Innovative Projects Realized

Spiritual Ecology: Yoga and the Environment

The proposed research would examine the role of spiritual ecology in shifting cultural attitudes and beliefs toward the environment. The research would analyze how, in principle and in practice, yoga may inspire a re-evaluation of the culture of materialism and overconsumption that is prevalent in Western society today. The research would be guided by questions such as:
1. How do individuals make a spiritual connection to nature through yoga practice?
2. Can practicing yoga help to foster compassion for the environment?
3. Can practicing yoga have an impact on an individual’s environmental consciousness and/or behaviours?

Possible research methods include a literature review, semi-structured interviews with yoga teachers and practitioners, and attending an eco-yoga retreat to observe what factors can contribute to fostering a connection to nature in the context of yoga practice. The expected outcome is a written report including an analysis of the data collected from the interviews and observations from the eco-yoga retreat.

Ancestry and health in Latin American native and admixed populations

Using genome-wide data in collaboration with the Peruvian Genome Diversity Project, our goals are:
(i)Populations from the Peruvian Central Andes are highly homogeneous. We use Approximate Bayesian Computation and patterns of identity-by-descent to infer when the intensification of the gene pool homogenization on this geographic region started, in the historical context of the Andean prehistory.
(ii)Peruvian Native Americans are settled in different environments such as hypoxic of the Andean highlands and the humidity of Amazonian tropical forest. We are identified genetic variants that are highly differentiated between these environments as product of the natural selection.
(iii)To infer the dynamics of European, African and Native American post-Columbian admixture in Peruvian populations of the Coast, Andes and Amazonia.
(iv)To infer how evolutionary factors acting on Peruvian populations have modeled the distribution of GWAS-hits of complex phenotypes and pharmacogenetics biomarkers.

Idiosyncratic processing of complex information in autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication deficits, restricted interests and repetitive behaviours. Accumulating evidence suggests neuroimaging to have a great potential in clarifying the neurological bases of ASD. In this project we will use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate the neuromagnetic mechanisms of information processing in typical and autistic brain during movie watching. The MEG data will be collected at the primary university and analyzed at the host university. We will test the hypothesis that autistic brain processes the information in more individualistic way, thus the variability between ASD participants in brain response to the same information will be higher than in typical participants. Such idiosyncrasy of ASD brain could potentially reflect the heterogeneity of the ASD population and aid new classification development. We will also explore the link between the idiosyncrasy of brain response and ASD symptoms severity.

Transmodal sensory integration in Autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and communication impairments and by restricted and stereotyped behaviors. Sensory processing alterations seem to have an important toll in ASD individuals. In the present study, ASD and typically developing (TD) children between 8 and 12 years old will participate in a task involving visual and auditive integration while brain activity is recorded with a magnetoencephalograpy (MEG) scanner at the primary university. Participants will go through a battery of tests to associate cognition and symptomatology with the recorded MEG brain activity.
A collaborative research project will be conducted at the host university with the obtained data. Novel approaches will be applied to characterize brain activation during the different conditions of the task. TO BE CONT’D

Structure of Parkin Rcat domain bound to ubiquitin

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. PD is caused by genetic predispositions leading to neuronal cell death. Dysfunction of damaged mitochondrial turnover by mitophagy (mitochondrial autophagy) and the ubiquitin-proteasome system has been found in most cases of genetic PD. The ubiquitin-proteasome system mediates protein degradation trough ubiquitination – a post-translational modification involving a series of ubiquitin (Ub) transfer steps among a variety of enzymes. Interaction between Ub and an E3 ligase occurs before a final covalent transfer of Ub to substrate. Parkin is a mitochondrial E3 ligase that plays a vital role in regulating mitophagy and the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Currently, no information exists about the structure of ubiquitin-conjugated parkin. The main goal of this project is to determine the atomic level structure of Parkin bound to ubiquitin. This structure could be used to design small molecule modulators of parkin-mediated ubiquitination. A bigger view of this project has been actively involved providing a better quality of life for patients and their families.

Characterization of TRAPPC10 variants in patient-derived fibroblasts and in a knockout model

The TRAPP complex is a large protein complex involved in a number of different cellular processes including membrane traffic. Individuals with mutations in the genes encoding the proteins of this complex have been increasingly identified using whole exome and whole genome sequencing methods. To date, only a single individual with a candidate (and not yet confirmed as causative) mutation in the gene encoding the TRAPPC10 component of this complex has been reported as part of a much larger cohort. The Crosby/Baple group in the UK have identified an extended multinuclear family with several individuals with neurodevelopmental delay, in which a mutation in the TRAPPC10 gene cosegregates. Together with the previous report of the candidate TRAPPC10 gene mutation, this provides strong genetic evidence to define TRAPPC10 gene mutation as a cause of this condition. TO BE CONT’D

