Innovative Projects Realized

The anti-Helicobacter pylori properties of probiotic lactobacilli secretomes

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that causes 65% of gastric ulcers and cancers worldwide. Current snit- H. pylori treatments often fail because the bacteria have become resistant and they have serious side effects. We are looking into using molecules produced by bacteria called lactobacilli that are a natural component of the human gastro-intestinal flora to treat and/or prevent Helicobacter infections. The novelty of our approach is to focus on the molecules that Lactobacilli release (i.e. their secretions) and that could be administered to patients in a controlled and reliable manner. Using the released molecules also facilitates determining the mechanism of action. We propose to compare the secretions produced by 24 Lactobacilli for their anti-H. pylori effects, determine their mechanisms of action and identify the nature of the active molecules. This will allow the development of effective formulations that could be used to treat patients or prevent infections.

Cumulative Environmental Effects from Unconventional Oil and Gas Activity in the Liard River Watershed: Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Freshwater Extraction, and Risk of Cross-Contamination

The Liard River Watershed covers 275 000 square kilometres in Northeastern British Columbia. This vast area is increasingly being developed for its underlying shale gas resources using hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). However, there are few studies investigating the environmental impacts of such activity in this vast area. Fossil fuels and freshwater are two of Canada’s most important natural resources, and therefore an understanding of the water-energy nexus is paramount. This study will investigate effects of oil and gas activity on water resources in the Liard River Watershed it terms of both quantity and quality. These results will be incorporated into a larger report on the cumulative impacts of human activity within the Liard River Watershed that the partner organization is compiling for one of its clients. A GIS interface will be developed in order to facilitate research goals and to provide a platform for future consultation projects.

Methodological Advance of Energy-Economy Climate Policy Models

The overall objective for this project is to support the research of two master’s students who would help advance the methods for modelling energy-climate policies, a field in which EMRG in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at SFU is one of the leading research units in the country and in which Navius Research Incorporated is the leading Canadian consulting firm, providing support to governments and other stakeholders in the development and assessment of energy and climate policy. One sub-project focuses on improving the integration of micro-economic analysis (choices of technologies by firms and households) with macro-economic analysis (assessing effects on economic growth, structural change, regional impacts and government finances). The other sub-project focuses on improving the integration of micro-economic analysis on technology and building choices with urban form and infrastructure policies related to buildings neighborhoods (density, nodes, land-uses), energy infrastructure (district heat) and mobility infrastructure (transit, bike lanes).

Feasibility study of ultrasonic guided wave inspection of fuel cell plate welds

Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell is a division of Mercedes-Benz Canada and is responsible for Daimler’s global production of fuel cell stacks. Fuel cell stacks are currently seen as a prominent alternative to internal combustion engine in road cars. In the current design the fuel cell stack is assembled using a few hundred individual fuel cell plates. An individual fuel cell plate is made of two thin steel plates laser welded together. The laser welding process is used to hold the two steel plates together and more importantly to seal the network of water, air and hydrogen travelling inside the fuel cell plate. It is paramount that the water does not leak in the channels where air or hydrogen is travelling. Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell is currently unable to inspect the welds in a nondestructive manner.

Multi-Perspective Text Analysis of Social Knowledge Networks

Knowledge workers (i.e., researchers, business consultants and analysts, research-program managers) produce documents (research publications, analysis reports, opinion pieces, calls-for-proposals, and blog posts) through which they express their knowledge and opinions. They also read and review similar documents, produced by individuals and organizations in their domain of interest and expertise, to keep current with their domain. By analyzing these documents, the information they contain and the sentiment they convey, their cross-references to each other, and the network of co-production and consumption relationships they imply, we can gain deep insights on the continuous information flow through networks of experts as they consume, evaluate, assess, and produce knowledge.

A Novel Combination Therapy to Target Primitive Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells – Year two

Modern molecular targeted therapies have shown promise in treating some blood cancers, but a cure remains elusive for most acute leukemia patients. This is largely due to the survival of some leukemic cells that possess unique properties and can cause treatment failure or relapse, warranting identification of new, distinct targets for improved therapies. In collaboration with Signalchem Lifescience Corporation (SLC), we aim to develop and test a new drug combination strategy to target acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patient cells that are resistant to current therapies. This pre-clinical study will evaluate the efficacy of novel inhibitors (developed by SLC), alone or in combination with available chemotherapeutics, to target primitive AML cells and their survival pathways in vitro and in vivo. We expect that this new combination will be more effective in eliminating critical leukemic patient cells compared to traditional single drugs, and provide directly proof-of-concept for a subsequent clinical trial.

