Innovative Projects Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

29670 Completed Projects

2811
AB
4990
BC
801
MB
663
NL
825
SK
8841
ON
9197
QC
95
PE
568
NB
1088
NS

Projects by Category

Assessment and modification of oral-nasal balance in speakers of Brazilian Portuguese with cleft palate

Many individuals with cleft palate have hypernasal speech, which affects speech intelligibility and acceptability and is socially stigmatizing. The proposed studies relate to the assessment and the behavioural modification of oral-nasal balance in speech. The first study will test a new assessment procedure for hypernasality and other oral-nasal balance disorders which will aid clinicians in more accurately assessing their patients. The second study will explore the effect of voice focus adjustments in hypernasalspeakers with cleft palate. We expect that changing voice focus will allow patients to reduce their hypernasality. In addition, Brazilian Portuguese features nasalized vowels, whereas English does not. By conducting these studies with speakers of Brazilian Portuguese we can begin to develop assessment and treatment methods that work across languages. Taken together, the two studies have the potential to considerably change and advance the assessment of oral-nasal balance disorders and the treatment of hypernasality.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Tim Bressmann

Student:

Partner:

Universidade Estadual Paulista "Julio de Mesquita Filho"

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Understanding the facilitators and barriers to effective water and sanitation interventions for characterizing spatial trends of Shigella infections in Jiangsu, China

Home to the world’s largest population, China faces scarce water resources and water contamination problems are causing a significant portion of China’s rural population to live without access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Exposure to water contaminated with human feces can cause severe diarrheal diseases, especially among children under the age of 5. In the Eastern province of Jiangsu, a significant number of diarrhea incidences are caused by shigellosis, or watery diarrhea. Fortunately, shigellosis can be effectively prevented by well-implemented water and sanitation interventions. The key objective of my research is to understand the facilitators and barriers to effective water and sanitation interventions, and how they can be used to characterize the prevalence of shigellosis among children in rural areas. The findings of this project will not only provide up-to-date evidence to affected communities, but will also provide various stakeholders (governmental agencies, local water industries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGO)) critical information needed to implement more sensible solutions and mitigation measures.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Susan Elliott

Student:

Partner:

Nanjing University

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Waterloo

Program:

Globalink Research Award

100 Islands: Elucidating connections between land and ocean ecosystems

Informed decisions on resource management and development require an understanding of how projects will impact the resource, other resources, and the ecosystem. Because the ocean and land are intricately connected along coastal areas, development projects in either will invariably affect the other. However, Ecological Risk Assessments do not consider the two in tandem because the connections between the land and ocean are not well defined and an analytical tool does not currently exist to predict those connections for areas where they have not yet been measured. This project aims to incorporate land-sea interactions into the well established theory of island biogeography to provide such a framework for regions with large coastlines and many islands, like BC. Additionally, this project will result in biodiversity baseline data collection for 100 unstudied islands along the Central Coast. These data will be available for the broader research community to inform decisions on resource development along BC’s coasts.

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Faculty Supervisor:

John Reynolds;Brian Starzomski;Chris Darimont;Iain McKechnie;Maycira Costa;Amanda Bates

Student:

Partner:

The Hakai Institute, part of the Tula Foundation

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Environmental Science and Technology; Life Sciences (not health); Forestry

University:

Simon Fraser University; University of Victoria

Program:

Accelerate

Religious Conservatism, LGBT Rights and Anti-Discrimination Policy Implementation in Brazil

This project seeks to explore LGBT anti–discrimination law in Brazil. Brazil is one of the most progressive countries in Latin America regarding LGBT rights and freedoms. Despite this, there has been a sharp rise in LGBT violence and murder rates in Brazil. Brazil also has a rapidly growing religiously conservative population, which currently controls a large voting block in the Brazilian Senate. In 2008, a bill attempting to add sexual orientation to the definition of anti–discrimination was introduced to help protect the LGBT community against rising rates of violence. This bill has been pending in the Brazilian senate for the past 7 years. The aim of this research is to analyze the trajectory of the bill, and the factors influencing its stalling in the Senate. By examining this, a better understanding of the politics surrounding religious conservatism and LGBT anti–discrimination law will be provided.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jordi Díez

Student:

Partner:

Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Guelph

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Increasing harvestable berry yield using precision agriculture technologies

The overall objective of the proposed initiative is to develop a novel, berry harvesting system that will identify the root causes of increased loses; increase berry picking efficiency and product quality. Currently, there are 15 to 25% fruit yield losses during the harvesting. The wild blueberry growers set a goal increase the harvestable yields by 33%. To achieve this, the technology based products and processes that are envision include (i) identification of sources responsible for increased losses (ii) improve harvestable berry recovery, (ii) replacement of old technology with innovative integrated harvesting system, (iv) find out a suitable combination of machine parameters (ground speed harvester head revolution) an d appropriate harvesting time with minimum losses using precision agriculture technologies and mathematical modeling procedures. Improving harvesting efficiency can reduce fruit losses and contribute millions of dollars to provincial as well as the federal economy every year.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Qamar Zaman

Student:

Partner:

Slack Farms Limited

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University

Program:

Accelerate

Development and Assessment of Vitamin-Enriched Granule Extracts from Egg Yolk

The chicken egg represents an excellent source of nutrients, and the composition of the egg yolk can further be enhanced through modifications to the laying hen diet. While enhanced shell eggs are primarily sold as specialty eggs, an opportunity exists to add further value through the use of novel extraction technologies. The proposed research project will combine existing expertise in egg yolk enhancement with expertise in liquid/protein processing and extraction techniques. The project will benefit Egg Farmers of Canada through development of unique capacity for the establishment of novel egg biologically active components for use in the food and natural health product sectors.

