Innovative Projects Realized

Indigenous peoples’ representation in the Greater Toronto Area construction industry

This research project seeks to identify and draw attention to the historical factors leading to the underrepresentation of Indigenous workers in unionized sectors of the construction industry; the problematic relationship between Indigenous workers and their non-Indigenous counterparts, employers and trade unionists; and past and present efforts to address these problems. This work will aid in thinking through the transformation of hiring practices, apprenticeship and other skills training programs, and union models of organizing and outreach to better represent Indigenous workers. I will seek to answer the questions: how many Indigenous workers are there in the construction industry in the GTA? What have their experiences been like in the workplace, apprenticeships and trade union environments? What have been the challenges and successes of the IUOE Local 793, the TCBN, and other community organizations when recruiting and/ or organizing indigenous workers? What have they learned that can be applied elsewhere?

Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Comparative Assessment of Sewage Sludge Technologies

Municipalities across Canada are in need of sustainable strategies to manage their sewage sludge. The goal of this project is to create an intuitive, user-friendly software tool to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts associated with alternative sewage sludge management and disposal strategies. The project will support Kerr Wood Leidal Associates, a recognized leader in stormwater and wastewater management, continue to be a progressive leader in the domain. The model will allow Kerr Wood Leidal Associates provide municipalities with insights around the effects of conventional sewage sludge management methods relative to new, innovative ones. A particular emphasis of this project will be the relative performance of sludge-based activated carbon to mitigate the life-cycle costs and environmental effects of existing management techniques.

Leveraging linked, person-level health information to inform resident safety and a risk management framework within retirement homes in Ontario, Canada

The retirement home sector in Ontario is rapidly expanding, given the need for assisted living services to support an aging population, coupled with health system issues related to hallway health care and a deficit of long-term care capacity. However, there is no research on this sector to inform policies related to risk assessment, quality of care, and retirement home sector performance. To address this gap, linked health system administrative data in Ontario will be used to investigate the rates of injuries and anxiety and depression among retirement home residents and the subsequent health service use attributed to them. In addition, factors associated with the spread of COVID-19 through retirement homes and retirement communities will also be investigated. This project supports the mandate of the RHRA, and it supports the RHRA’s mission to use data and evidence to support a risk-based approach to decision-making.

Over-The-Air (OTA) Testing System For 5G Wireless Devices – Year two

Over the air (OTA) test is the standard procedure for wireless devices to verify the transceiver and antennas performance together in specified conditions. Any wireless device such as tablets, phones and laptop must go under OTA testing. Furthermore, regulatory organizations require OTA testing before the wireless device being certified.
Due to the time-consuming procedure of OTA testing, currently manufacturers and vendors limit themselves to a small sample of devices for testing. However, in 5G, the next wireless revolution, that needs 10-20 times more transceiver path than 4G, the OTA testing for sample products is not sufficient and each device has to be tested.
This project focuses on solutions for testing these devices with a proprietary mass production compatible OTA techniques.
DVTest company is extremely interested in the viability of these technologies because it opens up product development opportunities in the growing 5G marketplace and PCB fault detection.

A Preliminary Overview of the Impacts of COVID-19 in the Republic of Malawi

Future Ancestors Services seeks to build a database that explores the teachings of various peoples around the world and what ancestry and ancestral accountability means to them in the context of current socio-political and environmental issues. This research project explores the ways in which the lived experiences of black people in Sub-Saharan Africa impact their experience and understanding of COVID-19, and how the disease has been harmful at not just a physical level, but also a spiritual and emotional level. Future Ancestors Services will be using the results of this research project to advocate for better pandemic response policies in Canada at a government level that takes into account the lived experiences of marginalised communities; and, providing effective low-cost pandemic response plans to racialized communities and community out-reach groups.

Enhanced rock formation characterization using Gas Expansion Induced Water Intrusion Porosimetry

A thorough investigation of the porous medium characteristics is essential in order to detect transport phenomena in porous media. Lab experiments such as Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP) and Gas Expansion (GE) on the core samples that are directly extracted from geologic formations are useful techniques to measure the porosity of the porous structure. However, the MIP test requires high cost and preparation time and the use of mercury causes the sample destruction. In addition, in both methods, mercury and gas are non-wetting fluids that require a back-up pressure to fill the pores, yet, the pores inter-connected with the finer pores may not get filled. In this paper, using the same principals as MIP and GE tests, an effort was made to overcome the mentioned drawbacks. Therefore, the gas/water intrusion apparatus is designed to use distilled de-aired water (DDW) as an intruding fluid to fill the pores. As the DDW has the tendency to fill all inter-connected pores, no back-up pressure is required. This method is called Gas Expansion Water Intrusion Porosimetry (GEIWIP) that has lower cost and less preparation time comparing to MIP test.

