Newsletter - December 2001

Ó American Friends of the University of Edinburgh 

CONTENTS

• President's Letter
• University to Create Successor to WWW
• Edinburgh Next Summer?
• The Euro
• Sex
• Stefanie Morgyn Wagner Honored
• A Scottish Conundrum
• World Vegetarian Congress
• Environment for Visualizing Images

PRESIDENT'S LETTER

Dear Friends:

AFUE, like many charitable organisations, is experiencing a reduction in donations but because it cannot exist without your help I hope you will continue your tax-deductible support, especially this year. There is a donations form on this YahooGroups site. Click on Files, in the left hand column, then on Annual Appeal 2002 in the middle, then print the form. Or, to make it even easier, you can now donate on-line. Go to http://www.afue.org/ - and click on the Donate On-line button at the bottom left of the screen.

Fortunately we are well on the way to money-saving on-line distribution of the newsletter. For the first time, on-line subscribers have received an expanded version. Sign-ups are coming along nicely. If you would like to sign up send a blank email to AmericanFriendsUniversityofEdinburgh-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR send your email address (with name and degree/year) to me eileenmacmillan@attbi.com and I will 'subscribe' you. There is no charge for this. (If you have not received an "invitation" I do not have your email address so please send it along.) The system seems to be working well, but do let me know if you experience any difficulties.

I am happy to report a larger than usual contingent of 'found' alumni. Welcome back, folks! And thanks to those who sent in the names too. If you know of anyone who is not on the mailing list please send me their name, degree/year, address and email address and I will be delighted to reinstate them.

With best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season.   Eileen

UNIVERSITY TO CREATE SUCCESSOR TO WWW

Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities have been awarded £5.5m to establish the National e-Science Centre to lead the development of e-Science in the UK. The new National e-Science Centre will include an e-Science Institute in Edinburgh and 8 regional centres.

E-Science will require a much more powerful infrastructure and new software technolgies, called the Grid, to support it. Underpinning the Grid will be virtual organisations created to tackle specific projects and to create the technology, working practices and organisational thinking which will allow members of virtual organisations to have ready, secure and seamless access to all shared resources.

Says Professor Richard Kenway, Chairman of the e-Science Centre, "Edinburgh pioneered the use of parallel computing The National e-Science Centre places us at the forefront of the new revolution in computing, transforming academic research and creating new business opportunities."

EDINBURGH NEXT SUMMER?

The University's Centre for Continuing Education (now part of the Office of Lifelong Learning) presented its annual programme of international summer schools for adults from May through September. 'Students', the youngest of whom was seventeen and the oldest ninety-two, came from all over the world and, as usual, the US was well represented.

Many of our summer school students have traditionally enrolled as individuals but increasingly we are being asked to provide tailor-made courses for groups from US universities. The arrangement here is that a faculty member will typically contact CCE and ask us to design a course in a particular subject or subjects with the needs of a specific group in mind. The group may consist of undergraduates, or post-grads, or continuing ed students - or indeed, be a mixture of these!

Naturally, we are often asked to provide such courses in the area of Scottish studies - literature, history, architecture, archaeology, education, film, politics etc, and we now have a team of top-rank professors who are particularly skilled at this kind of teaching. Classroom work on these courses is frequently complemented by field trips and guided excursions - plus a lively programme of social and cultural activities. Academic credit and accommodations are other adjuncts which can be provided. US universities with whom we have recently collaborated in the presentation of contract courses include the University of Virginia, Western Michigan University, the University of Massachusetts Boston, the University of Southern Maine and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. A new partner this year was the University of Mississippi ('Ole Miss') whose students organised a memorable July 4 celebration in their dorm.

Anyone interested in having us quote for a tailormade contract course should contact CCE Summer Schools Director Bridget Stevens, B.Stevens@ed.ac.uk

We were proud to be asked by the Scottish Executive to provide instruction in Gaelic. The present Scottish Parliament building on the Mound boasts signboards in both English and Gaelic and official publications are likewise available in both languages. We are delighted to do our bit to help preserve and foster Scotland's other language. A further contact with Parliament took the form of a visit by two Members of Parliament, with BBC TV News cameras in tow. This was during the General Election campaign in May and the sun happened to be shining so the photo shoot took place in CCE's back garden at 11 Buccleuch Place. It is to be hoped that the university gardeners, who do such a splendid job, were able to see the results of their hard work displayed in all its glory on national TV that night!

On a more somber note, we have of course been thinking especially of all our American friends, and praying that September's terrible acts of terror, which have undoubtedly changed the world for ever, will eventually lead to peace between the nations, peoples and religions of the world.

