Canadian Society for Bioengineering
2023 Annual General Meeting
July 23-26, 2023 | Lethbridge, AB

Dear Colleagues and Guests,

On behalf of the Canadian Society for Bioengineering (CSBE) and the local organizing committee, it is my immense pleasure to welcome you to the CSBE/SCGAB 2023 AGM in Lethbridge. We welcome contributions from various areas related to but not limited to: Agronomy, Bioenergy, Bioengineering, Biotechnology, Engineering Applications for Plant Pathology, Irrigation, Aquaculture, Aquaponics, Greenhouse, Mechanized Systems, Renewable Energy, Soil and Water, Sustainable Management for Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation.

Lethbridge is also within a day trip to 4 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Alberta and at the center of Canada's Premier Food Corridor. The region with 4.2M acres of farmland and 1.3M acres of irrigated land is a food processing hub with presence of several global food companies.

Please mark the CSBE/SCGAB 2023 AGM in your calendars and we look forward to seeing you in Lethbridge.

Important Dates:

Abstract submission opening: December 27, 2022
Online Registration Opens: April 1st, 2023
Abstract Due Date: March 15, 2023 Extended to April 2nd, 2023
Notice of Acceptance: April 15, 2023 May 2nd, 2023
Paper Submission: May 15, 2023

Sincerely,

Chandra Singh (Chair)

CONTACT: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT

Dear Colleagues,

It’s time to wrap up 2022 and reflect on our achievements. I am sure, each one of us has achieved something during the year that we are proud of and that makes a difference in our professional and personal life. This is the time to say thanks to our colleagues, family and friends for their continued support during the year.

I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!

Pradeep Kumar Goel, Ph.D., P.Eng.

Ontario Regional Director

An Important Initiative

Hugh Fraser, P.Eng. is a director with Ontario Barn Preservation (OBP), formed in 2019. OBP is a not-for-profit dedicated to preserving, documenting and promoting Ontario barns. Partnering with the University of Guelph, Hugh is leading an initiative to document as many old barns as possible in an online database populated by barn owners themselves. The online study shows owners how to measure and document their barns through a series of drop-down menus and helpful schematics and photos of things to look for in their barns. This information will provide researchers with data about pioneer life, encourage interest in the historical and architectural importance of old barns to the rural fabric, and help preserve old barns in the virtual world long after they are no longer standing.

Research Achievements

Watershed Modeling Research Team at University of Guelph:

Team members:

Ramesh Rudra, Professor; Prasad Daggupati, Associate Professor; Pradeep Goel, Adjunct Professor; Asim Biswas, Associate Professor; Rituraj Shukla, Postdoctoral Researcher; Jaskaran Dhiman, Postdoctoral Researcher; Pranesh Kumar Paul, Postdoctoral Researcher; Manpreet Kaur, Graduate Student; Amanpreet Kaur, Graduate Student;Avneet Singh, Graduate Student

Research Highlights:

The Watershed modeling research team at University of Guelph is working various projects funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MOECP), Ontario Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), Environment Climate Change Canada (ECCC), National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and various local, provincial and federal funded projects. Several outcomes such as PhD/Masters Thesis and publications have generated in the last few months. See below for details.

Masters/PhD thesis:

• Amanpreet Kaur (MASc): Impact of channel geometry parameters and reservoirs on streamflow and water quality modeling
• Avneet Singh (M.ENG): Bibliometric analysis of Lake Erie and its watersheds
• Waqar Ashiq (PhD): Topographical Controls on N₂O Emissions from Agricultural Fields

List of publications:

