The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news
about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and
Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest
occuring in Toronto and surounding areas. Posted every month.
Seasons Greetings
Santa Bob Hanna, with all his little elves - Kostas, Al, Pelle, Randy,
Bruno, Bob, Wai Tung, Aleksandra, Emanuel, Alagan, Xavier, George,
Robert, Jody, George, Walter, Ed, Vince, Dennis, Rong-Liang, Sridar,
Karl, Raymond, Wallas, and Ted wish you happy holidays and a prosperous
new year!
IEEE Toronto has arranged for all our members' families - especially the young
potential IEEE members - to keep track of Santa's activities over the
holiday season using this high tech NORAD Santa web site. Your kids can also send a letter to Santa.
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Centennial Multimedia Show now available over the web
Whether you attended our Centennial Banquet or not, everyone now can
look at and listen to the multimedia show that our Section put together
to mark this special occasion. There are historic photos recording the
many accomplishments that IEEE (including AIEE & IRE) members and others
in the Toronto area have achieved. This show is viewable using Windows Media
software and is available in various stream types to suit the speed and
bandwith of your Internet connection. I would like to thank Jeremy Littler,
Ryerson University's multimedia production specialist, who provided all the
technical skills to make this happen. He was a real joy to work with. Just
click here to start the show.
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Profile on Bruno Di Stefano
Bruno Di Stefano was honoured at the recent Centennial Banquet for his
volunteer activities with the IEEE Toronto Section, holding at least eight
portfolios.
Bruno has been a superb volunteers for about 25 years, at both our local
Section level and nationally with IEEE Canada. He founded our
Circuits and Devices Chapter in 1988 and is currently well along in
forming a new Neural Networks Society Chapter. He was the person
responsible for bringing electronic mail to this Section - long before
most folks even knew it existed. He set up a Bulletin Board System to deliver
elecronic messages in 1990 before the Internet was established as we know it
today. He is the primary source for our history of past Section Chairs,
Chapters, and Electronic Services - see our history page for the complete story. Bruno is president of his
own company, Nuptek Systems Ltd., specialising in microprocessors, automation,
hardware, and software. He has taught courses at Ryerson University and the
University of Toronto. He is also active in the PEO Toronto-Dufferin Chapter.
A Toronto Section scholarship has been established in his honour. The
photograph shows Bruno (right) receiving his award from IEEE Canada
President Mo El-Hawary. You can read the biographies of any of our volunteer
leaders on our web site by visiting our executive page.
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Upcoming Chapter Activities
December 4 Professor Xijia Gu of Ryerson University
will present a seminar on "Fiber Optic Sensor Networks in Smart
Structures" organized by our Communications chapter . Click for details.
Chapter activities tend to be curtailed over the busy pre- and post-Christmas
holiday season. We look forward to your visiting this section again in the
new year.
Upcoming Conferences
RWL04 Real World Linux 2004 Conference & Expo,
April 13 - 15, 2004,
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Ontario.
Your Connection to Today's Applications and Solutions
- overview [PDF]
Attend Real World Linux Conference & Expo, April 13-15, 2004 Canada's
only national comprehensive event focusing on Linux and Open Source operating
systems for business, government and education users, resellers and
developers. For more information and registration, please visit the conference web site. IEEE members - free pre-registration for
trade show, 25% discount for conference/tutorials.
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2004 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer
Engineering, May 2 - 5, 2004, Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Dec 5 is the deadline for submitting paper abstracts! Planning is well
underway for IEEE Canada's annual conference and awards banquet. The location
is fantastic, the hotel is great, the program is being developed with
interesting and informative guest speakers, and we are receiving
the usual submissions of papers from across Canada, the United States, and
around the world. All processes are on-line - paper submission, conference
and hotel registration. Lots of information and links to local attractions
on the conference web site.
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2004 RTAS Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Application
Symposium, May 25 - 28, 2004, Le Royal Meridien - King Edward Hotel, Toronto,
Ontario. Submission deadline is January 12, 2004.
For more information, please visit the conference web site.
Careers Service
Our new Careers service has a recently announced special opportunity
for members of our Communications Chapter to receive a 10% discount
on the "Telecommunications Management Certificate Program" offered by
the Professional Development Centre at the University of Toronto
starting on December 2. For more details and links to register, please
visit our Careers site.
Report on Elections
Our 2004/2005 IEEE Canada President Elect is Bob Hanna,
and our new IEEE President Elect is Cleon Anderson.
The outcome of the IEEE elections was announced on the IEEE Web site on
November 8 - click for more results from the member elections and assembly elections for the remaining members of the board.
Member News
Congratulations to Dr. Robert Alexander (Bob) Hanna who has just been elected
an IEEE Fellow - his citation reads For contributions to the applications
of medium voltage adjustable speed drives and power quality. Bob is
president of RPM Engineering in Mississauga and is also an IEE Fellow since
1993.
Congratulations also to Dr. Ismail Burhan Türksen of the Department of
Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto
- his citation reads "For contributions to fuzzy logic systems."
With sadness we note the death of Robert F. (Bob) Peacock on November 17, 2003
in his 90th year. Bob was a long serving Section volunteer, he was
our Awards chair in 1987 in addition to many other activities.
Congratulations to Puica Nitu and Noorali H. Amarsi on their recent elevation
to Senior Member grade.
Holiday Challenge for the "Young at Heart"
This photo was taken 25 years ago at the Golden Jubilee Dinner of the IEEE
Toronto Section. Ian Dutton, who sent me this photo, and I have identified
the folks we remember. Two are former professors of mine, and one was a fellow
graduate student. If you click on the photo, you can view a full size
image with the names of the people we have identified. If you can identify
anyone else or confirm a name with a question mark beside, please email me
at newsletter.toronto@ieee.org.
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Stopping SPAM
The October 2003 issue of Computer magazine carried a letter to the editor
by Timothy C. Lommasson of Horten, Norway, which I have reproduced here as I
thought it provided a very sensible opinion on this subject - Bob Alden, Editor
In “Group Considers Drastic Measures to Stop Spam” (News Briefs, July
2003, pp. 20-22), Linda Dailey Paulson reports that the Internet
Research Task Force has joined the growing effort to stop spam by
forming the Anti-Spam Research Group to take a long-term, multitiered
approach to understanding, evaluating, and suggesting solutions to the
problem. According to this report, blocking spam may require changing
the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to require authentication of header
information.
However, contrary to the title of this news brief, making such a change
in the SMTP is not a “drastic measure.” This long overdue change is,
however, contrary to the interests of many who exploit the Internet at
the expense of the rest of us. We do not need more studies. We do not
need more legislation. We do not need more sophisticated software to
sort and delete spam. We need authentication of e-mail header
information.
Newsletters
Many IEEE Societies produce newsletters like this one in that they are
posted on a website for either initial reading and/or archiving. If
you are a member of one of our Society Chapters, you will find a link to
your Society Newsletter near the top of your Chapter page. I linked all the
ones I could find, please let me know if I missed one for which you know the
URL.
Since this is the sixth newsletter in the current format, I thought it
would be appropriate to ask at this time for feedback on the content,
frequency and format (which is intended to avoid your Section being a
source of SPAM). I invite your comments and suggestions. Please do not
be shy, I have not been deluged with mail regarding this newsletter so
far. My e-mail link is just below.
Advertizing
The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertizing for items deemed to be of
interest to our members. If you would like to advertize in our newsletter,
please contact the editor.
Thanks For Reading
That's all for now, hope to have you visit again next month ..... Bob Alden,
Editor
Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to newsletter.toronto@ieee.org.
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