Monday, August 17, 2015

Leveling the playing field at the Parapan Am Games

This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on the Faculty of Science's news site.

The visual demands of different sports are unique. 

Understanding how vision impacts performance is critical to ensuring athletes are grouped fairly, says Waterloo vision scientist.

Looking at an athlete’s skill, not their impairment

With visually impaired athletes competing in everything from cycling to judo at the 2015 Parapan Am Games in Toronto, spectators may wonder how organizers keep the competition fair for all athletes.

How do athletes know they are competing against others who share a similar visual impairment? How important, for example, are certain types of vision for each sport?

University of Waterloo researcher Dr. Kristine Dalton is working with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to help develop new sport-specific visual classification systems for competitors.

Dalton, a professor and optometrist in the School of Optometry & Vision Science in the Faculty of Science, is collecting data from elite Parapan Am athletes to help develop a new classification system that she hopes will level the playing field for visually impaired athletes.  

"We want to see athletes win because they’re the best athletes, not because their impairment is greater or lesser than the impairments of their competitors” says Dalton, who established Waterloo’s Sports Vision Clinic. “The aim of this classification research is to minimize the impact of the impairment on the outcome of competition.”

Updating the old classification codes using new research

Currently, visually impaired athletes are classified into three groups based on a medical definition of legal blindness produced by the World Health Organization in the 1970s. However, Dalton says there’s a need to determine what visual skills are important for winning in each individual sport.

"You want the classes to be fair and specific for the sport and know where to draw the lines between groups or classes, because we don’t really know how vision impacts the performance,” she says.

Read the rest of the article on the Faculty of Science news site.

There's something fishy in the water

Fish and other aquatic species have the ability to pass down from one generation to the next the effects of environmental contaminants, and a study about their exposure to anti-depressant drugs found in our waterways is among the projects receiving funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Professor Paul Craig, from the Faculty of Science at the University of Waterloo, will receive a grant of $120,000 from the John R. Evans Leaders Fund for his research on the long-term impact of anti-depressants and climate change on fish populations. This work is in collaboration with Barb Katzenback, a Banting postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Biology at Waterloo.

Even low doses of pharmaceuticals in aquatic environments can significantly impact the health of Canadian fish species. Research shows that in combination with warming temperatures, contaminant exposure of fish can exacerbate the non-genetic modifications that occur, and these characteristics of exposure can be passed on to their offspring through non-genetic inheritance, also known as epigenetics.

"Aquatic species, such as fish, can act as sentinels for the health and sustainability of Canadian waterways for the population at large," said Craig, a professor in Waterloo's Department of Biology. "By taking an epigenetic approach, we can examine the long-term impact of contaminants across multiple generations of fish."

The researchers will measure the multi-generational effect of these contaminants by measuring the non-genetic traits — those caused by an animal's environment — that they pass on to subsequent generations. Since clean drinking water is of direct importance to global health, this research may inform policies on limiting aquatic contamination and sustaining reliable sources of drinking water.

Three other researchers from Waterloo are also receiving JELF grants from CFI to help cover infrastructure costs to support their cutting-edge research.  Those researchers, their projects and funding included in today's announcement are:

• Amir Keyvan Khandani, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering — Infrastructure for 5G wireless cellular networks and Internet of Things: $75,000.
• Praveen Nekkar Rao, professor in the School of Pharmacy — State-of-the-art technology to discover new therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease: $26,800.
• Ben Thompson, professor in the School of Optometry and Vision Science — Exploring non-invasive stimulation to treat and improve vision for those with impairments from brain injury or abnormal brain development: $100,000.

“The CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund is about remarkable people, and the latest recipients of this fund are no exception,” said Gilles Patry, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. “By equipping world-class researchers with state-of-the-art tools, Canada remains a global competitor in areas that matter to people in communities around the country.”

The John R. Evans Leaders Fund was developed to help Canadian universities attract and retain top research talent. More information on the awards and the Canada Foundation for Innovation is available on the CFI website.

Monday's notes

Exams may be over, but for students interested in all things quantum cryptographic, school is definitely in session. This week heralds the International QKD Summer School, a five-day program focused on the theoretical and experimental aspects of quantum communication with a focus on quantum cryptography. Established in 2008, it was last held in 2013.

The International QKD Summer School is hosted by the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre and aims to provide a solid foundation in relevant approaches and techniques to enable graduate students and young postdoctoral fellows to perform their own independent research.

Be aware that work is continuing on the CN railway tracks between east campus and central campus to prepare the area for a second set of ION tracks. The access road between Ring Road and east campus may be closed to, vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists and detours will be required.

Food Services will be hosting a Recruitment Fair on Tuesday, August 25 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Fed Hall. Food Services is looking for "customer service-oriented individuals to work in a variety of casual part-time roles, all over campus."