A Novel Combination Therapy to Target Primitive Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells

Modern molecular targeted therapies have shown promise in treating some blood cancers, but a cure remains elusive for most acute leukemia patients. This is largely due to the survival of some leukemic cells that possess unique properties and can cause treatment failure or relapse, warranting identification of new, distinct targets for improved therapies. In collaboration with Signalchem Lifescience Corporation (SLC), we aim to develop and test a new drug combination strategy to target acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patient cells that are resistant to current therapies. This pre-clinical study will evaluate the efficacy of novel inhibitors (developed by SLC), alone or in combination with available chemotherapeutics, to target primitive AML cells and their survival pathways in vitro and in vivo. We expect that this new combination will be more effective in eliminating critical leukemic patient cells compared to traditional single drugs, and provide directly proof-of-concept for a subsequent clinical trial.

Full-body Modeling and Tracking for Embodiment in VR Dark Rides

Real-time full-body tracking based on single or multiple commodity depth sensors are an integral part of many applications such as motion transfer in 3D games, 3D virtual and augmented reality, and human computer interaction. The proposed project directly derives from practical needs expressed by the partner organization, DreamCraft Attractions (Victoria) in developing fully immersive VR dark rides (i.e. for amusement parks). Our research targets highly robust and low-latency full-body motion capture in the presence of interfering geometry such as chairs or props used in VR dark rides, using a multi-view camera system. In particular, the proposed project would adapt articulated tracking algorithms developed in [Tagliasacchi et al. 2015; Tkach et al. 2016] to build a highly robust, accurate and efficient prototype for full-body motion tracking, while addressing the research challenges specific to this application domain. TO BE CONT’D

Development of an infrastructure for AAL technology data exchange to inform policy and governance guidelines

The UbiLab and the CSA Group are collaborating on the development of a roadmap for a data integration infrastructure that will enable Ambient Assisted Living technology to share data at a wider scale. The current technology landscape has resulted in manufacturers of Internet of Things and Ambient Assisted Living technologies generating siloed data that provide limited benefits and insights to the final users. The infrastructure being proposed in this project will enable data to flow seamlessly between Internet of Things, mobile health, and Ambient Assisted Living technologies, empowering innovators to leverage larger amounts of data for their product development. We will explore the technical infrastructure, as well as the necessary policy and governance guidelines to enable innovators to integrate the data generated by their new technology with the platform being proposed. This project will enable the UbiLab and the CSA group to become leaders in Ambient Assisted Living data integration.

Faster on the bobsleigh race track

The intern will support the Canadian Bobsleigh Team in its efforts to reduce ice friction between a bobsleigh and the race track. Therefore, a numerical heat transfer model will be developed, and novel procedures to attain the smoothest possible runner surfaces will be researched. Furthermore, we will apply concepts underlying lubrication theory to runner surfaces bycombining hard and soft coatings through micromachining. All these efforts will result in a better understanding for the variables that are most relevant to ice friction in the context of international bobsleigh competitions. The novel developments coming out of this project will help the Canadian athletes to also compete in the race for the best sporting material and ultimately result in a higher medal count for Canada.

Application of Neural Speech Synthesis Techniques to Improve Lyrical Audio Recordings

2012 marked a pivotal milestone in the field of neural networks. The intersection of general purpose computing using Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), labelled big datasets, and very large neural networks (called deep neural networks) enabled a break-through in machine learning that has led to impressive results in many fields and applications, such as self-driving vehicles and real-time language translation. Recently, the advances offered by these techniques have been applied to the areas of music and speech synthesis, which have opened up exciting new areas of applications. The work proposed in this application is one such example, namely to create an application to modify and improve audio recordings of amateur singers using the latest developments in artificial recurrent neural networks.

Optimization of Blow Heat Recovery

AV Nackawic is part of a new and innovative group of companies (AV Group), which are

focused on producing specialty pulp products to service the textile and paper industry.

The blow heat recovery system, more popularly known as “The Black Hole,” is one

popular area where the pulp and paper industry has utilized the energy of the blow

vapors from the digesters to produce process hot water for use in the washing and

bleaching operation. The blow heat recovery system at AV Nackawic has dual benefits:

provides heat recovery of hot blow gases as they are released from the digester and

reduces the vapor volume of the gases for non condensable gas incineration. This

internship will help optimize the blow heat recovery system. It will also look at reducing

operating costs through efficient heat recovery strategies that will make the process

more economic and produce another link between AV Nackawic and the University of

New Brunswick, providing AV Nackawic…