Innovative Projects Realized

A melanoma diagnosis and prognosis framework with human readable explanation

Melanoma is the most lethal skin cancer, accounting for 2% of all skin cancer types, yet approximately 75% of skin cancer deaths. It often evolves from clear skin or existing moles, making it difficult to diagnose at early stage. Besides, the treatment of melanoma is a complex decision making process, which is affected by a large number of internal and external factors, e.g. disease location, staging, etc. Our objective is to utilize the medical data collected by CMRN to design an electronic tool to save valuable time of clinicians in routine pathology assessment and ultimately assist evidence based decision making. The system will help to identify high risk pathological observations. It combines state-of-the-art pattern recognition algorithms with natural language processing (NLP), which generates human readable explanation. Moreover, our system can generate easy-understandable analysis results to patients, which enables patients to better understand their own conditions. TO BE CONT’D

Advanced Hybrid Solid-State Lithium(-ion) Batteries for Electric Vehicle Applications – Year two

As the dominating power supplies for current electric vehicles (EVs), the state-of-the-art LIBs are yet sulfuring from severe challenges in terms of safety, lifespan, and energy density due to the adoption of liquid electrolytes (LEs). Accordingly, developing next generation solid-state lithium(-ion) batteries (SSLBs) is considered to be a feasible approach to achieve safe and high energy density power supplies for future EVs with long driving distance and short charging time. This project will aim at developing innovative hybrid solid-state Li(-ion)batteries (HSSLBs) based on hybrid/composite solid-state electrolytes (SSEs). To realize high performance HSSLBs, many scientific and technological interface challenges are urgently required to be addressed. TO BE CONT’D

Advanced Hybrid Solid-State Lithium(-ion) Batteries for Electric Vehicle Applications

As the dominating power supplies for current electric vehicles (EVs), the state-of-the-art LIBs are yet sulfuring from severe challenges in terms of safety, lifespan, and energy density due to the adoption of liquid electrolytes (LEs). Accordingly, developing next generation solid-state lithium(-ion) batteries (SSLBs) is considered to be a feasible approach to achieve safe and high energy density power supplies for future EVs with long driving distance and short charging time. This project will aim at developing innovative hybrid solid-state Li(-ion)batteries (HSSLBs) based on hybrid/composite solid-state electrolytes (SSEs). To realize high performance HSSLBs, many scientific and technological interface challenges are urgently required to be addressed. TO BE CONT’D

Assessment and Genetics of Stress Resilience in Dairy Cattle – Year two

Dairy cattle are exposed to stressors that negatively impact health, fertility, welfare and production. Health and climate experts predict that exposure to stressors (i.e. pathogens and extreme temperature events) will increase as climate conditions continue to destabilize. Due to increased antimicrobial resistance, there is urgent need to explore alternative strategies to promote animal health; it is anticipated that genetic selection for increased stress resilience will yield healthier animals that will live longer and be more productive. Given the importance of the innate immune system for directing and participating in the immune response against pathogens, the proposed study will utilize an immune stressor (microbial-associated molecular pattern; MAMP) to stress phenotype dairy cattle. TO BE CONT’D

Assessment and Genetics of Stress Resilience in Dairy Cattle

Dairy cattle are exposed to stressors that negatively impact health, fertility, welfare and production. Health and climate experts predict that exposure to stressors (i.e. pathogens and extreme temperature events) will increase as climate conditions continue to destabilize. Due to increased antimicrobial resistance, there is urgent need to explore alternative strategies to promote animal health; it is anticipated that genetic selection for increased stress resilience will yield healthier animals that will live longer and be more productive. Given the importance of the innate immune system for directing and participating in the immune response against pathogens, the proposed study will utilize an immune stressor (microbial-associated molecular pattern; MAMP) to stress phenotype dairy cattle. TO BE CONT’D

Securing Enterprises with Social Network Analysis

Computer administrators defend enterprises using tools that do not scale to the size of modem

networks. As a result, malicious behavior in enterprise networks generally is W1detected, even when

attackers do not attempt to be stealthy. One way to improve this situation may be through the

application of social network analysis to the computer sectrrity problems of the enterprise. In this

project we propose to apply social networking research to two security problems: the control of

proprietary information and the analysis of log files. In the first project, we will study how to protect

proprietary information by limiting it to “communities of collaboration.” In the second, we will

examine whether interaetions between users, computers, applications, as recorded in log files, can be

modeled as social interactions where W1usual interactions correlate with security violations. This work

provide insights that will help improve CA’s data leak prevention and log analysis products.

