| research furthers innovation and teaching at the University of Lethbridge

winter 2010 vol 3 issue 2 | ulethbridge.ca

Written in Old English by an anonymous poet, The Dream of the Rood is recognized as one of the oldest poems in the English language and among the most beautiful religious works. What many don’t know is that much of the poem is carved in runes (ancient symbols) on a 17-ft high stone cross in a Scottish church.

The 8th century Ruthwell Cross is historically linked to two other crosses: the 11th century Brussels Cross, made of oak and thought in the Middle Ages to contain a relic of the “True Cross” from Christ’s crucifixion, and the 8th century Bewcastle Cross in England, which is carved of stone. All three bear elements that are thematically related to The Dream of the Rood poem.

In the past, Anglo-Saxon historians were required to travel to Belgium and Great Britain to study these artifacts in all three dimensions. Despite the gains of modern digital photography, the crosses are difficult to capture photographically because of their condition and inconvenient locations. Additionally, even a very high-resolution image cannot capture subtle details, like the techniques used to carve the cross. “It’s not 100 per cent clear whether or not the poem was carved when the Ruthwell Cross was carved,” explains U of L English professor Dr. Daniel O’Donnell. Being able to examine the crosses in all three dimensions is the only way for researchers to assess this and many other questions.

To improve access to the objects, a University of Lethbridge team is co-ordinating an international effort to create a high-tech alternative. O’Donnell, a medieval literature specialist, is collaborating with U of L professors James Graham (New Media) and Dr. Wendy Osborn (Mathematics and

Computing Sciences), computer programmer and U of L graduate Joel Rigby, and researchers from the University of Leeds and the Università degli studi di Torino, to create an online environment that will allow researchers to view and interact with the crosses virtually, in real-time and in three dimensions.

“After examining the multitude of available new media technologies used by humanities researchers and wanting to create an innovative online system that would significantly improve the standard of interactivity, visual accuracy and authenticity-of-experience, we settled on developing a proprietary digital information retrieval system that would work in combination with a collection of next-generation video game technologies,” Graham explains. “We felt that the third dimension was the next logical direction for hypermedia-based research to go, as it allows users to see and intuitively interact with virtual representations of objects they wish to know more about. “

To render the crosses in 3-D, high-tech laser scanners will be used to capture every detail of the historic artifacts. The digital scan files will then be converted from the 3-D x,y,z data into a highly efficient texture files – called normal maps – that will then be applied to the surface of the 3-D cross models.

The Visionary Cross research group is also completing an innovative system that will allow researchers to interface directly with external online databases while navigating within the 3-D game environment. Students and researchers examining the relics within the virtual game environment will be able to directly access specific online database information – and even add to that database – simply by clicking on the relevant location on the 3-D virtual object.

Not surprisingly, the project will need heavy-duty technological infrastructure. That’s why Osborn, who is the director of the Southern Alberta Digital Library and an expert in data management, is examining the best ways to store the data involved to make its retrieval efficient. “We’re still working on proof-of-concept, so we don’t have huge amounts of data yet, but when we go online and people start to add their own data, it could be terabytes of data that come into this,” she explains. To put this in perspective: 1 terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes (GB), and your personal computer probably has about between 1-5 GB of memory. In addition to the massive volume of information, the project will also involve many different kinds of data, which also presents a tremendous challenge, Osborn says.

The Visionary Cross Project is being funded by a two-year, $23,000 grant that Graham, O’Donnell and Osborn received from the U of L Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities (CREDO) program. The researchers have also applied to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for funding for the next stages of the project.

While the Visionary Cross Project may seem like a radical diversion from most humanities research, O’Donnell explains that humanities researchers have relied on computers since the middle of the 20th century for things like statistical analysis and library cataloguing. But humanities researchers haven’t just been the benefactors of technology – they’ve also created it. “For example, an awful lot of what allows XML to work essentially comes out of work done in humanities computing,” O’Donnell says.

Editor: Jane Allan

Photography: Rod Leland, Bernie Wirzba

3-D Virtual Image Composite: James Graham

Writers: Caitlin Crawshaw and Natasha Robbie

Design: Glenda Moulton (CRDC)

Printing: University of Lethbridge Printing Services

Correspondence should be addressed to:

Research Services, University of Lethbridge

4401 University Drive

Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4

Phone: (403) 317-2869

E-mail: jane.allan@uleth.ca

www.ulethbridge.ca | www.uleth.ca/unews

Recycled paper containing 50% recycled

fibre and 25% post-consumer waste.

