Integrating biodiversity functional guild responses to land use and climate change in natural heritage system update – Year two

Urbanization continues to drive the land conversion from natural areas to urban uses dominated by impermeable surfaces. This conversion has direct and indirect impacts on ecosystem services that are critical for a sustainable and resilient ecosystem as well as human wellbeing. Habitat removal and fragmentation accelerate biodiversity loss in urban landscapes. Additionally, climate change exacerbates […]

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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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Management and conservation of polar bears in Davis Strait: An integrated population modeling approach to estimating population size, growth rate and Total Allowable Harvest of a priority species in Nunavut, Canada.

Estimates of population size and structure of the Davis Strait polar bear population are uncertain due, in large part, to the prohibitive costs of conducting regular aerial surveys. In recent years, Inuit have indicated that increased bear abundance has resulted in public safety concerns. In addition, Inuit believe that polar bears have negatively impacted other […]

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Evaluation of Mazzaella Japonica as a Food Additive for Ruminants – Year two

In collaboration between Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and Beaver Meadow Farms (BMF), we propose to investigate the invasive foreign red seaweed Mazzaella Japonica as a food additive for ruminant livestock, primarily cattle. BMF is a multi-faceted agricultural company based on northern Vancouver Island built around organic pasture-raised cattle but also the harvest of storm-cast Mazzaella […]

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Development of a Borehole Muon Detector for Muon Tomography – Year two

CRM Geotomography Technologies (CRM) has developed detectors that are able to measure cosmic ray muon particles underground. By measuring the rate at which these particles pass through the detectors, it is possible to reconstruct a three-dimensional map of the density of the earth’s subsurface above the detectors. This technique is called muon tomography. CRM’s detectors […]

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Using bioelectrochemical approaches to study microbes associated with oil and gas operations – Year two

Microbial activities in oil and gas operations can be beneficial or detrimental which economically impact the energy industry. Microorganisms can be responsible for souring and microbiologically influenced corrosion which damage oil and gas infrastructure, but they can also play a beneficial role in enhancing energy production, recovering chemicals from waste streams, bioremediation, and biofuel production. […]

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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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The Epidemiology of Fabry Disease and Metabolic Acidosis in Manitoba

The proposed project is for the postdoctoral fellow to access healthcare data for individual adults in the province of Manitoba in order to: 1) determine the rates of metabolic acidosis in Manitoba along with associated outcomes and risk factor profiles and 2) identify patients in Manitoba who are at high risk of Fabry disease but […]

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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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Heavy Rare Earth Elements: New Insight into Mineralogical Parameters That Impact Mine Processing – Year two

Current Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE) processing techniques are expensive, environmentally-challenging, and slow. Kinetic models predict that the rate of acid permeation of a mineral is the rate controlling step. Therefore, permeation rate controls the acid quantity and residency time of the mineral in the acid bath; impacting costs. Kinetic models are based on structural […]

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