Innovative Projects Realized

Modélisation de l’utilisation du phosphore alimentaire chez le poulet de chair pour optimiser les coûts d’alimentation et le bien-être animal tout en réduisant les impacts environnementaux.

La présente proposition de recherche porte sur le développement d’un outil de recherche et d’aide à la décision pour la formulation chez le poulet de chair. L’outil de modélisation mathématique permettra de prendre en compte simultanément les mécanismes principaux impliqués dans le métabolisme de P et de Ca et de prédire les relations qui décrivent son comportement en intégrant les données déjà publiées. L’optimisation de l’utilisation du P sera ainsi possible, et ce, par une approche multicritères. De plus, les principaux facteurs qui modulent l’utilisation de P, notamment les formes alimentaires de P, les niveaux d’apports de P et de Ca, le potentiel génétique de croissance et de minéralisation osseuse et le statut minéral des oiseaux seront pris en compte. Ainsi, au-delà d’optimiser les performances de production, cet outil permettra de formuler des aliments en intégrant des contraintes environnementales, économiques et de bien-être animal afin d’augmenter l’efficacité d’utilisation de P.

Perception of terrain characteristics in professional heli-ski guides

In the backcountry, the best powder skiing can be found in terrain that is susceptible to snow avalanches. Travelers are responsible for managing this threat by choosing terrain that will minimize this threat, and they must strike a balance between minimizing risk and finding an enjoyable skiing experience. Perception plays a fundamental role when selecting terrain, which means that these choices are influenced by a suite of psychological factors. This research project will utilize the experience of expert heli-ski guides to find what attributes they find attractive when choosing safe terrain for skiing. This is the first project to investigate the tacit knowledge of desirable terrain features in mountain guides. Further, it will assess for any variability in how these guides view terrain, which will significantly contribute to guiding teams’ understanding of how guides make decisions and view their surroundings. TO BE CONT’D

Automatic 3D Object Matching with Functional Maps

This proposal introduces a method for finding corresponding regions between 3D shapes automatically. Existing methods require users to provide several point-to-point correspondences, but are not capable of solving correspondence problems when we have a large amount of 3D objects. I propose to resolve the correspondence problem by studying the relationship between functions on shapes, rather than measuring point similarities directly. Further, a hierarchical method is introduced for generating correspondences automatically. This framework can automate the process of finding corresponding parts between 3D shapes, which can be applied to animate and colorize a high volume of virtual 3D contents.

Hepatic miRNA regulation by dietary carbohydrates in trout

In order to improve the sustainability of salmonid aquaculture, it is now essential to reduce dietary levels of fish meal by replacement with alternative and terrestrial plant products, and particularly digestible carbohydrates, in the aquafeed formula. However, when fishmeal is substituted at more than 20% by digestible carbohydrates, rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), the economically most important freshwater finfish species in France and Canada, display persistent postprandial hyperglycaemia defining it as a glucose-intolerant (GI) species. TO BE CONT’D

Tools to Support Embedded Data Representations in Physical Environments

In our data-saturated world, people could greatly benefit from understanding data in their daily lives through visualization. Currently, many visualizations are situated out of context from the physical world, leading to a loss of data-richness gained from in-context analysis. Using tabletop robotic devices and projectors, Dr. Jansen’s research team are developing infrastructure to generate and embed visualizations in-context to the physical environment. However, research is still needed: 1) to develop tools that allow people to create these visualizations, and 2) to investigate how to best represent the visual output of the data. We will extend the existing infrastructure, by building tools that allow users to gather and visualize data in their environment. The long range goal is to create devices and processes that allow people to “paint” data visualizations at will into their environment. Our project will provide working prototypes to further advance research in the field of embedded visualizations.

Salmonella biofilm forming ability on Reusable Plastic Crates: Risk of transfer of contamination to fresh product and challenges in sanitizing

Reusable plastic crates (RPC’s) are being adopted by the food industry due to the perceived benefits of reduced waste (i.e. paper board), economics and sustainability. However, by reusing crates there is a possibility of distributing contamination from one user to the next if the RPC’s are not sanitized after leaving retailer. Evidence collected over the last 3 years has highlighted that RPC’s delivered to growers/packers can have high microbial load through improper sanitation. However, the actual risk of pathogens, like Salmonella, persisting on crates and contaminating fresh produce remains unknown. The proposed work will establish the extent of food safety risks of Salmonella being present on RPC’s used to pack fresh produce (cucumber and tomatoes) and the efficacy of current sanitizing methods to inactivate the pathogen. Understanding the risk posed by RPC’s will enable interventions to be put in place to enhance food safety of fresh produce.

