Mobile phone, media and entertainment sectors are of critical importance to our economy. With the massive usage of mobile devices (e.g., British Columbia has the highest smartphone penetration among all provinces in Canada) and increasing popularity of smartphone camera applications and mobile social networks, automatic image tagging is crucial for the next-generation mobile social media […]

Oregon spotted frog (OSF) is Canada’s most endangered amphibian. This frog inhabits the wetlands of Lower Fraser Valley in British Columbia, where it is estimated that only a few hundred breeding individuals are left in a widely distributed population. Since this frog is very endangered, a conservation program is in action to save this species […]

The storage of solar energy is one of the bottlenecks that prevent its widespread adoption. Perhaps the most widely accepted, and promising, strategy is to store solar energy in the form of energetic chemicals like hydrogen. This feat requires water splitting technology that can use solar energy to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen. In […]

The project is a mixed-methods study with the primary aim of recommending evidence-based interventions to support child and youth mental health and well-being in BC during the COVID-19 pandemic/recovery phase. Existing data collected through three BC-based surveys will be used: Personal Impacts of COVID-19 Survey (PICS), Youth Development Instrument (YDI), and BC COVID-19 Survey on […]

Language plays a central role in Canadian identity and nationhood. This project seeks to uncover, map and explain the effect of political ideologies in the development of language policy instruments, specifically language road maps/action plans. We will build upon existing research which establishes the validity of the Government of Canada’s Action Plans (2003-2008 & 2018-2023) […]

AltumView is a Vancouver start-up company and has been working wholeheartedly for the past few years to develop the Sentinare Smart Activity Sensor for senior care. The trend of senior living at their own houses and independently from their children is becoming more popular. Moreover, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the seniors are […]

Building hybrid quantum devices that compose of systems with complementary advantages is a promising approach to develop next generation quantum technology. In particular, the hybrid systems that consist of long-lived matter qubit (e.g. defect centers) and highly controllable photons (e.g. microwave in superconducting resonators) have been suggested to be a versatile platform for realizing quantum […]

After about a decade’s wait, persistent memory (such as Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory) has recently become commercially available in 2019. These devices fundamentally change the way database systems are built: they are both byte-addressable like normal DRAM memory and persistent like flash memory and disks. They also exhibit memory-like properties and performance (albeit slower), […]

This project aims to find a solution between high magnitude debris flows and their impacts on society through the design of low-cost mitigation measures, in order to build sustainable cities that can coexist with natural phenomena. The towns of Huinganco and Andacollo in northernmost Patagonia, Argentina, were affected recently by debris flows. Given the consequences, […]

This project studies network capacity and throughput for newly emerging MSGN infrastructure including mesh planning strategies and how the number of hops and end-devices affects the overall throughput. The work includes developing the analytical framework, and confirmation through simulation and physical experiment, of proof-of-concepts in the smart utility lab IPv6 RF mesh test bed. During […]

Currently in Canada, 8 out of 10 Canadians have ongoing musculoskeletal pain preventing from doing regular day to day activity, and looking for solutions for their pain. The proposed research is aimed to create a conversational chatbot that can engage in empathetic conversation to examine the effect of empathic conversation in engagement and pain management […]

Recent advances in sensing, edge-computing devices (e.g., Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, especially deep learning (DL) models for computer vision and speech tasks, together have led to exponentially increasing AI applications in military, civilian and education scenarios. It is widely agreed that AI will be the driving force of the […]