Innovative Projects Realized

Rogers “Innovation Pitch”

To take an innovative look at issues facing Rogers hockey coverage, community outreach and engagement and opportunities for value creation by reaching new hockey audiences. The goal will be to connect with and develop students across the country who are interested in sports media and business. At the same time, to also develop important thought leadership on the challenges and opportunities facing Rogers as it enters into the groundbreaking hockey media rights deal starting in 2014.

Outcome and Resource Use of Patients with Primary Liver Cancer

Primary liver cancer (PLC) is one of the fastest growing cancer in Canada and is a heavy global burden. To efficiently allocate the health care resource to the patients with PLC, outcome and cost analysis of the patients with PLC may be a right direction. In order to obtain enough information to accurately assess the status of patients with PLC, this proposed study will take advantages of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data. EHR data is the original health care records of detailed information of patients during their hospitalization including not only the administrative information but also laboratory and radiological test results, death record, detailed cost information, detailed present and past illness, pathology diagnosis, records of use of medication etc. This work is unique and challenging because of extracting clinical data from EHR. This work is not only building foundation for analyzing large EHR and also generates robust models for predicting outcomes.

Multivariate statistical algorithms for optimal signal quality in simultaneous EEG-fMRI

When EEG is recorded inside an MRI scanner, the MRI equipment causes extra signals to show up in the EEG data. This is a bit like trying to understand someone’s voice when they’re using a microphone that’s creating static and loud feedback. You would need computer software to separate the two sounds. In studies measuring EEG in an MRI scanner, we have the challenge of distinguishing between the part of the EEG caused by the brain and the part of the EEG caused by the scanner. We propose to use our mathematical expertise to find the most effective way of distinguishing between these two parts of the EEG data. Our mathematical protocols will be specialized for the extra signals created by a GE Discovery MR750 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner.

Novaxe: Novel Online System for Guitar Music Score Recognition, Retrieval, Presentation, and Animation

This project is going to digitalize a patented method of presenting the guitar tablature and build an online system to assist guitar teaching. The new method can present the guitar tablature with 8 building clocks. People can easily learn the chores of thousands of songs, which is impossible with the other methods. The system is called Novaxe. Novaxe is going to have a graph screen to display the fretboard with the information about the chord progression, rhythm pattern, tempo, key, `position`, song form, chord form, title, artist, year, and genre of a song. The fretboard contains the map of the scale notes as diamonds, and temporary chord tones as circles underneath. There are several difficulties in this project. First, the search function needs some sophisticated algorithm to search for songs in the library. Detecting of the music patterns is not an easy task and there is no 100% accuracy as there are different interpretations of music patterns. Second, the animation required on the user interface is complicated. And all the animation needs to be implemented by JavaScript. Third, the storage of the songs is unique than the business logic we are used to in database-design

Taking SickKids Mobile

Effect of influenza vaccination with high-dose antigen on geriatric population

Vaccination is an important preventive measure against influenza infection during both seasonal epidemics and pandemic outbreaks. This research aims to evaluate the health benefits and costs associated with a new vaccine developed by Sanofi for seasonal influenza. This vaccine provides better efficacy and higher protection for individuals over 65 years of age. The vaccine is expected to reduce severe illness and hospitalization in this age group. We apply an important methodology, namely mathematical and computational techniques, to determine the effectiveness and costsbenefits of vaccination. The results will be used to determine whether the use of this vaccine for nursing homes would be beneficial, given that the costs of producing this new vaccine is higher than the standard seasonal vaccines. The outcomes will inform vaccination policies and improve practices for reducing the burden of influenza infection in the geriatric population.

A mixed-methods project investigating HerSwab™ and arts-based education as integral components of culturally acceptable cervical screening in Northwest Ontario First Nations communities

Specific strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) can develop into cervical cancer. Screening for these types of HPV has been shown as a better early test for cervical cancer. Samples for HPV testing can also be collected by women without going into a clinic. This selftesting method may be a good cervical screening option for women who might not participate otherwise. Certain cultural groups, such as First Nations women, are less likely to participate in cervical screening than the general population. As a result, First Nations women have more diagnoses and deaths from cervical cancer. HerSwab™ is a tool that makes self-testing for cervical cancer easier to understand and less intimidating. In this research project, we will see if First Nations women are more likely to participate in HPV self-testing with HerSwab™ compared to other methods. We will also learn the best ways to communicate information about HPV testing. With this project, we can see how to bring HerSwab™ into more general use.

Automatic Musical Classification for Intelligent Audio Tools

Evaluating the impact of workplace indoor environmental quality on employee comfort and wellness

Steering the Innovation Process: Accelerating Ideas to Impact in Water Treatment – Conclusion

Demand for water and wastewater treatment has grown substantially in recent years, leading to a increased need for innovative technology. To remain a global leader in UV-based treatment technology, Trojan must continue to innovate through its intesive research and development program. One of Trojan’s distinguishing features has been the rigorous analysis and testing that our products undergo during design, development and validation. Trojan uses cutting-edge tools for modeling fluid flow, UV raidiation distribution, as well as biological and chemical kinetics to predict reactor performance. Trojan also performs extensive physical testing to validate integrated CFD-opticalkinetic models used during product development to optimize design and to validate completed designs. This proposal aims to complete the goals of our original proposal: defining a holistic Innovation Process Roadmap for accelerating the innovation process and engraining it within the organization through disciplined implementation.

Large Scale Airline Crew Scheduling

In the airline industry, crew planning is an essential task that every airline will face. Flight crew expenses constitute the second largest operating cost (Kohl and Karisch. 2004), second only to the rising cost of fuel. Crew planning refers to the assignment of flight segments to pilots and flight attendants so that they start and end at their base city, do not work more than the allowed time, etc. Because crew planning has a significant economic impact on the financial wellbeing of an airline, even small percentage improvements can easily translates into large cost savings, especially in nowadays’ highly competitive aviation industry with many low-fare carriers and thin profit margins. Given the numbers of flights and flight attendants, optimizing such an operation for an airline is daunting task. Navtech is a Waterloo-based company that specializes in helping airlines perform this complex operation. The current project will explore more advanced ways to improve the current solution platform they provide.

Statistical advancements in the analysis of migratory movements using a novel broad-scale automated radio-telemetry array.

Partnerships among researchers and corporations are continually pushing the advancement of animal tracking technology, allowing smaller animals to be tracked for longer periods, over greater spatial scales, and at finer scale spatial resolutions. Yet the statistical analyses of these data is lagging behind. Using a novel, state-of-the-art network of 57 automated telemetry arrays distributed across southern Ontario, we will develop statistical methodologies to quantify the migratory movements of birds. We will first estimate error around the estimated location of individual detections, and then incorporate observation error into Bayesian state-space models to quantify effects of sex, age, species and environmental variability on the direction, speed, and habitat use of migratory birds. Working together with Bird Studies Canada and Lotek Wireless Inc, this project will generate new information and new methodologies to inform ecologically sound wildlife management, policy and regulatory decisions. For example, it could help to guide the placement of wind turbines to minimize disturbance to migratory animals. All analytical and online visualization tools developed will be open-source and freely-available, which could lead to more users and the continued development and broader application of Lotek’s coded tag technology.