A prolific plant, bamboo has long been considered a good building material in many countries. Now, UBC Okanagan researchers have created a way to make it even stronger. Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

UBC Okanagan researchers have adapted a technique—originally designed to embalm human remains—to strengthen the properties of biocomposites and make them stronger.

With the innovation of new materials and green composites, it is easy to overlook materials like bamboo and other natural fibres, explains UBCO Professor of Mechanical Engineering Dr. Abbas Milani. These fibres are now used in many applications such as clothing, the automotive industry, packaging and construction.

His research team has now found a way not only to strengthen these fibres, but reduce their tendency to degrade over time, making them even more environmentally friendly.

“Bamboo has nearly the same strength as a mild steel while exhibiting more flexibility,” says Dr. Milani, the founding director of the Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute. “With its low weight, cost and abundant availability, bamboo is a material that has great promise but until now had one big drawback.”

Bamboo is one of the world’s most harvested and used natural fibres with more than 30-million tonnes produced annually. However, its natural fibres can absorb water and degrade and weaken over time due to moisture uptake and weathering.

Using a process called plastination to dehydrate the bamboo, the research team then use it as a reinforcement with other fibres and materials. Then they cure it into a new high-performance hybrid biocomposite.

First developed by Gunther von Hagens in 1977, plastination has been extensively used for the long-term preservation of animal, human and fungal remains, and now has found its way to advanced materials applications. Plastination ensures durability of the composite material for both short- and long-term use, says Daanvir Dhir, the report’s co-author and recent UBC Okanagan graduate.

“The plastinated-bamboo composite was mixed with glass and polymer fibres to create a material that is lighter and yet more durable than comparable composites,” says Dhir. “This work is unique as there are no earlier studies investigating the use of such plastinated natural fibres in synthetic fibre reinforced polymer composites.”

Dhir says this new durable hybrid bamboo/woven glass fibre/polypropylene composite, treated with the plastination technique has a promising future.

Supported by industrial partner NetZero Enterprises Inc., the research shows that adding only a small amount of plastinated materials to the bamboo can increase the impact absorption capacity of the composite—without losing its elastic properties. This also lowers the material’s degradation rate.

More work needs to be done on the optimization of this process as Dhir says plastination is currently time-consuming. But he notes the benefit of discovering the right composition of plastinated natural fibres will result in a sizable reduction of non-degradable waste in many industries, with a lower environmental footprint.

Future studies are underway to optimize and investigate the effect of plastinating other natural fibres, such as flax and hemp. The researchers also suggest a life cycle analysis of the materials should be conducted under different applications and compared to non-plastinated samples. This will provide a better picture of the corresponding trade-off between the environmental footprint and mechanical durability effects.

“Biocomposites continue to find new applications under the circular economy paradigm,” adds Dr. Milani. “The innovations in the methods used to develop these composites will ensure benefits well into the future.”

The research appears in the Journal Composite Structures.

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UBCO researchers say more people living with disabilities need to be included in health research.

While the light shines on athletes participating in Beijing’s Paralympic Games this week, UBC researchers are asking why more people who live with disabilities are not included in basic health research.

Dr. Sarah Brears and Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginis say that while more than one billion people—15 per cent of the world’s population—live with some form of disability, they are notably absent from much of the scientific research that takes place.

“There is a serious disconnect,” says Dr. Martin Ginis, Director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management based at UBC Okanagan. “People living with disabilities are at greater risk for developing chronic diseases than the general population, and yet fewer than 0.3 per cent of nearly 27,000 peer reviewed research articles in major medical journals addressed the health of people living with a disability.”

She also says fewer than 0.001 per cent of the articles addressed physical activity, for people living with these disabilities or impairments.

For the general population, Dr. Martin Ginis says extensive high-quality evidence from observational studies and randomized controlled trials show that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of developing chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and site-specific cancers.

Scientists from the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization reviewed research on nine common disabling conditions including osteoarthritis, intellectual disabilities, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, history of stroke, major clinical depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and spinal cord injury.

Both entities found insufficient research to determine the relation between physical activity and the risk of developing chronic diseases for any people living with these conditions, says Dr. Martin Ginis.

“Disability is not merely the presence of a medical condition,” she adds. “Rather, disability occurs when impairments—whether they are physical, mental, sensory or intellectual—interact with personal and environmental barriers to impede a person’s ability to fully participate in society.”

