Innovative Projects Realized

Evaluating participatory plant breeding programs in Canada and their effectiveness as a strategy for climate change adaptation

Participatory plant breeding (PPB), which pairs farmers’ knowledge with the skills of formal plant breeders, is increasingly being recognized as an effective approach to develop better varieties for organic farming systems because it uses the environmental conditions of working organic farms as selection environments and incorporates farmers’ needs and observations in the selection criteria. PPB has been beneficial already in many developing nations to improve farmers’ capacity to adapt to stressful conditions, as well as build farmers’ sovereignty over their enterprise. As these benefits of PPB are becoming increasingly realized in the developed nations in Europe and North America, this project will investigate the integration of this unique crop breeding model in a Canadian context. Partnering with SeedChange, this project will interview farmers directly involved in PPB programs across Canada to gain an understanding of the regional challenges that organic farmers face when breeding for successful varieties. The research will ask how this approach can produce conditions better suited to adapt agriculture to the impacts of climate change.

Investigation of the Role of Host Proteins in the HIV-1 Envelope

While efficacious treatments are available for HIV, they require lifelong adherence and can have harmful effects over time. Therefore, developing novel treatments and a preventative vaccine remain critical. While most vaccine attempts to date have been largely unsuccessful, identifying new targets on the virus, may provide novel avenues for HIV vaccines and therapies. Integrin alpha 4 beta 7 (?4?7) is a cellular protein that is highly abundant within the external HIV envelope that has been shown to facilitate trafficking of virus to their target cells in an animal model. This protein is also known to play several roles in HIV infection. My projects aims to determine what mechanisms are in place that allow ?4?7 and (other cellular proteins) to partition into the HIV envelope which may in turn provide new information on how the virus is able to hijack other human proteins to increase its infectivity.

Title of project:In vivo and in silico evaluation of multiorgan variability for the detection of criticalphysiological changes of patients in Intensive Care Units

The project focuses on the characterization of the evolution with time of the properties of

physiological signals recorded in different clinical settings, describing sepsis shock and other

clinical complications that are common features in Intensive Care Units. Changes in heart

rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation will be studied through an array

of more than 70 techniques; some will consider the signals one-at-a-time, others will analyze

the signals simultaneously. The final objective is characterizing the interrelationship between

the different techniques and their clinical relevance in the detection of changes in the

physiological conditions of patients in the ICU. The long term goal is using the collect results

to create predictors of those changes, promoting a shift from o descriptive medicine, where

predictive medicine, where the disease is detected before having deleterious effects on the

patients, improving diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.

Développement d’un système de microplaque chauffante à induction

Dans le domaine de la spectroscopie infrarouge, nous utilisons des sources infrarouges à large bande afin d’illuminer les échantillons observés. La méthode traditionnelle est d’utiliser des éléments chauffants avec une bonne émissivité à haute température, environ 1,000 °C. Actuellement, les défis majeurs pour la conception de source de lumière infrarouge sont i) la grande consommation de puissance, et ii) le fait que la source se détériore avec le temps.
L’objectif de ce projet est d’évaluer des méthodes alternatives afin d’avoir une source infrarouge performante avec les caractéristiques suivantes : 1. Émissivité élevé. 2. Température élevée 1,000 °C, idéalement plus chaude 1,200-1,300 °C. 3. Bonne longévité et ayant une basse oxydation. 4. Puissance consommé < 2W. La stratégie adoptée pour réduire la consommation consiste à avoir un élément complètement isolé et de le chauffer par induction

Implémentation d’un système simple de contrôle de processus dans un système ExAO incluant des effecteurs

Implémentation d’un système simple de contrôle de processus dans un système ExAO incluant des effecteurs. Le didacticiel produit devrait faciliter la programmation par des étudiants de niveau collège d’un système de contrôle avec des instructions simples et explicites.

Punching Shear Behavior of Glass Fiber-Reinforced polymer Reinforced Concrete Slab-Column Edge Connections Under Lateral Cyclic Loading – Year two

The applicability of reinforcing slab-column edge connections with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars in resisting gravity loads has been validated through several investigations. The elastic nature of FRP reinforcement raises concerns about the feasibility of using this type of reinforcement in reinforced concrete (RC) structures in seismic regions. To date, only one study has been conducted to investigate the seismic response of glass (G) FRP-RC slab-column edge connections. In addition, current limitations of FRP design codes concerning the seismic resistance may lead to a highly conservative and uneconomical design due to the lack of experimental evidence.
Therefore, this project consists of developing analytical models for FRP-RC slab-column edge connections (validated with experimental data) which will be used to conduct seismic performance assessment to investigate the safety and accuracy of current design methods. The main objective is set to support North America’s codes with essential experimental and analytical data towards developing a clause for FRP-RC slab-column edge connections and to provide engineers with reliable design guidelines and confident in adopting such element in construction. This in return will benefit the industrial partner (SFTec Inc.) as a leading producer and supplier of FRP bars worldwide.

