Sujoy Ghosh Hajra (ECE 0T8) never has to go far for inspiration. A systems analyst, he toils away at a lab for the National Research Council Canada’s Institute for Biodiagnostics (Atlantic).
The lab is located at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, where there is no shortage of the patients and their families who drive his passion.
You could be forgiven for wondering about the connection between a computer engineer and health care. But once you meet this 25-year-old research dynamo and hear what he’s been up to since he was wooed here as a recent University of Toronto computer engineering graduate in 2008, you’ll be grateful there is one.
Ghosh Hajra is a key member of the Canadian team responsible for a medical breakthrough — the world’s first virtual brain surgery.
In August 2009, when Halifax neurosurgeon David Clarke took out Ellen Wright’s benign brain tumour, he and the team were in familiar territory. Hours earlier, they had practised the same operation on her brain, without ever having made an incision, thanks to a virtual-reality neurological simulator.
Impossible? Not at all, in large part because Ghosh Hajra, working with others, had figured out a way to take pictures from scans like MRIs and turn them into realistic 3-D images. Those images showed surgeons the precise details they needed to plan and practise what they would do in the operating room.
“It’s very patient specific, not a generic brain the surgeon practises on,” Ghosh Hajra says. “In brain surgery, it’s a very important thing because everyone’s brain is slightly different.”
Steve Mosher’s ears take a beating at work: they actually hurt during particularly noisy moments, are ringing by the end of some shifts, and after 20-plus years on the job are now afflicted permanently with tinnitus.
Surprisingly, Mosher plays in the orchestra of the National Ballet, Canada’s premiere classical dance company, and his concerns about long-term hearing loss led to a novel study that has just been published by researchers at the University of Toronto.
Using 10 performances of Romeo and Juliet — the company’s highest-volume ballet — as their lab, the researchers documented the level of noise exposure experienced by every member of the 70-person ensemble.
The same team conducted a similar study earlier on the Canadian Opera Company orchestra, as the classical music world increasingly turns its attention to a workplace hazard more commonly associated with heavy industry, or at least the kind of music played in hockey arenas, not concert halls.
“It doesn’t matter what the nature of sound is, it is the sheer energy of sound that causes damage,” said Cheng Liang Qian, the doctoral student in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering who led the research. “Just having beautiful music around you all the time doesn’t protect your hearing.”
The University of Toronto team advised the musicians to lessen risk of hearing loss by being extra careful in other aspects of their lives.
Follow the link to read the full article on the National Post website.
Problem gamblers beware; the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.—which critics say hasn’t done enough to keep you out—plans to be up to the challenge this spring. OLG is set to unveil a new facial recognition program at all 27 of its gambling facilities in Ontario, which is being praised as a high roller in privacy protection.
“It’s the most privacy-protected system using biometric encryption in the world,” said Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s privacy commissioner, who approved the new system.
Beginning in May, each person who enters an Ontario casino will have their face digitally scanned by a camera; that image will be run through a database of more than 15,000 people with gambling problems who have voluntarily placed themselves on a banned list.
The system relies on bone structure and specific points on the face, such as the distance between one’s eyes, nose, and mouth. If the computer finds a match, security is notified. If not, the image is discarded, and gamblers may play away.
The privacy component of the new facial recognition system was designed by University of Toronto biometric engineers, led by Professor Kostas Plataniotis.
“Nothing like this exists for facial recognition,” says Karl Martin, one of the developers.
The team created a biometric encryption algorithm that ensures there is no permanent link between a biometric template of a person’s face and their private information.
“If the data is stolen or falls into the wrong hands, it’s essentially useless … a scrambled template,” Martin said.
Follow the link to read the full article on the Toronto Star website, or on the Toronto Sun website or MarketWatch blog.
Two companies in a bidding war for Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. and its massive iron ore property in Nunavut have extended their offer deadlines until later this month.
European steelmaker ArcelorMittal is competing with Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc. for control of Baffinland and its Mary River project, which contains more than 865 million tonnes of iron ore on northern Baffin Island.
Baffinland’s board of directors is supporting ArcelorMittal’s friendly bid, in which the company is offering $1.40 per share and seeks to acquire 100 per cent of Baffinland. It has extended its offer deadline until Jan. 21. Nunavut Iron, a subsidiary of the U.S. Energy and Minerals Group, has offered $1.45 per share cash for Baffinland in a hostile takeover bid. Its offer is open to acceptance until Jan. 25.
One of Baffinland’s northern shareholders, Nunavut businessman Kenn Harper, has said he wished he had purchased shares when they were less than 20 cents each.
Still, Harper said he will gain some money if either takeover bid succeeds, but he warned that not everyone will benefit. Harper said he is concerned that whoever buys Baffinland may mothball the Mary River project, instead of developing it right away and creating jobs for Nunavummiut.
But John Hadjigeorgiou, Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Chair in Mineral Engineering and Director of the Lassonde Mineral Engineering Program at the University of Toronto, said he does not believe the mining project will be shelved.
“There is a need, and one of the bids has been really set up in order to develop the operation, so I think they will go ahead,” Professor Hadjigeorgiou said.
The world’s three biggest iron ore suppliers decided last year to price their contracts on a quarterly basis rather than an annual one, making steel producers more vulnerable to sudden price changes.
InteraXon, a Canadian digital innovations company, was the hit of the recent Consumer Electronics Association tradeshow in Las Vegas this month when it unveiled the latest products incorporating Thought-Controlled Computing: a technology that lets users control a digital interface using simply the power of their concentration. InteraXon’s creations include thought-controlled 3D glasses as well as an iPad game that tests a person’s ability to focus their mind for an extended period of time.
“We’ve developed a simple sensor that sits on your forehead and reads your brainwaves,” InteraXon CEO Ariel Garten told FoxNews.com. “It’s just like a heart monitor that can read your heart rate. And the software translates your brainwave data and uses it to control your virtual world.”
InteraXon has also been working with Peter Carlen, a neurologist from Toronto Western Hospital, and Berj Bardakjian, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Toronto. They intend to develop BCI technology that can detect seizures in those suffering from epilepsy — and maybe even predict them, too. Carlen believes that the work is merely the tip of the iceberg in what will soon become an industry standard.
Follow the link to read the full article on the Fox News website.
Sudanese Canadians will be casting their ballots in the week-long referendum to decide if South Sudan will separate from the northern half of Sudan and become an independent country.
“The referendum is actually the livelihood of all of us here,” says Thon Simon Kuany, 27, a “Lost Boy” who is a fourth-year student in the Lassonde Mineral Engineering Program at the University of Toronto. “It’s something that sums up the history of Sudan.”
“I am going to be the first one through the door (of the polling station),” Kuany says with a grin. “Or if not first, definitely in the top 10!”
He hopes Sunday’s referendum will lead to an independent South Sudan in the wake of a decades-long civil war that forced them from their homes, claimed the lives of kinsmen and friends, and left them alone to rebuild their lives in Canada.
The Lost Boys became international poster children for the civil war in Sudan after thousands of orphans turned up in Kenya, naked and malnourished after trekking thousands of kilometres from Ethiopia.
Read the full article on the Toronto Star website.