Innovative Projects Realized

Impacts of alternative performance environment in the development of a new opera

Hover is a new chamber opera by UBC DMA candidate (music composition) Benton Roark and UBC MFA alumnus (creative writing) Lindsay Cuff that explores different types of seemingly impossible travails that human bodies go through and their ways of coping. The importance of water is made evident by the action that is set in, on top of, and around an indoor pool. Water is used both as a symbol – in transitions of time, space, and consciousness – and as a substance with dramatic meaning – in a swimming lesson, water torture, and an incredible circus act involving a water tank. Locating this “stage” so particularly thus aims to intensify audience experience through a unique acoustic environment and a strong emphasis on physicality. Tapestry is dedicated to the development of new works that aim to surprise, thrill, and move audiences through innovative productions, contemporary themes, and a general re-examining of the operatic genre. With Hover, Tapestry will further its goals both in terms of artistic expression, and through its contribution to the contemporary operatic repertory.

Polytomous item response theory models in the creation of a personality computer adaptive test

The goal of the current proposal is to use Classical Test Theory and polytomous Item Response Theory models in order to revise a personality-based assessment and create a computer adaptive test of personality for the partner organization and to make recommendations for future personality researchers. The intern will plan and conduct a validation study using 1200 subjects. In addition to using Classical Test Theory to analyze the results of the validation study, he will compare the model fit of two commonly used polytomous item response theory models (the Graded Response Model and the Generalized Partial Credit Model). The comparison of fit, along with the similarities/differences in the information that these models provide, will be used to derive recommendations for future personality researchers making use of polytomous item response theory models.

Detection and quantification of organ toxicity biomarkers

In recent years, the interest given to disease biomarkers has boomed. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are exploring ways to use biomarkers to speed up the drug development process, as well as to rapidly assess  diseases state, staging, progression and response to therapy. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) Mass Spectrometry (MS) has been shown to be well suited for the selective and sensitive quantification of proteins in plasma and has recently emerged as the technology of choice for disease biomarker study. The focus of this research project is to develop a highly multiplexed MRM assay to quantitatively measure changes in organ-specific toxicity biomarkers and test their predictive value following drug-induced organ injury in rats. More specifically, this assay will be used to detect and quantify protein biomarkers associated with various organ toxicities such as hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cardiotoxicity as well as muscle, vascular and neurotoxicity in the rat urine and plasma. The internship will be very beneficial to Caprion Proteomics, the partner organization, as the developed method will be implemented into their existing MRM service platform and offered to pharmaceutical clients that wish to evaluate compound toxicity at the drug discovery pre-clinical phase.

Development of a carbon calculator for underground utility construction

Destructive effects of Green House Oas (OHO) emissions on the environment such as climate change and global warming are some oftoday’s major concerns. According to the “Environmental Protection Agency” (EPA) U.S 2010, construction is the third highest source ofOHO emission between other industrial sections. Underground utility construction projects are considered as one of the major areas of the construction projects. Also Underground infrastructure is aging across North America; hence rehabilitation or new installation of pipelines and facilities has become inevitable. 1bis raises the need to study the carbon emissions associated with different underground construction projects. Furthermore, a local based carbon calculator is required to be developed that would consider the site specifics, pipeline properties, equipment and specifications used in Edmonton for infrastructure construction projects. Hence, the objective of this project is to develop a user friendly carbon calculator, which helps designers to evaluate environmental impacts of each underground construction methods in the feasibility study phase.

Measuring and quantifying mobile user quality of experience

The objective of this research is to develop an on-device, quality of experience (QoE) measurement suite, for Android based mobile devices. As mobile devices become the predominant method with which the world accesses the internet, it becomes increasingly important to understand the complex interaction between applications, mobile OS’s, the networks they run on, and the behaviours of a user base at large. Doing so with mobile devices raises a set of issues that aren’t present with traditional PC’s, and as such haven’t been explored thoroughly. This process of understanding will facilitate maintaining, and improving upon, the end user’s derived value through their experience with their mobile device. The suite to be developed here, and the work that will go into developing it, will aide in evaluating the degree to which the aforementioned information can be collected, and how it can assist application developers and network providers in being able to qualitatively discern user QoE, and thereby improve it. In addition, this work will explore the engineering issues behind building this measurement suite, and will be done in participation with partner network service providers and application developers, to ensure the relevance to industry practices, and to the compare the potential improvements over existing practices.

Towards a utility framework for enterprise business intelligence mashups

The objective of this research project is to determine the efficacy of enterprise mashups in the realm of business intelligence. Based on a deliberation of enterprise and end-user requirements for BI Mashups technologies and services, this project aims to formulate a utility framework for enterprise BI Mashups. The framework is expected to advance an understanding of business process requirements that can be satisfied through the use of enterprise BI Mashups, and also aid in the development of mashup toolkits targeted at BI end-users. As IBM Cognos is one of the major providers of enterprise business intelligence and analytics technologies, there is significant interest within the company for further development of BI mashup tools and services. The research investigation outlined in this proposal aims to advance the knowledge base for enterprise BI Mashups by offering strategic insights and actionable guidelines that can improve the adoption of business intelligence technologies across the enterprise and enhance the end-user experience with mashup tools and applications for business analytics.

