Engineering Link (Canada)

<b>Tarang Sharma and colleagues</b> argue for increased collaboration across public and private sectors—internationally and with patients—in drug assessment and managed entry agreements to support equitable and sustainable access to costly medicines

Addressing the challenges posed by climate change in recent decades, particularly in Arctic and freshwater ecosystems, requires integrating diverse datasets across disciplines, cultures, and political boundaries. Although Canada has invested significantly in research infrastructure, much of its environmental data continues to be fragmented and difficult to access. The Canadian Watershed Information Network (CanWIN) provides a decentralized open-access platform that fosters research collaboration and knowledge sharing. By implementing CARE and FAIR principles and best practices for data stewardship, CanWIN enables ethical and transparent data sharing, supporting reconciliation efforts with Indigenous communities and enhancing evidence-based decision-making in response to climate and environmental change. An example project in collaboration with the Manitoba Métis Federation is highlighted.

Road roughness significantly affects vehicle vibrations and ride quality. We introduce a Kalman filter (KF)-based method for estimating road roughness in terms of the international roughness index (IRI) by fusing inertial and speed measurements, offering a cost-effective solution for pavement monitoring. The method involves system identification on a physical vehicle to estimate realistic model parameters, followed by KF-based reconstruction of the longitudinal road profile to compute IRI values. It explores IRI estimation using vertical and lateral vibrations, the latter more common in modern vehicles. Validation on 230 km of real-world data shows promising results, with IRI estimation errors ranging from 1% to 10% of the reference values. However, accuracy deteriorates significantly when using only lateral vibrations, highlighting their limitations. These findings demonstrate the potential of KF-based estimation for efficient road roughness monitoring.

Brain tumor needle biopsy interventions are inflicted with nondiagnostic or biased sampling in up to 25% and hemorrhage, including asymptomatic cases, in up to 60%. To identify diagnostic tissue and sites with increased microcirculation, intraoperative optical techniques have been suggested. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical implications of in situ optical guidance in frameless navigated tumor biopsies. Real-time feedback on protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence, microcirculation, and gray-whiteness was given before tissue sampling (272 positions) in 20 patients along 21 trajectories in total. The primary variables of investigation were fluorescence in relation to neuropathological findings and gadolinium (Gd) enhancement, increased cerebral microcirculation in relation to bleeding incidence, number of trajectories, and impact on operation time. PpIX fluorescence was detected in Glioblastoma IDH-wildtype CNS WHO grade 4 (n = 12), Primary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (n = 3), astrocytoma IDH-mutated CNS WHO grade 4 (n = 1) (Ki67 indices ≥ 15%). For 2 patients, no PpIX fluorescence or Gd was found, although samples contained tumorous tissue (Ki67 index 6%). Increased microcirculation was found along 9 trajectories (34 sites), located in cortical, tumorous, or tentorium regions. Postoperative bleedings (n = 10, nine asymptomatic) were related to skull opening or tissue sampling. This study strengthens the proposed independence from intraoperative neuropathology as PpIX fluorescence is detected. Objective real-time feedback resulted in fewer trajectories compared to previous studies indicating reduced operation time. The integrated optical guidance system provides real-time feedback in situ, increasing certainty and precision of diagnostic tissue before sampling during frameless brain tumor biopsies.

The academic competition Formula student engage engineering students all over the world. In this paper, two applications of Design Automation (DA) and knowledge based engineering (KBE) are presented. Their purpose is to act as a proof-of-concept of time consuming, repetitive and error prone activities can be limited. Time and activities can instead be re-directed to value adding activities such as making more sustainable design decisions. Two applications are applied in the chassis design process. Each application is discussed and further steps and applications are presented.

We propose a conjugate logic that can capture the behavior of quantum and quantum-like systems. The proposal is similar to the more generic concept of epistemic logic: it encodes knowledge or perhaps more correctly, predictions about outcomes of future observations on some systems. For a quantum system, these predictions are statements about future outcomes of measurements performed on specific degrees of freedom of the system. The proposed logic will include propositions and their relations including connectives, but importantly also transformations between propositions on conjugate degrees of freedom of the systems. A key point is the addition of a transformation that allows to convert propositions about single systems into propositions about correlations between systems. We will see that subtle choices of the properties of the transformations lead to drastically different underlying mathematical models; one choice gives stabilizer quantum mechanics, while another choice gives Spekkens' toy theory. This points to a crucial basic property of quantum and quantum-like systems that can be handled within the present conjugate logic by adjusting the mentioned choice. It also enables a discussion on what behaviors are properly quantum or only quantum-like, relating to that choice and how it manifests in the system under scrutiny.

&lt;div class="section abstract"&gt;&lt;div class="htmlview paragraph"&gt;Emissions of particulate matter, or PM, due to brake wear, are not well quantified in current air pollutant emission inventories. Current emission factor models need to be updated to reflect new technologies and materials and to incorporate the effects of changing driving habits and speeds. While emission regulations drive technical innovations that are significantly reducing PM emissions in vehicle exhaust, non-exhaust automotive emissions remain unregulated. Current emission factor models need to be updated to reflect the changes caused by new technologies, materials, and speed-dependent vehicle usage. Most research regarding brake emissions relies on a laboratory setting. Laboratory testing has allowed researchers, application engineers, data modeling engineers, and environmental agencies to generate large datasets for multiple vehicle configurations and friction couple designs. However, these results can be inconclusive or confusing to compare at best, due to the lack of a standardized method. This paper reports on a six-vehicle campaign conducted under standardized, repeatable, and reproducible conditions. By relying on state-of-the-art speed control systems, the inertia dynamometer can recreate specific driving profiles derived from field measurements. The study involved testing brake corners from six vehicles. The test plan included original equipment service parts, or OES, and aftermarket friction couples, or AM, on an enclosed brake inertia dynamometer. The individual friction couples include the friction material along with the commonly used mating disc or drum per the market survey performed early during the project. This approach reflects the OE brake configuration and subsequent brake replacement jobs. The test cycle used represents vehicle usage in California. The project relied upon approved testing protocols, test system validation, adjustment of cooling airspeeds, and interlaboratory evaluation for filter weighing methods. The results from more than 80 tests show the effects of axle position, friction couple formulation, as well as vehicle size, type, and speed. These results show substantial variation in brake PM emissions by vehicle application and friction couple type.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

Geomembrane liner has been widely accepted as standard components of geosynthetic lining systems in many containment facilities. Among the plastic materials utilized for geomembranes, high density polyethylene (HDPE) geomembranes are the most widely used geosynthetic lining materials adopted for various containments applications include waste landfill, liquid containment and mining ponds, etc. This is mainly attributed to its superior hydraulic and mechanical properties in combination with its very low permeable characteristics, greater chemical resistance and ultra violet light (UV) degradation resistance. It is always engineers’ major concern regarding the lifetime of geomembranes. The paper presents an evaluation of HDPE geomembrane liner that was left exposed to the extreme continental climate with long, cold winters and short summers in Northern Mongolia. After more than 16 years of service and exposure, geomembrane samples were evaluated for physical property integrity and engineering performance. The laboratory test results presented in this paper demonstrate that after 16 years in active service, HDPE geomembrane liners are working in their desired function and performance under exposed condition.