This series of projects will provide coaches and sport scientists with a greater understanding of the relationship between training and performance. While there are several methods for monitoring how much and how hard athletes train, how these can be best used to predict future performance is still in question. The sports of rowing and middle-distance running involve similar race demands, that being a full effort over 5-10 minutes.

Walking speed is a fundamental indicator of health status in older adults that can be used for early detection of several chronic illnesses and smartwatches are promising tools for ambulatory measurement of walking speed. To address the problem of walking speed estimation in older adult using a smartwatch, arm swing motion during walking will be measured from older adults living in a long-term care facility. Mathematical models will be developed to automatically map arm swing motion to walking speed.

Canada’s population is aging rapidly and faces several challenges with their physical and mental health. At the same time, portable technology and wireless Internet access stand to revolutionize how Canadians manage their own health and interact with the healthcare system. Here, we will identify ways in which Canadians can use technology to proactively manage and improve their own physical and mental health. We will also identify ways to spur innovative products and services to be developed within Canada.

Cellphones get notifications from different companies every day, but we do not know whether these notifications have a significant impact on customers’ behaviour. Knowing the impact of these notifications would provide useful insights to marketing strategists. Since user behaviour will determine the efficacy of push notifications, this project initially aims to build a behavioural model, which will group customers based on their web site navigation behaviour.

The Whytecliff Learning Centres, managed by The Focus Foundation, have been proven successful in providing a learning environment for vulnerable students who were at risk of not graduating high school due to complex combinations of factors such as mental health issues, addiction, behavioural problems, special needs, and family circumstances. As part of a grant the Centres received from the BC Ministry of Education, the Foundation will report on the Whytecliff schools’ performance in terms of student outcomes, mental health, and the centres’ unique integrated approach to education.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a popular strategy for ocean conservation in Canada and several
options are available to pursue this type of protection. However, the current federal and provincial processes for
MPA development involve engagement in lengthy multi-stakeholder processes that can overwhelm local
communities and their conservation objectives. An alternative strategy is the establishment of MPAs led by
individuals or organizations in a community.

The Centre for Sustainable Development at Simon Fraser University has been a leader in sustainable development theory and practice, in Canada and internationally, since 1989. The Centre stimulates sustainable development research and study in BC and elsewhere; collects and provides information about sustainable development; carries out sustainable development projects in partnership with communities and agencies, and facilitates effective use of university resources in responding to requests for assistance on sustainable development problems.

There is a strong push toward producing fuel cells on a commercial scale. This means a greater focus on production speed and yields with a need to understand the unintended features that arise from larger-scale manufacturing processes. This project requires the set up of state-of-the-art, camera-vision, defect detection equipment to find and collect observed membrane features. These features will then be catalogued and tested to determine their impact on membrane durability and whether they affect later processing steps.

Hydrogen powered polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are a clean energy technology that generates electricity without harmful emissions at the point of use. Current R&D efforts mainly target to commercialize PEMFCs through cost reduction and durability enhancement. The lifetime of PEMFC is limited by the degradation and failure of the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM). The proposed research project addresses the mechanical degradation mechanism, a key factor reducing the lifetime of PEMs, by developing in-house ex-situ mechanical durability evaluation tools.

Xenon has developed isoform selective blockers of the sodium channels that are expressed in CNS neurons with the intent of developing them for therapeutic use, especially epilepsy. The primary goal of this research project is to determine the activity of compounds on CNS neurons. Until now, all characterization has been done with heterologously expressed channels. Until recently, a major impediment to such studies is the heterogenous nature of CNS neurons, so that a large number of studies need to be conducted for a complete characterization.