Innovative Projects Realized

Marketing Intern – Sharetea Kingston

Sharetea Kingston is a global franchise company that offers handmade bubble teas, ice blends, and mousse creams in Kingston. The brand was originally founded in Taiwan, but it is growing on a global footprint. Sharetea has more than 300 branches and franchises in 16 countries, including Canada, United States, Southeast Asia, Australia, Dubai. This project will help the partner organization in boosting their visibility on various social media platforms, specifically on Instagram, and design highly effective customer engagement and loyalty solutions. The final deliverable will be a complete and comprehensive guide regarding how to create a social media marketing plan for small businesses and help them to increase their social media presence with the 4’Cs Framework of Social Media Marketing. This project will give the student an opportunity to undertake a 4-month paid internship during which he can gain valuable experience and develop professional skills to solve real-world business problems while the non-academic organization benefits from the strategic work accomplished.

Market Analysis and Launch of Diagnostic and Prognostic Health Monitoring Sensors in the Aviation and Industrial Markets

Shimco has invested significant resources to develop a proprietary smart shim (“IntelliShimTM). IntelliShim utilizes a self-powering nano material to which sensors may be affixed for use in Diagnostic, Prognostic & Health Management aerospace (DPHM) and industrial applications. This technology would allow sensors to be affixed to any mechanical structure locations on which a shim is currently used without the need for wiring or any external power sources. In the IntelliShim, sensors will be embedded within shims that are self powered by harvesting vibrational energy on location. Sensor data is transmitted wirelessly by RF. This has the advantage of providing natural installation locations where shims are already used, as well as removing the requirement for any power or data signal wires. The simplified installation requirements may greatly increase the practical applications of sensors on aircraft landing gears, aircraft structures or in numerous industrial applications where wiring sensors is impractical.
This project will support Shimco in identifying target markets for its IntelliShim, identifying and developing business/development partners for specific end use applications and supporting the research team at Shimco further development of the IntelliShim.

Business Development: Cardiopulmonary Exercise Equipment

Instruments for monitoring human metabolism (CPX) represent a distinct Qubit product line (VOCO) with markets within and external to our traditional academic markets. As well as being used for research and teaching purposes, the equipment could be used in gyms and sports clubs worldwide, providing scientifically accurate data concerning personal fitness related to metabolic rate. Systems can be worn on the body or fitted to bicycle ergometers, rowing machines, elliptical devices, etc., and can be worn outdoors during running, skiing, skating, rowing or any other sport that does not require complete submergence. Equivalent, but very expensive, devices are used by elite athletes for training purposes. Our goal is to bring these devices to the broader market at an affordable price. The total market value is in the billions of dollars. Instruments for monitoring health and fitness are becoming increasing popular in the recreational market (e.g., Fitbit, Garmin etc.). Our CPX instruments are wearable and add a new dimension to the existing market. Initially, the intern will work with the CEO, the Chief Marketing Officer and the Qubit R&D team to gain a solid understanding of the CPX product line. The intern will then be responsible for developing and implementing promotional strategies for our CPX products across all potential marketing niches, from academia, to gyms, to sports clubs to individual users. North America is the major target market, but the project is international in scope, and the intern will develop international opportunities through Qubit’s distribution networks and through digital media.

MateMachine BSI

The intern will help guide technology start up MateMachine with regards to their content strategy. This strategy will focus on the benefits of MateMachine to marginalized folks including LGTBQ+ and disabled persons. This technology will provide new ways for individuals to connect and share their feelings with one another.

Neuroptik Eye/Brain Concussion Diagnosis

The partner organization’s primary stakeholder, Dr. Behzad Mansouri is a domain expert in the field of clinical eye examinations and their relationship to brain health. Dr. Mansouri knows the applications that are necessary to provide those in remote areas with access to health care related to his field, but does not have the means to produce the technology without assistance.

Producing a mobile platform that would allow for valid examination information along with convenience to the end user will provide considerable challenges. Initially the platform would be designed so that a custom cartridge can be printed for any given phone and used as a VR headset. When wearing the headset the patient would be able to take a visual acuity test much like a patient in a doctor’s office. This would preclude the need for a specialized monitor or other display to be present when taking the examination. One of the major technological challenges would be devising a means of receiving accurate feedback from the patient while they are unable to interact with the phone physically.

Developing Efficient Machine Learning Models for Price Bidding

Curate Mobile operates a demand site platform (DSP), which is an advertising platform responsible for bidding in real time ad placements from various publishers. This process is a blind auction, happening over 50,000 times a second, and during this bidding process we have less then 100ms to determine which of our clients should bid for this ad placement, how much it might be worth to them, and what price we believe we can win this auction for. During this project, we will add machine learning models to our DSP to provide fast decisions in real time to maximize the return on ad spend of our clients’ campaigns. The main goal for this project is to add proof-of-concept machine learning model to Curate Mobile’s DSP, with a pipeline that will continually update the models with new data as it is ingested. We will also design a validation module to monitor and validate the performance of the developed models.

