Innovative Projects Realized

Social Entrepreneurship Training for Persons with disability

Social entrepreneurship is the practice of recognizing and creatively pursuing opportunities that build social value. Regardless of race, sex or gender, and educational level among other factors, social entrepreneurs are innovative, practical, and results oriented. Worldwide, persons with disabilities (PWD) represent an increasing section of the adult population. This is partly due to the fact that populations are aging, and incidence of disabilities tends to increase with age. Research has found that disability influences a number of social and economic outcomes such as partaking in social activities and the work force, which may eventually lead to social exclusion for PWD, lost income for their families, and loss of tax revenue for governments. Our study hopes to set up a social entrepreneurship training program that can be an option to vocational training. It will promote training experience and learning for PWD in the field of social entrepreneurship. In this study, we will recruit 250-300 PWD; and then explore how our training program will help us to understand if social entrepreneurship training can be a successful vocational opportunity for persons PWD. We also hope to know whether the type of disability can affect the success of social entrepreneurship training. Lastly, we hope

Application of Ultrasonic Guided Waves for CANDU Piping Inspection

Computer modeling and experimental testing will be conducted to examine and verify the reliability of ultrasonic guided wave techniques for detecting wall thinning and cracking in feeder pipes in CANDU nuclear reactors. Bracelets holding 8 and 16 ultrasonic transducers will be developed. These bracelets are attached to the pipe to produce guided waves which propagate along the pipe. A reflected wave is generated when guide waves encounter a defect (e.g., cracking). The defect location can be determined knowing the velocity of propagation of the guide wave and the arrival time of the reflected wave. The benefits for the partner from this project include a reliable non-destructive technique for piping inspection over long distances from a single bracelet position, particularly where access and clearances make difficult the pipe inspection. It will also contribute to a reduction in exposure times to ionising radiation to the inspection staff, and safety of plant personnel.

Optimization of Dead Matter Video Game

Our company is developing a video game and as such we have a need for people from various disciplines. The game is called Dead Matter and it’s a multiplayer zombie survival game. We are currently in a growth phase and are looking for both senior staff and junior staff that can be trained on our systems. To that end we are employing multiple interns to find a good fit for our team. Currently our team is around 10 people, but we are looking to double our capacity this year.

Validation of a Clinical Recommendation System

The development of a clinical decision support system is at the nexus of using data analytic techniques to inform and support dentists in the clinical practice. The purpose of this project is to develop conduct an innovation study to validate the analytic algorithms developed by OraQ for the purposes of facilitating clinical diagnosis. OraQ has developed an alternative algorithm to facilitate the detection of issues with sleep apnea. The purpose of this project is to: a) evaluate and validate the algorithms used by OraQ on the detection of sleep apnea through the use of secondary data analysis, b) conduct an evaluation on the detection of sleep apnea through completing a comparison between OraQ’s algorithm and subject matter experts in a reliability study. This is a great opportunity for all parties involved while improving the field of dental analytics. OraQ will be able to address the need to validate their product with resources and expertise to conduct two validation studies. The graduate student in the Master of Dentistry program with an interest in dental analytics.

Durham Community Energy Plan – Implementation Governance

In 2018 the Region of Durham created the Durham Community Energy Plan (DCEP), Durham Region’s strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a green economy. Achieving the goals of the DCEP will provide multiple economic, environmental and social benefits to Durham Region. Successful implementation of the DCEP however requires multiple groups and sectors to work together (e.g. government, community organizations, postsecondary institutions, and utilities). Previous attempts to develop a platform to work together on tackling climate change have failed due to the difficulty in aligning the priorities and resources of all of these different groups. The goal of this project is to develop a governance structure for the DCEP that will be stable, benefit everyone involved. Doing this successfully will ensure that the goals of Durham Region’s DCEP are met.

FOGS – Forensic Genetics for Species protection

In-plane Performance of Masonry Shear Walls Year Two

A. Overall Project Objective Recent research at the University of Calgary has focused on shear walls and on evaluating the influence of various parameters on in-plane shear capacity. The reason for this is that, for example, while it is recognized by most researchers that compression on walls increases the shear strength of masonry, the quantification of this effect has been reported to vary from 40 to 70% [1,8] and the factors adopted by various design standards range from 0.25 up to 0.4. Compression on walls is just one of many factors affecting the shear strength and failure mode of shear walls, but illustrates that balancing an understanding of the complex failure modes with the simplicity required for design codes is difficult. Therefore, the overall goal is to provide recommendations for the improvement of design guidelines for shear in masonry. In working toward this goal, the following have already been or are near completion: 1. Thorough review of the literature and existing design guidelines for on shear in masonry. 2. Development of a database of published in-plane shear and material property test data. 3. Preliminary analysis of the data for the effects of the common parameters in shear models.

Deep Learning-based Imaging in Radio Interferometry

Medical Robotics and AI

Engineering of responsive materials for drug delivery in brain

Design and Fabrication of Smart Materials for 3D Printing

Fair Resource Allocation for Shared Manufacturing