Research

The University of Waterloo has been designated Research University of the Year among Canadian comprehensive universities by Research Infosource Inc. for the eleventh consecutive year.

The announcement follows recognition as the most innovative university in Canada for the 27th year in a row by Maclean’s magazine in its recent 2019 reputational survey. Waterloo was also named second in Canada for best overall and leaders of tomorrow.

A study by researchers at the University of Waterloo reiterates the need for health care professionals, including pharmacists, to take certain precautions to minimize the risk of their patients suffering shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA).

SIRVA is an uncommon and understudied phenomenon that people may experience after receiving an improperly administered vaccination. It occurs when an injection is administered too high in the arm, and the vaccine is delivered to the shoulder capsule instead of the deltoid muscle.

In a recent study involving analysis of 3.7 million anonymous patient records and computer simulations, University of Waterloo researchers developed strategies that increased the proportion of patients receiving timely scans to 66 per cent from the current rate of 33 per cent.

“We know we can improve the system through better scheduling,” said Hossein Abouee Mehrizi, an engineering professor and Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Operations Management at Waterloo. “It really matters.”

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have helped to develop a toolkit that will help municipalities, experts and community members to plan smart cities together.

The new toolkit launched by the City as a Platform Lab at Waterloo along with their US collaborators will help communities use data and technology to improve efficiency, sustainability, economic development and quality of life in urban areas.

One of the reasons that Waterloo has become a vibrant startup community is because of the tech founders who are engineering graduates or researchers of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering. As Canada’s #1 engineering research university “Waterloo Engineering,” is known as a powerhouse of research talent and a magnet for graduate students looking to change the world.

The researchers from the University of Waterloo, University of British Columbia, and the University of Auckland uncovered differences in how the brain processes visual information in patients with various types of lazy eye. In doing so, they are the first to demonstrate that the brain can divert attention away from a lazy eye when both eyes are open.

Most Canadian smokers are in favour of novel policies to reduce tobacco use, according to a national survey by the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC) at the University of Waterloo.

Responding to the Canadian government’s commitment to reduce tobacco use to less than five per cent of the population by 2035, the ITC study assessed baseline levels of support among Canadian smokers for potential endgame policies. The researchers found that most smokers in Canada support new and radical tobacco endgame strategies. 

What is one million times thinner than a strand of hair and two hundred times stronger than steel? 

The answer is graphene, a two-dimensional nanomaterial. The wide ranging  properties of graphene, discovered in 2004, make it ideal for producing flexible electronics, increasing the lifespan of batteries, improving the performance and energy efficiency of water filtration systems, as well as smart packaging to prevent food spoilage.   

The study, recently published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, found that selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRI medication) can delay the development and growth of amyloid-beta proteins, which can clump together and form a plaque, contributing to disease symptoms.

Over the last 10 years, anti-smoking measures such as taxing tobacco products and graphic warnings saved an estimated 22 million lives worldwide, says Geoff Fong, the Waterloo professor who leads the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC).

The ITC, based in the University of Waterloo’s Department of Psychology, both contributes to the success of efforts in countries associated with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and generates a sizable share of the data.