Innovative Projects Realized

Adaptable Balconies: Sustainable Development Strategies for Toronto’s Aging Neighbourhoods

The majority of mid-20th century high-rise concrete housing stock have reached the end of their first lifecycle in terms of structural integrity and environmental performance, and the urban planning ideals with which they were designed have made these neighbourhoods irrelevant to the contemporary culture of the city. Solutions for economical, structural, social and technological barriers to developing a secondary system to the building envelope and the restructuring of existing balconies for the overall renewal of tower neighbourhoods will be investigated and proposed in this project. In this process, high-density infill projects and as well as smart building technologies and strategies will be investigated. This project will be conducted in partnership with Diamond Schmitt Architects, and the benefits to the partner include the gaining specialized expertise in infill development and re-densification of existing neighbourhoods, social sustainability, and smart city design and technologies. TO BE CONT’D

Development and validation of analysis methods for classification of environments: classification by sound, time, and place

Hearing aids are now fully digital, advanced signal processors that monitor the type of sound coming in to the hearing aid. The sound type is automatically classified into one of several types, such as speech in a quiet place, versus telephone listening, versus in a noisy car. These sound types may require different signal processing from the hearing aid. Accordingly, the hearing aid an automatically switch into different signal processing when the sound type changes. Current methods for sound type classification do not monitor the user’s location. Yet, with increasing smartphone linkage, it may be possible in future to make use of location to help improve the accuracy of classification of the listener’s environment and what type of signal processing might be most helpful. In this project, we will collaborate to build a prototype location-informed sound classifier.

Spinal Cord Stimulation for the Treatment of Chronic Refractory Low Back Pain in Patients withFailed Back Surgery Syndrome.

This project will examine and compare two types of implantable patient leads,

one which is more minimally invasive vs. one which requires a more extensive surgical procedure. Medtronic will utilize

the data from this pilot study to determine the need and or value of conducting an International Multi-Centre Study.

Based on the clinical outcomes from this study, Medtronic will be better able to establish which type of medical specialists

will be needed to optimize patient care and assist physicians in the development of their programs. The results will provide

insight as to the need for more or less operating room time, as cost savings may be beneficial with either procedure when all

factors our considered.

Proposed Research:

• Background and review of relevant prior work

• Overall program objectives

• Methodology and novelty of approach and/or application

• Project milestones

• Relevance to the partner

Turning off the “switch”: Preserving the analgesic actions of the endogenous opioid pathway in IBD

Abdominal pain is a debilitating symptom for many patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). An endogenous opioid system emerges in the intestinal tissues during chronic inflammation that acts to dampen such pain and could prevent the need for strong opiate drugs like morphine that can cause serious side effects. However, we have discovered that psychological stress, common in patients with IBD, can block the beneficial analgesic actions of these endogenous opioids and paradoxically can cause them to actually stimulate rather than relieve pain. Similarly, sustained higher dose opioid drugs also block the beneficial actions of the endogenous opioid pathway. Together, these effects on the endogenous opioid system lead to increased pain and if opioid drugs are needed, escalating dosing and potentially serious side effects. TO BE CONT’D

Raccourcissement de la période d’anovulation post-partum chez la vache laitière

En 2016, l’industrie laitière du Canada, avec un peu plus de 1,4 millions de têtes, a produit plus de 84,7 millions d’hectolitres de lait, équivalent à plus de $6 milliards. Cependant, l’industrie laitière souffre d’un déclin de la fertilité, particulièrement lors de la période post-partum, ce qui représente des pertes massives pour les producteurs. Une absence d’ovulation (anovulation) prolongée durant la période post-partum contribuerait à la baisse de fertilité des vaches laitières. En effet, cette période aurait un impact important sur la reproduction. Il est donc nécessaire d’avoir une bonne connaissance de la période post-partum afin d’améliorer la performance reproductive des vaches laitières et la rentabilité des troupeaux d’animaux de consommation. Notre objectif à long terme est de développer un traitement en utilisant des molécules appelées interleukines présentes dans le follicule ovarien. Le but de ce traitement en période post-partum serait de favoriser la reprise de l’ovulation. Nous pensons que la période post-partum serait associée avec des changements dans la nature des interleukines présentes dans l’ovaire et ces changements peuvent être responsables de l’absence d’ovulation. Nous utiliserons des approches de biologie moléculaire pour identifier et établir le profil des différentes interleukines dans l’ovaire de vaches en période post-partum.

