Dear Colleagues,Association of Bulgarian Engineers in Canada – ABECThe Council of the Association of Bulgarian Engineers in Canada is bringing to the attention of all Bulgarian Engineers in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, the signed Agreement between TD Meloche Monnex and the Coalition “European Engineers”. The Coalition is formed from the Associations of Bulgarian, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian Engineers in Canada. The Group Insurance Affinity Agreement provided to “European Engineers” by Meloche Monnex allows the Members to participate at preferred group rates to obtain home, automobile, travel and small business (micro enterprise) insurance coverage for the members, their spouses and children living at home. See - http://www.melochemonnex.com The program conditions, administration, marketing, confidentiality, indemnifications are similar for all professional and alumni association programs (CIM, PEO). The TD Meloche Monnex home and auto program offered to groups is underwritten by Security National Insurance Company and distributed by Meloche Monnex Financial Services Inc. Due to provincial legislation, the automobile insurance program is not offered in British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Manitoba. The group auto insurance rates are not applicable in Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island Please note that we are in the process of preparing an “Eligibility List” for Meloche Monnex. Only Members of ABEC in good standing will have their name activated into the group of the “European Engineer”. To be a Member of ABEC you must possess a Diploma from Technical Engineering Universities and paid-up membership fees of 50 dollars CDN. New Members are always welcome! Please communicate this announcement to your friends, colleagues and compatriots, so more Bulgarian Engineers could use this Insurance Program. The Bulgarian Engineers are highly knowledgeable professionals working with honesty, competence and integrity all over the world. This Program may be for you! From the ABEC’s Council Here are our Mail, Training, Employment opportunities and ABEC’s News for the month of June 2006.
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Information and Training |
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Certificate in Advanced
Technology for Accounting and Finance (ATAF) |
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Participants receive
information about their sector - an overview of their profession, the
licensing required, where to get language and upgrading programs, how to
research and apply for jobs, and get labour market information.
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Settlement Services |
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Settlement Services for
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Free Workshops
All workshops are held at Skills for Change Employment Resource Centre
791 St. Clair Ave. West (west of Christie St.) www.derc.ca
Seats are limited Pre-register early by calling: (416) 658-3101 ext.225
HOW TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS NEW!
With guest speaker Ray Brooks. Tuesday, June 6, 2006 at 1:30 pm, rm 211
Call 416-658-3101 ext 225 to Reserve a Seat
This is a practical, hands-on session with time for questions, discussions and problem solving. Ray Brooks, an Accountant who immigrated to Canada and started his own business, will provide it.
Learn how to register a Business Name, Incorporate Provincially or Federally, Register for a Master Business License and Write a Business Plan and apply for a Business Bank Loan
Skills for Change
791 St. Clair Avenue West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6C 1B8
Telephone 416 658-3101 · Fax 416 658-6292
A
United Way member agency. Skills for Change is a
registered non-profit organization
Charitable registration #121471858RR0001
Schools of the coop-education:
York Dale Adult Center
38 Orfus Road
Tel.416-395-3350
416-395-6505
Website: www.yorkdale.net
Brown Fleming Catholic Adult Center
870 Queen Street West
Tel.905-891-3034
Website: www.dpcdsb.org/coopcentre
Course for Citizenship Exam:
JOHN PAUL II
ADULT EDUCATION CENTRE
4300 CAWTHRA RD.
MISSISSAUGA, ON L4L 1V8
TEL: (905) 270 5074
JOLANTA
Job search for Southern Ontario
http://www.applicants.ca/joblistings.html
WARDROP In Forest Products, Health, Manufacturing, Mining, Nuclear, Power, Oil & Gas, Transportation and Water and Waste, Wardrop truly is the name for excellence, worldwide.
http://www.prohire.com/candidates/default.cfm?szWID=9436&szCID=42464
AMEC is an international project management and services company, employing around 45,000 people in some 40 countries around the world.
http://www.amec.com/careers/careers.asp?pageid=40
Petro-Canada is one of the largest integrated oil
and gas companies in
Canada, with significant international interests.
http://www.petro-canada.com/eng/jobs/apply/8365.htm
Imperial Oil is one of Canada's largest corporations and has been a leading member of the petroleum industry for more than a century.
http://www.imperialoil.ca/Canada-English/People/Other_Opportunities/P_OO_OtherOpportunities.asp
Telecommunication Company is looking for Technicians, Technologists for installation of Ericsson Base Stations. The experience will be - Telecommunication Specialist.
Duration – 1 year. For more Information call our Colleague Eng. Mr. Stoyan Stoyanov on his Tel: 416 312 2991 (between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.)
NEWS
Nanostructures help naturally inspired solutions
Industry Channel: Chemical and Process
Source: The Engineer Online
Published: The Engineer Online - 01 June 2006
http://secure.theengineer.co.uk/Home/default.aspx
Nanotechnology is making the science of copying nature ever more effective, with the result that biomimetic design principles are increasingly being used to solve industrial problems. Here DTI International Technology Promoter Martin Kemp reports on some of the technologies being developed.
Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, are developing nanostructured surface technologies with enormous commercial potential. One project has seen them take materials modelled on a well-known biomimetic target – shark skin – to the next level by using their expertise in engineering at the nanoscale.
Materials that mimic the structure of shark skin, which is covered with tiny tooth-like, or ‘riblet’, structures that reduce drag, have already been used on racing yachts and swimsuits. Until now, though, few researchers have thought of applying highly engineered structures with riblets to the inside of pipes to reduce frictional resistance – and the energy requirements of air and fluid systems.
Professor Bengt Kasemo and his team have manufactured simulated shark skin structures using computer modelling combined with processing techniques such as photo- and electron beam lithography. They are also using biomimetics to attempt to solve another problem within pipes – molecular and organic debris. ‘We are using a microstructure based on lotus leaf surface extract to promote self-cleaning,’ says Professor Kasemo. ‘Together, the two techniques could improve the energy efficiency and performance of ventilation systems and natural gas and hydrogen pipelines.’
Professor Kasemo has also developed a technique to understand how nanostructured surfaces can improve the performance of catalysts. His approach involves manufacturing a catalytic nanostructured surface on a planar surface using colloidal and electron beam lithographies, and analysing and optimising catalytic properties of the system through a number of techniques including the use of spectroscopy and microreactors.
The potential of this work in the automotive emission cleaning and fuel cell sectors has encouraged Saab, Volvo, GM and Ford to work with Chalmers at its Catalysis Centre. ‘The same type of nanofabricated catalysts can also be used in photocatalysis, where light-induced excitation rather than heat is used to promote reactions,’ says Professor Kasemo. ‘We have another programme exploring light as an energy source for use in solar cells for hydrogen production. I would be extremely keen to hear from UK organisations interested in this work.’
Low density materials
Nature also specialises in developing lightweight, high-performance materials with low density or cellular structure. For example, birds need bones which are extremely lightweight but stiff in order to achieve flight, and their internal structure resembles a closed-cell foam. This structure is being replicated by several laboratories in Germany which are investigating the manufacture of foamed magnesium and foamed aluminium structures within a solid skin. Such materials show extremely good energy absorption and are being used in crash elements for cars.
Taking cellular structures to the next level of optimisation, researchers at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in Germany have studied the growth mechanisms in bones and trees. They have developed software which can design from the ‘bottom up’ highly optimised structures with webbed or variable pore internal geometry. The program identifies under-loaded regions and makes them ‘softer’, and if they remain under-loaded, they are removed. Such an approach mimics the mechanism which selectively promotes growth of material in the more highly stressed regions of bones and trees.
Another example using cellular materials is the structure of a plant stem or skull. This design principle is reflected in composite sandwich construction, which comprises a core layer bonded between upper and lower skin sheets.
The traditional core material has been a structure made from folded and bonded paper, which mimics a honeycomb. These materials and, more recently, advanced foams, metal sheet or thermoplastic honeycombs are also used to make flat panels for floors and internal walls, for example in aircraft, boats and trains.
Manufacture of complex curved sandwich structures is more difficult, and one solution is offered by a new foam technology from Switzerland. This foam is soft and pliable for forming, but when treated with an electron beam, becomes rigid, allowing the application of woven cloth or prepreg (pre-impregnated) skins to produce a final structure. At JEC Paris in April, the company exhibited an eye-catching two-wheeled ‘Blue Cocoon’, a near-nine-metre-long sculpture by Swiss artist Marco Ganz, to show the potential of the material.
An alternative method to produce an in situ fine-pore foam core is a Swedish-developed polymer powder filled with foaming agent. On heating, the particles expand from 10µm to microspheres 40µm in diameter to produce a form-fit foam insert. This technology has found wide applications, including thermal barriers on paper coffee cups, filling a tennis ball to maintain high bounce, and impact protection in helmets.
This article has been reprinted from Global Watch, the monthly magazine of the DTI Global Watch Service. For further information about the activities of the Service, please click here.
http://www.globalwatchservice.com/Pages/ThreeColumns.aspx?PageID=1
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Asian Companies Turn More and More to Québechttp://www.investquebec.com/en/index.aspx
ENERGY TECH
Physicists Persevere In Quest For Inexhaustible Energy Source
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by Staff Writers
Madison WI
(SPX) Jun 02, 2006
As
gas prices soar and greenhouse gases continue to blanket the atmosphere, the
need for a clean, safe and cheap source of
energy has never seemed more
pressing. Scientists have long worked to meet that need, exploring
alternative energy technologies
such as wind and
solar power.
But, after decades of quiet progress, the spotlight is now on another potentially inexhaustible energy source.
Seven countries signed an agreement in Brussels last week (May 24) to launch construction of the multibillion dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France.