A Canadian Testbed for SmartCities

The dramatic trend of the first decade of the 21st century in the information technology industry was the

emergence of society?scale systems: online services such as Google, eBay, iTunes, Yahoo!, Twitter, and Facebook

that routinely served millions of simultaneously?connected users. These systems gave rise to entirely new

programming models and systems problems: management of the data center as a single, unified, “warehousescale”

computer, each of which had more raw computing power than existed on the planet as late as 1990;

programming models for loosely?coupled, data?intensive parallel operations; vast, highly?efficient distributed data

stores; the re?emergence of virtualization of time, space, and computing, to permit services to migrate instantly

around the globe, and radically new notions in networking to support the new programming and management

models. The way to explore these issues – networking, sensors, data management, the computational cloud…

Vehicle Occupancy Detection using Thermal Camera and LIDAR

In this project, a vehicle occupancy detection system will be developed for automatic monitoring of HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) and HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes. The system makes use of machine vision along with artificial intelligent algorithms, developed based on deep learning, to detect number of passengers in a vehicle in real-time. The developed technology will enable the industry partner to commercialize this solution in Canada and globally for efficient and enforceable monitoring of HOV and HOT lanes. The adopters of this technology will be able to manage their road infrastructures, in particular HOV and HOT lanes, more efficiency. This will result in reduced congestion and significant environmental and economic benefits.

Integrating Climate Change Considerations in Plans and Policies in Durham Region

Durham Region recently created a plan to help guide future decisions about adapting to climate change. The plan shows how extreme future weather is expected to be and identifies many ways that the cities and towns in the region and other agencies that deliver services like water and electricity need to be prepared. Some municipalities and agencies are further ahead than others in having policies and plans to adapt to climate change. Durham’s Natural Environment and Climate Change Workshop Group (NECCWG) has asked York University and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority to review those policies, compare them to what other communities are doing and then recommend the best policies and plans going forward.

Les cours des miracles de Paris : espaces, sociabilités et représentations urbaines (1667-1790)

Les marges sociales, depuis les années 1980, ont constitué un objet d’étude foisonnant. Il est surprenant, dans ce contexte, de constater qu’une étude sérieuse n’a pas été encore entreprise au sujet des cours des Miracles. Motif littéraire que Victor Hugo a développé dans Notre-Dame de Paris, mais qui fut également l’objet d’une large part de la littérature de la gueuserie des 16e et 17e siècles. La cour des Miracles fut apparemment détruite en 1667, première mission du nouveau lieutenant général de police Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie. Pourtant, aucune histoire sociale, aucune histoire de la criminalité, ni même aucune histoire urbaine ne s’est penchée sur cet espace qui survécut largement aux rafles de La Reynie. La littérature de gueuserie a alimenté un imaginaire collectif des bas-fonds dont les cours des miracles en sont véritablement le cœur. TO BE CONT’D

Improving T-Cell Epitope Prediction in Livestock

Our environment contains microbes that might prove fatal without our immune system. When a microbe breaches one of our body’s physical barriers (e.g. skin), the immune system recognizes key molecular signatures (called epitopes) in the invader and dispatches potent defence cells to the site. The first step, recognizing the threat, is complex, but deciphering the rules of immune recognition allows us to develop better diagnostics and vaccines. We propose to develop a computational tool to predict a specific subset of epitopes, called T-cell epitopes, using artificial intelligence (AI) to decipher the rules of recognition. The AI techniques used to predict epitopes typically require large datasets of actual epitopes, which are lacking for livestock species. We propose to compensate for the paucity of data in livestock by leveraging data from similar species (e.g. human) and using principles from structural biology. TO BE CONT’D

Organic acid photochemistry at the surface of desert dust

Mineral dust can get lifted and transported from remote arid regions into urban areas by winds. These urban areas contain higher concentrations of organic pollutants, including carboxylic acids, due to human activities. The goal of this project is to understand the interactions of two atmospherically abundant carboxylic acids, formic and propionic acid, with mineral dust. By using state-of-the-art instrumentation, I will measure both the loss of carboxylic acids onto real desert dust surfaces and the resultant production of gaseous species; in addition, I will investigate the change in chemical composition of dust particles. The change in chemical composition is important in determining the health effects of particles. As well, the gaseous species being produced can influence other atmospheric processes by mediating reactions and absorbing light. This will ultimately allow my research to significantly improve our understanding of health, climate, and air quality in urban areas.