Innovative Projects Realized

Conversion of lignocellulosic biomass or waste materials into value-added products via hydrothermal fractionation and liquefaction/gasification

I propose the study on intermediate (value-added) product production from distributed lignocellulosic biomass or waste materials through hydrothermal fractionation/liquefaction/gasification. In future, supply-chain network system is important because of reduction of electric loss. It can avoid food and unused land use issues. also, biofuels are considered carbon-neutral as the plant recycle the CO2 released from their combustion during photosynthesis. Through this study, we will improve a study on the conversion of distributed biomass resources into high quality products as biocrude-oil or hydrogen gas etc. in the concept of region and centralization with Western University in Canada. These product is clean and alternative source that is suit with current environment and energy policy direction. It can be contributed to the renewable energy industry by applying the advanced knowledge, technology, and know-how in Korea and Canada.

Comparison of transformation products of tetracycline using ozonation and photo-Fenton reaction and evaluating their toxicities

Tetracycline antibiotics (TCs) have received significant interest due to broad-spectrum antibiotics. TCs are detected worldwide in surface water, ground waters, and even drinking water sources because of excreting through urine and feces. The presence of TCs represents a threat to humans and ecosystems by developing drug-resistant bacteria and the toxicity of the antibiotics Thus, it is very important to remove TCs from contaminated water before discharging it into the environment. However, it is difficult to remove TCs using conventional water treatment processes owing to their stable structure. Photo-Fenton process is an attractive method in advanced oxidation processes to remove TCs in as H2O2 and iron is an environmentally friendly compounds. Despite these advantages, many studies have been performed on removing TCs using ozonation to date, while a few of studies were conducted by photo-Fenton. Therefore, the aims of the proposed research are to compare the degradation efficiencies of TCs using the photo-Fenton and ozonation, to identify TCs transformation products in the photo-Fenton and ozonation, and to assess toxicities of transformation products of TCs by measuring bioluminescence of V. fischeri and by predicting toxicity using modeling.

Targeting the RSK Axis to Eliminate Medulloblastoma

Brain cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in children. Current treatment

options are chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, which either prolongs the

child’s life for only two years or leaves them with negative side effects such as

slowed development. Thus, there is a pressing need for new therapeutics.

Mitacs Proposal Pambid, Mary

One of the focuses of our lab is to repurpose targeted therapies. The intern

narrowed down a list of drugs in clinical trials. One of the top leads, BI-D1870,

inhibits p90 ribosomal S6 kinase (RSK). We have demonstrated in breast cancer

that BI-D1870 significantly kills all cancer cells including the cells responsible for

relapse. It is thought that there is a set of cells in the bulk of the tumour that is left

over after treatment to reform a new tumour. We will apply this concept of RSK

inhibition to medulloblastoma.

In the research project, the intern will begin by determining the functional role of

RSK in medulloblastoma. Following this, we….

Fabry-Perot Pressure Sensors for High Temperature Applications

The use of advanced manufacturing methods and analysis tools and bringing them to the plant floor is crucial for modern manufacturing. A gap that has become apparent is that often engineering capabilities are not available within many facilities – and this requires robust design and new thinking to ensure manufacturers ensure quality product. The pressure transducer is a device thathas not changed much over the past twenty year. This work will provide guidance through an improved pressure sensor for high-temperature applications by introducing optical approaches. The sensor will be fully modeled allowing ease of design modifications through the market lifetime.

Optimal Selection of Data Augmentation Transformations

To achieve useful results in training deep neural network, one typically needs huge number of labelled images. In most practical cases, it is often time consuming, expensive and sometimes even near impossible to get the required numbers of labelled images. Data augmentation consists in a set of image processing techniques that can be applied to an image to generate another slightly different image. By doing so, one can efficiently increase the number of different images to feed the training phase of a neural network. This works well until the generated images are too different from the original images. When this happens, the performance of the trained neural network is negatively impacted. The objective of this project is to learn the combination of image processing techniques that can be applied to a given set of images that will yield the best possible trained neural network. The complexity lies not only in the construction of the image processing pipeline but also in the configuration of each image processing algorithms inside the aforementioned pipeline.

A Comparative Study of the Explicit and Implicit Attitudes of Heterosexual College Students in China and Canada towards Lesbian Women

In a heterosexual-based sociocultural environment, homosexuality has often been ostracized. Negative social attitudes towards homosexuality has impacted the legalization of gay marriage, of LGBTQ2 peoples’ access to social support and their mental health experiences. Before the 1990s, researchers often studied social attitudes at only a conscious, or explicit, level. Later research has suggested that implicit social cognitive processes also play an important role in the formation and changing of social attitudes towards others. Research with Chinese college students has shown that that they hold a positive explicit attitude towards homosexuality, whereas implicit bias exists. However, there are only few studies on the causes of this phenomenon, and, therefore, there is little research examining explanations for why Chinese college students have a negative attitude towards lesbian women.

This work will be an extensive review of existing literature to identify variables that may be contributing to a difference in implicit and explicit attitudes towards lesbian women in Canadian and Chinese samples. Based on these identified variables, this work will propose an appropriate quantitative or qualitative methodology that would be appropriate for answering my research questions of interest.

