The Environmental Physiology Unit was installed during 1981, and began research operations in 1982. The main features of the EPU are an altitude and diving chamber complex, life support and environmental control system capable of simulating altitudes of up to 33,530 meters and depths of 300 meters; a climatic chamber capable of simulating temperatures of -30°C to+50°C and hot and cold immersion tanks (+2°C to +50°C). The output of the unit is oriented towards basic research but mission oriented work in cooperation with industry has also been completed under grants and contracts to individual users. The facility is unique in Western Canada with its diving, altitude and thermal capabilities.
SFU has a centralized University Animal Care Facility. The facility is run by a director in consultation with a university-wide Animal Care Committee. The use and care of animals conforms to guidelines specified by NSERC and the Canadian Council on Animal Care. The School also has access to the Biological Sciences aquatic research facilities. On campus, there exists holding facilities for freshwater organisms including large salmonids and a small sea water reservoir.
Two faculty members plus two adjunct faculty members conduct a portion of their research at the B.C. Cancer Research Centre. This provides the opportunity for some kinesiology graduate students to do their research at this facility. Research topics pursued there include biochemical, cytological and epidemiological identification of genetic, lifestyle and chemical factors which influence the risk of cancer and the development of strategies to decrease risk.
In the distributed computing environment at Simon Fraser University, SFULAN (the high-speed, campus-wide, fibreoptic network) allows access to Unix, PC, and Macintosh workstations, and Unix, Novell, and NT fileservers, printservers, webservers and printers. This network also allows users to communicate electronically with computing facilities across the country and world. Two Silicon Graphics computer servers are provided for large scale computing, three additional Silicon Graphics machines and an IBM RS6000 are available for researchers, and two Sun 470's for instructional computing. Academic Computing Services and the Faculty of Applied Sciences provides consultative help on a wide variety of computer applications, including statistics, numerical analysis, econometrics, graphics, data handling.
The Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology has made a major commitment to providing computing facilities to our graduate students. Students are allowed free access to the School's shared computer facilities in the graduate student computing lab. Mac and PC based platforms are supported and a number of image manipulation software packages are available. In addition, most research labs are also equipped with the latest in computer technology for the acquisition, analysis and presentation of data.