Evaluation of Ion-Exchange and Nanofiltration as Effective Methods for the Removal of Trihalomethanes Pre-cursors at the Waterhen Water Treatment Plant

This project aims to establish an ion-exchange/nanofiltration pilot study at the Waterhen water treatment plant. A natural result of the chlorination disinfection process in water treatment is the formation of disinfection by-products (DBP), a family of known carcinogens. This project aims to limit the formation of these DBP by removal of their precursors using the […]

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Impact des fongicides foliaires du soya sur les ennemis naturels du puceron du soya

L’utilisation à large échelle de produits phytosanitaires de façon préventive, tels que les fongicides foliaires, peut causer des impacts sur l’environnement et sur la santé humaine. Les conditions d’utilisation, les bénéfices anticipés mais aussi les impacts indirects liés à l’utilisation de ces produits doivent être examinés au Québec. Par exemple, les fongicides foliaires utilisés dans […]

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Determining how differences between avid and lapsed anglers can improve license sales and angler satisfaction

Regardless of the numerous fishing opportunities, and cultural and historical significance of fishing in British Columbia, the number of freshwater fishing licenses sold to residents has been declining. Many British Columbia anglers are lapsed, meaning that they do not purchase a license every year. A better understanding of these anglers, and the difference between them […]

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Linking microbiome to eco-industrial function: the in silico and metagenomic exploration of microbial dark matter and taxonomic blind spots

“A large majority of microbes cannot be cultured. Recently, microbiome sequencing has begun to identify the genetic potential of these lineages, often referred to as microbial “dark matter”. By integrating my taxonomic profiling methods with function profiling developed by the academic supervisor, I aim to develop and apply a comprehensive pipeline for microbial dark matter […]

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Linking microbiome to eco-industrial function: the in silico and metagenomic exploration of microbial dark matter and taxonomic blind spots – Year two

The collection of bacteria and archaea in an ecosystem is termed the microbiome. This microbiome is critically important to the structure and function of essentially any ecosystem, providing many ecosystem services, such as growth promotion, nutrient turnover, and impacts on organismal health. The vast majority of these organisms, however, are unknown to science for a […]

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Scale-up of Bioaugmentation Cultures and Development of Delivery Strategies and Monitoring Tools for Anaerobic Benzene and Alkylbenzene Bioremediation

The overall objective of this project is to scale up and demonstrate the utility of novel bioaugmentation cultures for BTEX compounds, and associated diagnostic tools to properly deploy the technology. The intern will lead the project team to develop gene-based biomarker tools applicable to the bioaugmentation cultures and apply these tools to samples submitted from […]

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Développement et optimisation de procédés de production de 2 cutinases pour applications industrielles

Le but général est de favoriser la commercialisation de deux enzymes de type cutinase en développant des procédés de production/purification prometteurs et d’intérêt industriel. Les cutinases sont des enzymes intéressantes pour l’hydrolyse de divers corps gras et de certains plastiques, ainsi que pour la modification de surfaces. Pour chacune des cutinases, cinq (5) objectifs spécifiques […]

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Optical Recognition of Anglers

The Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia is dedicated to the conservation, restoration, and sustainable exploitation of British Columbia’s freshwater fish resources. They have set up cameras to label fishing levels in BC lakes, but it is too time-consuming to count the number of fishers in all these images. We intend to use recent advances […]

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Roche Lake Eutrophication study

Roche Lake is the Roche Lake is the largest lake among 12 highly productive water bodies in the Thomson-Nicola region of BC’s southern Interior Plateau. It has experienced algal blooms over the past four years indicating a change in nutrient loadings to the lake. Roche Lake suffered a winterkill of more than 50% of fish […]

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Harnessing imaging spectroscopy for multivariate rock sorting in the mine environment

The proposed research focuses on imaging spectroscopy of geological materials encountered at mineral deposits. Imaging spectroscopy (also known as hyperspectral imaging) in the geosciences traditionally utilizes airborne or spaceborne platforms but ground-based studies at outcrop and smaller scales are becoming more common. This technique collects reflectance data as images, and allows quick analysis of specific […]

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Harnessing imaging spectroscopy for multivariate rock sorting in the mine environment – Year Two

The proposed research focuses on imaging spectroscopy of geological materials encountered at mineral deposits. Imaging spectroscopy (also known as hyperspectral imaging) in the geosciences traditionally utilizes airborne or spaceborne platforms but ground-based studies at outcrop and smaller scales are becoming more common. This technique collects reflectance data as images, and allows quick analysis of specific […]

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Applied Mineralogy for Improvement of Sensor-based Sorting of Bulk Ores

The project focuses on gold deposits in the Arequipa region of southern Peru which are presently being exploited by artisanal and small-scale miners (accounting for 11-14% of Peru’s gold production). The proposed research includes a detailed mineralogical study of the gold mines and the ore concentrates, which have not been previously investigated. The objective is […]

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