Dynamique spatia Ie de la tordeuse des bourgeons de I’epinette au cours dudernier siecle en foret boreale

Ce projet vise a effectuer une analyse spatia Ie de la diffusion des epidemies du principal

ravageur des coniferes en Amerique du Nord: la tordeuse des bourgeons de I’epinette,

pendant tout Ie 20e siecle. La defoliation par cet insect entraine une reduction caracteristique

de la croissance, visible dans Ie cerne de croissance des arbres hotes de I’insecte, qui sont

des archives de cet evenement au cours du temps. Nous utiliserons des chronologies de

largeur de cernes des arbres hotes de la tordeuse dans toute son aire de distribution, du sud

du Quebec jusqu’au circa 53e paraliele, dans la pessiere noire, pour identifier les moments

ou il y a eu attaque de I’insecte a differents endroits pendant Ie 20e siecie. Nous pourrons

ainsi produire des scenarios de diffusion des epidemies selon I’intensite de la defoliation qui

serant indispensables pour predire la diffusion des epidemies futures et pour adapter

I’amenagement forestier en fonction de la susceptibilite et de la vulnerabilite des

peuplements.

Assessing Harvest and Post Harvest Fruit Quality in Blueberry

Blueberry is a soft fruit species for which consumption has increased drastically in the last two decades. The rapid increase in consumption is mainly driven by the health benefits and pleasant flavour of the fruit. However, consumers assess fruit quality in terms of flavour, texture and aroma and use these features as the main criteria for purchasing product. Nonetheless, there is a lack of study for these quality traits for blueberry at harvest and post harvest stages. Therefore, this project aims to develop a method for assessing fruit quality using analytical platforms, comparing new potential varieties (i.e., breeding selections) with established commercial varieties and developing novel technologies to improve postharvest blueberry quality.

Development of a human immortalized FSHD cell line to study the epigenetic targeting of DUX4 to treat FSHD

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a debilitating disease resulting from the loss of skeletal muscles mainly in the face, shoulder blades and upper arms. FSHD results from expression of the protein DUX4
which causes skeletal muscle cell death and therefore loss of muscles. This project aims to immortalize isolated skeletal muscle cells from patients with FSHD and produce long-lived cells that can be used to screen
pharmaceutical compounds for their ability to inhibit the expression of DUX4 and therefore treat FSHD. The completion of this project will result in a new tool to advance Resverlogix’s efforts in FSHD drug development.

Interior Construction Progress Monitoring Using Computer Vision and BIM

Progress monitoring is an essential task in all construction projects. A proper progress monitoring can minimize the level of project overruns, which is very common among construction projects but incurring significant loss to public and private funds annually. Manual methods of progress tracking are too infrequent to represent continuous and live insights about the workplace. Recent advancements in the area of computer vision and machine learning inspired researchers to use these techniques for development of new automated progress monitoring systems. The main objective in these types of research is to use different types of cameras, and by capturing videos or photos, monitor and measure the progress during construction. Reaching to this objective becomes more complicated when the construction occurs indoor and many objects obstruct and confuse the vision of cameras. TO BE CONT’D

Application mobile pour collecter en temps réel les données de blessures post-traumatiques des pompiers

Le personnel de sécurité publique, y compris les pompiers et les premiers répondants, peut être exposé à des événements troublants ou menaçants, tels que des blessés graves, des enfants décédés et des personnes en détresse. En moyenne, les pompiers assistent à environ huit différents événements potentiellement traumatiques au travail chaque année. Des blessures de stress opérationnel (BSO) peuvent résulter de ces expositions et peuvent inclure anxiété, dépression, toxicomanie et trouble de stress post-traumatique. Les nouvelles technologies, telles que les applications mobiles, peuvent être un moyen utile d’effectuer des évaluations répétées en temps réel. La recherche proposée est une étude longitudinale qui a pour but d’évaluer les BSO en temps réel (par une application mobile) parmi les pompiers/premiers répondants et à étudier la trajectoire des BSO et des facteurs associés sur une période de trois mois. TO BE CONT’D

Integrated Configurable Power Input/Output Systems for Avionic Applications

Thales Canada develops control systems for avionics applications, which operate in harsh environments that may compromise the functionality of very high density chips. The company needs to develop a generic power interface for different avionics applications with a high level of criticality. However, such circuitry requires a lot of space on printed circuit boards when implemented as discrete components. The main goal of this research is to elaborate methods and techniques to design miniature configurable power systems for transportation vehicles under harsh conditions using integrated circuit techniques and technologies. This research will exploit the capabilities offered by System- in-Package (SiP) technology to minimize space by integrating a plurality of low and high power silicon integrated circuits, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and multi-layer substrates inside the same package, giving designers more flexibility to reduce the number of components and for system miniaturization.