engineering - advanced micro-/nano- devices lab at the university

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THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2012 SECTION V

EMPLOYERSBEST GTA ENGINEERING

INNOVATIONS

End run oncensorshipGiving Syriansweb access, V3

John Tze Wei Yeow is a hard man to find. Try to talk to himand he’s in Taiwan. Try to reach him by email and he’stravelling in Asia.

It’s been that way his whole life: kindergarten in Malaysia,primary school in Scotland, junior high in Taiwan, high schoolin South Africa, and university in Canada.

So if anybody could find a way to track down elusive organ-isms, no matter how difficult they are to locate, it’s probablyYeow, a 37-year-old systems design engineering professor atthe University of Waterloo, and the first Canada chair in microand nanodevices.

One of Yeow’s main research interestsis inventing and developing tools to lo-cate, examine and target micro-organ-isms lurking inside the human body,and to provide unprecedented accessinto its cavities.

He does this, he says, by designing de-vices that are “smaller, more portable,more power-efficient, more sensitive,and potentially longer-lasting.”

One of the most important achieve-ments for Yeow and his team at Water-loo’s department of systems design en-gineering is a miniaturized catheter thatcan make its way through the humanbody and provide medical practitionerswith precise internal body imaging.

“Having a high-performance catheterdevice — smaller, (with a) larger field-of-

DISEASE DETECTION

Thinking

Bigin micro science

Magnified: Chips are used in John Yeow’s research into a smaller, better catheter. GLENN LOWSON FOR TORONTO STAR

Elusive engineering professorpioneers better internal body-imagingJUDY GERSTELSPECIAL TO THE STAR

“Nanotech-nology willhave a hugeimpact onour dailylives in the future.”JOHN TZE WEIYEOWUNIVERSITY OFWATERLOO

NANOTECH continued on V6

It looks no more complex than asupermarket scanner. But the por-table lab device created by graduateresearchers at the University of To-ronto could radically change thetreatment of HIV, by offering bloodtesting on the spot and producingresults within minutes.

A team led by PhD candidateJames Dou and his supervisor Stew-art Aitchison, vice-dean of researchin the faculty of applied science andengineering, is developing a hand-held tool for monitoring t-cells inHIV patients.

Field-testing the “lab-on-a-chip”could begin in local hospitals as ear-ly as this summer.

“We’re targeting a global chal-lenge,” Dou says.

HIV weakens the body’s immunesystem by destroying CD4 cells, agroup of white blood cells that fightoff bacteria, and leaves the patientvulnerable to infection.

A crucial part of HIV treatment ismonitoring the number of CD4 cellsin the blood and administering anti-retroviral medication as those num-bers drop.

The World Health Organizationrecommends twice-yearly bloodtests for those who are HIV-positive.In Canada, tests are conductedquarterly.

The current gold standard for CD4testing is a machine roughly the sizeof a photocopier called the flow cy-tometer, Dou says.

Not only is the flow cytometerbulky, it’s also an expensive piece ofmachinery that requires a trained

INSTANT INFO

Lab onchip testsfor HIVin the fieldResults are deliveredon the spot in minutesCARLA WINTERSGILLSPECIAL TO THE STAR

LAB ON CHIP continued on V2

Has anyone seen Brian’s cap? He needsit for a photo-op. Even with it on, hishead’s not that pretty a sight. But with-out it, the inner workings are there forall to see.

Not gooey grey matter, but screws,wires and sensors.

Still, he has a winning smile, a “father-knows-best” stern expression, andwhen his silicon-rubber face falls, it

could break your heart, he looks so woe-begone. And they say robots don’t havefeelings.

That was always the great regret ofData, the android in Star Trek: The NextGeneration.

But Brian is programmed to gaugeyour moods and emotions and reactaccordingly.

He’s unfailingly polite, too, even whenyou’ve let him down.

“That makes me sad,” he says gently.

And shakes his head.Goldie Nejat and her team at the U of T

continue to develop and refine Brian’sskills. Nejat believes robots could havean important role in the care of ourexponentially growing elderly popula-tion, at first in assisted-living facilities,but eventually in people’s own homes.

“No one wants to move from theirhome,” she says.

Brian is here to help, mechanically speakingBILL TAYLORSPECIAL TO THE STAR

“It can playmemorygames andcard gamesto keep thebrain active.”GOLDIE NEJAT,UNIVERSITY OFTORONTO

ROBOTS continued on V8

Engineers of the futureWomen break into a mostly male world:Where can you study? V2

V2⎮TORONTO STAR THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2012 ON ON1

ENGINEERING INNOVATIONS

When Jill Morillo isn’t tearing upthe rink as captain of the UOITwomen’s hockey team, you can findher at the library, studying nuclearreactors.

The future face of engineeringmay resemble Morillo’s; the third-year nuclear engineering student isa natural leader with an interest inbusiness and a social conscience.And she is a woman.

Morillo, 20, has heard good thingsabout her career prospects: “Therewill always be a need for engineers,but specifically in nuclear, becauseour program isn’t offered every-where, we’re very specialized,” shesays. “I’ve heard there are many nu-clear engineers retiring.”

Just when employment prospectsin some professions are bleak, engi-neering schools are setting thebrightest and best on a path to em-ployment.

These young people will seek an-swers to some of the world’s biggestproblems: the need for renewableenergy resources on a planetwracked by climate change, forcomputer security, for buildings

that can withstand earthquakes.Some will start businesses, while

others will be hired by companiesto replace skilled, seasoned engi-neers from the baby-boom genera-tion, who are retiring from theworkforce.

