The air in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation is about to get a lot cleaner.

Workers from Nedlaw Living Walls were busy this week installing more than 1,500 plants into the building’s biowall, which will help naturally filter the air that flows through the 300,000 square foot engineering building.

“Everybody knows that plants add oxygen to the air, but this system actually filters the air,” said Nedlaw’s Ashley DeMarte. “For every single pass of air that goes through, this wall cleans about 85 per cent of it.”

At about 37 feet high by 32 feet wide, the wall isn’t as tall as the biowall in the medical education building, but it does cover slightly more square footage than that one, DeMarte said.

The plants are mounted in a brown substrate that looks and feels much like a scouring pad. Water from a basin at the bottom is pumped all the way to the top, which then trickles down similar to a waterfall, keeping the plants properly hydrated.

Large returns are located directly behind the wall to help draw air in from the surrounding environment. After passing through the plants, that filtered air is then sent through the HVAC system and recirculated throughout the building.

Such volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as benzene and formaldehyde, which often accumulate in many air-tight buildings, are broken down by the biowall so they’re no longer harmful to the occupants inside, DeMarte said.

“For every square metre, this wall cleans 50 litres of dirty air per second,” she added.

DeMarte said she expects all of the plants should be installed by the end of next week.

Oncologists may soon be able to quickly determine if certain tumours will resist chemotherapy thanks to work done by a UWindsor physics researcher and his graduate assistant.

The work, outlined in a paper published in the academic journal Physical Review E, describes a model created by PhD candidate Long Jian Liu and his academic supervisor Mordechay Schlesinger. That model mathematically illustrates how fluid pressure is distributed between cells inside a tumour, an essential measure used to determine whether chemotherapy will be effective.

“If the fluid pressure inside the tumour is too high, the chemotherapy won’t work,” explained Dr. Schlesinger, professor emeritus in the physics department, who also noted that elevated levels of interstitial fluid pressure can lead to the metastasis, or spread, of tumours.

Until now, doctors would need to insert a needle into a tumour in order to determine the pressure levels inside, Schlesinger said.

“It’s painful for the patient, and in some cases, you can’t even do it depending on the location of the tumour,” he added.

The model he helped develop, however, demonstrates in theory the relationship between pressure and fluid flow, and concludes that measuring a contrast agent as it flows away from the tumour may provide an accurate measure of both.

Schlesinger said that’s exactly what a group of scientists in Norway did at Oslo University Hospital’s Institute for Cancer Research. In a paper published in the academic journal Cancer Research, those scientists describe how they used a dye known as gadolinium diethylene-triamine penta-acetic acid (Gd-DTPA), injected it into mice with xenografts of several types of human cancer, and then used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor fluid pressure and velocity. The experiment showed higher levels of pressure in the tumours of metastasis-positive mice than those whose cancer was not spreading.

The Oslo group’s findings were confirmed later in cervical cancer patients with pelvic lymph node metastasis, where they found the velocity of the fluid pressure flow to be higher than those without lymph node involvement.

The group – which cited Schlesinger’s team’s paper in their own article – said taken together, both experiments show that using Gd-DTPA in conjunction with MRI is an effective method for non-invasively visualizing tumour pressure. It also demonstrates the potential for using the technique as a new biomarker for tumour aggressiveness, they said.

Schlesinger said he’s delighted his team’s work could be used as the basis for such an important experiment.

“This is a great service to humanity,” he said. “We are all candidates for cancer. It can happen to each and every one of us.”

A professor in the university’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research is hopeful that a stolen laptop containing an invaluable amount of extremely important data on it will be returned.

“Whoever stole it can keep the computer,” said Aaron Fisk. “We won’t even press any charges, and we’re considering some sort of reward. It’s just really important that we get the data back.”

The laptop was left by a graduate student in the backseat of a car parked in a lot outside a downtown restaurant on Wednesday night. Someone broke in to the car and stole the computer, Dr. Fisk said.

Fisk is a trophic ecologist who studies the migratory patterns of a wide variety of aquatic species. The laptop contained a vast amount of experimental data collected from acoustic tracking devices that had been implanted in fish in an area pond.

“Unfortunately none of the data had been backed up yet,” said Fisk. “If we don’t get this laptop back, that data is lost forever.”

The laptop is a silver Apple Macbook Pro, with a 15.4 inch screen. It has a circular red and white sticker with a yin and yang symbol and Chinese writing over the Apple logo. It also has  a long dent down the back of it.

Cat Delaney, the playwright of the latest University Players show Welfarewell, was in Windsor to speak about the play with dramatic art students and at the Let’s Talk Theatre luncheon event last weekend.

She described the UWindsor production as “magical … with soaring talents in the cast!”