For info on this summer's courses see http://www.cce.ed.ac.uk

THE EURO

Euro notes and coins will be introduced on 1 January 2002 in what is being called the 'first wave countries' - Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. UK banks stopped issuing travellers checks in the old currencies last autumn; bank notes and coins will be phased out quickly.

SEX

"Dr Gareth Leng, in charge of the research, says that it is not so surprising that the brain should retain a chemical record of sexual sensations long after the night's last cigarette, however ziplessly inconsequential Erica Jong wanted sex to be. After all, he says, "This type of intense contact does change us."

STEFANIE MORGYN WAGNER HONORED

AFUE has awarded $1,000 to Stefanie Morgyn Wagner of Englewood, Colorado to enable her to pursue research at the University. Morgyn, who studied at Englewood High School and Arapahoe Community College, holds a BA in Anthropology from Metropolitan State College of Denver and an MSc (by research) from the University of Edinburgh. She will examine notions of purity and pollution from 200 to 850 AD utilizing a multidisciplinary approach combining history, theology and cultural anthropology. She will analyze the cosmology of purity, the origins and applications of purity concerns. Particular emphasis will be placed on beliefs that purity and impurity impacted the individual and were interpreted in the world around them.

Morgyn explains "Purity and impurity allowed individuals and communities to orient themselves within the wider cosmology, and either maintain or break their relationship with God. They helped to define the natural world and provided a code of conduct. For the early medieval period, deviation was viewed in terms of sin which could potentially severe the relationship with God thereby endangering not only the sinner but the community. Yet, just as sin severed the relationship with God, purity enabled individuals to correctly participate in cultic functions, most importantly the Eucharist, consequently maintaining the Covenant with God."

Morgyn, who reads Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English and Old Irish, is making her mark in Scotland. Since arriving in 1997 she has organized sessions for the Leeds International Medieval Congress on the "Commemoration of the 1350th Anniversary of the Death of St Aidan of Lindisfarne". This brought together speakers from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford, Utrecht and Nazan, Japan. She also organized conference sessions on "Early Western Monasticism: Ideals and Practicalities", and one on "Christianity in Europe from Conversion to Reformation". She initiated postgraduate reading sessions between Edinburgh and Glasgow universities and was prime mover in the creation of LAMPS, the flourishing Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society.

A SCOTTISH CONUNDRUM

Letter to the Editor
The Times
November 10, 2001

Sir,
Could someone perhaps remind the Prime Minister that we Scots need a Lord President of the Court of Session to swear in the next First Minister 28 days from now? Unless, of course, Mr McLeish's recent troubles meant that he neglected to propose to Downing Street a successor to Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (who resigned in September). In that case we are in trouble, since the Prime Minister cannot appoint a Lord President who has not been nominated by the First Minister.

WORLD VEGETARIAN CONGRESS

Situated about 8 miles from the center of Edinburgh, with a regular bus service, (15 - 20 minutes to city center) it combines superb facilities with a quiet and pleasant atmosphere. More info - http://www.ivu.org/congress/2002 or Tel: 011 44 161 928 0793. (This site also has some great vegetarian recipes).

ENVIRONMENT FOR VISUALIZING IMAGES

A University team of specialists from different disciplines is using EVNI to analyze spaceborne and satellite imagery to locate and explore ancient mines in Sinai, Egypt, Spain and Scotland. The RAVEN (Remote Sensing Archaeology and Visualization of the Environment) team hopes its research will identify the seepage of hazardous minerals from the mines into the local groundwater as a starting point in providing cleaner water to those areas.

ENVI has been instrumental in several important discoveries. First, the team has proven that mines may be successfully detected and mapped with imaging radar data. Secondly, landscape models may be created which help understand previous landscapes during a particular period. Thirdly, the ability to easily create relatively accurate landscape models, and to survey large areas by virtual simulation, which will enable archeologists to establish links between settlements.

The Scottish project, led by Dr David Caldwell of the National Museum of Scotland, examines mining on Islay, stronghold of Clan Ranald, from around 1000AD to 1600AD. "Our primary purpose in exploring this area is to examine the known mines of the Ardachy area to discern the location of earlier sites. We want to find out if the historical accounts of this area are correct." says team member Gary McKay, Remote Sensing Archaeologist, Department of Archaeology and Geography at the University.

Team members work with a wide vriety of data in their research, including SIR-C, ALNAZ, CORONA, LANDSAT, SPOT, LIDAR and GIS data-raster and vector. Two gigabyte data files are not unusual. The ENVI system was developed by Research Systems, Inc. More information can be found at http://www.rsinc.com

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