For instance, a patient who has arthritis is not necessarily disabled. But if they have impaired physical mobility and need to use elevators instead of stairs, or can’t take a mobility scooter on public transit, their ability to work or move freely in their community is restricted and they would be considered disabled by the medical community. Dr. Martin Ginis says this is a further example of the people who should be included in health-related research.”

Dr. Brears, Regional Associate Dean, Interior of the Southern Medical Program, says the disconnect goes deeper than that. There are scientific practices that exclude people living with disabilities from participating in research on physical activity and chronic disease. For instance, impairments in walking, mental health and communication were a cause of exclusion in landmark clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of physical activity to reduce the risk factors for Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“The exclusion of people living with disabilities in such studies must stop,” says Dr. Brears. “Quite simply, this violates the fundamental principle of justice in research ethics—no segment of the population should be denied the benefits of research, and this is a human rights issue.”

Without such data, she says evidence-based physical activity policies, programs and guidelines cannot be developed to address health differences and disparities experienced by these vulnerable populations.

The research, published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, calls for coordinated efforts to collect population-level data on physical activity and chronic disease among people living with disabilities. There are currently no existing international methods to monitor and assess physical activity and chronic disease in people living with disabilities, unlike for the general population. In most national health surveillance systems, disability is either an exclusion criterion or is simply not measured.

“People living with disabilities urgently need advances in health science and practice,” adds Dr. Brears. “Addressing the lack of research on physical activity and chronic disease prevention in people living with disabilities has profound implications for developing evidence-informed best practices in health service delivery, decreasing health-care costs and enhancing the well­being of more than one billion adults and children worldwide.”

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UBCO researchers Samuel Yousefi and Dr. Babak Tosarkani are researching how blockchain technology could be used to improve the supply chain and the transportation of sustainable goods.

New research from UBC Okanagan suggests blockchain technology can improve the sustainability and efficiency of supply chains.

Dr. Babak Tosarkani, an Assistant Professor of Manufacturing Engineering at the School of Engineering, researches supply chain management, operations management and sustainability. New modelling from his lab suggests that focusing on digital transformation and adopting blockchain technology could reduce shipping bottlenecks and provide a clearer end-to-end picture of how items travel from origin to destination.

Dr. Tosarkani applied blockchain technology to complete a deeper dive into the supply of goods from producer to consumer.

“Most people associate blockchain technology with cryptocurrency, but it can provide a consistent and secure system for tracking financial data and logistics,” he explains.

The economic burden of responding to sustainable development and severe socio-environmental constraints have made a considerable impact on supply chain-related decisions, he explains. Being able to increase the integrity, flexibility and monitoring of assets has become a vital issue for sustainable supply chain management.

According to Dr. Tosarkani and doctoral student Samuel Yousefi, as more people and companies embrace environmentally friendly products, there is a need to maintain a transparent and robust tracking system to ensure products are exactly what they claim. The pair investigate the role of blockchain technology in improving the sustainability of supply chain performance in their latest research, published in the International Journal of Production Economics.

While many industries have started utilizing blockchain technology, the integration of this technology into the supply chain is still in its infancy. But this technology can provide definite benefits to managers and decision-makers who are ultimately responsible for ensuring supply chains run smoothly.

“Blockchain technology has not been widely applied in this field due to the lack of familiarity,” says Yousefi. “But from both an operational and a sustainability perspective, blockchain provides tools that the supply chain industry can use that will expedite systems and bolster sustainability.”

Yousefi explains that blockchain simultaneously records the flow of information about all existing processes in a supply chain and automatically shares all that data with other units involved—including the suppliers, manufacturers and retailers—at all stages of a product’s life cycle.

The researchers are currently connecting with supply chain operators to investigate future applications for the integration of these tools into existing systems and processes.

“Blockchain technology can have a paradigm-shifting impact on the supply chain by addressing the sustainability challenges currently being faced, but also challenges we might come across in the future,” says Dr. Tosarkani.

A new UBCO study found that an approach that does not require self-monitoring produced significant weight loss and other physical and psychological improvements.

Every New Year, people from around the world vow to improve their lives by setting resolutions.

Though well-intentioned, recent media reports suggest about 65 per cent of resolution-makers abandon their new habits within six weeks.

