Nigel Lockyer (BSc ’75)

91��ɫ alumnus and physicist Nigel Lockyer (BSc. Spec. Hons. ’75), has been appointed the new director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, reported Nature.com, , and others June 21. In September he will move from his post as director of TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics in Vancouver. Lockyer spent many years working on Fermilab’s Tevatron, and earned renown for measuring the lifetime of the bottom quark. Under his lead, TRIUMF built new experiments and international agreements, worked to produce better medical isotope supplies, and developed a commercialization arm, Advanced Applied Physics Solutions. Nature spoke with him about Fermilab’s . .

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The gala dinner will take place Thursday, April 26, from 6 to 9:30pm, at the MaRS Discovery District, 101 College Street, Toronto. Gala tickets cost $250.

Twenty-five scientists will host a table, including three from 91��ɫ. They are physics Professor Scott Menary, Professor Marshall McCall, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Professor Brenda Zimmerman, director of health industry management at the Schulich School of Business. In addition, 91��ɫ honorary degree recipient Calvin Stiller will also host a table.

Guests have the opportunity to choose which table they wish to be seated at, as long as it’s not already sold out. Each scientist will provide a brief overview of their subject and/or current work and guests are then free to ask any questions or suggest topics they would like the host to discuss. Scientists are chosen from various disciplines from academic institutions and other sectors across southern Ontario.

Scott Menary

Menary’s present main research thrust is the ALPHA experiment at the antiproton decelerator at CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics located in Geneva, Switzerland. ALPHA aims to produce, "trap", and spectrally analyze a sample of antihydrogen atoms. Comparison of the properties of antihydrogen to those of hydrogen, the most precisely understood system that exists, promises to be a stringent test of our present description of the interactions of the fundamental objects in our universe.

Before coming to 91��ɫ, Menary was a scientific associate of CERN, a research associate with the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a staff scientist with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) located near Chicago. He has performed research at CERN (specifically at LEP – the Large Electron Positron collider), Fermilab where he helped design a neutrino beam, as well as HERA, the large electron-proton collider at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, and the CLEO experiment at the CESR electron-positron collider located on the Cornell University campus.

Brenda Zimmerman

Zimmerman will discuss hospital-acquired infections, such as Clostridium difficile, which are typically antibiotic-resistant organisms and often nicknamed “superbugs”, and whether or not a different approach can provide the solution. Patients and staff in hospitals are at risk of becoming infected and of infecting others. Positive deviance is a change-management approach that has been used in six Canadian hospitals to address this challenge. The hallmark of positive deviance is locally created and implemented solutions in contrast to dictated guidelines or rules. How can the lessons learned from these hospitals be used to broadly spread the ideas without destroying the very essence of the PD approach?

Zimmerman‘s primary research applies complexity science to organizations, especially health-care organizations.  She was a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences chronic disease expert panel, is a member of the Health Foundation’s Improvement Science Network (UK), advises the Canadian Public Health Agency and is the chair of Patient Safety and Quality Committee for Mount Sinai Hospital.

Marshall McCall

"How We Got Here: The Milky Way and Beyond" is the title of McCall’s discussion. He’ll talk about our understanding of the Milky Way and how our place within it is inextricably tied to thinking about galaxies. Our own bodies bear the imprint of galactic evolution.  How did we get here mentally?  How did we get here physically?  How special are we?

McCall is an astronomer who has spent most of his research life studying the structure, evolution and formation of galaxies and galaxy aggregates. He has spent two years observing southern skies at Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories in Australia. His primary research adversary is interstellar dust, and he has spent a good deal of time uncovering what lies behind it, including two hitherto unknown galaxies in the backyard of the Milky Way.

Stiller will talk about the translation of university discoveries to world markets. As the role of universities is the pursuit of truth, their societal responsibility is to translate those findings where possible into goods and services that serve the community. Canada has lagged behind in this translation of discoveries to the community and many programs are seeking ways to improve this performance.

Calvin Stiller

Stiller, who started his career in organ transplantation and immunology research, and leading the major transplant program in Canada, has been involved with promoting translation of research both locally and nationally. He was a co-founder of MaRS and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and led the formation of venture capital to fill the gap that exists in Canada in early translation.

Following the dinner, there will be a general question-and-answer period, at which time any of the participants are free to direct a question to any of the scientists present.

The RCI for the Advancement of Science is a not-for-profit organization founded in Toronto in 1849 by a small group of civil engineers, architects and surveyors, and led by Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) who established the concept of time zones.

