Innovative Projects Realized

Guidance and Control of Hybrid Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Thrust Vectoring Capabilities

Quadrotors are one of the most popular choices for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in situations where fast disturbance rejection, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities, and maneuverability are required. However, the quadrotor is inherently underactuated, and as a result, it is impossible to independently control the orientation and position of the vehicle. One solution to this problem involves rotors that can rotate relative to the vehicle frame, allowing for the angle of each rotor relative to the main vehicle frame to be independently controlled. This type of thrust vectoring in a quadrotor allows it to track both attitude and position trajectories. One other disadvantage with quadcopters is that they often fly at slower speeds and have shorter flight ranges compared to traditional fixed wing UAVs. TO BE CONT’D

Investigating the role of Sugars in the Risk of Obesity

Obesity is a major public health concern and sugar intake has been put in the spotlight as a possible key driver of the obesity epidemic. Much of the evidence is confounded by increased energy intake and is mainly focused on sugar-sweetened beverages. However, other sugar-containing foods like fruit, yogurt and high fibre breakfast cereals may not have the harmful effects associated with sugars. Therefore, we would like to conduct analyses using published data to determine whether there is an effect of sugar intake on body weight regardless of the amount of energy consumed and whether the effect varies depending on different food sources of sugar.

Viability of Superconducting Resonator Based Detectors

There is an abundance of evidence from astronomical and cosmological observations that suggests approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is dark matter, an unknown form of matter beyond the description of the standard model of particle physics. To date the effects of dark matter have only been observed through its interactions via gravity; experiments attempting to detect dark matter must use highly sensitive detectors and take extensive measures to reduce the background of non-signal events. It has been proposed that new detectors for dark matter may be produced by instrumenting superconducting resonators to the surface of an absorbing target to measure the energy of the particle interaction. This project aims to determine the most effective absorbing material for the superconducting sensors, and perform test with the detectors in a low-background, underground test facility.

Farrow Memory Training Study

The goal of this project is to assess the effectiveness of a novel memory training program

developed by Dave Farrow, 2 time Guinness World Record winner for best memory. The

cornerstone of this program is the concept of memory personalities which posits that 1) the

optimal way of processing and organizing information to be remembered differs between

individuals and 2) a strategy designed to encourage individuals to organize information in a

way that is most natural to them will result in optimal memory performance. By introducing a

more personalized approach to memory training, it is anticipated that this system will be able

to help a greater amount of people (particularly older adults, who have more difficulty learning

complicated strategies), with only a limited amount of training time.

Neuroimaging biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease identified through brain, brainstem and spinal cord imaging

In the current functional and structural neuroimaging project, we aim to identify functional and structural changes that correlate with disease presence and its severity (staging) and that can serve as a basis for future development of PD neuroimaging biomarkers. To achieve this objective we will use our expertise in functional neuroimaging of the cervical spinal cord (CSC), brainstem and brain (simultaneously), as well as in micro-structural neuroimaging of the spinal cord. The PDQ will play an essential role in subject recruitment, while also benefiting from the research outcomes and gained knowledge from the project. This work has great potential for future development of clinical applications as the novel PD biomarkers developed here can help diagnose the disease, assess its severity or prodromal identification of at-risk individuals.

A Study of Motor Learning in Children and Adults who Stutter

Stuttering is a speech disorder that not only affects a person’s ability to communicate fluently and confidently, but can also have a significant impact on their quality of life and mental health. Developmental stuttering typically emerges in early childhood; however, 20% of individuals will continue to be affected by this disorder into adulthood. After decades of research, the causes of this speech disorder and the reasons for its persistence are still not clear. We do know from the study of movement behaviour in this population that children who stutter are slower and more unstable in their speech movements. Adults who stutter have shown difficulties in planning and coordinating their movements, along with impairments in learning and combining multiple movements efficiently, in speech as well as in finger sequencing tasks.TO BE CONT’D

Translational Research in User Experience Design for Personalized Health

Personalized health is increasingly gaining public attention in the media as the future of healthcare. Personalized health is the idea that medical treatment will be tailored to the individual based on their predicted response or risks of disease. Omics analysis, defined as the universal detection of different classes of biological molecules, has the potential to direct personalized health delivery and enhance lifestyle changes, such as changes in diet and exercise habits, that may prevent disease development.
To improve on the accessibility of this rich Information and action plan for health seekers and platform users, we will use a user centred design approach to optimize the user interface and user experience design of the platform. Through an iterative process of research, design and user-testing, we will seek to Improve and simplify the user experience without compromising integrity of Information to support Improved decision making. TO BE CONT’D

