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	<title><![CDATA[InnovationCanada.ca » Showcasing Research Excellence in Canada]]></title>
	<description></description>
	<link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca</link>
	<language>en</language>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:07:25 -0500</lastBuildDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Safety haven]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[If Canadian postal workers were to design the perfect winter boot, it would help them avoid slipping on icy walkways, stop them from missing their truck brakes while driving and keep them from getting their crampon spikes stuck in wooden porches.If the hearing impaired were looking for a hearing aid that would help them easily cross busy streets, it would respond to rapidly changing weather, traffic and visual conditions. And if seniors were struggling with mobility problems, they would look for stairway configurations that would help them safely and efficiently get to the next level. Researchers at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (Toronto Rehab) now have a facility to tackle all these problems. The Challenging Environmental Assessment Lab (CEAL) opened in November as part of the new $36 million iDAPT Centre for Rehabilitation Research. iDAPT, which received more than $13 million in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, is the most technologically advanced rehabilitation...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/safety-haven</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Small tools, big impact]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Cancer, heart disease and stroke are leading causes of death among Canadians. As a medical doctor, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and a Canada Research Chair in Bioengineering and Biophotonics, Victor Yang has a unique perspective on these deadly diseases. Based at Ryerson University, Yang also has surgical training and works with neurosurgeons in several teaching hospitals. As a result, he understands how the smallest, most precise tools can bring about huge changes in a patient’s treatment and health. Yang has two research interests: developing new techniques to image the human body and devising novel tools for minimally invasive procedures. Both areas rely on his expertise in an emerging medical-imaging technology: Doppler optical coherence tomography (DOCT). Using minuscule optical fibres, DOCT creates detailed 3-D images of the tiniest structures and movements within the body. When looking at delicate and small anatomical features, DOCT is more...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/small-tools-big-impact</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Innovative, naturally]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Last year, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) launched the Emerging Science Journalists Award (ESJA). The award was created to support Canada’s talented young science writers. Below is one of the winning entries by Roslyn Dakin, doctoral candidate in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University. In her piece, Dakin provides some examples of research success stories from the CFI-funded Queen’s University Biological Station. Before Adrienne had a chance to swat at the wasp on her shoulder, a dragonfly swooped in to pluck it away. “Welcome to the food chain,” quipped Scott Colborne from the stern of the boat. At the Queen’s University Biological Station, the student researchers from the University of Western Ontario head out on Lake Opinicon twice daily to monitor the bluegill sunfish colonies that dot the shoreline. For his PhD research with Dr. Bryan Neff, Scott is looking for evidence that the colonies in the Rideau Waterway are segregated...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/innovative-naturally</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[A very gourd idea]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[It’s been known for years that plants can take up and store trace amounts of hazardous metals like nickel, arsenic and cadmium from contaminated soil in a process called phytoremediation. Until recently, however, scientists assumed that plants weren’t capable of taking up a class of toxic chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants, which include carcinogenic substances such as the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) used in electrical transformers and the widely banned pesticide DDT. Because plants feed by taking up water-borne nutrients — and nutrient-mimicking metals — through their roots, experts figured that water-repelling PCB molecules lacked the critical transport mechanism to carry them into the plant. Barbara Zeeb, a biologist and Canada Research Chair in Biotechnologies and the Environment at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., is disproving that assumption. During a soil-cleanup project at an abandoned military site in Northern...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Fri, 28 Oct 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/a-very-gourd-idea</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Johne’s happens]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Trudging through a dairy farm to collect manure samples isn’t exactly glamorous work, but the odorous task is starting to have a big impact on the health of dairy cattle in Atlantic Canada — and it will save the dairy industry millions of dollars each year. Technicians at the University of Prince Edward Island’s (UPEI) Atlantic Veterinary College began collecting these samples this past spring as part of a new study designed to understand and eliminate an insidious disease that affects cattle throughout North America — Johne’s (pronounced YO-neez) disease. Cows suffering from Johne’s do not display many symptoms, so it is hard to detect and diagnose. While generally not fatal, the disease affects the amount of milk cows produce and, as a result, the bottom line of farming operations. Greg Keefe, professor of dairy health management at UPEI, is spearheading the Atlantic Johne’s Disease Initiative (AJDI), which employs a battery of state-of-the-art...