Projets novateurs réalisés

Calculation of the induced voltage between overhead transmission lines and adjacent gas pipelines via electromagnetic transients simulation

The candidate will utilize his knowledge and experience in transmission line modelling to implement test cases required by BC Hydro to validate the results of measured induced voltages between the transmission lines and gas pipelines. The simulations will be performed using well-known computer packages available at power laboratories of the University of British Columbia as well as computer programs written by the candidate to implement the recently developed line model in his PhD work. Simulation results will be compared with the measurements. In case of agreement between these results, BC Hydro will be able to use the confirmed data and standards for strengthening the shielding of gas pipelines for a better protection against corrosion.

Fédération de données par le biais de technologies du Web sémantique

Bassetti offre à ses clients la solution Teexma®, un outil collaboratif permettant de faire la gestion des données techniques des entreprises industrielles. Cet outil permet de structurer, capitaliser et diffuser les données techniques, mais il n’offre pas de fonctions pour faciliter le recoupement de données provenant de sources différentes. Or il s’agit d’un facteur crucial pour permettre des analyses approfondies, ainsi que la prise de décision. Bassetti aimerait donc proposer une solution pour réaliser cette intégration. Puisque les données reposent sur des formats, des structures et des contextes différents, il faut une approche sémantique pour les fédérer. Dans ce projet, nous explorerons les technologies du Web sémantique, afin de créer un cadre dans lequel les données seront exportées et, en quelque sorte, traduites en une base de connaissances. Nous tenterons de montrer l’intérêt de ces technologies dans le domaine des matériaux, en démontrant comment elles peuvent être utilisées par un groupe industriel dans ce domaine.

Assessing options for the regulation of non-medical drug use in Canada: a systematic literature review

Canada is in the midst of an unprecedented overdose crisis, with 922 people dying of overdose in the province of British Columbia in 2016. Pivot Legal Society has a mandate to represent drug users and advance their hu-man rights. It is embarking on a project to bring together drug policy experts across Canada and around the globe to propose regulatory models for all currently illicit substances. As preparation, Noah Quastel will collect and review academic literature, government reports, and community-based publications regarding alternatives to criminal law as a mechanism for regulating the non-medical use of drugs. He will create a report that summa-rizes and synthesizes literature in this area, as well as map the positions, and points of contention between Ca-nadian stakeholder groups.

Low-damage deposition of transparent conductive oxides as top contacts for transparent organic light emitting diodes

Organic light emitting diodes, or ‘OLEDs’ have become a common technology in everyday displays such as mobile phones, laptops, and televisions. These types of devices rely on an OLED structure that uses ‘bottom-emission’, meaning that the top of the device consists of a non-transparent backplane, and the light and colours generated in the device are emitted through the transparent, bottom side of the device. In order to incorporate OLED technology into new and exciting applications such as heads up displays, smart windows, or augmented reality, the device must be fabricated so that it is completely transparent and capable of both ‘bottom emission’ and ‘top emission’. A significant challenge with a transparent OLED (TOLED) is that the transparent electrode which must be deposited directly on top of the light-generating organic layers can cause damage to the device and limit performance. TO BE CONT’D

Control Forecasting Feature

Control is a leader in mobile payment analytics and alerts for SaaS, subscription, and eCommerce businesses, enabling instant intelligence anywhere via its Android, iOS, and web-based products. We collect our customers’ payment data and provide them with their key business metrics that helps them monitor their performance. In order to improve our service to customers we are moving towards providing customers with predictive analytics, that is we want to enable our users to forecast the future of their business based on the models that will learn from their historic payment data and yield forecasts for short-term future. This will help business owners to make informed business decisions and set their strategies on insights that are driven from their data. This requires studying the data and testing forecasting techniques to measure the performance of each method in predicting the future data, which is the main objective of this project.

Effectiveness of EarlyDetect, a psychiatric assessment program, using a mobile APP interface

Mental health illness cost over $50 billion in the Canadian economy annually, and is prevalent at workplace. The cost and prevalence of menial health illness can be greatly mitigated with early detection and intervention. EarlyDetect is a program developed by Chokka Center for Integrative Health for convenient, accurate and reliable self-assessment of mental illness, and has been validated in a pen-and-paper form. The current project is to develop a fully functional mobile APP version of the EarlyDetect, and to study whether testing through a mobile APP will generate the same high quality diagnosis from the pen-and-paper version of the program.

