaire who posted this on his blog – The Patent Librarian’s Notebook

The European Patent Office has created a new classification scheme for green technologies and applications related to the mitigation of climate
change. The new category, identified as Y02 in the ECLA classification, has two main subclasses:

* Y02C – CAPTURE, STORAGE, SEQUESTRATION OR DISPOSAL OF GREENHOUSE
GASES [GHG]
* Y02E – REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GASES [GHG] EMISSION, RELATED TO
ENERGY GENERATION, TRANSMISSION OR DISTRIBUTION [N1006]

Each subclass is further subdivided into dozens of sub-groups. Here’s
the scheme for biofuels:

* Biofuels [N1006] Y02E50/10
* CHP turbines for biofeed [N1006] Y02E50/11
* Gas turbines for biofeed [N1006] Y02E50/12
* Bio-diesel [N1006] Y02E50/13
* Bio-pyrolysis [N1006] Y02E50/14
* Torrefaction of biomass [N1006] Y02E50/15
* Cellulosic bio-ethanol [N1006] Y02E50/16
* Grain bio-ethanol [N1006] Y02E50/17
* Bio-alcohols produced by other means than fermentation
[N1006] Y02E50/18

Currently, there are about 17,000 patent documents classified under Y02.

Mining Engineering professor Marcello Veiga sings parodies in his Mining and Environment (MINE 391) students to explain the environmental and social effects of mining and he claims that new miners must change their attitudes..

This is a parody telling the story of a irresponsible miner who believes that he can extract gold using mercury and dump everything in the rivers because nobody is watching him in a remote site in the North of Canada.

Very cool…Hats off to UBC APSC Communication Office for sharing this one

A very interesting article in the June issue of Atlantic Magazine is focusing on the Conficker worm – The Enemy Within

This article reads like Dan Brown’s novel…

You can also find more academic research about Conficker in our computer sciences databases, e.g. IEEE Xplore Digital Library or ACM Digital Library

As recent article in NYT discusses new findings in the FermiLab – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/space/18cosmos.html?src=me&ref=general

The new effect hinges on the behavior of particularly strange particles called neutral B-mesons, which are famous for not being able to make up their minds. They oscillate back and forth trillions of times a second between their regular state and their antimatter state. As it happens, the mesons, created in the proton-antiproton collisions, seem to go from their antimatter state to their matter state more rapidly than they go the other way around, leading to an eventual preponderance of matter over antimatter of about 1 percent, when they decay to muons.

I could not find the relevant papers (that NYT referred to)  in arxiv.org but many of the relevant papers are in the Web of Science database

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/berkeleylab/

After more than six years of existence, Google Scholar (GS) finally adds email alert feature, thank you very much…

If you are using GS, it is a very useful feature, allowing you to keep up to date with any new research that you searched for. The vast majority of our databases allow you to do so too, except maybe Current Index to Statistics and MathSciNet (which has RSS alerts feature)…

The newest crop of 2010 Earth and Ocean Science Undergraduate Honours Theses and Reports are now available online on cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Digital Repository.

Below is a list of 2010 submissions.

Waste Solutions for Metro Vancouver
Ho, Anthony; MacDonald, Jessica; Lam, Clement; Dean, Monika; Lai, Joseph; Lu, Nan; Sim, Nari (2010-05-07)

Effects of Triclosan on a Detrital-Based, Aquatic Food Web
Chan, Carita (2010-05-07)

Ecosystem Services of the British Columbia Coast: Modeling the Impacts of Agriculture on the Provision of Shellfish
Solomon, Cody; Thompson, Allison (2010-05-05)

Slope Stability Analysis of Fly Ash Containment Dyke
Brisbin, Aaron (2010-04-27)

Mechanical strength of Anhydrite and its Role in the Seismicity of the Duke River Fault, Yukon Territory
Sampaleanu, Christian (2010-04-22)

Delineation of Groundwater Capture Zone for the Grum Pit, Faro Mine Complex, Yukon Territory
Yungyoo, Thiyapa (2010-04-19)

The Classification and Analysis of 300 Cycling Crashes that Resulted in Visits to Hospital Emergency Departments in Toronto and Vancouver. Frendo, Theresa (2010-04-15)

Sensitivity Analysis of UBCDFLOW and Debris Flow Travel Distance in Mountainous Forested Terrain around the Kootenay, British Columbia Region. Kurylo, John Bohdan (2010-04-13)

Investigation of Liquid Limit of Kamloops Silt by Soft-base Casagrande Apparatus and British Drop-Cone Penetrometer.
Lu, Alan Zhong (2010-04-12)

Identifying Landscapes and their Formation Timescales: Comparing Knowledge and Confidence of Beginner and Advanced Geoscience Undergraduate Students. Jolley, Alison Rae (2010-04-07)

Stability and Seepage Analysis of the Bralorne Gold Mines Tailings Dam Following a Change in Usage from Tailings Dam to Water Reservoir Dam. Lefrancois, Anne-Marie (2010-04-01)

An Assessment of the Greywater and Composting Toilet Tea Leach Field Geochemistry at the C.K. Choi Building, University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus. Larson, Leila (2010-02-17)

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia.

The contest, introduced this year by Dean Tyseer Aboulnasr, challenged Engineering students to share their sense of pride in their UBC experience and reflect the fun they have here.

Here is the winning video, by Paul Milaire (3rd year MECH) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szGMS6LIbkM

See all UBC engineering videos here – https://www.youtube.com/ubcengineering

86 incidents are listed. Data from NOAA Office of Response and Restoration.

Access the Database

“Each year, oil and fuel spills are caused by accidents involving tankers, barges, pipelines, trucks and storage facilities. When oil leaks into water, it spreads out rapidly forming a thin layer called a sheen. It can be harmful to birds, mammals, fish and plant life, and it can foul beaches and coastal areas. Search here to see some of the cases handled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Emergency Response Division, which provides technical and scientific help when oil spills into waterways.”

More specific information would be available in some of our databases, e.g. Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management, GREENR or GreenFile

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/

The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics have announced that the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month, April 2010, is Mathematics and Sports.

http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2010/

There are some interesting articles related to math and sports made available here – http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2010/essays/

Moreover, try the math super-database – MathSciNet for further research on sports applications in mathematics…

** Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/celinesphotographer/