Six members of the U of T Engineering community were honoured by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers and Professional Engineers Ontario at the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards Gala at the International Centre in Mississauga on Saturday, November 20. Professor Mansoor Barati (MSE) received the Young Engineer Medal; Professor Jeffrey Packer (CivE) received a Research and Development medal; Professor Andrew Goldenberg (MIE) and Professor Emeritus Joseph Paradi (ChemE) were both awarded Entrepreneurship Medals; and ELITE program instructor Stephen Armstrong and alumna Deborah Goodings (CivE 7T5) received Engineering Excellence Medals.
Presented since 1947, the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards recognize outstanding individuals for engineering excellence and community service.
Mansoor Barati’s research is focused on high temperature materials processing; specifically novel and advanced processes for extracting and refining metals and alloys with high performance at low cost. His work has the potential to create innovative solutions for energy efficiency, higher quality materials and environmentally responsible materials processing. He has supervised 16 undergraduate theses, seven master’s students and three doctoral students. His research has resulted in over 40 publications in leading technical journals and conference proceedings, two patent applications and invited presentations at several international meetings.
Jeffrey Packer’s 30-year research career on tubular steel structures has resulted in recognition as one of the world’s foremost experts in this field. He has published more than 200 refereed articles and 14 books, including the Design Guide for Hollow Structural Section Connections; the world’s most popular reference publication on all aspects of hollow section steel connections. Professor Packer is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the U.K. and the American Society of Civil Engineers, and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Nottingham, U.K. He holds a Bahen/Tanenbaum Endowed Chair.
As the Founder and Director of the Robotics & Automation Laboratory, Andrew Goldenberg’s research in robotics and automation has resulted in 33 patents, more than 125 peer-reviewed journal papers, more than 280 conference papers and 12 chapters in books. Professor Goldenberg is the founder and President of two successful spin-off companies; Engineering Services Inc., a high-technology company which develops robotics-based automation technologies and Anviv Mechatronics Inc., which is involved in the development of state-of-the-art mechatronics products. He is a Fellow of ASME, EIC, and IEEE.
Joseph Paradi is Chair in Information Engineering and Executive Director of UofT’s Centre for Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship (CMTE), which he founded. As a business leader, Professor Paradi founded or provided substantial guidance to 11 companies. As an educator, he has taught 13 undergraduate courses and five graduate courses on topics including entrepreneurship and technology management. Professor Paradi has supervised 13 PhD candidates, 42 MASc candidates, seven MEng candidates and 159 BASc theses. He is a Fellow of CAE and won a 2005 NSERC Synergy Award with the CMTE’s industrial sponsors.
Stephen Armstrong is founder and CEO of AMGI, an international strategic management consultancy. He is the author of Engineering and Product Development Management – The Holistic Approach, and has led many of the world’s top aerospace companies to successfully implement this system. His clients include deHavilland Aircraft, Lockheed Martin and Bombardier Aerospace. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, U.K. and currently serves as Vice-Chair of its International Strategy Board. Mr. Armstrong teaches the ELITE course “Management of Innovation in Engineering.”
Deborah Goodings is Dewberry Chair Professor and Chair of the Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering Department at George Mason University in Virginia. Her research in geotechnical engineering has focused on extreme geotechnics and the use of sustainable materials in soil stabilization. Her career accomplishments have been recognized with the U.S. Universities Council on Geotechnical Engineering Research Distinguished Service Award, and the creation in her honour of the Deborah J. Goodings Professorship in Engineering for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.
“For six members of our community to receive these prestigious awards is both an honour and a testament of the strength of our Faculty,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “I am grateful to OPSE and PEO for recognizing their outstanding contributions.”
There are conflicting theories on what caused a powerful blast that tore through a lounge in a busy Playa del Carmen resort on Nov. 14, killing seven people including five Canadians.
From the start, Mexico’s state prosecutor and local officials said trapped gases from a nearby swamp ignited and blew up. However, on Nov. 16, investigators said they had found a ruptured sewer pipe about 10 metres from the site of the blast at the 676-room Grand Riviera Princess resort. They added that it was too early to definitively state the cause of the explosion.
University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Olev Trass (ChemE) told CBC News that the swamp gas scenario was likely.
Swamp gas, also known as marsh gas or landfill gas, is a biogas that is produced when organic material like dead vegetation rots in an oxygen-starved environment such as a swamp, marsh or peat bog.
“It is fairly likely indeed because it can collect underneath the hotel,” Trass said. “As any vegetable matter decays under conditions [where no air is present], they generate methane gas and that has to go somewhere.
“Normally it would go out into the atmosphere and nobody would be bothered by it, and you might see the occasional little bubble coming through the water and nothing else. But if you block off that access to the atmosphere, then it builds up and it simply builds up pressure … all you needed was a tiny spark and the whole thing would go up.”
Follow the link to read the full article on the CBC News website.
Visiting a casino is a positive experience for most people — an outing in which the food and entertainment can be as much fun as the betting. But for some, gambling becomes an addiction that can ruin their lives.
ECE Professor Kostas Plataniotis and team have come up with a solution that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will use to help self-identified gambling addicts.
