Investigating employees racial bias in the workplace using neurophysiological and behavioral measures

Research in organizational behavior studies suggest that racial discrimination and bias exist in the workplace. Although explicit forms of racism are in decline, new forms of racial discrimination (i.e., implicit and unconscious) continue to compromise the inclusion and diversity in organizations. One of the challenges that HR specialists face is evaluating employees’ unconscious bias. This project offers a multimethod assessment tool to capture explicit and implicit racial discrimination in organizations.

An electrochemical microfluidic sensor for cannabinoid detection

Cannabis legalization creates a pressing need to improve existing screening methods. Currently, the two devices approved by the office other the attorney general of Canada (i.e. the Drager 5000 and SoToxa) have not been embraced by the vast majority of police forces who deemed both options unaffordable, difficult to use and inaccurate. The present project aims to create a next generation cannabis detection device capable of accurately assessing the blood concentration of THC.

Open Data Guidelines and Policy

The intent of this project is to provide the policy and guidelines in support of the Districts Open Data program. The Open Data Guidelines and Policy will provide a framework for data governance across the organization, in order to improve access to and use of data to empower community decision making. Our objective is to develop Open Data Policy and Guidelines designed for the unique needs of the District of Squamish.

Assessing the impact of implementing the new draft regulation in Quebec Construction Code for thermal bridge calculation

From December 2021 all the construction projects in Quebec should follow new Draft Regulations Amending Quebec Construction Code. This research investigated the impact of the implementation of section 3 of the new code which relates to the envelope thermal resistance calculation by considering thermal bridges. During phase one the calculation method will be applied for the most common construction details of the building envelopes in Quebec.

Development of Conversational Agents and Applications in Playful Environments

In this project, we propose an intelligent conversational agents prototype that provides meaningful, playful exchanges in different interactive settings. By taking advantage of the latest advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and creating a model founded on knowledge from social and cognitive sciences, we will build a series of digital avatars to test their interaction ability. This research-creation project connects to other disciplines like Human Computer Interactions (HCI).

Complementary and competitive interactions between wild and managed bees - Year two

A diversity of native bee species inhabit agricultural and urban landscapes and can be more effective pollinators than the widely employed European honey bee. However, honey and wild bee communities often overlap, which means these bees compete for the same floral resources. Studies of competition between wild and managed pollinators are limited due to methodological constraints. This restricts our ability to predict how pollination and bee diversity will be affected by changes in pollinator community composition.

Development of an efficient coding for CDMA-based passive RFID tags

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio frequency to identify and track tags attached to objects. This technology is employed in different industries such as asset tracking, supply chain management, ID badging, etc. Current solutions for object tracking have limited precision, suffer from low performance, and are expensive and complex. In this project, by implementing a technology called code division multiple access (CDMA), we improve the RFID system performance significantly.

Finding position and characterization of the defects in 3D point cloud

The inspection process has been an inseparable part of manufacturing to measure dimensions such as diameter, flatness, roundness and straightness of the parts. Besides, on some machined surfaces, it is required to measure roughness and identify surface defects. For defect detection, companies are still relying on visual inspection, which is very slow and labor-intensive. To overcome all challenges, interferometry instruments are used to acquire 3D images. Still, once a surface is acquired, the position and size of defects have to be found, and sometimes defect has to be classified.

Organic cathode materials for alkali-ion batteries

Clean renewal energy sources, such as hydro, wind, and solar energies, have been receiving increasing demands for sustainable societal developments. Due to their intermittent nature, rechargeable batteries are required for the storage of these renewal energy sources. Current rechargeable batteries constructed with conventional inorganic cathode materials have restricted energy densities, along with sustainability issues.

Advanced AI for Demand Forecast, Assortment Planning and Plan Monitoring in Fashion and Apparel Retailing

Retailers require reliable demand forecasts for their operations management and planning. Demand forecasting for fashion products is, however, an extremely challenging task. A good solution for this problem should address at least the following three questions: (i) high volatility of demand and its dependence on external factors (ii) forecasting flexibility for different spatio-tempo-hierarchical aggregation levels, and (iii) forecasting for new products without historical data.

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