“The demand for engineeringgraduates is far outstripping ourability to graduate them,” saysRichard Marceau, provost at theUniversity of Ontario Institute ofTechnology in Oshawa, and an en-gineer himself.

“If you look at a lot of the areas ofengineering, so many of them havea bright future, because of this hugetransition, this generational changethat we’re confronting in the next 10years.”

Marceau says between 20 and 30per cent of Ontario’s engineers areon the verge of retiring.

Opportunities lie in many areas,including civil, construction andchemical engineering.

Training new electrical power en-gineers should be a top priority,Marceau says. People hired during aperiod of rapid expansion duringthe ’80s are starting to retire, leav-ing a significant gap. In 2011, be-tween 160 and 170 positions wentunfilled because there weren’tenough qualified graduates — just130 to fill about 300 jobs.

Marceau is spearheading an Elec-trical Power Engineering Educa-tion Consortium to try to correctthe problem.

“We need to build capacity again,”he says. “These are the people whokeep the lights on in Ontario.”

Chris Kerr, a 28-year-old engineerwith Toronto Hydro, says he and hiscolleagues face interesting newchallenges, such as finding the mosteffective ways to replace aging in-frastructure or incorporate greenenergy from solar panels or windturbines into the grid. They alsostrive to stay up-to-date on emerg-ing technologies around the world,which might be useful here one day.

“They’re new challenges, thingsthat people, especially for our util-ity, haven’t seen before,” Kerr says.“It takes a little bit of out-of-the-boxthinking on how we can maximizethose technologies.”

Today’s young engineers have tobe well-rounded — and have busi-ness chops.

At UOIT, Morillo is combining herengineering degree with an extrayear of business management.

“Obviously business surrounds us,so to have that background, it’s veryapplicable to almost everything,”she says. She hopes to also add aone-year work placement to her de-gree, giving her some experience in

the workplace before she gradu-ates.

At York University, they’re callingthem “Renaissance engineers.”York’s engineering program, creat-ed in 2001, is growing rapidly. Thenew Lassonde School of Engineer-ing — to be named after miningentrepreneur Pierre Lassonde,who donated $25 million to theschool last fall — will be interdisci-plinary, drawing on the university’sstrengths in law, business and thehumanities.

“We want them to be known forbeing entrepreneurial engineerswith a social conscience,” says Ja-nusz Kozinski, dean of the Facultyof Science and Engineering. “Engi-neering students will be exposed tobusiness education and legal educa-tion from the outset, from yearone.”

Over the coming years, York plansto add four new engineering pro-grams — electrical, civil, mechani-cal and chemical — and hire up to70 new professors.

Morillo, plowing through her mid-terms, knows she’s chosen a diffi-cult program. “You obviously haveyour hard days and it is a lot of workbut, at the end of the day, most of usall enjoy it and we wouldn’t changeinto something else if we could,”she says.

Jill Morillo, 20, examines a model of the radioactive decay of Lanthanum-140. The UOIT student believes nuclear energy is both efficient and safe.YVONNE BERG FOR TORONTO STAR

As engineers retire, schoolsstruggle to replace themAttracting women tothe profession is key

Ontario institutes withaccredited engineering degrees:• Carleton University, Ottawa• Conestoga College Institute ofTechnology and AdvancedLearning, Kitchener• University of Guelph• Lakehead University, ThunderBay• Laurentian University, Sudbury• McMaster University, Hamilton• University of Ottawa• Queen’s University, Kingston• Royal Military College ofCanada, Kingston• Ryerson University, Toronto• University of Ontario Instituteof Technology, Oshawa• University of Toronto• University of Waterloo• University of Western Ontario,London• University of Windsor• York University, TorontoOntario colleges offeringengineering technology andtechnician education:• Algonquin College, Ottawa• Cambrian College, Sudbury• Canadore College, North Bay• Centennial College, Toronto• Collège Boréal, Sudbury• Conestoga College Institute ofTechnology and AdvancedLearning, Kitchener• Confederation College, ThunderBay• Durham College, Oshawa• Fanshawe College, London• Fleming College, Peterborough• George Brown College, Toronto• Georgian College, Barrie• Humber College, Toronto• La Cité collégiale, Ottawa• Lambton College, Sarnia• Loyalist College, Belleville• Mohawk College, Hamilton• Niagara College, Welland• Northern College of AppliedArts and Technology, Timmins• RCC College of Technology,Toronto• Sault College, Sault Ste. Marie• Seneca College of Applied Artsand Technology, Toronto• Sheridan Institute ofTechnology and AdvancedLearning, Oakville• St. Clair College, Windsor• St. Lawrence College, KingstonSource: Ontario Society ofProfessional Engineers

WHERE TO STUDY

NICOLE BAUTESPECIAL TO THE STAR

technician to operate it. As a result,flow cytometers are typically re-stricted to large urban centres andare inaccessible to most HIV pa-tients in developing nations.

In Canada, those who live in re-mote communities must send vialsof blood away to be tested. Resultstake up to two weeks.

By contrast, Dou’s portable cy-tometer works like a diabetes test. Apinprick of blood is placed on thedisposable cartridge and insertedinto the handheld device, whichcounts the CD4 cells and producesresults in 10 to 15 minutes.

It’s also cheaper. While each teston the flow cyclometer costs $75 to$100, the lab-on-a-chip test costs $5to $10.

Started as a graduate researchproject in 2007, Dou’s invention isgaining traction and has garneredthe attention of HIV foundationsaround the world.

