The Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering is pleased to announce an upcoming Master of Science in Sustainable Design Engineering (MSc-SDE) thesis defense on Friday, December 2, 2022.

Presenter: Hamed Bozorgi

Title: "FROM SOCIAL PERCEPTION TO SHARED CONTROL ON A MOBILE ROBOT: FUSION, INTEGRATION, AND FILTERING"

Social perception and safe navigation are the main requirements for deploying a mobile robot in a human-populated environment and turning it into a human-aware mobile robot. To date, we are still lacking social perception and reasoning systems capable of dealing with various human intentions and behaviors in human-populated environments. The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a novel, reliable, real-time social perception system for real-life dynamic environments by integrating solutions of learning-based and model-based techniques. Our secondary goal is to extend the social perception toward robot navigation and control by developing a shared autonomy framework allowing the user to encode social preferences into the autonomous control of the robotic system. To achieve these goals, four sub-objectives were identified and will be reviewed in this defense.

If you wish to attend the public presentation, please contact Lisa Sanderson to receive the link.

It's that time again!  Before I ask anything, let me say "thank you" to the UPEI community and beyond. Your generosity helps our students in so many ways. Food, funds, gift cards, and coats are only the tip of the iceberg. Your volunteering, your referrals, and your smiles are priceless.  

And now for two more opportunities: (1) Thursday, December 15, is our Free Food Chili and Dahl Event.  For more than 25 years, the Chaplaincy Centre has reached out to our students during exams with a free hot meal served by UPEI staff and faculty.  Free hot food in a friendly environment is a great stress reliever! But we need your support.  Please use this link for an overview and the volunteer sign-up sheet.

(2) Our UPEI Campus Foodbank also needs volunteers. Please use this link to access our January and February 2023 sign-up sheet.

Thanks!  Sister Sue and Lauren

The UPEI Faculty Association is holding a food drive on November 30 in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre and on December 1 in the Robertson Library breezeway, both from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. 

We hope you'll join and help us stock the shelves of UPEI's food bank. Non-perishable items only, please, or gift cards to grocery stores or cash. 

On Wednesday, November 30, ITSS will be conducting routine maintenance on the MyUPEI portal and related services (Colleague, Recruit, Self-Service) from 8 pm to 12 am midnight. During this time, there may be intermittent access and performance issues with MyUPEI, Self-Service, Colleague & apply.upei.ca sites.

We encourage students, faculty, and staff that may need documents or links located on myUPEI to plan ahead and bookmark or download the resources they may need during this period.

As a reminder, you can access Moodle directly using https://moodle.upei.ca and Outlook email directly using https://outlook.office.com.

If you have any questions, please contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465.

The UPEI Healthy Campus Committee is seeking feedback from UPEI faculty and staff about the employee wellness program. Your feedback will assist the committee in future planning. The survey should take less than five minutes to complete.

As an incentive to complete the survey, we will draw for a new iPhone 14 on Thursday, December 1, 2022. Deadline to complete the survey is December 1, 2022, at 9:00 am AST.

NOTE: The survey is for UPEI faculty and staff only. One entry per person.

To complete the survey, click here.

Hi everyone, especially new employees and students,

The AVC Veterinary Teaching Hospital has an online pet store (myVETstore.ca) as well as our on-site pet food offerings. This 24/7 service offers a huge selection of food, treats, toys, and supplies for cats, dogs, pocket pets, and exotics. Every purchase supports the next generation of veterinarians. At times, it can be inconvenient for you to shop in person. Our home delivery option is perfect as we prefer that clients have orders shipped directly to their homes.

To facilitate this, we reduced the order purchase amount from $80 to $30 before tax to have it qualify for free shipping to your home. As well, if you sign up for auto orders, you can save 5% on your order.

How does it work? If you haven't already, we invite you to sign up for an account for the AVC myVETstore through this link: https://www.myvetstore.ca/avcvth

Once you sign up, you can place your order, which will then be processed. You will receive an email letting you know when your order has shipped or is available for pickup. Certain orders that do not qualify for home shipment can still be shipped to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital for pickup.

If you receive the staff/AVC student food discount at the VTH and are not seeing your discount on the AVCmyVetstore website pricing when you sign in, please email avcmyvetsore@upei.ca with the email address you used to sign up.

On Wednesday, November 30, 2022, ITSS will conduct routine maintenance from 8 pm to 12 midnight. During this time, Colleague and myUPEI will be offline.

