Innovative Projects Realized

WADA Strategic Project Management: Ops plan optimization and KPIs targets

Internship Unit #1: Strategic Project Management: Ops plan optimization and KPIs targets

Since WADA is implementing its project management framework, the organization faces challenges in the coordination between the operational plan and the budget exercises to allow optimal resources allocation towards high impact projects that are involving at different level the 19 different expertise existing in the Agency.

A second challenge is the development and improvement of the Strategic Key performance indicators (KPIs) targets that are linked to WADA’S strategic plan priorities. While a first KPIs baseline has been developed in 2022, the Agency will have to improve its data collection and analysis methods and establish KPIs targets that are ambitious, achievable, and relevant for the anti-doping system. Developing those KPIs target will require strategic sessions among different groups of expertise. This BSI project will help WADA address the specific challenges by exploring 1) the areas of improvement for the operational plan exercise, and 2) the approach to best establish KPIs target.

The project will create better processes and enhance the overall program delivery for WADA and relevant World Anti-Doping Code stakeholders. As a result, economies of scale can be realized in terms of implementing better practices in allocating resources.

Sales & Marketing Lean Process Analysis, Implementation & Optimization

The overall project we intend the co-op student to engage in, aside from day-to-day duties assigned, will be twofold. The first to aid in the development of our Capital Schedule Dashboard Project. The goal of this is to improve the processes surrounding our equipment receiving procedure when our machinery products arrive from the factory to ensure their specs are aligned with what the company expects, and all damages incurred on the product are noted and catalogued. The second will be to aid in the reduction of wait time for step 6 of our sales stage (prep completion of a product and delivery of said product to customer) using LEAN principles.

Identification des métabolites secondaires d’intérêts provenant de cultures énergétiques et extraction en continu à l’aide d’émulsions ultrasoniques

L’approvisionnement en biomasse est un aspect crucial de la production de biocarburants de première et éventuellement de seconde génération. La disponibilité de la matière première, pour l’industrie des biocarburants de première génération, est régie par le marché et ainsi le maïs par exemple génère des ventes jusqu’à 2000 $ par hectare de terres pour les agriculteurs. La valeur de ces cultures est donc très importante pour la production à grande échelle et devient la référence pour les entités oeuvrant à sa croissance. Au niveau de la conversion, les biocarburants de seconde génération, en contraste avec l’éthanol grain par exemple, devront miser sur des technologies plus complexes que la première génération dans l’optique de générer le même produit (l’éthanol), une commodité de faible valeur (2,61 USD/juillet 2013). Ainsi il s’avère essentiel de tirer un maximum de valeur de la biomasse lignocellulosique, de miser sur une valorisation optimale de son contenu carboné. TO BE CONT’D

Designing and engineering scalable lipid-based drug delivery systems to improve the delivery and bioactivity of cannabinoids

It is clear that Cannabis has therapeutic activity. The evidence comes from a long history of use for managing disease symptoms including pain, inflammation and anxiety. However, there is a paucity of scientifically rigorous research exploring the specific activity of Cannabinoids in the body under both normal and disease states. With the legalization of Cannabis in Canada, we have a unique opportunity to delve into robust research programs to enhance our understanding of the pharmaceutical properties of Cannabinoids. It is essential to gain a fulsome understanding of the components of Cannabis and their specific mechanisms of action in order to harness the therapeutic potential of the plant in the treatment of a wide variety of physiological conditions including inflammation, pain and anxiety. To do this work, it is necessary to identify the chemical entities that are medically useful and examine the structure and function in isolation while at the same time designing chemical formulations that will optimize delivery and absorption of the active agent to make it therapeutically available.

Content Creation- Videography

Navigate Startup House is a non-profit organization located in Sydney, Nova Scotia. We are dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship in all its forms on Cape Breton Island. Our events and programming foster meaningful relationships that are supportive and inspiring, building an impactful entrepreneur-led community.

At Navigate, our community of entrepreneurs has plenty to share to make the entrepreneurial journey easier. We help start-ups succeed by providing co-working space for growing companies and the ability to tap into a mentor network of experts in the fields of business and technology. We work with regional, national, and global organizations to provide high-quality event programming, including lunch and learns; workshops; pitch competitions; and networking events.

The identified challenge and therefore opportunity is in helping the resident companies create video content that is capable of sharing their companies ability, promoting clearly to the target audiences, as well as identifying appropriate areas to advertise the video content to capture the target audience. These organizations would not otherwise have the ability to promote their offerings through videography, and therefor would miss out on these opportunities.

A Holistic Assessment Approach to Support Teachers in Inclusive Classrooms

The number of students requiring special education support in middle and high schools across Canada continue to rise, but teachers are challenged in implementing accommodations within students’ individual education plans due to large class sizes, limited time and lack of resources. Therefore, the objective of this project is to develop a prototype of a holistic assessment technology application which involves the collaboration of students, parents and teachers to minimize the time required to identify students’ needs, design effective instructional strategies aligned to learner profiles, and increase student engagement and motivation to learn. The client discovery will determine the demand for the product as well as the most critical components of the process within the product. It will determine how effective teachers and students perceive the product will be in helping them meet the needs of all students; and receive the educational support they need respectively.