The portable cytometer was re-cently recognized by Grand Chal-lenges Canada, which awarded a$100,000 grant to team member LuChen, a post-doctoral fellow at theU of T. The grant will be used to testthe device in Mozambique, where

roughly 16 per cent of the adult pop-ulation is living with HIV.

“The exercises go one step furtherthan research,” Aitchison says. “Weknow the concept works in the lab.We’ve got trained people loadingthe sample and running the soft-ware that does the counting.”

Lab-on-a-chip technology hasbeen around for a while. The realinnovation comes from packagingthe device in a way that allows askilled person, such as a nurse prac-titioner, to use it in the field.

Dou envisions the mobile test bol-stering the health-care infrastruc-tures of developing nations by cre-ating widespread access to CD4monitoring.

Its adoption at home will benefitCanada’s health-care system by re-ducing costs and wait times for test-ing.

It will also help improve service tovulnerable populations by takingthe mobile test straight to the peo-

ple who need it most. “We want to build a commercial

product,” Dou says.To that end, the team turned to the

University of Toronto’s Innova-tions and Partnerships office,which helped them establish acompany to manage the businessside of the product.

ChipCare Corporation will takeon the commercialization plan forthe cytometer.

They hope that Dou’s lab-on-a-chip will spark a new high-tech in-dustry in the city.

“If you look around the downtownToronto core, there’s a lot of goodhealth-care research going on, butthere is a lack of industry supportfor us to compete,” Dou says.

“Canada generates as many goodideas as other countries,” Aitchisonsays.

“But we don’t translate those ideasinto as many products or knowl-edge.”

Dr. Lu Chen, left, Rakesh Nayyar, Lino DeFacendis and James Douhave created a portable cytometer that works like a simple diabetes test.

DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

HIV testresults lesscostly, tooLAB ON CHIP from V1

thestar.com

l He made biodieselfrom animal fatsl Using extreme freezing topreserve the catchl Remediating groundwater

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ON ON1 THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2012 TORONTO STAR⎮V3


Late last year, Syrian activists foundtheir Internet connections blocked.In need of a way to communicate,they turned to a Canadian technol-ogy company to deliver the net-working system.

“The request was channelledthrough a number of differentsources. They wanted a way of get-ting around Internet censorship,”says Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of thePsiphon Inc.

In December, the company dis-tributed Psiphon 3 to the activists.From his Ottawa headquarters, Ro-hozinski watched the number ofonline connections in Syria grow —to 30,000 per month. Today, Roho-zinski counts 3,000 to 5,000 con-nections per day.

The software enabled them totunnel past Internet filters and bar-riers to websites, social media andother online communications tech-nologies.

“The act of communicating, ofempowering yourself throughknowledge, is an essential compo-nent of democratization,” says Ro-hozinksi.

Psiphon grew out of an experi-ment at the Citizen Lab, a researchand development program focusedon the intersection of global securi-ty, human rights and cyberspaceand based at the Munk School ofGlobal Affairs at the University ofToronto.

In 2003, the OpenNet Initiative, agroup that tracks Internet censor-ship, found only a few countries fil-tered content.

Today, it counts more than 40countries controlling the onlinecontent that is accessed withintheir borders.

“When you’re engaged in analyz-ing and tracking Internet censor-ship worldwide, you find out a lot

about how Internet content isblocked on the Web,” says RonDeibert, director of the Citizen Laband an investigator at the OpenNetInitiative.

Deibert says people would contactthe group to find out how to bypassthe censors. Although circumven-tion technologies existed, theylacked security or required an al-most hacker-like level of knowledgeto operate, he says.

The Citizen Lab set out to createsoftware that lacked an Achillesheel.

“We had this idea of bundling to-gether the different software pack-ages into something simple,” saysDeibert.

In 2006, the Citizen Lab releasedPsiphon (the ‘P’ is silent). The firstversion allowed individuals to con-nect to the Internet through accesspoints operated by small indepen-dent networks of trusted friendsand family members.

“They could tunnel through thefamily member’s home computerand fetch whatever content they

wanted,” says Deibert.Psiphon worked because it estab-

lished thousands of encrypted por-tals. It dispersed the connectionsand took Internet activity below thegovernment’s radar. A web proxydirected the censored computer tothe content via an uncensoredcomputer, not unlike the way ahockey player uses the boards tobounce a pass to his teammate.

With Psiphon, government moni-tors might be able to see that thetwo computers are connected andexchanging information, but notmuch else without cracking theconnection, says Deibert.

In 2008, the technology was spunout of the University of Toronto andinto a private company, with Roho-zinksi at the helm.

The company is based on the prin-ciples that information should befree and that individuals shouldhave the right to choose what theyaccess on the Internet.

“But we wanted to build a compa-ny that would not have to live off ofhandouts from the government

and academia,” says Rohozinski.That year, Psiphon responded to a

tender from the U.S. State Depart-ment for censor-busting technolo-gies, and was awarded $3 millionover two years. Rohozinski says thefunding launched the company, butbusiness relationships sustain it.

Psiphon clients include the BritishBroadcasting Corporation and theU.S. Broadcasting Board of Gover-nors, responsible for Voice of Amer-ica and Radio Liberty.

Psiphon is used in 45 countries.In 2009, the BBC launched a Psi-

phon 2 service for its Persian lan-guage website, soon after the Irani-an presidential elections. It offersthe same service for BBC Chinese.

