Improving Situation Awareness for a Collaborative Service Robot in Care Environment – Year two

Development of Collaborative Service Robot (CSR) technologies usually targets a certain population group like seniors or people with developmental disabilities (DD) and requires tailored and dedicated research and development. This project is ultimately seeking to provide a proof of concept of a CSR platform that can assist people with DD. The overall project involves research […]

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Non-contact vital sign detection of the newborn – Year two

Medtronic is a global leader in medical technology and biomedical engineering, working towards non-contact vital signs detection. This technology would be especially helpful in the case of high-risk or premature newborns. Continuous or at least frequent monitoring of newborns outside of clinical environments improves quality of life for parents and newborns recently discharged from the […]

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Addressing Energy Poverty in British Columbia’s Rural and Indigenous Communities

Rural and indigenous communities in Canada experience energy poverty due to poor quality housing, lower incomes, high fuel costs, limited access to natural gas, and in some cases no access to grid electricity. Ecotrust Canada’s Community Energy Initiative seeks to address Energy Poverty by improving access to affordable heat in rural and indigenous communities across […]

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Development of a multifunctional in situ-forming scaffold with antimicrobial activity for treatment of complex wounds

Pressure ulcer is one of the top five leading causes for re-hospitalization of spinal cord injured patients. In general, there are three main difficulties associated with treating these ulcers: 1) Presence of cavities and tunnels which makes it difficult to treat with conventional regimens, 2) A high chance of infection and, 3) Susceptibility to weight-bearing […]

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Spatial and Temporal Variability of Primary and Secondary Production in the Salish Sea from a Coupled Model (SalishSeaCast with SMELT) – Part 2

We have developed a model that simulates currents, nutrient distributions, and plankton growth in the Salish Sea. This project focuses on continued development of that model and its application to answering scientific questions. These questions include: 1) How much does the timing and amount of plankton growth vary from year to year, and what factors […]

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An Integrated Interface for a Mixed Reality Based Medical Education System

How to build a medical education ecosystem and improve the learning outcome? Currently a medical education system based on mixed reality is missing and bad user interfaces can leave students confused and struggling instead of learning efficiently. The goal of this project is to leverage mixed reality technology, develop a medical education system, and make […]

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Understanding mixed-severity fire regimes, their dynamics and their resilience to climate change in the southern Alberta Foothills – Year two

Mounting evidence shows that boreal and mountain forests are not solely driven by high severity fires that kill most of the above-ground vegetation (i.e. stand-replacing fires). Indeed, wildfire severity can be highly heterogeneous, leading to spatially complex forest landscapes, with multiple species and uneven ages. Many existing fire dynamics models do not explicitly consider the […]

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Centre for Operations Excellence Industry Projects 2019

The Centre for Operations Excellence Industry Projects 2019 consists of seven sub-projects sponsored by five different industry partners. Each sub-project represents an important challenge for its sponsor. These sub-projects include Extracting data from unstructured text of NOTAMs to assess relevance (Boeing 1), Developing a fix effectiveness engine to perform data-driven predictive maintenance (Boeing 2), Initial […]

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Selective Ablation of Circulating Tumor Cells by Dynamic Photothermal Therapy

Cancer metastasis is responsible for 90% of cancer deaths. In metastasis, a group of cancer cells detach from the tumor, entre the blood stream and ultimately make new colonies in other organs. In this study we aim to develop a new technology to target these cancerous cells in the blood circulation with laser irradiation. We […]

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Serum Protein and Antibody Interactions with Immunomagnetic Cell Isolation Particles

Immunomagnetic cell isolation particles are widely used to separate cells from complex, biological environments, such as blood, urine, or bone marrow. Cell isolation particles are typically decorated with specialized antibodies to bind to targeted cell surfaces via specific antibody–antigen interactions. These interactions can be disturbed by the presence of serum proteins, which are common constituents […]

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