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T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A V O L U M E 5 0 | N U M B E R 3 | M A R C H 4 , 2 0 0 4
UBC REPORTS2 UBC in the News 3 35th in the World 4 Dangers of Nursing 6 The First Cyberpunk 8 Micro Gadgets
The Pathological Pursuitof Profit and PowerA conversation with Joel Bakan, author of TheCorporation. B Y E R I C A S M I S H E K
People have been using silk for more than 2,000years but scientists are still trying to unravel the
mystery of its strength and flexibility. One questionthat continues to stump them is why spider silk con-tracts to almost half its size when wet. In a recent study, UBC physicists found the answer,
and it could help synthetic fibre manufacturers createbetter artificial silk.
“One of the things that the people making silk-inspired fibres should be able to control is supercon-traction,” says Carl Michal, an assistant professor whoconducted the study with PhD candidate Philip Eles.
“Can you remove it? Can you enhance it? Do youneed it at all? Can you tailor a material with that sortof property? My feeling is ‘yes’ and this study identifieswhat parts of the silk’s molecules [called polymers] areresponsible for the supercontraction. We’ve laid thegroundwork for the people developing these fibres tobe able to control that.”
Spider silk is one of nature’s material marvels.Lightweight, biodegradable and five times stronger byweight than steel, it is one-tenth the width of a humanhair but can snag a bee flying at 32 km/hour withoutbreaking.
For decades scientists have been trying to duplicatethese remarkable properties with a view to developinghigher performance sporting equipment, stronger netsand parachutes, more protective clothing for police and
military personnel, and improved sutures, bandages,artificial tendons and ligaments.
While researchers already know a lot about spidersilk’s molecular architecture, opinions differ on why itsupercontracts when it comes into contact with water.
Spider silk undergoes an interesting transformationwhen it gets wet. As it soaks up water, it swells indiameter but shrinks to almost half its length.
Popular theory is that this supercontraction tightensup a web weighed down by rain or morning condensa-tion, helping it to keep its shape. For this reason, someresearchers claim, supercontraction lasts for as long asconditions require it to – that is, as long at the silk iswet. But other researchers suggest that wet spider silkonly shrinks to a certain point then stops, and it hasnothing to do with a sagging web.
Using a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR), Michal and his research team studied thedragline silk of the golden orb-weaver, a fist-sizedarachnid from the tropics that produces honey-coloured silk.
The orb-weaver uses its dragline as a frame for spider webs and it also allows the spider to dangle andplummet down to nab prey.
Solving the Mysteries of Spider SilkUBC researcher freeing industry from a web of problems. B Y M I C H E L L E C O O K
continued on page 3d
UBC law professor Joel Bakan has ahit movie on his hands.
The Corporation, which Varietycalls a “cogent, entertaining, evenrabble rousing indictment of perhapsthe most influential institutionalmodel of our era,” has won criticalacclaim, audience appreciation andawards from such film festivals as thethe International DocumentaryFestival in Amsterdam and theSundance Film Festival in Park City,Utah. It is currently playing in anumber of Canadian centres, includ-ing Vancouver, and will be released inselect U.S. cities in June.
Penguin Group has just releasedBakan’s book, The Corporation: ThePathological Pursuit of Profit andPower, upon which the film is basedto Canadian bookstores; Simon andSchuster will do the same in the U.S.later this month.
Bakan recently sat down withUBC Reports to talk about theunique project.
Q. The film deals with a phenome-non so pervasive that it is difficult tosee. What first inspired you to tacklethis?Around 1996, I realized the worldwas changing in some profoundways. Corporations were being trans-formed from economic institutionsinto governing institutions, ones thatwere governing societies and the livesof individuals in ways that they hadnever done before. At the same time,I thought, people know very littleabout the corporation as an institu-tion. We are aware necessarily of cor-porations; they touch every aspect of
our lives. But we don’t understandhow the corporation operates as aninstitution – and, as corporations gainmore power over our lives and soci-eties, we really need to, especially inlight of the corporation’s peculiarinstitutional character, which, in thebook and the movie, we liken to thatof a psychopath.
Q. The climate when you started thisproject was quite different than today,given recent scandals like Enron. Evensix or seven years ago, CEOs werestill being hailed as heroes.Well, I’d like to say we were prescient.But we may have just been lucky interms of the timing. Certainly around1997, several things were clear. One isthat due to the processes of economicglobalization, privatization, deregula-tion and relaxation of merger andacquisition requirements, corpora-tions were becoming much larger andmuch more powerful than they hadever been. They were operating on aninternational scale and they werepressuring governments in ways thatthey had never had the capacity topressure them before. So the corpora-tion was truly looking like it wasbecoming the world’s dominant insti-tution.
At the same time, government wasin rapid retreat from its traditionalrole of providing checks and balanceson corporate power through deregu-lation, and, through the process ofprivatization, governments werehanding over to corporations authori-ty over the fundamental institutionsof civil society.
UBC law professor Joel Bakan (centre) with film-makers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott.
continued on page 7
Carl Michal has unravelled how spider silk shrinks to half its size in water. P
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Highlights of UBC Media Coverage in February 2004. C O M P I L E D B Y B R I A N L I N
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IN THE NEWS
UBC REPORTS
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Why Canadians Are HealthierAn impressive array of comparativedata shows that Canadians live longerand healthier lives than their neigh-bours south of the border. What’smore, Canadians pay roughly half asmuch per capita – $2,163 versus$4,887 in 2001 – for the privilege.
Infant-mortality rates show strikingdifferences between the United Statesand Canada, according to ClydeHertzman, associate director of theCentre for Health Services and PolicyResearch at UBC.
To counter the argument that racialdifferences play a major role, Hertzmancompared infant mortality for allCanadians with that for whiteAmericans between 1970 and 1998.The white US infant mortality rate wasroughly six deaths per 1,000 babies,compared to slightly more than five forCanadians.
