News

Dave has reached the incredible milestone of working at Queen’s for 25 years. Here’s to another 25 🙂

Cheers!

Randy Ellis and his team are working to advance the understanding of hip motion to improve surgical performance for hip replacement.

“Our idea is novel and simple,” says Dr. Ellis. “It is the motion of a patient’s hip, and not the highly variable anatomy, that should guide component placement in hip-replacement surgery. An improved understanding of how an arthritic hip moves may lead to strategies for preventing arthritis, as well as improving surgical treatment.”

Although hip replacement is a common and usually successful surgery for advanced hip arthritis, many secondary surgeries are often required, most often because of failures that can be traced to improper component placement. Dr. Ellis and his team hope to eliminate the need for these revisionary surgeries.

This project is a collaborative effort between Queen’s and Johns Hopkins University.

The funding under the NSERC/CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP) will support student research and materials for both projects.

http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/queens-computer-assisted-surgery-projects-receive-nserc-funding

Dr. Stewart and his team are developing computer-assisted surgical methods that allow surgeons to perform cartilage repair by mapping a damaged knee and pinpointing ideal locations for cartilage removal. To repair damage to the knee, healthy cartilage is removed from a non-load-bearing area of the knee and is transplanted to the damaged area. Surgeons currently do this by eye, often with varied results. The new technology should lead to more consistent and reliable results. Ideally, cartilage repair will reduce the need for total knee replacements, and allow people 50 and under the freedom to remain active despite their injuries.

“It’s a good option because it’s a smaller operation than a total knee replacement and it can treat people earlier,” says Dr. Stewart.

The funding under the NSERC/CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP) will support student research and materials for both projects.

http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/queens-computer-assisted-surgery-projects-receive-nserc-funding

SPIE – The International Society for Optics and Photonics – has awarded Mohamed Hefny a SPIE Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering for his project “Image-Guided Navigation Systems for Minimally Invasive Surgery”.

Well done Mohamed and best wishes.
Selim

This morning we learned Dr. Farhana Zulkernine will be returning to the Queen’s School of Computing this summer as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She was awarded a MITACS Elevate / CA Canada Industrial Fellowship for her research “Decision Support for Database Administrators using Warehouse-as-a-service (DSDAware).”

Congratulations, Farhana and welcome home.

Selim

TO TRY a new gaming style, grab some plastic and put a chip on your shoulder.

Zi Ye and Hammad Khalid of the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, have devised a way of using a shoulder-mounted projector system to display – and play – a game on a bendy A4-sized sliver of plastic. Sensors in the screen allow gameplay to be controlled by bending, shaking or tapping it.

For the full story, click here.

Congratulations are extended to two of our researchers for their independent recent awards under the NSERC / CIHR Collaborative Health Research Program (CHRP). Competition for these awards is intense; about 10% of applicants are successful.

Dr. Randy Ellis’ research project entitled “Kinematics-based navigation for reconstructive hip surgery,” with co-applicants Drs. Abolmaesumi, Bryant, Rudan and our own Dr. Gabor Fichtinger was funded. Drs. Pichora and Taylor will collaborate on this project.

As well, Dr. James Stewart’s research project entitled “New methods for articular cartilage repair through computer-assisted surgery,” with co-applicants Drs. Bryant, Deluzio, Waldman, Rudan, Fenton and Bardana was funded.

We are very proud to have these nationally recognized biomedical computing experts in our School.

Selim

Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed Hassan and Dr. Bram Adams on their recent receipt of funding under the NSERC Interaction Grants Program for their application entitled “Business Intelligence Platforms for Automated Performance and Reliability Analysis.”

This is a new program, with the briefest of applications and an almost instantaneous response-to-application-time, that funds researchers who identify a company-specific problem they could solve by collaborating in a subsequent research partnership. The program is intended to foster new relationships.

Well done Ahmed and Bram!

Selim

More information

Congratulations to the recipients of IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Fellowships:

Jim Cordy and his MSc student Doug Martin for their work on “Web Services Tagging Architecture,” and Pat Martin and his MSc student Marie Matheson for their work on “Supporting Smart Interactions with Predictive Analytics.”

CAS Fellowships are very competitive and only a small number are awarded each year.

As well, I am pleased to announce the renewal of Jim’s, Pat’s and Wendy Powley’s CAS Canada’s Research Faculty Fellow appointments for 2010.

Selim

Dear All,

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming Queen’s Graduate Computing Society Conference (QGCSC 2010).  Note that the abstract registration deadline has been extended to April 30th.

This is our first School of Computing graduate conference, and all graduate students are encouraged to present their work (in posters or oral presentations) even if previously published.

Our School members, alumni, researchers from Queen’s and RMC, in addition to the media, are invited.

For registration and more information kindly refer to our site.

Sincerely,
Sharief

– On behalf of the QGCSC organizing committee