Building a real-time digital reliquaryVisionary Cross project combines medieval Anglo-Saxon relics with next-generation 3-D visualization and database technologies to aid scholarly research.

(l-r) Joel Rigby, Dr. Wendy Osborn, Dr. Daniel O’Donnell, James Graham

Technology in research

Utilizing online learning to manage health

As the lead Canadian researcher for the Canadian Space Agency’s contribution to the Herschel Space Observatory, U of L scholar Dr. David Naylor (Physics and Astronomy) has played a key role in the development of the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE). SPIRE is one of three instruments on the Herschel spacecraft that is orbiting 1.5 million km from the earth. Functioning at a chilly -270C, SPIRE observes the universe at very long wavelengths, those well beyond the limit of human vision. Radiation emitted at these wavelengths is able to travel relatively unimpeded through even the densest regions of space, which allows astronomers to view back in time to the formation of the first galaxies. This technology is similar to, but far more sophisticated than, the full body scanners now being installed at airports.

Naylor’s group designs and builds exquisitely sensitive systems to convert the energy in long wavelength photons into meaningful information on the composition and physical conditions of the astronomical objects under study. As Naylor explains, “That’s what physicists do – they think of the question and then build the equipment to answer that question.” Naylor is also a co-founder of the Institute for Space Imaging Science (ISIS) and director of its Space Astronomy Division. ISIS is a collaboration between the Universities of Athabasca, Calgary and Lethbridge

(www.spaceimaging.ca). Scientists from the three institutions, and their research partners worldwide, share technology and other resources to tackle leading edge questions in space imaging.

Most recently, Naylor is collaborating with Dr. Jeff Dunn, a Canada Research Chair of radiology and biophysics in the U of C’s Faculty of Medicine, to explore the utility of his detection system to the medical field, initially in cancer detection. In a recent paper, a team of Taiwanese scientists have shown that THz imaging is capable of detecting breast cancer without the lengthy time requirement for histological staining of samples and visual inspection by a technician. Naylor quickly realized that even his run of the mill detectors

are 100,000 times more sensitive, which means they have the potential to identify not only the cancerous cells, but also their boundaries, substantially faster. Dunn and Naylor are working to explore if this gain can be realized.

Some people question why anyone would study astronomy. Can research into the world around us help advance us as a species? Naylor emphatically says yes. The universe is the astronomer’s laboratory, and the instrumentation Naylor has developed to look outward may just provide us a better way to see in. “One only has to look at the impact of the laser and MRI on society, whose roots lie in basic physics research, to answer the relevance question”.

When it comes to chronic diseases like diabetes, the key to warding off complications lies in the daily management of the illness – that’s why education is so important.

But a face-to-face meeting with a nurse educator isn’t the only way to learn self-management techniques. A research study by Faculty of Management professor Dr. Helen Kelley and her research collaborators, Dr. Mike Chiasson (Lancaster University) and Dr. Angela Downey (University of Victoria), is revealing that e-health technologies – when used strategically – can boost health outcomes in the ever-growing population of people with Type II diabetes.

“As incidents increase, there’s definitely a cost to our health-care system. Given concerns with the cost of healthcare, how do we provide the education that’s needed so people develop good self-care management practices?” she asks.

Kelley and her colleagues led a 12-month, longitudinal study involving three groups of newly diagnosed diabetes patients from the former Chinook Health Region, who were given different combinations of learning tools. The

first group of patients had face-to-face meetings with clinicians, as well as Internet access for independent searches for information. The second group was given electronic versions of educational material developed for the Chinook health region, e-messaging for communicating with clinicians and an electronic blood glucose journal, but no face-to-face coaching. Like the second group, the third had access to educational materials, e-messaging for communicating with clinicians and the journal, but also a list of educational websites, bulletin boards for posing questions to clinicians and chat rooms for speaking with other newly diagnosed diabetics and clinicians.

The study, which wrapped up in December, monitored

a special biomedical indicator in the patients’ blood (hemoglobin A1c) in order to determine whether the use of the various electronic features for education was having positive health outcomes. Early analysis shows that the third group made the biggest health gains.

“Early results from our study suggest that if you’re mindful of the type of technology you develop, you can get very positive results – as good as face-to-face outcomes and perhaps even better,” Kelley says. However, the key is using technology strategically. “You can’t just slap materials on a website and say, ‘Here you go – go ahead and manage your disease.’ It’s much more involved than that.”

