Innovative Projects Realized

Conservation Planning for the Wells Barkerville Community Forest

The Wells-Barkerville Community Forest (WBCF) is a small, 4300 ha forest in the BC interior wet-belt forest with important value economically and ecologically, and for contributing to the quality of life and the continued ability to attract tourists to the region. The purpose of this project is to work with the WBCF to conduct conservation planning activities to help:
1) identify locations of critical value;
2) examine ecological connectivity within the Forest and ecoregionally; and
3) build capacity within the Forest communities, to inform planning and management as well as initiatives to improve connectivity and resiliency within the region.

Restoration Opportunities for the Lost Creeks of South Etobicoke

Extensive development in south Etobicoke resulted in creeks historically viewed as a nuisance being buried, culverted or piped underground. However, creeks don’t just disappear, during large rainfall or snowmelt events. These buried creeks have been found to be a catalyst for flooding and reduce water quality because of reductions in storage and absorption of stormwater run-off over vegetated surfaces resulting in a ‘flashy’ response to stormwater. This project will investigate restoration options for the remnant portions of the lost creeks and investigate green infrastructure (i.e. stormwater ponds, or rain gardens) alternatives to stormwater management for areas contributing runoff to the lost creek network. The overall goal of this research project is to identify potential solutions to reduce negative impacts on water quality and quantity, while improving the ecological and societal value of the lost creeks.

Correction du biais de la sous-captation des précipitations et séparation des précipitations et séparation des précipitations solides et liquides

La prévision des apports en eau dans les bassins versants du parc de production d’Hydro-Québec est très importante car elle permet de quantifier la production hydro-électrique. Pour faire ces prévisions, on utilise des modèles hydrologiques qui sont alimentés par plusieurs données climatiques dont les plus importantes sont les précipitations. Une meilleure prévision repose sur la qualité de ces données. De nombreuses travaux scientifiques et notamment le dernier rapport produit par l’Organisation Météorologique Mondiale, indiquent une sous-captation des précipitations en hiver par les appareils de mesure que sont les précipitomètres. Il est aussi démontré qu’il est très difficile de discriminer les phases solides et liquides des précipitations quand les températures sont proches de zéro. Grâce à ce projet, on va arriver à résoudre ces deux problématiques en développant des techniques automatiques de correction qui seront appliquées à tous les précipitomètres repartis sur les bassins versants. On disposera alors de données de qualités qui seront utilisés par les modèles hydrologiques pour une meilleure prévision des apports en eaux mais aussi une meilleure planification de la production et d’assurer la sécurité des installations et de minimiser les déversements non productibles.

Towards Developing Trust in Online Third-Party Reporting Systems for Survivors of Sexual Assault

Over 600,000 sexual assault happen in Canada every year, however, 95% of sexual assault go unreported. We are working towards building a research-based online third-party reporting system that will aid the reporting of sexual assault. Survivors will now have the opportunity to document their evidence and experiences and submit the report at their own convenience. VESTA is committed to building research backed technology that draws on the principles of building technology for good. In all development of technology, we will consider the broader social context of our products and services, and make this consideration part of our ethos. This means, among other considerations, taking into account the privacy concerns of potential users. VESTA will benefit from the research by incorporating the findings in our product development.

Health Records over Blockchains – Year Two

It is hard to understate the critical role access to a patient’s comprehensive medical history plays in diagnosing (and treating) patient illness. For a doctor, knowing the latest prescribed drugs of his patient might, for example, point directly to the cause of an illness — which might be just a drug side effect. Yet patients often do not know the names of the drugs they take or even the dates of surgeries and other medical procedures.

A Health register covers the entire log of patient medical treatments, from surgeries through periodic health check-ups and other medical interventions. These records are commonly paper registers, smart cards or online private databases, often owned by hospitals, and not always available on need. Publicly sharing these databases could address the problem — but it would create a new one by violating personal privacy (and Canadian privacy laws).

This project intends to employ blockchain technology to develop a platform that can integrate health registers and enable hospitals and other medical service providers to access health registers securely and promptly. Notwithstanding, the technology we are going to develop is applicable in various research fields.

Automated malware detection using supervised machine learning

Malware is one of today’s biggest computer security problems. Traditionally, malware is detected by inspecting its signature, which is a unique identifier of the software’s binary. Signature-based malware

detection is becoming less effective as cyber criminals mutate the malware they design, where the malware is programed in such a way that simply comparing its signature to known malware signatures

will not identify it as being malicious. Thus, new detection techniques inspect the behavior of the software instead, where an algorithm is used to learn the patterns of malware activities. Usually, this

is achieved by using supervised machine learning, where the malware detection system, called the classifier, is trained using already identified malware samples. In this research project, we propose to

design, implement and diagnose a supervised machine learning architecture for automating malware detection at Sophos Inc., one of the leading anti-malware software vendors.

Health Records over Blockchains

It is hard to understate the critical role access to a patient’s comprehensive medical history plays in diagnosing (and treating) patient illness. For a doctor, knowing the latest prescribed drugs of his patient might, for example, point directly to the cause of an illness — which might be just a drug side effect. Yet patients often do not know the names of the drugs they take or even the dates of surgeries and other medical procedures.