Feasibility Assessment and Development of Knowledge, Technology, and Tools for a Reliable Touch Interface for Metallic and Non-Metallic Surfaces

As ‘Smart-home’ technologies are developed and become a major player in the household appliances market, so too must the technologies that allow us to interface with it. This project, over the span of two years will develop methods of sensing not currently used in the appliance sector. This will allow companies such as iaconicDesign to integrate numerous aesthetics into their products while maintaining reliable functionality. In this project the technologies of piezoelectric and capacitive will be explored initially for use with metallic front-plates, as to rapidly develop a prototype, and later, the technology of Electrical Impedance Tomography will be developed as a future-proofing method.

Studying Gameful Design for Bite-Sized Information Consumption

MLD Solutions are facing the challenge of creating engagement with their online platform Mozaik.Global that allows users to create, distribute, and sell interactive digital content. This content is created in bite-sized units, currently visualized as cards. The key problem with this new type of digital content is that the company currently does not know how to make this content engaging. To address this problem, we will study the impact of gameful elements to motivate use of Mozaik.Global. Understanding how gameful design can be used for bite-sized information creation and consumption marks a significant research problem, because not many measures or methods exist to assess the effectiveness of such gameful applications in this specific context. Our primary deliverable in this project will be a user research report studying how gameful design elements motivate users in the context of bite-sized content.

The Impact of Cultural and Economic Factors on Play and Purchase Decisions for Tabletop Games

Wiggles 3D is a company that has set its goal to create relevant, inclusive, and entertaining tabletops games that are accessible to all who may find them of interest. However, much of game research has focused on a user group’s life stage or the occasion at which a game is played, while not so much on cultural aspects, such as players’ ethnicity or the cultural context of their lifestyle. This lack of understanding of the impact of cultural differences on attitudes, behaviours, and habits that emerge in tabletop gameplay marks a significant research problem, because in order to create more inclusive and relevant games, it is key to understand cultural differences. In an era where equality and respect remain more difficult to achieve than ever, board and tabletop games can be a medium that allows racial-ethnic diversity and cultural expression.

To the root of the problem: preventing excess copper waste and remediation, by targeted treatment of downy mildew in grape crops

Grapes are an important Canadian crop. Canadian winemaking industries rely on grape growers. However, grape crops are threatened by a mould that causes downy mildew. This disease spreads onto grape leaves and if left untreated can kill much of the plant. The grape fruit becomes covered in a dense carpet of mould tissue, and the crop is spoiled and lost. Not just a Canadian problem, downy mildew has become an agricultural concern for vineyards world-wide. Global warming is expected to make the incidence and impact of downy mildew worse. A good treatment is copper sulfate, which is sprayed onto grape plants early in the season to suppress downy mildew growth. However, copper is a toxic element that accumulates in the environment and may impact both the vineyard ecosystem and connected environments. CleanForm Science CA is a Canadian company that wants to reduce the impact of downy mildew, preventing loss of crops, and protecting economic investments. The Sabatinos lab at Ryerson University partners with CleanForm Science CA to develop a new testing kit for downy mildew that will help target new treatments.

Development of a Simulation Pipeline for Validating and OptimizingElectrically Tunable Liquid Crystal Zooming Systems

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simulation package available) to simulate a zooming system composed of tunable liquid crystal lenses
that is capable of aberration correction. The first component of the project consists of simulating a liquid
crystal lens in COMSOL. The liquid crystals rearrange themselves based on a space varying electric
field created by the placement of multiple electrodes and special materials. The crystal rearrangements
produce a rapid change in local refractive index. Therefore, the entire system produces a radial gradient
in refractive index and behaves like an effective concave or convex lens depending on the applied
voltages.
The second component of the project consists of importing COMSOL data into Zemax to create an
optical system capable of zoom and aberration correction with three tunable lenses or more. This
??simulation pipeline??, would allow for immediate design validation before prototyping the optical system,
saving research time, effort, and costs. The full zooming system has enormous applications in
smartphone photography, microscope imaging, manufacturing machine vision, and tunable glasses for
the visually impaired.

Ultrasonic characterization of permafrost using an integrated machine learning poromechanical technique

Civil infrastructure (e.g. roads, embankments, pipelines and buried utilities) is severely impacted by frost action and permafrost conditions in cold regions. With earth’s temperature predicted to increase, the ground ice melts, and the induced soil shift and collapse jeopardize the integrity of infrastructure. Therefore, any remedial measures for excessive soil settlements or new design of infrastructure in permafrost zones affected by climate warming require a reasonable estimation of the amount of ice content within the permafrost (frozen soil).
This project aims at developing a robust NDT technique to determine the characteristics of permanent or seasonal frozen soils. This technique can be used in the laboratory or in the field for an instant and accurate measurement.