MEMS 411: In-Beach Pressure Sampler Design Report

Claudio would like a device to put into the beach sand, around nest-depth, tomeasure and record data that can determine pressure as waves crash and recede

Visualizing and Analyzing Fluid Flow through Porous Medium

This CI project aims to understand and visualize how fluid flows through various porous materials and how the mesoscopic material properties influence flow process. Porous material is ubiquitous in nature and engineering and appears in many forms including sands, foams, and shredded tires. Understanding how fluid flows through various porous materials has important engineering implications. One example application that motivates this project is contaminant transport problem in porous materials: if there is an oil leakage from underground pipe line or if there is polluted underground water, how and where will the contaminate moves within the soil mass and what measures could be taken to guide and/or stop the flow contaminates. In this project, student will design and construct simple experimental devices to visualize and analyze flow process through various porous materials (geological materials such as soil, and man-made materials such as glass beads). Students will also have opportunities to learn basic theory behind the physical phenomenon and use computer tools (such as Matlab) to model and assist in understanding such process

Block Ionomer Complexes Consisting of siRNA and \u3ci\u3ea\u3c/i\u3eRAFT-Synthesized Hydrophilic-\u3ci\u3eBlock\u3c/i\u3e-Cationic Copolymers II: The Influence of Cationic Block Charge Density on Gene Suppression

Block ionomer complex (BIC)–siRNA interactions and effectiveness in cell transfection are reported. Aqueous RAFT polymerization was used to prepare a series of hydrophilic-block-cationic copolymers in which the cationic block statistically incorporates increasing amounts of neutral, hydrophilic monomer such that the number of cationic groups remains unchanged but the cationic charge density is diluted along the polymer backbone. Reduced charge density decreases the electrostatic binding strength between copolymers and siRNA with the goal of improving siRNA release after targeted cellular delivery. However, lower binding strength resulted in decreased transfection and RNA interference pathway activation, leading to reduced gene knockdown. Enzymatic siRNA degradation studies with BICs indicated lowered binding strength increases susceptibility to RNases, which is the likely cause for poor gene knockdown

The CNDR: Collaborating to translate new therapies for Canadians

Background: Patient registries represent an important method of organizing real world patient information for clinical and research purposes. Registries can facilitate clinical trial planning and recruitment and are particularly useful in this regard for uncommon and rare diseases. Neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) are individually rare but in aggregate have a significant prevalence. In Canada, information on NMDs is lacking. Barriers to performing Canadian multicentre NMD research exist which can be overcome by a comprehensive and collaborative NMD registry. Methods: We describe the objectives, design, feasibility and initial recruitment results for the Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR). Results: The CNDR is a clinic-based registry which launched nationally in June 2011, incorporates paediatric and adult neuromuscular clinics in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and, as of December 2012, has recruited 1161 patients from 12 provinces and territories. Complete medical datasets have been captured on 460 index disease patients. Another 618 non-index patients have been recruited with capture of physician-confirmed diagnosis and contact information. We have demonstrated the feasibility of blended clinic and central office-based recruitment. Index disease patients recruited at the time of writing include 253 with Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy, 161 with myotonic dystrophy, and 71 with ALS. Conclusions: The CNDR is a new nationwide registry of patients with NMDs that represents an important advance in Canadian neuromuscular disease research capacity. It provides an innovative platform for organizing patient information to facilitate clinical research and to expedite translation of recent laboratory findings into human studies

Student engagement and institutional assessment: Current trends and future possibilities

With the National Survey of Student Engagement marking its 20th year, we invite participants to explore the trends and possibilities of engagement as a lens for examining institutional quality. This session, conducted as a research town hall, will focus on three broad areas: 1. Changing demographics—What are the emerging demographics on your campus? How will new kinds of students challenge and shape what we know about engagement? 2. Developments in teaching and learning—Do current measures of engagement adequately cover what is essential to the improvement of student learning? What new forms of engagement should we assess? 3. Approaches to assessment—What trends should a large-scale survey assessment project consider over the next decade to facilitate evidence-informed improvement? After briefly introducing each topic, the presenters will facilitate an active discussion with participants about the trends and possibilities at their institutions and in higher education overall

Computational steering of a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for engineering design

The execution process of an evolutionary algorithm typically involves some trial and error. This is due to the difficulty in setting the initial parameters of the algorithm—especially when little is known about the problem domain. This problem is magnified when applied to many-objective optimisation, as care is needed to ensure that the final population of candidate solutions is representative of the trade-off surface. We propose a computational steering system that allows the engineer to interact with the optimisation routine during execution. This interaction can be as simple as monitoring the values of some parameters during the execution process, or could involve altering those parameters to influence the quality of the solutions produced by the optimisation process. The implementation of this steering system should provide the ability to tailor the client to the hardware available, for example providing a lightweight steering and visualisation client for use on a PDA

Mechanical Activation of Al-Oxyhydroxide Minerals – Physicochemical Changes, Reactivity and Relevance to Bayer Process

Overview of our research on ‘structure and reactivity’ of gibbsite and boehmite under varied conditions of mechanical activation, e.g. milling energy and presence of a second phase is presented. Bulk and surface changes induced in the solids by milling are characterized in terms of morphology, particle size distribution, specific surface area and nature of porosity, crystallite size and zeta potential. Results on enhanced amorphisation of gibbsite in presence of a second phase (quartz, hematite etc), changes in zeta potential of gibbsite due to loss of texture during milling and anomalous decrease in surface area of boehmite during milling are reported. Reactivity of the activated solids in sodium hydroxide and variation in thermal transformation temperatures is correlated with physicochemical characteristics of the samples and plausible explanation for the observed correlations presented. Significance of the results with specific reference to bauxite and alumina processing in Bayer process is highlighted