York lands funding for 3-D film partnership

York University says it has secured more than $1.4 million to fund the 3-D Film Innovation Consortium, a two-year partnership to expand the capacity for 3-D film production in the GTA and Ontario, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 23.

“The recent success of films like Avatar has changed the perception of 3-D film with the public and the major studios,” says Nell Tenhaaf, visual arts professor and associate dean of research in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

Teams of filmmakers at York, as well as psychologists and vision researchers, will work with the film industry and the Canadian Film Centre to develop 3-D techniques.

A better way to price

For many companies, cost alone drives their product pricing strategies, wrote the National Post Feb. 23. Managers attach value to the end product and too often leave money on the table in the process. Management science can change that.

“At its core,” says Wade Cook, Gordon Charlton Shaw Professor of Management Science at the Schulich School of Business at York University, management science is “a collection of mathematical tools and concepts used in industry to improve operations, efficiency and profitability. While management science has been part of the business landscape for the past 30 to 40 years, it has only recently been applied to optimize price."

Visser contemplates commitment

You can’t say thank you to Margaret Visser without feeling self-conscious, wrote Saskatoon, Sask.’s The StarPhoenix Feb. 23 in a story about an upcoming lecture by the former York professor.

Thank goodness she’s such a good sport about it. Visser literally wrote the book on gratitude with The Gift of Thanks: The Roots, Persistence and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual.

“I talk about everyday life, modern phenomena, and try to use those concrete things to get behind them and see what modernity is about,” Visser said.

Today at the University of Saskatchewan, a grateful audience will listen to her new lecture "I Swear: Oaths, Curses and Modernity". In her lecture, she looks at why oaths aren’t as prevalent today as they once were. “It’s something you do in front of other people and you commit your whole being to do it. And today we’re very, very loath to do that, and I think that’s very interesting.”

Born in South Africa, Visser taught Greek and Latin at York University for 18 years.

On air

  • Joe Baker, professor in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health, spoke about sports psychology and the Olympics, on CTV News Feb. 23.
  • Paul Delaney, professor of physics & astronomy in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, spoke about the latest space shuttle mission, on CTV News Feb. 22.
  • Bernie Wolf, economics professor in the Schulich School of Business at York University, spoke about the latest news about Toyota, on CTV News Feb. 22.
  • Margaret Beare, professor in York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and chair of the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, spoke about government regulation of lottery terminals, on CBC’s "Radio Noon" in St. John’s, Nfld. Feb. 22.