Butyl Rubber has become one of the most important polymers in the modern world, impacting everyone’s daily lives. Interestingly, the processes to make butyl rubber can be convoluted and while they are effective, it makes it difficult to fine tune the production to systematically improve yields. This project will use newly developed methods in our lab to explore this process in order to better elucidate the reaction in order to optimize the reaction conditions and develop new catalysts for the synthesis of butyl rubber.

Nexeya is an innovative industrial group that provides test, integration and control-command solutions mainly in the Defense, Aeronautics, Energy, Railway, and Automotive sectors. Nexeya’s current products are able to test characterise wiring harnesses and detecting and localising wiring defects, in the Aeronautics, Automotive, Railway, and Space industries. This proposed research project aims to advance the existing products of Nexeya to provide testing and detections of poor contacts and wiring defects in energized low-voltage electrical installations in buildings before and after failure.

In 2014 a handheld DNA measurement device, the "MinION", was commercialized. It is 100X smaller by volume and 6X faster and 20X less expensive than the next smallest DNA measurement device on the market. But its measurements are of a lower quality, about 90% of measured DNA is accurately 'detected' compared to 99.9% for leading machines. Further, a tremendous amount of computing power is needed to carry out the detection function of the MinION. In fact, this is done by a standalone computer or GPU.

Cameras apply a lot of processing on the raw image recorded by the sensor to enhance the brightness, contrast, and colors, and make the output image visually pleasing. The image is also finally compressed to make the file size smaller. These operations make it difficult to reverse to the raw sensor image which is necessary for several computer/machine vision tasks. Existing AI methods to invert from the camera’s compressed output image to the raw sensor image assume that only global color and tone manipulations are applied.

The intern’s research project will involve the overlaps of critical disability studies, surveillance studies, accessible design, Canadian publishing, and intersectional frameworks.

Quality of drinking water is important to our health and well-being. Water quality monitoring outside the laboratory aims to obtain qualitative information on the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of a water body. The traditional method of taking samples periodically is not only a cost intensive process, but one that takes snap shots only, with big unobserved periods in between.

When floods happen, municipal water distribution systems are damaged and the residents will not have access to clean water. As a result, the will face the risk of health effects from water-born bacteria and pathogens increases. In this project, we proposed a system to purify the water stored frim flood water. This purified water can be used for drinking. This membrane based system can remove the bacteria and pathogens from water. To fabricate the membrane, we will use biopolymers and metals with antibacterial properties.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology is actively pursued as a viable, sustainable and long-term solution for resolving transportation-related emission issues on a global scale. While Canada has a strong presence in this technology space in various parts of the world such as Europe, the USA, and China, hydrogen technology integration at the transit level is still not a reality in this country.

This research will focus on developing a framework of effective practices for collaboration among child and youth mental health service providers in different sectors including health, social services, and education.