Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell catalyst layer degradation

Clean electrochemical energy conversion is critically needed to build energy security that reduces Canada’s reliance on fossil fuels. The polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell is a particularly important part of a clean energy future as an attractive alternative to the internal combustion engine for transportation applications. PEM fuel cells offer zero local emissions, fast-start […]

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Studying VR painting with a participatory design approach

Painting in Virtual Reality (VR) offers unprecedented possibilities for artists to create and visualize 3D scenes. On the one hand, modern VR painting applications reproduce the traditional painting metaphors of a brush that traces paint strokes. On the other hand, these strokes can be traced in 3D space rather than on a flat canvas, a […]

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Wood Biochar Monolith as Low-cost, High-performance Nanocarbon Material for Electrical Energy Storage

With the rapid development of the economy, the demand for electrical energy storage is also increasing. However, the lack of high-efficiency, economical and reliable energy storage technologies makes it difficult for current electrochemical systems to utilize renewable energy and enable the circular economy fully. As an efficient and green energy storage device, the supercapacitor has […]

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Analysis and Compression of Expressive Dance Animations for Zoetropes

Many animations and videos have high frame rates — meaning many still frames are shown to the viewer per second — in order to give the viewer motion information needed to parse the video. For example, expressive dancing sequences are usually shown in high frame rates because they contain large motions, and often a human […]

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Improving and scaling up cycling infrastructure under pandemic urbanism

In response to the present Covid-19 pandemic and the need to decarbonize the transport sector, city leaders and communities are rethinking past assumptions regarding transport planning and infrastructural development and have renewed interest in promoting cycling as a sustainable transport mode. Infrastructural interventions that improve safety and comfort and widen access to cycling are necessary […]

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Assistive Software for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Angiography

Due to the unpredictable location of coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG), angiography for CABG patients costs catheterization labs additional time, poses an added risk to patients, and incurs extra costs, therefore using additional resources at Sunnybrook Hospital and at a national scale. The development of an assistive software product that helps cardiologists find free graft […]

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Local Growth Factor Presentation by Microphages

After severe skin injury such as burns, our body rapidly but imperfectly repairs the damage, leaving behind a stiff scar. Scarring is a clinical burden because skin is losing vital functions. If scars form in internal organs, e.g., in the heart after myocardial infarct, the outcome can be lethal. During normal tissue repair, local fibroblasts […]

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Leadership in Engineering Consulting: a qualitative study on the unique leadership skillsets of top performing engineering consultants, and what companies can do to develop them

Engineering consulting is a unique occupation that requires professionals to possess both strong technical and non-technical abilities. Engineering consulting organizations have identified the the gap between top performers and their peers to pertain to be social, relational and leadership skills. Our work seeks to identify the leadership skillset that differentiates top performers in engineering consulting […]

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Muscle stem cell-niche interactions predicted in silico

Skeletal muscle, an essential organ system making up 30-40% of total body mass, is unique in that it allows for the body’s voluntary movement. It is solicited and stressed daily and consequently possesses the remarkable ability to regenerate in response to injury due to a special population of cells named muscle stem cells (MuSCS). At […]

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Improving Measurement for Near Term Quantum Computers

The ability to simulate chemistry accurately allows for significant developments in many fields such as material and drug discovery. Unfortunately, the underlying equations that describe chemistry become exponentially harder to solve as we increase the size of the system. This makes it impossible for us to accurately simulate useful molecules on classical computers. A potential […]

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Derivation of biased bitopic ligands for class A GPCRs – an NMR approach

Our goal is to employ a host of new compounds, made by the applicant in her lab in Brazil, for drug discovery studies at the University of Toronto. Specifically, the host uses a technique called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to obtain signatures of drugs or ligands. These signatures can identify those compounds which bind strongly […]

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