Though failure can be the most common outcome, one UBC Okanagan researcher says for those struggling with obesity, working to improve one’s health is a goal that shouldn’t be left behind.

Dr. Lesley Lutes is a Professor of Psychology in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Director of UBCO’s Centre for Obesity and Well-Being Research Excellence. She says no matter whether a person thinks they have failed, or what date the calendar says, today is the ideal time to make a change.

Dr. Lutes has dedicated much of her career to researching weight management strategies. In 2018, she and her colleagues from America’s University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, were awarded $1.7 million to study a comprehensive weight management program compared to do-it-yourself (DIY) dieting strategies. The research partially focused on using a new minimal monitoring system which is a part of the commercial Weight Watchers Freestyle program.

With the study now concluded, and preliminary results under review, Dr. Lutes discusses the study and shares advice on how to make a lasting change.

Do you have a sense of how significant the obesity problem is globally?

Since 1980, the prevalence of obesity has doubled in 73 countries and increased in many others. This is concerning because we know that an elevated body mass index is associated with numerous illnesses including cardiovascular disease and diabetes—and there are important linkages between obesity and cancer—which may ultimately translate into years of life lost.

Why did you decide to pursue this research?

We’ve long understood that self-monitoring is a key component to any weight-loss program, but it can also be very challenging to accomplish. We all have busy schedules. While food monitoring is a significant predictor of weight loss, traditional self-monitoring strategies are incredibly burdensome, requiring detailed food journals and measuring individual portions. Even when an effort is made to mitigate these burdens,engagement still inevitably decreases over time—almost going away altogether. And the consequence isweight regain over time.

We built this study on previous research published in 2020 where we found an approach that does not require self-monitoring of all foods and beverages produced significant weight loss and other physical and psychological improvements. That monitoring system is now a part of the Weight Watchers’ Freestyle program.

As more people are trying to improve their health and wellbeing, we wanted to compare this program to other weight management strategies and programs used by people, side by side, to help us understand which was more effective in real-world settings.

What is the Weight Watchers Freestyle program and what do your study results show in terms of its effectiveness?

Freestyle is a weight management program aimed at giving folks a little more flexibility in their monitoring. While it still uses Weight Watchers’ signature points system, it offers an expanded selection of zero points foods like vegetables, fruits and eggs—which means these foods can be consumed in addition to one’s daily point allotment without needing to be measured.

We found that among our sample of adults living with weight or obesity challenges, partial dietary monitoring, like the Freestyle program, resulted in greater weight loss compared to other DIY strategies. Greater weight loss for people in all three countries was recorded at both the three- and 12-month check-ins, which shows us there is more longevity in the program.

Why do you think partial dietary monitoring was more successful, and how can these results help people who are looking to embark on a healthier lifestyle?

Losing weight is hard, both physically and emotionally. I think any program that takes that into account and tries to support participants by providing them some flexibility is really helpful. It provides some sense of freedom in what can otherwise feel like a very strict one-size-fits-all approach where you either “succeed” or “fail.”

I’d also like to remind people that support matters. Change is hard, because life is hard. Be patient with yourself, take it one day at a time, and invest in people and things that are supporting you in improving your health and wellbeing.

Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang shows undergraduate students how to harvest the happy tree (Camptothecin acuminata) for genome/RNA sequencing and chemical analysis.

It may come as a surprise to some, but many of the compounds used in modern-day medicine, including chemotherapeutic drugs, come from plants.

The tropical tree Camptotheca acuminata, known as “happy tree” in its native habitats in southern China and Tibet, produces a group of chemicals called camptothecinoids. These compounds are among the leading chemotherapeutic agents used to treat certain types of cancer.

Just two compounds derived from these camptothecinoids—irinotecan, used to treat both colorectal and small cell lung cancer, and topotecan, used to treat ovarian cancer—make up a multibillion-dollar global industry.

The parent chemical of these drugs in the happy tree, camptothecin, is a powerful cancer-killing agent itself. However, it has adversarial side effects and poor solubility.

Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, and her research team in UBCO’s Plant Bioactive Compound Research Laboratory, have discovered a group of enzymes from the tree that oxidize camptothecin, enabling the production of topotecan, irinotecan and other similar compounds.

