Innovative Projects Realized

Hotspots of CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean plays a pivotal role in the climate system by taking up and redistributing heat and carbon globally. This leading order role is attributed to the Southern Ocean’s unique circulation whereby deep waters are brought to the surface by a vigorous wind-driven upwelling. Since these deep waters are rich in dissolved inorganic carbon, natural air-sea carbon dioxide (CO2) is released to the atmosphere where these waters outcrop. Until recently, in situ observations have been very scarce so that large uncertainties remain on the sign and strength of contemporary air-sea CO2 fluxes but also on the patterns of these fluxes. Since 2014, autonomous floats have identified “hotspots” of CO2 outgassing at the Southern Ocean surface. These hotspots could significantly contribute to a reduction in the current estimate of the CO2 sink. In this project, we propose to investigate the spatial distribution and intensity of these hotspots of CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean using a suite of climate and ocean models.

Réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre et élaboration d’une politique de développement durable en gestion des matières résiduelles : moyens crédibles pour une entreprise d’économie sociale

Peu de connaissances existent sur la quantification des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) et sur les pistes concrètes de réduction à l’échelle d’entreprises d’économie sociale oeuvrant en gestion des matières résiduelles. De telles démarches doivent être soutenues par une politique de développement durable pour implanter ces actions à long terme. Ce projet répondra à ces questions de recherche chez une entreprise d’économie sociale, le Groupe Coderr, en déterminant de nouvelles filières de valorisation des résidus récupérés, proposant des moyens de réduction des GES et réalisant un diagnostic de développement durable. Le projet permettra à l’entreprise de bénéficier de nouvelles filières de valorisation et d’un potentiel de viabilité économique en mettant en place des pistes de réduction de GES. Les retombées de ce projet renforceront les missions environnementales, sociales et économiques de l’entreprise dans la communauté et fourniront un modèle transposable à d’autres entreprises canadiennes en économie sociale.

3D-Printing for Remote Industries (3DPRI) in Harsh Environments: On the post-processing of a wire arc additive manufactured 420 martensitic stainless steel for enhanced functionality and service life

Newly developed additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, also known as 3D-printing, are able to fabricate complex geometry components at a relatively high deposition rate, the lowest possible number of production cycles, and minimum materials waste in contrast with the conventional subtractive fabrication techniques. By drastic reduction in the fabrication time and production steps, minimizing the on-hold inventory, additive manufacturing technologies have the potential to revolutionize the industrial manufacturing sectors. This research project aims to further expand the industrialization of this fast-evolving technology by modifying the microstructural features of the 3D-printed parts, and consequently improve the performance of the fabricated structure during the harsh in-service conditions through applying post-printing heat treatment cycles.
Currently, all industrial sectors dealing with damaged or failed engineering parts during operation have to order their required parts from different fabricators. This can potentially lead to interruptions of their regular work process and incurrence of valuable lost time. We propose to solve this issue by establishing an on-site small to medium-scale 3D-Priniting manufacturing platform. This unit would be capable of fabricating a wide range of engineering parts made from different materials, size, and geometry.

Parcours d’apprentissage et bien-être à l’école en contexte COVID

Dans ce projet de recherche, l’organisme partenaire, la Fondation Jasmin Roy vise à dresser, avec le soutien de la chercheure principale et des stagiaires, un portrait du bien-être à l’école et des pratiques de soutien aux parcours d’apprentissage en contexte COVID. Les consignes sociosanitaires imposent certaines limites aux interactions en classe. Alors que certaines pratiques impliquant notamment la proximité physique étaient utilisées par les enseignants pour établir la relation de confiance avec l’élève, le contexte actuel oblige de repenser les pratiques de soutien. Quel impact ce contexte a-t-il sur le bien-être à l’école? Quelles sont les pratiques de soutien aux apprentissages offertes par les enseignants et les parents? Quels sont les besoins des adolescents et les solutions à envisager pour combler ces besoins? Ce sont les questions qui motivent ce projet. Les réponses viendront de sondages effectués auprès des enseignants, des parents et des élèves. Des entrevues seront aussi menées auprès des enseignants pour en savoir plus sur les stratégies adaptatives adoptées pour favoriser le soutien aux parcours d’apprentissage des élèves et leur bien-être en contexte d’apprentissage.