Optimization of astaxanthin production in large-scale cultivation of microalgae by utilizing industrial CO2 emissions – Year two

Haematococcus pluvialis is a green microalga that concentrates the compound astaxanthin, a commercial product with nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, aquaculture, and food applications. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid pigment with high antioxidative activity, used as a feed additive to provide a characteristic pink color to salmonids and shrimp, as well as a human nutraceutical providing protection from oxidative stress.
Maximizing large-scale biomass production rates and enhancing astaxanthin concentration in algal cells grown by capturing industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the main objectives of this research study. TO BE CONT’D

Optimization of astaxanthin production in large-scale cultivation of microalgae by utilizing industrial CO2 emissions

Haematococcus pluvialis is a green microalga that concentrates the compound astaxanthin, a commercial product with nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, aquaculture, and food applications. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid pigment with high antioxidative activity, used as a feed additive to provide a characteristic pink color to salmonids and shrimp, as well as a human nutraceutical providing protection from oxidative stress.
Maximizing large-scale biomass production rates and enhancing astaxanthin concentration in algal cells grown by capturing industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the main objectives of this research study. TO BE CONT’D

Analysis of techno-economic-environmental feasibility of zero emission buses on public transit routes in Canadian context – Year two

Substitution of existing diesel buses by zero-emission propulsion technologies (electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cell) in vehicles – specifically public transit fleets – can play an instrumental role in realizing Canada’s obligation towards green house gas emission reduction. It is imperative to enable transit agencies to assess the capabilities of existing technology variants in meeting the demands of existing operations to achieve successful, long-term integration while maintaining commercially viability. Most of Canada’s transit agencies today lack a comprehensive understanding of the impact of these buses, in terms of their operational performance, cost, degree of interoperability, infrastructure requirements and environmental impacts. In the proposed project, the post-doctoral fellow (PDF) will develop a modeling-based predictive and comparative analysis tool. TO BE CONT’D

Analysis of techno-economic-environmental feasibility of zero emission buses on public transit routes in Canadian context

Substitution of existing diesel buses by zero-emission propulsion technologies (electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cell) in vehicles – specifically public transit fleets – can play an instrumental role in realizing Canada’s obligation towards green house gas emission reduction. It is imperative to enable transit agencies to assess the capabilities of existing technology variants in meeting the demands of existing operations to achieve successful, long-term integration while maintaining commercially viability. Most of Canada’s transit agencies today lack a comprehensive understanding of the impact of these buses, in terms of their operational performance, cost, degree of interoperability, infrastructure requirements and environmental impacts. In the proposed project, the post-doctoral fellow (PDF) will develop a modeling-based predictive and comparative analysis tool. TO BE CONT’D

Heavy Rare Earth Elements: New Insight into Mineralogical Parameters That Impact Mine Processing – Year two

Current Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE) processing techniques are expensive, environmentally-challenging, and slow. Kinetic models predict that the rate of acid permeation of a mineral is the rate controlling step. Therefore, permeation rate controls the acid quantity and residency time of the mineral in the acid bath; impacting costs. Kinetic models are based on structural assumptions including the uniform distribution of elements within a mineral. This study proposes to employ atom probe tomography on the HREE-mineral gadolinite: an ore mineral in the resource at Strange Lake, Quebec. TO BE CONT’D

Heavy Rare Earth Elements: New Insight into Mineralogical Parameters That Impact Mine Processing

Current Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE) processing techniques are expensive, environmentally-challenging, and slow. Kinetic models predict that the rate of acid permeation of a mineral is the rate controlling step. Therefore, permeation rate controls the acid quantity and residency time of the mineral in the acid bath; impacting costs. Kinetic models are based on structural assumptions including the uniform distribution of elements within a mineral. This study proposes to employ atom probe tomography on the HREE-mineral gadolinite: an ore mineral in the resource at Strange Lake, Quebec. TO BE CONT’D