Innovative Projects Realized

The characterization of a Cryogenic Stopping Cell (CSC) in context of the next-generation CSC design

Improving Human Performance in Sport through Physical, Psychological, and Social Sciences.

The research through the Canadian Sport Centre Atlantic will provide more information to people in the sport and physical activity area about strategies for increasing performance levels of athletes and coaches. A combination of research from the physical, psychological, and social science areas provide a comprehensive approach to understanding performance and how it can be improved, predicted and stabilized. In this project, we aim to expand the existing body of knowledge around neck exercise as it relates to concussions, examine mental health and wellness of coaches and support staff in sport following major events, and better understand the characteristics of competent coaches and how to develop and effectively train them.

Coastal Community Access to Fisheries in Canada

Coastal communities and fishermen in British Columbia are facing a suite of issues, that can challenge the continuity of the livelihoods of individual fishers and influence community development outcomes. Some of the challenges facing fishers in BC include changing markets, climate, ecological and governance conditions. One significant and growing challenge that has been identified in BC fisheries is access – which can be defined as the ability of fishers to use and benefit from available resources. However, there are still significant gaps in our knowledge about access issues in BC – including understanding the status, the drivers and the outcomes of access issues. Lack of a comprehensive knowledge base about these issues can undermine our ability to make informed programmatic decisions and policy recommendations to address access issues in BC fisheries. This objective of this project is to develop and implement a quantitative survey of fishermen in coastal British Columbia to help to fill these gaps in knowledge.

Mitigation of CO2 in the emissions of stand-alone electricity generators

In Canada, there are over 280 communities that are off the grid, the majority of which are First Nation. They use stand-alone diesel-powered electricity generators to supply their basic needs, and whilst there are plans to provide renewable energy alternatives, this will take time. In addition, there are a growing number of generators that burn biogas from landfill sites or wastewater treatment plants. All these electricity generators emit carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
This collaborating company will explore with an established Laurentian University (LU) research team, environmental, and economic benefit from capturing and repurposing the generator’s exhaust CO2. The goal is to adapt and commercialize LU’s technology that captures otherwise waste CO2 in off-gas to promote growth of regional microalgae and produce a revenue stream of high-value health beneficial nutraceuticals, such as antioxidants and antibiotics.

Characterization of Carbon Nanotube Aerogel Structure

Carbon nanotubes are a tubular carbon-based material with extreme properties at the nanoscale. Scaled up production of macroscopic carbon nanotube materials is still expensive, and the bulk material falls short of the impressive nanoscale material properties. The aim of this project will be to mathematically characterize the structure of carbon nanotube aerogels produced using floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition, one of the most promising methods for industrial scale carbon nanotube production. The structure of the aerogel determines the bulk material properties, the health effects of the material and can provide insight into the formation process. Mathematically characterizing the structure will play an important role in improving the process for cost-effective industrial scale production and ensuring safe handling of the materials.

Inspection des pieces souples sans operations de conformation

Les pieces souples (ou flexibles) sont une categorie de pieces frequemment rencontrees

dans I’industrie, comme les panneaux de revetement de carrosserie, les composantes a parois minces, etc. On estime qu’environ 37% des composantes dans une automobile sont

des pieces sou pies.

Le probleme de I’inspection dimensionnelie de ces pieces est que la geometrie a I’etat libre

est tres differente a cause des effets de la gravite et des contraintes residuelies.

Aujourd’hui, la solution industrielie, couteuse mais indispensable, consiste a fabriquer un

gabarit de conformation pour chaque type de piece. Ce dernier est employe uniquement lors

de I’inspection afin de la contraindre a epouser une forme predefinie.

Les stages proposes s’inscrivent dans un plus vaste projet de recherche qui vise I’elimination

de ces gabarits de conformite pour permettre une inspection rapide et economique. A partir

d’un nuage de points capte par une technologie existante (CMM, capteur laser, etc.) et une

position arbitraire, nous developpons des algorithmes d’alignement non rig ide et des……..

Mining Web Access Logs Using Graphs for Understanding User Behavior

Recreational cannabis was legalized on Oct 17th, 2018. Internationally, some countries have already legalized or are going to legalize the recreational/medical cannabis products. Unfortunately, there are not much data available for stakeholders to make decisions in a data-driven way. However, the government, industry and community are hungry to obtain statistical data to understand the impact of the legalization and forecast the trends.
Lift & Co built a cannabis data platform to collect consumer product reviews, starting with medical cannabis products since 2014. Today, Lift & Co. have 50,000 active users and 80,000 product reviews. We would like to fully utilize the large volume of data crowdsourced from the community in our platform to find insights on the user cannabis consumption behaviors. The results of this project will benefit the licensed-producers, retailers and Canadian government agencies for more reasonable data-driven decision making. The underlying technical problem that will assist in solving the above-mentioned problem is that of Collaborative Filtering.
User behavior is a tough nut to crack. Users are complicated, unexpected, and impatient. As mobile technology improves, users become more skilled and more knowledgeable about their devices and what they want to gain from them. TBC