B.C. Genome Scientists Popthe Cork on Wine ProjectFor centuries, winemakers have testedsoil conditions and meticulouslyplanned when to harvest to produce theperfect grape. Now scientists at UBC'sWine Research Centre will be part ofthe mix thanks to a $3.1-million grantfrom Genome Canada and GenomeB.C. to sequence the genome of caber-net sauvignon grapes.
"The whole point is to build not justa high-quality wine, but a consistenthigh-quality wine," Steven Lund, anassistant professor in the agriculturalsciences faculty told The VancouverSun. "The vintage is affected by theenvironment, but the genetic makeup isresponding to the environment."
By sequencing the genes of the grapeberry, researchers at hope to look at thepathways for compounds that con-tribute to the taste of wine.
Lund says the role of scientists is towork with viticulturalists, the peoplewho plan, supervise and coordinate thegrowing of grapes for the production of wine.
"It's bringing 21st-century genomicsto wine and what we call wine science."
Brain Research FacilityOpens In VancouverThe Vancouver Coastal HealthAuthority and UBC recently opened the $20 million New Brain ResearchCentre at UBC Hospital, where special-ists will be trying to unlock the myster-ies surrounding such neurological dis-eases as autism, Parkinson’s disease andfetal alcohol syndrome.
“You’ve got people with skills thatrange from physics to chemistry to biology to engineering to medicine toanatomy,” director Max Cynadertold CBC Television, who adds thatthe formation of the centre comes at acrucial time because the number of people with brain disease is expected
To help winemakers improve their product, Steven Lund of the Wine Research Centre is studying the genes of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.
to triple in the next 20 years withoutnew treatments.
Classtalk Puts Damper OnClassroom Noise UBC researcher Murray Hodgsonhas designed a software program thatwill put a major damper on noise inthe classroom.
The software, called ClassTalk, is thefirst of its kind in the world. It helpsarchitects, engineers and acoustical con-sultants to build classrooms that helpstudents learn and protect teachersfrom unnecessary voice strain.
Hodgson, an acoustics expert atUBC’s Centre for Health andEnvironment Research who created theprogram, said that very little attentionis being paid to the acoustics of class-room design, and that “designing thenoise out of classrooms benefits bothstudents and teachers.”
The program takes into account thephysical characteristics of a classroom,such as building materials, the numberof windows, the texture of surfaces,lighting fixtures and fittings, all ofwhich influence how a teacher’s voicecarries through the room and is heardby students.
Gut ReactionThat feeling in one’s bones, accordingto UBC psychologist RonaldRensink, can be mapped.
An associate professor in psychologyand computer science at UBC, Rensinkcalls visual sensing without seeing
“mindsight.” He discovered the phe-nomenon when he was testing howquickly people can detect a visualchange.
It is not some sort of supernaturalsensory perception, Rensink is quick topoint out. “It is completely natural.”
And do personal experiences andprejudices play into our hunches? Yesand no, Rensink says. Personal experi-ence plays a role. But we also receivecues “that we would not consciouslysee.”
Oxygen Detected In DistantSolar SystemScientists using the Hubble SpaceTelescope have for the first time detect-ed oxygen and carbon in the atmos-phere of a planet outside our solar system.
The Hubble scientists cautioned thatthe elements are not signs of life, as theplanet is a hot, gassy orb with surfacetemperatures of about 1,000C.
UBC astronomy professor JaymieMatthews told The National Postthat the detection of oxygen is not par-ticularly surprising, but is important asanother step in learning about far-offsolar systems.
“The physical conditions of thisplanet are unlike any planet we’ve everstudied,” he said. Known as HD209458b, the planet is similar in massto Jupiter, but orbits its parent starevery four days at a distance of onlyseven million kilometres. Earth is about150 million kilometres from the sun. ■■
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The University of British Columbiais now ranked 35th among the world’s500 top universities, according to astudy cited in the Jan. 24 issue of theEconomist.
Published by the EuropeanCommission, the executive body of theEuropean Union, and compiled byresearchers at the Shanghai Jiao TongUniversity Institute of HigherEducation, the 2003 academic rankingguide placed Harvard at number onespot with Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, Oxford University andUniversity of Cambridge in the top 10.
UBC and the University of Toronto(23rd place) are the only Canadianuniversities in the top 75. The nextCanadian university in the list is
UBC Now Ranks 35th among World’s Universities
McGill University, ranked 79th. “Strong research-intensive universi-
ties, able to compete and collaboratewith the very best internationally, helpCanada take its place in a world whereglobal scholarship must fuel global citi-zenship,” said UBC President MarthaPiper.
“Internationalization is a pillar ofUBC’s strategic plan, and this surveyconfirms that we are making greatstrides in this area.”
The survey, published for the firsttime this year, is described in theEconomist article as a “painstakingranking of the world’s best universi-ties.” It scores universities on five even-ly weighted indicators of academic andresearch performance. They include the
number of Nobel laureates producedbetween 1911 and 2002, the numberof highly cited researchers and numberof articles published in science andsocial science journals. Universities arescored out of a possible maximum of100 points.
UBC’s highest individual score is inthe category that tallied articles cited inthe Science Citation Index-expandedand the Social Science Citation Index.Some of UBC’s most-cited facultymembers include economist ErwinDiewert, geneticist Phil Hieter, andneuroscientists Edith and PatrickMcGeer.
For more information on the survey, visit http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm ■■
ubc reports | march 4, 2004 | 3
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The Pathological Pursuit
None of this was going unnoticedby the citizenry. This was also themoment when the anti-globalizationmovement really gained momentum.The first major demonstration inNorth America was on this campus inresponse to the APEC meeting.
And people in the business worldwere responding, both to the newpowers and freedoms of corporationsand to the dissent in the streets. This isthe time business people really startedto embrace corporate social responsi-bility. ‘Well, we have all this power,and people are getting mad at us,’ theyseemed to be saying. ‘So we better bemore socially responsible, or at leastappear that way.’
So a lot was going on. It made senseto start a project aimed at understand-ing the corporation’s institutionalnature and impact.
