Innovative Projects Realized

Comparing the value of country foods with other food provisioning systems in Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories.

How can we describe and value harvesting, processing and sharing (costs as well as benefits) country foods in economic, nutritional, environmental and socio-cultural terms? How can we compare the value of country food with food that comes from other provisioning systems (e.g. imported/market-based foods and local food production)? These are important questions for both communities and decision-makers at multiple levels (from local to territorial to federal), and an initial review of the literature shows that there are complex decisions to be made about what “value” means and how it might be measured before any comparisons with other food provisioning systems can be undertaken. This research will review and synthesize the relevant literature, undertake an environmental scan to identify related projects and potential partners, interview decision-makers at multiple levels, community representatives (including from communities that might be interested in cooperating on this research) and experts in food systems and valuation. It will propose a framework and set of metrics for comparing the value of country foods, locally produced food and market-based imports. This framework will then be adapted for piloting in the context of one or two communities. TO BE CONT’D

Developing the use of UAV Imagery Systems for Agriculture Applications

During the last decade, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) drew the attention to be used as platform for imagery systems for different applications including agriculture applications. Therefore, the proposed research aims to develop the use of UAVs for specific important agriculture applications as weed management. These developments include the use of low-cost imagery sensors for these applications. On the other hand, Cansel is fully supportive organization for cooperative research with universities. Therefore, Cansel endorses this research as being directly relevant to the company’s interests in the area of precise agriculture using low-cost drones and sensors to support Cansel’s various UAV-based mapping systems and application. Furthermore, Canada will benefit from the established knowledge and expertise in technologies of growing demand worldwide, thus keeping the leadership of both the Canadian academia and industry sectors in the precision agriculture industry.

Conceptual study of the techno-economic effects of straight drilling on mining operations

Conventional mining activities are composed of four distinct operation coming together. These operations are called; drilling, blasting, loading and hauling. As being the first step in this chain of operations, drilling quality and preciseness is very vital for the success and effectiveness of remaining components. Accurate drilling not only saves time to the company but also saves from costs and resources. In this sense, mining machinery manufacturing leaders have been working on the best technology available to better drilling accuracy with sophisticated tools and expertise. This study aims to investigate associated saving potentials with a detailed identification and assessment of all the contributing physical factors from mine to mill by focusing on a brand new straight drilling technology developed by Sandvik.

Development of deep learning pipeline for automatic segmentation and classification of cardiac magnetic resonance images – Part 2

Heart disease is the main reason of death worldwide. One way to understand better and detect heart diseases without need for biopsy via surgery is by using medical imaging such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Cardiac magnetic resonance is a specific kind of MRI which allows great visualization of inner parts of the heart and can be used for measuring the size of the heart and its chambers, which can be very useful for understanding blood flow and other potential markers of disease. One problem with modern technologies for measuring parts of the heart is that they are often unreliable because of the data complexity. In this project, we use advanced artificial intelligence techniques to solve that problem. Our techniques are going to be used to obtain better representations of the internal chambers of the heart which can be useful for assessing several kinds of heart diseases.

Design improvements for a hand-held diagnostic test device for infectious diseases

Over the past three decades the time it takes for clinical laboratories to diagnose an infection has decreased from two weeks for culture to 3 hours for DNA testing following the introduction of large, automated bench top equipment. Despite this tremendous improvement, three hours is still too slow to allow rapid and accurate diagnosis of a viral or bacterial infection and the cost is too expensive for resource poor developing countries. The current project is designed to acelerate the development of an instrument-free, hand-held and disposable point-of-need test device that will allow clinicians to take a nasal swab and detect influenza in 20 minutes. The rapid and accurate diagnosis of an infection will ensure that the correct medication is prescribed and that the patient has an increased chance for a full recovery without complications and that he or she does not spread the infection to other members of the family or community.

Integrating the User Perception and Experience into the Planning of Automated and Connected Electric Shuttle Services in Canada

The project will provide an opportunity to address key challenges related to user expectation of Automated and Connected Electric Shuttles. That is, the project will serve to advance the understanding of user perception and experience of smart shuttles in Canada. This technology is increasingly often being tested in pilots across Canada and it is critically to proactively understand the reaction of residents to this new technology. The advanced analytical methods and research work done in this Mitacs project will help inform CUTRIC and municipal partners on optimizing the user experience aboard smart shuttles to avoid any deployment delays due to poor public perceptions.

Development of a biosensor for high-throughput screening of novel ezrin inhibitors for treatment of metastatic breast cancer.

