Innovative Projects Realized

Post-Consumer Plastics Recycling

International legislation and growing environmental issues have imposed a lot of pressure on companies and
manufacturers to maximize the recycling systems. Such demands have had significant consequences for the
plastic industries to use recycled plastics from the disposed plastic wastes. Therefore, this study is an initiative
taken by the Nanomaterials and Polymer Nanocomposites Laboratory (NPNL) at the University of British Columbia
and Recycling Alternative Inc. in Vancouver, BC, to obtain a comprehensive understanding of plastic recycling
and its market. Therefore, recycled plastics can be introduced as a cost-effective alternative source of plastics for
a great range of applications.

Advancing Gender Equality for Women in Venture Capital

Women are vastly underrepresented in venture capital (VC) firms. There is also a lack of women entering the field of venture capital due to systemic barriers and a lack of momentum to shift existing barriers for women to enter the venture capital world. This research aims to understand the current status of women in VC firms, identify structural barriers facing them, and promote gender parity in VC firms and the investing community. The methods include a literature review, in-depth interviews with VC capitalists or senior leaders from VC firms, as well as the creation of an action plan for the partner organizations to drive changes in the investing community.

The state of social entrepreneurship in Canada with a focus on the social entrepreneurs’ personas and their challenges.

Currently, social entrepreneurs in Canada do not have a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem of support. As a marketing agency, B4brand is committed to helping clients achieve both purpose and profit. B4brand is particularly keen to create a support ecosystem for social entrepreneurs considering the transformational social impact their enterprises can have in Canada. This research project will help in designing and creating ‘Global Impact Hub’ – a one-stop learning hub and platform which will provide community support and marketing tools and resources to social entrepreneurs. As part of the research and development process for this platform, B4brand would need knowledge of social entrepreneurs’ personas and their challenges, especially in terms of accessing marketing knowledge, tools and resources, to ensure that the content and features of the platform are closely aligned with their specific needs. The research project will also involve a macro analysis of the state of social entrepreneurship in Canada since there is no such existing research available for Canadian context.

Sports Bra Fit on Respiratory Function and the Work of Breathing during Exercise

Women use sports bras to reduce the breast movement and discomfort during exercise. In order to provide support, sports bras have a tight fit, adding pressure to rib cage. Pressure applied to the rib cage via a sports bra, can provide resistance during inspiration, and increasing the effort and work required to breath. The purpose of this study is to measure how the tightness of a sports bra affects how women breath at rest and during exercise. The study is expected to be a benefit to the partner organization, as it will provide evidence as to how bra fit and design can affect breathing during exercise.

Understanding how waistband height and tightness changes respiratory function

Our abdomen can contract in order to help us breath. Restricting our abdomen has previously shown to reduce the function of our lungs at rest, and change the way we breath during exercise. Women’s athletic apparel has trended towards high-waisted, lower body garments. A high-waisted band, although not as severe as abdominal strapping, can apply pressure to our abdomen, which can potentially increase our abdominal tone. The purpose of this project is to measure how the height and fit of a waist-band can affect breathing during rest and static exercise. To do this, we will measure esophageal and gastric pressure using catheters inserted through the nose. In measuring pressure, we can determine how waist-bands affect the work required to breath, behaviour of breathing, and the activation of the abdomen when breathing.

Routing Cycling Trips on a Level of Traffic Stress Network within the Transportation GeoXchange

This research project supports the development of cycling planning tools within an online transportation planning platform called the Transportation GeoXchange (TGX). Research focusses on the development and integration of Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) network analysis in case studies using the TGX. LTS networks are routable graphs with impedance functions that characterize the subjective level of stress associated with traversing each street segment and intersection. They are particularly useful in examining cycling travel times and accessibility levels according to varying levels of potential cycling competence or stress tolerance, and are therefore desirable in a range of cycling network planning and research activities. Leveraging the TGX’s real-time data processing capabilities, the proposed case-studies will centre on Toronto’s public bikeshare system. The primary objective will be to conduct research into the LTS along paths connecting bikeshare stations and activity destinations. This will be achieved via the generation and comparison of feasible paths using varying levels of acceptable traffic stress along the routes. Network analysis tools within the Esri suite will be used to generate shortest paths. Origin-destination pairs will be scored with a series of detour factors measuring the extra travel distance required to cycle along low LTS routes.