Q.You make the analogy that the cor-poration is a psychopath. Can youexplain?A. A psychopath is defined as a personwho is pathologically self-interested,lacks the capacity to be concernedabout others, lacks the capacity to feelguilt or remorse when others areharmed, and lacks the capacity to feelany moral obligation to comply withlegal or social norms.
A corporation is a legal person thatis programmed to only be able to serve
its own self-interests and that lacks thecapacity to be concerned about othersas an end in itself. And I thought, well,that’s interesting – you have this legalperson created that has been given thepersonality of a psychopath.
This is particularly noteworthy at amoment in history when corporationsare becoming so powerful. Here we, asa society, have created our dominanteconomic institution in the image of apsychopath. And now we are giving itthe power to control our societies.
Q.A lot of people hear about corporatesocial responsibility and think – this isgreat, they’re making great strides. Butit’s not really quite that simple, is it?I think it’s better that corporations try tobe socially responsible than not. It’s bet-ter that we as consumers and investorstry to be ethical and socially responsiblethan not. And I think there are somevery sincere and committed peoplewithin the business world who want topush the envelope as far as it can bepushed in terms of trying to do good.
But there is still an envelope there.Ultimately corporate directors and man-agers are legally incapacitated from pur-suing social and environmental goodsunless they can make the case that suchactions will lead to more profit, corpo-rate social responsibility must always bea means to the self-interested ends of thecorporation. And that imposes pro-found limits on how far it can be taken.
Ultimately we need democratic legalregulation of corporations. We can’tsimply put our faith in markets orbenevolent CEOs to stop the spiral
towards ecological disaster, and corpo-rate assaults on human welfare andrights.
Q. Mark Achbar told The Globe andMail “we have to force corporations tobe sustainable.”I can’t come up with a five-year plan asto what we need to do. But I think thereare certain principles and one of them isthat we need to have structures in placewhere citizens actually participate inshaping the world that they live in,democracy, in other words.
Whether that means that we have toabolish corporations or we have toimpose greater constraints on corpora-tions or we have to re-engineer the cor-poration so that it’s designed to servepublic interests rather than only privateinterests, or some combination of all ofthat, I don’t really know. What I doknow is that we need to reinvigorateour sense as individuals of citizenshipand do what we can do and what wehave to do, to try to regain control ofcorporations democratically.
Q.When you look back at the project,is there one thing that stands out as themost disturbing?Actually I was pleasantly surprised –pleasantly surprised by the humanity ofmany of the people we encounteredalong the way. The lesson that I learnedis that it’s very hard to take people’shumanity away. They remain humanbeings even if what they’re doing ininstitutional contexts, in particular thatof the corporation, is quite inhuman. Tome, that’s very hopeful. ■■
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12th among North America’s public universities. B Y H I L A R Y T H O M S O N
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When she went on shift that dayin May 1992, Dorothy Lesliethought it would just be anotherday at work. It turned out to beher last.
An emergency room nurse with12 years’ experience, Leslie wasthe victim of a violent assault –kicked hard in the back by apatient high on drugs – thatseverely aggravated a recent backinjury and resulted in chronic dis-ability.
“I still can’t believe I’m not ableto work – it all happened in theblink of an eye,” she says. Shecharged the man with assault andhe was sentenced to two years
plus probation.This is the kind of situation
UBC Nursing Assoc. Prof. AngelaHenderson has explored in one ofonly a handful of qualitative stud-ies ever done on nurses’ experi-ence of workplace violence. Sheinterviewed about 50 nursesworking in four different clinicaldepartments in hospitals and clin-ics in western Canada and theU.K.
She found that nurses routinelyencounter verbal abuse and physi-cal violence in the workplace.
“Nursing is a physically danger-ous job – that’s nothing new,”says Henderson, whose research
Study Shows Nurses are Regular Targets of ViolenceBut 70 per cent of incidents go unreported. B Y H I L A R Y T H O M S O N
Every day, nurses, doctors and other emergency depart-ment personnel face these and other upsetting events. It’s part of the job – and for some, it’s leading to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“When nurses talk about the things they see, you won-der, ‘how does anyone do this work without emotionaldamage,’” says UBC psychology professor Lynn Alden.“Their descriptions about events are horrible – treatingchildren that have been charred, children that have beeninjured, routinely watching people die. It’s very hardemotionally.”
PTSD is an anxiety condition that can develop subse-quent to traumatic events. Symptoms include intrusivememories and images of the trauma, and behaviouralavoidance of cues that remind the person of the incident.PTSD is known to create significant life impairment,including occupational dysfunction.
PTSD was first recognized in people who had directlyexperienced trauma, such as war veterans and assaultvictims. But more recently, researchers have demonstrat-ed that PTSD can develop in individuals who witnessupsetting events in the workplace, such as ambulanceattendants and firefighters.
In the first study of its kind, Alden and doctoral student Judith Laposa are examining the relationshipbetween work-related stress and the development ofPTSD in emergency department personnel.
Preliminary findings suggest that as many as 20 percent of emergency department workers surveyed reportclinically significant levels of PTSD symptoms and 12 per cent meet the full criteria for the disorder – morethan double the rate found in the general population.
“There is almost a macho attitude. Health care profes-sionals think they should be tough enough to deal withit,” says Alden. “It comes as a shock to learn that they’rehuman, that to be subjected to traumas that others do
not normally encounter can have a significant impact ontheir work and their lives.”
In the first of two studies supported by the SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council, the NaturalSciences and Engineering Research Council and the B.C.Medical Services Foundation, 51 emergency departmentworkers at a major hospital in a large urban B.C. centrecompleted a questionnaire that measured sources ofstress (organizational characteristics, patient care andinterpersonal conflict) as well as reactions to traumaticwork events, including how they interpreted the cause ofevents as well as their state when the events happened.
At least half of the participants reported dissociation –some degree of going on automatic pilot and feelingunreal at the time of the traumatic incident.
“They can feel like they’re in a dream when these badthings happen,” says Alden. “They process informationabout the event differently because of the anxiety.”
