Innovative Projects Realized

Model-Based Detection of Emergent Behavior in Distributed Systems

The lack of central control in distributed systems makes the analysis and design of such systems a challenging task.  In fact many faults are introduced into the system at this stage of the software development life cycle.  Therefore discovering and removing design validation of distributed software systems prior to the implementation phase is greatly desirable as it results in huge savings in time and cost.  An effective and efficient approach to describing the requirements of distributed systems is by using scenarios.  Scenarios are commonly represented using message sequence charts or sequence diagrams.  Although scenario-based specifications provide a powerful medium to present information, they are also prone to subtle deficiencies such as incompleteness and potential contradictions among scenarios.  Moreover for the development of larger distributed systems, it is often desirable to ensure certain scenarios do not emerge in the system's behaviour.  This research proposes systematic and automated methodologies to ensure the lack of emergent behaviour in distributed systems using scenario-based specification.

Ecological risk assessment of oil sands related contaminants to aquatic biodiversity

Alberta Environment’s comprehensive contaminant load study, located in Alberta’s oil sands mining area is designed to document the flow of contaminants (from anthropogenic and natural sources) into the environment and their effects on biodiversity and human health. The project proposed for this internship will cover the impacts and risks to the aquatic ecosystem and is a crucial component of the overall study. This component will take inputs from the contaminant loadings of air, water, soil and sediment (either through field data or modeled predictions) and model the flow of contaminants through the aquatic food web. The fate and impact of the contaminants on invertebrates, fish and other guilds will be modeled as a function of the loading into the environment. Using this framework, current and future state analyses can be completed to understand the potential impact of oil sands development in the future.

Design and development of a mechanized cultivator and seedling transplanter

The objective of the project will be to design and support the fabrication of an automated cultivating planter mechanism. The task of the planter/cultivator will be to transplant 3 rows of seedlings, with variable spacing, a single pass.  A production target of 1200 trees per hour is desired.  There are many design challenges present in this project.  In order to be successful, designs will have to incorporate many areas of mechanical and electrical engineering such as hydraulics, sensors, control systems, fluid mechanics, and solid mechanics.  A major task will be to transfer the seedlings which are held in magazine trays, to the planting mechanism.  Designs must also be easy to operate; to ensure stress on the operator is minimized.  Robustness will also be a factor as the machine is to be operated in remote locations in which maintenance and repair will be very costly.   

The Biomechanical Differences between the SideStix Crutch and a Traditional Forearm Crutch

Many people with physical disabilities depend on forearm crutches to help them walk. Although forearm crutches are helpful, many people experience overuse injuries as a result of using the forearm crutch. Injuries to the wrists, elbows and shoulders are commonly experienced with long-term use of the forearm crutch. The research project will examine differences between the traditional forearm crutch and a newly developed SideStixä crutch. The SideStixäcrutch has been developed with a spring-like device and rotating footpads. It is hypothesized that the new crutch will effectively change body movement while crutch walking while reducing the impact on the body. SideStixä Ventures Inc. will greatly benefit from this project by understanding how their crutch influences walking and it may reduce overuse injuries. 

Modeling Microbial Transport and Inactivation in an Open Channel UV Reactor at Various Hydraulic Regimes

Due to potential shortages of freshwater especially in arid and semi-arid regions, treatment of wastewater is increasingly being considered as an alternative to conventional water sources such as surface waters and groundwater. As the potential for human exposure to pathogens in the reclaimed water has been a concern for regulators, treatment standards must be stringent and disinfection system carefully validated and properly operated.

In the last decade, ultraviolet disinfection in open-channel flows has emerged as a “green” technology with no harmful chemicals used for treatment and no significant disinfection byproducts left in the effluent. Recently, detail understanding of disinfection processes has made possible through the use of computational models.

However, predictive models for open channel UV reactors have been overly simplified; as a results, important issues such as kinetics of organism inactivation as free-surface transport phenomena have not been addressed to date. This study will investigate the role of microbial transport and inactivation occurring at the free surface as well as the impact of wastewater quality variability on UV disinfection kinetics and continuous flow reactor performance.