Interpretability and explainability of Deep Neural Networks

In recent years ·complex deep neural networks have achieved outstanding performance on challenging tasks such as language models, classifiers and machine translation but they have remained as a mystery for the users. Due to their hidden and difficult to comprehend internal structure, as well as to their sheer size, they are often referred to as “black box” models. Additionally, the widespread adoption of machine learning algorithms has increased the necessity to trust to these moging dels in order to employ them for decision-making in critical situations. At the same time, making critical decisions concerning humans without understanding the justification of such a decision is unacceptable, both ethically and legally. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in the Machine Learning community in interpreting or deriving explanations able to describe a black box’s behavior. The need to understand black-box models’ decisions has resulted in the growth of research on their explainability and interpretability. For this research we are planning to design mathematical methods to explain the behavior of these models .

Quantifying the relationships between rail profile quality indices and inservice wheel-rail contact conditions

In order to maintain safe and efficient operations, railway systems periodically use large, special purpose, trackbound grinding machines to re-establish the desired profiles of rails, and to remove surface damage that has occurred under operating conditions. The accuracy of the grinding process is typically measured using quality indices to compare the resulting rail profile to its target shape. In this research project, the intern will develop quantitative methodologies (incorporating real-world grinding results and measurements, together with detailed modeling and simulation tools) to better understand the relationships between the quality indices that are calculated, and the actual wheel-rail contact conditions that they are intended to represent. This will provide the basis for economic modeling that helps the industrial partner (ARM) work together with its customer base to make informed decisions when establishing maintenance targets and planning maintenance programs.

Apprentissage automatique pour la résolution de problèmes de repositionnement de véhicules

L’entreprise Fastercom se spécialise dans le développement d’algorithmes et de logiciels permettant de résoudre différentes formes de problèmes liés aux transports. L’objectif de ce projet est de développer des techniques d’apprentissage automatique adaptées au problème de repositionnement dynamique de véhicules. Il s’agit par exemple du repositionnement d’ambulances pour couvrir adéquatement une zone pour les urgences, ou repositionner des taxis pour pouvoir accueillir de nouveaux passagers. L’objectif est de répondre à des demandes de course en temps réel et d’attribuer les véhicules disponibles aux courses sollicitées. La gestion de la flotte demande de sélectionner un véhicule pour une course et de repositionner les véhicules efficacement en attente des prochaines courses.

Application du laser terrestre et modelisation 3D en archeologie

Le present projet vise a democratiser l’utilisation du laser terrestre et de la modelisation 3D en archeologie. Souvent consideree com me couteux ces outils sont tres peu souvent envisage dans un contexte de recherche archeologique. Or, depuis une decennie la revolution numerique que nous connaissons a enormement simplifier I ‘utilisation du laser terrestre en plus d’ augmenter ses capacites. De plus, Ies logiciels de modelisation 3D sont desormais beaucoup plus ludiques et nettement plus abordables. Pourtant, malgre ces avances leur utilisation demeurent tres tim ide en Amerique du Nord. Nous souhaitons done par ce partenariat presenter les avantages que l’archeologie retirerait d’une utilisation plus systematique du laser terrestre et des modelisations 3D.

Fleet Management Strategies

The project will involve analyzing the fleet and exploring the costing, Reporting on inventory and assets optimization strategies using industrial accepted and academic approaches. The intern would factor in real time pressures and document those to allow for a Strengths -Weakness- Threat and Opportunity Analysis.
The conclusion of the research will allow the company to better plan their operations and look for growth in the region

Method Development for Systematic Analysis of Anaerobic Bacteria in Marine Water/Soil Sediment at Atlantic Offshore

A chemical process that causes decay in materials is known as Corrosion. The rate and degree of corrosion depend on the immediate environment affecting the materials. Offshore oil and gas industries are equipped with subsea pipelines, cables, vessels, etc. The presence of microbes in the production stream or the transport line may cause corrosion in the subsea assets and other marine equipment. Corrosion triggered by the presence of microbes is called microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC). In this project, the intern will develop and test analytical methodologies to assess the degree of microbial activity in different marine samples (water/soil sediment). This will help to assess the chances of MIC on an asset’s surface in a given environment.

qualiTEAS, is a corrosion inspection and management company based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. We have a proactive approach, unlike other service companies, where we investigate the mechanism of corrosion by identifying different environmental factors that are responsible for causing corrosion. Thus, through this project, developed analytical methodologies for microbial analysis can assist to understand the impact of microbial activity in the corrosion process. This will further complement company’s service scope for the corrosion inspection of subsea assets.