Innovative Projects Realized

Marketing an Intelligent Digital Clearing House

Optima Analytics Inc. is a Canadian small business with the goal of empowering its clients with tailored AI and analytical solutions. As a response to COVID-19 and similar emergencies, Optima Analytics team work on a research and technology development project in the form of an Emergency Response Bank Platform (ERBP). That project builds a system that should enable Canadian industry and global communities of researchers, health providers, and funders to exchange, share and procure expertise information and materials in response to COVID-19 or future emergencies. Optima Analytics will leverage an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted data curation and forecasting engine that unites the siloed emergency response platforms in a single place. The platform will also work as a data hub that provides governments and suppliers with an overall picture of the current and future demand and supply of all emergency response materials. Additionally, it provides consumers with a platform to connect with experts and suppliers to find the supplies they need. In the last six months, we have already developed the proof of concept for this project. The current phase of this project focuses on developing a prototype that is ready for commercialization.

Criterium Group – Winter 2022

Criterium Group will support the Energy Client in transforming operations and determining the most sustainable and economic decarbonization technologies to utilize at The Asset. The Asset site has important characteristics that facilitate bridging to the new technological solutions being pursued as well as beneficial infrastructure, integration, and geological attributes that could improve the feasibility and competitiveness of sequestered CO2 from the site. The intern will support Criterium Group’s team in providing project management and well as project execution (report and business case development) for The Energy Client.

Marketing Analyst – Internship

ALTA Consulting specializes in working with small to mid-size organizations that need assistance with growth strategy and are looking to establish or grow sales and marketing. We help these companies engineer revenue. With this project, we plan to onboard one Master’s in Business Administration student with relevant experience to participate in the ongoing efforts to find innovative strategies for our customers to achieve organizational recovery and growth targets using smart sales and marketing strategies.

Queering the Tech Ecosystem in Canada: Understanding challenges, intersections, barriers, and opportunities

LGBTQIA2S+ individuals face barriers and challenges in gaining employment in tech, resulting in their underrepresentation in the industry. Research on this issue is sparse and incomplete. To address this labour-market gap in Canada and improve opportunities, we propose a mixed-methods research study that includes a quantitative survey about LGBTQIA2S+ experiences in tech companies and qualitative interviews with a representative sample. This data will help us better understand hiring and employment experiences, challenges in attracting and retaining LGBTQIA2S+ individuals in tech, and how to improve these processes. Participants include self-identifying LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and non-LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, who work in different levels and sub-sectors, including in hiring and policy-making. Results will help the partner organization, QueerTech, improve their program design, service offering, policy advising, and advocacy initiatives. This project will facilitate knowledge translation and the application of research towards making a positive difference in the lives of Canadians and strengthening the Canadian economy.

Evaluation of dehydrated corn silage for lactating dairy cows

Dehydrated corn silage is produced by drying corn silage to a moisture content of approximately 10%. It is being exported to Japan to be used as a forage for dairy cows, and its market is expected to expand in the future. However, its feeding values have not been studied. The objective of the proposed project is to determine nutritional values of dehydrated corn silage for dairy cows. The intern is an international graduate student from Japan and fluent in Japanese, and she will work with Barr-Ag staff to disseminate research outcomes to dairy producers in Japan, end-users of the dehydrated corn silage.

Modeling animal movement for sustainable livestock management

An ongoing interdisciplinary project conducted in Argentina looks to understand how the population dynamics of sheep, and
therefore livestock production, depends on individual behavior, climate, landscape structure and management in order to improve
the design of sustainable management strategies aimed at solving real problems of animal production and conservation of natural
resources. Data from a total of 60 sheep were collected in Patagonia, both GPS (at a 5 min temporal resolution) and
accelerometer data (40 Hz), over a period of 8 months in order to examine how the sheep alternate between a limited set of
stereotypic behaviors, each characterized by different movement strategies, in response to changes in their internal states and in
the environment. Due to the large number of individuals and the amount of data collected, this dataset is unique and provides
many opportunities for development of statistical methodology to answer practical questions related to natural grasslands
conservation and development of sustainable management practices.

Poultry health surveillance in Alberta for prevention of emerging infectious disease.

