Learning disabilities (LD) are a significant area of identified disability for children in North America and worldwide. We currently understand cognitive processing weaknesses to contribute to the developmental difficulties that children with LD face in learning and beyond. One of these areas of cognitive weakness, working memory, is an important target for intervention because it not only impacts learning but other important aspects of life. This project examines the working memory effects of a cognitive training program for children with LD, the Eaton Arrowsmith school.

With the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, it is unsurprising that they are also being adapted for use as tools for learning and perfecting complex procedures. One of these uses is training health care providers through simulated medical procedures. Two important points should be considered when designing simulated systems to assess the efficacy and efficiency of these teaching tools. 1) Individual differences in emotional biases and learning profiles may necessitate personalized stimulus presentations within simulated environments to achieve optimal and translatable learning.

Cited is a multi-media program that tells stories about research and academia to a general audience. It is experimenting with a unique co-creative approach that puts students, journalists, and researchers together on the same team. Mitacs interns will work with Cited media partners to conduct original research that builds interviews, documentaries, and other media related to research and academia—particularly in the social sciences and humanities. These will be distrusted widely through a network of partners across North America.

We propose to design and build an advanced visual analytics tool to support the analysis of large-scale e-commerce datasets. This data is generated by software platforms that collect information about the performance of e-commerce systems, consumer behaviour, and messages sent by retailers to consumers. Current e-commerce tools provide only simple overview statistics because of the scale and complexity of this data, but more sophisticated analysis could lead to much more effective strategies for e-commerce engagement.

Unconventional gas reservoirs are a great energy resource in the province of BC and Alberta and thus for Canada in general. Extracting this resource is not as straight forward as conventional gas reservoirs and requires hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracing or fracking, which has recently become a controversial topic in the public eye. This research project will examine water and fluids used in and returning from frac operations with respect to its geochemistry and bacterial populations.

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) is a common form of leukemia that affects approximately 3 people per 100,000 individuals, and is the most common form of cancer in children and adolescents. Current therapies are effective in children, however, treatment success in infants, adolescents, and adults needs improvement. Indeed, there is a need for new chemotherapeutic drugs and drug formulations that can improve survival rates in susceptible age groups, reduce relapse rates, and improve outcomes in relapsed patients.

The structural use of timber in North America is largely limited to low-value commodity products used in low-rise residential light-frame construction. There exists, however, much greater potential for timber to be used as a structural material. One solution involves the notion of “mass-timber” such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. The prospect of building larger timber structures creates challenges, one of them is that lateral forces created by wind and earthquakes increase. Two of the questions that arise are: 1) what is an efficient method for hold-downs for CLT panels?

As an important medicinal plant, Cannabis sativa produces bioactive molecules that provide symptom relief for conditions such as severe cancer pain, nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. The cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway that generates bioactive molecules has been studied for over a decade. However, understanding of transcriptional regulators that control cannabinoid synthesis is fairly limited. The primary site of cannabinoid biosynthesis is glandular trichomes that form on female flowers.

The research project will develop key algorithms that enable pulse oximetry, on a smartphone, to be used effectively as a device for monitoring the function of heart and respiratory system at home. LGTmedical has developed a pulse oximeter that utilizes inexpensive clinical sensors driven by software running on a smartphone, sending the driving signals through the audio port. This technology already operates with clinical accuracy for uses in spot-check monitoring of blood oxygen and heart rate.

The main focus of this project will be conducting research and developing novel sensory systems to be used in various agricultural environments. The proposed research project also involves development of interpretation algorithms and data-mining software. Ecoation Innovative Solutions (EIS) developed a technology that monitor and interpret different plant signal patterns.