The majority of participants reported feeling emotion-ally upset when reminded of the event, trying not tothink, talk or have feelings about the event and havingupsetting thoughts or images about the event that cameinto their heads when they didn’t want them to.
Some participants reported a more negative belief system about the world (“the world is a more dangerousplace”) and themselves following a traumatic event.
Shell Shock in the Emergency Room Not the patients . . . the staff. B Y E R I C A S M I S H E K
focus is women and violence.“Nurses expect a certain amountof abuse from dealing withpatients and families who arestressed. However, they were pro-foundly affected by the level of‘unnecessary’ abuse directed atthem.”
Henderson says these experi-ences not only have implicationsfor nurses’ ability to be effectivein their work but may also makeit difficult to attract and retainnurses, a key issue in the face ofinternational nursing shortages.
Linda Silas, president of theCanadian Federation of NursesUnions, agrees.
“This is a growing problembecause violence at work is notbeing addressed, despite zero tol-erance policies,” she says, notingthat few incidents result incharges being laid with police.“It’s hard to focus on this issuewhen the nursing shortage issue isso acute. But when workplacesare understaffed it just adds tothe pressure for both nurses andpatients and aggressivenessbuilds.”
Henderson’s findings, recentlypublished in the CanadianJournal of Nursing Leadership,were that nearly all the nursesinterviewed had been personallythreatened at work and severalhad been assaulted and disabledfrom work because of injuries.
One emergency room (ER)nurse was admitted on a stretcherto her own ER following anattack by a man angry at beingkept waiting to have his sorethroat examined. In addition tophysical assaults, violent actsreported in the study includedemotional abuse, sexual harass-ment and sexual assault.
Vickie Fowler, (not interviewedin the study) is an emergencyroom nurse with 25 years’ experi-ence. She was bitten by a violentpatient who was being restrainedby six people. The patient hadhepatitis C and Fowler spent ayear having blood tests to findout if she had contracted the dis-ease.
“I was furious – I was trying tosave her life,” says Fowler, whosays she was pretty disappointedin the support she received frommanagement. She charged theindividual with assault and thewoman was sentenced to sixmonths’ house arrest. “We haveto stand up for our own rights. Itell my co-workers that. It’s justnot right to put up with theabuse.”
Inadequate response by admin-istrators was a common theme inthe nurses’ accounts. Supervisorsoften were unsupportive and
In a second study, the researchers examined factorsthat would increase the likelihood of PTSD. They foundan association between interpersonal conflict and PTSDsymptoms.
“After a very difficult incident, you often need to sharethe experience. You all go for dinner or a drink and tryto laugh, maybe using black humour to help cope withwhat you’ve just been through,” Alden explains. “But ifyou can’t do that, if you don’t feel that sense of supportfrom your colleagues and hospital administration, trau-matic events can be harder to process.”
With funding from the Workers’ Compensation Boardof B.C., the pair has embarked on a third, more compre-hensive study in partnership with several B.C. hospitals.It will include questionnaires and interviews with full-time nurses and will examine what impact factors likethe density of traumatic experiences and the down timeaway from traumatic events have on the development ofPTSD.
Ultimately, they hope their findings will help hospitaladministrations not only be aware of the extent of work-place stress and PTSD symptoms in their employees buthelp them improve the workplace climate to supportemployees following traumatic events.
“According to the literature, we haven’t hit upon away to prevent PTSD,” says Alden, “but there are waysto treat it once it develops.”
They would also like to work with educators to devel-op programs that prepare nursing students for what theywill inevitably experience in the workplace.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the resiliency of thehuman spirit,” says Laposa, who has studied clinical psy-chology for four and a half years. “Ultimately, I aminterested in developing strategies that medical personnelcan use to minimize and deal with any negative emotion-al impact of assisting patients through medical crises.” ■■
some nurses who had beenassaulted or threatened were dis-couraged from reporting the vio-lation to supervisors, administra-tors or the police. An ER nursewho had been attacked was toldto delay her police interview andgo back to work.
In addition, some nurses’ storiesdescribed a double standardwhere violence against nurses wasaccepted but violence against doc-tors was not.
“Interestingly, it’s the situationswhere nurses felt they were heldin contempt that bothered themthe most – not the lethal or dan-gerous ones,” says Henderson.“When administrators tolerateverbal or physical violence againstnurses, they send a message to thepublic and to nurses that they arenot valued.”
Despite descriptions of high lev-els of abuse, most nurses feel thatno one other than nurses takes thethreats seriously, says Henderson.As many as 70 per cent of inci-dents are unreported according toa 2001 study of nurses’ experienceof violence in Alberta and B.C.hospitals, reported in theCanadian Journal of NursingResearch. That study also report-ed that nearly half of the almost9,000 nurses surveyed had experi-enced one or more types of vio-lence in the last five shiftsworked.
Henderson would like to seemore reporting to bring the issueout into the open and allow forinterventions. Most important,she says, is that health-care work-places must exemplify safety.
“If nurses are to support others,they must feel supported and safethemselves. In particular, if wewant nurses to work with femalevictims of violence, we need todemonstrate that nurses’ safety isimportant and that they will beprotected when they intervene indifficult situations.”
To read the study, visit _http://www.nursingleadership.net/NL164/NL164Henderson.html ■■
A child the same age as your own bleeds profusely from a wound; her leg has been dismembered. A severely burned patient
stares into your eyes before dying. An iratemember of a patient’s family physically
accosts you in a moment of rage and despair.
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RESEARCH AWARENESS WEEK | MARCH 6 – 13, 2004
The above events are just a few of many public forums, research days and exhibits thatcomprise Research Awareness Week. For a comprehensive and up to date listing please go to www.research.ubc.ca .
UBC proudly acknowledges the support from
INNOVATION: ideas crossing boundaries
March 8-12 – 12-1:30pmNOON HOUR PANEL DISCUSSIONS Topics include: The Science Behind The Technology Unveiled,Drug DiscoveryWorking For You, Marriage in the 21st Century and Cities and Governance.