We encourage students, faculty, and staff who may need documents or links located on myUPEI to plan ahead and bookmark or download the resources they may need during this period.

As a reminder, you can access Moodle directly using https://moodle.upei.ca

Overview: This course will review the basics of fundraising and sponsorship and give participants the tools and knowledge to lead a successful fundraising campaign. The material will be presented through various lectures, media, and interactive polling and discussion, followed by breakout sessions and group discussions. For more information, go to https://files.upei.ca/professionaldevelopment/upei_pd_successful_fundraising_and_sponsorship.pdf

Designed for: People who are required to fundraise and/or obtain sponsorships for their place of employment or a local volunteer organization

Type of Delivery: In-person

Duration: One course for six (6) hours.

Facilitators: Lee Gallant

The members of the UPEI Wind Symphony are excited to return to performing live for the first time in a year, with a program of works by British composers. Featured works for this recital include Philip Sparke's playful and expressive “Hanover Festival,” Ralph Vaughan William's iconic “Folk Song Suite” (including the original 4th movement, “Sea Songs”), a set of three musical “Portraits of the North” by British Canadian composer Robert Buckley, and the first movement of Edward Gregson's “Tuba Concerto,” featuring music student Olive MacPhail as soloist.

The recital takes place at 7:30 pm, Thursday, December 1, at Dr. Steel Recital Hall. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students, and will be available for purchase with cash at the door of the event.

On Wednesday, November 30, between 10:30 pm and midnight, ITSS will be conducting routine maintenance on the Remote Desktop Services accessed via the website myDesktop.upei.ca and RXWorks application servers. During this time, both RXWorks and myDesktop.upei.ca servers will be unavailable.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465.

Every year, the Sustainable Design Engineering first-year students design and build gravitational cars as part of the Engineering Communication course.

After five long weeks of building, the students are ready to test their cars in a fun race! This year, the race is being held on Friday, December 2, at 12 noon, at the slope beside UPEI Alumni Games Place.

All are welcome to come to see these awesome cars and watch the fun race!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the holiday buying season so it's important to be vigilant online. Don't wait for your bill to come at the end of the month. Go online regularly, especially during this time of year, to view electronic statements for your credit card, debit card, and chequing accounts. Look for any fraudulent charges, even originating from payment sites like Amazon and Paypal. Sometimes they can be for just a dollar or two.

Don't use a debit card for online purchases, and anywhere that wants a wired payment transfer is a NO NO NO!!! Call your bank straight away if something seems fishy.

Safe shopping.

The first session of this year's ConneXions series is scheduled for Friday, 2 December, 2:00-3:00 pm. Join us on Zoom as four colleagues in the Department of Psychology--Drs Jennifer Altman, Martha O'Meara, Jessica Strong, and Yoshi Takano--share some of their recent research activities and how their work connects to the Arts in general.

Zoom link: https://upei.zoom.us/j/61950086711?pwd=TUoxcllaNnlicGJsdmRxWWtvUkhBUT09

In addition to showcasing the scholarly endeavours of these four recently hired faculty members, this session will provide an opportunity for us all to welcome them into the family of the Faculty of Arts at UPEI.

The Connexions series aims to foster understanding of the role that the liberal arts play in the construction of knowledge and ways of knowing, and in making sense of the complexities of the world around us through panel discussions, speakers and research talks, collaborative projects and presentations, symposia and workshops, and reading and discussion groups.

The search committee for the Dean of Nursing announces an upcoming presentation by Dr. Sandra Goldsworthy, one of the short-listed candidates for this position. Dr. Goldsworthy will deliver a public presentation on Thursday, December 1, at 9:00 am in Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, Room 142.  

Dr. Sandra Goldsworthy is a nurse education leader who is nationally recognized as a simulation and critical care expert, researcher, and author. She is the recipient of the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation in Learning (INACSL) Excellence in Research Award and the Canadian Nurses Association Order of Merit in Education. She has over 70 peer-reviewed publications. 

Dr. Goldsworthy is currently a professor in the School of Nursing at Nipissing University. She held a Research Professorship in Simulation from 2015–2019 at the University of Calgary. She holds three national certifications: Canadian Nurses Association credentials in Critical Care and Medical Surgical Nursing, as well as a Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) Canadian Certified Nurse Simulation Educator credential (CCNSE). She is a member of several national and international committees including roles as director of education for the World Federation of Critical Care Nurses Association and co-chair of the CASN Simulation Interest Group. Her research program focuses on the impact of simulation on building competence and response for the reduction of medication errors and improving health team communication competencies through interprofessional simulation education.   

