In this project, we focus on increasing sales in e-commerce shops by offering purchasing incentives to shoppers who are likely to leave without buying. More specifically, our goal is to predict which shoppers are likely to abandon their shopping cart and what can be done while they’re still on the site to customize their shopping experience and encourage them to buy (e.g. offering a discount). Our approach is based on analyzing the shopping experiences of various customers in many different retail stores to learn a statistical model of the customer shopping cycle.

The proposed research will work to characterize plasmas of the type that form where the charging roll contacts the photoreceptor in a typical xerographic printer.  Laboratory experiments will form discharges under ambient atmospheric conditions and at the high-vacuum exit of a dielectric-barrier-discharge pulsed molecular beam.  Spectroscopic measurements will record fluorescence emission signatures of plasmas under these conditions, and time-of-flight mass spectrometry will monitor the presence of reactive intermediates.  

In the last ten years the market for mobile devices and portable electronics has never ceased to grow, creating a rising demand for batteries. However it is practically impossible for consumers to identify their actual state-of-charge leading to the disposal of still viable batteries. In the past battery manufacturers have developed “on-board” testers allowing consumers to gauge the charge but these indicators have been discontinued due to their lack of reliability and their active feature discharging the battery while in use.

The standard method to test for Listeria n7onocj'logenes in foods is prone to false negatives if also non-pathogenic members of the Listeria genus are present. These can overgrow L.monocylogenes during the selective enrichment process and mask the presence of the pathogen. This "overgrowth'" phenomenon is not well understood, partially because the mathematical models that are used in food microbiology to determine growth kinetics of bacteria are not able to capture interaction between species correctly.

Red wheat is the more predominant wheat grown in Ontario. However, red wheats impart an off]flavour to products when used in whole wheat formulations. The food industry is moving towards developing a whole portfolio of whole wheat products in order to provide a healthier alternative to consumers. However, issues related to the sensory characteristics of these products have to be addressed first.