Innovative Projects Realized

Timber-based DfMA Façade Components for Factory-in-a-Box(FIAB) based DM technologies

Digital Manufacturing is expensive due to the initial capital costs related to the digitally able machines and robots. This entails that the segment of the construction sector that is rapidly adopting these technologies to meet the productivity and ecological goals of the Construction Sector is largely restricted to large businesses – large Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) firms. More importantly, it entails that the Small Medium Enterprises (SME) are unable / unwilling to participate in the rapidly digitizing economy. This forms the driving motivation behind the proposed research: Timber-based DfMA Façade Components for Factory-in-a-Box (FIAB) based DM technologies adapted to meet the needs of the SME sector in construction.

Predicting demand and inventory shortages for better inventory management in health care institutions

This project aims to predict demand and inventory shortages for better inventory management in health care institutions. This will initially allow for a reduction in the expenses generated by emergency orders placed during a stock shortage. Indeed, it will be possible for the establishment to order a larger quantity of the product from the supplier or to place an order with another supplier. In a second step, placing orders at the right time based on demand forecasting will reduce out-of-stock situations but also optimize the minimum and maximum quantities in inventory.
Better inventory management through greater proactivity indirectly provides peace of mind for the staff and therefore for the patient being cared for.

User Adaptive Systems for Behaviour Change in Health And Wellness

There has been a dramatic increase in digital well-being products in recent years and there is a market saturated with ineffective user experiences and little to no sustainable, desired behavioural change. By assessing and enhancing the effectiveness of a personalized approach to digital well-being app interaction through machine learning and emotion-driven adaptive computing, we can develop a new, intelligent and highly effective digital well-being platform that can support lifestyle wellness behaviour change. We will monitor the user experience using our lifestyle wellness application (the Q-life) to integrate enhanced user experiences for a digital well-being platform (i.e. JackHabbit). This ‘next-generation’ intelligent digital well-being platform will disrupt the currently unstandardized market of digital well-being products and support various health and well-being applications for several user markets.

Complex Gill Disease Initiative

Complex gill disease affects millions of farmed Atlantic salmon on the Pacific coast of North America, each year. This disease results in hundreds of millions of dollaras in lost revenue for the industry, yet there are few tools for early diagnosis of the disease/syndrome and no current treatment/intervention strategies that work to control it. The CGDI project aims at developing tools for early diagnosis and testing of new intervention and management strategies to resolve and control the disease.

Brunel Employment Study

Outsourcing of product research and development has been a growing trend in the pharmaceutical industry over the last decade. Allegorical evidence garnered from interactions with clinical research professionals indicate that employees of outsourced firms tend to have lower job satisfaction, morale, and commitment to their jobs than their counterparts working in innovative pharmaceutical companies. This study aims to examine whether job satisfaction can be correlated with the model of employment in clinical research professionals.

Preventive Maintenance for Cable Networks

In this project, we build on these preliminary works and explore the capabilities of different machine learning techniques anomaly detections and predictions of network degradation issues. We also plan to develop ap-proaches to help Cable Network Operation teams triage and diagnose cable network issues efficiently. The results of this project will help Cable Network companies anticipate on networks degradation issues, allowing their Network Operation professionals to proactively fix the issues before they can manifest in the field and im-pact end-users.

A Data-Driven Automation Framework for Chromatography-based Purification of High-value Biotherapeutics

A critical task towards maximizing productivity in the manufacturing of biotherapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies is selecting the appropriate separation technology or sequence of technologies that meet the purity requirements of regulatory agencies (e.g. Health Canada) and maximize product recovery to reduce the overall cost per dose. The focus of this research project is two-fold. First to develop new performance monitoring tools for continuous chromatography processes. Second to optimize the downstream purification process by removing process bottlenecks and incorporating process simplifications. Sartorius, the partner for this project, will provide the state-of-the-art equipment that is needed to conduct the experimental work and student training opportunities at their R&D facilities in North America and Europe. As a global leader in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and life sciences research, Sartorius is ideally suited to translate the outcomes from this research project into the biotherapeutics manufacturing facilities of their wide network of clients.

Harrison Blade Solutions

Currently we are in the design and development stage to modify and increase the productivity of existing wind turbines with an aim to increase profitability in the green energy sector for wind farm operators.

“The scope of duties for an intern would include in depth market research to determine the value and need of our current design leading to the development of a business plan to assist us in commercialization. Key responsibilities would include detailed market research of wind turbine manufacturers, current potential competitors, assistance in a pricing model for our product and the detailed development of a step by step action plan to bring this to fruition.
Activities would encompass all of the above.”

The internship will provide knowledge and experience in both market research and business planning. The challenges we currently have that will be addressed by the internship include a lack of expertise in both market research and business planning to market.

Marketing/Accounting Intern

Grizzly Force provides on-demand staffing solutions for temporary labour needs in Greater Vancouver, BC. I will be developing overall marketing and branding strategies alongside senior management. Also, I will be following up and contacting clients for balances owing and performing a variety of accounts receivable duties.

Effets indirects de l’activité Maritimo-Portuaire : Hydrodynamique Appliquée au transport Sédimentaire et à l’Environnement (EMPHASE)

Le développement durable en milieux estuariens est largement impacté par le transport de sédiments cohésifs (vases ou boues). Or l’étude de leurs lois de transport (érosion, sédimentation) se heurte à de nombreuses difficultés à la fois pratiques (prélèvement, mise en place) et fondamentales (transition solide/liquide, rhéologie complexe).
Le transport des sédiments est un sujet qui concerne aussi bien les géologues, les hydrauliciens, les chimistes que les biologistes ou les biogéochimistes. Or, tous ces champs disciplinaires doivent avoir une connaissance parfaite des milieux physiques dans lesquels leurs objets d’étude s’inscrivent, afin d’accomplir pleinement leurs travaux. Malheureusement, dans l’état actuel des connaissances scientifiques, les prédictions du mouvement des sédiments s’avèrent imprécises. En effet, le transport de sédiments est paramétré par des lois empiriques définies uniquement en fonction d’une contrainte hydrodynamique moyenne générée sur le lit sédimentaire et de certaines caractéristiques trop générales du sédiment.

Predictive Models for Customers’ Engagement in a Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise’s Business Ecosystem Network

In the era of digitization, the success of an SME significantly depends on the active engagement with other actors (e.g., brand consumers, suppliers, influencers) in their business ecosystem. In this research project, we propose to develop an engagement model based on the business ecosystem network. These models will predict the customer engagement community association and engagement score. Our model will help the partner organization to understand the critical factor of the life cycle for any particular business on their platform. This model will also give the advantage of developing customer-focused personalized features, marketing strategies to our partner organization, thus solidifying its market position in this sector.

Mechanisms involved in triggering the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine

Currently, the gold standard pharmacological treatment for depression typically take several weeks before becoming effective. This delayed treatment onset can be devastating because of increased rates of suicide during this wait-period. Thus, there is a need for rapid acting antidepressant drug treatments. Strikingly, a single infusion of ketamine can result in alleviation of depressive symptoms within hours. However, the effectiveness of this drug fades away over time. The intern will participate in ground-breaking research focused on understanding the neurobiological mechanisms associated with ketamine’s rapid action of onset, as well as what is occurring in the brain when it stops working. This research will be published in freely accessible journals providing Canadian clinicians with access to this information, providing them with enhanced treatment strategies. Research results can be relevant for the partner organization Janssen Canada by providing further understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the rapid action of onset of novel antidepressants.