“The conversion of camptothecin to its hydroxycamptothecin derivative is a one-step reaction that looks simple on paper but is very challenging to do with chemical synthesis due to the compound’s complex structure,” says Dr. Dang. “Finding and manipulating the genes responsible for making it in the tree is how we solve this problem.”

The issue, as Dr. Dang explains, is that labour-intensive and unsustainable processes are needed to turn camptothecin into more clinically useful drugs. Camptothecin needs to be extracted from the plant, then converted in multi-step chemical reactions, first to its oxidated derivative, and then to drugs such as topotecan and irinotecan. Its chemical synthesis from camptothecin requires harsh reaction conditions with limited yields.

Alternatively, the derivatives can be harvested from the plant, but this approach is destructive and endangers the future supply of camptothecin-derived drugs. The challenge was finding the right genes in the plant genome, which contains tens of thousands of genes.

“It was truly like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” she says. “But thanks to state-of-the-art bioinformatic approaches and biochemical intuition, we came up with a manageable shortlist of gene candidates.”

While the process of screening was painstaking, the team eventually found two genes encoding for two enzymes that convert toxic camptothecin into the derivative and its close analogue. The genes were then moved to common baker’s yeast, where fermentation produced a milligram-level abundance of the hydroxycamptothecins for the semisynthesis of clinically important anti-cancer drugs.

“These new enzymes allowed the transformation of plant-derived camptothecin in one simple step to a chemical that we could readily convert into more soluble and structurally diverse anti-cancer drugs,” says Anh Nguyen, a recently graduated master’s student and study co-author.

In addition, because the team is now dealing with enzymes, their reactions can happen at room temperature in mild conditions, as opposed to the harsh conditions required for chemical synthesis.

This discovery is particularly significant because it drastically reduces the amount of time and effort spent on anti-cancer compound derivatization and semisynthesis. It also highlights plants as reservoirs of natural and potentially malleable biocatalysts for sustainable chemical production.

“This enzyme technology presents a unique opportunity for us to expand the camptothecinoids’ chemical space, and make more effective and accessible anti-cancer drugs with a new, more efficient manufacturing method,” says co-author Dr. T. Don Nguyen. “Thanks to these enzymes, we now have access to a suite of chemicals that were never before available in nature or even laboratories.”

Dr. Dang is now looking at how the plant makes camptothecin. Her ultimate goal is to put together the complete camptothecin pathway in a microbial system such as engineered baker’s yeast, thereby, making anti-cancer drugs more accessible.

UBC has filed an international patent on Dr. Dang’s use of the new enzymes to diversify camptothecinoids, a move she says will open the door to additional opportunities.

“Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada, and having an opportunity to work towards a future with more available treatments and ultimately, survivors, is a responsibility we take very seriously.”

This research was recently published in Communications Chemistry.

UBCO professor Abbas Milani and doctoral student Tina Olfatbakhsh use X-ray computed tomography to capture high-resolution 3D images of composite materials to study their internal structure.

Researchers at UBC Okanagan have come up with an easier way to examine the complex structure of fibres and multiscale materials, helping to ensure newly developed composites won’t fail under excessive loads.

Using materials informatics and machine learning, the team has uncovered a new way to analyze the effectiveness of state-of-the-art fabric composites used in aerospace, construction, automotive and sports industries.

The complex structures and configurations of these composites—while making them more durable and functional—are challenging to analyze, explains Dr. Abas Milani, a Professor in UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering and founding Director of the Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute.

Fabric composites are interwoven materials that provide a lightweight, stronger and often more formable alternative to simpler one-dimensional composite materials, he explains. Understanding the relationship between the geometry of these materials and their microstructural properties helps engineers to build a composite based on how they want the material to perform in the real world.

“For example, if we want the wings of an aircraft to resist specific high shear forces, building a composite material with a particular microstructure will help us achieve that,” he explains.

The UBC research team, including doctoral student Tina Olfatbakhsh, was able to connect the images of the fabric material structure to its mechanical property through the use of smart technologies and machine learning.

“Experimental or numerical modelling techniques are effective tools, but they are time-consuming and require expensive devices or high-power computers,” says Olfatbakhsh, co-author of the study. “They also often assume the material geometry to be perfect, although, in the actual manufacturing process, textile composites can have many different internal complexities like waviness, voids and even fibre misalignment. This complicates matters significantly.”