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Faculty Supervisor:

James House;Alain Doyen;Yves Pouliot

Student:

Partner:

Egg Farmers of Canada

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Agriculture; Manufacturing

University:

Université Laval; University of Manitoba

Program:

Accelerate

Creation of arbitrary geometric shapes for pellet packing optimization

The demand for renewable and clean energy alternatives is steadily increasing due to the cost and environmental concerns of traditional fossil-based fuels. Wood pellet fuel is one such renewable alternate energy source, manufactured by Pacific Bioenergy, Prince George, BC. These wood pellets are transported via rail and subsequently loaded onto vessels for trans-ocean shipment. The porosity of the bulk wood pellet mass is approximately 40%, and this results in the ships only being loaded to 80% of their maximum weight load. Under perfect conditions, this bulk porosity can be reduced to 9 to 21%. Our goal is to find ways to reduce the porosity of the pellet mass in the shipment, and hence increase weight load in the shipment close to the maximum allowed limit by virtually modifying the wood pellet size and/or shape. The research proposed in this project is the first step in achieving that goal.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Alex Alagarsamy Aravind

Student:

Partner:

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

University:

University of Northern British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Evaluation of smart sprayer for spot-application of agrochemical in wild blueberry fields

There is an urgent need to develop and evaluate an affordable, reliable, real-time variable rate smart sprayer, using affordable sensors/cameras and controllers for spot-specific application of agrochemicals in the wild blueberry cropping system. The main objective of this project is to evaluate the performance of the developed smart sprayer for spot-applications of agrochemicals in wild blueberry fields. The intern working on the smart sprayer will evaluate the smart sprayer in commercial fields to determine the effectiveness of the developed smart sprayer. The intern will also compare the current spraying methods with precision techniques available. Also, a complete economic analysis of the smart sprayer system for wild blueberry field application will be completed using collected field data. Slacks farms currently own 400 acres of their own land under production. The farm also does custom work on the land of other blueberry farmers to assist with their production. Slack Farms understands that research is of the utmost importance in the agricultural sector in order to sustain a viable operation in the 21st century. This research project being proposed will allow increased crop productivity, profit margins, competitiveness, and the sustainability of the wild blueberry industry in NS and across Canada. TO BE CONT’D

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Faculty Supervisor:

Qamar Zaman

Student:

Partner:

Slack Farms Limited

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University

Program:

Accelerate

Improving the Performance of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Garbage Collection using Transactional Memory

As the multi-processing power of computers continues to grow, traditional methods of memory management become more and more problematic. The purpose of this project is to quantitatively analyze existing memory management tactics to determine whether they can be improved using techniques that take advantage of modern hardware, or instead, whether brand new methods for managing memory need to be developed. As the act of memory management is one which is crucial to almost every application that runs on IBM’s J9 JVM, clearly identifying a path forward will be extremely beneficial.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Gerhard Dueck

Student:

Partner:

IBM Canada Ltd (Ottawa, ON)

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of New Brunswick

Program:

Accelerate

Driving Down GHG in Toronto: Factors Shaping Electric Vehicle (EV) Ownership, Drive Patterns, and Behaviours

With the ongoing threat of anthropogenic climate warming, understanding how stakeholders in Ontario can accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) to maximize their environmental and economic benefits is of great importance. The large-scale adoption of EVs requires further research to understand consumer demand and social valuations. Ontario has over 5,000 EV drivers on the road that make up 32% of Canada’s total EV drivers. However, there is virtually no information about their demographic profile, where they drive or why they bought an EV. The survey will identify the behaviours of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s (GTHA) EV driving community and thereby: provide information about EV usage patterns to Ontario’s electricity distributors, inform practical EV policies and programs, and identify optimal regions to install public charging stations. Transportation is the largest source of Ontario’s GHG emissions and is responsible for approximately 40% of the city’s total emissions.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Philip Walsh

Student:

Partner:

Plug’n Drive

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Manufacturing; Transportation and warehousing

University:

Toronto Metropolitan University

Program:

Accelerate

Improving optics and illumination for smartphone-attached magnifier

The objective of this project is to design and build a new prototype device attachable to a smartphone camera employing a novel method of illumination to enable acquiring high quality images of the skin without surface contact. By replacing the precise optical and lighting components currently used in the company’s existing product MoleScope, this design will allow manufacturing a new device at considerably lower cost. The new device also requires a universal attachment system for several different smartphones, as the camera is located in different positions on every model. The intern will employ knowledge of optics and engineering to build a working prototype, and the partner organization will benefit from the prototype product and be able to conduct manufacturing based on the intern’s work.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Lorne Whitehead

Student:

Partner:

MetaOptima Technology Inc

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

China’s Female Voice in International Relations: Wu Yi-Fang and the Founding of the United Nations in 1945

This project examines the work of Wu Yi-fang, the only female delegate from China and one of the four women to sign the United Nations Charter in 1945 at the San Francisco Conference. Eight women were present at San Francisco as official delegates from seven different countries, making significant contributions to the UN Charter. But these contributions still remain unexamined. Wu was a key figure in Chinese higher education, heading Ginling Women’s College for 23 years and representing China on the international stage. Much of the work about Wu is focused on her educational pedagogy and not her role in politics. This project aims to highlight Wu’s work in international diplomacy and discuss her role in the UN, with the objective of bringing to light the importance of female contributions to the UN. Through the examination of Wu’s work, it also analyses the relationship between China and the UN in the mid-1940s.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Heidi Tworek

Student:

Partner:

Nanjing University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program:

Globalink Research Award

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