That's fucked up. I have never come across that before and did Higher maths and statistical methods in biology at uni, but vector calculations weren't needed. There is no good reason to change the conventional symbols like that, I agree it is defo a case of up-his-own-arseness, and can imagine how pissed off you must be going through all that hassle finding out what it meant. Hope the rest of it all goes smoothly Bryan
I really enjoyed maths at school, it was so logical and step-by-step, i found it easy and got an A at higher, I even considered doing it as a degree
but found the stats course at uni really hard and dropped it after 1st year. A lucky escape maybe!