Psiphon 2 shifts the burden of ac-cess from the content user to thecontent producer. It creates a webproxie — alternate uncensoredpaths to websites — and distributesthem to users via social media, re-corded Skype messages and target-ed emails.

When someone clicks, they are di-rected to Psiphon servers and then

on to BBC Persian content.“The reason the BBC chose Psi-

phon was because of its usability,”says Karl Kathuria, a fellow at theCitizen Lab and former head of dig-ital delivery at the BBC World Ser-vice. “It keeps people inside abrowser environment and it is ac-cessible to a mass audience.”

Psiphon 3, the version being usedby Syrian opposition groups, addsanother level of Internet censor-ship circumvention.

“It launches an encrypted tunnelwhere you can run a videochat orSkype,” says Rohozinski.

It can be a cat-and-mouse gametrying to stay one step ahead of thecensors.

“We have to be nimble,” says Ro-hozinski. Gathering on-the-groundintelligence keeps Psiphon Inc.ahead of the curve, as does stayingtechnology-agnostic, making all thecode open-source and using a rapidprototyping methodology.

“We develop and deploy from pro-totype to production within days,”says Rohozinski.

Promoting free speech worldwideCanadian software routes access aroundgovernment web filters

HANNAH HOAGSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Rafal Rohozinski is CEO of Psiphon, which helps activists get around filters used to control web access.BLAIR GABLE FOR TORONTO STAR

More than 40 countries employsome form of Internet censorship.China and Iran run two of the mostextensive filtering and restrictionsystems. They filter content thatundermines the government’s au-thority, contains political material oris deemed offensive, by employingsome of the following techniques:l Internet Protocol address blocking,which denies access to an addressthat hosts a website.l DNS tampering, which divertsconnections from unauthorized Webaddresses to another.l Keyword filtering, which interruptsconnections to sites with keywordsassociated with historical events,controversial groups and othertaboo topics.l Full blocking, which cuts off allrouters, as occurred in Egypt andLibya in January 2011.

CENSORS’ TOOLBOX

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David Zingg loves flying and alwayslikes to sit by the wing. It’s not thathe’s a slave to his work, but he doestake a very academic interest inwhat’s happening out there.

Zingg, director of the University ofToronto’s Institute for AerospaceStudies at Downsview, is concernedwith wing configuration as part ofan over-all rethinking of airliner de-sign to reduce greenhouse gases.

The stakes, he says, are huge: “Weeither fly more efficiently or we flyless.”

He’s not thinking of the next gen-eration of jetliner; it’s the genera-tions after that that are front andcentre on his computer.

Zingg is pioneering the applica-tion of “high-fidelity aerodynamicshape optimization” to aircraft de-sign.

His department is developingcomputer programs that can pro-duce new concepts and fine-tunethem before a prototype needs to bebuilt for wind-tunnel and flight-testing.

“Obviously, you don’t fly an air-plane that hasn’t been wind-tunneltested,” he says. “But you’re no lon-ger changing the body shape in thewind tunnel, which was very time-consuming. We can study 100shapes in a couple of days and comeup with the most promising.

“NASA, with its environmentallyresponsible aviation project, is do-ing low-fidelity assessments.There’s a certain state-of-the-art inour ability to optimize these de-signs at a high-fidelity level. We’removing the goalposts in terms ofwhat we can do in trying to providethe tools.”

Zingg, who last year received anEngineering Medal for Researchand Development from the OntarioSociety of Professional Engineers,

has worked closely in the past withNASA, the U.S. National Aeronau-tics and Space Administration.

The American researchers havetwo generations of aircraft on theirvirtual drawing boards and arelooking at reducing not only carbondioxide and nitrous oxide emis-sions, but also noise levels.

“We’re concentrating on carbondioxide,” Zingg says. “Noise, youcan deal with in various ways — ofcourse, I don’t happen to live nearan airport! — but global warming,there’s only one way.”

He says the target is a 50-per-centreduction in emissions by 2050,which means airliners will have tobe about four times more fuel-effi-cient.

It sounds like a tall order, butZingg is optimistic. A study of fuel

consumption and “fuel-burn perseat” since the De Havilland Comet4 in the 1960s, shows a steady de-crease of between 1 and 2 per centper year.

“We know we’ll continue that sortof rate; we’ll make some progress,”he says.

On the other hand, the demand formore flights goes up about 4 percent per year.

“If we don’t match or do betterthan that, then there’ll be a choiceof flying less, paying more in carbontaxes or restraints that stifle thatgrowth,” he says. “That wouldn’t begood for anyone.”

Research is also going into othernew technologies, including bio-fuels.

“But sometimes people put toomuch hope into the role biofuels

will play,” Zingg says. “It’s never asmuch, or as quick, as you hope.There’s no silver bullet.”

Hence the importance of his de-partment’s work. He gives a briefdemonstration of how the comput-er does its work, taking a basic wingshape and increasing its span andadding winglets to minimize drag.

Future possibilities include differ-ent body shapes, vastly changedwing configurations and fuselages“blended” into the wings to pro-duce a single aerodynamic surface.

There are already practical appli-cations. The manufacturer of asmall bush-plane asked the depart-ment to design a more efficient flapfor the aircraft. And the flaps on theBombardier Q400, as flown by Por-ter Airlines, were partially designedby a former student using tools de-

veloped here. “We’re not ‘ivory tower’ in this de-

partment.”The future, Zingg believes, holds a

mix of jetliners even larger thancurrent jumbos — “the blended-wing can be more efficient in bigairplanes” — and smaller ones fly-ing directly between two destina-tions, not via the widely used hub-and-spoke system for routing in-terconnecting flights.