Investigating the effect of REAP, a rare earth element and micronutrient fertilizer, on cannabis physiological growth variables, yield and product quality.

The research proposed will produce critical knowledge relevant to the cannabis industry, allowing for the production of high-quality plant material with optimum cannabinoid concentrations. The project will investigate a rare earth element supplemental fertilizer (REAP) effects on cannabis growth, flower yield and cannabinoid concentrations. We will evaluate application of REAP at three rates and hypothesize that improved yield of flowers and cannabinoids will occur at higher application rates and
that these benefits will be associated with improved plant water and nutrient transport and reduced salinity stress associated with fertigation. We will examine the microscopic anatomy of the root and stem vascular elements, leaf water potential and photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance during plant growth as well as trichome density on cannabis flowers. We expect: an improved understanding of how rare earth element fertilizers interact with cannabis plants to improve growth, yield and/or
cannabinoid accumulation. This knowledge will pave the way for the adoption of REAP use in cannabis production systems.

The role of MRC2 expression on peripheral immune cells in the context of multiple sclerosis

La sclérose en plaque est une maladie auto-immune du cerveau et de la moelle épinière, c’est-à-dire que les globules blancs qui normalement protègent le corps vont reconnaitre des éléments du soi comme étranger et dégrader. Cette dégradation va engendrer une inflammation et une infiltration des globules blancs dans le cerveau et la moelle épinière causant ainsi des dégâts. Pour contrer ces effets nous cherchons à empêcher leur entrée dans le cerveau. Dans cette étude nous nous intéressons au MRC2 qui est augmenté dans la sclérose en plaque, et dont le blocage pourrait permettre de réduire la migration de ces globules blancs.

Automated Tunnel Inspector

High-resolution visual and spatial models are transforming traditional methods of inspecting heavy civil infrastructure. These models overcome the inaccuracy and uncertainty of traditional inspection methods and enable infrastructure owners to assess deterioration and prepare plans for repair. Despite photogrammetry being the fastest method of collecting data for these models, it is slower than a traditional walk-through by an inspector.
The research will design, construct, and test a vehicle that will quickly and semi-autonomously photograph infrastructure. The design must overcome significant challenges: the vehicle components will be delivered through a small porthole for assembly; it will semi-autonomously operate in a hostile environment; and will position a camera to photograph thousands of images per day.
The initial market is hydroelectric tunnels and penstocks, but the vehicle may be adapted for other hydroelectric infrastructure, as well as highway and railway tunnels and subways.

A Model for Measuring Prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Canada

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is the leading cause of developmental disabilities in Canada and is an umbrella term describing the range of effects associated with alcohol use during pregnancy. Currently, we do not know exactly how many Canadians are living with FASD, but we estimate 350,000 and that 3,000-4,000 babies with FASD are born every year. The costs for health, mental health, social services, education, and productivity losses are estimated to be a staggering $5.3 billion per year. An accurate measure of the number of Canadians living with FASD (the “prevalence”) is important for many reasons, including justification for FASD programming, better planning for use of FASD resources, identifying those at risk for FASD and alcohol consumption during pregnancy, determining trends, calculating costs and measuring effectiveness of prevention, and intervention efforts. Determining the prevalence of FASD will take a national coordinated and collaborative effort across jurisdictions and sectors. The objectives of this proposal are to take the first steps toward developing a plan of action for measuring FASD prevalence in Canada by performing an environment scan.

Efficacy of Compliance and Ethics Training using a Virtual Reality Interface

V-Train wishes to research and test how to best use virtual reality to improve outcomes in ethics and compliance training in the financial services industry. Current training methods such as eLearning and traditional classroom-based instruction have proven ineffective in information retention and improving behavioural outcomes. Key aspects of the project include:
– Creating VR training delivery playbook in physical form
– Building incentives and different scenarios in playbook using behavioural science applications to better engage the trainee in the VR format
– Developing initial VR module interface using the playbook
– Analysing the impact of training delivered using the VR interface vs regular desktop training
– Providing recommendations for generalised incorporation into different VR training module playbooks

Does Health Literacy have a different meaning depending on the Culture?

Can health be understood differently in different cultures?

Many studies (Murray & al., 2018; Glouberman & Millar, 2003) have already investigated the level and distribution of health in Canada. There are also studies assessing health literacy and its possible improvement among Aboriginal people (Smylie, Williams & Cooper, 2006). However, there are few (if any) studies that address the definition of health competencies across cultures. The aim of this project will be to explore in detail what it means for members of different cultures to have “health competencies”, and how they value their importance to achieve and maintain health in different fields of health care. To that effect, Canadian citizens and representatives of different cultural backgrounds will be interviewed (N= approx 30) using a semi-structured interview approach focusing on the meaning of health and health competencies as experienced by the participants, to understand if and how culture impacts the perception of health literacy. The results of the study will allow to evaluate to what extent the concept of health literacy is robust across cultures and if measuring and comparing the level of health literacy across cultures is meaningful.