Innovative Projects Realized

Understanding Disengagement from Early Psychosis Intervention Services

While the effectiveness of early psychosis interventions (EPI) for young people with first-episode psychosis has been well-established, research suggests that almost one-third of patients disengage from services. Although lack of family involvement and substance use have arisen as consistent factors associated with EPI disengagement, many other factors remain unexplored. Furthermore, few studies have explored patient and family member perspectives on engagement. The proposed study will address this critical gap by investigating factors associated with disengagement from EPI services and eliciting patient- and family-reported facilitators and barriers to engagement. Expected results include the development and implementation of innovative strategies to keep young people engaged in services and an evaluation of these interventions. The CAMH Foundation is committed to supporting cutting-edge research and patient-centered services at CAMH and will benefit from a project that will increase access to CAMH’s EPI services, engage young people in treatment, and improve their potential for recovery. The fellow will lead analysis and knowledge translation efforts, including engaging knowledge users in using the results to develop interventions to improve EPI engagement.

The impacts of reducing antibiotics on the intestinal microbiota diversity of commercial broiler chickens

Public health concerns about the impact of antibiotic use on antimicrobial resistance has challenged the current use of antibiotics in broiler chicken. For this reason, the Chair in Poultry Research of the Université de Montréal led a large-scale project in the province of Quebec to study the impacts of antibiotic reduction strategies on broiler chickens’ health when compared to the conventional use of antibiotics in commercial farms. Intestinal content from 1008 broiler chickens was recovered to study the association between the microbiota and chickens’ health. Indeed, there are increasing evidences showing the intestinal microbiota being a complex organization interacting with its host and having a predominant role in health and diseases. The goal of this project is to study the impacts of reducing antibiotics on the intestinal microbiota diversity. It is expected to increase the current knowledge on the microbiota diversity in commercial broiler chicken farms and to have a better understanding of the role of the microbiota in intestinal diseases affecting broiler chickens

Compressed Air Energy Storage in Cased Wells

The project will adapt Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) to a cased well. CAES is a mature and proven energy storage technology, however it traditionally uses large salt caverns. By understanding the deformation of a wellbore due to pressure and hot air injection, one may be able to determine the operating range of the system. Cased wells are easy to deploy and decommission. They may be installed wherever is advantageous. They involve drilling a well and installing a high-grade steel casing into the wellbore. The depth of a single well can be anywhere from 500-1500 meters. By injecting air, one stores energy in the form of compressed air inside the well. When it is time to produce power, the air is sent through an expander which produces electricity.

Does the fetal short-term variability measure RMSSD reflect the fetal inflammatory status and can RMMSD be reliably recorded using a novel ultrasound fetal heart rate monitoring system

A certain number of newborn babies may suffer from infection. Many of such infections go

unnoticed but may have negative effects on child’s health. There is currently no satisfying

means to detect such babies early on. We have learned that using information contained in

fetal heart beats we might better predict if a yet unborn baby has an infection. This would

allow to intervene and prevent problems with baby’s health after birth. We would like to learn

more about how to acquire such information from fetal heart beats. We want to compare a

well established device to record fetal heart beats during labour to a new one that would

allow us to measure fetal heart beats in unborn babies. The partner organization would

benefit by being able to offer the new device for this new indication of monitoring fetal wellbeing,

a win-win situation for the patients and the company.

Study of the Latent Space in NLP: Mathematical Foundation and Application to Disentanglement

Recent progress on word and sentence embeddings has enabled efficient representation and learning of complex high dimensional probability distributions over rich text data. The proposed research aims at addressing some of the fundamental questions in this field: What are the natural mathematical structures on that latent spaces? How to find a meaningful basis? What is the best method of disentanglement for NLP? Through this collaboration, RBC Borealis AI will gain insights and knowledge of some fundamental ideas in machine learning and natural language processing, become familiar with state-of-the-art disentanglement and embedding models, and make improvements to their products such as news filtering, financial asset valuation, automated trading and personalized reward program

Transparency: Qualities and Technologies of Global Gemstone Trading

In the first decade of this century, diamonds and other conflict-laden gemstones spearheaded a global trend toward transparency. Despite the growing pervasiveness of transparency in business strategies, it remains an understudied social practice. Rather than assuming that the category of transparency is itself transparent, this research is an ethnographic investigation of transparency in the diamond sector. Part of a larger research project on transparency in the mineral sector led by my host Dr. Filipe Calvão (Graduate Institute of Development, Geneva) and my supervisor Dr. Lindsay Bell (Western University), my proposed research will have me working alongside mineral appraisers, evaluators and traders in Antwerp Belgium. I will use qualitative research strategies to identify how people in the gemstone industry learn to evaluate and standardize transparent stones, companies, and producing countries. I expect to co-author a peer—reviewed publication on transparency with my supervisor as a final output of the research.

Geophysical Prospecting for Antimony (and Chromite) in the Southern Quesnel Terrane, British Columbia, Canada

Antimony is classified as a strategic element due to its high relevance for many military and technical applications, e.g. its use in fire suppressants and lead-acid batteries. Canada has currently no operational mine to produce antimony and about 90% of the world production originates from China and east Asia. This project will develop a geophysical prospecting program to explore for antimony, which has been discovered in samples taken from the industry partner’s mineral claim in the southern Quesnel terrane, northwest of Kelowna, British Columbia. At least four different geophysical techniques will be employed to explore a hydrothermally altered shear zone for antimony mineralization as well as a granodiorite intrusion which is associated to serpentinization and resulting chromite deposits. This project is innovative as both commodities do not exhibit very distinct geophysical parameters, but must be identified through associated minerals and foremost the location of specific geological structures.