UBC – Robson Square 800 Robson Street – Theatre 604.822.1700www.research.ubc.ca
March 8 – 7pm NEW HEALTH RESEARCH AND ITS IMPLICATIONSJoin Professors Dr. William Honer (Psychiatry) and Dr. Jerilynn Prior (Endocrinology)for this free evening discussion on wide ranging research from schizophrenia to the ethics of patents. Moderated by Dr. Sid Katz, Professor, PharmaceuticalSciences & Executive Director, UBC Community Affairs.
UBC – Robson Square 800 Robson Street – Theatre 604.822.1700www.research.ubc.ca
March 9 – 7pmCELL AND GENE THERAPY: THE PROMISE AND THE RISKSWhat are the ethical sources and uses of stem cells and other human tissues? Is the time and money involved in these highly personalized therapies really worth it? Join us for this free public forum where we will take a closer look at cell and gene therapy with four internationally recognized scientists. Moderated by former CBC radio host Hal Wake.
Children & Women’s Hospital Campus – Chan Auditorium for Family Health Education 950 W 28th Avenue 604.875.2446 [email protected]
March 10 – 5pmOUR COMPANY IS CHANGING AGAIN? MANAGING FAIRNESS IN THE WORKPLACEJoin us for a free interactive seminar on how to manage justice in the workplacewith Dr. Daniel Skarlicki. Participants will first learn what the payoff of fairness is,and what happens when we lose track of fairness in terms of individual’s morale,commitment and productivity. Dr. Skarlicki will then provide specific strategies formanagers to increase fairness in their organization.Register online at www.sauder.ubc.ca/alumni/raw.index.cfm or call 604.822.6027.
UBC – Robson Square 800 Robson Street – Room C100
March 12 – 12:00pmHUMAN CARGOIt has been called "shocking," "riveting.," The Globe and Mailheralds it as "a rich layered drama packed with excellent performances thatwill take most of us into a world we've never known." A screening of theCBC miniseries, with a talk by co-writer, co-producer, UBC Associate ProfessorLinda Svendsen. Free admission.
Frederic Wood Theatre 6354 Cresecent Rd 604.822.1700
ubc reports | march 4, 2004 | 5
If ideas carried passports, we’d see thatthey cross many borders before havingan impact on our lives.
That concept is the theme of thisyear’s Research Awareness Week(RAW) to be held March 6-13 atUBC’s main campus, UBC RobsonSquare and at UBC’s affiliated hospi-tals.
Titled “Innovation: Ideas CrossingBoundaries,” the week comprisesworkshops, seminars, panels, research
Innovation, IdeasCrossing BoundariesTheme of Research Awareness Week.
B Y H I L A R Y T H O M S O N
Music Prof. Stephen Chatman is this year’s recipient of the Dorothy Somerset Award forExcellence in Performance and Development inthe Visual and Creative Arts.
As a professor of composition, co-ordinatorof the School of Music’s composition division,and director of UBC Contemporary Players newmusic ensemble, Chatman has mentored a generation of prominent Canadian composers.
His career as a composer spans nearly threedecades. He has published more than 40 choralworks and his orchestral compositions have
been performed by symphonies around theworld, including Berlin,San Francisco, Sydneyand Vancouver. Hismusic is regarded aseminently “accessible”with a complete musicalexpression, encompass-ing a broad range ofmusical traditions,eclecticism and post-modern aesthetics.
Chatman was recent-ly invited by theNational Library of
Canada, Manuscript Section, Music Division todeposit his complete archives.
Education Prof. Rita Irwin has been awarded theSam Black Award for Excellence in Educationand Development in the Visual and PerformingArts.
Irwin, a professor of art education and headof the department of curriculum studies, is
days and open houses.“We want to celebrate the new
ideas developed at the universitywhich have a direct and positiveimpact on society,” says Sid Katz,executive director, UBC CommunityAffairs and RAW organizer.“Innovation is all about crossingboundaries – from knowledge tosolutions, from university to commu-nity, from discipline to discipline andfrom research to teaching.”
Highlights of the week include apresentation on the institution ofmarriage in light of the current issueof same-sex marriage as well as anoon-hour panel discussion on howpharmaceutical drugs are developed.In addition, there will be a publicdebate on the compatibility of teach-ing and research, a presentation onmanaging fairness in the workplaceand an undergraduate multidiscipli-nary research conference.
“Every day, UBC’s research enterprise is being strengthened bynew discovery, by the addition ofnew and talented researchers and bythe translation of ideas into practicalsolutions and successful businesses,”says Indira Samarasekera, UBC vice-president, Research. “Andthrough interaction with researchersin the classroom and the lab, students receive this new knowledgeand, in turn, generate new ideas oftheir own.”
Other highlights include a lectureabout how governments and scien-tists are dealing with SARS and apresentation by Vancouver CoastalHealth Research Institute on thepromises and risks of gene therapy.Also, a panel of health researcherswill discuss issues such as schizophre-nia treatment, ovulation and theethics of patents.
Samarasekera and UBC PresidentMartha Piper will celebrate theaccomplishments of more than 200researchers at the Celebrate Research
Awards gala to be held on the eveningof Thursday, March 11.
The event features video vignettesdescribing the work of selected honourees as well as performances bythe UBC School of Music. Individualsto be recognized include RoyalSociety of Canada Fellows as well asthe winner of the Jacob Biely FacultyResearch Prize.
For more information on RAW,visit www.research.ubc.ca and clickon events. For complimentary ticketsto the gala, call 604.822.6010. ■■
recognized as a superb teacher and mentor tolearners from a variety of cultural backgrounds.She has been honoured internationally, nationallyand locally for her consistent and exemplary service and for her commitment to re-imagine and enrich the study and practices of teaching and learning through the arts.
Her research has focused in the areas of FirstNations’ art, culture and pedagogy, and artteacher education and educational change. Irwinhas published extensively in the areas of art education, curriculum theory, qualitative researchand teacher education.