For more information, visit the  website or contact 91��ɫ biology Professor Ron Pearlman, a member of the RCI council and the gala organizing committee,��at ronp@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“We’re a long way off from being able to actually bottle antimatter, like in the movie Angels and Demons, but it was important to show that we could trap it for a longer period of time,” said (right), professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Physics & Astronomy. Menary works on the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus experiment, dubbed ALPHA, at the (CERN). In November 2010, ALPHA scientists successfully trapped antihydrogen atoms for the first time – but only for a fraction of a second.

“The first time, we trapped [the antihydrogen atoms] for a tenth of a second, which is actually long enough to study them,” Menary said. “But naturally we had people asking, ‘why can you only hold on to them for a tenth of second?’ This experiment demonstrates that we can hold on to them for much longer – in theory, for as long as we want,” he said.

See an online gallery of the .

ALPHA physicists, including a core team of scientists from Canadian universities, have been working to trap and study antihydrogen – the antimatter twin of hydrogen – which may help explain the “lost half of the universe.” During the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts; scientists are left with the question, where did all the antimatter go? Researchers are tackling that riddle by taking one of the best-known systems in physics, the hydrogen atom, and investigating whether its antimatter counterpart behaves in exactly the same manner.

Makoto Fujiwara, the study’s lead author, said: “We know we have confined antihydrogen atoms for at least 1,000 seconds. That’s almost as long as one period in hockey! This is potentially a game changer in antimatter research.” Fujiwara is a research scientist at , Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, and an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary.

Scientists at CERN were able to make antihydrogen almost a decade ago, but they couldn’t study it; antimatter annihilates when it comes into contact with matter, converting to energy and other particles. ALPHA scientists succeeded by constructing a sophisticated “magnetic bottle” using a state-of-the-art superconducting magnet to suspend the antiatoms away from the walls of the device and keep them isolated long enough to study them.

Canadian researchers are playing leading roles in the antihydrogen detection and data analysis aspects of the project. The collaboration includes scientists from University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and TRIUMF.

Above: The TRIUMF cyclotron at the University of British Columbia. Photo courtesy of TRIUMF.

The next step for ALPHA is to start performing measurements on trapped antihydrogen; this is due to get underway later this year. The first step is to illuminate the trapped antiatoms with microwaves, to determine if they absorb precisely the same frequencies (or energies) as their matter twins.

ALPHA-Canada and its research is supported by the (NSERC), TRIUMF, (AIF), the and (FQRNT).

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The evening saw the presentation of the faculty's inaugural internal research awards to chemistry Professor Dasantila Golemi-Kotra, recipient of the ; biology Professor Chun Peng, recipient of the 2010 Established Researcher Award; and physics Professor (Kumar), the recipient of the 2010 Graduate Mentoring Award.

Above: From left, Janusz Kozinski, dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering; physics Professor Anatharaman Kumarakrishnan, biology Professor Chun Peng; and chemistry Professor Dasantila Golemi-Kotra

“These awards were created in 2010 to honour and celebrate the outstanding dedication of our faculty to research and graduate student mentoring. This year's recipients are examples of the excellent talent we have at FSE and we are proud to support our researchers in their fundamental, groundbreaking and innovative research endeavours,” said Janusz Kozinski, dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering.

Since 2004, Golemi-Kotra has studied the mechanisms of bacterial resistance. Over the course of her research, she has secured significant funding to create a reputable team of researchers. She has established herself as a rising star in the field of biological chemistry. Her research focuses on an emerging and persistent problem of bacterial resistance.

Right: Dasantila Golemi-Kotra

Specifically, Golemi-Kotra's research focuses on the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, a leading cause of hospital- and community-acquired infections. Extensive use of antibiotics has invariably been followed by the development and spread of resistance in this organism.

Her research aims to elucidate genes involved with the bacteria’s response to antibiotics that specifically target cell wall biosynthesis. Essential to the survival of the bacterium, the cell wall is the organism’s first line of defense against antimicrobial agents. As a result, the cell wall remains an important target in drug development. Golemi-Kotra’s research seeks to identify new factors involved in antibiotic resistance, which will ultimately lead to the design of new antimicrobial agents.

A world expert in the area of ovarian cancer and the molecular basis of complications in pregnancy, biology Professor Chun Peng is the recipient of the 2010 Established Researcher Award. With an impressive track record of awards and publications, a strong research program and team, Peng has made a significant contribution to the understanding of reproductive biology and the role of hormones in human health.

