A Canadian-based company, Terrasol Geosolar Inc., has identified a unique opportunity to offer hurricane-resistant solar energy infrastructure for weather-ravaged areas of the world. Towards this functionality, there has also been significant market incentives to include bio-derived composite materials within the structure. However, current developments of natural fibre reinforced composites (NFRCs) in structural applications has been […]

The inordinate carbon footprint of the precast concrete industry mainly originates from its raw material supply, predominantly cement. Besides, deficient design and detailing of the joints in precast structures result in their inherent poor seismic performance. Thus, it is crucial to investigate greener alternatives to raw materials along with innovative structural design in precast concrete […]

Employment is important for ensuring social inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, who commonly use the identity term self-advocates in Canada. Self-advocates are much less likely to be employed, and work fewer hours a week and often earn only minimum wage. When gender is taken into account, men are hired more frequently, work […]

When grapevines are exposed to forest fire smoke they often trap the compounds responsible for the odour of smoke within the ripening berries. Through poorly understood processes, grapes may transform these compounds into forms that are not readily detected by smell or current testing procedures. The yeasts used for fermentation may break down these storage […]

The aim of this research is to introduce a novel tremor suppression device capable of attenuating both Parkinsonian and Essential tremors. The approach taken involves treating tremors as vibration challenges and applying the theory of a vibration absorber to design and optimize the novel device. Detailed analysis of vibration absorption is used to identify key […]

In our proposed research we will be performing numerical simulations of cavitation occurring around mantis shrimp appendages. The simulation results will serve to answer how evolutionary diversification in the species has enabled appendages to selectively cavitate only upon impact, and not during forward rotation, despite the appendage-acceleration being comparable with that of a bullet. Moreover, […]

No cure currently exists for COPD, which affects 2.6million Canadians and include airway-scarring and destruction of the airspaces due to chronic cigarette smoking. In the lungs, the airways are lined with a structural-cell layer, called an epithelium, which much like our skin, protects the lung from inhaled particles including cigarette smoke. The epithelium communicates with […]

International legislation and growing environmental issues have imposed a lot of pressure on companies and manufacturers to maximize the recycling systems. Such demands have had significant consequences for the plastic industries to use recycled plastics from the disposed plastic wastes. Therefore, this study is an initiative taken by the Nanomaterials and Polymer Nanocomposites Laboratory (NPNL) […]

The proposed research project will aim to measure the reliability of changes in brain activity induced by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). rTMS is a non-invasive therapy that has been used to evoke changes in local and network-level brain activity in various clinical populations, including stroke and depression. The proposed project will test rTMS effectiveness […]

Materials circularity is becoming increasingly important for designers and manufacturers across the world, driven by a variety of factors including increased restrictions to landfill dumping through the legacy “make-take-dispose” model, through to social campaigns. The aim of this collaborative project is to perform a feasibility study on replacing current airport luggage handling infrastructure at Vancouver […]

This research project fills the critical gap in data collection, and building behavioural and simulation models to assist in developing sustainable land use and transportation policy-making for a smaller/rural community- i.e. City of West Kelowna (Co WK). Specifically, the interns will contribute by developing tmftic ;md emissions simulation models to test the impacts of revitalizing […]

The measurement of O2 consumption (V ?O2, V ?O2 max) and CO2 production (V ?CO2) is important in the health assessment. The goal of this research is to develop inexpensive optical technologies adapted from off-the-shelf components to reduce the cost and improve the performance of metabolic analyzers. VO2 Master, which is our sole partner organization, […]