Tom Marinelli, Acting CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) and Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian released a white paper on November 12 announcing a major development in privacy-protective facial recognition technology.
This critical system, to be rolled out in 2011 at OLG gaming sites across the province, embeds a design protocol based on Privacy by Design, that will enable the OLG to better support its customers who have enrolled in a completely voluntary self-exclusion program, while protecting the data of all OLG customers.
Speaking at the Toronto CIO Executive Summit, Commissioner Cavoukian said, “This collaboration is based on the application of an emerging technology called Biometric Encryption — which enables both the functionality of the system and privacy to be strongly respected.”
Only when the live facial biometric of a self-excluded user is detected as present, will the system alert the OLG and “unlock” the necessary information, for security to do a manual check. No single key can unlock the complete database of enrolled persons.
“Facial recognition technology will enhance OLG’s current ability to spot self-excluded patrons who fail to stay away from gaming sites. This system helps to strengthen the deterrent for self-excluders to return to our gaming sites,” said OLG’s Marinelli.
“I congratulate our University of Toronto researchers for advancing the application of an emerging technology to produce a made-in-Ontario solution that has the potential to positively impact privacy worldwide,” said Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner.
“This Biometric Encryption-based technology will offer dramatically improved privacy protection over simple facial recognition, without compromising any functionality, security or performance — the hallmarks of a Privacy by Design application.”
The new system, developed in collaboration with Oakville, Ontario video surveillance and biometric firm iView Systems and University of Toronto researchers Professor Kostas Plataniotis and Dr. Karl Martin (ECE, PhD 1T0), is scheduled to be implemented by OLG in gaming sites across Ontario in 2011, starting with OLG Slots at Woodbine Racetrack.
Privacy by Design (PbD), a concept developed by Commissioner Cavoukian, prescribes that privacy be embedded directly into the design and operation, not only of various technologies, but also of business processes and networked infrastructure. Instead of treating privacy as an afterthought —”bolting it on after the fact”— PbD is proactive and preventative in nature. A landmark Resolution adopting PbD as an “essential component of fundamental privacy protection” was recently approved by the Council of International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Jerusalem at their annual conference this year.
A spin-off company formed by Professor Plataniotis and Dr. Karl Martin, KMKP Engineering, is currently commercializing this biometric encryption technology beyond face recognition to other modalities, such as iris and fingerprint recognition. KMKP Engineering has partnered with Medical and Research Sciences (MaRS) for this venture.
Read the story on the CBC News website.
A new study on automated external defibrillators finds that optimizing where they are placed may save more lives.
Professor Timothy Chan (MIE) at the University of Toronto used mathematical modelling techniques as he studied the placement of registered AEDs in Toronto and nearby Peel Region.
These were compared to actual locations where cardiac arrests occurred from January 2006 to November 2009.
There were 1,414 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, and 2,041 AEDs provided coverage within 100 metres for only 16 per cent.
Professor Chan says the average distance to the closest AED was 487 metres, and it would take about five minutes for a bystander to get to it, and then another five minutes to return to the patient.
Using the model, Professor Chan and his colleagues determined that the top five locations for extra AED placement would have covered an additional 51 cardiac arrests.
Brad Holland of the Heart and Stroke Foundation says the research is important in helping to understand how to improve survival for cardiac arrest patients.
The study was presented today at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago.
A sophisticated counterfeit TTC token obtained by CBC News underscores the challenges faced by the Toronto transit agency as it tries to deal with a problem that is costing it hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
The token, at first glance, looks virtually identical to a regular Toronto Transit Commission token. The two even weigh the same. But a closer examination carried out by the University of Toronto’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering yesterday revealed a number of differences.
A look through an electron microscope revealed that the top of the second “t” in Toronto appeared to be cut off; the ridges found on the outside edges of the fake token aren’t as clearly defined as those on real ones; and the spacing of the letters is not consistent.
Professor Zhirui Wang (MSE), who oversaw the analysis, said the inaccuracies in the lettering and the scratches were probably due to an inferior die used by the counterfeiter.
Professor Wang’s team was also able to determine the composition of the fake token and found that nickel, which is used in the real token to ensure durability, was virtually absent in the fake. Nickel is generally more expensive than metals like zinc or copper, found in abundance in the fake version.
Still, he estimates it may have cost up to $100,000 to produce these tokens, so counterfeiters would have to sell a lot to make a profit.
Follow the links to read the full cbc.ca article, including MSE’s analysis of the tokens, on the CBC News website, on Digital Journal, or to listen to the CBC Radio news report.
Eight Canadian universities have joined to provide graduate fellowships for top Indian students who wish to pursue a master’s or PhD degree in Canada.
The Globalink Canada-India Graduate Fellowship Program will provide up to 51 awards valued at over $3.5 million for Indian students participating in the MITACS Globalink program in 2010.
The MITACS Globalink program brings Indian undergraduate student to Canada for summer research internships. Participating students undertake a research project with a top Canadian faculty member while building connections with graduate students, researchers and companies.
“The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto looks forward to hosting some of India’s brightest young engineering minds,” said Professor Chris Damaren, Vice-Dean, Graduate Studies, University of Toronto. “This will contribute to our strong desire to educate global engineers.”