Innovative Projects Realized

Genome-wide association study provides an opportunity to identify genetic resistance in canola varieties against Leptosphaeria maculans

Our intention is to find excellent resistance sources in the Canadian canola cultivars, and other available genotypes through field, greenhouse and lab research to enhance resistance. This will supplement the new resistance sources including novel R gene and quantitative resistance in canola against blackleg disease in Canada. It will also reduce it to become endemic and prevent epidemics, when the environmental conditions favor the pathogen in certain seasons (like the summer of 2021 when it was very dry across the prairies). The investment in this research will benefit the three interns through the training they will receive, and the opportunity to meet the growers and key players in industry. The partner organization which represents growers and industry, will benefit through the seed industry, canola industry, growers, stakeholders, and Canada’s economy. It will also help our canola to be exported without trade barriers due to plant pathogens.

Modélisation et optimisation de l’efficacité des surfaces texturées dans les engrenages

Le film d’huile présent entre les dents d’engrenages leur permet d’avoir une durée de vie élevée. Des études démontrent que d’ajouter des microcavités de surface sur deux pièces en contact séparées par un film d’huile aurait des effets bénéfiques qui engendreraient une réduction du frottement, donc conduiraient à des augmentations d’efficacité. L’idée principale est d’appliquer cette technologie aux engrenages. Cependant, les dimensions des microcavités sont critiques pour avoir une augmentation de l’efficacité notable. Un modèle numérique sera développé pour simuler le comportement du fluide dans les microcavités. Une fois, ce modèle validé, avec l’aide de mesure expérimentale à l’Université de Poitiers en France, il sera couplé à un algorithme d’optimisation qui permettra d’obtenir les meilleures dimensions des microcavités ainsi que leurs positions. Les résultats obtenus à la fin de cette recherche devraient permettre d’augmenter le rendement des engrenages. À l’échelle mondiale, les engrenages sont utilisés dans des millions de voitures, de véhicules industriels et de transports. Même faible, une augmentation du rendement peut représenter énormément d’économie d’énergie et c’est l’environnement qui en tire avantage.

Regional Chamber Support Initiative

At the grassroots level, Chambers serve as the Voice of Business to government while offering products and services that facilitate the creation of relationships between businesses, provide discounts to reduce business costs, and offer learning opportunities that support business growth.

Many Chambers of Commerce in small communities across Northwestern Ontario are facing significant challenges in providing services to businesses in their area due to a shortage of financial resources and volunteer resources. As a result, at a time when the business community most needs support to help weather an economic storm such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the layoff of staff at a large employer, the local Chamber is left ill-equipped with fiscal and human capital to assist. Chambers of Commerce in Nipigon, Terrace Bay/Schreiber and Atikokan have recently paused operations due to these issues and the Marathon Chamber has greatly reduced their operations, leaving their business communities with minimal support or assistance.

The Thunder Bay Chamber knows that our region is stronger when all businesses have a supportive Chamber to address their needs. The purpose of this research project is to identify opportunities to assist these small community Chambers in providing support and services to their business community.

Evaluating the protective effects of electrical muscle stimulation with and without blood flow restriction during periods of short-term inactivity

Physical inactivity is associated with impaired removal of sugar from the blood after a meal, or insulin-resistance and a reduced muscle mass and fitness. While exercise is well-established to prevent these impairments, it may not be feasible in some clinical conditions. Therefore, passive interventions that mimick the stressors and elicit the benefits of exercise may be required. Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) and tourniquet induced blood flow restriction (BFR) can prevent muscle loss during inactivity. It remains unknown if differences exist between EMS with and without BFR to prevent muscle loss. Whether these passive interventions can prevent insulin-resistance or decreased fitness during inactivity remains unknown. We will critically evaluate if BFR can increase the effectiveness of EMS in preventing the negative consequences of decreased physical activity. This work will support evidence based recommendations for the use of our partner’s product, the optimization of automated programs, and could springboard new features/prototypes.

Applying software product line engineering for the creation of blockchain applications

Although blockchain is gaining momentum in the industry, practitioners still struggle with the technical aspects of implementing blockchain-based applications. This task requires deep knowledge of blockchain technology, a scarce skill due to its novelty. This project proposes an approach based on the combination of software product lines and blockchain technology to automatically generate on-the-shelf blockchain applications for a specific domain.

It will result in the construction of a tool based on this approach, constituted of two parts. First, a practitioner will be able to select its desired features in a configurator. This configurator will leverage a feature model, that is the graphical representation of all of the features that can be included in the final product. Then, a generator will ingest the user configuration to generate a working product.

