Many of the flavours found in whisky and other distilled spirits are derived from alcoholic fermentation, most commonly by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Given the biodiversity of different yeast strains and species, there is an opportunity to identify strains that can produce alcoholic beverages with unique flavours and aromas. The Measday lab has isolated hundreds of yeast strains from uninoculated fermentations of wine grapes from the Okanagan Valley, BC.

In recent years, plant-based food products, such as plant-based beverages, ice-cream, and yogurt, have been much admired by health and environment conscious consumers due to their sustainability and health benefits. This industrial collaborative project aims to optimize grinding processing to treat plant proteins of different sources to achieve sufficient particle size reduction, while avoiding the adverse impact on the product physicochemical and functional properties.

Genacol Canada Corporation Inc. manufactures a collagen hydrolysate (CH) supplement sourced from bovine (Genacol® Original Formula) that has shown positive results and potent efficacy in three clinical trials for reducing joint pain. Following digestion and absorption, CHs release amino acids and peptides that can lead to the health-promoting properties of the supplement. Recent studies suggest that joint pain is a multi-tissue disease and involves both articular cartilage and bone. However, the current understanding of the effects of Genacol's CHs on bone health is still inadequate.

This work aims to protect oat oil and produce new formulated products for food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and household care applications. Specifically, nanocellulose and food-grade cellulose derivatives will be used to stabilize oat oil-in-water emulsions which will be dried into oil powders using spray drying. The powders appear dry but are >90% liquid oil and can be used in the dry form or reconstituted by hand-shaking them in water. Attempts to isolate nanocellulose from oat hulls will be undertaken as a step towards “all oat” dry oat oil powders.

Transformers are one of the key elements in electric power systems whose health ensures reliable, stable electric power for the economy and society. Partial discharge (PD) is known to be a symptom of defects in electrical insulation systems, such as those employed in transformers. Detection and localization of PD in transformers are critical to develop a mitigation strategy. The main objective of the proposed research is to develop an artificial intelligence model that is able to predict the location of PD in transformers.

Safe and healthy weight loss is becoming increasingly important as the obesity burden in Canada continues to grow, with 63.1% of adult Canadians classified as overweight or obese in 2018 according to Statistics Canada. Ketogenic diets are diets that are low in sugar and are very popular for weight loss. However, these diets may be associated with adverse long-term cardiovascular health outcomes depending on the source of protein supplementation (animal versus plant-based). We do not know why this is the case.

This research project will investigate the four essential steps to constructing a prototype of a fully-functional, at-home recycling machine: (1) sorting/identification of approved plastics, (2) shredding, (3) decontaminating; and (4) assembling all of the preceding functions into a single, at-home recycling machine.
The goal is to reimagine and rework the traditional recycling supply chain by having the recycling of eligible plastics performed in the home in a self-contained, multi-functioned unit, slightly larger than a dishwasher.
The expected benefits of the project for Recircle Waste Mana

Fish farms (Aquaculture) produce a large and growing share of seafood in Canada, 29% by value and 19% by production. Worldwide, aquaculture now surpasses wild fish catch. We need aquaculture to be safer for the environment, low cost and yield more fish to feed a growing population in the face of climate change. A key driver of fish health, fish growth, and fish feeding activity is a healthy environment, often measured by dissolved oxygen in water.

Hypertension is a cardiovascular condition that leads to 8.5 million deaths per year around the world and is linked to a higher risk of stroke and kidney failure. Hypertension is defined by a higher-than-normal force the blood pushes on blood vessel walls in between each heart pump. Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years to control for high blood pressure. WAT Medical Enterprise Inc. is a Canadian company that developed a wrist band (BPRelief) that stimulates acupuncture points to decrease high blood pressure.

This project explores how computer algorithms will be used to predict the intelligibility and quality of in-car speech processed by hearing aids. Hearing impaired listeners graded in-car speech for a set of conditions. The conditions include seating position of talker, seating position of speaker, levels of background noise, and hearing aid processing methods. Each hearing impaired participant graded processed speech using multiple criteria. For each assessment criteria, a function is generated that maps the assessed criteria to the result of each computer algorithm.