Innovative Projects Realized

Determination of antioxidant profiles of haskap berries using Raman spectroscopy

In Canada, haskap berries are gaining increasing popularity due to their health benefits. The health-promoting effects of haskap berries are primarily attributed to the antioxidants in the fruits, especially anthocyanins, phenolic acids, and vitamin C. Since the quality of haskap berries largely depends on their antioxidant levels, it is of great importance for the berry industry to develop rapid detection methods to evaluate the antioxidant capacity of fresh haskap berry products. The aim of this project is to evaluate the antioxidant capacity of different varieties of haskap berries grown in Canada by using chemical-based antioxidant assays, and to develop a Raman spectroscopic method for rapid detection of antioxidant capacity of fresh haskap berries. This project will eventually provide a practical approach for the food industry to rapidly determine the antioxidant-rich haskap berries.

Provincial Health Authority: Organizational Transition

There are no shortage of news stories concerning the challenges in the healthcare system. These include covid impacts, financial challenges, human resource challenges related to recruitment, burnout and retention, as well as the need for the system to operate more efficiently (see https://www.cma.ca/news-releases-and-statements/canadas-health-system-life-support-health-workers-call-urgent ; https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/our-current-health-care-disaster-could-have-been-averted/ ). Provinces often devote up to 40% of their budgets to healthcare with NL spending an just under $10,000 per person on health care. (see https://vocm.com/2021/11/04/province-5-billion-health-care/ ).
The provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador formally launched the creation of a Provincial Health Authority in the spring of 2022 and appointed a transitional provincial CEO (David Diamond) on June 1, 2022 to lead the creation of the same with a timeline of 10 to 18 months (see https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/2022/health/0425n01/). As noted in the press release announcing the new authority, key challenges facing the new authority include to “reimagine healthcare” in such as way as to “create more consistency in health care throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as avoid duplication in associated corporate services such as human resources, payroll and finance.“ (see https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/2022/health/0425n01/).

iSpine: A Innovative Spine Image ProcessingToolkit

A versatile spine modeling toolkit would enable the automatic assessment of gross anomalies and the evaluation of limited regions and spine components such as vertebra and discs. The system would consist of modules for: 1) segmenting the spine; 2) modeling spinal components; 3) detecting, assessing and analyzing salient features; and 4) generating information for medical diagnosis, patient reporting and clinical management. Despite a clear need for a versatile spine assessment toolkit, none is commercially available today. Some components of the proposed toolkit have been researched by our group in the past, but have neither been fully developed for cross-platform application nor made robust enough for clinical use. The major novelty of this project is creating the application software. Other novelties include adapting algorithms and code so that the component modules handle CT and MR images, deriving a set of validation metrics for a cross-platform application, designing the shell program, developing the test protocols, creating a feature set and distilling information that could be used for patient management and clinical decision-making.

Formal Adoption of Agile Methodology

First Canadian Financial Group (FCFG) provides services and products to automotive and recreational vehicle dealers across Canada. First Canadian Insurance Corporation is a life company providing creditor group products on vehicle loans. Millennium Insurance Corporation is a property and casualty company offering after-market warranties, protection products and agreements, and total loss assistance on financed vehicles.

Our strategic objective to leverage technology has resulted in more changes that require testing and complex specifications. We continually enhance or introduce products and programs to meet the changing demands of the dealer while improving the sales experience. Our role also includes a need for reporting and statistics. As such, FCFG is continually making changes which require development and testing for the dealer portal and our administration teams to manage. We are building a team of Business Analysts for documenting processes, developing specifications including use cases and quality assurance.

Optimizing a Dissolved Air Flotation Pilot Plant amid Changing Source Water

The impacts of climate change on source and receiving water quality are estimated to be profound. Climate change adaptation requires an anticipatory reaction across the water community to address design approaches to manage water quality and treatment costs into the future. The consideration of climate change in design is only recently gaining the attention of the water and community. Evolving source water risks, ongoing process challenges, and age/reliability of key process components have created an elevated risk of process failure, evidenced by quantity or quality of water that can be produced. For that reason, we have established a collaborative team of researchers and strong partnerships with CBCL Limited and Halifax Water to work with on improving water quality under climate change pressures through advancing science and technology. Our team will work with CBCL and Halifax Water to operate and optimize a dissolved air flotation pilot plant amid changing source waters to help support future design considerations.