The proposed method enables researchers to capture the details in the material microstructure by advanced X-ray imaging techniques and making predictions about the material property only based on the images. This information can also be fed into a large materials database.

This database is a good opportunity to exchange knowledge with scientists around the world to prevent doing repetitive tests and analysis, explains Olfatbakhsh. Now, whenever they need a specific performance, they know which material arrangement to choose using this database.

Olfatbakhsh is the lab manager of the Composite Research Network’s (CRN) Okanagan Node. CRN is a collaboration of academic and industry partners that support the composites industry in Canada and beyond.

“As manufacturers develop more innovative composite materials that are formulated at the micro-scale, our testing needs to keep pace so we can ensure the integrity and strength of these new microstructures,” says Dr. Milani, principal researcher at CRN’s Okanagan Node. “Here at CRN, we are using X-ray computed tomography to non-destructively capture high-resolution 3D images of composite specimens to study their internal structure.”

Olfatbakhsh says the new approach is accurate, effective and applicable to existing manufacturing processes.

“By streamlining the analysis using machine learning techniques, we are making great strides towards a framework for smart, data-driven design and optimization of woven fabric composites,” she adds. “Our findings are a promising step forward for the smart design of next-generation tactile composites, especially in prominent industries like aerospace and transportation.”

The research was published in Composites Science and Technology, and funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Artist Maura Tamez stands in front je’egi, one of the many pieces of art on display at Rooted Sentiments in UBCO’s FINA gallery starting Friday.

What: Rooted Sentiments
Who: Exhibition featuring Maura Tamez, Cassandra Adjetey, Shimshon Obadia and Moozhan Ahmadzadegan.
When: Friday, February 11 to Wednesday, February 23
Where: FINA Gallery, Creative and Critical Studies Building, 1148 Research Road, UBC Okanagan campus

An art exhibition featuring the work of four Okanagan-based BIPOC artists—Maura Tamez, Cassandra Adjetey, Shimshon Obadia and Moozhan Ahmadzadegan—opens at UBC Okanagan’s campus next week.

With support from UBC’s Equity Enhancement Fund and the Black Liquorice Studio, the artist collective presents its inaugural show Rooted Sentiments. The collective is founded by UBCO Master of Fine Arts student Michaela Bridgemohan as part of her ongoing work to create space for BIPOC artists.

Rooted Sentiments invites viewers to consider the ways we make a home for ourselves, and the ways we invite or exclude others from doing the same, she explains.

“I want to bring attention to the BIPOC artists living in the Okanagan who are students or alumni from UBCO,” she says. “While diverse in subject and medium, this work investigates the way an exploration of roots and intersections of identity can inform and create our sense of home—as a material reality, a network of relations and a place in the imagination.”

While Bridgemohan did not plan the exhibition specifically around Black History Month, the timing of the show makes for a perfect connection in highlighting the work of all artists of colour in Kelowna.

Bridgemohan understands too well the systemic barriers for BIPOC artists in Canada. In 2020, Canadian Art magazine reported on a research paper and audit, titled “Black Representation in Calgary’s Contemporary Art Scene,” which was co-authored by her along with Levin Ifko, Alicia Buates McKenzie and Uli Savage. Their research illuminated the systemic barriers to BIPOC artists in Calgary, and Canada more widely.

While the submissions Bridgemohan received for Rooted Sentiments reflected a diversity of voices and experiences, she saw common threads too, noting some artists withdrew their submissions, thinking they were not good enough for public display.

“This lack of confidence is symptomatic of a lack of representation, with many artists believing they are not worthy, not good enough. And this is upsetting,” she says. “All the work I saw was legitimate and gallery-ready. And it reflected a longing to be seen, not just as individuals, but also the conversations they were having.”

The exhibition will be open in the Creative and Critical Studies Building’s FINA Gallery at UBC Okanagan from February 11 to 23, and open for viewing daily from 9 am to 4 pm, excluding weekends.

To learn more about Rooted Sentiments, or Black Liquorice Studio’s next event at the Lake Country Gallery this September, contact Michaela Bridgemohan at blackliquoricestudio@gmail.com.

