Increasing dependence on electricity has given an extra weight to the importance of power transmission line reliability. Service reliability can be improved with proper monitoring techniques and maintenance procedures. Improved condition assessment techniques can help avoid unexpected component failures of power transmission lines by assisting in assessment of current physical state of the system or components compared to its original condition.

There is a significant body of research on Corporate Social Responsibility in the mining sector. However, little empirical data exists about what works well across stages of the mine life cycle, particularly during early exploration.

The Project’s objective is to continue the upgrading work executed in the previous MITACS Converge project with a larger focus on more challenging biocrude oils such as heavy fractions, high viscosity, high nitrogen, high ash oils that are produced from feedstocks such as “feed gate residues” in the form of manures, biosludges and organics from municipal waste. The performance objective remains to optimize and scale up the upgrading of Hydrofaction™ Oil to blendstocks for transport fuels.

In general, hospital based medical personnel usually have little or no objective data describing an individual patient?s pre, intra and post-operative (perioperative) movement and activity. We are developing low cost and easily deployable technologies to monitor patient activity patterns and the associated intensities. We want to objectively identify medically important indicators of normal versus abnormal postoperative evolution.

The conventional form of hydrogenated amorphous silicon, prepared through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, has proven itself to be a useful material for a wide range of device applications. It has been shown that the hydrogen atoms that reside within hydrogenated amorphous silicon are responsible for its favorable electronic properties, these hydrogen atoms passivating the dangling bonds that are present within this material.

Vision loss related to malfunctioning of the brain have always been believed to be unrecoverable in adults. Novel treatments, however, have shown the opposite. Visual stimulation is a computer-based system which devised visual stimuli are presented to participants. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is a non-invasive technique to deliver an electric current to the brain. Both treatments have shown promising results on recovering vision in participants with amblyopia (lazy eye) and in the ones who lost it following a stroke. We will study the benefits of combining these two techniques.

The dewatering systems in the FortisBC hydropower generation facilities need long-term rehabilitation solutions. The purpose of this project is to develop a risk assessment model for the dewatering systems of hydropower generation facilities, and to identify the best long-term rehabilitation solutions for such facilities. Recommendation on long-term maintenance and rehabilitation will be provided on the basis of failure risk, safety risk, maintainability, costs, and environmental impacts.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), formation of blood clot in deep vein usually in leg, has severe health complications that can lead to disability or death. Applying a cyclic pressure can improve blood circulation and may prevent DVT. This cyclic pressure can be implemented via mobile compression socks (MCS). However, MCS only apply static pressure, which reduces the effectiveness of the MSC. The Toyo team has developed and patented a compression stocking capable of applying cyclic pressure.

This project focus on designing a fatigue cycling machine to test soil openers for low cycle, impact fatigue. This process begins by identifying and characterizing the load in case, and then continue into detailed design, fabrication and commissioning. Characteristics such as robustness, reliability and safety will be strongly emphasised. This testing machine will then form a basis for further research on opener design.
It is very important to test the soil openers before releasing them, to assure that the customers that acquire them will not have problem during their seeding period.