Innovative Projects Realized

Beliefs, Practices and Integration of borderland knowledge: A Study of Mah?vaipulya- mah?samnip?ta s?tra under the view of Intellectual History

This project will concentrate on the 60 volumes Chinese translation Mah?samnip?ta s?tra , examine the quotation and annotation of this scriptures from the later works. With the interdisciplinary research methods including Buddhist philosophy, philology, ancient medicine, history, astronomy and geography , I will put this s?tra under the perspective of intellectual history and conduct a study on the Buddhist beliefs, practices and mutual integration of borderland knowledge in Medieval China.

I will collect the domestic and foreign research literature on Mah?samnip?ta s?tra ,Indian astronomy, astrology, medicine and geography, and have a preliminary combing of those documents. Meanwhile, at the help of both home and host Supervisors. I will finish a 2-3.0000 words’ paper on Mahayana beliefs in the mah?samnip?ta s?tra , which is just a part of the whole project.

Systematic development of novel peptide-derived therapeutics for the inhibition of lysine-modifying enzymes for the treatment of cancer

Cancer will affect 2 in every 5 Canadians in their lifetime, with just over 25% representing new breast cancer diagnoses in women. Despite significant progress in the treatment of the most common cancer in women, resistance to chemotherapeutic agents remains a consistent obstacle in terms of the successful treatment of many types of breast cancers. The Mitacs-funded collaboration between NuvoBio and the Biggar lab at Carleton University is seeking to address this issue by systematically designing and developing peptide-based inhibitors that hold the promise as new therapeutics. This will be accomplished by using novel methods of peptide-based inhibitor development to efficiently design potential inhibitors that disrupt the function of critical proteins that are known to drive breast cancer progression.

Energy reduction in HVAC systems in a commercial building environment using data-driven approaches

The main goal of this project is to develop data-driven approaches to reduce energy consumption and cost when operating commercial building’s cooling systems. Indeed, according to recent studies the building sector is one of the largest energy-consuming entities (almost 40% of global energy consumption) and this consumption is predicted to increase by 50% by 2050. Thus, there is an urgent need to provide solutions to reduce energy consumption taking into account the importance to improve environmental sustainability and the increase of electricity prices. HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and air-conditioning) systems dominate energy usage in commercial buildings (between 40 and 70% of the total electricity consumption). In this project, we propose to tackle several challenges to improve Brainbox solutions related to HVAC systems.

Integrating Inclusive Design into Project Workflows

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a set of guidelines to assist designers in the task of designing digital content which will be accessible to users with a wide range of abilities. These guidelines are known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.1. Students in the Inclusive Design program learn to think about WCAG as a good starting point for how to design inclusively in a variety of contexts, but also about ways in which they fall short of providing ideal accessibility. This project will draw on WCAG, and other resources, to research how content and technologies developed by the eBook company Rakuten Kobo can be made more accessible, and how those insights can be integrated into existing workflows to help avoid introducing accessibility barriers in future.

Investigation of Novel HPGR and Size Classification Comminution Circuit

Crushing and grinding rock is the largest consumer of energy at a mining operation. Ball Mill grinding is the main technology that is used for fine grinding, yet it is known to be very inefficient with respect to energy consumptions; estimates are that less than 2% of energy input to ball mills translate into particle breakage. The High-Pressure Grinding Roll (HPGR) is known to be much more energy efficient for breaking coarse particles and the present proposal is aimed at demonstrating that the HPGR is more energy efficient than ball mill grinding of fine particles. The target is to reduce energy usage by 50% by replacing ball mills with the HPGR. The research will investigate technical challenges of applying the technology for fine particle breakage and demonstrate the novel process.

Automated Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) Classification for Hydrological Modelling and Physically-Based Inflow Forecasting

The problem considered in this work is how to produce highly accurate and consistent land-use/land-cover (LULC) maps significantly faster than current semi?automated methods for use by Manitoba Hydro. The goal is to improve the ability to produce maps quickly and efficiently as priority needs arise. This project will use an approach for automated LULC mapping from satellite images using deep learning methods pioneered by the applicants. By classifying each pixel in a satellite image into LULC categories using neural networks, rapid and accurate LULC maps can be successfully produced. These LULC maps can then be included in improving hydrological modelling and inflow forecasting as an additive layer to improve overall modelling processes. Secondly, this research will also develop a solution for higher resolution satellite data. Lastly, the final objective incorporates seasonal water levels into the LULC products that can contribute to the mapping of hydrological connectivity and disconnectivity.