For more information on the artists, their work and the upcoming FINA exhibit visit: gallery.ok.ubc.ca/2022/02/02/rooted-sentiments

Artist Maura Tamez stands in front je’egi, one of the many pieces of art on display at Rooted Sentiments in UBCO’s FINA gallery starting Friday.

What: Rooted Sentiments
Who: Exhibition featuring Maura Tamez, Cassandra Adjetey, Shimshon Obadia and Moozhan Ahmadzadegan.
When: Friday, February 11 to Wednesday, February 23
Where: FINA Gallery, Creative and Critical Studies Building, 1148 Research Road, UBC Okanagan campus

An art exhibition featuring the work of four Okanagan-based BIPOC artists—Maura Tamez, Cassandra Adjetey, Shimshon Obadia and Moozhan Ahmadzadegan—opens at UBC Okanagan’s campus next week.

With support from UBC’s Equity Enhancement Fund and the Black Liquorice Studio, the artist collective presents its inaugural show Rooted Sentiments. The collective is founded by UBCO Master of Fine Arts student Michaela Bridgemohan as part of her ongoing work to create space for BIPOC artists.

Rooted Sentiments invites viewers to consider the ways we make a home for ourselves, and the ways we invite or exclude others from doing the same, she explains.

“I want to bring attention to the BIPOC artists living in the Okanagan who are students or alumni from UBCO,” she says. “While diverse in subject and medium, this work investigates the way an exploration of roots and intersections of identity can inform and create our sense of home—as a material reality, a network of relations and a place in the imagination.”

While Bridgemohan did not plan the exhibition specifically around Black History Month, the timing of the show makes for a perfect connection in highlighting the work of all artists of colour in Kelowna.

Bridgemohan understands too well the systemic barriers for BIPOC artists in Canada. In 2020, Canadian Art magazine reported on a research paper and audit, titled “Black Representation in Calgary’s Contemporary Art Scene,” which was co-authored by her along with Levin Ifko, Alicia Buates McKenzie and Uli Savage. Their research illuminated the systemic barriers to BIPOC artists in Calgary, and Canada more widely.

While the submissions Bridgemohan received for Rooted Sentiments reflected a diversity of voices and experiences, she saw common threads too, noting some artists withdrew their submissions, thinking they were not good enough for public display.

“This lack of confidence is symptomatic of a lack of representation, with many artists believing they are not worthy, not good enough. And this is upsetting,” she says. “All the work I saw was legitimate and gallery-ready. And it reflected a longing to be seen, not just as individuals, but also the conversations they were having.”

The exhibition will be open in the Creative and Critical Studies Building’s FINA Gallery at UBC Okanagan from February 11 to 23, and open for viewing daily from 9 am to 4 pm, excluding weekends.

To learn more about Rooted Sentiments, or Black Liquorice Studio’s next event at the Lake Country Gallery this September, contact Michaela Bridgemohan at blackliquoricestudio@gmail.com.

For more information on the artists, their work and the upcoming FINA exhibit visit: gallery.ok.ubc.ca/2022/02/02/rooted-sentiments

New computer modelling research from UBC Okanagan, is meant to help leaders determine the costs of shutting down an economy for a pandemic.

A team of researchers, including UBC Okanagan’s Dr. Rebecca Tyson, has created a model to help governments make decisions when it comes to shutting down communities during a pandemic.

Dr. Tyson, who teaches mathematics in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, says that when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, many governments immediately introduced extensive lockdowns to limit the spread of the disease.

However, as the pandemic has continued, governments had to seriously consider the continued costs of imposing new or extended lockdowns.

“Our study is motivated by the hesitation shown by some leaders to implement strict control measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, in part due to the huge toll to the economy,” Dr. Tyson says. “For informed decision-making, it is clear that we need some objective quantification of the total cost of both the health crisis and the economic shutdown measures. With this research, we present a disease and economic cost model that is a useful tool for evaluating shutdown options.”

The research team used Canadian dollars to compute the economic costs of a shutdown as measured by loss of gross domestic product, while also including the expenses due to medical care of infected people and the value of lives lost.

“One of the issues is that there are ‘dollar costs,’ such as the loss of gross domestic product and medical costs,” says Dr. Tyson. “And then the much harder to estimate costs of lives lost.”

To separate those highly different, and incomparable costs, Dr. Tyson used an optimization tool called a Pareto front which allowed the team to decide how to value lives lost without sticking to a pre-configured statistical cost of a life.