Right: Chun Peng

She discovered new proteins and their role in the molecular mechanism of receptor signaling that have led to the discoveries of mis-regulation during placental pathologies. These studies are critical in understanding placental development and are important landmarks in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of hormonal control in reproduction.

Significantly, her research team has identified a novel mechanism by which chemo-resistance, a major problem in cancer therapy, is developed. Currently, as a result of those discoveries, novel serum markers may be used to predict preeclampsia, a major disorder of human pregnancy and a leading cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Peng's studies focus on ovarian cancer as well as diseases that result from complications of pregnancy. Her research has the potential to not only advance current knowledge but may also lead to potential diagnostic tools and treatment for complications arising from pregnancy.

Kumarakrishnan (Kumar), a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, is this year's recipient of the Excellence in Graduate Mentorship award. A large number of both graduate students have successfully completed their research under his mentorship and moved onto becoming valuable members of the scientific community.

Right: Anatharaman Kumarakrishnan (second from the left) with his team of graduate student researchers

Kumar's  research utilizes the wave nature of cold atoms and the coherent transient response of a collection of laser-cooled atoms to carry out tabletop studies of light matter interactions and precision measurements in atomic physics. The goals of these efforts are to achieve a better understanding of the theoretical foundations of atomic physics as well as to develop cutting-edge techniques and instruments for industrial applications in photonics and optics.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Tier 1 CRCs were renewed for professors ,�� and . Professor was awarded an Advancement Chair, taking her from a Tier 2 to a Tier 1 CRC. Each Tier 1 CRC attracts $200,000 annually in federal funding, over a seven-year period, for a total of $1.4 million per chair.

The funding will allow Flett, Hessels, Tsotsos and Vosko to continue their respective research in personality and health, computational vision, atomic physics, and the political economy of gender and work.

“Federal government investment in research is crucial for Canadian universities because we are competing with the rest of the world to attract top researchers,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. “Through these investments, researchers at 91��ɫ are able to contribute significantly to new discoveries, public policy and economic development, and national and international dialogue across the full range of disciplines.”

91��ɫ’s renewals were part of $275.6 million announced by Tony Clement, federal minister of Industry,��to fund 310 new or renewed CRCs at 53 Canadian universities. “The Harper government is continuing its longstanding commitment to invest in science and technology to create jobs, strengthen the economy and improve the quality of life of Canadians,” said Clement. “For the past 10 years, the Canada Research Chairs Program has brought breakthroughs in clean energy, the control of infectious disease, business management, and digital technologies.This funding will help strengthen Canada’s capacity for leading-edge research while, at the same time, building economic opportunities for Canadians.”

Clement made the announcement at the start of a conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the CRC program. The conference, which began yesterday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, continues today. Vosko took part in the “Thinking Ahead: A look at what the future holds for Canada” panel discussion on Wednesday. 91��ɫ Professor (right), Canada Research Chair in Art, Digital Media & Globalization, will participate in today's Art, Technology and Society panel.

91��ɫ has 28 research chairs, including the four renewals announced yesterday. Here are details on the work of the four:

Gordon Flett (left), CRC in Personality and Health (Tier 1), examines personality as the key to many health problems stemming from chronic stress exposure. Certain aspects of the personality trait of perfectionism can be particularly harmful. His team studies risk and resilience factors across the lifespan. He and Paul Hewitt co-developed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, a model reconstruction of both the personal and interpersonal components of perfectionism. Research based on the model has firmly established that perfectionism has personal and interpersonal components and is associated with various forms of maladjustment, including health problems, depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. His research agenda also explores the relationship between perfectionism and psychological disorders, including eating disorders, postpartum depression and recovery from physical illnesses. A professor of psychology, Flett is associate dean, research and graduate education, in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health.

Eric Hessels (right), CRC in Atomic Physics (Tier 1), is researching the difference between matter and antimatter. His 91��ɫ team is working with researchers from Harvard University on a method to trap the antiatoms long enough to conduct experiments. This work is being done in conjunction with the international ATRAP (Antihydrogen Trap) collaboration. Hessels’ research also involves measuring the energies and orbits of helium atoms to provide the most accurate measurement of the “fine structure constant,” which determines the strength of electric and magnetic forces between charged objects. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of Physics at 91��ɫ.