An accomplished visual artist, she presented asolo exhibition of her paintings at a Richmond,B.C. gallery in 2003. ■■
k u d o s
Cardiovascular researcher Dr. Bruce McManus (above) is one of eight Royal Society Fellows at UBC.Psychology prof. Sheila Woody (left) is one of 10 UBC Killam Research Prize winners.
Composition prof. Stephen Chatman has earnedthe Dorothy Somerset Award for Performance andDevelopment in Arts.
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UBC ALUMNI
The First CyberpunkThe first thing to know aboutWilliam F. Gibson is that heis not a Luddite. Popularjournalism has him clackingout his nine novels on cyber-space, ultra modernity andthe advent of hyperlife on amanual typewriter. In fact, hewrote his first novel,Neuromancer in 1983 on amanual typewriter becausethat’s what he had at thetime. He finally booted up in1985, and hasn’t lookedback. He claims to have resis-ted the Internet initially, but when he discovered that it wassuch a magnificent way to waste time, he couldn’t resist. Toprove the point, just visit his Blog atwww.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp.
The second thing to know about him is that he graduatedfrom UBC in 1977 with “a desultory degree in English.”
Born in South Carolina in 1948, he spent most of his teenyears in Virginia and Arizona, and drifted to Canada in the six-ties to avoid the draft. As he says, the draft avoided him: he wasnever called up. But Canada and the Canadian woman he mar-ried kept him here. He and wife Deborah have lived inVancouver since the early 1970s. His novels have had a hugeinfluence on modern science fiction, and some critics citeNeuromancer as the most influential novel of the genre writtenin the late 20th century.
Gibson remains one of the brightest stars currently writingscience fiction. He invented the word “cyberspace,” and takesfull responsibility for cyberpunk. While only one of his storieshas been made into a movie (Johnny Mnemonic, 1995), many ofthe ideas he presents in his novels have shown up in moviesbecause, as he says, it’s easy to use the ideas without having tobuy the film rights from him.
His current book, Pattern Recognition, is science fiction set incurrent time, about a woman who can sense cultural trendsbefore they emerge. ■■
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Two Nobel prizewinners, a formerfederal Cabinet minister, an Olympicrower and a renowned pianist areamong the 11 individuals who willreceive honorary degrees from theUniversity of British Columbia thisyear.
Recipients are recognized for theirdistinguished career achievementsand for their contributions to UBCand to Canada. Honorary degreeswill be awarded during Spring andFall Congregation ceremonies.
Daniel Kahneman, a former UBCprofessor of psychology, earned theBank of Sweden Prize in EconomicSciences in Memory of AlfredNobel, 2002. He was honoured forintegrating psychological researchinto economics, particularly con-cerning human judgement and deci-sion-making under uncertainty.Kahneman currently works atPrinceton University.
Sydney Brenner earned the 2002Nobel Prize in Physiology orMedicine for his contribution tounderstanding the genetic regulationof organ development and differenti-ation. His work has had enormousinfluence on genomics and biologyand he has been extensively involvedwith UBC students and faculty atVancouver’s Centre for MolecularMedicine and Therapeutics.
The Hon. John Fraser is a UBCFaculty of Law alumnus and hasserved Canada as an elected officialsince 1972 until he left political lifein 1994. His service includes being amember of Parliament, federal cabi-net minister and Speaker of theHouse of Commons. In 1994, Fraserwas selected to head the FraserRiver Sockeye Public Review Boardinvestigating the salmon fishery. Hesubsequently represented Canada asAmbassador for the Environment,Foreign Affairs and International
Trade. Fraser is active in the envi-ronmental movement and is chair ofPacific Fisheries ResourceConservation Council.
UBC alumna and rowing champi-on Kathleen Heddle won nine worldchampionships and Olympic medalswhile a member of the Canadiannational rowing team from 1987 to1996. She and rowing partnerMarnie McBean are two of the mostsuccessful athletes in CanadianOlympic history. Heddle is a mem-ber of the Canadian Sports Hall ofFame.
Prof. Emeritus Robert Silvermanserved for 30 years as a UBC profes-sor of piano and was a former direc-tor of the School of Music. An inter-nationally recognized pianist andteacher, Silverman has performedwith more than 50 symphonyorchestras. He earned a Juno Awardnomination for his recording of all32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
Other distinguished recipients are:(in alphabetical order)
Artist and professor of fine artsIain Baxter; alumnus Larry Bell, for-mer UBC Board of Governors chairand business executive; DanaBrynelsen, an alumna, innovatorand advocate for services for youngchildren with disabilities; alumnus,
Eleven to Receive Honorary Degrees
librarian and former UBC senioradministrator Samuel Rothstein;aboriginal health expert and advo-cate Madeleine Dion Stout; interna-tionally influential psychologist andformer UBC faculty member AnneTreisman of Princeton University.
All recipients will receive theirhonorary degrees at SpringCongregation, May 26 to June 2,with the exception of Brenner andHeddle, who will receive theirdegrees at Fall Congregation.
UBC’s Spring Congregation willbe web cast from the Chan Centrefor the Performing Arts. For details,visit www.graduation.ubc.ca. ■■
Former federal cabinet minister John Fraser will receive an honorarydegree in May.
ubcr5003_27feb04 3/03/04 12:21 PM Page 7
ubc reports | february 5, 2004 | 7
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TIMEPIECE 1951
There was a time when UBC coeds could aspire to royalty.Being a campus queen could get you a very large photo in theUBC yearbook Totem. In 1951, there were six campus queens,the Homecoming Princess, the Phrateres Sweetheart, theFreshette Queen, the Totem Queen, the Mardi Gras Queenand the one pictured above, Joan McLean, the Sweetheart ofSigma Chi. Totem '51 reports that each reigned supreme atvarious functions and were picked by students as an importantpart of campus life. ■■
Many Canadian homeowners are keenlyinterested in having “healthy” housesand they are willing to pay more forbuilding materials to improve theindoor air quality, lighting and acousticsin their homes.