Three dimensional (3D) ultrasound image analysis of the female pelvic floor

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is the descent of the pelvic organs into the vaginal canal, affecting up to 50% of the female population. Pessaries are intravaginal medical devices used to alleviate the symptoms of prolapse. However, pessaries are fit through trial and error and finding the right fit is not guaranteed for all patients. Cosm Medical aims to develop custom pessaries to overcome these challenges. The process of developing custom pessaries involves a novel ultrasound imaging technique to provide quantitative measurements of the vaginal canal. This project is a critical first step towards the evaluation of the imaging technique for providing the required measurements. This project focuses on analyzing the obtained ultrasound images from POP patients to predict the right pessary for successful fit. The goal of Cosm Medical is to build a Canadian medical device company with a global reach to improve the lives of 1 million women by 2026.

A Comparative Study of the Explicit and Implicit Attitudes of Heterosexual College Students in China towards Gay Men

In a heterosexual-based sociocultural environment, homosexuality has often been ostracized. Negative social attitudes towards homosexuality has impacted the legalization of gay marriage, of LGBTQ2 peoples’ access to social support and their mental health experiences. Before the 1990s, researchers often studied social attitudes at only a conscious, or explicit, level. Later research has suggested that implicit social cognitive processes also play an important role in the formation and changing of social attitudes towards others. Research with Chinese college students has shown that that they hold a positive explicit attitude towards homosexuality, whereas implicit bias exists. However, there are only few studies on the causes of this phenomenon, and, therefore, there is little research examining explanations for why Chinese college students have a negative attitude towards gay men.
This work will be an extensive review of existing literature to identify variables that may be contributing to a difference in implicit and explicit attitudes towards gay men in Canadian and Chinese samples. Based on these identified variables, this work will propose an appropriate quantitative or qualitative methodology that would be appropriate for answering my research questions of interest.

The Underlying Emotional and Facial Dynamics of Positive Affect

Positive and negative affects underlying facial expressions are detected and perceived by facial cues, markers and physiological responses. Therefore, the facial cues, markers and physiological responses are important in detecting and perching emotional states. For example, researchers have found that the area of the eye dominates individual’s perception and classification of faces. As well, researchers have found that higher skin conductance levels are indicative of increased emotional arousal. Also, a recent study demonstrates stereotyping biases in infants as it found that infants associate own-race faces with happy music and other-race faces to angry music. Therefore, these studies demonstrate that facial and emotion perception and cognition is influenced by many variables.
Building on this, foundational research by Dr. Lee has demonstrated the negative and positive affect have not been analyzed in depth. This research study plans to extend on previous work to investigate the facial and physiological markers that are associated with positive affect, and the factors that account for differences in positive affect emotions. Overall, this study plans to analyze positive affect and physiological processes involved in emotion response, detection and perception through multimodal methods.
It is expected that there will be significant differences in facial and physiological responses derived

Development of Solar Micro-Reactors for Steam Methane Reforming

Hydrogen is often seen as an energy carrier that can support our growing need for greener energy. However, current methods to produce hydrogen are cost prohibitive or generate large volumes of CO2, namely by the combustion of natural gas (NG) to provide heat to the commonly used steam methane reforming (SMR) process. By using established concentrated solar power (CSP) technology to provide heat instead of combustion, it is possible to reduce CO2 emission and NG consumption. A solution developed at Université de Sherbrooke uses micro-reactors to harvest the heating power of the sun for SMR. This strategy could provide a method to produce large volumes of greener hydrogen while reducing its cost. The research project covered by this proposal aims at demonstrating the economic and technological viability of this approach and is split in 4 different tasks, each of them covered by an intern.

Impact of maternal cognitive sensitivity on children’s empathy development

I intend to address the gap in the literature about the relationship between parenting and children’s empathy development by systematically examining the relationship between a specific type of parenting practice: maternal cognitive sensitivity, and how it promotes children’s empathy development. The main objective of this study is to explore how cognitively sensitive parenting fosters the development of children’s empathy. My study is embedded within a large longitudinal study previously conducted and completed in Dr. Jennifer Jenkins’ lab, that examined influences on children’s development using a within family design.

For my proposed study, I will use existing data from Dr. Jenkins’ study and I will focus on data about the youngest child in the family. To explore the proposed regression model, I will conduct hierarchical regression analyses to examine the relationship between maternal cognitive sensitivity and children’s prosocial skills.

I expect to find that the specific parenting practice examined has a positive impact on children’s empathy development.

Intersectionality and career decision-making in young Chinese women studying in Canada

I propose a qualitative inquiry about the factors that influence female Chinese international students’ decisions to return to work in China or remain abroad. I will create a semi-structured interview intended to discover what themes emerge for these women through this experience and the important factors in their decisions. Although there is existing research on intersectionality and career theories, I want to apply it to this particular population. As career counsellors, we must expand our cross-cultural knowledge in order to tailor our support of young Chinese women making important career decisions, and vocational well-being is a crucial element of overall well-being.