Delaney, who lives in Nova Scotia, is currently working on a film version of Welfarewell as well as a sequel to the stage version.

Let’s Talk Theatre is a luncheon series produced by University Players and Uni-Com before Sunday matinees of certain University Players shows. Discussion centres on aspects of drama; the next lunch is April 7, 2013, when English professor emeritus Colin Atkinson will speak before a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Last year’s Mingle and Jingle holiday luncheon for faculty and staff was a great collegial event, says catering manager Dean Kissner—and he is hoping to top it this year.

With a theme of “The Big Chill,” this year’s holiday luncheon is set for noon Thursday, December 13, in Vanier Hall’s Winclare Room A.

“We have a lot of little holiday surprises planned,” says Kissner. “We don’t want to give away too much, because we want our guests to experience delight when they walk in.”

Among the features he is willing to share are a hot chocolate bar and a special festive sangria.

Tickets are $10, which includes tax and a glass of wine, available until December 10 from Catering Services; phone 519-253-3000, ext. 3277 or 3276. In addition, Catering Services will collect donations of canned goods and cash at the door to support the Student Food Bank.

A dinner reception November 30 at the Ciociaro Club celebrated the 50th anniversary of the UWindsor Faculty of Education.

The event, “Excellence in Teaching,” provided 250 guests—including former deans, professors and alumni—with an opportunity to reminisce and reconnect while giving current teacher candidates a glimpse into the origins and evolution of the Windsor Teachers’ College into the current Faculty of Education.

During the cocktail hour, teacher candidate Leah Harris sang and played piano to entertain attendees.

UWindsor president Alan Wildeman offered his congratulations to the faculty for its continued commitment to education.

Professor emeritus Donald Laing presented a “Then and Now” look at the faculty over the years, while professor Larry Glassford served as emcee.

Earl Stadder, one of the first professors at the Teachers’ College in 1962, said he thoroughly enjoyed the event. He shared a memory of his early teaching career, recalling how he spent the summer preparing to teach art and then got a teaching assignment of almost straight music: “a happy surprise for me!”

The evening’s proceeds went to support the John McGivney Children’s Centre.

The University is lucky to have secured Veronika Mogyorody for another term as academic architectural advisor, says provost Leo Groarke. He says he is “delighted” she will extend her service through June 30, 2015.

“Dr. Mogyorody has played an indispensable role in the re-imagining of space on the campus and has served as an indefatigable consultant on the new projects that are transforming the University of Windsor,” Dr. Groarke says. “She brings to the table an absolutely unique understanding of architecture and the ways in which academic programming intersects with the space it occupies for teaching and research.”

Mogyorody is trained as as an architect and urban designer. A graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture, she received her Ph.D in Urban and Environmental Studies from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In addition to her role as academic architectural advisor, she is an associate professor in the School for Arts and Creative Innovation and coordinator of its Visual Arts and the Built Environment program.

Director Tory James has put together a “wonderful cast” drawn from the campus and surrounding community for a staged reading of Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, tonight—Friday, December 7.

“We have a great group this year,” says James, a photographer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning. “And you can’t go wrong with this material. I guarantee that people will be laughing until they cry.”

James describes the seven women who will read:

• Leslie McCurdy, international dancer, singer, actor and raconteur;
• Susan Gold Smith, retired visual arts professor and budding impresario;
• Catherine Hundleby, doctor of philosophy and documented guerilla gardener;
• Heather Hartley, professor of media, women’s studies, and hybrid Hondas. “She is cross appointed and you can’t hear her coming.”
• Josie “Whipper” Watson, poet, professor of nursing, and wrestler of curling stones;
• Lindsey “Tulkamania” Virban, a bartender of withering wit and a punishing jammer with the Border City Brawlers;
• Mary “Q” Quenneville, “They call her Q. That’s all we know—that’s all anyone needs to know. We found out that she is an alumna, and that she is training young minds in a secondary school somewhere near here. We suspect that she will deploy them in her plans for world domination.”

The reading will start at 7:30 p.m. at Lefty’s Underground, 89 University Avenue West. The doors open at 6 p.m.; admission is by donation to the Windsor Youth Centre, a drop-in centre serving homeless and at-risk youth between the ages of 16 and 20.

A search committee invites nominations and applications until January 31 for the position of head of the Department of Philosophy.

The position will commence July 1, 2013, for a term of three to five years. Candidates must hold a tenured position in the department. For more information, please see the online posting of the internal search.

Campus flags will be lowered Friday, December 7, in memory of professor emeritus David Wurfel, who died November 12 in his Seattle, Washington, home.

Dr. Wurfel joined the UWindsor faculty in 1968 as an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. He was appointed to the rank of professor in 1972 and held that position until his 1993 retirement.

Funeral services were held December 1 in Seattle.