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Saving the Trees 0 N C 0 R D I A,S SDAY ~PORT Osama Mose/hi has designed a better hydro pole Saving the trees next generation of poles. requirements, aesthetic considera­ BY SYLVAIN COMEAU Moselhi points out the obvious: tions (Hydro-Qyebec wanted the rofessor Osama Moselhi, of the plastic poles can be made without poles to look as good as wooden PCentre for Building Studies, is depleting forests . "Wooden poles ones) and public safety. doing his part to save the trees. are also treated with chemicals "Underground electric cables are The expert in construction engi­ so they can last longer. Once they're currently attached to the outside of neering and management, working embedded in the ground, some of wooden poles. But our poles are hol­ with a team from Concordia, the chemicals seep out and pollute low, so the cables can be housed Hydro-~ebec and a fibre compos­ the soil." inside." ites manufacturer, has developed a There are also financial incentives, Another issue for the utility is set of performance specifications for Moselhi said. If they are mass pro­ control over the final product. a new type of distribution pole which duced, the cost of the new poles Attempts to control tree growth will eventually replace many of the might be competitive with that of have resulted in lower quality, com­ wooden poles used in ~ebec. wooden poles. pared with naturally grown trees. Distribution poles carry the cables "The life expectancy of our pole is But now, Hydro-~ebec will be able which transmit electrical energy 40 to 80 years, while wooden poles to build poles according to precise from one place to another. For the tend to last 40 years or less. And specifications. most part, hydro and telephone poles ours do not have to be treated to The plastic poles will not only be have been made from trees, but the make them last that long." customized as to size, but they will prototype of this new pole is made Moselhi worked with engineers be hollow, and therefore much from a fibre-reinforced plastic com­ from the pole manufacturing compa­ lighter, though just as strong. 'We posite. Although Hydro-~ebec has ny, the Hydro-Qyebec Research don't have to carry a dead weight. no problems with its current net­ Institute, and the end users of these That's the beauty ofit." work, environmental concerns have poles. The team had to take into Although the plastic pole is Osama Moselhi with the kind of pole he'd like to see replaced. prompted the utility to develop the account environmental factors, code See Moselhi, p. 7 Students from around the world compete, and U of Calgary wins Case Competition draws a crowd Competing this year were Anne BY MATTHEW KERBY Vivian-Scott, Ludo Segers, Marc he highly successful 1995 edi­ Lemoyne and Reena Atanasiadis. Ttion of the Concordia Interna­ Every year, the team is chosen early tional MBA Case Competition in December from students enrolled wound up last Friday at the Chateau in the case competition course Champlain hotel with a big banquet taught by Jan Meyers (Manage­ and awards ceremony. ment). Thirty teams from Canada, ''In past years, we have often start­ the United States, Mexico, New ed off extremely well and then had a Zealand and Europe had competed setback," said Meyers, who coaches the team. "In this case, we started for more than a week, figuring out solutions to real-life business poorly, and I think it was a mark of the strength of the team that they problems. were able to overcome the disap­ Memorial in 2nd place pointment at the beginning and The University of Calgary cap­ score beautifully in the third, fourth tured the top spot for the second and fifth encounters." year in a row. Memorial University, Competition organizers Claire de of Newfoundland, placed second, Passille, Sabina Kuepper and Ari and ~een's University third. It was Papas worked for almost a year to the first time that ~een's had made ensure that the event ran without a it into the top three. hitch. They saw to it that over 150 Jaye Portlgal never thought she'd see her work here, on the Metro. The Concordia's team finished first competitors and 200 volunteer Cinema student won a competition in Lynn Smith's animation in Qyebec and second in East­ judges were well taken care of by 60 storyboarding class to design for the popular electronic visual-display board. Her 2C)-second sequence, which shows a couple gazing down on ern Canada, behind Memorial. volunteers and support staff. They Montreal from the mountain and ends with this message spelled out in Although they lost their first two obtained the cases, made the book­ lights, ran for a week. The actual animation and operation of the board is cases, they came back to win the next ings and ran the show. done by a thriving young company called T61ecit6, whose president, three, and in the end, came second One of the advantages of the case coincidentally, is Concordia grad Marshan Moreyne (BEng, 77). .to Calgary in their grouping. See Case, p. 7 Computer programme allows Marketing professor to free students from the tyranny of the notebook No flies on Greg BY SYLVAIN COMEAU The next natural question: How them, much like a database, so that does it work? the programme is updated for every "Don't worry about taking "With a computer in the class lecture and downloaded into the stu­ notes. The class material will hooked up to an LCD tablet," dent Mac lab. This allows students all be loaded into the Mac lab." Lypny's written introduction to to explore and experiment with the Most of the students dropped . NFOF explains, "we present lecture material that was covered in class." their pens as Finance Professor Gre­ material, which is displayed by Frank gory Lypny changed the overhead as cards, onto the wall or on a pro­ Personal touch projector image with a click of a jector screen. NFOF also incorporates comput­ computer mouse. "In its simplest use, a card may erized auction markets, which Lypny Welcome to Lypny's computer­ display a graph or bullets with sum­ has used in his classes in the past. He age MBA class. With the help of mary points. Its power, however, lies also peppered the programme with Finance Professor Arshad Ahmad, in the fact that each object on a card, personal touches, such as pithy Lypny wrote his own software pro­ and the card itself, can be pro­ quotes on market behaviour like, gramme, using the Macintosh script­ grammed by the instructor to do "Anyone taken as an individual is ing language Hypercard. No Flies on things." tolerably sensible and reasonable. As Frank (NFOF) is designed a member of a crowd, he at to act as a kind of high tech once becomes a blockhead." taking dictation, and that completely Some students prefer the venerable blackboard, interactive (Frederic Von Schuller) detracts from learning. blackboard, while others find the teaching tool and home­ Once the students get used "I'm trying to reassure them that programme far superior to hastily work aid. The first question Ji Teaching to using NFOF, Lypny most things which are pertinent will written notes for reviewing class that springs to mind is, hopes that they will over­ appear in the programme, so they material. Who on earth is Frank? Any instructor will be able to use throw the tyranny of the notebook, don't have to kill themselves taking Lypny expects certain growing "The name of the programme is a NFOF for any kind of class, Lypny and learn to take notes selectively. notes in class." pains for his new teaching tool. He is quote from John Lennon's 1964 said, once he designs a more generic "After I become well versed in Lypny's students have had only a exploring uncharted territory, since book, In His Own Write. The phrase version of the programme. using it in the classroom, and the few months to take stock of NFOF 'no flies on Frank' or 'no flies on me' "Many of the screens do calcula­ students grow confident about using while Lypny worked to smooth the he has found that "no one else is has come to mean being active, mov­ tions; they can be programmed to it in the lab, they will be inclined to transition to a more high-tech class­ doing this. But I would rather create ing ahead, getting on with your life. animate things, such as a graph take fewer notes in class. Students room. A random sampling of stu­ my own programme than search for In the classroom, it is intended to changing in real time. The screens tend to take down every word spo­ dents in Lypny's MBA class a few something that may not exist, or if it mean: We can try new things." also retain information typed into ken by the prof. Essentially, they are weeks ago produced mixed reviews. does, not fit the bill." • Seagram Fund project to examine management philosophy Taking the trouble out of TQM gram Fund for Academic Innova­ TQM via four disciplines, manage­ effects. Many companies want the BY MARLENE BLANSHAY tion. His research team comprises ment, marketing, decision sciences bottom line in five months, and ince the early 1980s, North two fellow members of the Faculty and engineering. when that doesn't happen they say SAmerican companies have been of Commerce and Administration, The first phase involves data col­ it's because ofTQM.
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