Automated harvesting of horticultural produce is an opportunity for Canadian farmers to improve the quality of yield, reduce labour costs, and increase revenues. The research project will focus on the design and development of soft pneumatically-driven robotic grippers that conform to the natural shape of delicate produce, such as mushrooms, in an effort to minimize crop damage during harvesting. The operating principle of the proposed grasping mechanism is based on the concept of a pneumatic artificial muscle.

The removal of unwanted body hair by body sugaring is an ancient method commonly used in the middle east, and it is fast becoming the method of choice in North America. When not done properly, the removal of unwanted hair can lead to injuries to the skin and can cause ingrown hairs, also known as razor bumps. Most products available for the treatment of ingrown hairs are often saturated with alcohol, and harsh chemicals that strip the skin of natural oils, often causing burns, irritation, and lacerations.

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by decreased prefrontal cortex (PFC) regulation on hyperactive emotion generation regions, such as the amygdala. Real-time (rt)-fMRI neurofeedback allows for localized brain regions to be self-regulated through neuroimaging signal feedback. Recently within our lab, learning to decrease amygdala activation via neurofeedback was shown to normalize the neural circuitry maintaining PTSD, which was negatively correlated to symptoms.

The research problem to be addressed is the diversion of organic waste from landfills which, currently, in addition of using the limited space available, generate polluting leachate and greenhouse gases. On the other hand, landfilling organics represent a wasted opportunity to recover valuable chemical and energy resources. The internship will focus on the investigation of the potential of pyrolysis technology to address such problems, by creating opportunities to convert the waste into value-added chemicals and fuels.

Global population growth, urbanization and changing climate patterns have increased the demand for potable water, wastewater reuse and value recovery from wastewater, and treatment of industrial process water. Population growth also results in increased demand for the shipping of goods by ocean freight, with the associated risk of the transport of unwanted marine life from one location to another by the discharge of ballast water.

My project focuses on a particular kind of massive star that are surrounded by disks called B-emission (Be) stars. These objects
are ideal laboratories for studying disks. Massive stars can spew out a thousand times more energy per second than our Sun and
because the disk is formed from gas launched from the star, they are not shrouded in dust like star forming regions where we find
disks. They are also numerous – hundreds of Be stars exist right in our own galaxy!
Despite decades of study we still don’t know why the disk forms and this is the major puzzle in this field of research.

The agriculture industry is a labour intensive industry. Using a reliable method of plant monitoring can greatly help farmers to reduce their labours and consequently their production costs. Creating an accurate 3-D model of each plant or vegetable provides farmers with more information about the growth stage of the plant which helps them to make smarter decisions for irrigation and harvesting. There are various 3-D technologies available in the market.

AVID200 is a TGF-? trap that specifically sequesters TGF-?I and TGF-?III to enhance antitumour immunity to inhibit tumor growth. AVID200 also avoids adverse side effect of depleted of TGF-?II. AVID200 is relatively short-lived in circulation, decreasing its capacity to exert desirable enhancement of anti-tumour immunity. To increase the effectiveness of TGF-? traps, a panel of candidate molecules that retain TGF-? isoform specificity and inactivating capacity, but with projected increased stability, have been generated by Formation Biologics.

This project is part of a research program to develop a model of sustainability-oriented innovation processes. The model would allow Canadian organizations to innovate systematically and deliberately and become leaders in innovating for sustainable development. We will work to develop the model with Canada’s Oil Sand’s Innovation Alliance and its members: Cenovus Energy Inc., Shell Canada Energy and Suncor Energy Inc.

The efficient monitoring of soil and crop parameters is essential for crop stress evaluation and yield forecast in agriculture, yet most remote sensing studies focus on regional-scale soil and crop parameters estimation using satellite data. Satellite remote sensing is difficult to obtain both high spatial and temporal resolution data with a low-cost in field-scale. Currently, UAV-based remote sensing is a flexible and reliable approach could provide proper data for intra-field monitoring.