Innovative Projects Realized

Mobile Applications to Facilitate Physician-to-Physician Consultation

In the Nova Scotia healthcare system (and indeed across Canada), waitlists remain a major problem, particularly with regards to access to specialty care services. Virtual Hallway is a novel telehealth solution to this problem, providing an online platform which allows for rapid doctor-to-doctor communication with the goal of fast-tracking and improving patient care and reducing waitlist times.
The goal of this project is to design and apply the first prototype of a mobile application for the Virtual Hallway platform. This would allow for even more rapid telephone consultations between doctors right on the doctors’ own cell phones. This design follows all Canadian healthcare laws and prioritizes personal health information safety and security accordingly. It would work by allowing family doctors to log in on their cell phone, choose which specialist they need to talk to, and to book a date/time that is convenient to both them and the specialist. It also takes care of all the documentation and billing for both the family doctor and the specialist so they can focus on the patient care while also being appropriately paid for their work.

Impacts of invasive European Cattail on Invertebrate Communities in the Fraser River estuary

Estuaries are important ecosystems which provide us with many benefits, some of which include storing carbon, dampening the impacts of rising sea levels, and are areas of high biodiversity. The Fraser River estuary in the lower mainland of British Columbia is seeing alteration from human presence, including the introduction of invasive species. One invasive species of interest is the European Cattail (Typha angustifolia) and its hybrid TyphaXGlauca. It grows in dense stands where it outcompetes native vegetation, but we don’t know what impact this is having on sediment dwelling insects and crustaceans, which are important food sources for residents of the estuary such as salmon. In partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), this study will investigate the differences in invertebrate communities between invasive and native vegetation dominated stands. The information gained from this study can be used by DUC to help further their restoration of the estuary for juvenile salmonids.

Microbial carbonate precipitation by autotrophic and heterotrophic bacterial species for crack prevention of overlaying concrete

Because of the crack’s appearance in concrete over time, the concrete strength decrease. To prevent deterioration and heavy costs of reparation, concrete chemical additives are usually added but their cost are prohibitive and not very sustainable along time. Successful research projects have been using encapsulated bacteria in the concrete which reactivate at the contact of air and water -when cracks appear. These bacteria multiplicate in the cracks and die which create a precipitation and fill the cracks. These bio-based solutions make it possible to consider a self-healing concrete, which is more sustainable.
Our research project aims to assess cyanobacteria’s precipitation properties for self-healing concrete. Photosynthetic cyanobacteria grow by capturing carbon dioxide and have already shown their great potential of microbial precipitation. Longer and real tests in concrete should be done to estimate their performance and capacity to heal cracks compared to other existing additives.

Efficient representation, compression and real-time delivery of stereoscopic 360-degree video

The emerging 360-degree video applications provide the user with an immersive experience. This comes at the price of high computational complexity to process the high-resolution content (e.g. 4K or 8K) and of high data rate to deliver it in real time to the user. The user’s experience can be made more realistic using stereoscopic 360-degree (3D-360) video as it adds depth to the scenes as experienced in real life.
In this research, we will explore the representation, compression and transport of 3D-360 video content. We are particularly interested in the optimization of video coding methods to maximize quality of experience for the user at the lowest cost in terms of bandwidth and computations for the system. To succeed in this endeavor, we plan on developing specific algorithms and novel approaches to encode 8K 3D-360 video content to be streamed on IP networks over wired and wireless channels.

Gut loading crickets (Gryllus sigillatus) to improve their nutritional value for use in pet foods

Insects are a high protein feed ingredient that can be grown sustainably. Insects need less food input, use less water, and grow well indoors making them more sustainable than traditional pet feed ingredients such as soybeans and animal proteins. Some aspects of the nutritional profile of insects can be manipulated by growing them on different feed ingredients. In this study we hope to improve the vitamin E, manganese, and iron content of insects for use in pet foods. We will feed insects sunflower seeds to crickets for various lengths of time. We will design an optimized feeding regiment to boost the nutrient profile of crickets, with the lowest increase of feed input costs.

Thousand Protein Multiplexed Mass Spectrometry Assay for Biomarker Discovery

In recent years, the interest given to disease biomarkers has boomed. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are exploring ways to use biomarkers to speed up the drug development process, as well as to rapidly assess a diseases state, staging, progression and response to therapy. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) Mass Spectrometry (MS) has been shown to be well suited for the selective and sensitive quantification of proteins in plasma and has recently emerged as the technology of choice for disease biomarker study. The focus of this research project is to develop a quantitative multiplexed MRM assay as a biomarker discovery tool to directly detect and quantify proteins secreted from various tissues into plasma from the rat. This assay will then be used to screen and quantify protein biomarkers associated with various disease states, such as cardiovascular disease, in the rat plasma.