CADSIM Plus simulator, evolutionary algorithms, rule based expert system, neural network.

In industries, chemical processes involve different plants running in parallel with different production rates under the strict constraints on available resources. Therefore, events like shutdown of one or more plants, operating plants with different production grades with flexible run length time, equipment utilization rates of different plants etc. are vital to be studied, scheduled, and optimized. CADSIM Plus is a popular software which simulates different chemical processes in industries and thus ensures an effective production in practice. The software is used by more than 220 companies and organizations all over the world. The objective of this project is to investigate and develop efficient optimization methods that can be integrated with CADSIM Plus for chemical process production line scheduling. The task of chemical process production line scheduling is a complex operation and cannot be modeled directly by simple mathematical equations. Therefore, optimizing the product line scheduling as well as CADSIM Plus yields a non-trivial optimization problem and requires robust techniques to solve.

Psychological Flexibility in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): A Pilot Study

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are a debilitating condition that can result in neurocognitive impairments, affecting areas of memory, executive functioning, and behavioral regulation. Often, symptoms are diffuse and heterogenous, making rehabilitation efforts difficult to implement. Moreover, risk factors can impact the trajectory of one’s recovery, including personality traits and behavioral control. Given the influence these factors have in protracting TBI recovery, psychological flexibility (PF) has offered as an important protective factor for individual’s health and well-being. PF is a dynamic process that involves consciously adapting to situational demands while moderating goals and may be a significant element for TBI recovery. The primary aim of this study is to explore the role that PF has in TBI recovery outcomes. To obtain our data, psychological tests will be administered to BrainTrust, Canada. In return, these clients will receive a brief neuropsychological report which may help inform treatment programs and recommendation plans.

Analysis of regulatory mechanisms for receptor tyrosine kinases-initiated signaling networks assembly

Communication between cells that make up our body is essential. It is required to ensure that our body functions accurately during our lifetime. Failure for cells to send, to receive or to correctly understand signals may lead to problems such as cancer. The cellular actors responsible for such signals are called proteins. Most, if not all proteins do not act individually but rather function as groups, called networks. Our main goal is to decipher how normal cells establish a specific response to given extracellular cues, and to further define how this is deregulated in diseases such as cancer. To achieve this, our work seeks to determine how signaling networks are assembled and disassembled.

Developing a Strategic Roadmap to Address Systemic Barriers towards Advancing Health, and Human, Social, and Economic Development with On-Going Measurement of Outcomes in the City of Saskatoon (A Western Canada Municipality)

The City of Saskatoon and the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, is collaborating in an innovation and development project to enhance Saskatoon city’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives addressing systemic barriers. This one-year business strategy development project will engage senior City officials, community leaders and PhD student interns in knowledge mobilization (KMb) workshops and activities. University-based workshops will involve knowledge transmission, exchange of scientific research information about the cost of sustained discrimination, and oppression/domination in people’s lives including undermined health, social and economic development; multi-disciplinary practice theory advancing universal human right values/culture at the personal-interpersonal and professional levels, and exploration evidence-based interventions that support sustained healing and growth. City on-site workshops will include critical evaluation of policies, programs and practices, and identification of interventions and measurable goals. Then assess the costs and benefits to establish a one city strategic roadmap, to lay the foundation for future work.

Intégration des familles issues de l’immigration : vers un nouveau créneau de formation destiné aux organismes d’action communautaire autonome

Cette étude a pour but de mettre en œuvre un programme de formation en matière d’intégration sociale des familles immigrantes destiné aux organismes d’action communautaire autonome (ACA) non spécialisés en immigration. Cette recherche valorisera l’expertise développée par des centres communautaires de loisir et permettra plus largement aux autres organismes d’ACA non spécialisés en immigration d’acquérir des connaissances sur les réalités et besoins des familles immigrantes en ce qui concerne l’inclusion des enfants aux activités courantes, la participation des adolescents et le soutien des parents. L’étude permettra donc à l’Institut National de Formation et de Recherche-Action (Infra), l’organisation partenaire, d’obtenir trois formations novatrices à offrir aux organismes communautaires sur un enjeu d’actualité, de développer une expérience supplémentaire de recherche transférable à des projets futurs, et d’augmenter sa visibilité et sa notoriété dans différents réseaux.

Business Modeling for Fisheries Monitoring at Ecotrust Canada

In the past, Canada’s fisheries have been improperly managed, which has led to overfishing and general downturn of fisheries economics. Because of this, the federal government has mandated that all fisheries be monitored to ensure that the proper regulations and quotas are being followed. Recently, the onus for this monitoring has been transferred to the fisheries themselves and they are finding it costly and overwhelming. Ecotrust Canada is designing a new, less expensive and more user-friendly monitoring system and is currently testing it out in Northern BC as well as in Maine. The intern will evaluate the work that has already been done from a business perspective, and will use a holistic research perspective to design a business plan so that the new system can be released on a larger scale in 2014.