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/johne-s-happens</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Gait crasher]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[For most people, walking is as natural as breathing. But for those with mobility issues, it can be extremely challenging, even impossible. That’s where University of New Brunswick (UNB) kinesiologist Vicky Chester comes in. Specializing in clinical gait analysis — the study of the mechanics of abnormal walking patterns — Chester is increasing our understanding of movement disorders.For nearly a decade, Chester has been donating her time and using equipment funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to help children with cerebral palsy. While working at the Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation (SCCR) in Fredericton, she saw kids struggling to walk across the room. “This affected me deeply,” she says. “It seemed unfair that they could not run and play and have a typical childhood.” Chester collaborated with the SCCR to develop a process for monitoring, analyzing and interpreting kids’ movements at UNB’s Andrew and Marjorie...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/gait-crasher</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Better wine, one yeast cell at a time]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Hennie J. J. van Vuuren is among the 30 percent of adults around the world who exhibit allergic reactions to young red wines — something that has inspired the University of British Columbia (UBC) wine biotechnologist to create a new yeast strain capable of eliminating the allergens altogether. “A huge number of people who love wine cannot drink it because they get severe headaches,” says van Vuuren, a South African native who founded UBC’s Wine Research Centre in 1999. “So I thought, how could I get rid of this problem?” The solution took 15 years — seven for research and eight for testing. During that time, van Vuuren inserted a gene from the bacterium that converts malic acid to lactic acid into the Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast. The result has been the creation of “ML01,” a genetically modified yeast strain that not only eliminates the molecules that cause the headaches but also vastly simplifies the production process for...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/better-wine-one-yeast-cell-at-a-time</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Micro view; macro applications]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[It’s been used for everything from examining bacteria and how rare earth minerals have developed over millions of years to creating vibrant visual images for improvisational musical performances. The versatile environmental scanning electron microscope (SEM), a $1.2 million piece of machinery funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, is housed at the University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER). This extraordinary microscope is being used by researchers from across campus and in the community. One of only four of its kind in Canada, the SEM employs beams of electrons to scan samples and magnify them up to 200,000 times. The resulting visuals offer unique insights into the structure and composition of materials, an invaluable aid to researchers trying to solve a range of complex problems.  Researchers in automotive and materials engineering, for instance, have used the SEM to study aluminum-silicon alloys for lightweight engines. The...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/micro-view-macro-applications</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[The right step FORWARD]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Canada is a country built on its logging and mining resources. Until fairly recently, however, there has been little information available to explain how these activities have affected the health of soils, rivers and streams in Canada’s Boreal Plain, a resource-rich region that blankets the upper half of the three Prairie provinces.  Ellie Prepas, a professor in the department of natural resource management at Lakehead University and Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Water Management, is working to change that. Working with government agencies, forest and energy companies and aboriginal groups, Prepas and her student research teams collect data and develop models that help forecast the impact of fires and tree harvesting on forest soils, biodiversity and water. “Forestry gives us an excellent opportunity to see what forest alterations do to water quality and water quantity,” says Prepas. “It allows us to develop simple tools that can be used to make projections...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/the-right-step-forward</link>
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    <title><![CDATA[Tele-coaching]]></title>
    <description><![CDATA[Children in Nova Scotia who suffer from disruptive behaviour, anxiety disorders or other moderate mental health issues often fail to receive timely access to psychological care. It can take up to a year to see a psychologist for treatment. Dalhousie University psychologist Patrick McGrath is developing a tele-medicine-style solution to help these children and their parents cope. McGrath, Vice President, Research, at IWK Health Centre in Halifax, and his colleagues studied whether non-professional “coaches” talking to parents over the phone would significantly reduce the proportion of children with symptoms of disruptive behaviour or anxiety disorders compared to those receiving usual care. It did. A grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funded the initial development of software for running the original trials. “The funding was critical to developing the system of care that we now are using,” says McGrath. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research...]]></description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
    <link>http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/tele-coaching</link>
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