Les relations d’accompagnement des consultants de la RSE auprès de gestionnaires de PME : une analyse comparative de deux parcours d’intégration

L’état des connaissances sur les pratiques des consultants de la RSE pour accompagner des gestionnaires, les stratégies qu’ils développent pour gérer la complexité liée à ces parcours d’intégration demeure largement parcellaire. Cette recherche vise, d’une part, à caractériser les interventions des consultants auprès de gestionnaires de PME et, d’autre part, à établir comment ils font émerger des pratiques de RSE et gèrent les tensions voire les paradoxes qui peuvent se présenter dans le cadre de ce processus d’institutionnalisation. Cette recherche intervention permettra d’enrichir les pratiques et les stratégies développées par l’équipe du groupe d’expert-conseil ELLIO pour accompagner deux profils de PME, l’une créée avec mission sociétale (B-Corp), et l’autre, en transformation radicale de son modèle d’affaire.

Development of Energy-Efficient Means for Intensifying Mass Transfer Rates in Multiphase Reactors

The proposed project mainly focuses on developing an innovative gas/liquid contacting technology that is of critical importance to a wide range of process industries and environmental-management operations. Successful
development and implementation of this project are expected to:

? Reduce the environmental impact of a variety of operations that are needed to meet human needs and welfare (e.g. water/wastewater treatment, aquaculture, environmental management),
? Strengthen Alpha Tau’s position in the areas such as process intensification, advanced wastewater treatment, mineral processing, biotechnology and green chemistry,
? Expand Alpha Tau’s sustainable business opportunities in new areas (e.g. selective separation processes) and enhance job creation for high-tech personnel.

Applicability and Utility of the PHEMI Secure Clinical and Multiomics Platform for Precision Medicine

Advanced prostate cancer (PCa) manifests as metastasis and metastasis is the leading cause of death for PCa patients. The underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We hypothesize germline variants may modulate a tumor’s propensity for metastasis. If validated a saliva or blood based test could be developed to predict risk of metastasis. Our objectives are: (1) identify a cohort of high-grade treatment naïve prostate tumors half that metastasized and half that did not following prostatectomy. The cohort of 50 tumors will have a minimum follow-up of 8 years. (2) perform DNA sequencing on the tumor DNA and adjacent normal tissue (germline). (3) identify the proteins expressed in the tumor and adjacent normal tissue. (4) employ computational tools to identify candidate germline and tumour drivers of metastasis. (5) link these to differences in the proteome of the tumor and the tumor microenvironment between non metastatic and metastatic tumors. (6) validate differentially expressed proteins using immunohistochemistry on tumor microarrays and databases. Germline, somatic or proteomic signatures of metastasis will be validated in large independent cohorts. Data security and sharing will be piloted using PHEMI software installed on servers at the VPC.

Screening of bacteriophage receptor on mutant bacterial libraries

Phagelux has developed a cocktail of bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) that treat infections with bacteria resistant to antibiotics. During the curse of treatment, bacteria may become resistant to bacteriophages included in the cocktail. This project aims at determing the bacteria surface markers on which bacteriophages can bind and start their therapeutic function. This will help Phagelux to improve the cocktail by adding other bacteriophages that can bind on other surface not targeted by the bacteriophages included in the existing cocktail. This will enhance the cocktail potency and will be beneficial to patient suffering infections with bacterial resistant to antibiotics.

Optimiser la résilience de la forêt urbaine

Le projet consiste à développer un système et une application web qui permettra aux aménagistes forestiers urbains de choisir la meilleure espèce d’arbre à planter à différents endroits de la ville afin de maximiser les retombées économiques et sociales et la résilience du couvert arboré face aux changements globaux. Nous développerons un système qui regroupera les informations sur les risques climatiques, entomologiques et pathologiques, la distribution géographique des arbres au niveau de chaque rue, la valeur des services que chaque espèce d’arbre produit et la diversité des caractéristiques écologiques des arbres que l’on peut planter. Cet outil permettra de générer rapidement et facilement une liste des meilleures espèces d’arbres à planter pour un endroit précis au niveau de chaque rue, chaque parc et chaque quartier, en fonction des arbres qui y sont déjà afin de maximiser la résilience du couvert arboré contre les futures catastrophes.

Hidden Champion Businesses: The Way to Revitalize the Economy of Newfoundland and Labrador for Post-Covid-19 Era

The effect of a collapse in oil prices coupled with a province-wide lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak will have a significant impact on the economic future of NL. A spiking unemployment rate due to job losses in the services and tourism sector will be difficult to mitigate in the short to medium-term; if not handled, it could easily ripen into a larger societal issue in the long-term. The main emphasis of the research will be placed on analyzing Newfoundland and Labrador, seeking to discover some possible hidden champions in these markets as well as some of the key success factors that encourage the growth and success of globally minded hidden champions.