Spatiotemporal travel behavior modeling and analysis for better public transport systems

The public transportation system is crucial in alleviating urban congestion. The widespread of smart card automated fare collection (AFC) system produces massive data recording passengers’ day-to-day transport dynamic, which provides unprecedented opportunities to researchers and practitioners to understand and improve transit services. This project aims to make full use of the transit operational data (mainly smart card data) to enhance transit services. The main body of the research project is spatiotemporal behavior patterns mining. The project collaborates with the transit operator exo and will be accomplished by a series of methodological and practical contributions. Data fusion technique will be used to make up incomplete data and contextualize trips’ and passengers’ attributes. We will construct features to profile passengers’ behavior at different time scales and utilize statistical learning methods to extract meaningful latent representations to help to understand passenger behavior patterns. TO BE CONT’D

Control of Modular Multilevel Converters for Specialized Functions

Modern power systems wherein renewable energy sources are prevalent will exhibit larger frequency deviations than conventional power systems due to the diluted share of conventional generation based upon large electric machines with massive spinning rotors. To combat this, power-electronic converters that are used to interface renewable sources need to provide ancillary, such as frequency support and inertia emulation. This research will investigate this functionality for a class of power-electronic converters, namely modular multilevel converters. This is done by judicious adjustment of an internal current component within an MMC that is otherwise eliminated. The proposed research adopts a approach that includes analysis, computer simulation, and hardware-based real-time simulation to ensure that its solutions are well-assessed and are applicable in practical applications.

Facilitating Service Network Navigation: Developing a Model for Individuals with Autism and/or Intellectual Disabilities and their Families – Year two

Adults with Autism (ASD) and/or intellectual disabilities (ID) who seek medical and dental treatments often require specialized interventions that are not always accessible in the community. The Centre for Innovation in Autism and Intellectual Disabilities See Things my Way clinic (STMW) developed a specialized Medical/Dental Clinic to address this important gap. Providing care through a holistic understanding of patients within their broader social environment, the clinic is expanding the breadth of its interdisciplinary care to include a psychosocial component that will help ensure support through a patient/family-centered model of integrated care. This proposed project will focus on the development and implementation of this care model that addresses patients’ and families’ service requirements that are often confusing, frustrating and difficult to navigate. In collaboration with STMW and the University of Calgary, two projects are proposed: TO BE CONT’D

Facilitating Service Network Navigation: Developing a Model for Individuals with Autism and/or Intellectual Disabilities and their Families

Adults with Autism (ASD) and/or intellectual disabilities (ID) who seek medical and dental treatments often require specialized interventions that are not always accessible in the community. The Centre for Innovation in Autism and Intellectual Disabilities See Things my Way clinic (STMW) developed a specialized Medical/Dental Clinic to address this important gap. Providing care through a holistic understanding of patients within their broader social environment, the clinic is expanding the breadth of its interdisciplinary care to include a psychosocial component that will help ensure support through a patient/family-centered model of integrated care. This proposed project will focus on the development and implementation of this care model that addresses patients’ and families’ service requirements that are often confusing, frustrating and difficult to navigate. In collaboration with STMW and the University of Calgary, two projects are proposed: TO BE CONT’D

Multimodal optical brain imaging for Epilepsy applications

The cost and size of many imaging systems used in biomedical applications largely limit the possibility for long-term and imaging sessions in pre-clinical and clinical diagnosis. There is a need for low-cost imaging systems to map brain activity. Dr. Levi’s team has developed a unique miniature laser-based illumination system that enables novel optical imaging of neurovascular dynamics in live animals. We have recently shown the advantages for fast simultaneous imaging of blood flow and oxygenation, surrogates to neural activity, in rodent cortex. Here we propose to demonstrate the applicability of multiple modalities imaging for epilepsy models in animals. Simultaneous blood flow, blood oxygenation, electrophysiological recordings and calcium activity will be acquired with high spatiotemporal resolution in order to evaluate the correlation between metabolic activity and electrophysiological seizure onsets. We will also demonstrate the compatibility of our system with miniature cameras, towards developing a portable optical neural imaging system.