• A Goswami, PK Paul, R Rudra, PK Goel, P Daggupati, 2023. Evaluation of statistical models: Perspective of water quality load estimation. Journal of Hydrology 616, 128721                  
• E Philip, RP Rudra, PK Goel, SI Ahmed, 2022. Investigation of the Long-Term Trends in the Streamflow Due to Climate Change and Urbanization for a Great Lakes Watershed. Atmosphere 13 (2), 225
• H Mohebzadeh, A Biswas, R Rudra, P Daggupati, 2022. Machine Learning Techniques for Gully Erosion Susceptibility Mapping: A Review. Geosciences 12 (12), 429           
• ME Fraker, NR Aloysius, JF Martin, SC Keitzer, DA Dippold, H Yen, JG Arnold, P Daggupati et al., 2022. Agricultural conservation practices could help offset climate change impacts on cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. Journal of Great Lakes Research (In press)
• R Shukla, I Tiwari, D Khare, RP Rudra, 2022. Integrated water resources management in Sikta irrigation system, Nepal. Advances in Remediation Techniques for Polluted Soils and Groundwater, 337-359.
• RP Rudra, T Dickinson, J Dhiman, S Manzoor, P Goel, R Shukla, 2022. Exceedance Probability Model for Predicting the Frequency of Frost-Free Days. Journal of the ASABE 65 (6), 1249-1256
• SI Ahmed, R Rudra, P Goel, A Amili, T Dickinson, K Singh, A Khan, 2022. Change in Winter Precipitation Regime across Ontario, Canada. Hydrology 9 (5), 81 
• SI Ahmed, R Rudra, P Goel, A Khan, B Gharabaghi, R Sharma, 2022. A Comparative Evaluation of Using Rain Gauge and NEXRAD Radar-Estimated Rainfall Data for Simulating Streamflow. Hydrology 9 (8), 133        
• U Ghimire, T Akhtar, NK Shrestha, PK Paul, C Schürz, R Srinivasan, P Daggupati, 2022. A Long-term Global Comparison of IMERG and CFSR with Surface Precipitation Stations. Water Resources Management 36 (14), 5695-5709
• Scholarly Presentations and Conference Proceedings:
• A Kaur, PK Paul, P Daggupati, R Rudra, PK Goel, 2022. Impact of channel geometry parameters and reservoirs on streamflow and water quality modeling. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) conference, 2022, July 11-15, 2022, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
• PK Paul, J Dhiman, P Daggupati, R Rudra, PK Goel, 2022. Large Scale Hydrological Modelling: Dilemma of Definition. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Annual International Meeting, July 17-20, 2022, Marriott Marquis Houston, Texas, USA.
• PK Paul, P Daggupati, R Rudra, PK Goel, 2022. Long Term Trends of Phosphorous and Sediment Loads in Streams in the Great Lake Basin. Canadian Society for Bioengineering, Annual General Meeting, July 24-27, 2022, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada.

Special Coverage in the University of Guelph Newsletters
U of G-Developed Climate Model to Help Adapt to Cold, Heat Extremes. UG News. Monday, November 14, 2022 (https://news.uoguelph.ca/2022/11/u-of-g-developed-climate-model-to-help-adapt-to-cold-heat-extremes/?fbclid=IwAR0dDbSJ7BD0wFfscfyvJcVe6vz-trB3S8-fettI70LylBL1-8tcjCcDhiA).

by Sylvio Tessier (Ph.D)

I read a recent article regarding modelling of paddy soil using the CFD-DEM coupling method. The study was conducted by Dr. Long Qi’s research team at the College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University (SCU), Guangzhou, China. For your convenience, I include the following screenshot below, in case you want to read the article as well.

Starting from my Ph.D program, I have been developed interest in seed and fertilizer openers as well as their interactions with soil, aiming to improve the performance of openers. In early days, design of an opener typically needed to go through a long process of prototyping, involving several cycles of design and redesign, fabrication, and testing. That process was time consuming and costly. Now days, computer simulation tools are available to shorten the process. The entire prototyping process can be completed virtually through computer simulation. Several numerical simulation methods have been applied to model soil-tool interaction in developing and improving soil-engaging tools, such as seed and fertilizer openers. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been traditionally used in this area. Discrete Element Method (DEM) is a newer numerical method, that is gaining popularity for modeling larger soil deformation.

