Innovative Projects Realized

Identification of STAT3/5 Advanced Preclinical Candidates

It is estimated that 1 in 2/3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Cancer is a genetic disease characterized by the uncontrolled growth of cells. While treatments are available for many cancers, remission of the disease, side-effects of the medication, and the onset of resistance by the cancer to the drugs being used, contribute to the high fatality rates observed for several cancers. The blood cancers CML and AML are driven by the out-of-control

activity of a protein in cancer cells called STAT5. Inhibition of STAT5 activity has been shown to cause cancer cells to die. The aim of this project is to optimize the properties of potential STAT5 inhibitor drugs develope at University of Toronto Mississauga, to allow them to be taken orally, and negate adverse side effects. This will be achieved in collaboration with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC), which aims to eradicate blood-borne cancers.

The Effects of Changing Sound Regimes in the Natural Environment on Marine Mammals in the Arctic: A Decision Support Tool

Marine Mammals depend on sound for survival, whether for communicating with each other or for hunting for food. Human produced (Anthropogenic) sound such as from shipping, military SONAR, coastal development and oil and gas exploration, development and extraction, can all interrupt and disturb marine mammals. As sea ice begins to melt sooner and for longer due to climate change, the Arctic has become more accessible and therefore become targeted by industry for development and expansion. Nunavut, and many other Polar Regions whose waters have remained relatively pristine until recently are all struggling with how to best manage this development and anthropogenic sound, to reduce the negative impacts on marine mammals. This project aims to produce a document that summarizes all relevant research comprehensively, and makes policy recommendations based off of a comparative policy analysis.

Monitoring water table depths at Bauru Aquifer System in a conservation reserve in Aguas de Santa Barbara, Sao Paulo, Brazil

A hydro-climatological network of data collecting stations has already been set up at the Bauru Aquifer System in a conservation area in Águas de Santa Bárbara, Sao Paulo, Brazil by Dr. Rodrigo Manzione of UNESP Ourinhos. The purpose of this internship is to use the data that has already been collected to make predictions about how the water table will react to varying inputs of rainfall, ie. how much water will actually reach the water table with respect to the amount of rainfall. I will use statistical modeling, GIS mapping tools and autoregressive time series models, and expect that from this data we will be able to determine the effect of accumulated rainfall on the behaviour of the aquifer in a given year. By using this approach we expect to be able to separate the effect of atypical rainfall events when estimating groundwater level trends. This research is timely as Brazil experienced one of the driest summers on record last year, while simultaneously demands are increasing for agriculture, industries, and municipalities.

BRAZILIAN POLICY AGENDAS PROJECT

The research project will investigate agenda-setting processes in Brazil. It is intended to contribute to the studies in the field of public policies in Brazil, especially focused on agenda-setting, as well as for the analysis of processes of policy change related to changes in government priorities. This perspective, unprecedented in Brazil, has been developed in different countries, in which researchers have gathered around the same theoretical and methodological framework,
providing an international network of researchers called Comparative Policy Agendas Project . The Brazilian Policy Agendas Project seeks to integrate this network, initially through analysis of three types of documents: Presidential speeches; laws approved by the House of Representatives (at the Federal level) and the main themes of public opinion reflected in the media (newspaper). These documents will enable identification of topics present in the presidential agenda, in the legislature and also in public opinion. Outcomes
include dissemination of the research in academic journals, at conferences, as well as international comparisons in collaboration with the international researchers through the Comparative Policy Agendas Project. TO BE CONT’D

Sustainable production of xylitol from hemicellulose hydrolyzate of Lignocellulosic woody biomass and sugarcane bagasse.

The need for green technologies and depletion of crude oil has led to a search for renewable resources. Forest biomass certainly has the potential for the production of most of fossil based products. In the current project, one of the components of forest biomass, hemicellulose will be used to produce xylitol through fermentation process instead of following the existing non ecofriendly chemical process. Xylitol is basically used as artificial sweetener for diabetics and in
some health products and hence has to follow safe production methods. By employing GRAS (generally regarded as safe) microbes and eco-friendly methods the process will reduce our dependence on crude oil for chemicals in an economical and environmentally friendly manner. Methods to increase the yield using woody biomass like poplar and agricultural residues like sugarcane bagasse will be studied.

Gasification of novel moisture-resistant fuel pellets to synthesis gas and comparison of their performance to those with commercial Power Pellets™

The proposed research deals with the gasification of novel moisture-resistant fuel pellets (developed previously in Dr. Dalai’s Lab) to synthesis gas. For this purpose the gasification process parameter will be optimized to maximize the conversion. Then the results will be scaled-up in a continuous pilot scale gasifier. These results will be compared to those with the commercial one. At the end, the technoeconomic analysis of the process will be analyzed. The partner organization will be benefitted from exploring the commercial feasibility of novel moisture resistant pellets.