“That’s not an efficient system.”Efficiency is everything. And,

somewhere within a computerizedbrain, there may lie a hitherto-un-dreamed-of-solution. The key is inunlocking that secret.

“If I was able to show a uniquelynovel concept was the way to go, I’dbe as happy as . . . whatever meta-phor you care to use,” Zingg says.

“We’re still developing the toolsand we always do comparison stud-ies with existing aircraft. If some-thing was suddenly 15 per cent bet-ter, rather than, say, 2 per cent, thatwould be a ‘Eureka’ moment. If wecan do that, we might take the restof the day off.”

Zingg gives wing to aircraft designComputer modellingidentifies promisingideas for prototypes

BILL TAYLORSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Prof. David Zingg’s research aims to develop airliners that are more energy-efficient and cut down on emissions.BILL TAYLOR FOR TORONTO STAR

The jet airliner’s traditional wing-and-fuselage configuration hasremained basically the same forabout 60 years, says David Zingg,“and there’s a huge impetus to findsomething novel and innovative.”Among the designs being consid-ered at NASA, for possible introduc-tion with in the next decade, are:l Lockheed’s closed-wing, which iscircular in shape to cut down ondrag.l Boeing’s blended wing and hull,with an aerodynamically shapedfuselage producing much of theaircraft’s lift and flowing seamlesslyinto the wings.l A Northrop-Grumman conceptthat Zingg says is “basically theirstealth bomber turned into a pas-senger plane. That’s probably a littleless likely than the other two.”

NEW THINKING



Toronto’s tall buildings like todance in the wind, potentially mak-ing penthouse owners seasick asthe tops of buildings sway by asmuch as half a metre.

To stop the swaying, structural en-gineers make taller buildings extrastiff and often plunk a concrete slabweighing 400 tonnes on the top.

Now, two University of Torontoengineers aim to design buildingsthat can absorb the energy from thewind, or even powerful jolts fromearthquakes, with minimal move-ment and no damage.

“We’ve developed viscoelastic-en-ergy-dissipating dampers to re-place many of the heavy concretebeams used in tall structures,” saysConstantin Christopoulos, a pro-fessor of civil engineering and aseismic expert at U of T.

Known as the Wind-EarthquakeCoupling Damper, this potentiallygame-changing device could first beinstalled in a new Toronto tower bythe end of 2013.

“With the damper, buildings canoffer more leasable space, be slim-mer and taller, while also being saf-er,” says Christopoulos.

Cities are going vertical all aroundthe world. About 2,500 buildingsover 30 storeys are being built or inthe planning stages, according toindustry statistics.

Toronto leads the way with themost high-rise buildings underconstruction in North America.

Concrete, and lots of it, has beenthe traditional engineering ap-proach to coping with the forcewinds exert against tall buildings.That additional concrete adds tothe cost and reduces the availableoccupancy space.

“Structural engineers have strug-gled with this problem for years,”says Christopoulos, who studied

earthquake engineering in Califor-nia.

Ten years ago, Toronto highrisedesigners asked Christopoulos andother civil engineers at U of T toinvestigate.

“We’re solving the vibration prob-lem by damping, as opposed to stiff-ening, the building.”

The Wind-Earthquake CouplingDamper is a multiple-layer sand-wich of steel plates and viscoelasticpolymer or rubber, explains Mi-

chael Montgomery, a newly gradu-ated PhD who worked under Chris-topoulos to test and perfect the de-vice.

The damper is roughly two metreslong, half a metre in depth and justover a half metre wide on average,and anchored firmly to the struc-tural walls.

When a gust of wind starts tomove a building, the force or energyis absorbed by the rubber in thedamper, Montgomery says. It is the

combination of steel and rubberthat enables the damper to soak upthe vibration and yet retain itsstrength.

Some of the steel plates can beengineered to fail when there’s a bigspike in energy. These steel ‘fuses’soak up the extra energy the rubbercan’t absorb, protecting the gravity-bearing elements of the building.

“They’re designed to act like a fuseor breaker in an electrical circuit.”

After an extreme earthquake, the

dampers can be inspected, and, ifany fuses have been triggered, theycan easily be repaired or replaced.

Well-built buildings in earthquakezones rarely collapse, but are oftenseriously damaged. For example,nearly all the buildings that sur-vived the magnitude 6.3 earth-quake in Christchurch, New Zea-land last year cannot be re-occu-pied without major repairs, saysChristopoulos.

Repairing fractured internal con-crete beams is not always possibleand most of those buildings indowntown Christchurch will haveto be demolished.

The Toronto team’s damper suc-cessfully withstood large-magni-tude earthquakes and large hurri-canes simulated in testing facilitiesat U of T and at the École Polytech-nique in Montreal.

The toughest phase of this 10-yearproject is to convince builders andtheir engineers to try the dampers,in what is a very conservative in-dustry.

“Lots of them think it’s great, buthesitate to be first to use it. It’s notlike trying out a new app on yoursmartphone,” says Christopoulos.

However, one pioneering builderin downtown Toronto appearsready to make a commitment.

“We’re hoping that, in the next 12months, the first dampers will beinstalled.”