The findings, part of a nationwidesurvey conducted by graduate studentWellington Spetic, in UBC’s Faculty ofForestry, suggest there is a significantniche market for value-added buildingproducts such as cabinetry, paneling,windows, doors, flooring and structuralsystems that many Canadian woodproducers may be overlooking.
“The idea was to find out what, ifany, impressions Canadian household-ers had regarding indoor environmentalquality and their level of knowledgeabout healthy housing,” says Spetic.
“What we found was that almost 60per cent of the people interviewed werefamiliar with the term ‘healthy housing’and there’s a group of people whowould at least be willing to look atbuilders who offered these features in ahouse.”
Canadians spend up to 90 per centof their time indoors and the majorityof that time is spent at home.
Eight hundred homeowners acrossCanada participated in the study, thefirst of its kind to look at Canadians’attitudes about their home’s ‘health.’
They responded to questions aboutwhat they value and desire in theindoor environment of their homes,specifically the indoor air quality, light-ing and acoustics, their level of knowl-edge about ‘healthy’ housing, and theirwillingness to pay for better indoorenvironmental quality.
Of those who participated, 56 percent said they were familiar with theterm ‘healthy house’ through sourcessuch as broadcast and print media.
The ‘healthy house’ concept gainedmomentum after the energy crisis of the1970s when the need to conserve ener-gy led to the construction of ‘tighter’houses. While these were more energyefficient, they produced increasedamounts of moisture and mould inhomes which, in recent years, havebeen linked to respiratory-related ill-nesses such as asthma.
A third of those surveyed think theycan get allergies, asthma and skin irrita-tions from materials in their homes –carpets, paints, glues, off gassing frombuilding materials and other toxic sub-stances.
“We don’t know if this is reflected inreality or not but, what’s important isthat this is what homeowners think,”Spetic says.
Among the study’s other findingswere that 56 per cent of respondentswould be prepared to pay up to nineper cent more for improved air quality;44 per cent would be willing to pay upto eight per cent more for improvedlighting; and 40 per cent would be will-ing to fork over up to seven per centmore for better acoustics in theirhomes.
The study also indicated that womenare more knowledgeable than men onthe topic of healthy housing, but arenot necessarily willing to pay extra forit. Older homeowners appear to be lessconcerned with house-related environ-mental issues and are less willing to paymore for healthy house features.
While the survey didn’t reveal anysignificant differences by region, whatemerged from the data was a consumerprofile of the homeowner who wouldbe most likely to consider ‘healthier’building materials.
They are those least satisfied withtheir indoor air quality and environ-mental quality, and who place a highimportance on indoor air quality. Theyare most likely women, middle-aged oryounger, and they have experiencedhealth problems they thought werecaused by something in their homes.
The results suggest that a significant
proportion of the homeowner popula-tion could be reached with targeted pro-motion if a company were interested inmanufacturing healthy houses andbuilding materials says Rob Kozak, aprofessor in the Wood Science depart-ment and Spetic’s advisor on the project.
“There seems to be a fairly evolvedunderstanding of healthful living con-cepts and at the same time, a clear dis-connect between producers and themarketplace. There may be an opportu-nity there that’s being missed,” Kozaksays.
He adds that Canadian wood prod-ucts companies should be looking athow they can venture into this nichemarket, because wood from sustainablymanaged forests is the most conducivematerial for constructing a healthyhouse.
Those who responded to the healthyhome survey seem to agree. Spetic saysmany indicated they would prefer woodproducts, but they feel it is less available
Study Reveals Canadians Willing to PayMore for “Healthy” HousesNew opportunities for Canadian wood product companies. B Y M I C H E L L E C O O K
and more costly than other materialsand they are concerned about sustain-ability issues.
It’s an attitude that calls for moreconsumer education says Kozak, whois part of a team that will be conduct-ing similar healthy home surveys withJapanese and European homeowners.
“Wood is the ecologically responsi-ble material to be used in applicationslike houses,” Kozak says. “It’s renew-able, it’s recyclable and it’s long-lastingwhen homes are properly designed.”
In addition to this work, Kozak andhis team are currently exploring thepositive psychological impacts thatwood has when used in interior applications.
The Healthy House Survey ofCanadian Households was funded byAkira Yamaguchi, a Japanese philan-thropist and owner of the KST-Hokkaido, a homebuilding companywith a distinct philosophy of healthyhousing and healthful living. ■■
Dragline silk is made up of longpolymers. When dry, the polymers aresolid and stationary. UBC researchersfound that when the silk absorbedwater, it underwent a large-scale, rapidmolecular transition with some regionsremaining solid and other others col-lapsing into a rubbery state.
Picture strands of dry spaghetti that,when tossed into boiling water, col-lapse and become pliable but don’t fallapart completely. Silk molecules reactin much the same way – only in roomtemperature water.
“What we saw was molecules trans-forming from completely stationaryand static to liquid-like and rapidlytumbling,” says Michal. “There wasno in-between, no slow motions at all,and that had not been recognizedbefore.”
Michal says the UBC findings sup-port earlier studies, providing the clear-est evidence to date of how supercon-traction occurs at the molecular level.
He hopes the research, funded by
Mysteries of Spider Silkcontinued from page 1
the Natural Sciences and EngineeringResearch Council of Canada, willguide industry in its ongoing quest forbetter synthetic silk.
“For a lot of the applications forsilk-inspired fibres, you really would-n’t want supercontraction,” Michalsays. “Silk’s combination of strengthand stretchiness make it fabulous forsomething like a seatbelt, but youdon’t want a seatbelt to shrink in therain or when you spill coffee on it.”
But will artificial silk be as strongas the real thing if its ability to super-contract is removed?
Michal thinks so, but that’s forindustry to figure out.