Prise en compte des savoirs autochtones dans l’aménagement durable des paysages boréaux

L’aménagement du territoire en zone boréale pose des défis environnementaux importants. Le maintien de la conservation d’écosystèmes sains et résilients dans un contexte d’aménagement de la forêt pour des fins commerciales requiert un effort de coordination entre les parties-prenantes de la gestion du territoire. Les compagnies forestières qui planifient l’aménagement du territoire, les communautés autochtones, dont l’approvisionnement, la culture et l’identité sont rattachés de près au territoire, et les chercheurs scientifiques qui colligent des données sur l’état des écosystèmes doivent travailler ensemble pour trouver des solutions satisfaisantes et durables à des enjeux sensibles. Le projet propose une collaboration entre les chercheurs de l’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, l’entreprise RYAM Gestion forestière et la Première Nation Abitibiwinni. Les objectifs sont 1) de développer un outil d’analyse de risque pour différents scénarios d’aménagement forestier qui prenne en compte les valeurs et savoirs autochtones et 2) de faire un inventaire des savoirs autochtones sur le caribou forestier afin qu’ils soient mis à contribution dans son plan de Gestion. Un tel partenariat est une rare occasion de collaboration entre l’industrie forestière, les communautés autochtones et l’Université…TBC

Sustaining Biodiversity Protection and Restoration Potential as the Foundation of Land Trust Business

This project is designed to create a strong plan for both the environmental and economic sustainability of the Haliburton Highlands Land Trust and the properties they manage through the ecological gifts program. Another benefit to this project for the Haliburton Highlands Land Trust is that donors are much more likely to contribute land and dollars to the Land Trust if they are comfortable with role the Land Trust plays as a steward of the land, including activities related to ecological restoration and of damaged properties. The intern’s work is related to developing a new business model for these land trusts as well as developing a new assessment methodology for restoration potential of the various land in the Haliburton region. This increased restoration potential of lands would lead to attracting more visitors to the Haliburton region increasing the local economy through eco-tourism.

Hand-held educational robots for learning STEM concepts

Inspired by needs for haptic support of large motions on a surface in applications like embodied conceptual learning, commercial design, and 2D virtual/augmented reality, we at SPIN lab at the University of British Columbia made a ballpoint drive system called Magic Pen [1]. This novel approach circumvents conventional constraints by imposing a new one: motion restricted to rolling on an arbitrary two dimensional surface, and grounding forces generated through friction.
During this visit at EPFL, I propose to work with two existing research projects at CHILI lab; CoWriter and Cellulo. The Magic Pen and these NCCR Robotics projects could mutually benefit from each other and make new contributions to Educational Robotics.
The CoWriter [2,3] project at the CHILI Lab of EPFL, uses a learning by teaching paradigm to encourage children to practice their handwriting by teaching a robot. Using a graphical tablet to acquire handwriting data, a RF based algorithm is now able to diagnose dysgraphia and to characterise precisely handwriting difficulties [4]. The last results of the project showed in particular that the pen pressure, tilt and dynamic features of handwriting were very discriminative for dysgraphia. TBC

A Critical Transition in the Common Core: Analyzing Networks for Mathematics Implementation

Since the U.S. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics were introduced in 2010, states have been grappling with the implementation of revised mathematics instruction. Implementation challenges have meant fewer students are adequately prepared for the elementary to middle school transition. Educators’ professional learning networks (PLNs) may be effective in addressing this issue, yet minimal research has examined the social structure of PLNs across transitions. Accordingly, this research will examine how the social structure of educators’ PLNs enables or constrains implementation of Common Core mathematics instruction around the elementary to middle school transition. Drawing from social network theory, I will examine the PLNs within and across four school districts in Southern California that participated in a two-year longitudinal network study. This research will make a substantial contribution to our understanding of how educators’ PLNs can be leveraged to improve the implementation of mathematics instruction around the elementary to middle school transition.

Role of TIPARP and AHR in gene regulation triggered by the environmental contaminant PCB126

The overall goal of our work is to use novel genetically modified rodent models to determine how two gene regulatory proteins known as ‘TIPARP’ and ‘AHR’ interact to influence mammalian responses to an important class of chemical toxicants that are found in certain foods and in the environment. These include the potential pesticide contaminant dioxin (TCDD), the industrial coolant component PCB126, and the cruciferous vegetable-derived compound indole-3-carbinol (I3C). Our studies are also examining the role of the TIPARP-AHR interaction in fatty liver disease, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, and may identify novel signaling pathways that are activated by environmental contaminants of relevance to human health. This summer Chi Pham will participate in the comparative analysis of tissue specimens obtained from wild-type and TIPARP-deficient mice that have been exposed to PCB126, and her results will provide important information to allow us to compare the responses of these mouse strains with those observed in our previous studies using TCDD exposure.