Building breaker? There’s no swayRubberized damperscan make new buildingstaller, slimmer and safer

STEPHEN LEAHYSPECIAL TO THE STAR

PhD graduate Michael Montgomery helped perfect this wind-earthquake coupling damper for tall buildings. KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR

Michael Montgomery spent eightyears perfecting the damper andrecently won the top 2011 NaturalSciences and Engineering ResearchCouncil award for young research-ers.But he’s not yet finished with thedamper.He and Prof. Constantin Christopou-los established a new company,Kinetica Dynamics, to help ensuretheir innovation is actually used. “It could revolutionize the industry,”he says.

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Ibraheem Khan, a Toronto taxi driver’s son,was bitten by the engineering bug as a kid,when he took apart all his new toys to see howthey worked.

Years later, as a 29-year-old mechanical en-gineer, he made a startling discovery in themysterious world of “smart materials” orshape memory alloys (SMAs), which manyexperts believe can revolutionize aerospaceand automobiles.

A network of federal and provincially fund-ed non-profit agencies has already usheredKhan and his innovation to the first rung ofcommercialization (see fact box).

Khan remembers only too well the day hemade his big discovery. It was a cold winter’snight at his parents’ Mississauga home, and,as part of his PhD at the University of Water-loo, he was scrutinizing his research data formaybe the 10th time.

Shape memory alloys, which are combina-tions of metals, such as nickel and titanium,gold and cadmium, were discovered back inthe ’60s. They change shapes when exposedto different temperatures.

“I realized the data I was reading showed ablip that indicated there was a second memo-ry embedded into what should have been asingle-memory alloy,” Khan said. “I guess itwas a Eureka moment, so I drove all the wayto Waterloo that night to prove it. We reallyhad a single material, but with multiple mem-ories.

“I won’t say I was going above the speedlimit . . . but I was moving swiftly.”

Khan discovered he could embed severalmemories in the same smart material, en-abling it to remember a series of shapes whenexposed to different temperatures. He’dmade the breakthrough that had evaded sci-entists for a decade: how to make the smartmaterial smarter still.

The potential for his innovation is huge. Forexample, Khan says motors would no longerbe required to control flaps on airplane wings,which would reduce the aircraft’s weight andsave money on fuel and construction costs. Inthe healthcare field, the technology couldcontrol how much a stent opens a vein or

improve the efficiency of a pacemaker, braceor hearing aid.

A brilliant breakthrough, but how to get itout of the starting gate and to market?

“An engineer is not usually equipped to takeit to the next level,” said Khan. “But we’re veryfortunate to have all these institutions andsupport in Canada to help us to do just that.”

Together with his two partners, includinghis university professor Norman Zhou, Khanhas formed a company (www.smarteral-loys.com) and connected with Bombardier as

an entrée into the aerospace industry.The involvement of industry is critical.

Bombardier, which provides $20,000 to engi-neers for an advance concept like Khan’s,believes it is a sound investment in the future.

“It’s all about how we mentor a new genera-tion of engineers,” says Bombardier’s Jona-than Hack, who works with universities andgovernment to develop this talent. “We havea tremendous need for new aerospace engi-neers over the next five to 10 years and there isa great future in aerospace.”

That link between industry and universitieswas also evident to Queen’s graduate studentNate Preston, now 23, as he supervised agroup of 50 students from Queen’s, Carletonand Algonquin College to build their revolu-tionary solar home.

Still a year from actual construction, thefinished house will represent Ontario against20 other world-renowned universities at theprestigious solar competition run by the U.S.Department of Energy in California in 2013.

“It’s a big complicated project, which needsa lot of capital resources to get it off theground, and companies in engineering havebeen terribly supportive,” Preston said.“They see this not only as a great opportunityto promote sustainability, but also as a chanceto work with students who are highly moti-vated and bright.”

Preston says the modular home the team isdesigning will not only be a building that usesonly as much energy as it collects, it will offeran attractive lifestyle in a modest 1,000 squarefeet.

“We can’t be building Ferrari homes thatnobody can afford, so there is a real balancingact that goes on,” he said. “Team Ontario isbuilding attractive, comfortable homes, andwe really think there are a lot of opportunitiesout there, and we want to inspire the public todemand more from their homes.”

Marketing even smarter memoryEngineer’s Eureka momentgarners financial supportfrom a network of backers

PAUL DALBYSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Ibraheem Khan’s discovery in smart materials or shape memory alloys has the potential to change aerospace design radically.AARON HARRIS FOR TORONTO STAR

Ibraheem Khan and the team at SmarterAlloys received $145,000 in grants fromthe Natural Sciences and Engineering Re-search Council of Canada and a consor-tium of universities involved in technologycommercialization called the C4 Network.To qualify for this funding, Khan’s processwas closely vetted by two panels of busi-ness professionals. A patent applicationwas also filed for his innovation.The University of Waterloo helped initiallyby marketing the technology through itscommercialization office, also known asWatCo, until Khan and his partners formedtheir own company Smarter Alloys.

The non-profit Ontario Centre of Excel-lence (www.oce-ontario.org) providedmoney from its Market Readiness Fund,which Khan says “propelled us out of theuniversity and into the community.”Mars Discovery District(www.marsdd.com), a public-private part-nership in Toronto, provided Khan’s compa-ny with office space and an umbrella ofsupport to connect them with potentialpartners, customers, investors and talent.And, at an event organized by Mars to helpinnovators connect with industry, Khan gothis all-important introduction to Bombar-dier Aerospace, a prime backer.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR GOOD IDEAS

view scanning device, low power, etc. — al-lows us to access human cavities and charac-terize bio-samples that were not possible pre-viously.”

What makes these miniaturized catheterspossible is the defining characteristic of ananotube: its length is many millions timesgreater than its diameter, which gives it ex-traordinary strength and flexibility.

