Western Forest Products is an integrated Canadian forest products company and currently the second largest coastal woodland operator in British Columbia. Traditionally, a tree is cut based on a logger’s observation of the tree including any defects, its species as well as its taper. Currently, these factors do not explicitly consider the products which are in demand. Thus, the goal of this internship is to develop a method to assist the logger to produce the optimal ratio of products demanded by the market.

Identifying early onset of cardiac diseases is not easy and can be very expensive. For this reason, the first symptom of cardiac problems is often catastrophic for patients. The ultimate goal of this project is to produce a low-cost screening device that effectively identifies the presence of the disease early, allowing patients to take corrective action in terms of lifestyle, diet and stress management in order to eliminate the need for surgical intervention and/or drug therapy.

Matching potential employees to employment opportunities is a challenging task, which has significant commercial value. Employment agencies, departments in companies concerned with human resources and small company owners frequently have to read, or process, numerous resumes before identifying a short list of candidates. Working with Talent Technology, a developer of recruitment and hiring software and component technology, the intern will develop solutions in several areas of automated resume processing.

The intern will assist the Chehalis First Nation by leading the archaeological component of the Kweh-Kwuch-Hum Spiritual Areas and Forest Management Policy Pilot Project. This larger project began in January 2007 when the Chehalis Indian Band entered into discussions with the BC Ministry of Forests and Range regarding the designation of Kweh-Kwuch-Hum (Mt. Woodside) as a “Spiritually Sensitive Area”. A primary goal of this project is to develop a process which supports the establishment of areas that can be demonstrated to be important traditionally, culturally and spiritually.

This project is designed to provide new information on the source of the sediment in the Wernecke Supergroup, a widespread geological formation in northern Yukon that was deposited approximately 1.8 billion years ago. This formation is important because it hosts numerous mineral occurrences that are attracting considerable mineral exploration activity. The source of the sediment will be identified by ion probe analysis on detrital (sedimentary) grains of the mineral zircon.

Traumatic injuries place a tremendous burden on families, communities, industry, and the health care system. Moreover, the risk of severe injury, especially amongst the young and elderly, disproportionately affects those who are disadvantaged. Investigating the linkage between the environment and injury is complex as the interrelationship between location, socioeconomic status, age, and family demographics is often greater than the sum of their parts. The internship team will propose a geographic information science (GIS) based approach for trauma research.

How do species respond to changes in habitat, and can their responses be used to set reliable management targets? The intern’s research is focused on determining whether forest birds respond non-linearly to the loss of forest habitat due to logging. For example, theoretical models show that the probability of finding forest birds within a given patch of forest declines sharply when less than 30% of forest cover remains in the patch. A point of sharp decline in a graph of a particular response to habitat loss is referred to as a 'critical threshold' or 'habitat threshold'.

Eagle Plains Resources is a junior exploration company exploring for minerals in Western Canada. The goal of this project is to understand the nature and type of the copper-goal mineralization present in the Iron Range, Kootenay region of BC.

Radical Entertainment is a video game developer which creates and develops games for all current and next generation platforms. Collision detection forms an indispensable part in today’s 3D game engines. Due to increasing size of the 3D objects used in game development, high-performance collision detection running directly on these objects requires a significant amount of work. To allow for real-time collision detection between a 3D object and other objects in the game environment, the typical approach is to first find for each object a set of best-fitting convex hulls.

Rescan Environmental Services has conducted an extended aquatic effects monitoring survey as part of the environmental assessment of the diamond mine operations in northern Canada. Yearly water and sediment samples have been taken over the past 12 years at reference lakes (those not affected by mine operations) and impact lakes (lying in a downstream gradient from the containment facility).