John Tsotsos (left), CRC in Computational Vision (Tier 1), integrates the fields of visual psychology, computer vision, robotics and visual neuroscience to investigate new models of human visual mechanisms and how they may lead to intelligent seeing machines. His research falls into three main themes: visual attention in humans and computer systems, visually guided mobile robotics, and computer vision. He designed the first computerized motion recognition system, used in cardiology, and developed the Selective Tuning Model for visual attention, widely considered the leading model for consolidating current understanding of the process of visual attention. He has also designed an intelligent, visually guided wheelchair intended for physically disabled children. A past director of 91��ɫ’s internationally recognized , Tsotsos is the Distinguished Research Professor of Vision Science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at 91��ɫ.

Leah F. Vosko (right), CRC in the Political Economy of Gender and Work, examines the contours of precarious employment to foster new statistical, legal, political and economic understandings of this phenomenon. Two of the chair’s principal projects involve constructing a research database on gender, work and labour market insecurity in Canada in comparative perspective — the — and overseeing a research alliance comprised of community and university researchers studying employment standards modernization in Canada and internationally. A professor of political science and a co-director of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Research on Work and Society, Vosko also teaches and supervises students in women’s studies, sociology, public policy administration and law, socio-legal studies, social and political thought, health equity, and communications & culture. Her most recent book, Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment, was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press, UK.

By Janice Walls, media relations officer. Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Vergados developed this technique to get more accurate readings of the Earth’s thermal structure.

It was designed for satellite-to-satellite GPS signals but works just as well in ground-to-satellite GPS used by the average driver.

Left: Panagiotis Vergados

Atmospheric scientists like Vergados estimate atmospheric parameters – pressure, density and temperature – by analyzing GPS signals received by low Earth-orbiting (LEO) satellites orbiting inside the Earth’s ionosphere.

As GPS signals enter the ionosphere – the Earth’s uppermost layer – on their way to the LEO satellite, the signals bend and accelerate. Scientists routinely correct for this effect when analyzing the signals for atmospheric parameters.

But they don’t bother correcting the second-order ionospheric effect – that of the Earth’s magnetic field on the GPS signal traversing the Earth's ionosphere. “It is a bit cumbersome to trace the signal and have knowledge both of the magnetic field and electron content at every point along its trajectory,” says Vergados.

No longer. The 28-year-old Vergados has found a simpler way to factor in this second-order ionospheric correction that results in more accurate atmospheric readings.

He applied the Faraday rotation phenomenon, a radio-astronomical technique used to calculate magnetic signals coming from galaxies, to resolving the second-order ionospheric correction in the GPS signals. “I said to myself, why not give it a try and maybe the Faraday would work better.” It did.

To make the Faraday technique work in retrieving more accurate atmospheric data from GPS signals, Vergados had to design three algorithms. He has presented each one in three separate and award-winning research papers, two of which have already been published in scientific journals.

“One would be good, but three is very good” for a doctoral student, says a proud Vergados, who hopes to graduate this coming academic year.

The first paper was "Bending angle retrieval algorithms using COSMIC mission observations". It won the national Best Student Paper Award in Geodesy at the Canadian Geophysical Union (CGU) conference in Banff, Alta., in 2008.

The second was “Studying the effect of GPS radio occultation bending angle variations on the retrieval process of dry atmospheric temperature profiles: A sensitivity analysis”. It won third place in the international Best Student Research Paper competition at the fourth in Boulder, Colorado in 2009. (COSMIC is a constellation of six micro-satellites orbiting the Earth at about 800 kilometres)

The third was titled “A new technique in retrieving Total Electron Content and second-order ionospheric delays in radio occultation experiments using GPS”. It won two awards –  – presented earlier this month in Ottawa at the 2010 (CMOS-CGU). The congress had over 1,000 registrants, and Vergados was competing against 10 to 15 students across Canada.

Judges must have been not only impressed with the groundbreaking content but with his easy-to-understand presentation, says Vergados.

Left: Panagiotis Vergados (right) accepts his 2010 CMOS-CGU prizes, with Spiros Pagiatakis,��his PhD supervisor and CGU president

“The topic is completely new and I am one of the few students in Canada who works in this kind of research.”

Not bad for a PhD student in physics who grew up in Greece and only came to Canada seven years ago.

