Projets novateurs réalisés

Women In Need Sociery – Intern 2

The intern(s) will work closely with functional area teams to analyze WINS current practices and make them applicable to new environment we operate in, while receiving front line experience in various departments. Significant opportunities will be available in the relaunch of our Retail Ready Employment Service, as well look for innovative ways to continue offering the service. This will include updated health and safety practices, training manuals, and streamlining of processes.

Women in Need Society (Intern 1)

The intern(s) will work closely with the functional area teams as WINS navigates before and after impacts of Covid-19 over the next few months. As reflected in the job description, they’ll play a pivotal role in helping adapt our current practices (as well as identify new ones) in the areas of Finance & Accounting, Fund Development, HR, Health & Safety, IT, and Marketing, as a result of Covid-19. New organizational practices will be the basis of our updated business strategy, goals, and objectives that reflect the new reality we operate in.

Significant opportunities will be available for the relaunch of our Retail Ready Employment Service, as well as looking for innovative ways to continue offering the service. This will include updated health and safety practices, training manuals, and streamlining of processes.

Additionally, our Fund Development Team will be doing a deep dive analysis on the changes in donor behavior. This project will work to identify changes, efficiencies, and recommendations on new strategies for attracting donations.

Spiridon Technologies BSI Internship

Spiridon Technologies is a technology-focused acquisition vehicle acquiring and consolidating North American technology companies in the IoT and AI space. COVID-19 has impacted our firm positively and negatively. The performance of some of our acquisition targets has faltered. In contrast, some of our current holdings have unforeseen opportunities to serve 1) new markets as they are created, and 2) existing markets that are heavily impacted, due to COVID-19. Therefore, we are looking at projects around determining the strategy we should take with regard to acquiring new businesses and how they will look post-COVID, and where we should focus our resources to address new opportunities for our holding companies.

Structural modeling for glycosaminoglycan/peptide complexes

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are biological anchors for growth factors (GF) and other chemical substances. The binding of these substances to GAGs can be modified in times of need. For example during wound healing the increased number of GAGs in the injured areas enables a very localized increase in growth factors and chemokines necessary for wound healing. It appears that the orchestration of initial inflammation, tissue repair and scar formation in would healing is a result of a well-directed feedback between the tissues and the circulating GF. The tissue need for GF is aided by a local increase in specific GAGs to which these GF preferentially bind. This project will explore the forces that determine the specificity of peptide binding to GAGs, in order to develop therapies that act locally and prevent undesired toxicities.

En Route to Discovery of Potential ‘Green’ Refrigerants – Year two

Refrigerants have a wide range of applications in Canada, from their support for the food industry (storage and transport) to their key role in recreational sports like hockey, curling and ice-skating. Although current hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants have solved previous problems associated with depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, they still suffer from high global warming potentials. More recently, these are being replaced by hydrofluoroalkene (HFA) refrigerants with considerably less global warming potential. Unfortunately, the synthetic paths to these new fluoroalkenes are energy-intensive and require harsh/caustic conditions, hydrogen fluoride, expensive reactors and heavy metals. In the enclosed project, we design base-metal catalyzed routes to these valuable refrigerants using a custom gas manifold for production, purification, and isolation of gases. Using base metal catalysts (cobalt and iron) and commercially available fluoroalkenes and alkynes, new economically and environmentally friendly hydrofluorocarbons and fluoroalkenes will be synthesized. This will allow our industry partner, Arkema (in Canada since 1957), to test the new compounds as refrigerants, foam-blowing agents, and new monomers in high-value fluoropolymers and offer the intern a unique training opportunity.

En Route to Discovery of Potential ‘Green’ Refrigerants

Refrigerants have a wide range of applications in Canada, from their support for the food industry (storage and transport) to their key role in recreational sports like hockey, curling and ice-skating. Although current hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants have solved previous problems associated with depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, they still suffer from high global warming potentials. More recently, these are being replaced by hydrofluoroalkene (HFA) refrigerants with considerably less global warming potential. Unfortunately, the synthetic paths to these new fluoroalkenes are energy-intensive and require harsh/caustic conditions, hydrogen fluoride, expensive reactors and heavy metals. In the enclosed project, we design base-metal catalyzed routes to these valuable refrigerants using a custom gas manifold for production, purification, and isolation of gases. Using base metal catalysts (cobalt and iron) and commercially available fluoroalkenes and alkynes, new economically and environmentally friendly hydrofluorocarbons and fluoroalkenes will be synthesized. This will allow our industry partner, Arkema (in Canada since 1957), to test the new compounds as refrigerants, foam-blowing agents, and new monomers in high-value fluoropolymers and offer the intern a unique training opportunity.

