Innovative Projects Realized

Chemical looping gasification for sustainable production of biofuels

Sustainable production of biofuel from biomass is the subject of my project at the University of Zaragoza and institute of coal chemistry (CSIC) located in Zaragoza, Spain. The overall objective of the project is design of an efficient biomass-to-biofuel conversion process to reduce emission of carcinogenic compounds into the atmosphere. In this regard, I will study the effect of different key factors including strength, resistance and durability of the materials used in the system, process conditions in the catalytic units and operating parameters of the reactors. At the end of this study, we expect to expedite biofuel production rate and improve effectiveness of the biofuel production process. Successful accomplishment of the project helps extend industrial applications of biofuel which lowers dependence on fossil fuels.

Topic Segmentation for Text Mining on legal Documents

Text Mining is the process of automatically extracting structured knowledge from

unstructured, natural language documents. It aims to support users in dealing with large

amounts of textual information. Examples for specific text mining tasks are entity detection,

summarization, and opinion mining. Due to the complexity and ambiguity of natural language,

this analysis is broken down into individual processing steps, which are based on techniques

from the fields of machine learning, natural language processing, and semantic

computing.

In this project, the goal is to enrich the text mining pipelines developed at KeaText for the

processing of legal documents. Specifically, the analysis is to be enriched with a topic

segmentation module that is tailored to the specific domain and application requirements

tomatic topic segmentation, also known as text tiling, structures documents into individual

parts, each representing a distinct theme. It is well-known that topic segmentation can

improve several

information retrieval and text analysis tasks. In this project, the following tasks are to be

completed……………………………………..

Mobile Application for Paper-Based Analytical Devices

Testing for antibodies is necessary for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. In less privileged locations, however, the ability to test for important antibodies is stifled by financial limitations. Conventional methods, such as mass spectrometry, are expensive to run, require trained operators, and demand expensive and bulky instruments. The Citterio lab is working on paper-based analytical devices using bioluminescence that address the hurdles of traditional analysis, both paper-based and conventional. The Citterio lab devices have been successfully tested with HIV, influenza, and dengue antibodies.

Current analysis requires a picture to be taken on a camera and transferred to a computer for processing. Moving files between devices and software programs is inconvenient and the workflow could be streamlined. In light of these restrictions, smartphones offer an effective and simple alternative. My project is to create a mobile application to quantify bioluminescence from paper-based analytical devices. I will be targeting regular users instead of hospitals. Ideally, this technology will be usable by non-medical personnel and home users to monitor various biometric parameters. As such, user-friendliness is of highest priority.

A fully-functioning smartphone application is expected to be developed.

Studying Magnetic field structures in ISM scattering screens

Galactic Magnetic Fields (GMF) have always been an intriguing topic to astronomers: they play a big role in star formations, Galactic structures, interstellar medium (ISM) distribution, etc. Therefore, understanding these structures becomes a crucial part to unravel the mystery of our Galaxy.

A main signature of magnetic fields is that they can rotate polarized light rays that pass through them. Therefore, by studying the polarization data of a pulsar, a rotating neutron star that sends out highly polarized electromagnetic waves, we can understand the strength as well as the structure within the GMF.

I will use data from pulsar B1133+16, taken at Arecibo Observatory in 2015, to analyze the magnetic field within the ISM scattering screen. The result will be used to verify some existing theories on the structure of ISM scattering screens distributed along the magnetic domain wall within the Galaxy.

IRIS FaceMatch: A secure face-based identity detector without racial bias using deep learning

This project aims to address the race bias of face recognition technology by developing new face feature sets and building the suggested models based on an equal number of images from varied-race photos using appropriate deep learning algorithms. This research seeks to deliver industry partner IRIS with guidelines for a developed prototype that facilitates the adoption of IRIS’s FaceMatch technology for enhancing police capabilities to find unidentified individuals based on their photos while saving labor force and other police resources. Fixing this bias enables IRIS to serve police at different provinces and extend the usage of the IRIS FaceMatch to other applications, such as searching for friends based on their photos.

Mining Version Histories To Automate Merge-Conflict Resolutions

In current collaborative software development environments, developers usually work in parallel. They often share changes with other developers or incorporate changes from them, with the help of version control systems (VCSs) such as Git and Subversion. The parallel collaboration process improves the development speed on the one hand, but on the other hand, leads to possible code inconsistencies.
When multiple developers make inconsistent changes, textual, syntactic, or semantic merge conflicts may occur during integration. Time needed to resolve these conflicts reduces developers’ productivity. The solutions developed in this project will assist the developers in identifying conflicts before they occur and explaining the reasons behind these conflicts. That will help simplify the software development process, improve software maintenance, shorten the time to market, and increase the quality of the produced software.