Looking out to see in

Dr. Helen Kelley

Dr. David Naylor

Mark Pijl-Zieber (BN ’93) doesn’t consider himself a technological wizard, but he does say the technology he utilizes works magic with his students. Pijl-Zieber earned his graduate degree from UBC in 1999 and was employed there until 2002 when he was hired as an instructor with the Faculty of Health Sciences at the U of L. While he has had a long-term fascination with technology and its multitude of applications (he produced a recruitment video for the U of L while still a student here), he has found particular usefulness for technology in his approach to teaching. Initially, the only technology Pijl-Zieber relied on rested in the palm of his hand – a PDA which he used to help remember significant student achievements and incidents. He would record them as dictated audio clips and written notes, and he also used the PDA extensively as a portable knowledge and text-book database. But since 2005, he has used the Internet more extensively as a teaching tool, structuring his classes in a way that blends online forums with in-class lectures. The

approach has proven extraordinarily successful. Not only are his students well prepared and motivated when they come to class, attendance numbers tend to be higher as well – upward of 95 per cent at every lecture. “The balance between online and in-class work is what students really respond to,” Pijl-Zieber notes. “They like the flexibility of doing much of their learning online, and they tend to interact and contribute more freely in that forum than they do in person.” Up to 50 per cent of course content can be done online in any of Pijl-Zieber’s classes – a ratio that he has no plans to decrease. He creates a page for each of his courses where students gather information and access reading material. Group work can also be done online, and a discussion board allows class members to contribute thoughts and ideas about the material. The feedback that Pijl-Zieber has received indicates that students really connect with this teaching approach. “This method is one of the best approaches I’ve ever found to delivering our curriculum, and it makes teaching a pleasure.”

Albert Einstein famously said, “Never memorize something that you can look up.” Dr. Marlo Steed wholeheartedly agrees. An associate professor in the Faculty of Education, Steed teaches New Media in Learning and gears his research to how technology impacts the way people teach and learn. He is currently compiling feedback on the trial use of a cutting edge conferencing program called Adobe Connect, which Steed recently employed with a group of distant placement practicum students – one as far away as Belize. As far as Einstein’s sentiments go, Steed emphatically concurs, stating that ready access to a world of information through technological means has changed education forever. “The ways in which we find and share information have fundamentally changed,” he explains. “We no longer have to worry about memorizing facts – we can go online and find information on anything we want at any time.”

Steed says that at this point in the world’s technological evolution, educational focus should be on higher order skills and critical thinking. “Students need to learn to how to be problem solvers and decipher what technological tools will most effectively get their ideas across,” he says. While Steed concedes that technology presents as many challenges as benefits, he believes that the sheer magnitude of technological possibilities and the speed in which technology advances is extremely exciting. “Technology not only changes the way we look at the world, it changes the way we think,” Steed says. “Five years ago, we didn’t know where we’d be now. Who can predict where we’ll be in another five years? The biggest challenge is to become a lifelong learner who grows with the technology and learns how to utilize it as it moves along.”

Neuroscience professor Dr. Masami Tatsuno’s investigations into REM and non-REM sleep and their effects on memory are producing findings that are quite awakening. Memory is a crucial brain function for humans and other animals; therefore, understanding how memory is encoded and maintained in the brain is an important problem of neuroscience. Tatsuno, an AHFMR funded researcher at the U of L Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience (CCBN) and an iCORE scholar, is conducting studies aimed at understanding how REM and non-REM sleep contribute to memory consolidation. He investigates neuronal activity in lab animals to determine what types of memory benefit from REM and non-REM sleep, what the specific benefits are, and whether or not REM and non-REM sleep play complimentary roles in the formation of memory. “Neuronal activity patterns that appear in the brain when a subject is engaged in a behavioural task reappear during the subsequent sleep,” Tatsuno explains. “We call this memory reactivation or memory replay.” Many researchers believe that memory is stored on the connections between neurons.

Changes in these connections due to some new experience or behaviour are reinforced again during sleep; this indicates the formation of new memory. Tatsuno inserts multiple electrodes into the brains of his study subjects, monitoring up to 240 electrodes at a time to gain insights on how the brain functions and is subsequently modified during awake and sleeping conditions. Subjects are engaged in simple tasks such as running on a track or repeating a simple sequence. Tatsuno then investigates how the subjects’ brains change by comparing neuronal activity during pre-task sleep, during the task, and again during post-task sleep. Tatsuno has also been developing a computational technique that allows for the analysis of vast amounts of neuronal activity data. With his theoretical training in applied physics, he tries to integrate computational and experimental approaches in his research. The mathematics provides an insight into memory reactivation and learning, as well as the computational principles of memory function. “Sleep is not only for recovery from fatigue; it plays an active and important role in memory formation,” Tatsuno explains.