AWE Technology Development Project – The Virtual History of Fort York

Divani’s AWE Augmented Reality product is expected to assist Fort York to create a more engaging experience for the attraction’s 100,000 annual visitors. By combining the historical value of Fort York with the immersive experience of AR, the organization will be able to increase revenue to assist with its financial goals. Divani Films is expected to benefit from a successful rollout by generating new revenue streams from the licensing of AWE technology and/or forming additional partnerships within the tourism industry as well as other industries (gaming, sports, etc.).

The research and analysis conducted by the intern will draw on business methods and approaches that are commonly practiced in user experience (UX) and visitor experience (VX) stages of product innovation, notably focus groups, interviews, and observation. Insights will also be used to provide usability enhancements to the AR product.

Étude sur l’influence d’une vis hélicoïdale dans un épaissiseur de boue rouge à fond conique

Ce projet a pour but d’augmenter la durée de vie utile des épaississeurs présents dans les diverses usines de RIO TINTO ALCAN. Ces épaississeurs, d’une dimension comparable à celle d’un édifice de 6 étages, possèdent un râteau interne qui permet de compacter et de transporter radialement la boue jusqu’au puits de décharge. Avec le temps, la boue se solidifie et se colle sur la paroi du râteau; une fois la couche de boue suffisament épaisse, ceci provoque un phémonène de tourbillon dans l’épaisseur, le rendant inopérant. Une fois ce phémonène non reversible en place, il faut retirer le contenu de l’épaississeur et enlever cette couche de boue du râteau. Ceci représente un arrêt de production et une perte financière. L’ajout de la technologie des vis hélicoïdales permettra d’allonger la durée de vie de l’épaississeur et permettra de limiter la perte financière associée à son nettoyage.

Investigating the impact of alternative performance environment in the development of Hover, a new chamber opera – II

Hover is a new chamber opera by UBC DMA candidate Benton Roark and UBC MFA alumnus Lindsay Cuff that explores different types of seemingly impossible travails that human bodies go through and their ways of coping. The importance of water is made evident by the action that is set in, on top of, and around an indoor pool. Water is used both as a symbol – in transitions of time, space, and consciousness – and as a substance with dramatic meaning – in a swimming lesson, water torture, and an incredible circus act involving a water tank. Locating this “stage” so particularly thus aims to intensify audience experience through a unique acoustic environment and a strong emphasis on physicality. Tapestry is dedicated to the development of new works that aim to surprise, thrill, and move audiences through innovative productions, contemporary themes, and a general re-examining of the operatic genre…

Investigating Machine Learning Techniques in Performance Improvement for the Next Generation Wireless Networks

The new generation 5G wireless networks will have a huge impact on the society due to the high bandwidth and capacities they provide. The traffic volume is expected to grow significantly and new varieties of applications, e.g., Internet of Things and vehicular networking, are anticipated. As a result, effective management of the new networks will become much more complicated and challenging. Machine learning techniques have made unprecedented progress in recent years, as they are highly efficient for data-driven applications. The proposed project is to investigate machine learning techniques and apply them to 5G networks to effectively facilitate network management.

Customer Intelligence Data Mining for Financial Institutions

For banks and financial institutions data is one of the most important assets, providing the key to true differentiation and competitive advantage. Insight Business Intelligence solutions, offered by Banking Software Company Temenos, turn figures into meaningful information for business decision making. However the existing business rules based models could be improved by using novel statistical techniques to capture the stochastic dependence in the data. In order to allow financial institutions obtaining much more valuable information we aim to implement data-mining approaches and to develop advanced statistical models for this kind of data. The focus of our project is on the Customer Intelligence module, which incorporates the information about bank clients, accounts they have, products and services they use. This detailed data set will be employed to analyze the behavior of the customers, e.g. to identify those who are likely to buy a new particular product…

Attacking Transaction Relay in Cryptocurrencies based on Dandelion++

Blockchains are a new technology that are finding applications across several domains. Participant privacy in a blockchain is a major concern for this technology, and this project focuses on studying privacy attacks and defenses in several kinds of publicly deployed blockchains. Specifically, the project will focus on how a participant’s location in the network can be determined and how a participant’s transaction can be uncovered in the context of blockchain networks that provide privacy guarantees.