Innovative Projects Realized

Developing a best practice model for mental health crisis care: A community engaged approach

When experiencing mental health crisis, many people rely on emergency services such as 9-1-1 dispatchers, paramedic services, police services and hospital emergency department services. Emergency response to mental health calls has recently gained significantly greater attention, recognizing that these interactions may have substantial, potentially life and death consequences for those already in distress, particularly for marginalized communities. Many first response services lack sufficient resources and have few options to offer when providing care. This project brings together community-based service providers and emergency care providers to develop a best practice model for response to mental health crisis care. Specifically, the student internship within this project will focus on analysis and synthesis of existing mental health program data from Middlesex-London Paramedic Service’s alternate destination program. These findings will support the ongoing work of the partner organization, contribute to manuscript preparation, and broadening the understanding of options for emergency mental health response in the larger Canadian community.

Closed loop AI-controlled neural stimulation for treating chronic conditions

The overall objective of this project is to develop a medical device that stimulates the vagus nerve in order to modulate the heart in a pre-determined fashion (e.g., strategically speeding it up or slowing it down) without also triggering side effects in other body systems (such as respiration). The interns will be working in partnership with BIOS Health, the industry partner, to process raw signals from the vagus nerve and physiology data (heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure, others) that were recorded in parallel. The interns will be developing algorithms that can (a) differentiate cardiac signals in raw neural data from noise and other signals, and (b) optimize the stimulation patterns to affect cardiac function without also affecting breathing and other functions.

Achieving Community-Based Data Sovereignty

The intern will work with Kwusen Research & Media, a consulting company based in Victoria, B.C., to conduct an assessment of Kwusen’s research approaches and software. Kwusen works closely with Indigenous communities across western Canada to provide up-to-date and accurate information about their lands and resources, as well as any potential impacts to these resources as a foundation for free, prior, and informed consent. The intern will conduct informal interviews with Kwusen’s clients to elicit feedback on Kwusen’s research and software services. This project will provide Kwusen with an assessment of the efficacy of their work with Indigenous communities, as well as a better understanding of community needs. This project will also benefit the broader Canadian community by producing a publicly available peer-reviewed journal article that considers how these types of projects can support informed decision-making in the context of UNDRIP.

Archiving and Repository Development for Inuvialuit Traditional and Local Knowledge

Archives can be powerful tools for decision-making, and reconnecting with one’s heritage, community, and history. However, archives also have a long history of reinforcing harmful stereotypes of Indigenous peoples through the inappropriate and inaccurate labeling, classification, and arrangement of materials. Alternatively, community archives (i.e., archives controlled, developed, and managed by a community, instead of a government or large institution) provide opportunities for greater community control over their historical records and local knowledge, and can better adapt the unique needs of individual communities. This project seeks to contribute to the information organization capacity of the Joint Secretariat and the Inuvialuit Game Council (IGC) in Inuvik, NWT, by assisting with the digitization and organization of their traditional and local knowledge collection.

ANS LAB

Over the past 30 years, there has been no statistical change in the gap between the unemployment rates of African Nova Scotians and the provincial average. Despite multiple interventions and a wide range of educational and employment supports, African Nova Scotian (ANS) unemployment rates continue to be disproportionately higher than the provincial average. In early 2019, the Nova Scotia Government funded a Social Innovation Lab lead by One North End to develop innovative solutions to address this long-standing issue.
The project objectives include giving African Nova Scotian youth the tools, resources, and culturally appropriate supports they need to increase labor market competitiveness. This initiative will also give African Nova Scotian youth an entry point into the traditional job market as well as provide employers with a channel to hire African Nova Scotian youth, which currently does not exist. Employers will also participate in the workforce development for this community.
The project will help develop African Nova Scotian youth skills and provide them with the support they need to navigate existing employment services and the job market. Through continued outreach and engagement with employers, job opportunities for African Nova Scotian youth will be identified to ensure we are effectively addressing both sides of the issue; matching opportunities with ANS job seekers to enable successful transitions to sustained employment.

Nanogram Pharmaceutical Compounding Ltd. Custom Online Platform

The interns will be tasked with creating a unique online platform for healthcare providers and veterinarians to be validated, and able to order custom medications. This type of platform does not exist yet. It will involve a thorough embedded validation process, user management, an advanced search and filter function, embedded educational/regulatory/product information, a complex pricing algorithm, dynamic pricing that changes as customizations are made to the medications, checkout, tracking, and reporting history.

Through the use of a unique online platform, Nanogram will be able to offer compounds efficiently, transparently, economically and provide all necessary details instantly along with an accurate price quote, delivery time and option to pay online. This will help transform and modernize compounding within the Canadian pharmacy industry. This project will help Nanogram address the challenge of online connectivity and order access by select healthcare professionals. This will transform the process by which custom medications are accessed by providing live-time inventory management, custom reports to comply with provincial and federal health authorities. Currently custom medications are ordered via phone or fax, with no easy way to access associated documents after the product has been ordered. There is no transparency in pricing and certainly no option for businesses to order online.