Treatment of metastatic breast cancer is often unsuccessful and lead to 5000 deaths in Canada each year. Therefore, there is an unmet need for new drugs for prevention and/or treatment of metastatic disease. Ezrin is a protein marker commonly over-expressed in metastatic breast cancer. Preclinical studies show that blocking ezrin can significantly reduce metastasis in breast cancer models. In this proposal, the intern will develop novel biosensors to screen large numbers of compounds with the ability to block ezrin’s activity in cancer cells. The results of this project can be used to identify novel therapeutics to minimize metastasis in breast cancer. Additionally, the path to developing of new drugs can be expedited to clinical trials through our industry partner, Tika Therapeutics.

Adaptive Algorithm for End Point Estimation in Steel Making Refining and its Industrial Application

In the steelmaking industry, process control models need to be based on a sound physical understanding of the process but should also account for many uncertainties due to the nature and complexity of the environment in which the process is carried out. As a result, it is crucial to extract useful process control information from the raw data stream acquired by the industrial sensors. The proposed project aims at developing advanced algorithms to improve the estimation of key control parameters in the Argon-Oxygen Decarburization (AOD) process, by leveraging on Machine Learning approaches and tools applied to manufacturing data. This research, while being a valuable training for a high-talented student in Canada, will help the partner organization Tenova Goodfellow Inc. in maintaining its leadership in process optimization applied to steel making furnaces.

LEARNING TO GENERATE MAPS FROM GEO-SPATIAL IMAGES

The needs for up-to-date maps are also growing fast. However, map production still heavily relies on manual annotation of geo-spatial images, i.e., aerial and satellite images, which is expensive and time consuming. This project aims to improve the mapping efficiency from geo-spatial images by over 10 times. The core technologies to be developed are semantic segmentation of geo-spatial images and shape modeling of segmentation results to generate object geometries. Accurate geometric boundaries of objects required by maps are difficult to extract using existing methods. We proposed a geometry-aware semantic segmentation method to generate accurate and clean boundaries from images, and a learning-based shape processing algorithm to convert segmentation results to geometries used by maps. The intern will learn state-of-the-art deep learning technologies and skills needed to solve real world problems. With the help of the intern, our research process will be accelerated and we can further increase the efficiency of map production.

Elimination of ethylene in AeroPod system

A local Canadian company that works on designing and manufacturing completely customizable and smart in-door ecosystems for sustainable production of fresh crops is our industrial partner. Our partner is dealing with the presence of ethylene in the atmosphere in the growth chamber. In this research, we will investigate the possibility of implementing an innovative technique that uses ozone assisted catalytic oxidation to convert ethylene to H2O and CO2 that are favorable for the developed technology by our partner. The outcome of this work can contribute to improving their technology from the view point of process efficiency, cost and sustainability. Moreover, the outcome of this research can contribute to development of a more effective and low-cost ethylene removal technology that can help developing customizable in-door ecosystems for efficiently producing fresh crops anywhere on earth.

Conservation physiology to inform management of economic activity: using hormones to identify stressors to grizzly and black bears in the Great Bear Rainforest

Wildlife have remarkable adaptations for responding to environmental change; however rapid increases in the magnitude of environmental disturbances may compromise their ability to cope. Physiological measures, such as hormones, provide a window into the responses of wildlife to environmental change. We propose to identify and rank the relative importance of multiple potential stressors that could influence grizzly and black bear physiology on the

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central coast of British Columbia, Canada. Drawing on a long-term, large-scale bear monitoring program, this work will combine the analysis of hair samples for stress and reproductive hormones with spatial datasets on bear population density, diet, food availability, and habitat. This work will benefit Raincoast and Coastal First Nations partners by identifying areas where bears may be most sensitive to disturbances. By evaluating the relative importance of multiple stressors, results may also help prioritize conservation and stewardship activities that have maximum impact on bear health.

The effects of One to Zero Technique on neural function, health and well-being

The one-to-Zero (OTZ) Tension Adjustment is a chiropractic technique which corrects articular dysfunction of the articulation between the skull and the top vertebrae of the neck, also called the atlas. The goal of this study is to determine whether correcting dysfunction using OTZ affects brain processes and overall health and well-being. Participants will complete questionnaires relating to health and well-being before and after treatment. Researchers will also measure neck, arm and leg muscle strength, heart rate variability, and awareness of head position in 3D space, twice before treatment begins and at the completion of treatment. This study will help researchers to understand more about how altered sensory input from the neck muscles impacts overall health and performance. It will help Dr. McCord’s practice by providing evidence of the impact of OTZ on health.