Innovative Projects Realized

Stage en apprentissage automatique pour la Fabrication Additive

3DSémantix cherche à intégrer des éléments d’apprentissage automatique (Machine Learning) dans ses nouveaux produits pour le domaine de la fabrication additive (3D Printing) industrielle. Le but de ce projet est de répondre à des besoins concrets de l’industrie et de livrer une solution logicielle professionnelle et exploitable. Plus spécifiquement, le projet cherche à utiliser des données de production réelles, combinées à notre engin de recherche par la géométrie, afin d’estimer des valeurs pertinentes et précises dans un processus d’estimation des coûts de fabrication.

Evaluating New Methods for Monitoring Cognitive Health

Copeman Healthcare Centre is engaged in a multi-year research and development program in the area of cognitive health. Cognitive health is a surrogate marker for brain health. All other technologies, such as biomarkers, electrophysiology, structural brain imaging, and functional brain imaging attempt to measure damage to the brain. Moreover, these technologies do not measure or quantify the healthy brain or its functioning; they are used to detect what appears to be wrong based on anatomical or physiological indicators. Our goal is to develop and evaluate anew, evidence-based, time- and cost-efficient, computerized cognitive screening program. This program will meet high standards of reliability, validity, and accuracy. It will have a user-friendly interface, be well tolerated and engaging, and yield high user satisfaction ratings. The program will, ultimately, be available and accessible to Canadians who have general medical, psychiatric, or neurological problems that affect their brain health.

Commercializing Revolutionary New Oyster Farming Technology; Establishing and Confirming Advantages over Standard Oyster Growth Facilities

DockPort Ltd. focuses on research, development, testing, manufacture and marketing of a patented, novel, mechanized system for suspended oyster aquaculture, called BOBR (Benefit Of Being Round). DockPort is preparing to bring BOBR and related products to market. This project partners DockPort with four oyster aquaculture farmers interested in testing the BOBR innovations, together with scientific validation provided by academic aquaculture research out of St. Francis Xavier University. DockPort will provide BOBR growth units to each participating farm and deploy the units at each site. St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) students will conduct scientific studies of growth rate, shell shape and shading effect by collecting and analysing relevant data. Each farmer will participate in the equipment deployment and facilitate data collection work by providing workspace and transport of growth units to shore for safe access by the students.
The research methodology will compare growth rates and shell shapes of oysters grown in BOBR units vs technology presently in use on participating farms this project intends to confirm preliminary data from 2021 that BOBR growth units provide oyster farmers the ability to dramatically increase productivity by significantly decreasing the growth time from oyster seed to market size.

Comparison of two Approximate Stochastic Dynamic Programming Schemes for Mid-term Hydropower System Management

The Energy potential of water has been successfully harnessed to produce electricity since the late 19th century. In 2018, hydropower production accounts for approximately 61 % of the total electricity produced in Canada. To exploit this source of energy, water is stored in dams and is strategically used based on hydrological cycles. Over the years, researchers around the globed have devised sophisticated mathematical tools to efficiently manage hydropower systems thanks to advancement in both Mathematics and Computer Science. However, more research is still needed as hydropower management problems are known to be difficult, due to uncertain factors such as natural inflows, and demand for electricity, among others. This research project aims to test a novel mathematical approach on the Rio Tinto hydropower system located in Saguenay, in the province of Québec.

Implementation and feasibility of using physiological monitoring approaches to preventing the development of occupational heat-stress in a nuclear power plant

This project will investigate the usability and feasibility of implementing physiological monitoring approaches to Bruce Power heat-stress management program. The project will involve personnel working in hot environments at Bruce Power conducting work as per normal in addition to peer monitoring using perceptual measures (ratings of perceived exertion and thermal sensation), and wearing a physiological monitoring vest (Equivital eqO2+ LifeMonitor). Additionally, Bruce Power personnel will be asked to report on the like and dislike of the approaches so that barriers and facilitators to implementation can be identified. Bruce Power organization will benefit from this project as guidance will be provided towards improving current heat-stress management practice to increase workers safety when conducting work in hot environments.

Effective process for deploying support services to underrepresented communities

Canada Technology Connection Inc. (CTC) is a biomedical engineering company based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada that focuses on innovative health technologies in the field of 3D human body imaging. We invest in innovation, research and clinical science in complex 3D human modelling, imaging, and modern computer vision. Our goal is to research, test, validate and commercialize this innovative health solution. Our vision is to use innovative science and 3D imaging technology to address some of society’s most challenging healthcare issues.

CTC faces the challenge of developing a process for the effective deployment and adoption of our innovations in underrepresented communities. The gap that we aim to close is the intersection between population, public health and education. This will require a process that addresses barriers due to population health, social and economic factors, and issues related to the delivery of health services. Addressing these issues will allow CTC to have a realistic path to serving underrepresented communities and helping increase the quality of care and health education.