Comparative study of approximate and rigorous approaches to lightning discharge through power system towers

The project performs comparative study of simplified and rigorous approaches to analysis of lightning strike discharge through complex 3D structures of the power line towers and their grounding systems. Simplified models of the commercial tools such as PSCAD and TFlash will be compared to the new rigorous electromagnetic model (EM) based on full-wave algorithms analysis. The rigorous 3D EM modeling (developed at the University of Manitoba) is based on the novel fast direct method of moments solution of the integral equations of electromagnetics which account for the presence of the stratified media of the soil. The rigorous modelling results will be used to identify deficiencies in simplified models at the high frequencies (above 100kHz) where the full-wave effects become important. Such effects are commonly distorted in simple models, yielding an overall high error in predicting the performance of the lightning strike protection systems, including the grounding electrodes buried in the soil.

Validation of a microRNA signature prognostic of metastasis in soft-tissue sarcomas

Soft tissue sarcoma is a disease that affects patients of all ages and have profound societal impact. On average 17 life years per patients are lost due to sarcoma, which is 2-3 times more than bowel, lung, prostate or breast cancer. Patients with soft-tissue sarcoma represents one the top 5 most important cancer cause of average percent lifespan lost. Patient die of this cancer from distant metastasis. There are currently no method to determine who may benefit from chemotherapy to reduce the chance of developing metastasis. Using patient biopsy tumor samples, we had previously developed and validated a biological signature that can predict a patient’s risk of developing metastasis. For this signature to be used in clinics, it needs to be validated using samples from other sources and from different sarcomas. This project will assess the signature’s accuracy using sarcoma samples obtained from 4 different academic centers in Canada and US. At the completion of the study, we will know whether this biological signature can be used as a clinical tool to select certain patients to receive aggressive chemotherapy to reduce their risk of developing and dying of sarcoma metastasis.

Adaptive FOREX Geocoding System for Currency Market Monitoring

Foreign exchange market, also known as Forex is a currency trading market spread all around the globe. There are multiple factors that effect the exchange rates in currency market. Considering these factors in development of a trading algorithm will result in more accurate trading decisions. The proposed research that will be covered by the activities of the intern will thus include the development of a model which has flexibility in dealing with multiple attributes in real time for foreign exchange. The new and improved model which will take into an account the geospatial location of the news and the temporal spatial correspondence between the news and the cities of their origin will be developed. Investigating the relationship between geospatial news location and currency markets using newly developed machine intelligence algorithms is at the core of the proposed internship. The novel methodology will be based on building a highdimensional weighted autocorrelation model between real-time news and their spatio-temporal geographic locations. This would require development of sophisticated methods in the areas of data mining, geocoding and spatio-temporal pattern matching.

Production of ODS steels

The University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) has a world-class advanced powder metallurgy lab. I will be taking small particles of steel (iron) and using a heated hydraulic press combine the fine powder into a hard sheet. I’ll be adding into the mix a small amount (much like adding chocolate chips to a muffin mix) of special namometer sized oxide particles (think like ceramic beads) that will improve the steels mechanical properties (strength, temperature resistance, etc.). This is called oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS). These ODS steels are new and upcoming, very promising for surviving highly radioactive environments in the next generation of nuclear power plants. I’ll be further studying this freshly fabricated ODS steel using very high resolution electron microscopy at USTB, to see even the smallest molecular defects that would have arised from the powder metallurgy process.

Supply chain metrics during the product lifecycle

Ciena Corporation is a global supplier of telecommunications networking equipment, software and services. The company operates in a high product mix, low volume environment with short product cycle times. As a consequence, it has difficulty estimating product volumes and end-of-life inventory. The project will determine the best set of metrics during product lifecycle stages in order to measure supply chain performance, to estimate total product volumes, and to minimize end-of-life inventory. The study will use a product lifecycle framework to evaluate the metrics used by Ciena now and those suggested through the study of other companies. The data from several of Ciena’s historical products will be evaluated using these metrics and the framework. A supply chain process model will be simulated using the proposed metrics and supply chain data to evaluate potential supply chain performance.

IDENTIFICATION DES PARAMÈTRES ET DES MÉTHODES DE CONTRÔLE POUR L’AUTOMATISATION DU PROCÉDÉ D’OXYCOUPAGE DE L’ACIER.

L’objectif de ce projet est d’automatiser au maximum le procédé d’oxycoupage afin de l’incorporer aux équipements de découpe robotisés de l’entreprise partenaire. Ces derniers, qui utilisent actuellement le procédé de découpe au plasma uniquement, bénéficieront de cet apport technologique en terme de versatilité de produit et en comblant un manque notamment en ce qui concernent les profondeurs de
coupe possible qui sont nettement supérieures avec l’oxycoupage lorsque comparées plasma. L’acquisition des données de différents capteurs à sélectionner et le contrôle de chacun des paramètres du procédé se doivent d’être déterminés et optimisés. Une vérification doit également être calculée au niveau de l’état de la flamme et de la qualité de la coupe. Le tout devra ensuite être incorporé dans un logiciel le plus autonome possible au niveau du contrôle du procédé d’oxycoupage qui pourra être jumelé et adapté aux programmes existants de découpe. Le procédé faisant intervenir un gaz explosif et de l’oxygène pur sous forte pression, le volet sécurité est à prendre très au sérieux, tant au niveau des démarches expérimentales de développement qu’en ce qui concerne le résultat final.