Innovative Projects Realized

Analyzing the Covid-19 impact on local restaurants to help navigate a road to recovery

This project is focused on looking at the impact Covid-19 has had on the local restaurant community in Kamloops, BC. We are looking at how stakeholders in the industry have been affected and how we can support them through the difficult and uncertain times. We are partnering with the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce in hopes of benefiting from their strong network and connections throughout the community. Once our data has been compiled and analyzed we will work on strategies and ideas to help this industry through the rest of the year and into 2021. We plan on distributing information to customers on how they can support their local restaurants and their workers. As well as information and strategies to business owners to better meet their customer’s needs. We are very excited about this project and it is a great partnership where both parties will benefit tremendously from each other.

MOM Cleaning

MOM Cleaning offre des services de nettoyage diversifiés pour entreprises allant du lavage à pression, au nettoyage de tapis et au simple service d’entretien ménager. L’entreprise est présentement en phase de croissance au Québec et en Ontario et vient tout juste de commencer à augmenter sa présence en ligne via leur nouveau site web. Il s’agit donc d’un contexte de digitalisation des activités de MOM aux services des entreprises.

Placeholder Canada Inc. – Operations Analyst (2)

As mentioned above, we are in the process of pivoting (or expanding) our business into flexible Warehouses in addition to our core Office vertical. We will continue to pursue both verticals, but Warehouses are our primary focus until the end of 2020 (at least). As the demand for new office space slowly comes back, and in whatever form people are comfortable with, the flexibility of our product makes us well-positioned to take advantage of this “new normal.” An intern will help us understand both markets and how we can be best positioned to address their needs. An intern will help us analyze our organization in the context of a post-COVID world and what the next phase of the global commercial real estate market will be. An intern will help us answer questions such as: 1) What does the demand for office space look like post-COVID? 2) How much of the increased demand for flexible Warehouse space we’re seeing right now is COVID-related versus business as usual? 3) Going forward, how should we allocate our time between our Office and Warehouse verticals?

Consulting Analyst Co-op

Since the first case in Alberta, COVID-19 has impacted everyone, especially the most vulnerable. At Criterium Group, we pride ourselves on our resiliency; with our agile structure and ways of working, we have been able to adapt to these challenging times. In light of the pandemic, we have focused on working with our clients to support their strategy development and adapt their structures and processes, so they too can be resilient. In addition to supporting current projects in both the private and public sector, one client and partnership we want to support even further and highlight is the United Way of Calgary and Area (UWCA).UWCA has been focusing their efforts on addressing the complexities the pandemic has created ensuring no one gets left behind. Although UWCA has taken steps to ensure Calgary’s community is cared for and supported, a collaborative effort is required to support our community’s urgent needs and ensure other initiatives continue to progress.

Developpement d’un support d’enzyme pour application au contrale de I’acide cyanurique

Ce projet s’inscrit dans la programmation d’une action de recherche et développement actuellement en cours au Centre de Recherche en Biotechnologie Marine (CRBM) avec l’appui financier et au bénéfice de la Société Sani-Marc inc. Il consiste à développer des supports appropriés pour l’immobilisation d’enzymes d’intérêt pour cette société.

Market Research Analyst

Arbutus Search Group is a recruitment agency in Vancouver that’s been affected by COVID-19. The Market Research Analyst will build a business plan for the Arbutus Recruitment Training program, including specific duties such as creating a go to market strategy, developing a comprehensive list of competitors, and aligning the marketing strategy to align with the branding of Arbutus. Additionally, responsibilities will extend into business development such as social media management, outreach, and content creation.

Advanced Image-guided Therapy Software for Image-guided Focused Ultrasound Research with Integrated Data Curation for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Focused Ultrasound (FUS) is a therapeutic modality that can concentrate mechanical energy far from its source in just a few cubic millimetres. There is a significant number of studies investigating the use of FUS as a therapeutic option for multiples diseases, with an emphasis on oncology and brain disorders. While machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming compelling research tools in many areas, the use of ML+AI has remained elusive for FUS research. In collaboration with the company FUS Instruments (Toronto, ON), the goal of this research is to expand the capabilities of our software platform for the control of FUS devices to integrate highly curated data collection, which is fundamental for an effective ML+AI processing, and also to improve the quality of FUS based experimentation. We will also adapt our Proteus platform to drive the RK300 Magnetic Resonance image (MRI)-guided FUS (MRgFUS) system from FUS Instruments.