Identification of Risk Analysis Tools in Institutional Mining Investment

The risks related to Tailing Storage Facilities (TSF) failure are increasingly manifesting as financially material and impactful. My goal during this Globalink funded project is to identify the current tools that institutional mining investors are using to evaluate risk exposure associated with TSF. The overarching objective is to identify whether tailings dam safety is considered and accounted for in current mining investment decisions. This project will have a goal of completing qualitative interviews to develop a database of TSF risk criteria that mining investors are currently using when evaluating the financial risk of an operation. Using the database and a literature review of TSF ‘best safety practices’, a gap analysis of the current tools used in the mining investment community will be completed. I have identified two aspects from my research that would benefit most through the Globalink Research Award. First, in order to assess the current evaluation tools that mining investors use to quantify TSF risks, I would profoundly benefit from the Columbia Water Center’s experience with private investment decision-making. Second, both Dr. Kunz, from UBC, and Dr. Lall, from Columbia, have extensive knowledge about risk. TBC

Evolution of Photolyase DNA Repair Function in Vertebrates

The research in the Foulkes Lab is focused on the regulation of circadian rhythms and environmental effects on specific gene products. The project I will be contributing to aims to investigate the role of environment, specifically light, on the evolution of cryptochromes and photolyases. Photolyases are proteins that are involved in repairing DNA, and the proper functioning of photoreceptors and circadian clocks in the body. Using blind cavefish and medaka as a model, the group examines the loss of function mutations that have occurred in the species’ DNA over the course of millions of years living in perpetual darkness, and the implications of these mutations on the ability to repair DNA damage and manage the circadian clock. The goal of this project is to establish connections between the circadian clock and photolyase as well as develop an original method to identify non-light dependent DNA repair function under extreme conditions.

Investigation of forest legacy-based soil rehabilitation techniques for mine reclamation

The August 2014 tailings dam breach at the Mount Polley Mine, BC severely disturbed downstream forest ecosystems through erosion and tailings deposition. The impacted area presents an opportunity to research using ecosystem legacies (ecosystem components that survive a disturbance) to rehabilitate disturbed areas. A field trial at Mount Polley is testing seedling establishment and soil food web recolonization using three soil legacy reclamation methods: transplants of forest soil into seedling planting holes; spatial belowground connection with the undisturbed forest; and bringing forest floor buried by tailings to the surface. Greenhouse experiments are investigating the volume of soil to transplant, the role of the soil biological community in soil transplants, and the potential for seedlings to regenerate soil legacies, promoting growth of the next generation of trees. This study aims to develop new ecosystem-based reclamation techniques to be applied at Mount Polley and across the mining industry, with the potential to improve reclamation practices.

Storying Access: Reconciling the Effects of Betterment Discourses in Southern Ontario’s Early 20th Century Domestic Science Education – Year two

Building on my recent archival research, my Mitacs project explores the ways early 20th century discourses of betterment and progress, such as eugenics, in southern Ontario were unevenly entwined within rural domestic science educational institutions and connected to cultural histories and legacies of colonialism that diminished and disappeared young women who did not fit the normative middle-class lives of white, able-bodied women who studied, taught, and led in the field of domestic science. Combining recent studies in history, education, feminism, postcolonialism, and performance ethnography in a collaborative, Indigenous research model of decolonization (Smith 2013), I will assemble a team of disability, Black activist, and Indigenous artist-researchers to join me in collaboratively curating two accessible, multi-media exhibitions that address and disrupt local histories and legacies of betterment. The exhibitions will advance non-normative vitality and social justice. Accessible curatorial practices will be developed with support from Dr. Rice, her Re•Vision Centre and Bodies in Translation SSHRC Partnership teams, and 10C. One of the exhibitions will be mounted at10C, where passersby are invited to share ideas and stories. Accessibility workshops and conversation evenings at 10C will be a springboard for “Streetside Stories,” publications, future research, and attracting social finance investment to 10C.

Storying Access: Reconciling the Effects of Betterment Discourses in Southern Ontario’s Early 20th Century Domestic Science Education

Building on my recent archival research, my Mitacs project explores the ways early 20th century discourses of betterment and progress, such as eugenics, in southern Ontario were unevenly entwined within rural domestic science educational institutions and connected to cultural histories and legacies of colonialism that diminished and disappeared young women who did not fit the normative middle-class lives of white, able-bodied women who studied, taught, and led in the field of domestic science. Combining recent studies in history, education, feminism, postcolonialism, and performance ethnography in a collaborative, Indigenous research model of decolonization (Smith 2013), I will assemble a team of disability, Black activist, and Indigenous artist-researchers to join me in collaboratively curating two accessible, multi-media exhibitions that address and disrupt local histories and legacies of betterment. The exhibitions will advance non-normative vitality and social justice. Accessible curatorial practices will be developed with support from Dr. Rice, her Re•Vision Centre and Bodies in Translation SSHRC Partnership teams, and 10C. One of the exhibitions will be mounted at10C, where passersby are invited to share ideas and stories. Accessibility workshops and conversation evenings at 10C will be a springboard for “Streetside Stories,” publications, future research, and attracting social finance investment to 10C.