Innovative Projects Realized

A Guide to Government Grant Applications

The Canadian Government offers many forms of support to start-up businesses and entrepreneurs. However there is no single, easily accessible source of information available to entrepreneurs to be able to determine which funding programs they are eligible for and which programs fit closest to their business. This research, in conjunction with Twothirds Water Inc. and the Sauder School of Business, aims to analyse the Government Funding Landscape, particularly in British Columbia as well as the experiences of current entrepreneurs who have been through the process of researching and applying for Government funding. The end goal of the research is to develop a conceptual framework for approaching Government Funding opportunities which takes into consideration the trade-offs between costs, the probability of success, application timing and the value of each grant.

Contagious Resilient Leadership in Home Support

This research project involves the evaluation of a leadership program entitled “Contagious Resilient Leadership” for long-term continuing care and home care workers. Leadership training has been identified as extremely important in the continuing care sector, but has continued to be overlooked. The goal of these workshops is to get continuing and home care workers working better, embracing change and becoming more creative and innovative at an individual level, organization level and community level. Katie Wagar will be focusing on creating an evaluation program to assess the impact of the pilot program. This project will benefit the Health Care Human Resource Sector Council (HCHRSC) by taking a new approach to professional/ personal development by investigating how leaders in the continuing care sector can inspire innovation and decrease burnout.

Comprendre l’expérience du harcèlement de rue chez les jeunes: de la recherche à l’action

Le Centre d’éducation et d’action des femmes (CÉAF) définit le harcèlement de rue comme tout propos ou comportement dégradant et non-consenti, commis par des personnes inconnues, dans l’espace public, notamment la rue et les transports en commun. À Montréal comme dans d’autres villes canadiennes, il s’agit d’une pratique très fréquente, qui cible principalement les femmes et les personnes des minorités sexuelles et de genre et parmi elles, les jeunes de 15 à 24 ans en particulier (Cotter et Savage, 2019). Cette forme de violence est généralement vécue très tôt, dès l’adolescence sinon dès l’enfance et a des impacts majeurs et durables sur la vie des femmes et des filles (Blais, Dumerchat et Simard, 2021). Malgré les nombreux témoignages reçus par le CÉAF à ce propos, la recherche sur le harcèlement de rue est récente au Québec et les expériences qu’en font les jeunes sont relativement méconnues. Cette recherche-action vise donc 1) à combler cette lacune dans la littérature scientifique et 2) à produire des outils de sensibilisation à destination des jeunes et de leurs parents. Pour ce faire, une série de focus group rassemblera des jeunes à Montréal, afin de recueillir leurs témoignages tout en les sensibilisant à ce phénomène.

Design for Versatility and its Application in Medical Devices

Most of the cost of a product is determined by its design. Among current design theories and methods, there lacks a formal design method to support the design of a product that can be used as two or more products, an example of which is a sofa bed. Design for Versatility (DFV), as a design theory and methodology, will be developed to help designers to design a product that can perform functions of two or more products. As decreasing waste and surgery time is of high importance in medical fields, DFV will be tested and applied in the design of medical devices that have multiple functions and can be used in multiple times and on people of different physical build. Two case studies in medical devices are chosen to be designed using DFV. Prototypes of new designs will be produced to investigate the efficiency of DFV. Finally, a software tool will be developed to help designers apply DFV to their designs.

Advanced Methods for Time Series Data Augmentation

Modern machine learning methods are data-intensive processes, requiring massive amounts of training data to achieve a high level of performance. As such, these techniques are challenging to deploy on tasks where datasets are especially difficult or expensive to obtain or where edge cases and other rare events are most relevant and worth learning. In such occasions, data augmentation techniques offer enormous benefits to alleviate the issue of limited training data. However, unlike in image data, this situation becomes challenging when dealing with sequential one-dimensional data, where straightforward methods for data augmentation fail to fully capture the properties of underlying processes. Our proposed research will investigate the most recent advances in artificial intelligence with the objective of building a multi-purpose time-series data augmentation engine. This project is expected to develop new or improved augmentation techniques that will ease the data requirements of existing methods and expand their applicability to a wide range of applications.

Mind over matter: A comprehensive brain health awareness campaign

Women suffer from disproportionately higher rates of dementia, and face more barriers to equitable care. To help reduce the risk of developing dementia among women, programs that primarily target women, caregivers, and those affected by dementia are imperative. In partnership with the Women’s Brain Health Initiative we intend to create and evaluate the effectiveness of a new mobile digital application. The main goal of this application is to encourage users to modify their behaviour to prevent, or delay, cognitive decline. Specifically, the app will encourage users to increase their amount of exercise, improve nutrition, engage in mentally stimulating activities, take part in social activities, improve sleep, and reduce stress.