The aforementioned SCU’s work employed the DEM in modeling the interaction of a fertilizer opener with paddy soil. The challenging issue for modeling paddy soil is its higher moisture content compared with “dry” land. Thus, the researchers in SCU used the DEM in coupling with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The CFD is an effective numerical method to analyze fluid flow, and therefore, it is suitable for paddy fields containing significant amount of water. The CFD-DEM coupling model developed at SCU was able to predict the soil disturbance characteristics and the soil resistance force of the opener. The predictions agreed well with experimental results. This study and other studies in the literature have demonstrated that the CFD-DEM coupling is a promising method to model the dynamics of soil-machine interaction in agricultural fields with high moisture content.

by Vankatesh Meda

CSBE Information day / Academia-Industry Mixer Event

The fall 2022 CSBE Information day and an industry-academia panel discussion held in the Chemical Engineering Wing of the Engineering Building at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) on September 28, 2022.   The main goal of having the event was to promote CSBE/ASABE to new and existing graduate students in Chemical, Mechanical, Biological, Biomedical and Environmental Engineering disciplines as well as to have pleasant networking with invited panelists from Industry (Dr. R. Green, VP, Scientific Development, Canopy Growth; Dr. M. Sivakumar, Sr. Food Process Engineer, SK Food Development Center; Mr. J. Tratch, Cep, Proteus Waters, SK) and academia (Dr. L. Tabil, Professor, Chemical & Biol. Eng, Dr. V. Meda, Professor, Chemical & Biol. Eng, USask). Graduate students, faculty and staff in Chemical & Biological Engineering at USask were invited and more than 45 people showed up in the event. The theme of the panel discussion was “Bioprocessing” – road to Sustainability.

The SK regional director, Dr. Venkatesh Meda gave a presentation about CSBE/ASABE/CIGR. The presentation focused on the benefits of being a CSBE member and the multi-disciplinary scope of CSBE and career opportunities in the field of agriculture, food, bio-systems, chemical, and environmental engineering. This fun filled event was also a time for induction of new executive members of the CSBE SK Chapter.  

 New executive team members of CSBE-SK Students’ Chapter

The CSBE-SK Students’ Chapter launched officially last year. This year, new team members joined in the executive team of the students’ chapter: Divyapratim Das (President), Tahereh Najib (Vice-President), Tolen Moirangthem (Secretary), M. Heydari (Advisor), and Adedayo Oke (Membership and Public relations). All the executive members were introduced during the Information day event as well. The students’ chapter will interact with CSBE SK professional members and will organize academic and social events for student members.

Thesis Award

Dr. Mehdi Heydari won a best Ph.D. thesis award of the CSBE 2022. His thesis was entitled “INVESTIGATION OF LENTIL SEED BEHAVIOR UNDER MICROWAVE AND MICROWAVE-INFRARED THERMAL ‎TREATMENTS AND THEIR IMPACT ON MODIFYING THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL AND ‎FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES”, supervised by Prof. Venkatesh Meda, Chemical & Biological Engineering, USask.

Dr. V. Meda was the recipient of the “2022 SES Educator of the Year” award presented by the Saskatoon Engineering Society (SES), a constituent body of the APEGS, SK.

Les consultants Lemay et Choinière travaille au projet de rénovation et modification du complexe porcin pour incorporer une suite de chirurgie d’animaux de ferme de taille moyenne. Le projet se compose d’ une salle de chirurgie, préparation, laboratoire d’analise, espaces de bureau et salle d’ hébergement pour bovins et porcs. Le complexe doit être mis en service au printemps 2023.

L’ école médecine vétérinaire de l’université de Montréal a mandaté les Consultants Lemay et Choinière pour plusieurs projets de développement pour la ferme de recherche de St-Hyacinthe. Le site doit être ré-aménagé pour le drainage, l’ entreposage du fumier, l’ajout d’un entrepôt à aliment , la modification des systèmes de ventilation, chauffage et contrôle de l’ étable pour les bovins laitiers. Ces projets sont en cours en 2023.

On the thematic of Sustainable Agricultural production, the congress was held in Kyoto (Japan) from 5^th to 10^th December 2022.

The meeting was on hybrid format. In total, 540 in-persons and 137 Online participants were registered to the meeting.

The organising committee report 13 keynote speakers and 456 presentations (279 face to face, 105 online and 72 posters)

Few CSBE members attended this successful meeting.

Next CIGR meeting will be in Jeju Island, South Korea in May 2024

For more information: http://cigr2022.org/

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