The largest fusion-energy experiment ever conducted, ITER is the culmination of years of research by scores of scientists, and is poised to answer long-standing questions about the real-world viability of fusion energy. The United States, China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation are joint sponsors of the project, which will experimentally generate up to 500 million watts of energy.
An international collective of physicists and engineers is working to both complement and lend expertise directly to the ITER initiative - and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are firmly placed among them.
"[ITER] is a major threshold that we've been waiting to get to for 20 years," says Raymond Fonck, a UW-Madison professor of engineering physics and the chief scientist of ITER's U.S. project office. "The project is the No. 1 priority in fusion research in the country and the world, and essentially takes us to a regime we've never been to before."
Fusion energy describes the energy that is released when atomic particles "fuse" together to form heavier particles. The process is fundamental to our universe, fueling both the sun and the stars.
Here on Earth, physicists have tried to harness the energy potential of nuclear fusion by working with plasma, essentially a collection of particles, such as hydrogen nuclei, that carry electric charge. Because hydrogen can be easily extracted from seawater - a cheap and abundant resource - scientists have been tantalized by the prospect of plasma one day serving as an inexhaustible fuel.
But plasma has to be very, very hot - on the order of millions of degrees - for its gas particles to efficiently collide and release energy. "Basically, we're trying to make a sun here on Earth," says Stewart Prager, a UW-Madison physics professor, who also advises the U.S. government on national fusion-energy research. "But it turns out to be one of the most difficult scientific problems in the world."
One of the biggest hurdles, of course, is finding a container that can hold searing hot plasma without burning down itself. Scientists have been working around the problem by using invisible magnetic fields to hold the plasma in place, but they are still searching for the most efficient and optimal ways to do it.
UW-Madison scientists are delving into pure physics and engineering research questions surrounding the issue. Their work both complements ITER's goals and, in a sense, looks one step beyond it.
Prager and his team, for instance, run the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) - the largest fusion-energy experiment on campus. Shaped like a donut, the MST holds plasma heated to 10 million degrees. But instead of using a strong magnetic field to hold the plasma, Prager is exploring whether weaker - and therefore more economical - magnetic fields could accomplish the same task.
The work has led to new insights about properties of plasma, and, in turn, has given rise to unique partnerships with astrophysicists, who are using the MST to explore basic questions about the plasma around black holes, galactic discs and other mysterious happenings of the solar system.
"We are now starting to appreciate and explore links between plasmas in the lab and plasmas in the universe, which is really interesting," Prager says.
Working with a device known as Pegasus, Fonck and his group are also exploring weaker magnetic fields, but are approaching the issue in a different way. Unlike the donut shape of the MST, the plasma within Pegasus looks more like a ball with a small hole in it, which influences how the plasma behaves.
Fonck's work relies on the same fundamental physics that is at the heart of ITER's design, and could one day lead to new methods for testing large-scale components in future fusion reactors.
David Anderson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and another plasma researcher at UW-Madison, recently made waves when he designed a new device that holds plasma within a magnetic field, without an electric current in the plasma to power the field.
"The current is running in external wires and not in the plasma itself, and that represents a tremendous engineering advantage," says Anderson, who works with a plasma instrument known as the Helically Symmetric eXperiment, the only machine of its kind in the world.
Plasma can become unstable in the presence of a current, so Anderson is exploring ways to trick the plasma into staying in place by twisting the surrounding magnetic field into a special - and highly complicated - shape.
"It's very exciting to work on something that's totally new and offers potential advantages to the field," says Anderson. "A lot of what we're all doing here in Wisconsin is looking for what the next research steps will be beyond ITER. In that way, we really do have a unique place in the world's fusion-energy research program."
Related Links
University of
Wisconsin-Madison
ABEC’s News
On May 28th 2006 our Regular meeting took place in the beautiful building of the Central Library of Richmond Hill - the City above Toronto.
The main recommendations for ABEC activity were outlined:
- Better advertisement of the ABEC’s Insurance Program between our Colleagues, Bulgarian Engineers in Canada for increased member participation in The Program and the benefits offered through it.
- Establishment and maintenance of the Eligibility List, preparation and the time brackets.
- New Members are welcome.
- A review of all the details of the ABEC’s logo.
- Design of an ABEC’s membership cart.
**** Need volunteer (2 hours per week) for updating the e-mail work.
The next Meeting will be announced by e-mail; ((arrangements not final for June 25th in the same time and place))
The traditional ABEC picnic
The picnic will be on Sunday, August 13th 2006, in the Glen Haffy Area. http://www.trca.on.ca/parks_and_culture/places_to_visit/glen_haffy/
Dear Colleagues, if you have interesting technical news or articles in digital form, Please send them to us for the next monthly news.
Best Regards to all ABEC Members
Pauline Loultcheva Lawrence
pauline_m_lawrence@hotmail.com