Feather meal is an economical protein-rich feedstuffs produced from wastes generated by the poultry processing industry. The partner organization, a fish feed manufacturer based in Ontario, would greatly benefit from the accurate characterization of the nutritive value of feather meals for different fish species raised in Ontario. Inclusion of feather meal could significantly improve cost-effectiveness of fish feeds […]

  The project will involve research and development of new technology for distributed computation, with a focus on applications in computational biology and bioinformatics as routinely encountered in our own lab. This research will be conducted using Copper, GridCentric’s grid computing platform, which is based on a previous research system developed at the University of […]

    Agri-Therm Inc. is a Canadian company developing commercial mobile reactor technology for the production of biofuels and valuable chemicals from agricultural residues. The company operates a pilot plant at a shared research facility with the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR) and The University of Western Ontario. As part of their collaboration with the […]

  Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-ionizing modality; therefore, there is no known damage on human tissue as opposed to ionizing imaging modalities, such as X-ray. Interventional procedures take long time and in order to prevent ionization, interventional MRI is very promising. On the other hand, there are safety concerns because of the possible temperature rise on current […]

  Due to potential shortages of freshwater especially in arid and semi-arid regions, treatment of wastewater is increasingly being considered as an alternative to conventional water sources such as surface waters and groundwater. As the potential for human exposure to pathogens in the reclaimed water has been a concern for regulators, treatment standards must be […]

    Many people with physical disabilities depend on forearm crutches to help them walk. Although forearm crutches are helpful, many people experience overuse injuries as a result of using the forearm crutch. Injuries to the wrists, elbows and shoulders are commonly experienced with long-term use of the forearm crutch. The research project will examine […]

  The objective of the project will be to design and support the fabrication of an automated cultivating planter mechanism. The task of the planter/cultivator will be to transplant 3 rows of seedlings, with variable spacing, a single pass.  A production target of 1200 trees per hour is desired.  There are many design challenges present […]

      Alberta Environment’s comprehensive contaminant load study, located in Alberta’s oil sands mining area is designed to document the flow of contaminants (from anthropogenic and natural sources) into the environment and their effects on biodiversity and human health. The project proposed for this internship will cover the impacts and risks to the aquatic […]

  The existing systems count the number of vehicles on the road by measuring the number of air pressure spikes experienced by a rubber tube that lies across the road. This project aims to improve this system by analyzing the pressure signal to determine the type of vehicle and its speed. The knowledge of the type of vehicle […]

  Nova Scotia woodland owners will be surveyed to explore their attitudes towards forest product biomass as a renewable energy resource. The four A’s of energy security: accessibility, acceptability, affordability and availability (Asia Pacific Energy Research Council, 2007), provide the framework for the survey questions. In contrast, selected community members from the same counties as […]

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have been considered for various applications including forest monitoring. WSN allow the user to have real-time spatial monitoring of the parameters of interest. For instance, with forest fire detections, the sensor nodes measure weather parameters such as temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind speed. Then, these parameters are forwarded to the control […]

Proteins play crucial roles in almost every biological process. The function of a protein depends on the specific spatial shape that a protein takes in nature. The Protein Structure Prediction problem is to predict the tertiary structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence. Experimental methods (NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography) are slow and […]