Evidence-based product support and the cultivation of a community of learners

While consumers adopt technological solutions based on their perceived usefulness, continued use of those products often depends on the support customers receive as they initially use the product, and when they run into problems or complex uses. Traditional support models (e.g., call centres) are often costly and only somewhat effective. The current proposal outlines research focused primarily on two issues; First, what is the best way to configure information within a support site to allow efficient and rich access to needed information and second, how can crowd-sourcing be best harnessed to create a community of learners that can provide immediate, complex and “human” support without requiring the typical costs. The experiments and “in vivo” research will be conducted within the context of two University of Toronto products licensed to Pearson Education Canada – peerScholar and Cogneeto – but the implications of the work are wide-reaching and timely.

Structural Improvement of the Catalyst Layers of PEM fuel cells

PEMFCs rely on carbon-supported catalysts to multiply the active catalytic surface area in the catalyst layers (CLs). The durability of such CLs is a crucial issue in PEMFCs development and commercialization. Despite its widespread use, the carbon black (CB) support undergoes electrochemical oxidation to surface oxides (also catalyzed by Pt) and eventually to CO2 at the cathode. As the support gets corroded away, Pt nanoparticules are lost from the electrode or aggregated to larger particles. One strategy is to use a carbon material with a higher graphitic content, such as the carbon nanostructures (CNS) that we have developed and studied for the past few years. Our results have shown that under accelerated corrosion conditions, for the same period of time by which Pt/CB lost 100% of its performance, Pt/CNS had only lost 23%. Our research proposal is in continuity with what we have accomplished so far and has three objectives: (1) A series of binary PtM alloys (M = Co, Cr, Mn, Mo) supported on CB have shown some enhancement in the kinetics of ORR by a factor of 3 to 5. Also, taking into account the cost consideration of Pt, we intend to study the performance and stability of PtM/CNS. The activity of the Pt alloy catalyzing the corrosion of carbon support compared with the activity of Pt metal, the rate of dissolution and agglomeration of PtM over long runs, the microstructure of Pt-bimetallic nanoparticules and ORR enhancement are some of the key areas that will be covered. (2) Another important aspect of our CNS is their enhanced micro porosity and higher pore volume. Other studies reported that carbon support with smaller pore sizes preferentially retains water in the gas phase and alleviates flooding within the cathode CL. A more detailed investigation of our CNS properties is necessary in order to induce favorable modifications in their pore geometry while retaining all the essential characteristics as a durable support. (3) Simulations with ordered CLs have shown that if the CL had a well defined structure alignment normal to the membrane, higher power densities could be achieved. Thus, our last objective is to impose a preferred orientation of Pt/CNS by application of a magnetic field while in ink form.

Interactive image segmentation for the diyorama mobile engine

Hololabs Studio Inc. is developing a mobile platform called Diyorama, which enables users to arrange images into interactive 3-D scenes with an aesthetic similar to paper craft and collage art. Users can include image from their photo libraries, social networks, or image search results in order to create customized playable scenes from existing content. The research project adds the ability to interactively extract foreground objects from unwanted background imagery in order to provide useful assets for building one’s scene. Computer vision techniques ranging from active contours to graph cut algorithms will be explored to see which is most effective for mobile platforms and user tests will be performed to ensure that the interaction is manageable in mobile environments, where small screens and multitouch input serve as the primary interface.

Next generation content development and management

As a globally recognized credit service provider, DBRS plans to implement a new project called next generation content development and management. DBRS expects to expand its current online service offering to the users by launching a series of mobile apps with sophisticated and analytical tools.

The advent of these applications will fundamentally create an interactive environment which allows user to dictate the way the information will be utilized. DBRS (partner organization) will test the market appetite for these new products and determining what commercial model will work best for DBRS and the user community. These applications will further enable DBRS to fulfill its promise of providing “insight beyond the rating” and expand the rating business globally.

Effect of novel iron chelators on cell growth inhibition by anti-mitotic drugs and irradiation

Iron is required for the growth of all animal cells, being necessary for the proper function of diverse enzyme systems and the expression of certain genes, as well as for the production of oxygen radicals that function as signal transduction intermediates and help defend against microorganisms.

Interestingly, preliminary findings indicate that both mouse and human cancer cells (used to model continuously growing animal cells) are more sensitive to iron withdrawal than are their normal counterparts, and are also able to discriminate between different iron-chelating agents. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that iron withdrawal (using novel iron-chelating agents developed by Chelation Partners Incorporated) will enhance the cytostatic and/or cytotoxic activity of other cell growth inhibitors, including anti-mitotic drugs and irradiation. New insights into the control of animal cell growth at the level of iron requirements will have important biotechnology and biomedical applications.

PET/MR imaging in lung cancer radiotherapy applications

Recently, a new whole-body PET/MRI scanner was developed and installed at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in London, Ontario and remains the only installation in Canada. Two major challenges concerning PET imaging include the need for correcting for loss of photons, called attenuation, due to interactions with patient tissues and the impact of respiratory induced organ/tumour motion during scanning. Corrections for attenuation are currently performed using X-ray CT.

We propose that MRI can also be used to create the attenuation map based on a predefined atlas. We aim to compare 3 atlas design strategies and compare the results with CT-based PET reconstructions. We also propose that respiratory motion can be performed during scanning by retrospectively reconstructing 4D-PET using list mode data and 4D-MRI using ultra-fast 2D MR sequences on multiple slices leading to a 3DPET/MRI scans at multiple phases of the respiratory cycle.