The Centre for Engineering Innovation is a huge building. It would be easy to get lost in it, says Paramvir Singh Nagpal.

Fortunately, he and a team of classmates in electrical and computer engineering have developed a system that will help visitors find their way.

The students originally intended their indoor positioning system to allow administrators and security personnel to track visitors, for example, in a hospital setting where there are clearly defined areas off-limits.

“The idea was to have them register and then take a tracking device with them through the building,” says Nagpal.

However, as the students worked through the challenges, they determined they would be better off to use technologies visitors carry with them: smart phones and other mobile devices that use positioning.

“Everyone has their cell phone on them,” Nagpal says. “We have developed a downloadable app that places them within the three-dimensional space of the building.”

The team—besides Nagpal, members include Mohammad Rahman, Brendan Rhyno and Qing Tang—use hotspot nodes in buildings to triangulate a location within about three metres. By superimposing a floorplan, they can provide users with a personalized, mobile “You are here” map and even give directions to a specified room.

“This ends up being way more global,” Rhyno says. “It could have so many applications.”

The project is the capstone of their UWindsor undergraduate careers, one of 14 that students will present to the public during the department’s open house, Friday, August 9, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Centre for Engineering Innovation’s Industrial Courtyard.

Team members found the eight-month project, which draws on their studies but is not directly dependent on the content of any one course, to be particularly challenging.

“It will be nice to show people the results of the work we have done,” Nagpal says.

As Windsor gears up to celebrate its rainbow communities at this weekend’s Pride Fest, a social work researcher has some sobering thoughts about the rates of violence in the LGBT community, and especially among the bisexual population.

“Bisexual individuals are experiencing much higher rates of all forms of violence, and they’re at a particularly high risk of emotional and financial forms of abuse,” said Betty Jo Barrett, an associate professor in the School of Social Work who recently published a paper on the subject in the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services.

“One of the most troubling statistics I’ve ever found as a violence researcher is that one out of two bisexual individuals have said they’ve been a victim of emotional or financial abuse at the hands of an intimate partner,” said Dr. Barrett.

Along with former PhD student Melissa St. Pierre, Barrett analyzed responses to the General Social Survey of Canada, an annual nationally representative telephone survey investigating the social well-being of Canadians.

According to their analysis, about 36 per cent of the 186 people who identified as LGB reported experiencing at least one instance of any form of intimate partner violence, which included physical, sexual, emotional, and financial abuse.  Emotional and financial abuse was experienced by about 35 per cent of the respondents, while physical or sexual abuse was reported by a little more than 20 per cent.

However, the more troubling statistics, Barrett said, show that almost 47 per cent of bisexual individuals reported experiencing emotional or financial abuse, compared to about 26 per cent of gay or lesbian individuals.  More than 28 per cent of bisexuals reported experiencing physical or sexual abuse, compared to about 15 per cent of gay and lesbian individuals.

Determining why those rates are higher among the bisexual population is difficult, but Barrett believes it may have to do with the fact that bisexuals experience a great deal of marginalization in both the straight community and in the gay and lesbian community.

“We refer to this phenomenon of biphobia, which is basically a fear of bisexuals,” she said. “It’s very much tied to a belief commonly perpetrated in our culture that bisexuality is not a real sexual orientation. We see this minimization of bisexuality as a real identity distinct from a gay and lesbian identity or a heterosexual identity, which means that bisexuals are facing biphobia not just from the heterosexual community but also from within the rainbow community as well.”

Barrett will appear today on Research Matters, a weekly show that focuses on the work of University of Windsor researchers and airs every Thursday at 4:30 p.m. on CJAM 99.1 FM.

Institutional analyst Mark Curran won Tuesday’s DailyNews quiz and the prize of a USB flash drive imprinted with a full-colour UWindsor logo. His entry was drawn from those who correctly ranked selected campus buildings by the date of their construction.

Curran listed from oldest to youngest, although judges accepted as correct entries in reverse order:

1. Dillon Hall (1927)
2. Memorial Hall (1948)
3. Electa Hall (1958)
4. Biology Building (1966)
5. Macdonald Hall (1967)
6. Neal Education Building (1978)
7. Odette Building (1991)
8. Toldo Health Education Centre (2003)
9. Medical Education Building (2008)
10. Centre for Engineering Innovation (2012)

To help celebrate the University of Windsor’s 50th anniversary, DailyNews will run a contest at the beginning of each week, offering a prize donated by the University Boookstore. Today’s prize, a USB flash drive with storage capacity for eight gigabytes of data, is available for purchase from the Bookstore’s kiosk in the CAW Student Centre at $9.50.

Cell phones, tablets and laptops have dramatically changed the way people do work. Now a University of Windsor ergonomics researcher wants to know if that work might be hurting them.

“There are some specific risk factors associated with mobile devices that aren’t accounted for with our current method of assessment,” said Dave Andrews, a human kinetics professor recruiting people to participate in a new study.

Andrews was part of a team that developed an ergonomic checklist of risk factors to determine whether how people are positioned at their office computer work stations contributes to problems like pain or discomfort in the back, upper extremities and neck. Graduate students conducting the research on that project visited people in their offices, assessed factors like the placement of monitors, phones, and the adjustability of chairs, and then made recommendations to avoid health complications associated with improper positioning.

That method, however, was developed before the rapid growth in the availability of mobile technology.

“It just doesn’t account for specific risk factors associated with using mobile devices while working,” said Dr. Andrews, who is hoping for about 75 participants to enroll in the study.

Andrews said research assistants working on the new study will visit participants in their offices, observe them at work, ask them to demonstrate how they interact with their mobile devices, and ask them if they experience any discomfort. The visit should take any about 30 minutes, he said.

To be eligible to participate you need to be a current staff or faculty member and use at least one mobile device to do your job, either at home or on campus. People are not eligible if they had an ergonomics assessment of their computer workstation done by someone in kinesiology within the last year, or if pain or discomfort will keep them from doing their normal job on the day of the assessment.

Participants will receive a complimentary computer workstation evaluation, and tips on how to adjust their existing computer workstation in order to remain healthy, comfortable and productive in the workplace.

If you are interested in participating, contact Cory Thuy at thuyc@uwindsor.ca to schedule your assessment. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the study, contact Andrews at dandrews@uwindsor.ca.

For more information, visit the study website.

The City of Windsor will make upgrades to California Avenue between Wyandotte Street and University Avenue before it proceeds with the planned closure of Sunset Avenue between Wyandotte and Fanchette streets, council decided at its meeting August 6.

When Sunset closes—slated now for fall 2014—California will function as the major north-south route for traffic adjacent to campus, according to studies conducted by city engineers.

Construction is already underway on California south of Wyandotte. The new project will extend the work, including sewers, water mains and rebuilding the street surface, curbs and sidewalks north to University. The city will install a new traffic light at the intersection of California and University avenues.

Sandra Aversa, UWindsor vice-president, planning and administration, said parking lots D, K and L will close once the campus parking structure opens; landscaping of these areas will commence soon after.