Titled 鈥淕ame Changers: How local innovations are creating a new 鈥榖usiness as usual'鈥�, the (YTA) showcase encouraged participants from industry, academia and government agencies to display discovery research and innovations through six-minute Lightning Lectures and a hands-on Demo Lounge.

91亚色 Professor , chair of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, presented the 91亚色-led Centre for Innovation in Information Visualization and Data-Driven Design (CIV-DDD). The project, which involves researchers in the Faculties of Fine Arts and Science & Engineering, along with graduate students and other industry and academic partners, promises to develop the next generation of data discovery, design and visualization techniques by developing new computational tools, representational strategies and interfaces.

Right: 91亚色 Professor Amir Asif, second from left, chats with visitors at the 91亚色 Technology Alliance's Solutions Showcase event

Professor and a group of undergraduate students from her laboratory in the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering displayed 91亚色鈥檚 Mars rover and spoke about their successful involvement in international Mars rover competitions. A group of graduate students from Professor 鈥檚 laboratory in the School of Information Technology, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, also spoke about their recent research.

MBA students Navneet Budhia, Boris Chan, Vitaliia Rubinovitch, Eli Ilatov and Shakti Kumar from the Schulich School of Business鈥� (EVCG) also participated; their members apply their skills to help local entrepreneurs grow their businesses. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important for students to get off campus and interact with real companies,鈥� said Budhia, president of EVCG. 鈥淭his is where academia and industry meet to create value for both the companies and the students.鈥�

Left: The Mars rover was on display at the showcase and was accompanied by a team of undergraduate students from the Department of Earth & Space Science and Engineering

Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation, agreed. 鈥淯niversities usually expect companies to come to our campus,鈥� he explained. 鈥淏y co-locating with industry organizations like YTA and creating a presence in the for our service unit, , 91亚色 is sending a very powerful message to our partners. We鈥檙e helping industry enhance and forge new connections to 91亚色鈥檚 research and training capacity, which demonstrates our openness to collaboration.

鈥淧aradoxically, we鈥檙e finding that it鈥檚 sometimes easier to get students and researchers to interact at our new 91亚色 Region home in the MCC than it is on our main campus.鈥�

Other showcase participants included the and , 91亚色 Region鈥檚 recently announced Regional Innovation Centre. 91亚色鈥檚 participation in the YTA Solutions Showcase was made possible by a Regional Opportunities Fund grant from NSERC.

The 91亚色 Technology Alliance聽Showcase was one of many ongoing events at the MCC that provide faculty and students with opportunities to seek research collaboration and internships with industry. 91亚色鈥檚 also runs programs and services at MCC providing a space to support collaboration with 91亚色 Region community organizations and municipal agencies.

To learn more about Innovation 91亚色, contact Dan Lynch, manager of industry liaison.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

The post 91亚色 displays research and innovation at YTA Solutions Showcase appeared first on Research & Innovation.

While current search-engine technology uses algorithms that rely on keywords to uncover pertinent information, the research of Huang and his colleagues uses algorithms with a capacity for natural-language processing and contextual understanding that can uncover more complex information. Rather than looking for instances of words, these elaborate algorithms can make sense of the words. The applications of the research are vast.

Right: Jimmy Huang

They can analyze, for instance, the text of blog postings and the feedback of its respondents and then make humanlike, intuitional assessments of the information. 鈥淭he analysis could indicate changes in public mood on certain issues, or rising or diminishing support for a certain political leader,鈥� says Huang.

His technology research seeks to improve the health-care system by reducing costs and improving services. Huang advocates the digitizing of all health-care records 鈥� texts, charts, X-rays and other image files 鈥� and making them securely accessible on the Internet.

How will this improve health care? 鈥淥ne of the reasons that health care is so expensive is due to the incentive for doctors and specialists to provide unnecessary or duplicate services, and to the inefficiencies of a system that creates multiple, proprietary medical records,鈥� says Huang.聽He cites the example of a general practitioner drawing blood for a test, then referring a patient to a specialist who might perform the same procedure again due to the inaccessibility of the original GP鈥檚 files.

鈥淚f there were one comprehensive set of records for the patient, centrally and securely available on the Internet, practitioners wouldn鈥檛 have to resort to phone calls and courier services to exchange information,鈥� says Huang. Improved access to information could reduce services and associated costs while maintaining the same level of care. 鈥淚t would also allow for a more global perspective on a patient鈥檚 health as various practitioners wouldn鈥檛 be limited in the scope of information available to them and, with the assistance of algorithms, could uncover heretofore unseen conditions.鈥�

Huang offers another example of the benefit of centralized resources by citing his own experience with a leg injury. His doctor referred him to a specialist near his home. However, the specialist couldn鈥檛 fit him into his schedule for two months. By then, the injury was repaired on its own, for better or worse. A centralized information system could analyze a patient鈥檚 surroundings in a more subtle way, not simply in terms of where the GP鈥檚 office is situated, but where the patient lives or works. An advanced algorithm could locate an available specialist in another area who might be available sooner.

The sphere of application is, likewise, immense: from opinion mining and sentiment analysis to context-aware computing and social networking or matchmaking.

The joint 2010 International聽Conferences on Active Media Technology and Brain Informatics will be on the Keele campus from聽Aug. 28 to 30, and聽the聽2010 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conferences on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology will take place at 91亚色 from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3.聽The 19th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2010) will be held at the Fairmont Royal 91亚色 from Oct. 26 to 30.

鈥淏ringing these venerable, annual conferences to 91亚色 for the first time represents quite a coup for the University. Among the list of sponsors are some of the major companies involved in the information technology industry and the competition for papers among prospective participants was extremely competitive,鈥� says Huang. 鈥淚鈥檓 very grateful for the support of the Offices of the Vice-President Academic & Provost and the Vice-President Research & Innovation, and the Dean鈥檚 Office of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.鈥�

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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