The Virtual Music Instrument, a specialized software program Eric Wan (ECE 1T0) played a role in helping to develop, is among several projects the computer engineering graduate has been involved with aimed at helping children with disabilities. The work is being done at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, the largest facility of its kind in Canada.
Unlike many of his peers, Wan has a true understanding of the importance and need for such technologies to assist youngsters with disabilities. At age 18, he was diagnosed with transverse myelitis — a condition resulting from inflammation of the spinal cord — four days after getting a measles vaccination.
In the midst of his studies at the University of Toronto, Wan met Professor Tom Chau (IBBME), senior scientist at Bloorview Research Institute located at Holland Bloorview. The pair was connected through a respiratory therapist Wan had worked with while in long-term rehab.
Wan was brought on board as an undergrad to work with the Paediatric Rehabilitation Intelligent Systems Multidisciplinary lab, which focuses its efforts on children and youth with disabilities and special needs and on their families, by drawing on applied science and engineering.
“It was really interesting applying my skills in making software or electronic gadgets that enabled people to be able to do more, and so to improve their quality of life,” said Wan, who had a long-held interest in computer programming, learning the basic type of programming languages at age eight.
Follow the link to read the article on the Toronto Star website.
Engineering at U of T emerged a winner on Thursday when its researchers received several funding awards from Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation.
No fewer than four Engineering faculty members received Early Researcher Awards (ERA), which provide significant financial support to emerging leading researchers to build their research teams.
Mansoor Barati (MSE) received an award for his novel approach to energy recovery from slag, turning waste heat from metal production into an energy source. Metal manufacturing produces a high-temperature liquid waste, known as slag, which must be cooled in the air or in water, releasing a vast amount of heat in the process. Professor Barati is investigating a new approach for harnessing the energy of the waste heat. Energy recovery from slag presents a tremendous potential for both energy savings and carbon dioxide emission reduction.
Philippe Lavoie (UTIAS) took an award for his research on reducing harmful emissions from aircraft through active flow control. His work will seek more effective ways to control the flow of air over civil aircraft by manipulating the dynamics of airflow around airplanes to produce improved flow characteristics that can reduce drag, structural vibration, noise and harmful emissions. His findings hold great potential for reducing the environmental impact and cost of operating airplanes.
Matthew J. Roorda (CivE) received an award to support his research using global-positioning system data to develop models of commercial vehicle operations in urban areas. This research intends to provide policy makers with better decision-support tools to analyze and predict the impact of public sector decisions on the freight transportation network. This research could provide policy makers with better tools to analyze and predict the impact of public sector decisions on the transportation network, leading to more responsive and effective solutions.
Lidan You (MIE) hopes to one day grow living replacement bone tissue that could treat osteoporosis-related fractures, which affect more women in Canada than breast and ovarian cancer combined. Her Early Researcher Award will support her work on rational mechanobiological-based design of tissue-engineered bone by first establishing what a “healthy bone cell” is, then testing different biomaterials for their ability to direct adult stem cells to become bone cells.
Engineering researchers also received several Ontario Research Fund-Research Infrastructure (ORF-RI) program awards.
Dionne Aleman (MIE) will study high-performance computing infrastructure for large-scale healthcare optimization; using mathematical modelling, Professor Aleman’s goal is to ensure that Ontario’s health care system delivers medical care as accurately as possible through quantitative analysis.
Tom Chau (IBBME) will further his work in helping severely disabled children interact with other people and their environment. Working in the Paediatric Rehabilitation Intelligent Systems Multidisciplinary (PRISM) Lab, Professor Chau is studying body signals with the goal of equipping the children with the tools they need to direct their own care.
Craig Steeves (UTIAS) will develop lightweight materials for the aerospace industry which can reduce environmental effects and minimize damage from fatigue and impact. Professor Steeves’ work could give the aerospace industry a significant advantage over its competitors, and has important applications for other transportation industries including auto and rail.
“We are delighted that the hard work and outstanding research of our faculty members have been acknowledged through these prestigious awards,” said ProfessorStewart Aitchison, Engineering’s Vice-Dean of Research.
