Noise from human activities negatively affects the well-being of humans and wildlife alike. In rural areas, ecosystems that are relatively undisturbed by human activities may still be subjected to noise exposure from vehicles passing nearby, industry-related noise (e.g., compressor stations), or from airplanes overhead. To date, however, little work has been done to quantify what proportion of Canada’s land area might be exposed to anthropogenic noise, and how much noise is out there.

In this project, a key research project for the robotization of the timber building construction is proposed. By developing a full-scale solution for the installation of MEP components in mass timber walls and showcasing its benefits compared to current manual situations, in terms of safety, quality, productivity and so forth, we expect to support the introduction of robotic cells in offsite construction facilities.

The proposed project implements the applications of virtual view of indoor environments and objects in 360 degrees, thereby encouraging people to check the information of rooms and products online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, six objectives are proposed, each undertaken by two interns, to build a virtual view system satisfying different scenarios.

Temperature is a critical parameter in welding and related processes such as metal additive manufacturing. The real-time temperature measurement systems based on infrared thermal cameras have a potential to significantly improve the existing process control systems and, consequently, the quality of the welds and additive manufactured products. Conventional thermal cameras work in midwave (MWIR) and longwave infrared (LWIR) part of the infrared spectrum. They require sophisticated sensor systems and special optics.

Application of biochar to enhance the growth of crops and final yield in agriculture has received a lot of attention recently, while the benefits to environment through deceleration of carbon loss and greenhouse gases leading to control climate changes and global warming are poorly understood. This study focuses on possible changes of biochar on carbon content, greenhouse gases, physicochemical properties, and microbial structure of the soil in Alberta.

Cancers are heterogeneous disease that hijack many of the body’s normal biological processes. Additionally, tens of thousands of genes are involved in each person’s normal biology, while only a fraction of those are repurposed by cancers to drive disease. At an individual level, utilizing entire transcriptomes is rare, as there is too much information for clinicians to process. However, not using this resource can mean important genes and processes are missed. Identifying the set of genes that drive a patient’s cancer would improve therapy design, patient quality of life and outcomes.

The proposed initiative is different from conventional small molecules or biologics therapies. The living “drugs” are patients’ own immune cells. However, due to factors, such as age, and genetic differences between individuals, there is no magic “one treatment for all patients”. Intrinsic interpatient heterogeneity requires “personalized immune-therapy”. We have to adopt a “quality control” when we re-engineer immune-cells.

As very large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) technology progresses, power consumption and power density of VLSI circuits increase when design complexity and transistor density increase. Low-power design becomes a major design challenge. Lowering the supply voltage is one of the most efficient ways to save power because power consumption is proportional to the square of supply voltage. Electronic devices are expected to operate at much a lower supply voltage than traditional designs, which is very useful for portable electronics and biomedical implants.

The project will entail the production and characterization of hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ), a useful material for both lithography and production of silicon nanomaterials. This material is the workhorse for Applied Quantum Materials Inc. (AQM), as it is one of their central products that they supply to the e-beam lithography industry as well as the precursor for their silicon nanomaterials.

Ethylene is an important building block for the chemical industry and is most widely produced at global production scale of 200 million metric tonnes. As a typical chemical feedstock, ethylene is used to produce plastics, consumer goods, solvents, paints, among many others. Ethylene is predominantly produced by steam cracking which is run at very high temperatures and releases up to 2.7 kg CO2 eq./ kg of polyethylene produced. In Alberta, the production of ethylene and derivatives results in more than 4.5 million tonnes CO2 eq.