The broad objectives of this project are:

I. To reduce the risk of emerging infectious diseases related to poultry; and

II. To improve Alberta poultry industry productivity and profitability

To reach these broad objectives we will address 3 specific objectives:

1) Determine what the knowledge needs of the poultry industry are and how knowledge is best disseminated to improve disease prevention in poultry flocks and preparedness and response to disease outbreaks. We will engage poultry producers from the start of the project and through stakeholder forums and interviews with expert informant interviews will understand the concerns of the producers nd what surveillance outputs can best inform their management strategies. Through consultation we will establisdh the format of the output for producers, other industry input providers (feed producers, processors, veterinarians, academics, and government). Throughout the project there will be monthly stakeholder meeting and quarterly stakeholder meetings to discuss progress, address concerns and to seek additional input. This work will facilitate building collaborative relationships between industry, academia, and government agents (Anholt et al., 2012; Horowitz, 2003).

Waste Collection / Street Sweeping / Snowplow Route Optimization

A key objective of this project is to develop an advanced routing strategy that can generate optimal routes for curbside waste collection, residential sweeping, and snowplowing services to improve operational efficiency and save overall costs. To achieve this goal, optimal routing models and algorithms will be developed by integrating graphic theory, vehicle routing problem, and optimization, as well as GIS (Geographic Information System) techniques. To represent real-world situations, various and complicated operational constraints for each service will be incorporated into the developed models. The proposed model and analytical data will offer practical, scalable, and sustainable solutions to enhance the service performance and quality while generating the least operational expenditures and environmental footprint.

Operationalizing Bayesian multi-state models and financial institution resources for business firm life cycle modelling

Like most living organisms, the life cycle of a business can be divided into distinct, complex phases. These life stages are determined by various internal and external factors such as financial resource availability, managerial ability, and market conditions. The ability to model firm life stages would help financial institutions (FIs) such as ATB identify and meet the time-specific needs and challenges of their business clients. However, properly analyzing the wealth of data collected by FIs is difficult. As one challenge, FIs currently do not manually classify business into life stages and, as another, the amount and type of data available differs across firms. In this internship, we propose developing a life cycle modelling framework that addresses these and other real-world practicalities of financial data in a way that can be readily operationalized for the benefit of FIs’ business clients.

Cloning, expression and characterization of a novel gene involved in Amaryllidaceae alkaloid metabolism

Amaryllidaceae alkaloids (AAs) are a group of specialized metabolites found predominantly in the Amaryllidaceae plant family. Approximately 650 naturally occurring AAs have been identified, many of which possess a variety of potent biological and pharmacological properties. In contrast to the large body of knowledge on the pharmacological and phytochemical aspects of AAs, their molecular and physiological features are less explored. A better understanding of AA biosynthesis and metabolic regulation is crucial to take advantage of new metabolic engineering technologies for improving the efficiency and sustainability of plant or microbial AA production.This internship will focus on the characterization of tyrosine decarboxylases (TYDC) potentially involved in the biosynthesis of AA. Two TYDC transcripts were identified in the transcriptome of Amaryllidaceae plants but their function remain unknown. This project will help to understand AA biosynthesis to provide tools for alternative biotechnologies for the production of high-valued AAs.

Détection et explication de bris des bornes de recharge rapides pour véhicules électriques

L’objectif du projet est de détecter rapidement des bris dans les bornes de recharge rapide. Pour ce faire, nous devrons extraire des données actuellement stockées dans des fichiers et ensuite les analyser à l’aide de l’apprentissage automatique. Finalement, pour les bris détectés, nous tenterons de trouver les facteurs les expliquant le mieux possible.
Pour les avantages escomptés pour AddÉnergie à la suite de ce stage, ils auront en main des outils permettant de détecter rapidement des bris dans leur borne de recharge rapide. Cela leur permettra donc de réparer rapidement les bornes roblématiques et d’ainsi fournir un meilleur service à leurs clients.

International Student Experiences : Fairness, Equity, and Race

This project will ultimately highlight the ways in which international students experience higher education (as framed by policy, racism, and student testimonies I will have collected prior to departure).The project is 2 pronged: one area focusing on a policy driven manuscript informed by international student testimonies to be used for my dissertation, and the other area, a conceptual piece on international students and race. Both areas of the project will utilize a critical lens that frames international student experience through inequity.

Area 1) This research will focus on the inequities that international students encounter through work, academics, healthcare, and experiences on campus. These inequities will be further analyzed within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This project forms the basis for one of the chapters in my dissertation. While I will have collected testimonies pre-departure, the analysis will be conducted under the supervision of Dr. Syvlie Lomer.

Area 2) In addition to the analysis of policy and international student experiences, I will also investigate a new line of inquiry on the intersections of international students and race.