Teaching high tech

Solidifying memory while you sleep

Learning through critical thinking

Dr. Marlo Steed

Mark Pijl-Zieber

Dr. Masami Tatsuno

(clockwise from left) Fan Mo, Jeffrey Fischer, Dr. Hans-Joachim Wiedem, Alix Blackshaw, Megan Torry, Lisza Bruder, Mackenzie Coatham (missing) Ashley Duncan, Kristen Rosler

The science of small yields big rewards

University of Lethbridge chemistry professor Dr. Hans-Joachim Wieden may work on the tiniest bits of matter, but his research is yielding big things – both for synthetic biology and for U of L students.

Wieden’s research program is focused on understanding how antibiotic drugs disable the function of ribosomes. These organelles are the largest units in a bacterial cell, and they synthesize proteins critical to cellular survival. Impeding the ribosome function essentially shuts down a bacterial cell, preventing it from wreaking havoc in the body.

To understand the nuances of this process, Wieden says he’s “eavesdropping” on cells by observing molecular processes at the atomic scale and then rendering them in 3-D using computer modeling techniques.

While it may sound theoretical, the research has very practical applications, he explains. “If you understand it, you can reprogram the bacteria for whatever you want it to do.” Eventually, bacteria could function as tiny “machines” of a kind, useful for a wide range of research, medical, industrial and environmental functions.

Genetically engineered biomolecular machines fall under the rubric of synthetic biology. It’s a fascination for Wieden and he’s committed to introducing this growing research area to students at the U of L. For the last three years, Wieden has been

the faculty advisor for an undergraduate team that competes at an international research competition called iGEM. Created in 2003, the event is held annually at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Each year, about 100 teams from top-notch universities participate.

The U of L gives the iGEM team dedicated lab space to carry out their research, but it’s up to them to figure out the project logistics. To gather the resources they need, students must canvass local businesses to find sponsorship dollars. “I’m trying to encourage self-guided learning with a spirit of entrepreneurship. They have to find the money to do it,” Wieden explains. While he’s available to lend his expertise, “I’m just guiding them.”

For the students, iGEM is more than an extracurricular activity – it’s a tremendous undertaking that challenges students on many levels. In the course of the year-long project, students learn how to run a laboratory, conduct research and find funding – skills they can use either in industry or academia down the road. This offers a hands-on experience that Wieden wishes he’d had. “I set out to give the students the opposite experience I had as an undergraduate,” he says.

While the experience of competing allows U of L students to travel and meet researchers from around the world, the competition really takes place at a molecular level. Student

teams are given a kit of biological parts – called biobricks – at the beginning of the summer from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Working at their own schools, they use these parts, along with new parts of their own design, to build biological systems. They then operate these systems in living cells.

The molecular structures the students create are designed for a wide range of real-world purposes. Two years ago, the team engineered bacteria to digest hydrocarbon compounds in tailing ponds in the oil sands and earned gold for their efforts. Last year’s team engineered a nano-sized compartment in the unstructured “soup” of bacterial cells in order to store certain genes. “This molecular structure will be a useful tool for other synthetic biology researchers,” Wieden explains.

Winning gold again this year, the 8-person U of L team worked on harvesting solar energy by refining what was termed a bio-battery, focusing on a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) that has photosynthetic properties when exposed to sunlight.

“These projects are leading-edge science that has social relevance,” Wieden says.

Dr. Dan WeeksVice-President (Research)

Ursula Franklin once said, “Technology has built the house in which we all live, today there is hardly any human activity that does not occur within this house.”

Research is about innovation. Often, innovation leads to new technologies that, in turn, facilitate further advances in research. No one would deny the impact that this interplay between innovation and technology has had on our lives.

The University of Lethbridge resonates with the province’s new innovation approach. Our faculty fully appreciate how technology and

innovation in research provide us with different perspectives of the worlds we study and how they can have an immense impact of our understanding of those worlds. The information uncovered by our researchers changes what we know and affects what we think. Every new question they ask pushes us further towards understanding and edification.

This issue of FIAT: Furthering Innovation and Teaching highlighted how our scholars enact innovations that allow them to share their knowledge with others. Whether they are employing technology used in space to

improve medical procedures, utilizing the flexibility of online learning systems, applying gaming technology to study ancient artifacts or providing online resources to enable people to better manage disease, these researchers and the others profiled on these pages are continuing to enlighten us with new information that will help to shape a positive and sustainable future for all Albertans.

I hope you enjoyed reading about them.

The LAST WORD