After leaving the hospital, about 65% of older adults go back into the hospital because of mobility problems. Mobility problems are caused by many factors such as cognitive (e.g. dementia) psychological (e.g. depression), physical (e.g. medical conditions), environmental (e.g. bad roads), financial (e.g. low income), social (e.g. relatives/friends) and personal (e.g. age). Usually, these mobility […]

Gene therapy is an expanding field that shows promise in the long term treatment of many genetic disorders. CRISPR-Cas9 technology is one way of editing the existing genome when trying to treat genetic disorder, or engineering genetic therapeutics. One area of interest is RNA therapeutics based on this technology. The Zydney and Salis lab groups […]

In nature, a complex network of cellulose and hemicellulose interacts to provide plant cell walls with their mechanical strength, flexibility, and light weight. However, there is still little known about the relationship between the cellulose-hemicellulose interactions and how that influences the resulting mechanical properties of plants. In this work, we will use films thinner than […]

Doctors are learning that nutrition plays a very important role in patient outcomes. Research has shown that protein is especially critical to patient health and recovery, especially for the elderly and severely ill. The quality of the protein, and the quantity of protein that patients receive makes a big difference. This project will examine how […]

The harmful effects of smoking on fetal development, child health, and maternal wellbeing are well described, making smoking cessation during pregnancy and the postpartum period a global health priority. Although a large proportion of expecting mothers will spontaneously quit smoking during pregnancy, the majority will restart smoking within 6 months post-pregnancy. Efforts to reduce smoking […]

The proposed research aims to use non-destructive MicroCT analysis to investigate the levels of adolescent rickets and potential gender differences in the occurrence of the condition in two 19th century communities, Beemster and Hattem, in the Netherlands. In paleopathology, patterns of rachitic changes are well recognized in individuals that died during infancy and early childhood, […]

Dielectric elastomers or “artificial muscles” are a class of electroactive polymers that undergo expansion when subjected to an applied electric field. Polysiloxanes commonly referred to as silicones are often the material of choice for dielectric elastomers due to their excellent mechanical properties. However, they suffer from minimal expansion when subjected to an electrical field. This […]

The net 5-year survival rate for patients suffering from liver cancer is less then 20 percent and the number of cases is rapidly increasing in Canada. Unfortunately, currently available oral chemotherapies can only extend median survival by 3 – 4 months making the development of new and effective drug treatments critical. The proposed study aims […]

For a software application to be released, it may need a number of standard certifications, which should be issued from different associations and for a wide range of software features (e.g., security, perfor-mance, scalability). We call these associations trusted third parties. The main problem with these trust-ed third parties is that they are single points […]

The project aims to develop a novel deep learning based computer vision system to identify different categories and sub-categories of the furniture and the associated attributes (such as color, shape, style, and material). It will also develop an automated recommendation system that can learn from the massive historical data and the on-going stream of data […]

In manufacturing industry many tools are protected by coatings to increase tool life and productivity. It is only logical that mechanical properties of the coating will affect its performance. Therefore, it is essential to characterise the coating and understand its properties to tailor it for a specific application. These properties might be assessed with different […]

We would like to develop a wide-field fluorescence lifetime imaging(FLIM) system with a 4-Tap image sensor developed by the Imaging Devices Laboratory. During the duration of our stay we will develop the software and hardware solution to enable the collection of wide field FLIM images, and test the performance on a standard biology set, and […]