Safe Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Interventional Devices

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-ionizing modality; therefore, there is no known damage on human tissue as opposed to ionizing imaging modalities, such as X-ray. Interventional procedures take long time and in order to prevent ionization, interventional MRI is very promising. On the other hand, there are safety concerns because of the possible temperature rise on current carrying conductive wires, such as guidewires and biopsy needles, during MR scans when it is inserted inside the human body. In this project, we are aiming to eliminate the dangerous temperature rise by using different methods and improve safety of the devices used in interventional MRI.

Testing of the Agri-Therm Inc. Mobile Pyrolysis Pilot Plant

Virtualization-based applications for cloud computing in biomedical research

The project will involve research and development of new technology for distributed computation, with a focus on applications in computational biology and bioinformatics as routinely encountered in our own lab. This research will be conducted using Copper, GridCentric’s grid computing platform, which is based on a previous research system developed at the University of Toronto called Snowflock. Snowflock/Copper allows highly flexible and dynamic use of computer hardware resources by rapidly creating identical copies of virtual machines configured to work in parallel on distributed workloads. Our project is expected to generate results in systems software research which will be of direct relevance to the technical advancement of GridCentric’s products. In addition, the project will involve real-world case studies in our computational biology lab which may be leveraged to build products better targeted at customers in related fields, both academic and commercial.

Evaluating the nutritive value of processed animal proteins (feather meals) for two commercially important fish species, rainbow trout and Nile tilapia.

Feather meal is an economical protein-rich feedstuffs produced from wastes generated by the poultry processing industry. The partner organization, a fish feed manufacturer based in Ontario, would greatly benefit from the accurate characterization of the nutritive value of feather meals for different fish species raised in Ontario. Inclusion of feather meal could significantly improve cost-effectiveness of fish feeds produced in Ontario. Comparison of the nutritive value of feather meals produced according to different processing conditions is important to fine-tune feed formulation and properly use this economical ingredient in feeds. The project will involve evaluating the nutritive value of different feather meals by carrying out large-scale growth and digestibility trials with two widely cultured fish species, namely rainbow trout and Nile tilapia.

Exploring the effects of selenium on cell survival to improve lactation of dairy cows and functionality of their milk

Supra – nutritional consumption of organic selenium (Se) reduces the incidence and progression of several types of cancer. The organic Se content of with cows’ milk can be increased by supplementing cow diets with organic Se. In vitro preliminary data suggest that Se supplementation of cows may improve the persistency of daily milk yield, which is of economic benefit to Ontario dairy farmers. To test this hypothesis, 4 different levels of selenium will be fed to lactating dairy cows and mammary epithelial cells analyzed for proliferation and death rates. This will be followed by studies examining the impact of consuming selenium enriched milk on cancer progression in a rodent model. The benefit to Alltech will be two fold, 1) developing human nutraceutical milk enriched with selenium and 2) mechanistic explanation for improving lactation persistency utlilizing Sel-Plex (Alltech’s organic selenium). Fundamental research on mammary cell dynamics can yield insights into current breast cancer models.

The role of essential amino acids in milk protein production in lactating dairy cows

The proposed research is directed at determining the effect of amino acid (AA) infusions on the milk synthetic regulatory proteins found in the mammary gland of the lactating dairy cow. Previous research in the area has shown that proteins called eukaryotic initiation factors (eIF), which synthesize proteins through mRNA translation, are a regulation point of protein synthesis in the liver, muscle, and possibly the mammary gland. The mammary gland uses dietary derived AA to synthesize milk protein. The supply of certain AA can increase milk protein production, though the translational regulation of milk protein synthesis that occurs during AA infusions is not known. The industrial partner produces feed for dairy cows in Canada and the research will be used in the development of products and services for Canadian dairy farmers to improve capture of dietary protein in milk, and reduce the loss of nitrogen to the environment. 

Multi-Gbps Serializer/Deserializer Research in CMOS

This project will focus on very high‐speed communication along electrical links. Key to these links are the integrated circuits required to serialize and deserialize many parallel data streams into a single data stream at rates exceeding 1 Gb/s (i.e. SerDes). We will collaboratively explore the signal processing and circuits required to perform these implement SerDes robustly in the presence of noise and channel impairments. This is a key challenge in Synopsys’ business, which actively develops and sells SerDes I.P. out of its office in Mississauga, Ontario. Synopsys needs access to research and innovation in this area to maintain its leadership position in the industry.