Innovative Projects Realized

Understanding historical forest landscape dynamics in the Alberta foothills

An emerging strategy for managing natural resources such as Canada’s forests more sustainably and responsibly is to use knowledge of how Mother Nature has done it to help guide our hand. This so-called ‘ecosystem-based” approach has gained favour with provincial and federal governments, as well as national and international certification agencies. One of the foundations of such an approach is a fundamental understanding of how natural forest ecosystems have worked for millennia over time and space; how has Mother Nature provided the huge, rich array of goods and services such as timber, clean water, recreation, fishing, hunting, and critical species habitat that we enjoy today. In the Alberta foothills, the key drivers of change are climate and wildfire. TO BE CONT’D

Enhancing Recommendation Engine for Open Source Software with Community Structures and Copulas

In the constantly expanding world of open source software and services, developers find it increasingly difficult to choose open source that is compliant, secure and reliable. There are millions of open source software and services publicly available today, and compliance, security and quality related information is extremely difficult for developers to find, making mindful selection of open source an onerous process. Black Duck Software is building a semantic search engine that allows users to describe their requirements in natural language and receive results that meet quality, legal and security requirements. In this research project, the candidate will develop mathematical models and computational techniques that analyze open source software and make suitable recommendations based on user specified criteria that meet quality, legal and security requirements. TO BE CONT’D

Dynamic Bandwidth Management

In the telecommunications industry, many schemas exist to cap or limit bandwidth at certain levels for clients. However, there are no real options available to allow clients to intelligently utilize spare bandwidth above their committed purchase rates. We propose to design, implement and evaluate novel bandwidth allocation mechanisms for high speed networks like the Cybera network. Cybera is a not-for-profit, technology-neutral organization responsible for driving Alberta’s economic growth through the use of digital technology. Cybera’s core role is to oversee the development and operations of Alberta’s research and education network, providing its members (clients), including educational institutions, business incubators and not-for-profits with network connectivity to each other and the Internet. The objective of this project is to provide minimum bandwidth guarantee to clients, while allowing all active clients in the network to fairly share any spare capacity. TO BE CONT’D

Characterization of Plant Growth Promotion effects through the application of Bacteria Pseudomonas spp. strains. KGS-2 and KGS-8 for enhanced Commercial Value of field crops

This project will provide characterization of two strains of Pseudomonas spp. for the use of plant growth promotion. The project will accomplish this through direct field trials in order to show the benefits of these strains when inoculated on canola. We wish to explore/demonstrate other key features of these organisms such as bioremediation hydrocarbons and heavy metals in plant soils in a greenhouse setting

The use of PGPB on high insoluble phosphate soils will i) reduce nutrient run off in water systems such as Lake Winnipeg; ii) Increase crop yields; iii) enhance the degradation of nutrients in swine manure to allow more respreading per location. Through the genomic and physiological characterization of these strains and direct comparison to other similar organisms an understanding of features that are beneficial can be produced, saving valuable time and resources at the field and greenhouse testing levels.

Étude de la relation entre les données d’imagerie thermique acquises par drone et des indicateurs agro-météorologiques de stress hydrique dans la culture de pommes de terre

L’irrigation des cultures de pommes de terre permet d’éviter l’apparition d’un stress hydrique, qui peut réduire la qualité et le rendement de la culture, et en diminue la rentabilité pour les agriculteurs. Pour être efficace, celle-ci doit cependant être appliquée en bonnes quantités, aux bons endroits et aux bons moments. Si la capacité des données infrarouge thermique pour l’évaluation du stress hydrique a déjà été largement démontrée, les outils utilisés ne permettent pas de capter aisément la variabilité intra-parcellaire des besoins en eau. Les capteurs embarqués sur drone pourraient permettre de capter cette variabilité et ainsi d’intervenir plus efficacement avec l’irrigation. Cette recherche vise ainsi à étudier la relation entre les données d’imagerie thermique acquises par drone et des indicateurs agro-météorologiques de stress hydrique dans la culture de pommes de terre, dans le but de développer des indicateurs de stress hydrique mesurables par drone. TO BE CONT’D

Development of a Cavity Ring-Down Instrument for the Detection of ambient HO2 Radicals

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Chemical process design of the production paths of transport fuels using renewable energy and CO2

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Developing a new approach to unravel microbial activities in aquatic environments.

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Drug resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Ultrasmall nanoparticles as multimodal imaging agents for biomedical applications

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Laser Diagnostics of the Gas Phase during Nanoparticle Synthesis

There is no memorandum project overview associated with this application.

Mise à niveau des étangs aérés facultatifs au Québec

Les étangs aérés facultatifs (ÉAF) représentent 67% des 811 stations d’épuration québécoises. Plusieurs de ces stations doivent être mise à niveau pour augmenter leur capacité de traitement ou respecter les nouvelles normes de rejet en matière organique et non toxicité aiguë. Des guides sont disponibles pour la conception des ÉAF mais ils ont besoin d’être mis à jour pour considérer les nouvelles options technologiques disponibles de mise à niveau des ÉAF. L’objectif général de ce projet est de développer un guide de mise à niveau des ÉAF. Les objectifs spécifiques pour y arriver seront d’analyser les données de performance de stations d’ÉAF existantes, de développer et calibrer les ÉAF à l’aide d’un modèle mécaniste, de réaliser des simulations pour mettre à niveau les ÉAF par l’ajout de technologies de traitement, puis de transposer le modèle mécaniste vers un modèle empirique de mise à niveau des ÉAF.