The catheter is likely to be a big step forwardin the early detection of cancer and otherdiseases.

The challenge now, says Yeow, is two-fold.First, he must find a way to “miniaturize a

controllable mirror that is capable of large,angular scan angles.”

Next, he’ll work on “creating moving com-ponents on the order of the diameter of ahuman hair and integrating them within thecatheter.”

Yeow and his team have also been workingon miniaturized x-ray devices that can beintegrated into CT machines to provide high-quality images with lower radiation power.

He explains the value of miniaturizationthrough nanotechnology is that “it allows usto improve the performance of existing devic-es.”

Serendipity doesn’t really play a big role inYeow’s work. He knows where he wants to getand the work consists of finding the way to doit.

Working closely with physicians, medicalbiophysicists and other users is critical, rightfrom the start.

“We always have an end product in mind,”he explains.

“We focus on developing technologies thatwill have a place in the market at the end oftheir development cycle.”

Asked what the most important character-istics are for an engineer doing this kind ofwork, Yeow’s first response is “creativity.”

“And excellent hands-on capability,” headds.

He says engineering is vital to the practice ofmedicine, with most diagnostic and thera-peutic advances made possible by engineers.“All medical instruments that exist today area direct result of the creativity and imag-ination of people with engineering skills.”

Tomorrow will bring new innovations, us-ing nanotechnology, that Yeow couldn’t haveimagined when he was a student.

“When I was in engineering school, nano-technology was a science in progress. Now,we are seeing more nanotechnology-engi-neered devices.”

“Nanotechnology will have a huge impacton our daily lives in the future, be it moresophisticated medical instruments, more ef-ficient power generators, more advancedcommunications systems, or more durablemechanical components.”

John Yeow, right, and Lawrence Wong are improving catheters to scan the body for diseases.GLENN LOWSON FOR TORONTO STAR

Helping detect cancer earlierNANOTECH from V1

The University of Waterloo offers the firstMASc and PhD programs in nanotech-nology of its kind in Canada. The interdisciplinary research program,jointly offered by three departments in thefaculty of science and four in the facultyof engineering, spans from basic researchthrough to application.One of the participating engineering de-partments is the Department of SystemsDesign Engineering (SYDE), the only oneof its kind in Canada, with 26 full-timefaculty members, 492 undergraduatesand 113 graduate students.For more information about SYDE, go towww.systems.uwaterloo.ca.For information about nanotechnology, goto MRItechnicianschools.net/blog andscroll down to “25 ways nanotechnologyis revolutionizing medicine.”

WATERLOO LEADS WAY

York University isproud to announcevisionary philantropistPierre Lassonde’s gift of$25 million, which will leadto the creation of theLassonde School ofEngineering.Based on its traditionalstrengths in Business, Law,Humanities and SocialSciences, York Universitywill embrace a newapproach to engineeringeducation. Lassonde’sdonation, combined withfunding from the Ontariogovernment and theUniversity, provides $100million in seed capital. Thisunique program will focuson producing not justgraduates but globalcitizens, entrepreneurs andcommunity leaders to builda better future.



Flybits is the odd name given to amade-in-Toronto smartphone appchanging the way commuters hereand in Paris navigate their sur-roundings as they go.

“It’s about bits — zeros and ones —that fly. It represents wireless com-puting,” says Hossein Rahnama, di-rector of research at Ryerson Uni-versity’s digital media zone.

Flybits is also the name of thecompany Rahnama founded tobuild the app.

Flybits began life in 2004 as a re-search institute within the DMZuntil Ryerson spun it off into a sep-arate company with the help ofMaRS, the Toronto-based innova-tion incubator.

Rahnama launched Flybits’ firstbig-time app in 2010 as a pilot pro-ject for Paris Metro commuterswhose mobility is constrained andfor blind passengers or those withpoor vision.

As commuters move about thesystem, the bilingual app locates el-evators, transfer points and sched-ules for connecting trains.

Blind passengers can get informa-tion by shaking or tapping thephone to launch a text-to-speechfunction, and transit staff can use itto track passengers who may needhelp.

“It’s important that the informa-tion you get on your phone is cus-tomized to your context: who youare, where you are, what you do,”says Rahnama.

“Instead of searching for informa-tion, it will find you when you needit. We are building this intelligentnetwork that can understand yourintention and tries its best to giveyou relevant information.”

Rahnama and his team of Ryersonco-op students have since usedtheir Paris experience to build an

app for GO Transit users.Designed in partnership with

Metrolinx, GO Mobile provides in-formation, such as the nearest sta-tion, tailored to a commuter’s loca-tion. It also gives real-time depar-tures from Union Station.

Passengers with special needshave access to the same type offunctions available in the ParisMetro. While they work best on anAndroid phone, they can also beused on an iPhone.

GO Mobile will even alert nappingcommuters to wake up as they ap-proach their station.

“We saw (the app) as a great op-portunity to give our customers GOservice information when theyneed it, wherever they need it,” says

Metrolinx spokesperson MalonEdwards.

So far, 93,000 of 217,000 daily GOTrain passengers have downloadedthe app since its launch in Novem-ber.

“When I’m out with friends andthey want to know how long theycan stay out, I whip out my app andfind out when their buses are leav-ing,” says Jaspaul Bola, a third-yearRyerson computer science studentwho helped develop the app. “Oth-erwise, it’s hard to convince them tostay out longer.”