Process Improvement and Efficiencies Implementation Intern

How can the Alberta Chambers of Commerce (ACC) streamline internal processes to improve efficiencies within our organization that allow us to focus on supporting chambers and Alberta businesses?
The ACC has worked tirelessly to support our network of 116 chambers and 24,000 business through the challenges of the past 2 years. We have successfully launched campaign after campaign to support business growth and success. With so many new initiatives, we have not developed core processes to maintain these initiates long term. ACC has also lacked the time and resources to implement processes that keep us efficient internally. This project will allow ACC to sustain these initiatives we have already launched, such as ChamberMarket.ca and the shop local initiatives across the province long term, and to continue to support out chamber network with new initiatives by improving ACC efficiencies, developing core processes and procedures, developing templates and scaling these resources across our network. This project will result in ACC being able to continue to offer a high level of support for our Community Chambers and the Alberta businesses they serve.

Integration of Microfluidics, Raman Spectroscopy and Electric Sensing for the Detection of Microplastics

Microplastics cause severe environmental issues, damage to ecosystems and harm animal and human health. This project aims to develop low-cost and/or portable microplastic detection platforms. In the proposed project, a particle focusing microfluidic device will be developed and integrated with the Raman spectroscopy equipment at industry partner site to maximize the light scattering effect and achieve high-sensitivity chemical structural analysis of microplastics. The microplastic-focusing microfluidic device will be also integrated with an electro-microfluidic sensor for identification of physical properties of microplastics based on electrical resistance measurement. Three interns will be exposed to an industry-level challenge to perform microplastic focusing, integrating the microplastic-focusing device with Raman spectroscopy and electro-microfluidic detection to facilitate chemical and physical analysis of microplastics. This approach will open new windows of opportunity for the company in exploration and adoption of novel microplastic interrogation techniques using microfluidic devices.

Understanding market trends to support product innovation in the cannabis industry

In this project the intern will Analyze Canadian competitors across provinces using various tools/frameworks. The intern will Review the illicit market and present recommendations on opportunities. The intern will review and analyze Auxly’s existing social listening tools (ie Meltwater) as well as develop and leverage additional online research tools (ie Web scraping). He will also develop a dashboard to regularly share findings and conclusion with the commercial team. The intern will lastly develop a report template that will be used by the organization to review innovation performance assisting Auxly on how to optimize their portfolio.
Through this project Auxly aims to decrease the illicit cannabis market by offering high quality and well-tested products. The company also aims to leverage the health benefits of cannabis to improve the lives of Canadians. Last but certainly not least Auxly also seeks to educate the population about responsible cannabis usages to maximize the positive effects and minimize any potential harmful effects.

AI-enabled Personalized Product Recommendation System

Online shopping has been growing rapidly in the last decade, especially since the COVID pandemic when citizens tend to stay home to avoid crowded areas, e.g., shopping mall. ShopHopper is on a mission to modernize local shopping by making it as easy to shop locally as it is to shop on Amazon. We are building a local shopping marketplace that will give the same tools and technology to local retailers, making it easier for consumers to support them. What retailers really need is a solution for retailers to get their products in front of more shoppers, who care about their brand and products. This is why we’re building an AI driven personalized shopping assistant. With this tool, we can automatically match products from local retailers to the preferences of local shoppers (and even global clients) making it convenient for shoppers to find perfectly matched outfits from local retailers. We know that greater personalization equals greater engagement. This proposed project will give local retailers the growth marketing sales channel they need to scale their e-Commerce business, compete with big e-Com/big box stores, and sustain themselves as independent retailers.

Consistent and robust Generative Models for Volatility Surfaces

Implied volatility surfaces are a key concept in financial markets, central to the pricing, risk management, and regulation of financial instruments. Despite their importance, numerous mathematical questions about implied volatility surfaces still confront practitioners and regulators today, such as how to fill in missing values in a given surface.
Previous MITACS-sponsored work has shown that certain types of neural networks show promise for this “surface completion” problem and related tasks. We propose to build on these preliminary results by researching alternative formulations to better meet industry needs, such as guaranteed stable and realistic predictions.
Achieving these technical goals would allow Riskfuel to provide services which help financial institutions and regulators better manage financial risk.

Guided Catheter System Based on Smart Polymeric Brush Coating for Vascular Surgery Year Two

The main cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is narrowing of blood vessels due to atherosclerosis. In such cases stents are chronically implanted in -arteries to physically expand and scaffold the vessels. Each year, ~90,OOO stents are implanted in Canadians. All these minimally invasive procedures involve the use of a catheter. Currently available catheter tubes advance straight in blood vessels; it remain a challenge to the cardiac catheterization in bifurcated cardiac arteries which are blocked. To address this we will develop a guided catheter system to guide the tortuous bifurcated arterial paths in vascular surgely. Since the Intellectual

Ventures (IV)~ Canada supports the development of novel application for guided catheters and serving the CVD market, it will directly benefit from this research. We anticipate generating new intellectual properties based on the work described. N previously licensed a technology from the research performed in Kizhakkedathu and Phani’s laboratories on catheters and the current project will expand that technology further.