The University of Toronto will receive $4.2 million through ORF-RI to support 25 projects and the work of 29 principal investigators (PIs), and $2.5 million through ERA to support 18 projects and the work of 18 PIs.
Follow the links to learn more about the ORF-RI program and to read the story on the U of T website.
The science fiction of melding man and machine has played out for decades onscreen, from The Six Million Dollar Man to The Terminator. But the bionic hybrid age may well be flickering to life – real life – in the Calgary lab where scientists who made history fusing snail brain cells to a computer microchip six years ago are poised to try the same feat with human cells.
Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE, IBBME), a biomedical researcher at the University of Toronto who holds the Canada research chair in tissue engineering, described a “growing momentum” in the bio-engineering field as collaboration increases between engineers, biologists, and surgeon scientists.
In this case, Professor Shoichet said the Calgary researchers “have made a strong case for what they achieved,” recording the activity of neurons. But she cautioned that the new paper involved only a small sample size of neurochip recordings, and these, she noted, were not based on mammalian brain cells, but mollusc neurons.
Follow the link to read the full article on The Globe and Mail website.
A fish-shape musical instrument that spouts water jets into which users dip their fingers is being hailed as an example of a new user interface. The instrument, called a hydraulophone, involves putting your fingers on tiny water jets and producing a soothing, organ-like music.
“What we really do with these kind of interfaces is make them as addictive as possible, and to do that we have to find a way you can exert your own influence on a system,” Professor Steve Mann of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering told attendees at the Singularity Conference in San Francisco last weekend. “It can be a very absorbing experience.”
Professor Mann has been billed as the world’s first cyborg. For about 30 years now he has been wearing some sort of wearable computing device, including an Eyetap, a pair of glasses that allows the eye to function as a camera, as well as digital systems monitoring his heart and brain. These devices are part of a world he calls computer-mediated reality.
Follow the link to read the full article on Wired.com.
Engineering at the University of Toronto has held onto its 19th-place position for the second year in a row in the 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). It remains the premier institution in Canada for the fourth consecutive year.
ARWU is a well-regarded ranking of research universities around the world based on internationally comparable third-party quantitative data. The highest scoring institution is assigned a total score of 100, and other institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top total score. The scores are then placed in descending order.
The Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences ranking is based on institutions’ scores in the following four indicators, each with a 25% weighting: highly cited research (HiCi); published articles in the field (PUB); percentage of articles published in the top 20% of journals in the field (TOP); and Engineering research expenditure (FUND). U of T Engineering ranks #1 in all four categories within Canada.
Click here to see a closer analysis of the university rankings.
U of T was the only Canadian university to place among the top 50 in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences in the 2010 rankings. McGill University, which had ranked #49 last year, slipped out of the top 50 grouping this year.
U of T Engineering continues to rank #1 in Canada in all international surveys.
Follow the link to see the full rankings for Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences on the Academic Ranking of World Universities website.
“Murphy’s Law: his eyelids aren’t working today.”
Professor Goldie Nejat (MIE) fusses over Brian’s facial features, adjusting his pliable, rubbery skin, pushing it up over his eyeballs. Dr. Nejat, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, is used to machines: she became an anatomy expert just to create Brian, to help him appear human. Still, the motors that control his face don’t always co-operate.
Brian is a socially interactive robot, a prototype in development at U of T’s autonomous systems and biomechatronics lab. The 4-foot-6, 200-pound machine may one day assist the elderly in long-term care by interacting with residents, playing games and reminding those with cognitive impairments to do daily tasks, such as brushing their teeth. The Baycrest health-sciences centre in Toronto is already a partner in the project.
With projections showing that seniors will account for 23 to 25 per cent of the total population by 2036, nearly double the 13.9 per cent in 2009, Brian could take the strain off health-care workers in hospitals and live-in facilities and, ideally, help seniors stay in their own homes longer by monitoring the environment and providing assistance along with human health professionals.
Professor Nejat has no intention of replacing humans, describing her work as a “robot-human team.”
Follow the links to read the full article on The Globe and Mail website, or to view the video and interview with Professor Nejat on the IT World Canada website.