The abuse of antibiotic prescription and administration in humans, livestock, and agriculture has resulted in multidrug-resistant bacteria. One of the promising fields of study to find alternative treatment is antimicrobial peptide research. Among these peptides is GL13K, a thirteen amino-acid antimicrobial peptide that has been shown capable of killing bacteria without being harmful to humans. […]

The main research theme of the project is to achieve reconfigurable assembly state of plasmonic NPs by controlling its trapping agent, LCs, under multi-stimuli system. There are two kinds of multi-stimuli LC control platform; one is static system in which anchoring, rubbing, and confinement can be modified, while the other is dynamic system which is […]

The Cape Bounty Watershed Observatory (CBAWO) is in the Canadian High Arctic, where the soil is frozen and river discharge is zero, except for the summer months (June – August). Given the higher climatic sensitivity of polar regions to climate change, understanding changes in watershed function in these locations is important for assessing land-to-sea fluxes […]

N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) is a reactive molecule which shows surprising reactivity toward various small molecules – such as bond activation of inert compounds. Although NHCs have shown their great reactivity, there still remains a lot of interesting molecules yet to be activated by NHCs. The objective of this project is to elevate the reactivity of […]

In this research, we construct an open evolving network model and study growing conditions of the model. We construct a simple network model that changes the structure and evolves according to time, and we examine the causes of macroscopic phenomena (e.g. earthquake and meteorological phenomenon, brain activity, etc.) through the characteristics of motif dynamics constituting […]

A crosslink is a chemical bond that links one polymer chain to another. Adding crosslinks can enhance the strength of polymers, and can improve performance at high temperatures. In this collaboration between Epic Ventures Inc and the Wulff Research Group at the University of Victoria, we are inventing a new family of chemical crosslinkers that […]

Plasma is a gas of charged particles which is the most common state of the matter in the visible universe. It is also widely used in laboratory and industry for numerous practical applications such as plasma processing devices, spacecraft thrusters, and future fusion reactors. Therefore physics of plasmas addresses a number of fundamental problems such […]

Qu’est-ce que la supraconductivité non-conventionnelle? C’est un phénomène quantique se produisant à haute température dans certains matériaux et associé à la disparition de toute résistance électrique et par l’expulsion des champs magnétiques, une fois ces derniers refroidis sous une température critique Tc et en présence d’un champ magnétique inférieur à un champ magnétique critique Hc. […]

Plants produce a blend of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) quickly in response to various growing conditions and plant stressors. These compounds are released well before there are any obvious signs of stress, such as wilting or loss of chlorophyll. Blueberry and other crops with thicker leaves, are slow to show obvious signs of stress and […]

The current production methods for new generation refrigerants (HFO-1234yf) used in cars, refrigerators, air-conditioners, etc. require energy intensive and sometimes corrosive conditions. The current project seeks to reduce or eliminate these two caveats. We propose, by using readily available feedstock or by-products from Teflon manufacturing, we could use our process to easily manufacture HFO-1234yf. Using […]

Benefit payments totaled 2.5 billion dollars for Ontario workplaces in 2015. The most common injury resulting in occupational lost time claims is a strain or sprain. These injuries indicate that despite massive efforts to reduce musculoskeletal injuries in Canadian workplaces, these issues are still a prominent source of disability and have an associated $2.5 billion […]

A telephone call consists of two communicating channels: Person A talking to Person B, and Person B talking to Person A. The two channels need to function in turn for the two to understand each other, and it usually results in confusion when they talk simultaneously. In this latter case, we say that there is […]