All are welcome to attend. For any who are unable to attend, the presentation will be recorded and available afterward for viewing from a secure site.   

Following each candidate’s presentation, you are invited to provide feedback on each candidate’s suitability for the role by 4:30 pm on Thursday, December 9, to Chris Gibson at cgibson@kbrs.ca. KBRS is the recruitment firm that is supporting UPEI in this decanal search process.

On Giving Tuesday, November 29, the AVC Wildlife Service will hold a fundraising event at the Atlantic Veterinary College from 9 am to 3 pm next to the cafeteria. There will be a bake sale, a silent auction, and a raffle with prizes. All proceeds will go toward continuous care for a bald eagle currently in the care of the service and for the construction of an enclosure for it at Hope for Wildlife.

After being hit by a car, the eagle was paralyzed and had ground-breaking spinal surgery at AVC in November 2021. The surgery was successful, and the eagle can now perch and fly short distances. Permanent wing injuries impede the eagle from flying long distances, and therefore it cannot be released into the wild. It will find a home at Hope for Wildlife.

In addition, UPEI has selected the AVC Wildlife Service as the recipient of donations for Giving Tuesday this year. The AVC Wildlife Service provides care Island-wide to injured, orphaned, and displaced wildlife.

The Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering is pleased to announce an upcoming Master of Science in Sustainable Design Engineering (MSc-SDE) thesis defense on Thursday, December 1, 2022

Presenter: Truong Nhu

Title: "TACTILE-SENSOR-BASED DISTRIBUTED CONTROL FOR SWARM NAVIGATION"

In this research, we focused on addressing problems that a robot swarm may encounter during the navigation process. Specifically, we dealt with a robot swarm encountering unknown large-sized obstacles in two different scenarios: (1) an obstacle partially blocks its path to the destination, and (2) an obstacle blocks the path entirely, and the swarm has no way to get around it.

The general objective of this research was to design distributed behaviour-based controls using the novel approach of wall-following strategies. To accomplish this, we proposed three distributed behaviour-based controls which employ different coordination strategies based on the wall-following behaviour to address the problems that arise during swarm navigation. To perform the wall-following behaviour, each robot is equipped with a tactile sensor.

If you wish to attend the public presentation, please contact Lisa Sanderson to receive the link.

It's that time again!  Before I ask anything, let me say "thank you" to the UPEI community and beyond. Your generosity helps our students in so many ways. Food, funds, gift cards, and coats are only the tip of the iceberg. Your volunteering, your referrals, and your smiles are priceless.  

And now for two more opportunities: (1) Thursday, December 15, is our Free Food Chili and Dahl Event.  For more than 25 years, the Chaplaincy Centre has reached out to our students during exams with a free hot meal served by UPEI staff and faculty.  Free hot food in a friendly environment is a great stress reliever! But we need your support.  Please use this link for an overview and the volunteer sign-up sheet.

(2) Our UPEI Campus Foodbank also needs volunteers. Please use this link to access our January and February 2023 sign-up sheet.

Thanks!  Sister Sue and Lauren

The UPEI Faculty Association is holding a food drive on November 30 in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre and on December 1 in the Robertson Library breezeway, both from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. 

We hope you'll join and help us stock the shelves of UPEI's food bank. Non-perishable items only, please, or gift cards to grocery stores or cash. 

On Wednesday, November 30, ITSS will be conducting routine maintenance on the MyUPEI portal and related services (Colleague, Recruit, Self-Service) from 8 pm to 12 am midnight. During this time, there may be intermittent access and performance issues with MyUPEI, Self-Service, Colleague & apply.upei.ca sites.

We encourage students, faculty, and staff that may need documents or links located on myUPEI to plan ahead and bookmark or download the resources they may need during this period.

As a reminder, you can access Moodle directly using https://moodle.upei.ca and Outlook email directly using https://outlook.office.com.

If you have any questions, please contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465.

The final day for fall term Writing Centre appointments will be the last day of classes, Thursday, December 8. Our tutors will be available until then to help with the crunch of final assignments, and we'll reopen again in mid-January. Book your appointment at https://upei.mywconline.com/

Best wishes with the end-of-term madness, everyone.