A Health register covers the entire log of patient medical treatments, from surgeries through periodic health check-ups and other medical interventions. These records are commonly paper registers, smart cards or online private databases, often owned by hospitals, and not always available on need. Publicly sharing these databases could address the problem — but it would create a new one by violating personal privacy (and Canadian privacy laws).

This project intends to employ blockchain technology to develop a platform that can integrate health registers and enable hospitals and other medical service providers to access health registers securely and promptly. Notwithstanding, the technology we are going to develop is applicable in various research fields.

Development of Low Smoke Zero Halogen Smart Polymer Compounds/Nanocomposites for Wire and Cable Covering Material

Currently halogen-based flame retardant is widely used as cable covering material in various industries including oil and gas. Studies have concluded that these materials will produce toxic gases and acidic fumes, and also persistent against degradation in landfill. These negative consequences resulted in a global ban on halogen-based flame retardant. This project is a direct response to the global ban by developing new low smoke zero halogen (LSZH) flame retardant without the aforementioned problems. New LSZH additives developed by Shawcor will first be characterized to determine its flame retardancy and other properties. Next, innovative nano-additives will be studied and characterized. Possible interactions between multiple additives will then be investigated in order to further improve performance. Finally, the fabrication process will be optimized to make the new composite suitable for mass production. The outcome of this project will offer Shawcor a solution to replace halogen-based flame retardant in its product lineup in response to the global ban.

Production of in vitro and in vivo bison embryos derived from sexed semen – Year two

In mammals, the sperm determines the sex of the resulting offspring. Semen sexing is a process whereby sperm are sorted into Y- (male) or X-chromosome (female) bearing gametes. Sexed semen may be used for artificial insemination or in vitro embryo production to create offspring of a desired sex. In a zoo setting, fewer males are required because of their ability to breed multiple females. A collaborative effort between the University of Saskatchewan and the Toronto Zoo has been resulted in the birth of live wood bison calves from in vitro embryo production, cryopreservation, and embryo transfer. The objective of this project is to produce bison sexed (female) semen for use in both in vitro and in vivo embryo production at the University of Saskatchewan. The female embryos will then be cryopreserved and transported to the Toronto Zoo where they will be transferred to surrogate bison to produce live bison calves. This Mitacs internship with the Toronto Zoo will not only produce the first female bison calves from sex-sorted semen, but will also serve as proof-of-concept for the advancement of a bison germplasm biobank for both conservation and commercial application.

Production of in vitro and in vivo bison embryos derived from sexed semen

In mammals, the sperm determines the sex of the resulting offspring. Semen sexing is a process whereby sperm are sorted into Y- (male) or X-chromosome (female) bearing gametes. Sexed semen may be used for artificial insemination or in vitro embryo production to create offspring of a desired sex. In a zoo setting, fewer males are required because of their ability to breed multiple females. A collaborative effort between the University of Saskatchewan and the Toronto Zoo has been resulted in the birth of live wood bison calves from in vitro embryo production, cryopreservation, and embryo transfer. The objective of this project is to produce bison sexed (female) semen for use in both in vitro and in vivo embryo production at the University of Saskatchewan. The female embryos will then be cryopreserved and transported to the Toronto Zoo where they will be transferred to surrogate bison to produce live bison calves. This Mitacs internship with the Toronto Zoo will not only produce the first female bison calves from sex-sorted semen, but will also serve as proof-of-concept for the advancement of a bison germplasm biobank for both conservation and commercial application.

Production of cannabinoid in bioengineered microalgae – Year two

Plant natural products (PNP) are important resources for pharmaceutical and food industry. In the last decades, the market price of several PNP inflated because of the limited amounts produced in plants and the challenges in growing healthy crops. To overcome this problem, our team developed a multitool box of molecular methods to transform marine algae Phaeodactylum tricornutum.
Bioengineered microalgae are great candidates to manufacture PNP because of the relatively close behavior to plants’ compared to bioengineered bacteria or yeast. We designed and inserted genes encoding enzymes involved in cannabinoid biosynthesis. We succesfully detected the production of precursor molecules from the first part of the pathway. Now, we designed genetic constructions for the rest of the pathway to produce the final products i.e. cannabinoids. This project is a proof of concept of how microalgae could be used in pharmaceutical to encounter natural limitation of PNP. The aim to produce cannabinoids is the first step because of the trend after the law change in Canada, but the PNP could be also other therapeutic molecules of medical or nutritional importance such as Taxol or omega-3 fatty acids.

Integrating First Principles and Big-Data Analytics for Improved Biomolecular Simulations

Laws of physics combined with computational prowess has allowed us to simulate biological processes at a molecular level, which have a wide range of applications which include guiding experimental observations, designing drugs with molecular precision, and improving bio-sensor technology. However, the existing models use approximations that that limit scope of their applicability, due to the vast diversity and complexity of molecular processes in physiological environments. Thus, models have to be continually refined and updated, by incorporating more empirical data, or more physics. For my research project I will be working with Prof. Carsten Baldauf to aid in the development of models that better describe ion-protein interactions at molecular scales, since these interactions are crucial for almost every physiological process, but often lack a good description at such small scales. This will be done by incorporating more quantum level data into existing simulation models, and this requires intensive computational calculation of 1000s of amino acid structures, data analysis and statistical fitting.