Large Scan Area Nanometer Resolution AFM Imaging

Atomic Force Microscopes have gained wide acceptance as a robust tool for metrology of nanometer and atomic scale surfaces. Nonetheless, AFMs lack some key capabilities that would benefit the industries and the scientific community at large. In this project, the limited scan range (<10x10 um2) is addressed via the use of an off-the-shelf xyz positioner with relaxed requirements in conjunction a novel fully integrated mems afm array. this tool capable producing images order-of-magnitude improvement scan area (>1000×1000 um2), bringing the (sub-)nano resolution AFM images into the millimeter range. As the first of its kind, such a technology has immediate applications in silicon wafer inspection. The robustness of the proposed system has productization potential, giving the partner organization first-mover advantage in the competitive commercial landscape of AFM based tools.

Learning the Growth of Asian Multinational Corporations: Access to Early Adopters, Financing, and Talent

This project involves interning for the Cansbridge Fellowship in Canada. The primary focus of the work-term will be to study the methods that such business used to scale from inception to present day in Asia virtually while interning for the Cansbridge fellowship. The methods of growth will focus on three aspects: (i) access to early adopters, (ii) financing, and (iii) talent. The methods used by such businesses to reach current scale will be compared to the Canadian landscape to conclude similarities and differences of Canadian small to medium sized business (1-100 employees) currently operating in the consumer technology or business technology space.

Drug Delivery Systems based on Pullulan

Burn wounds are one of the most common types of severe injuries worldwide and providing a dress to accelerate the wound healing process is a vital need. Among the materials could be used for wound dressing, pullulan, a microbial natural polymer, can be a nice candidate as an alternative to petroleum-based polymers. However, pullulan’s affinity with drugs to be used in that application is still a challenge. Therefore, this project’s aim is to modify pullulan to be used efficiently as drug delivery systems. This project will be under the supervision of Professor Amilton Martins dos Santos from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is an expert in polymer chemistry and the modification of polymers. If successful, this might lead to a highly interesting application for pullulan, as well as a move toward a circular economy due to the use of natural polymers.

Follow the Money: Investigating Political Donations in Canada

We leverage a new, original dataset containing all recorded political donations made in all 14 Canadian jurisdictions since 1993 to map patterns in political donations and to measure the effects of donations laws. We ask: which types of individuals are more likely to make donations? What can the recipients and the timing of donations tell us about donors’ motivations? And do donation laws that regulate who can donate, how much they can donate, and at what threshold donations must be publicly disclosed, have their intended effects? This research program has two interrelated objectives: first, to generate new knowledge about the role of money in Canadian politics, and second, to disseminate that knowledge to citizens, and in doing so, to improve transparency, democratic accountability, and governance in Canada. This project is a partnership between academics at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University, and the not-for-profit Investigative Journalism Foundation, which will benefit from this project in the form of increased readership.

Effets de combinaisons des fusariotoxines: la zéaralénone (ZEN), le déoxynivalénol (DON) et la fumonisine B1 (FB1) sur le fonctionnement cellulaire et les voies de signalisation : Étude préventive

Les conditions climatiques et géographiques et les particularités socio-économiques de la population ont fait du Canada un pays propice au développement d’une flore fongique sécrétrice de toxines naturelles, les mycotoxines. Ces mycotoxines s’avèrent de puissants contaminants de l’environnement et particulièrement de la chaîne alimentaire. A l’heure actuelle, la situation est davantage aggravée par la multi-contamination des denrées qui complique les effets toxiques par des effets additionnels ou synergiques. La présence simultanée de plusieurs mycotoxines peut produire certaines interactions. C’est dans ce cadre que nous nous intéressions à la combinaison de mycotoxines en raison de leur prévalence au Canada et de leur implication dans des pathologies sévères (troubles des fonctions immunitaires, reproductrices etc.). Ce projet répondra à des questions de mécanisme d’action d’une contamination multiple par des fusarotoxines telles que le DON, ZEN et FB1. Notre partenaire industriel est intéressé à collaborer dans ce projet afin de répondre à ces questions et de travailler ensemble à prévenir leurs effets en utilisant des anti-oxydants comme la sésamine et la vitamine E qui peuvent constituer un marché potentiel.

Detection and Investigation of Email Exfiltration Events in Sun Life Cybersecurity Data

The overall goal of this work is to use interactive machine learning to enhance current methods for detecting data exfiltration. This includes more efficient and scalable approaches for detecting and screening potentially malicious activities.
The proposal work will proceed in two stages, first focusing on the work of the corporate data analysis team in screening for suspicious activities, and then working with the corporate investigative team to make identification of actual data exfiltration activity more efficient.
In addition to strengthening Sun Life cybersecurity capability, the research should also lead to scientific publications on how to implement interactive machine learning in the context of defending against data exfiltration threats.

Indoor Object Detection for Blind People

Since 2003, Humanware develops a GPS-based dedicated device that helps blind people to orient themselves and guides them to their destination. In this project, we want to enhance the user experience by providing a better understanding of the environment and interacting with the device in a more natural way. This project specifically addresses how the device can become a personal assistant in an indoor world.