Innovative Projects Realized

Surveillance of the antibiotic resistance genes in Vibrio parahemolyticus

Vibrio parahemolyticus represents the most rapidly increasing foodbourne illness encountered in foods. Whereas cases of more commonly encountered pathogen such as Salmonella have remained static, those associated with Vibrio have increased over the last 20 years. Part of the increased incidence is due to better diagnostics but also warming of sea via climate change have also been highlighted.
In the proposed project, we will investigate the prevalence and drug resistance of Vibrio isolates from seafood. This will encompass undertaking sampling visits at processing and retail establishments then screened using PCR based methods. Isolates will be recovered from presumptive positive samples and drug resistance assessed. The genetic relationship between isolates will be undertaken and biomarkers highlighting virulent strains identified. The study will provide important data to determine the prevalence of Vibrio parahemolyticus within the Shanghai area and virulence is strains encountered.

Sustainable Food Systems for Future Cities: The Potential of Urban Agriculture from a Case Study in Nanjing, China

Urbanization is increasing rapidly worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, and thus becoming an issue in addressing food security. In addition to the conflict between sustaining rural agricultural production and the rapid consumption of land by growing urban activities, agricultural areas within or around cities are also being transformed. This is creating a need for diverse and responsive food systems. Cities have a strong role to play in this transition to responsive urban food systems that provide a level of subsidence and supportive services for sustainable food production which urban residents will increasingly depend on. In rapidly urbanizing China, recent policy has focused on national-scale food security and production and does not adequately address the needs or issues of access that the increasingly urban Chinese population faces. TO BE CONT’D

An Antarctic NO3 isotope record spanning the last millenium

Nitrate is a major contaminant of modern groundwater and terrestrial ecosystems. It is also involved in the generation and destruction of nitrogen bearing greenhouse gasses. In order to assess how nitrate is cycled in the Earth surface environment, as well as in recent Earth history , it requires the generation of pristine records that record behavior of the nitrogen cycle. This project is unique in that it entails generating a 1000-year record of the isotopes of nitrogen and oxygen trapped in an ice core recovered from East Antarctic. This data will provide a high-resolution record (biannual) of nitrate cycling in the surface environment that will serve as a baseline for understanding the coupling between climate and the nitrogen cycle.

Coherence of discourse of individuals with mild cognitive impairment: Relationships between language and memory.

The objective of this study is to uncover the relationship between cognitive deterioration and language performance in populations with dementia. The method used for this protocol does not require that words and grammar be taken into consideration but rather investigates coherence of discourse, which has the potential to be applied to studies of languages other than English with minimal need for adaptation of the test due to linguistic restrictions. The validation of this method on a second language can lead to the development of diagnostic tools for early detection of dementia, which can be used in multilingual populations or with varying degrees of literacy. We anticipate that this approach will also provide the basis for the development of automated analyses of patient discourse, with the possibility of becoming an extremely useful diagnostic tool. We also expect to inform practice and aid the development of new therapies.

Comparative analysis of reliability-surrogate measures using an ensemble of realistic water distribution networks

To evaluate the reliability of a water distribution system, surrogate measures are commonly used because of its easy computation and intuitive behavior. Some recent researchers have acknowledge the need to identify correlations between these indexes in order to select the ones that may be measuring similar properties of the networks and therefore are not adding further knowledge on how to make the systems more reliable. In order to evaluate these correlations between reliability-surrogate indexes assuring both appropriate conditions for the evaluation of flow-related indexes, and statistical significance of the found correlations, it is needed a set of realistic case studies. The research proposal is to use an ensemble of systems developed by the student in early stages of his PhD program to evaluate the correlations of the reliability-surrogate indexes using a fast and tested design algorithm as the one developed by the host supervisor. The result would be a series of correlations between indexes that may lead to recommendations on which ones are representative of the reliable behavior of a system. This results and recommendations are planned to be included in a publication for an international conference of water distribution systems (e.g. CCWI, WDSA, HIC).

Examining Higher-Order Cognition in Colombian Executives

This project is a collaboration between the University of Victoria and Tecnoquímicas S. A., an industry leader in the production of pharmaceutical and household products in South America. The goal of the project is to
psychologically characterize the executive leadership of the company (i.e., CEO’s). Specifically, the intern will utilize and further develop her expertise to help the collaborative team understand how complex cognitive factors
such as intelligence, problem solving, strategic thinking, and creativity relate to one another and predict professional achievement. Additionally, the intern will help promote knowledge sharing and future collaborations
between the University of Victoria, Tecnoquímicas, and local Colombian universities through the delivery of an academic lecture on the recent theories and advancements on complex cognitive functions (i.e., intelligence and
executive functioning).

Automatic 3D reconstruction of Indoor Environments from Consumer-graded Cameras

With the increase demand of 3D models in urban environment, automatic indoor modeling has attracted more attention for human trajectory identification, facility management and indoor navigation. To reconstruct indoor models quickly and reliably, this project will propose a new indoor reconstruction method to automatically generate indoor semantic building models through building ground maps and images from consumer-graded cameras. The image of building ground maps will be over-segmented and later semantically classified as ceilings, walls and other indoor elements. The 3D models of indoor elements will be later reconstructed from extracted geometric information and semantic labeling. Finally, multiple images from consumer-graded cameras will be registered with the generated model. The advantage of this proposed method is that it fully combines semantic information from building ground maps and texture from multiple images. Therefore, it will automatically reconstruct indoor models with lower cost.

Impact of a rehabilitation program on EMG-EMG coherence in stroke patients

This research project regards the rehabilitation programs of stroke patients, and how to improve the understanding of their effectiveness. Although it is recognized that rehabilitation programs help stoke patients with motor recovery, the extent and progression of raw neural adaptation over the rehabilitation process often remains invisible to the physiotherapist, despite the presence of biomedical tools (EMG, EEG, etc) available that can combat said invisibility. This research will analyze the frequency of correlations between muscle activation (EMG-EMG coherence) in the flexor and extensor muscles of the foot in post stroke patients while they walk. The analysis will occur once a week in conjunction with a traditional functional analysis from a physiotherapist. The coherence, or unity, of the muscles detected from EMG-EMG coherence will be assigned a magnitude using a time-frequency correlation analysis. The student will then assess the relationship between the clinical analysis and the determined coherence magnitudes. It is expected that with an increase in coherence magnitude, there will be an increase in observed motor improvement by the physiotherapist.

Technology in Geography

The Technology in Geography research project analyzes how teachers within Chinese high schools use technology and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) within geography classes to aid in delivering course material. Coming from an educational background that was highly centred on using GIS, I find it critical to include GIS technologies within Geography as a way to engage students and introduce them to the technologies that are available to them. Within Canada, more specifically in Ontario schools there are very few teachers who integrate technology within geography classes. However, within the modern context, in order to educate students in the subject of Geography for tomorrow’s world, technology must be utilized. The purpose of conducting this project is to obtain a better understanding of how to integrate technology within a classroom, incorporate the use of GIS within my teaching practice and improve myself as a teacher within the diverse modern educational system.

Free Electron Laser research on atoms, molecules, and clusters

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Internship to study mate-choice copying in sailfin mollies using computer animation

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Characterization of Smad4-deficiency in transgenic mouse models of pancreatic cancer