“The fibres that people are devel-oping aren’t as good as what the spi-der makes yet. They’re makingprogress and I’m sure there will betrial and error as to how you removesome properties without affectingothers, but in some sense that’s anengineering problem that industry hasexperience in solving.” ■■
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8 | ubc reports | march 4, 2004
LIVING AT UBCINFORMATION SESSIONS FOR FACULTY AND STAFF
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If you’re like most faculty and staff, your day starts in traffic.Fortunately, there are other options. UBC is creating residentialneighbourhoods around the academic core that offer urban living,recreational and cultural amenities in a spectacular physical setting.
Faculty and staff could be among the first to have the opportunity to rent or own. For example, through the innovativeco-development housing program, you could join a group to purchase and develop your own home. To register for an informa-tion session, call 604.731.3103.
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A unique pilot project will soonallow UBC pharmacy students toaccess laboratories south of theborder without leaving their ownclassroom.
A demonstration was conduct-ed last term in a third-year phar-macy course where UBC pharma-cy senior instructor Simon Albonused the Internet to access andoperate instruments in a lab atWestern Washington University(WWU), through its newIntegrated Laboratory Network(ILN).
The in-class science experimentmarked the first time a Canadianuniversity has utilized the ILN tosupport teaching and learning.Students observed as Albon con-ducted a gas chromatographymass spectrometry experiment, atechnique commonly used bypharmaceutical scientists but oneUBC students rarely get to prac-tice on because the faculty doesn’thave the necessary equipment torun it in the student laboratory.
Working with a team of profes-sors from UBC’s Faculties ofPharmaceutical Sciences andEducation, and WWU’s HuxleyCollege of the Environment,
Have Lab, No Travelling Required
B Y B R I A N L I N (with files from Krista Charbonneau)
She is already working with Prof. Susan Kennedy onanalytical lab methods to detect indications of inflam-mation in the exhaled breath of workers exposed tograin dust.
Asst. Prof. Karen Bartlett has enlisted Chu’s help inbuilding a sensor to monitor airborne fungal spores ofthe deadly Cryptococcus neoformans var. gattii, whichhas been the cause of a number of deaths on VancouverIsland. Another long-term plan is to build an indoor airquality sensor that will use artificial intelligence to elimi-nate background contamination and produce reliablereadings for contaminants such as carbon monoxide.
The Michael Smith Foundation for Health Researchhas provided the funds for CHER which, in addition tomicro sensors and state-of-the-art sampling techniques,provides researchers with assistance in grant facilitation,knowledge transfer and biostatistics.
The hope is that CHER research will involve fewhigh speed car chases or gun battles and that, unlike Q’sspy craft devices, Chu’s micro sensors will not bedestroyed in the line of duty. ■■
Dr Chu’s Micro Gadgets Just as James Bond was always armed with amazinggadgets that Q secreted in his pens, watches, and AstonMartin cars, researchers at UBC’s new Centre for Healthand Environment Research (CHER) can now equipthemselves with high-tech micro gadgets provided by thecentre’s micro sensor specialist, Winnie Chu.
CHER researchers rely on accurate measures ofhuman exposure to air pollutants, noise, water pollu-tants, and workplace hazards among others to predicthealth outcomes and identify control strategies.
“One of the challenges in measuring personal expo-sure to environmental threats is taking measurements asunobtrusively as possible. Sensors must be discreet andlightweight so as to allow the wearer to continue theirnormal activity,” according to Prof. Paul Demers,CHER’s acting director.
In other words, there’s no point in giving an ice hock-ey player a heavy briefcase-sized sensor to assess hisexposure to gas from a Zamboni machine during amatch.
Designing micro sensors to help researchers overcomethese types of sampling obstacles is all in a day’s workfor Chu, who is CHER’s fabrication specialist.
Top of her list at the moment is the development of asensor that Prof. Kay Teschke can use to assess theimpact of whole body vibration on truck drivers andother workers in heavy industry. Such a sensor wouldhave to be worn comfortably by the driver and measureforces acting on the back muscles without changing thedriver’s posture or position. The sensor must also meas-ure the vibration that the driver is exposed to from thejostling and jolting of the truck cab.
Chu explains that she will build two accelerometersensors: one is worn on a belt that positions the sensornext to the muscle and measures its mechanomyograph-ic frequency changes, and one that will be placed in thedriver’s seat to measure the forces due to vibration of thevehicle.
Mechanomyography measures the vibration frequencyof individual muscle fibre contractions as the musclemoves. Each movement registers at a different frequen-cy, but the higher the frequency the more likely that themuscle won’t return to its original size or shape, muchlike a spring that has been pulled beyond its elastic limit.
“Accelerometers have been perfected and fine tuned inindustry for use in crash impact air bags. They open atforces indicating a collision – not if you slap the dash atthe sight of yet another traffic jam. The back injury sen-sor, which will be smaller than the size of an aspirin, willyield data about muscle movement and the effects ofexternal forces that will allow us to predict muscle strainand therefore avoid back injury,” explains Chu.
Chu, who has a PhD in chemistry from Simon FraserUniversity, is likely to be in high demand by CHER’s 31researchers over this first year of the centre’s operation.
Mini sensors provide maximum data. B Y C E L I N E H O R N E R
Winnie Chu determines the impact of vibrating equipment with the help of a tiny sensor.
Albon set up the equipment andappropriate samples at the WWUsite and ran the experiment virtu-ally from a UBC classroom whilestudents observed through a two-way video and audio connection.
Students then used the experi-mental data generated to solve thepharmaceutical case developed asthe focus for the in-class learningactivity.
“As a teaching tool, the conceptof an ILN could revolutionizewhat we do, and the experience isunique to Canadian Pharmacyschools,” said Albon.
“It’s a completely differentapproach,” said Albon. “Whenstudents collect their own samples,they have ownership of their workfrom the start, which helps themsee the relevance of what they’releaning.”
Albon’s involvement with theILN is a perfect marriage betweenleading-edge learning technologyand collaborative teaching part-nerships. As part of UBC’s cam-pus-wide eStrategy initiative, e-learning encourages professors andstudents to explore creative, tech-nology-savvy ways to enhancetheir learning experience. ■■
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