Punching Shear Behavior of Glass Fiber-Reinforced polymer Reinforced Concrete Slab-Column Edge Connections Under Lateral Cyclic Loading

The applicability of reinforcing slab-column edge connections with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars in resisting gravity loads has been validated through several investigations. The elastic nature of FRP reinforcement raises concerns about the feasibility of using this type of reinforcement in reinforced concrete (RC) structures in seismic regions. To date, only one study has been conducted to investigate the seismic response of glass (G) FRP-RC slab-column edge connections. In addition, current limitations of FRP design codes concerning the seismic resistance may lead to a highly conservative and uneconomical design due to the lack of experimental evidence.
Therefore, this project consists of developing analytical models for FRP-RC slab-column edge connections (validated with experimental data) which will be used to conduct seismic performance assessment to investigate the safety and accuracy of current design methods. The main objective is set to support North America’s codes with essential experimental and analytical data towards developing a clause for FRP-RC slab-column edge connections and to provide engineers with reliable design guidelines and confident in adopting such element in construction. This in return will benefit the industrial partner (SFTec Inc.) as a leading producer and supplier of FRP bars worldwide.

micro laboratoire de sciences et technologie

Contexte : La collaboration en robotique entre le laboratoire de robotique pédagogique de l’université de Montréal et l’université du Maine est vielle de plus de 20 ans entre Pierre Nonnon de l’Université de Montréal et Pascal Leroux de l’Université du Maine avec notamment l’organisation de coprésidence de 8 congrès sur la robotique pédagogique.

Objectif : Fournir aux étudiants une formation en microlab de sciences et technologie. Plus spécifiquement, le stage portera sur la conception de systèmes de mesure de nouveaux capteurs.

Eng/aging and HIV: Knowledge Exchange between Older Adults Living with HIV and Big Data Researchers in British Columbia – Year two

To an unprecedented degree in the history of HIV/AIDS, people with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) are aging largely owing to the success of treatment. As a relatively new phenomenon, research on HIV/AIDS and aging is only just emerging, and remains largely epidemiological in focus. One leading epidemiological study called COAST comes from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, a world-renowned HIV/AIDS research organization. COAST assembles administrative epidemiological data to examine aging PLHIV health trends in B.C. Missing in this research is the knowledge and experience of those being studied who actually live the challenges of aging with HIV. Canada-wide there has been a push in health research for an ethical practice that emphasizes collaboration amongst those directly affected by a health issue and researchers (e.g. CIHR 2019).

My research will engage aging PLHIV with COAST, leveraging their perspectives and lived experiences to identify community-relevant research questions and answer them using COAST data. This project stands to enrich the knowledge produced by COAST scientists, improve the inclusivity of their professional networks, and enhance the management and contribution of the COAST study itself. It is established that “patient-oriented research” improves healthcare, and this project will improve health services and health outcomes for PLHIV.

Improving Metal Cleanliness of Magnesium Alloy Castings for AutomotiveApplications

For the automotive industry, the need to promote sustainable materials to meet the increasing

pressures of climate change and consumer demand for improved fuel efficiencies has promoted the use

of lightweight, recyclable materials such as magnesium (Mg) alloys to reduce vehicle component

weight. Magnesium is 35 % lighter than aluminum and 78 % lighter than steel and its use has brought

about positive changes in reducing carbon emissions for automotive vehicles. However magnesium is

prone to absorbing many impurities during manufacturing making recycling difficult and expensive.

This project examines various metal cleaning techniques to the quality and recyclability of magnesium

and its alloys. The project is in collaboration with the Centre of Urban Energy at Ryerson University

which funds research initiatives related to energy conservation, electric vehicles and power generation.

Since magnesium alloys are used as lightweight materials for automotive vehicles (gasoline to pure

electric and hydrogen), the current project enables more energy conservative vehicles to enable

sustainable transportation for society.

Eng/aging and HIV: Knowledge Exchange Between Administrative Data Project and Aging Individuals with HIV/AIDS in British Columbia

To an unprecedented degree in the history of HIV/AIDS, people with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) are aging largely owing to the success of treatment. As a relatively new phenomenon, research on HIV/AIDS and aging is only just emerging, and remains largely epidemiological in focus. One leading epidemiological study called COAST comes from the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, a world-renowned HIV/AIDS research organization. COAST assembles administrative epidemiological data to examine aging PLHIV health trends in B.C. Missing in this research is the knowledge and experience of those being studied who actually live the challenges of aging with HIV. Canada-wide there has been a push in health research for an ethical practice that emphasizes collaboration amongst those directly affected by a health issue and researchers (e.g. CIHR 2019).

My research will engage aging PLHIV with COAST, leveraging their perspectives and lived experiences to identify community-relevant research questions and answer them using COAST data. This project stands to enrich the knowledge produced by COAST scientists, improve the inclusivity of their professional networks, and enhance the management and contribution of the COAST study itself. It is established that “patient-oriented research” improves healthcare, and this project will improve health services and health outcomes for PLHIV.

Unraveling the electrophysiological basis of auditory entrainment from a gender perspective

An important challenge in developmental psychiatric research is to understand which are the neural mechanisms underlying language acquisition and speech comprehension. Auditory entrainment is the mechanism by which the brain faithfully entrains electrophysiological activity to rhythmically modulated stimuli, and it is seen as the mechanism that the listening brain use to attune to acoustic regularities and to enhance the representation of attended stimuli. Although it has being proposed as a potential biomarker of neurodevelopmental disorders, very little is known about the neuronal mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. Here we aim at dissecting the circuit and functional basis of normal and abnormal auditory circuit function underlying auditory entrainment, paying special attention to sex differences and hormonal effect. At Csisvari’s lab I will record single cells firing activity in the auditory cortex and identify their putative role in synchronizing electrophysiological activity during auditory perception. Using optogenetic technology we will be able to identify firing patterns of fast spiking/PV+ and somatostatin interneurons and study their participation in auditory entrainment in control subjects.