Biopeak Corp, a medical device company, is developing a non-invasive, integrated, sensing platform that would allow people to be monitored for multiple parameters continuously day and night. This presents some major challenges in terms of wearable electronics that can survive several days of use, including size, power management, ease of use and comfort. All these issues require technological innovation. The research to be performed as part of this internship work will be to focus on one of the subsystems in this product.

Underground pre-concentration is an efficient stage in reducing the cost of mining operations. During this operation, extracted rocks are monitored underground and most of the waste rock is rejected while the ore is kept. In this project, image processing and pattern recognition algorithms will be employed to characterize different types of ores as well as rocks. This system will be part of a machine vision system that will be used for sorting ores from waste rocks in an underground preconcentration in a mine.

Remifentanil, an anesthetic that is administered intravenously during acoustic shock wave treatment for kidney stones, depresses a patient's ability to breathe and can lead to apnea. Respiration is normally detected via standard patient monitors which sound alarms in the event that the patient ceases to breathe for a given length of time. However, a physician or nurse often intervenes before the alarms sound and is able to prompt the patient to breathe properly. The decision to intervene includes visual observation of respiration conditions, and requires vigilant monitoring.

This research project aims to develop a clinical assessment tool that can aid physicians to predict or improve surgical procedure effectiveness for women who suffer from Urinary Incontinence (UI). UI is an epidemic disease that involves loss of bladder and urethral sphincter control to hold urine. It is mainly due to factors including aging, obesity, nervous failure, muscle relaxation due to childbirth or medications intake, pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, failing urethral sphincter and smoking.

Wearable health monitoring devices are identified as a viable option for preventing dangerous health problems and surveillance of after-incident patients. But given the high computing needs of such battery-powered systems, a trade-off must be made between miniaturization and device lifetime. On the other hand, the human bearer is a significant source of power, both in the form of heat and movement, which can be a natural power source for wearable health monitoring devices.

This internship with Photon Control, a Vancouver-based engineering design, development, and manufacturing company is the first phase of a project to design a highly sensitive magnetometer that will act as a non-invasive interface of a human brain to a machine or computer though many other commercial applications of this device are also anticipated. Electrochemical activity in the brain can be interpreted as a “signal” which in turn can be manipulated by a computer to derive information related to thoughts or intentions.

Zeugma Systems is currently developing the next generation wireline networking equipment which allows the telecommunication service providers to deliver multimedia services over bandwidth constrained infrastructure. The platform of this equipment contains various 3rd party, off-the-shelf, packet switching and processing devices. In this project, queuing models and network simulators will be used to analyze the system level behaviour of this platform. The simulation model includes various traffic management and scheduling algorithms.

In this project, a comprehensive review of relevant literature and case studies regarding landfarming of oily sludge will be conducted, and the optimal landfarming operation strategies will be proposed. A number of field experiments will be implemented to examine the impacts of different environmental factors on microbial activity. Specifically, the impacts of bulking agents and nutrients on bioremediation efficiency will be investigated through sludge landfarming at various experimental plots, while the method of factorial design will be used to design such experiments.

The scope of this project is to develop alternative simplified mathematical models for the description of ethylene oxide catalyst activity and selectivity decline based on plant historical data. The models will be employed and evaluated for on line performance monitoring and prediction. Adaptive, online model estimation procedures may be required for these purposes.

Kintama Research Corporation is the developer of the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) acoustic tracking array, which monitors the continental shelf and major river systems in the west coast of North America. This array provides measurements on the marine movements and survival of Pacific salmon and other fish. Kintama is interested in the design of a network architecture to allow near real-time remote access to the underwater hydrophones sited on bridges or other fixed structures along the rivers.