Developing a new onsite wastewater treatment certification program for training and assessing competent practitioners during COVID-19 pandemic

Onsite wastewater treatment system (OWTS) are the integral part of wastewater management in Canadian rural and sub-urban communities. Sporadic reports indicate that these systems fail or underperform frequently and as such, they are among the most important sources of nutrient pollution in ground- and surface waters, which we frequently use as drinking water resources. The OWTS failures are generally not due to inherent flaws in the system technology but rather due to inappropriate development (poor design and/or installation). This study ensures Canadian public and environment health and safety, by improving the quality of training/certification program of OWTS practitioners. This research program aims to identify the issues in the current program through a systematic approach. A new program is to be developed which can be clearly understood by diverse audience among the participants and the key concepts can be remembered months later when they are actively engaged in the field.

Effets de la gelée royale dans l’activation de la route de signalisation dépendent de FSH pendant la maturation in vitro d’ovocytes de vache

L’objectif c’est de décrire les effets qu’a la gelée royale sur le processus de maturation artificiel des ovocytes au niveau moléculaire. L’hypothèse c’est que la gelée royale a des compounds qui agissent similairement à l’hormone FSH. Ce projet va explorer l’utilisation de la gelée royale dans le milieu de culture utilisé en IVM, et résultera en des données originales d’importance pour l’industrie agricole. Une augmentation du taux de production d’embryons apportera des nouvelles solutions pour l’industrie et des nouvelles approches ‘biologiques’ pour l’amélioration des techniques de reproduction assistée.

Geochemical habitability potential of magmatic vs impact induced heat hydrothermal environment on early Earth and Mars

Throughout Earth’s geological history, hydrothermal systems have provided habitats for primordial forms of life by creating a warm fluid environment that reacts with the local rocks to release nutrients that can support microbial life. The predominant heat supply for these environments on Earth comes from magmatic sources, however, on extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars, impacts are the main source of heat. Here, the different chemical potential of free energy released from the water-rock interaction from the Haughton impact crater in the high Arctic, Canada, will be compared to magmatic intrusions from the San Raphael Swell, Utah, USA. This will be done by fieldwork sample collection and thermodynamics chemical modelling. The calculated estimation of free energy released from each set of reactions will be used to evaluate the potential of each environment to support microbial life
through time and space.

Thermal Enhancement Packaging

Continuing progress in microelectronics today relies to a great extent on the ability of industrials to tightly integrate together different types of devices and integrated circuits, a practice known as heterogeneous packaging integration. These packages are used many everyday applications such as smart phone and social media. The increase performance of these packages come at a cost of increase power consumption and thus heat management to dissipate the energy that was not used for the actual calculation and communication. The proposed project proposed to investigate better thermal solutions. In order to do so, a better understanding of the temperature within the package is required. To achieve this goal, metallic heat dissipation element will be instrumented using thermal sensors to evaluate the thermal performance of the different package structure.

Novel image processing techniques of standard DXA scans to better predict hip fracture risk

Osteoporosis is a generalized skeletal disorder common in older adults, in which a reduction in Bone Mineral Density (BMD) decreases bone’s strength and can result in an increased risk of fragility fractures. One of the sites commonly affected by osteoporosis is the proximal femur (“hip”), the fracture of which greatly decreases mobility and function, as well as being responsible for high health care costs for society (estimated at $619M annually)1,2.

We have developed novel image processing techniques to extract much more information from each clinical DXA scan than simply a BMD measure. This approach uses statistical modeling techniques to characterize the shape and distribution of mineral through the proximal femur, as well as the trabecular quality through texture analysis. A template model is established from a training set of images with patient fracture history data, after which any new scan may be mathematically represented by its differences from the template shape through scaling factors applied to the main modes of variation. The large complement of DXA scans in longitudinal databases presents an untapped opportunity for further investigation of our fracture-predicting algorithms and characterization of how different factors (such as medication use) contribute to fracture risk.