Application de l’apprentissage automatique pour l’analyse de données dans le contexte Industrie 4.0

Le Centre de recherche industriel du Québec (CRIQ) a pour mission de contribuer à la compétitivité des secteurs industriels québécois et à la croissance des organismes en soutenant l’innovation, la productivité et les exportations. Dans le cadre de ces deux sous-projets MITACS, nous allons explorer comment construire et exploiter des modèles obtenus par apprentissage automatique afin d’aider le CRIQ dans son mandat. Une partie des activités de ce projet porteront sur la recherche et l’extraction d’information à des fins de veille technologique. Le CRIQ mène fréquemment des recherches pour trouver les normes qui s’appliquent à la commercialisation d’un nouveau produit. Le premier sous-projet, qui fera l’objet de six stages de maîtrise, aura pour but d’évaluer l’apport de techniques d’apprentissage automatique et du traitement automatique de la langue naturelle (TALN) pour accomplir certaines étapes du processus de recherche d’information. TO BE CONT’D

Potentiel de l’Hyper-Cam Méthane aéroportée pour la détection des émissions surfaciques de méthane sur les lieux d’enfouissement sanitaires

Telops, une entreprise canadienne spécialisée dans la conception et la fabrication d’imageurs hyperspectraux et de caméras infrarouge, a développé l’Hyper-Cam Méthane, un outil permettant de réaliser des mesures précises des émissions surfaciques de méthane. Cet outil est particulièrement adapté à la détection et à la quantification des émissions de méthane sur les sites d’enfouissement, qui peuvent être une source importante de gaz à effet de serre. Cependant, il n’a pour le moment été utilisé que sur des supports terrestres, ce qui permet d’obtenir une quantification des émissions de méthane sur des superficies restreintes uniquement. L’objectif de cette étude est ainsi de tester les capacités de l’Hyper-Cam Méthane aéroportée pour la détection et la quantification des émissions de méthane. TO BE CONT’D

Assessing the Impact of an Electronic Patient Tracking Board onOrganizational Performance

The benefit of electronic patient management systems within hospitals has been

previously demonstrated through enhanced communication and collaboration

between departments. However many hospitals within the Canadian healthcare system

do not currently use electronic tracking systems. Furthermore, the implementation of

these systems has been challenging leading to poor adoption of these technologies

resulting in limited benefit. In order to identify the drivers and barriers to technology

adoption we intend to study the implementation of an electronic patient management

system in a large hospital setting. By interviewing and surveying those responsible for

the acquisition of the system as well as those who interact with it, the effect of this

technology on the hospital operations can be evaluated. Identification of the factors

leading to adoption will allow McKesson to design better user interfaces and

deployment strategies to increase end-user interaction and satisfaction.

Using structure-from-motion and 3D analysis to visualize habitat complexity and dynamics of glass sponge reefs in British Columbia

Glass sponges build their skeletons out of silicon dioxide (i.e. glass). While these animals are found all over the world in very deep water, they only exist shallower than 50 m in a few places in the world. In very rare cases, new sponges grow on top of existing, dead sponges and form reefs in a similar manner to coral reefs. As with coral reefs, the structure formed by the reefs is ecologically important because it provides complex habitat and shelter for other animals. However, the structure of the reef can be challenging to measure using the two-dimensional methods that ecologists traditionally use. We propose to measure the glass sponge reefs using technology that captures 3-D shapes using photos or videos. This same technology is used to make 3-D animations and virtual reality, and can allow researchers to visualize information in ways never before possible. TO BE CONT”D

Reducing homelessness using direct cash transfers and motivational interventions

This project aims to examine the effect of unconditional direct cash-transfers to recently homeless individuals in Vancouver, BC, Canada. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial to distribute a one-time unconditional $7,500 cash lump sum to 50 recently homeless individuals from shelters in Vancouver. We will also provide a supplementary motivational training for half of the participants. We will also recruit 50 recently homeless individuals as a control group, and half of these participants will also receive motivational training. At 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after the cash transfer, we will follow up with the participants to evaluate the effect of the cash transfer and motivational training. Specifically, we will measure participants’ cognitive function, social connections, housing outcomes, employment outcomes, and health outcomes.

Advancing an Artificial Intelligence Platform for Crop-Health Monitoring

Plants can respond to changes in their surroundings and can convey precise information about their health state. Ecoation has developed a multi-sensory data acquisition device to capture this information and has been collecting in-field sensor data along with data labels produced by human experts during data collection. In addition, images of various parts of plant canopy has also been collected to supplement the sensory information and to provide insights into plant physical features such as vegetation. There is a wide spectrum of data types available, but only a few have been explored due to the novelty of the data type and the application. The focus of this project will be (i) conducting research and developing new data processing methods for our data and (ii) investigating machine learning and deep learning procedures to build deployable models for plant health diagnosis, vegetation detection and other grower’s task using collected labeled data.