17O Solid-state NMR Investigation of Chemotactic Factor f-MLF-OH

When a pathogen is present in one’s body, our innate immune system’s first line of defense is the release of strong agents from a type of white blood cell known as neutrophils. These cells are attracted to the site of infection via chemotactic factors. An example of a chemotactic factor is the tripeptide N-formyl-MLF-OH. Since the role of peptide structure influences the resulting biological function, it is imperative that characterization methods be identified to study these complex structures. Oxygen-17 solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an ideal method since it directly probes the oxygen nucleus. To date, 17O NMR studies are not routinely done due to the need for costly isotopic enrichment and high magnetic field strengths. Isotopically labelled N-formyl-MLF-OH will be studied using NMR, as well as method development for salvaging costly 17O-enriched water to be reused will be analyzed in this collaborative project.

Business Data Analytics: Warranties, Recommendations, and Fleet Management

Using mathematical models we draw verifiable conclusions from a rental-fleet dataset. These conclusions help rental-fleet operators increase revenue, decrease cost, or improve other aspects of their business. We not only identify what models to build, but also implement them using rental-fleet data. Some example questions that we help rental-fleet operations answer are: 1) what warranties should they offer to their customers or purchase for their equipment? 2) what actions should the rental-fleet operator take to improve its performance in self-identified areas? 3) what actions, as suggested by others in the field, should the operator take to improve operations?

Blockchain based Software Validation

For a software application to be released, it may need a number of standard certifications, which should be issued from different associations and for a wide range of software features (e.g., security, perfor-mance, scalability). We call these associations trusted third parties. The main problem with these trust-ed third parties is that they are single points of failures. For example, if one of these parties gets hacked many software source codes could be stolen. The other problem with trusted third parties is that they often do not have enough resources to verify a software therefore they become the bottleneck of the process. In this project we propose a solution for software testing that involves multiple parties that have minimum trust to each other without the need for a trusted third party.

Characterization of a glycoprotein entry complex from a novel orthomyxovirus by cryo-electron tomography

Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) causes severe anemia in salmon and has mortality rates that approach 100%. Over the last 30 years, ISAV has caused major disease outbreaks in farmed salmon in Canada, the US, and Chile. In 2012, a confirmed outbreak in Newfoundland prompted the destruction of 450,000 farmed salmon. The virus has caused major economic losses and is a threat to the viability of Canadian salmon farming. ISAV virions have two surface glycoproteins (GPs): a 42-kDa hemagglutinin-esterase (HE) that is responsible for attachment, tropism, and receptor destruction/release and a 50-kDa fusion (F) GP that is involved in the merger of the host and viral lipid bilayers. We previously determined the crystal structures of ISAV HE (Cook et al. 2017 PNAS) and the postfusion ISAV F (Cook
et al. 2015 JBC). This work provides initial snapshots of the individual GPs involved in ISAV entry. The molecular events after initial attachment that lead to fusion and entry of the virus remain poorly defined. Using cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), we will determine the interplay of ISAV HE and F. In Canada, there are very few centres capable of performing high resolution cryo-ET reconstructions.

Application of antimicrobial aereus particles with marine paints

This proposal is to accelerate the Aereus Technologies’ development of antimicrobial coatings. Antimicrobial coating has been becoming an effective solution to battle the hospital-acquired infections. Aereus Technologies is developing an antimicrobial coating consisting of marine paint and biocidal copper-alloy based microparticles. One of the key concerns for this new coating is that the microparticles are expected to oxidize when they are exposed to human palm sweat or disinfection agents in healthcare settings. In this project, we will evaluate the antimicrobial efficacy and durability of this coating using a simulated dynamic saline environment. The results will provide scientific insights on how the oxidation of the microparticles would influence the coating antimicrobial efficacy and the integrity of the particles in relation to marine paint.

Caracterisation de I’abattement de pOlluants des eaux usees municipales par degrillage etdessablage

Les eaux usees municipales sont traitees par des procedes physico-chimiques, biologiques

ou une combinaison des deux types, Le pretraitement des eaux arrivant a la station

d’epuration (STEP) est necessaire pour proteger les equipements de procede. Le degrillage

(enlevement des debris organiques grossiers de !’eau) et Ie dessablage (enlevement du

sable de I’eau) sont deux procedes typiquement utilises pour Ie pretraitement des eaux usees

municipales. Le role de la stagiaire sera de valider les protocoles de caracterisation de la

performance d’un laveur-compacteur utilise pour traiter les refus de degrillage et d’un

dessableur. Les benefices attend us pour John Meunier sont d’obtenir une evaluation precise

de ces equipements afin d’identifier les pistes d’amelioration. Les equipements seront

egalement positionnes dans Ie cadre de la maximisation du bilan de carbone des stations

d’epuration. Ce stage permettra ainsi de confirmer plus de 20 postes de concepteur et de

fabrication au siege social a Montreal.