Bola knows the way he uses GOMobile may not be representativeof all commuters’ needs. So he iscombing through responses fromthe app’s feedback function to see

how it might be tweaked.Rahnama says he would eventu-

ally like to design an app for theTTC, but the lack of wireless In-ternet in the tunnels makes that outof the question for now.

Meanwhile, Flybits is testing aversion of its app at the airport.

“When you walk into Pearson,we’ll know your frequent-flyernumber and your itinerary and cannavigate you to the check-in gate,”says Rahnam. “And, if there’s a can-cellation, we can provision you witha hotel coupon on your handset.”

Pearson’s pilot app even has afunction to help you find your car inthe airport’s mammoth parking ga-rage. Before leaving your car, take apicture with your smartphone of a

code printed on the garage floor, orbookmark your location. The appwill then guide you back.

While the airport project is stillbeing tested and has no firm launchdate, it and other Flybit apps con-form to government privacy stan-dards, says Rahnam.

That means any data users feedinto their app is encrypted. Andonce they get back the informationthey need, that data is removedfrom the Flybit server.

All of which means Flybits doesnot profile its users and is not set upfor personalized ads.

“We don’t want to do that (ads)now,” says Rahnama.

“The whole purpose is to give use-ful info.”

App helps riders navigate on the GOSmartphone softwareworks as companionfor commuters

SHARON OOSTHOEKSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Hossein Rahnama and student Damyan Petkov, left, show Flybits’s new Way Finder, which uses augmented reality to help people find their way. DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

Queen’sENGINEERINGInnovative curriculum and 14 student-run,award-winning, design teams:

SAE Aero

SAE Formula 1 Car

SAE Baja Car

Solar Design

Concrete Toboggan

Mostly AutonomousSailboat (MAST)

Concrete Canoe

GeneticallyEngineered Machine(QGEM)

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Living Energy Lab

Biofuels Engineering

Automated Poker

Bridge Building

Faculty of Engineering & Applied ScienceRenowned Spirit, Unrivaled Excellence

Working in collaborative teams,our students use the skills theylearn in the classroom to solvereal-world challenges.

To find outmore, visit our website:www.engineering.queensu.ca

Queen’s engineering studentswork on a SAE Formula 1 car


“People are living longer, so this isone way we may be able to improvetheir quality of life and keep themindependent.”

Not that Brian will fetch and carry,do the housework and feed the cat.

Although he can speak, change hisexpression, move his head andarms, he’s not mobile.

Nejat, an assistant professor in theFaculty of Applied Science and En-gineering, explains his intendedrole:

“We focused on specific activitiesthe robot can engage a person in, atthe same time providing socialstimulation.

“It can play memory games andcard games to keep the brain active.It can prompt someone throughthe steps of brushing their teeth,such as putting the toothpaste onthe brush, or of eating a meal, or itcan remind them of a doctor’s ap-pointment.

“No, it doesn’t nag! It motivates.”The robot’s sensors watch, listen

and remember. It will treat differ-ent people in different ways, de-pending on the understanding itdevelops of them.

“It’s like we’re sitting here andreading each other’s body languageand expressions as we talk,” saysNejat. “Are we open, are we closed?Making eye contact or lookingaway? Are we happy? Are we sad?Stressed? It can pick up those cuesand react.”

Brian’s synthesized speech ismore human than HAL, the robotin 2001: A Space Odyssey, ironic, giv-en that HAL was voiced by flesh-and-blood Canadian actor DouglasRains.

He’s almost 5 feet tall, weighsabout 150 pounds and when hemoves, it’s not soundless. That’s de-liberate, Nejat says, to give the sensethat Brian, like everyone else, hashis personal space.

According to the Public HealthyAgency of Canada, the proportionof seniors in the population rosefrom one in 20 in 1921 to one in

seven in 2009. By 2041, it’ll be al-most one in four.

Robots could take over repetitiveroutine tasks that are part of a care-giver’s duties, and, says Nejat, “canoverwhelm them. We have to re-member, too, that many caregiversare themselves a part of the agingbaby boomer population.”

Baycrest hospital, nursing home,assisted-living facility and researchcentre is involved with testing therobot “almost as a social coach,”says Bianca Stern, the centre’s di-

rector of culture, arts and innova-tion.

“As clients become more impairedand require assistance with dailyliving activies, a robot can poten-tially be used to give verbal cues andsocial encouragement.”

Among the robot’s potential func-tions could be working in a groupwith a therapeutic therapist pre-sent, or perhaps, at mealtimes, re-minding residents “who are poten-tially more distractible” to keep eat-ing, she says.

Work on Brian has been going onfor six years and Nejat figures itcould be another decade before awhole generation could be at workacross North America.

Stern believes that could happeneven quicker, because “robotics is afield that has expanded significant-ly, especially in Asian countries.”

Nejat says the robot’s records ofindividual histories should helpdoctors track any improvement in apatient’s cognitive abilities, giving ita role alongside medication and

other therapy in delaying the onsetand progress of dementia.

Cost, she says, should not be a ma-jor factor. “Brian’s platform costabout $3,000 to build. Total? Prob-ably less than five grand. It won’tjust be a novelty that people can’tafford.”

Something that OHIP might payfor? She laughs.

“Good question. We should talk tothe government. If it’s being used astherapy for cognitive impairment,then there could be a good case.”

Robot doesn’t nag, he motivates

Robot Brian can help the elderly through social stimulation, such as memory games, or by reminding them of tasks such as taking pills or eating dinner.BILL TAYLOR FOR TORONTO STAR

ROBOTS from V1


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