DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Staff

Dr John McTavish is currently on sabbatical leave for one year. Dr Patrick Stephens has been appointed temporary lecturer for the duration of Dr McTavish's leave.

Dr Albert Owino rejoined the Department as Research Fellow replacement for Dr Michael Taylor.

Grants

Professor Anthony Chen has received a grant of US$5,000 to support graduate research in climate variability from the Inter-American Institute for Global Climate Change Research. The grant was facilitated through the CRN73 project on 'Climate Variability and Its Impact in the Mexican, Central American and Caribbean Regions.'
Outreach Activities

Professor Anthony Chen has been appointed to the expert roster of the UNEP Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel to the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) to review GEF projects on climate change.

Dr Joseph Skobla participated in an initiative, led by the Bureau of Standards, to rehabilitate the City of Kingston Municipal Clock, as well as other parish clocks. Dr Skobla advised on the application of GPS technology to the clocks' mechanisms.

The Department hosted a small number of students from CASE on December 2, 2003. The Department accommodated a request from CASE to allow the students to perform specific P04 and P14 experiments. Staff and graduate students provided the necessary instructions. This was an ongoing arrangement between the Department and CASE.

Conferences/Workshops

Dr Michael Taylor and Dr Albert Owino attended a workshop in Cuba from September 9 to 13, 2004, on training in the use of the PRECIS regional climate model.c

Dr Donald Walwyn conducted a workshop from September 22 to 29, 2003, on "Telecommunications" for some non-technical staff of the Office of Utilities Regulation.

Dr Lucien Ngalamou delivered a paper on "Converting petri nets to fuzzy sets for controller design" at the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics in Washington, D.C., October 5-8, 2003.
Dr Lucien Ngalamou gave a lecture on "Petri nets and fuzzy logic in controller design" to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, USA.

Calmin Scarlett, a graduate student, was sponsored by the UNDP to attend the ITU Telecom World Exposition in Geneva, Switzerland, October 12-18, 2003.

Professor Anthony Chen delivered a paper by A. Chen, W. Bailey and C. Heslop-Thomas on "Human dimensions of climate change in the Caribbean - taking stock and moving forward" at the Open Meeting of the Global Environment Change Research Community, Montreal, Canada, October 16-18, 2003.