Capacity Planning at Sureshot Dispensing Systems

AC Dispensing is one of Nova Scotia’s most progressive companies. It has invested in state of the art metal cutting equipment and sophisticated manufacturing planning and scheduling software. This project will assist AC Dispensing in developing mathematical models that will enhance their capabilities in planning production to meet customer demand. The work will involve data modelling, forecasting, mathematical optimization and simulation. The aim is to extend the planning process to medium term issues that allow the company to manage inventory, part purchasing lead times, and customer fulfillment comitments.
AC DISPENSING has invested in state of the art manufacturing equipment and manufacturing control software to improve productivity in the manufacturing process of their innovative dispensing equipment. This project will develop mathematical models and simulation and optimization approaches to assist management with forecasting, planning and controlling their inventories, production schedules and customer fulfillment.

bridgeVUE – leveraging emerging technologies for safer and more efficient marine navigation.

Navigation at sea is a complex and comprehensive task. Combined with the challenges of navigating in heavy traffic, and avoiding dangers in low light and low visibility, it becomes considerably more difficult. This project, bridgeVUE, leverages an emerging technology to enhance marine navigation by contextualizing radar data over an individual’s field of vision, in real time. By using an Augmented Reality (AR) headset, bridge crew can overlay critical information over their field of vision, even when visibility is near zero.
bridgeVUE is a functioning prototype with generic 3D models and a basic UX/UI. This project will focus on the user-experience (UX) and user-interface (UI) for the bridgeVUE system and ensuring all elements of the software come together in a coherent, easy-to-use, and an intuitive manner for the end-user(s). These elements include, but are not limited to, colours, 3D models, object life-cycle, image processing, target selection, hand gestures, and voice commands.

Marketing Internship for Hyivy Health

As Hyivy Health heads into 2021 with multiple strategic initatives, we have been seeking oversight in strategy discussions in all areas of marketing, content and market access discussions. We are developing content for our brand tone of voice, building community and digital marketing strategy, we are crafting messaging and positioning based on competition and market analysis. As we head into product launch, we need to create unique strategies for content that helps drive customer awareness and engagement with our brand ontop of aiding the marketing and medical teams in user experience design, surveying and recruiting for pilot studies, regulatory submissions to FDA and Health Canada.

Goodlawyer Inc. – Growth Manager

Our two interns will support the planning and execution of
projects and operations across Canada. Goodlawyer launched our latest product, a subscription offering called Goodlawyer Pro, in early November. Our MBSI interns will be central to our efforts to grow our user base and make Goodlawyer Pro a success. Most projects will revolve around digital marketing and marketing automation through a variety of sophisticated marketing technologies, as well as customer discovery and support.

Marketing Intern

The products imported, marketed, and sold are intended to create a safe and stylish play space for young children. Since parents and children are spending more time at home than ever before, they seem more inclined to purchase premium products to create this type of environment for their little one(s).

Partnering with an intern from UBC Sauder Business School will be an amazing opportunity. The experience will provide endless hands-on learning opportunities and mentorship for the intern, and specific projects worked on will help our business establish and nurture relationships with our quickly expanding customer base, which will be hugely beneficial to our future success.

Key responsibilities include: blog posting, social media management, press relations, overlooking affiliate partnerships, market research and providing strategic recommendations.

Real Estate Digital Marketing Intern

Icon&Co is a real estate sales and marketing agency in Vancouver, B.C. looking to adapt to a post-COVID economy by strengthening their digital marketing platforms to generate business and sales. As such, as an intern, I will be focusing on lead generation with respect to corporate business development and/or project promotion to establish new processes that will increase Icon&Co’s touch points with relevant people in the local and global communities so that they can fill the needs their organization currently lacking.

Business Development Representative

Neighbourhood Holdings is a private lender in the Canadian mortgage space. I will be on the Sales Team and will be:
– Executing outbound phone calls/fielding inbound phone calls to educate broker partners on Neighbourhood’s mortgage products
– Collaborating with the team to discuss results from the broker discussions to identify market opportunities
– Developing strategies to improve the sales process through:
– Conducting market research to identify potential new broker contacts
– Doing process improvement to improve efficiency, including development of sequences
– Conducting data analysis of broker touchpoints to assist with lead scoring
– Developing marketing assets

AttentionTrip: a gamified tool for measuring the networks of attention

Attention is an important part of everyday functioning. We use it to interact with the world around us and take in new information. ‘AttentionTrip’ is a sophisticated tool that allows clinicians and researchers to measure the different components of attention, while it feels like you are playing a videogame. With this tool, we can see how attention changes across age groups, and in the future how it may differ in clinical populations, like people with autism or ADHD. It also allows us to see if treatments being provided to people with attention-issues are actually working. In order to best apply this tool, we need to find out what the average attention score is with as many age groups as we can. So, we will be testing people from six to 80 years old with AttentionTrip and averaging their scores, so that we have a baseline to make comparisons.