Innovative Projects Realized

Mastering Muons at the Weizmann Institute of Science

The proposed research project while at the Weizmann Institute of Science will have the main goal of contributing to the upgrade of the ATLAS detector. The ATLAS experiment is a multipurpose particle detector at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In particular, a very important part of the ATLAS detector, the New Muon Small Wheel (NSW), needs to be installed in order to cope with the forthcoming LHC upgrade to faster data-taking rates. Without the NSW, the LHC would need to throw away invaluable data, or reduce the rate at which it collects data; both of these options are extremely undesirable from a physics standpoint. The first step in this effort is understanding the detector technology at play in the NSW, so-called small-strip Thin Gap Chambers (sTGC). While at the Weizmann Institute of Science, I will analyze test beam data from sTGC detectors. TO BE CONT’D

An investigation into the fundamental characteristics of a nickel-based water splitting catalyst

Water electrolysis (splitting water into O2 and H2; 2H2O 2H2 + O2) is a promising way to creating hydrogen gas as a storable chemical fuel. While H2 is the desired fuel, the evolution of oxygen hinders hydrogen production as it is kinetically challenging and requires potent and expensive catalysts to be driven at an appreciable rate. One of the most promising catalysts is nickel oxyhydroxide (NiOOH), however there are still fundamental gaps in knowledge of its basic properties. The objective of this research is to investigate these unknown basic properties using a combination of theoretical calculations and experimental methods. The deliverable will be an enhanced understanding of how NiOOH operates as a catalyst, aiding the design of efficient next-generation catalysts.

Large deformation analysis of lateral pipeline-soil interaction

Buried pipelines may go under large lateral deformations in different occasions such as ice gouging, ground movement, significant thermal gradients, and dragging by anchors, etc. In practice, the backfilling material is much softer than the native trench material because of the impact of functional, environmental, and constructional loads. This important aspect which is less considered by pipeline design codes may have a significant impact on the soil failure mechanism around the pipe and consequently the lateral load-displacement response of the pipeline. In this study, the lateral pipeline-backfill-trench interaction will be numerically investigated under partial drained condition by performing advanced large deformation analysis. The numerical model will be calibrated against the centrifuge model tests earlier conducted in this project. The out come of the project is expected to improve the safe and cost-effective design of the subsea pipelines in Canada and worldwide.

Effects of Environmental Effects of Environmental Stressors on Essential Fatty Acids in Marine Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton produce more than half of the world’s oxygen annually, and make omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are healthy fats that are passed marine food chains to fish for human consumption. These healthy fats are essential to our diet, meaning our bodies either cannot produce them at all or not in high enough quantities to maintain suitable health. Due to current environmental changes, variations in temperature and pH in the aquatic environment could negatively influence the ability of producers and consumers to extend essential fatty acid movement throughout food webs. I will be identifying lipid and fatty acid composition of key species of phytoplankton when placed in warmer, more acidic conditions manipulated in a laboratory setting. These conditions will mimic predicted future climate changes, therefore, observing how phytoplankton adapt their fatty acid production could give insight into how our main source of oxygen could change in the future.

Chromatic and List-Chromatic Numbers of Infinite Hypergrahs

Suppose there are a number of committees of people, which we represent by vertices of a graph and draw an edge between two vertices if those committees share a common member. Then the list-colouring number is (informally) the minimum number k so that as long as each committee comes up with a list of k-many timeslots during which they can meet, we are guaranteed to be able to schedule all of the meetings without conflict. More formall, we say the list-chromatic number of a graph is the least cardinal ? such that for every assignment of lists of colours to vertices v of the graph such that |L(v)| <= ? there is a proper colouring that assigns to every vertex v a colour in L(v). TO BE CONT'D

Demonstration Fusarium Removal Machine Engineering

Fusarium Head Blight is a very common fungus disease prominent in small grain cereal throughout the world. This

fungus infected wheat crop across Canada from Ontario to Alberta. The economic losses in Canada are estimated

at $80 million annually over the last decade due to yield loss and quality loss. Fusarium has been detected for the

first time in northern British Columbia. In the foreseeable future, Fusarium is expected to increase in both

incidence and geographic distribution in Canada. The overall goal of this project is to design and build a pilot

scale demonstration machine for the separation of Fusarium damaged kernels. The demonstration machine shall

be based on the specification document appended plus the improvements and enhancements developed under

this plan. The intended throughput for the demonstration unit is 6 tonnes of wheat per hour. The major

deliverables are the machine itself, the dies and jigs required to produce components and the engineering…