Fitness Coach Connects Program Evaluation

Shepell·fgi, a leader in Employee and Family Assistance Programs (EFAPs) in Canada, launched its Fitness Coach Connects program in June 2013. This program engages users through the use of a wireless activity tracker, personalized interactions and coaching sessions with a dedicated Fitness Coach, as well as access to an online program. This internship will support Shepell·fgi’s Clinical Services and Research department in their evaluation of the Fitness Coach Connects program’s user data and feedback. Data analysis and program evaluation will contribute to the further development of best practices for this field of service, and will serve to provide the basis for future program enhancements. The goals of the internship are to develop a comprehensive literature review on the current knowledge regarding the effectiveness of EFAP programs which include customized fitness and technology-assisted components, and on the key challenges associated with the evaluation of these programs; to evaluate utilization data and user feedback regarding the key components of the Fitness Coach Connects program developed by Shepell·fgi; and to evaluate the impact of technology-assisted EFAP Fitness Coach Connects program; This project will contribute to future improvement of the Fitness Coach Connects program, strengthening the company’s position as a leader in the field.

Multicultural Women’s Organization of Newfoundland & Labrador (MWONL) Newcomer Needs Project

This project will help us build and assess our current programming. It will also develop an efficient system to collect and
understand our membership demographic and the uptake of programming offered by MWONL.

High Frequency Beamformer Design with matched Transducer Array

It is the aim of this internship to develop and perform cost-analysis on a set of manufacturing protocols for batch production of high frequency annular ultrasound imaging arrays. To our knowledge this would represent the first time that such arrays have designed for high-volume (2000/wk) production, making the project highly novel. Once the process is developed, five of the arrays will be prototyped and their performance evaluated. The intern will test and improve on the manufacturing protocol and analyze the process for cost, yield and inter-device uniformity. He will also run a number of performance tests to evaluate the array design. The project will position Daxsonics Ultrasound to bid for an eventual production contract on the arrays.

MYTHO: An uncharacterized FoxO-dependent gene that controls autophagy and skeletal muscle mass

Skeletal muscles make up a large proportion of total body mass and act as important energy reserves that are needed to support critical organ function. Skeletal muscle mass loss (atrophy) is a major health problem worldwide. The proposal focuses on the roles of MYTHO in regulatingskeletal muscle autophgy, fiber size and function. It will also deal with the therapeutic potentials of targeting MYTHO expression in skeletal muscles to ameliorate muscle dysfunction and atrophy in pathological conditions. Many of the procedures proposed in the proposal deal with cell physiology aspects of skeletal muscle fibers including autophagosome formation, protein-protein interactions and physiological variables such as muscle fiber size and muscle contractility. Ultimately, understanding the role of MYTHO in regulating autophagy and the proteins involved in this pathway will have a major impact on identification of innovative therapeutic targets for prevention and potential treatment of loss of skeletal muscle mass and function associated with aging, injury, and disease.

Understanding Native Pollinator Diversity on Quebec Cranberry Farms

Cranberry farming is a multi-million dollar industry in Quebec, but it is highly dependent on managed pollinators such as honey bees and bumble bees to adequately pollinate each year’s crop. Unfortunately, managed pollinators are becoming more expensive for farmers to rent each year, and thus cranberry farmers are facing greater costs to supply cranberries to the market. This project aims to understand how farmers can encourage more wild pollinators to live on their properties, and provide free, natural pollination services within their cranberry fields at the same time. Project results will enable farmers to make informed decisions about how they can encourage more wild pollinators to become residents of their farms, with the goal of decreasing the farmers’ reliance on expensive managed pollinators and increasing insect biodiversity in and around cranberry farms.

High Performance Regular Expression Matching Using Parallel Bit Stream Technology

Regular expressions can be thought of as a mini programming language that has a general pattern notation that allows you to search texts for occurrences of string patterns. Recently, a prototype compiler for regular expressions was introduced that provided a 5x or better performance advantage over its closest competitors. The prototype implemented a novel new approach for the parallel processing of text. The project that is being proposed will build upon the lessons that were learned from this initial prototype. The compiler will be modified in order to achieve platform independence, the compilation process will be optimized, and optimizations will be applied to the search algorithms in an attempt to extend the number of use cases where the compiler has a performance advantage. Upon the successful completion of this project, International Characters, Inc. will be provided with yet another high-performance software component that can be used to meet the needs of its customers.

Creating better DEMs through targeted field sampling and aligned interpolation algorithms

Earth elevation data is an important tool that helps scientists predict how rivers will respond to large floods and increased inputs of rocks and sand. Recent technological advances in elevation data collection are very effective for dry land, but much less effective for the wetted parts of the river. This causes gaps in the elevation data, which researchers generally fill by either 1) collecting underwater elevations or 2) using math equations to predict elevations. Collecting underwater data is time consuming and expensive, whereas estimating elevations using math equations can miss important features. The goal of this project is to find out how to best combine underwater data collection with estimating underwater elevations using math so that the resulting dataset is both of high quality and cheaply collected.