SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic, displays a coronashaped layer of spikes which play fundamental role in the infection process. Recent structural data suggest that the spikes possess orientational freedom and the ribonucleoproteins segregate into basketlike structures. How these structural features regulate the dynamic and mechanical behavior of the native virion, however, […]

Camera enabled AI-based personal assistants will need to recognize human actions in order to be safe and effective. Current machine learning approaches for action recognition require extensive datasets of annotated videos that depicting the actions to be recognized. Such datasets are expensive to acquire. The goal of this project is to decrease the annotation required […]

Microorganisms living in marine seafloor sediments are of scientific interest for many reasons including their role in cycling nutrients, their metabolic diversity, and the relatively few investigations of their existence due to their habitation of such an extreme and isolated environment. In addition, subsurface microbes can provide insight into their surrounding environment, including signalling the […]

The focus of this project is on building performance evaluation (BPE) in residential houses in Southern Ontario. Eight green homes will undergo BPE to see how well they are performing. The project will compare current building performance to the designed building performance. This comparison can help to see whether a “performance gap” exists. A performance […]

The population age distribution is undergoing an “inversion” and the dependency ratio, i.e., the proportion of older adults who are not working over the number of adults who are working, is increasing. This has an effect on a society’s ability to deliver community-care services and the underlying national economic capacity to pay for their needs. […]

A new solar electricity system is being developed here by Solaires Entreprises Inc. founded in Victoria, BC. The novel fabrication method and materials reduces the cost of solar cells by up to 50%. The new price point of the cells allows us to make solar energy profitable in Canada as well as incorporate solar cells […]

By 2050, agri-food systems must produce enough to feed 9 to billion people, while reversing trends of environmental degradation caused in part by agriculture production. This is no small task, and underscores why countless sustainable agriculture standards, certifications, initiatives and platforms have emerged to encourage and measure the impacts of sustainable agriculture practices. While these […]

During the production of pulp, in the pulp and paper manufacturing process, one component of the tree is extracted into the pulping liquid. This component, called lignin, has potential value as an important renewable material for adhesives, fibre, and coatings. The proposed research has the focus on evaluating the pulping liquid for all of its […]

High demands for fossil fuels and increasing concerns over global warming have renewed the interests in bio-butanol production from biomass resources as an alternative liquid fuel. Hemicellulose, as an inexpensive and abundant raw Inaterial, has great potential for being suitable fermentation substrate. A probleln associated with the fermentation of hemicellulosic sugars into butanol is the […]

In this project, the interns will develop a new set of tools and techniques to provide new scientific insights into the detailed interactions that occur between drug and target molecules in the human body. Understanding of these interactions is critical to design better, more effective, and more precisely targeted drugs. The problem is that current […]

La bioraffinerie forestiere integree et verte (BRFIV) est un complexe industriel integre capable de transformer de la biomasse par divers procedes de conversion en une grande variete de produits tout en eliminant I’utilisation de I’energie fossile et tout en reduisant les emissions de gaz a effet de serre par I’utilisation rationnelle de I’energie. Parmi les […]

As a major contributor to Canadian industrial carbon emissions, miners are placing more emphasis on decarbonization efforts by developing greener strategies and sourcing cleaner energy for their mining operations. Despite some progress, decarbonization attempts by mining companies have been underwhelming mainly due to the financial challenges of renewable system implementations. This study aims to perceive […]