Elder poverty in South Korea

With a fond interest in international development and social economics, the student will undertake an international collaboration to tackle the trending issue of elderly poverty in South Korea. Indeed, South Korea has known a prominent growth since the war but at the expense of the marginalized group of elderly. South Korea now has the greatest relative rate of poverty of elderly among the OECD countries. Thus, this project will attempt to understand how fast economic growth and possibly other exogenous economic factors impact unproductive groups such as the elderly. This will be done with the support of Sang-Ho Nam, PhD. An expert in CGE modeling and income distribution who teaches at Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology and works at Korea Institute for Health & Social Affairs. TO BE CONT’D

Development of standoff explosive detection technique based on infrared sensitive hydrogel microscale physical sensors

Various hydrogel microstructures will be fabricated with hydrogels exhibiting different molecular weights and structures along with varying concentrations of the photoinitiator and ultraviolet doses. Then, resonance sensitivity of fabricated hydrogel microstructures will be investigated with direct electrical and indirect IR heating. Using the dynamic mask, various hydrogel microstructures with different sizes and shapes will be fabricated and their sensitivities will be investigated. Once an optimum design is found, the design will be efficiently mass-produced by using a silicone elastomeric mold. Periodic patterns will be introduced on top of the chosen optimum design and resonance sensitivities will be investigated to find out the most efficient pattern shape and pitch. Using the hydrogel microscale physical sensor system which is mechanically and optically optimized, standoff photothermal resonance spectroscopy for various explosives will be performed at different distances in a laboratory setting.TO BE CONT’D

A comparative analysis of religious and service mandates in faith-based organisations in Canada and India

Since the 1990s, states have rolled back funding for social service provision. The conventional wisdom among researchers is that these cuts led to a groundswell of faith-based organisations seeking to respond to the gaps in social service provision left by the diminished capacity of the state. Around the same time, leading scholars asked a pertinent question about whether or not social service workers could be employed within faith-based organisations (FBO) and remain committed to a progressive academic discipline such as social work and indeed to the broader liberal democratic ethos of North American society (Cnaan & Boddie, 2001). About 15 years has passed and we have been given glimpses of the answer through important work by researchers who have responded to this question (e.g., Sager, 2011). TO BE CONT’D

West Bolton Sustainable Neighbourhood Retrofit Action Plan – home energy retrofit program

The West Bolton SNAP project will test methods for increasing the number of suburban households undertaking home energy retrofits in a neighbourhood of Caledon, Ontario with the aim of reducing residential energy consumption and the resulting GHG emissions. The Program will utilize locally targeted marketing, community events, and face-to-face Home Retrofit Consultations to engage households in West Bolton. The research will support a detailed program evaluation of the West Bolton SNAP home energy retrofit program, and enable knowledge generation around best practices for stimulating energy retrofit uptake through customized local engagement methods. Project reporting will express results and findings related to the experiences and behaviours of all participants. This information will contribute to informing on future approaches to reducing household GHG emissions in other Ontario communities.

Development of forest legacy-based mine reclamation techniques for recolonizing the soil food web and promoting vegetation establishment

The August 2014 tailings dam breach at the Mount Polley Mine, BC severely disturbed downstream forest ecosystems through erosion and tailings deposition. The impacted area presents an opportunity to research using ecosystem legacies (components that survive a disturbance) to rehabilitate disturbed sites. A field trial at Mount Polley is testing seedling establishment and soil food web recolonization using three soil legacy reclamation methods: transplants of forest soil into seedling planting holes; spatial belowground connection with the undisturbed forest; and bringing forest floor buried by tailings to the surface. Greenhouse experiments are investigating the volume of soil to transplant, the role of the soil biological community in soil transplants, and the potential for seedlings to regenerate soil legacies, promoting growth of the next generation of trees. TO BE CONT’D

Electroencephalogram signal enhancement using Nonnegative Matrix Factorization for BCI applications

The electroencephalogram (EEG) reflects the neural electrical activity and used in brain-computer interface (BCI) systems which provide assistive technologies for people with various disabilities. The proposed research is mainly focused to apply Nonnegative matrix factorization for EEG signal enhancement for BCI applications to mitigate the limitations of existing BCI system such as slow speeds, limitation of hardware requirement and power dissipation and susceptibility to artifacts. The finding of the proposed research will contribute greatly to the benefit of the society considering that brain-computer interface used in various fields such as in advanced healthcare, neuroergonomics and smart environment, educational and self-regulation, security, and authentication fields. The expected outcome of the proposed project would be to deliver a sophisticated algorithm to process and analyze EEG data which can improve the performance of the existing BCI systems.