Wind Turbine Power Curve Modelling for Reliable Power Prediction Using Isotonic Regression and Different Loss Functions

Electrical power generation based on wind energy has been one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources. An important area of research in wind energy is to find different ways to improve the power reliability of systems. Modeling wind turbine power curve using past data is often used as an efficient way to use empirical power curve instead of manufacturer company power curve.
As wind-power data are often so noisy, fitted wind turbine power curves could be very different from the theoretical ones that are provided by manufacturers. For example, most wind turbine power curves are monotonic for a specific range of speed, however, fitted models do not necessarily have this property. In this research we first develop methods for fitting wind turbine power curve models that preserve the monotonicity of the curve. TO BE CONT’D
O

In-situ evaluation of ground heat exchanger performances

Geothermal systems are an efficient and environmentally friendly technology to cool and heat buildings. However, the system installation remains expensive making its expansion difficult. Versaprofiles, a Canadian enterprise, has developed a thermal enhanced pipe especially designed to geothermal applications. This pipe allows to reduce the system cost, improving its performance. Experimental tests in systems using standard and enhanced pipes will allow to compare the two systems performance, searching to assess the advantages of the thermal enhanced pipes. The project will allow to demonstrate the benefits of the improved geothermal system, to foster their utilization as a clean energy, and contribute to the development of the Canadian geothermal industry.

Development of a leadership development impact assessment toolkit

CHLNet identified the need for valid, reliable tools to determine the impact of these health leadership development programs. This project will develop a practical, easy to use toolkit to facilitate the measurement of program outcomes and impacts. The toolkit will be pilot tested and evaluated across the country according to defined selection criteria. The finalized toolkit will be electronic and other knowledge produced during the project will be broadly disseminated. The immediate outcome of this research will be a collection of usable tools to determine impact of leadership development programs on key organizational measures.

Evaluating offline functionality of progressive web applications in e-commerce business: A/B testing and causal models

The project is to understand the potential impact of enabling the offline functionalities on progressive web application utilized as e-commerce platforms. For instance, will enabling offline functionalities help increase revenue by providing a more engaging environment when the connection is poor? Traditional evaluation method is to run online controlled experiments by randomly assigning users into two groups: with and without the feature. However, to accurate assess the impact, one needs to identify appropriate key metrics to quantify the performance. There is no universal guideline for the choice of key metrics and it might not be economically-feasible and slow to run experiments. This research tries to explore a class of emerging methods for causal inferences and counterfactual analysis to establish causation by asking what would have happened in the absence of the intervention, namely the introduction of the offline functionalities in our setting. TO BE CONT’D

Determination of Genomic Markers to Conduct Parentage, Differentiate Wood and Plains Bison Sub-species, and Measure Cattle Introgression in Canadian Bison

The Canadian bison industry is currently facing the issue of increasing production to meet increasing demand for bison products in a sustainable manner that improves the competitiveness and profitability of the industry. Bison retailers are currently being shorted product orders in excess of 25% on a regular basis, and demand for bison meat will only grow with the implementation of CETA and removal of the existing 20% tariff. This project will use whole genome sequence data to identify the genetic markers (SNPs, indels, variants) that will allow the Canadian bison industry to accurately and cost effectively verify parentage, differentiate wood and plains bison sub-species, and measure cattle introgression. TO BE CONT’D

Macroeconomic Models for Performance and Investigation Prediction

Corporations are under a lot of scrutiny, especially when they annually release their financial reports to the government. If a corporation makes a mistake, or if an employee submits fraudulent information, or if it appears that either is the case, then they risk being asked to amend the filing by the government, which will cause their share price to suffer and force them to painstakingly redo the report at great expense. Caseware will sell software that can analyze these reports and determine if an amendment request is likely. The software can also make predictions about the future value of a company’s assets, which can help companies make informed decisions. This project’s goal is to increase the accuracy of this software by allowing it to look at big-picture information, such as the value of the stock market or the unemployment rate, when making its judgements.

Evaluating enzyme activities in sprouted wheat and their functional properties in baked products.

Preharvest sprouting (PHS) has been looked at as negative and grains showing signs of PHS, is

rejected by food companies. But as consumers seek more nutritious foods, it has been shown that

sprouted seeds have increased amounts of important nutrients such as soluble dietary fiber, vitamins,

minerals, and phytochemicals compared to their fresh products. Therefore, in this project, we are

proposing to develop a strategy to germinate wheat in a controlled manner to deliver nutrients while

minimizing the negative impacts on product quality. Furthermore, staling is a significant problem in

baked products and the baking industry deals with the problem of staling by using a variety of anti

staling ingredients including alpha-amylases and different lipids. Since during germination process,

alpha amylase activity is increased, it is proposed that baked products made with sprouted wheat flour

would be less prone to staling. Furthermore, during germination more antioxidants are produced

which prevent oxidation of fatty acids in the grains minimizing rancidity…