Development of an innovative additive manufacturing process and equipment using picolitre-resolution nanopower binder-jetting

High-precision metal components, which can be customized upon demand, are key for modern high-tech devices, such as smartphones, sensors, smartwatches, Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications and luxury products. In addition, the medical, dental, and aerospace industries are increasingly demanding high-precision metal components on-demand for their products.
Nanogrande (NG) is a Montreal-Based company the develops and commercializes high-resolution metal 3-D printers for R&D and mass-production. The company is currently developing a new product that would open many new markets requiring ultra-high precision and mass-production. Main markets are dental, medical, electronic components, transportation and consumer goods.
This unique additive manufacturing (AM) machine integrates a Binder Jetting Additive Manufacturing (BJAM) system [1-4]. However, as their patented Powder Layering Technology has shown its functionality in a selective laser sintering approach (MPL-100 machine), the BJAM approach still needs to be further developed. In particular, a binder jetting nozzle system – aiming at pico-liter resolution – was recently acquired for integration in this novel AM machine (MPL-200), giving more versatility in BJAM process use and opening up new markets for the Candian company Nanogrande.
Such high precision binder jetting system intergartion in NG AM machines is challenging as it NG proposes an unique approach demanding strong expertise on mechanical and mechatronics engineering for succesfull system integration.

Mise en valeur du concept de la réconciliation Premières Nations – Allochtones en contexte muséal

Le projet de mise en valeur du concept de la réconciliation réalisé au centre Archéo Topo consiste à considérer, dans la mise à jour de l’exposition permanente, le concept complexe qu’est la réconciliation entre les Premières Nations et les allochtones sur la Côte-Nord. Au travers une recherche documentaire importante et une rencontre avec un comité de recherche, diverses thématiques jugées prioritaires seront incluses dans une série de nouvelles activités éducatives développées dans le cadre du projet et destinées au public du centre. Ainsi, grâce à ce projet, le centre Archéo Topo situé aux Bergeronnes bénéficiera d’une mise à jour de ses documents de référence, mais également de plusieurs nouvelles activités qui sauront attirer davantage de visiteurs.

Developing and evaluating the effectiveness of a household food waste reduction intervention

The aim of this study is to evaluate the short-term effectiveness of a household food waste reduction intervention that, if effective, could be applied to the broader London, Ontario community in conjunction with the forthcoming implementation of a municipal green bin program. Household food waste represents one of the most important sustainability challenges that current and future municipal governments need to address. This research will fill existing gaps in our current understanding of household food waste reduction behaviours, and aid in directing municipal food waste reduction programs and the future of London’s food waste management policies. While it is anticipated that results from this research will be applicable to other mid- to large-sized communities in Canada and beyond, it has the potential to make a meaningful and long-lasting impact in London, the largest Canadian municipality without a green bin program to divert household food waste from landfill.

Explainable Fuzzy Deep Neural Networks for Cyber Threat Attribution

Threat attribution is crucial to detect attacks as early as possible and understand how attacks will proceed and the likely scope. This project will propose an explainable fuzzy deep neural network for cyber threat attribution. We obtain transparency and explainability via extracting fuzzy rules from DNN for cyber threat attribution. Indeed, this model, via providing explainability from extracted fuzzy rules in DNN, overcomes the black-box nature of DNNs and uncertainty. Also, Fuzzy logic has been applied since its reasoning resembles human reasoning in cyber threat attribution.

Research on EMI Impacts of a Paralleled GaN-based PFC

The proposed project will be a collaboration between the Ottawa (ON) based integrated circuit (IC) company, Power Integrations Inc. and RIGA lab at University of Manitoba. The objective is to reduce power losses and meet international industrial standards for Power Factor Correctors. The result of this research project will assist the company to identify the challenges and opportunities of using Gallium Nitride (GaN) power semiconductors in their power IC products. And then their products can help other power electronics (PE) companies to reduce power losses and the society to achieve electrification. Thus, it will benefit both IC manufacturers and power electronics companies. Further, one PhD HQP will be trained in PE technologies and will be able to contribute to Canadian PE industry in the future.

Les déterminants de la coparentalité au Québec

Ce projet vise à mieux comprendre les facteurs influençant la façon dont les parents partagent les responsabilités
en lien avec leurs enfants (relation de coparentalité) au Québec. En comparaison avec le reste de l’Amérique du
Nord, le Québec présente une réalité particulière, avec un niveau élevé d’enfants dont les parents ne sont pas
mariés toute en étant celle où les pères sont les plus engagés auprès leurs enfants au Canada. Le Regroupement
pour la valorisation de la paternité (RVP) est un organisme qui accompagne et soutient des organisations de
services qui oeuvrent auprès de familles partout au Québec. En 2020, le RVP a commandé un sondage auprès
d’un panel de mille pères et mille mères pour connaître comment les parents québécois exercent la coparentalité.
Dans le cadre du stage postdoctoral, les données de ce sondage seront réanalysées afin de permettre au RVP
d’informer les acteurs travaillant auprès des familles au sujet de la relation de coparentalité, ainsi que de les
outiller pour mieux intervenir.