Research

Offers of assistance have been pouring in from around the world since researchers at the University of Waterloo launched an open-source project last week to improve COVID-19 screening using artificial intelligence (AI). 

“My goal was to engage people worldwide to push this initiative along and I’m getting my wish,” says Alexander Wong, a systems design engineering professor who heads the Vision and Image Processing (VIP) Lab at Waterloo. “We’ve received overwhelming support and positive feedback, and we’re using it all to improve the software.” 

Public health officials are asking Canadians to practice physical (social) distancing as a key tool in the containment of COVID-19. Why is this and what are the implications?

ProfessorShannon Majowicz of the School of Public Health and Health Systems explains why and how this method is effective.

What happens if we don’t practice physical distancing?

Things will get very bad – very, very quickly. COVID-19 is a serious issue – one of the most serious diseases we’ve faced in our lifetimes, and it demands our attention and action. 

Researchers at Waterloo Engineering partnered with an artificial intelligence (AI) startup this week on a project to improve COVID-19 screening.

The research team publicly released AI software that can better detect infections from chest x-rays and is looking to enlist expertise from around the world to aid in the project.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have partnered with an artificial intelligence (AI) startup on a project that aims to use AI to improve COVID-19 screening.

The Waterloo research team publicly released AI software that can better detect infections from chest x-rays and is looking to enlist expertise from around the world to aid in the project.

Open source projects are online spaces where software developers work together to improve computer code that is made available to anyone. Each project is managed by a person whose job it is to accept or reject the offer of help from a software developer.

In a recent study, the Waterloo researchers found that social factors, such as past experience, remain the most influential element in the acceptance or rejection of online contributors’ work. But they also found that personality traits are an essential part of the decision. 

A new system that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with human knowledge promises faster and more accurate cancer diagnosis.

The powerful technology, developed by a team led by researchers at Waterloo Engineering, uses digital images of tissue samples to match new cases of suspected cancer with previously diagnosed cases in a database.

A new system combining artificial intelligence (AI) with human knowledge promises faster and more accurate cancer diagnosis.

The powerful technology, developed by a team led by engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo, uses digital images of tissue samples to match new cases of suspected cancer with previously diagnosed cases in a database.

Using a new application of a sampling technique called solid phase microextraction (SPME), researchers collected samples from deep-sea vent ecosystems to study the biological and ecological processes that occur there, without damaging the surrounding organisms.

The University of Waterloo has developed a tool to help the capital markets incorporate physical climate change and extreme weather risk into investment decisions.
 
Researchers at Waterloo's Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation developed a climate risk framework which will help institutional managers to guide investments, securities commissions to assess disclosure, and credit rating agencies to measure risk by incorporating the impacts of climate change into business analysis.