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Rheumatology posts
The University of Sydney has announced two appointments with the establishment of a second chair in the field of rheumatology. Arthritis specialist and professor of medicine David Hunter, has been appointed Florance and Cope Chair of Rheumatology while fellow joint and bone expert Professor Lyn March will assume the role of the newly formed Liggins Chair of Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Epidemiology. While Hunter’ s work has been focused on clinical and translational research in osteoarthritis, March has been conducting clinical trials in fish oil, glucosamine and stem cells for osteoarthritis and leading an international group measuring the global burden of musculoskeletal disorders. Both will be based at the university’ s Northern Clinical School within the Royal North Shore Hospital. The dean of the Sydney Medical School, Professor Bruce Robinson, acknowledged the support of Arthritis Australia, which provided funding for the Florance and Cope Chair and for the funds from the Liggins Bequest to the University of Sydney.
Keeping Canadian ties
International computer crime expert Dr Sara Smyth has been appointed as Bond University’ s director of Canadian Programs. As the author of several books, government reports and research studies, Smyth’ s expertise encompasses the rapidly growing fields of cybercrime, internet child pornography and cyber fraud. She has studied crimes associated with online gaming environments, the drug
Evans stays at ANU
ANU chancellor Professor Gareth Evans will continue in the position for another term of three years, from the start of this year. Vice-Chancellor Ian Young said he was very pleased that the university council had approved the renewed term, and that Evans had agreed to continue to serve as chancellor.“ Professor Evans makes an invaluable contribution to ANU in many ways, especially in positioning ANU as Australia’ s leading public policy institute. Gareth also works tirelessly in Australia and around the world to raise the profile of, and generate support for, this great institution. He has contacts, reach and respect.”
trade, money laundering and terrorism. Moving to Australia from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, she joins a number of Canadian law academics now teaching at Bond University, adding to the depth of specialist knowledge available through its Canadian Law Program which has been running for more than 10 years. There are currently more than 150 Canadian students studying at Bond’ s law faculty and a large contingent of the university’ s law graduates now work as partners and senior practitioners across Canada.
Legal couple for USC
The University of the Sunshine Coast has appointed two professors to lead its new law program planned for 2014. The university said that after a rigorous selection process for the inaugural USC Professor of Law, it had appointed Emeritus Professor Neil Rees and Professor Anne Rees, a husband and wife who were both formerly deans of law at the University of
Newcastle. USC deputy vice-chancellor Professor Birgit Lohmann said USC will benefit greatly from the leadership of Neil and Anne Rees who both have decades of diverse and eminent experience in their professions and
academia. Neil Rees was most recently chairman of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. Anne Rees was head of Deakin University’ s School of Law for five years until March and was commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission in the 2000s.
UWS Lithgow outreach post
The University of Western Sydney’ s Outreach Campus at Lithgow, which is scheduled to open later this year, has appointed Anne Forster as a provost to supervise dayto-day operations. Forster has worked in higher education for more than 30 years and held academic and management roles. She has also worked as an independent consultant in Australia and overseas. Forster is currently an adjunct associate professor with the University of Maryland where she has taught online in the master of distance education and e-learning degree. She has also worked at the University of Sydney, Bond University and the Australian Graduate School of Management. Forster’ s work as a consultant has focused on institutional change, entrepreneurial program development and e-learning strategy.“ We are proud to welcome someone of her calibre who has internationally recognised expertise in e-learning and working with disadvantaged groups,” said the chief executive of UWSCollege, Dr Kerry Hudson. ■
STRICTLYSPEAKING
When someone says that they will get something done“ in a jiffy”, we expect it to happen quickly – though the
JIFFY vagueness of the meaning of jiffy in common parlance makes the promise hard to pin down, and it may never happen at all. The first attested use in the Oxford English Dictionary( from 1785) suggests that it is a specific length
of time:“ In six jiffies I found myself and all my retinue... at the rock of Gibraltar”, although it is a quote from the adventures of Baron Munchausen, so not to be relied upon as a true measure. Remarkably, the jiffy is a genuine unit of time in some disciplines. In computer engineering it refers to the length of time between microprocessor clock cycles( also known as a“ tick”). This is not a fixed unit as it changes according to the speed of the operating system, but is measured in fractions of a nanosecond. In quantum physics a jiffy can be even shorter, signifying( according to various authorities) the amount of time it takes for light to travel a metre, a centimetre, or the width of a nucleon. So if a quantum physicist promises to meet you in a jiffy, don’ t take them too literally.
Written by Adam Smith, senior research assistant at the Centre for Language Sciences, Macquarie University
38 | February 2013