The result is a curve that shows a rapid drop in deaths as the shutdown is introduced, followed by a much slower drop in deaths as shutdown levels are strongly increased.

“Some balance has to be struck between saving lives and the economic cost of the lockdown,” she says. “Our research presents a simple model, with both economic and epidemiological content to help assess the options. In particular, we aimed to determine what type of shutdown strategy minimizes costs over the period of the entire pandemic.”

Dr. Tyson says the research presents an interesting perspective on the shutdown tactics taken by the BC government and elsewhere. In almost all cases, after a severe initial shutdown, economies were reopened. It was hoped the transmission rate could be controlled through contact tracing combined with spread prevention measures such as mask-wearing, hand-washing, avoiding crowds and keeping business patrons two metres apart.

However, those prevention methods were not as effective as hoped, and as each wave approached, case numbers increased and governments began reimplementing significant shutdown measures.

The analysis suggests that the provincial and federal governments were wise to impose severe shutdown levels at the beginning of the pandemic. But perhaps a slower, more gradual decrease in shutdown levels would have led to a smaller overall economic cost of the pandemic.

“While our model is in no way a comprehensive representation of all of the costs and benefits of shutdown measures, it does contain the salient features of the system and the patterns in our results reflect real dynamics. Decision-makers must balance many competing and equally important demands when setting policies, and so it is critical that they have access to scientific studies that look at the whole picture.”

The paper, published recently in the Royal Society Journal, was completed in late 2021. Dr. Tyson explains the modelling is meant to be viewed as helpful for governments to make complex decisions, rather than simple, quick-fix prescriptions. The modelling tool will prove useful for governments as this pandemic continues or for future pandemics.

UBCO researchers have determined wolves living in high densities of human-created linear features need far less space to survive than wolves in the wilderness.

Wolves are intelligent predators. Like people, they use trails, seismic lines and roads to efficiently move through landscapes.

But new research from UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science has found that wolves living in areas with high densities of human-created linear features need far less space to survive than in less disturbed areas.

One of the most predominant forms of habitat alteration, particularly in Western Canada, are linear features such as roads, seismic lines or pipelines, explains Melanie Dickie, a doctoral student who works with UBCO biologist Dr. Adam T. Ford

“Smaller home ranges mean that, all else being equal, more wolves can fit into a given space. Our study is important for understanding how food and movement combine to influence home range size. Wolves can have profound impacts on their prey, and even plant communities. If humans are driving changes to those links in the food web, we need to understand how and then find a way to manage our part of the equation.”

Dickie’s team used data from 142 wolves outfitted with GPS devices to analyze the impacts of ecosystem productivity—a metric of food availability for ungulates and their predators. They also examined linear features as a measure of how easy it is for wolves to access food in their home ranges. The ranges covered more than 500,000 square kilometres of boreal forest spanning three Western Canadian provinces.

Linear features enable the movement of predators like wolves and this increases their encounter rates with prey and, consequently, their kill rates, says Dr. Ford. Increased wolf kill rates have important consequences for woodland caribou, which are in decline across much of their range as a result of increased predation.

“Millions of dollars are being spent on seismic line restoration in Canada’s forests with the hope of slowing down wolves and reducing predation on caribou,” he says. “This study is a valuable tool in helping to identify where the most effective areas for restoration will be.”

By restoring linear features, Dickie says areas of low ecosystem productivity may see a decrease in regional wolf abundance as a result of making it more difficult for them to hunt.

In contrast, in high-productivity areas, restoration may reduce wolves’ hunting efficiency, but likely will not affect regional density.

“This research is a great example of how ecological theory can support wildlife management,” says Dr. Rob Serrouya, study co-author and Director of the Caribou Monitoring Unit at Alberta’s Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. “Pushing our understanding of how movement and habitat use influences the distribution and abundance of species, will directly link to how we manage those species.”

Dr. Ford says it’s important for researchers to continue monitoring human activity when looking at species’ survival rates in Canada.

“In the 1960s, ecologists determined that rapid growth at the bottom of the food web—plants—was affecting the rest of the food chain,” he says “This study adds human activity to the equation with the goal to help save caribou within a rapidly-changing environment.”

This study was recently published in the journal Ecology and received funding from the Regional Industry Caribou Collaboration.