Modeling Exfiltration Events in Sunlife Cybersecurity Data

Many governments and other organizations hold confidential data. Theft of that data can be extremely damaging both to the organization and to the people whose data has been stolen. Massive breaches each involving millions of people have been occurring on a regular basis in recent years. New Cyber Security tools are needed to help people determine the threats that exist and to provide active online monitoring that can detect unusual behavior as it happens. In this project researchers from the Interactive Media Lab at the University of Toronto are working with Sun Life Financial to carry out research towards the development of these tools using expertise in machine learning, human factors, and data visualization and user interface design. We will begin by developing a kind of dictionary of the kinds of events and transactions that occur on the organization servers. We will then develop methods for detecting unusual events with the assistance of domain experts at Sun Life. Methods will then be developed to screen which unusual events are more likely to be associated with data theft attempts.

Eye movement behaviours predict decision-making

Much is known about how our mind guides our attention as we visually process our environment. Visual search is guided by a marriage between internal (i.e., our explicit goals and objectives) and external (i.e., physical properties of objects) factors that influence our perception of the world around us. Recent work has shown that individuals vary in strategy when engaging in difficult search tasks. Moreover, these individual differences in strategy can reliably predict decision-making in much more sophisticated tasks, such as where to stand between two dartboards when you might have to throw a dart at either of them, or where to park a fire truck on the street when the probability of a fire in any house is unknown. This proposed collaboration will further explore the predictive relationship between visual search strategy and decision-making, specifically by teasing apart the fundamental factors known to drive search behaviour (internal goals vs. external experience). We will examine whether the mechanisms underlying these factors can predict search behviour across individuals, and then assess whether this predictive ability subsequently extends to the prediction of higher order decision-making.

Development of a tissue culture platform to investigate piscine orthoreovirus infectious cycle in-vitro

The aquaculture industry is constantly growing worldwide. Vast arrays of fish species are farmed in freshwater, brackish, and marine systems. In farms, fish reach high-population densities, which facilitates the outbreaks of infectious diseases. This is a big challenge for the aquaculture industry, particularly in the case of viral pathogens because there are few, if any, efficacious treatments against emergent and re-emergent fish viruses. Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) is an emerging viral pathogen that causes high economic losses in the salmon farming industry. Importantly, by harming invaluable wild fisheries, PRV is suspected to influence both ecological and social damage to the communities that traditionally exploit this resource. The way PRV produces disease is virtually unknown due to the lack of tools for its study and this has seriously delayed the advance of research. The objective of our proposed research is to develop tools for the study of this virus in-vitro. The expected outcome will be an important contribution to the knowledge of PRV pathogenicity and will help to identify possible ways of prevention and treatment of PRV outbreaks.

A Study of Religious Dialogue: Based on Buddhism and Catholicism in the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China

This is a study by a postgraduate under the guidance of a professor from UBC about the dialogue of Buddhism and Christianity during the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, focusing on the views of the Ultimate World, such as the Kingdom of Heaven in Catholicism and the Pure Land in Buddhism. Through research methods of history, philology, and sociology, this study will contribute constructive opinions to the current dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity, and provide resources for the current study of the relationship between Buddhism and Christianity. It can provide some constructive advice on the current peaceful development of Chinese Buddhism and Christianity which have the most believers among all religious believers in China today.

Validation of Selective Phytocannabinoids Using In Vitro Glaucoma Models

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, mainly induced by increased pressure in the eye. Marijuana has been shown to reduce such pressure, thus benefit glaucoma patients. In the previous project, we screened several individual components from marijuana extracts and tested their ability on keeping cells alive. The current project puts an emphasis on neuroprotection and therapeutic aspects of glaucoma. We propose to target and analyse the effect of our selected compound for major downstream pathways that are significantly modulated in to Glaucoma pathology. These projects will provide pre-clinical data to support the compound possessing potential therapeutic value for the patients with Glaucoma in the future.

Water and Thermal Management in PEM Fuel Cells

Water and thermal management are two critical issues for PEM fuel cells; the problem is exacerbated for
operation at high current densities in an effort to increase power density for reduced cost. The proposed research
will focus on the characterization, analysis and modeling of water and heat transport through the PEM fuel cell
components, from the catalyst layers, microporous layers and gas diffusion layers to the flow channels. Porous
structure and effective heat and mass transport properties of these layers will be measured and analyzed,
strategies for water and thermal management will be developed, including using wettability gradient through
these layers to facilitate the water transport and removal, numerical modeling and simulation of transport
phenomena, the effect of freeze and thaw cycling, impact on cold start capability, and the development of
innovative catalyst layer design and fabrication. The intended impact of the proposed research will be on the
improvement of PEM fuel cell performance and durability and cost reduction…..TOBECONTINUED