Vergados earned a bachelor of science in physics from the University of Ioannina in Greece in 2003. At a wine and cheese reception at the university, the Canadian ambassador approached him and his friends and suggested they attend a workshop on graduate studies in Canada. For a lark, he applied to 91��ɫ. Meanwhile, he found a graduate position in Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and planned to go to school there – until 91��ɫ accepted him. Before he could say no, his Canadian-born mother had packed his bags and bought him a ticket to Toronto. He could speak English and had family here.

By 2006, Vergados had a master of science. For the past four years, under the supervision of Spiros Pagiatakis, a professor of geomatics engineering in 91��ɫ’s , he has been working on his PhD. He expects to graduate next year and is already scouting around for a post-doc fellowship at national research centres and universities in Canada.

Vergados has no intention of returning to Greece. “I’m glad I came to 91��ɫ.”

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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These quasar winds can be quite influential in the creation of galaxies. They can turn on or shut down star formation. Between two and four billion years in the future, scientists expect the Milky Way and the Andromeda spiral galaxies to collide and become one elliptical galaxy. If this occurs, the two black holes at the centre of each will likely merge and the resulting quasar winds will shut down any future star formation in the new galaxy.

Right: An artist's conception of dust in a quasar's wind. Drawing courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

“We think that this happened a lot more when the universe was younger,” says Hall.

Little is really known about quasars, never mind their winds. “We’ve only started looking at quasars in the last 50 years,” says Hall. “Most of them are quite far away and rather faint. The first discovery of a quasar was in about 1963.”

What is known is that quasars are glowing, flat discs of swirling, spiralling and colliding gas the size of the Earth’s solar system that surround a black hole, which has a mass of millions or billions times the sun's. They’re created, says Hall, when these black holes at the centre of every large galaxy draw in the surrounding gas clouds, which collide and flatten out like a giant disc. The closer the gas spirals to the mouth of the black hole, the faster it travels and the more heat it creates, which generates light and creates a quasar.

The question Hall wants answered is: what are the characteristics of the winds that can be generalized from one quasar to the next and how will that help determine how each quasar will develop and act over time?

Left: Patrick Hall

Quasar winds can reach speeds of several thousands of kilometres per second, whipping gas away from the black holes at the centre of galaxies. Studying these winds is similar to digging up an ancient ruin. The light from one of the quasars which Hall is studying, with the help of his 2009 Undergraduate summer research assistant Konstantin Anosov, took some seven billion years to reach Earth. A lot can happen in that time – such as the formation of Earth, which is four-and-a-half-billion years old. The quasar in question is no longer in existence. A new one may have formed around the same black hole long ago – maybe several. Anyone wanting to study the newest quasar will have to wait a few billion years.

When talking quasars, the winds are matter which flies off from the disc around the quasar. The wind can be vertical or horizontal, compact or loose. Think of a blender, says Hall. “Not all the gas spirals into the black hole; like liquid in a blender, most of it spins around, but some is flung out at high velocity.”

Right: An illustration of wind from an accretion disc around a black hole at the centre of a quasar. Illustration courtesy of NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

But seeing these winds can be tricky. Some of the gas in the wind absorbs light and can be seen, but some has been completely ionized and doesn’t absorb much light, becoming effectively invisible. The angle of viewing dictates how much or how little of the winds are visible.

One of the quasars Hall has been studying was first discovered in 1995. In 2007, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, of which Hall is a part, looked at that quasar again and noticed the wind showed a decrease in absorption. In 2009, Hall and Anosov booked time on a telescope in Texas to have another look. This time they noticed the quasar was coming out from behind clumps of gas, and the absorption had decreased even further. It is almost possible now to see the entire light source. “So we can now get an estimate of how fast the gas clumps in the wind are moving,” says Hall. “It is an interesting enough observation…from very heavy absorption to almost no absorption in such a short time.” To see this much change in the span of 14 years is quite something.

“We know how 'big' the quasar is, so by observing how long it takes for the gas clumps to move out from in front of the quasar, we learn how fast the wind is moving across our line of sight,” he says. “I am currently working on combining that information with knowledge of how fast the wind is moving towards us to figure out how close to the black hole the wind originated.”

This leads Hall to ask what can be learned from this quasar and from watching some of the 100,000 other quasars the Sloan survey has found. “I’m trying to get a bigger picture of how the winds work and to come up with computer models to show how they work in general for quasars.” He hopes his research will provide a useful framework to use when studying quasars, providing a baseline to work from.

In the fall, Hall will be on sabbatical researching these winds to see what he can discover about quasars that were created billions of years ago.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Michael Bietenholz, a research associate in the 's, is part of the research team. Their findings were published in .

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