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.”
Four dozen girls, largely from Toronto’s inner-city Regent Park neighbourhood, converged on Google Canada’s Toronto offices in early November to see its innovative architecture and design, and engage in a “design challenge” with the help of U of T Engineering undergraduate students.
The participating girls, from Grades 7 to 10, came from U of T Engineering’s Girls’ Science & Engineering Saturday Program, and from the United Way’s Pathways to Education program.
The event was initiated by Google Canada, and U of T Engineering was very pleased to be contacted about it, said Dawn Britton, Associate Director of the Student Outreach Office.
“It’s really important for industry partners such as Google to [show] girls there are careers available to them in technology and engineering,” Britton said, adding that these types of events and experiences are exciting for all involved.
The evening began with an introduction to Google’s mission and values, and a tour of Google Toronto’s new offices. Google’s two key workplace values are healthy lifestyles and environmental friendliness, said a Google representative, which was evident in the design of the office: from the polished concrete floors to the inexpensive timberstand walling to the galvanized steel wall frames, and reclaimed seats from the old Montreal Forum.
Meeting rooms were named after cities and parks in Eastern and Western Canada, with a shower room (for employees needing to shower after bicycling to work) named “Niagara Falls.” Google has also partnered with Bullfrog for its energy needs in order to create a net zero carbon footprint, the girls were told.
Later the students were given a “digital quotient quiz” gauging their technology use and proficiency (Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, a rep said), with questions ranging from whether respondents had more than one e-address to whether they had used an “app” or played a game online in the past week.
The design challenge involved building freestanding structures out of drinking straws (three survived, though only two perfectly upright). A pizza supper and a presentation on Google’s products concluded the evening.
Maymouna Mohamed, a Grade 10 student at Jarvis Collegiate, scored 100% on the digital quotient quiz and appreciated the tour (“This office is wicked!”) and the information segment (“I didn’t know half the stuff that was presented”).
Does Maymouna think she might consider a career in engineering? Technology is “what I do all the time,” she responded. “Engineering sounds good,” especially from “what I’ve seen and learned today.”