Imagine taking the world's most powerful radio telescope, used by scientists around the globe, and piping a nearly continuous data stream into your research laboratory. That is exactly what scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C. have done in collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NRAO VLA). The newly-completed VLA Low Band Ionospheric and Transient Experiment (VLITE for short) has been built to piggyback on the $300 million dollar infrastructure of the VLA.

The primary scientific driver for VLITE is real-time monitoring of ionospheric weather conditions over the U.S. southwest. NRL ionospheric lead scientist Dr. Joseph Helmboldt says "This new system allows for continuous specification of ionospheric disturbances with remarkable precision. VLITE can detect and characterize density fluctuations as small as 30 parts per million within the total electron content along the line of sight to a cosmic source. This is akin to being at the bottom of Lake Superior and watching waves as small as 1-cm in height pass overhead. This will have a substantial impact on our understanding of ionospheric dynamics, especially the coupling between fine-scale irregularities within the lower ionosphere and larger disturbances higher up."

Read more at: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2015/astronomy-in-the-fast-lane-new-system-watches-for-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night

History professor Dr. Julia Torrie was honoured for her excellence in teaching and research by St. Thomas University at Spring Convocation on May 12, 2015.  She received the University Scholarship Award.

Julia has established a reputation as an important scholar in modern European history.  Her research focuses on the transnational social and cultural history of Germany and France during World War II, particularly as it relates to war and occupation. Her study “For Their Own Good”: Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939-1945" is the first comparative study of civilian evacuations in the two countries during World War II and demonstrates the complexities of an assumed all-powerful Nazi state by showing that citizen objections to evacuations forced changes in policy. The book was recently re-issued in paperback and a French-language adaptation of key parts of the book will be published soon.

Julia has delivered many conference presentations and invited talks in Canada, the United States and Europe, and currently has book chapters that explore German documentary photography and protest in Hitler’s national community accepted for publication.  She is working on a research project that uses diaries, letters and photographs alongside official sources to explore German occupiers’ experiences in France.

Julia was a former member of the Selection Committee of the O’Brien Foundation.  She was so helpful in the design of the Evaluation Criteria that is currently being used and in the modification of the Application Form, more specifically in the articulation of Article No. 5 that addresses New Brunswick eligibility.

Catherine is a former Chair of the Selection Committee of the O’Brien Foundation.  She was helpful in the design of the Evaluation Criteria that is currently being used and in the modification of the Application Form and Application Process.  Catherine has a new book. She has been Adjunct Professor of History at St. Thomas since 2004.  Her research focuses primarily on the history of education and youth culture in Canada.

TENDING THE STUDENT BODY: YOUTH, HEALTH, AND THE MODERN UNIVERSITY

By Catherine Gidney
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2015
World Rights
304 Pages 9 Images

In the early twentieth century, university administrators and educators regarded bodily health as a marker of an individual’s moral and mental strength and as a measure of national vitality. Beset by social anxieties about the physical and moral health of their students, they introduced compulsory health services and physical education programs in order to shape their students’ character. Tending the Student Body examines the development of these health programs at Canadian universities and the transformation of their goals over the first half of the twentieth century from fostering moral character to promoting individualism, self-realization, and mental health. Drawing on extensive records from Canadian universities, Catherine Gidney examines the gender and class dynamics of these programs, their relationship to changes in medical and intellectual thought, and their contribution to ideas about the nature and fulfilment of the self.

Interactions between reactive nitrogen and the Canadian landscape: A budget approach