Who can Access the Canadian Non-Refundable Disability Tax Credit?: Perspectives Across Canada

The federal non-refundable Disability Tax Credit (DTC) is an important benefit for people with disabilities as it can provide funding to offset some of the additional costs associated with living with a disability. DTC recipients are also eligible for other federal benefits that can provide an important source of income for people living with disabilities. However, there are concerns about the restrictiveness of the eligibility criteria and the complexity of the application process, which may create barriers to accessing financial support for individuals with disabilities. The aim of this project is to explore how people living with disabilities access the DTC. We will describe the impact the DTC application process and eligibility has on the lives of people with disabilities. Through a review of existing policies and literature, analysis of public use data, and key informant interviews, the findings from this work can inform ongoing disability policy in Canada.

An urban digital twin platform for urban sustainability and climate change mitigation

The world has experienced rapid urbanization and population growth in recent years, which resulted in increased energy consumption, GHG emission, and climate change. To avoid dangerous climate change, different countries such as Canada developed plans to achieve net-zero emission by 2050. Technology plays an essential role in achieving these objectives. Planete GreenLeaves is a web-based platform to reduce city energy consumption and carbon emission by optimizing the energy performance of buildings. We will accomplish this goal by integrating City scale simulation engines, AI techniques, and massive urban datasets in collaboration with universities and municipalities. By combining available public datasets, such as buildings geometry and information, weather data, etc., we create the initial digital twin of each building in the city. We model all buildings and create a user dashboard with several services such as detailed information about a building and recommendations and optimized solutions for optimizing the building’s energy performance.

Pharmacological optimization of OpKemoTM, a silica-based nanoparticle platform for oncology

Pharma in silica is a preclinical stage company developing silica-based nanoparticles to formulate more efficient and better tolerated chemotherapy modalities. In this collaboration, they will benefit from the expertise of the laboratories of Prof N. Bertrand and S. Fortin to obtain useful chemistry, manufacturing, and control (CMC) information and advance their nanoparticles toward regulatory approval. Specifically, this project will adapt methodologies to evaluate 1) the physicochemical and metabolic stability of the encapsulated drug, 2) the
interactions of the nanoparticles with cancer cells and 3) the fate of nanoparticles once injected to the bloodstream. This project will allow interns to hone their skills in nanomedicine, pharmacology and preclinical translational pharmaceutical development. Through sustained interactions with the partner company, the interns will gain a unique perspective on the biotechnology industry in Canada

Comment réaliser du Datamining en temps réel?

Imaginez un monde dans lequel vous seriez les acteurs du contenu audiovisuel. Un monde dans lequel votre avis aurait un réel impact sur vos émissions préférées. Ce projet va dans ce sens puisqu’il tente de créer une réelle connexion entre les diffuseurs et les téléspectateurs. L’interactivité est donc de mise, tentant de mettre l’utilisateur au centre du processus de création. Ce projet aura un aspect lié aux statistiques puisqu’il faudra non seulement repérer les critères sur lesquels influer pour rendre le contenu de meilleure qualité mais aussi de les quantifier. Toutefois, un problème demeure. Celui-ci consistant à changer un contenu de façon directe par rapport aux retours reçus. Ce projet consitera à choisir les données pertinentes par rapport aux avis reçus pour permettre ainsi d’influer, de façon visible, sur le contenu diffusé. Liveshout (initiateur du projet) prévoit pouvoir offrir, au terme de ce projet, un service novateur pouvant faire de leur entreprise un chef de file dans ce secteur d’activités. Tous les utilisateurs auront alors un réel contrôle sur le contenu qu’ils regardent, passant du stade de simple spectateur à celui d’acteur.

Rethinking how citizens perceived the economy

The economy is an important factor of the vote choice. Understanding how perceptions of the economy are formed is therefore crucial. These perceptions have been presented as an echo of partisan preferences or as a reflection of citizens’ level of
sophistication. A number of scholars have recently started to reconsider how perceptions of the economy are formed by looking at the context in which citizens live. Following this strand of the literature, this project seeks to advance existing knowledge on public opinion formation by answering two questions. First, which aspects of geographic contexts influence citizens’ perception of thenational economy? Second, under which conditions and for whom does the local context become salient to citizens in order to form an opinion about the national economy?

President

CLA-DOR Industrial Supply Co Ltd is a family-owned business located in Belleville Ontario that continues to specialize in bringing technical expertise to the metalworking industry and their clientele in the Machining and Manufacturing industries.

We are currently looking to fill a Graduate Market Research and Analysis Intern Position to develop a better understanding of our current market penetration and to create a plan to expand our trading area.

• Student will create a database of Machine shops and Manufacturing Maintenance Departments in the Port Hope to Cornwall trading area, including current purchasing contact information
• Develop a marketing plan to introduce CLA-DOR Industrial and engage new clients
• Create and execute a marketing questionnaire with both existing and potential clients to better understand their buying habits, changes they are seeing in the industry and what new technologies and developments they forecast in the coming years
• Work with CLA-DOR to improve our Technical Expertise branding and enhance our marketing plans