Innovative Projects Realized

Ecology of spatio-temporal dynamics in bacterial communities

The project is aimed at exploring how the assembly of bacterial communities is determined due to interactions between individuals, spatial distribution, movement constraints and secretion of substances that affect bacterial growth. To do this, we will combine both a mathematical and an ecological approach. The mathematical approach will make use of abstract tools in mathematical modeling that will allow us to prove several hypotheses while modifying parameters in our equations that will simulate different scenarios. The ecological approach will help us interpret our findings and determine the feasibility of our hypotheses while establishing which ecological theories allow the bacterial dynamics arise. Our findings will give a wider understanding on the effects of perturbations to bacterial communities.

EFFET DES GREFFES RACINAIRES SUR LA RÉPONSE DES ARBRES AUX COUPES PARTIELLES – Analyse des données

L’épinette noire est une espèce commerciale et des éclaircies sont couramment pratiquées pour en augmenter la productivité. Pourtant, les résultats ne sont pas toujours ceux escomptés. Il est important de comprendre pourquoi l’effet sur la croissance peut parfois être absent. Chez le pin gris, il a été démontré que la réponse à l’éclaircie commerciale était influencée par la présence de greffes racinaires (fusion entre les racines d’arbres distincts). Après éclaircie, les arbres greffés avaient une croissance inférieure car les racines (et souches) des arbres coupés survivaient en drainant une partie des ressources mises en commun, limitant ainsi la croissance des arbres non coupés. L’objectif de ce projet est de déterminer l’effet des greffes sur la réponse de l’épinette noire à l’éclaircie commerciale.

Speech fluency and rhythmic coordination in various patient populations

Temporal management and speech fluency in discourse can be impaired in individuals with speech and language disorders. To date, it is unclear how temporal organisation of speech is influenced by higher-order language functions like discourse planning abilities, as well as exterior communication demands (e.g., conversation partners). Studies on different populations with discourse impairments (e.g., traumatic brain injury) and fluency disorders (e.g., stuttering) promise for new insights in interdependencies of speech timing and discourse planning. The first aim of the project is to identify how discourse planning abilities impact temporal organisation in adult patients with traumatic brain injury. In a corpus of narrative production, we hypothesize that microstructure and fluency will vary in critical phases of discourse. The second aim is to examine how temporal organisation and speech fluency change during verbal interaction in children and adult participants who stutter. An additional aim is to investigate whether musical rhythmic abilities in children and adults predict the extent of rhythmic convergence in speech. Here, I will support ongoing laboratory experiments at UdeMs’ BRAMS laboratory. Overall, the project will reveal new insights into how discourse planning and context impact the temporal organisation of speech.

The Effects of Social Media on Individuals, Community, and the Globe

Lifetime Productions was established to make the world a better place through strategic communications. On top of helping clients with existing services, Lifetime works to add more value to current and future clients with a new initiative in 2021 called Ethical Digital, Canada’s first organization solely dedicated to leading constructive discourse around ethics and helping businesses reach their sustainable development goals. As this new initiative progresses, the intern will be responsible for researching academic studies (Canadian and International) regarding social media and anxiety, the effect of algorithms on democracy, the effects of national policy changes (such as CASL) on digital behavior, and other topics identified by the research team. the end goal of this project for the intern to develop a literature review of all the relevant studies searched that would benefit the progress of Ethical Digital.

Business Analyst

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant changes to our industry and our business. We have been able to successfully expand our business into the virtual care space which has been very timely as a large portion of care delivery across the country has shifted to virtual. We are still in the process of optimizing our model as grow the virtual care side of our business, and there is a ton of room for growth and improvement. As a relatively small team, we don’t always have the time to take a step back and analyze our data and processes with the goal of identifying opportunities for growth. We believe that this business analyst internship will be hugely helpful for us on this front and will provide some much needed support for future growth in the form of new insights that can help us refine our strategy.

Community Engagement Coordinator (Campbell River & District Chamber of Commerce)

The proposed project is an inaugural golf tournament where the proceeds will be shared between the Campbell River & District Chamber of Commerce and the Children’s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island who are building a facility adjacent to the Campbell River Hospital to house families from the North Island region and the surrounding islands who need to travel to Campbell River to access medical care — especially maternal and pediactric. The project will also involve organizing community workshops and online community engagement. The project is of immense benefit to the community with the provision of humanitarian services for the northern populations of Vancouver Island.

Worker Cooperatives, Newcomer Youth and Economic Mobilities

We are interested to explore the value and impact of worker co-ops as a vehicle for migrant youth to build skills and experience, and enable economic mobilities. Solid State has found considerable success working with newcomer youth in Surrey, BC. Through this project, we are interested in understanding how this work might travel from coast to coast. Each community shares some common characteristics, but in most ways are wildly different places. Both Surrey and Sydney are both grappling with and embracing influxes of newcomer youth, and in both places we see tremendous potential for migrant retention and flourishing.

Flow control and efficiency: Improvement of fluid-driven actuators to build soft gloves for rehabilitation

The current project aims at designing a soft-robotic wearable glove which is applicable for rehabilitation of patients with loss of motor function in one or both hands. The wearable glove takes advantage of a set of different fluid-driven actuators. In order to design the actuators, flow control technique and also combine a set of actuators to use in the wearable glove, it is required to precisely analyze the fluid-solid interaction (FSI) between the actuator flexible body and the driving fluid. For this purpose, a computational module will be developed and used to analyze the fluid flow motion and FSI in the fluid-driven actuator and design a set of controllable actuators used in a wearable glove. The functionality of the developed computational module will be validated through comparison of basic benchmark test cases and also laboratory results obtained in the company. Then, it will be used to design and analyze the final product which is going to be a wearable soft robotic rehabilitation glove.

Machine Learning based System Suggested Critiquing for in-car Conversational Recommendation

Car Infotainment and Navigation systems to date have only basic interactivity and functionality, and there is nothing in the car today that will keep drivers aware of their surroundings outside the car when the car is in a fully autonomous driving mode. Therefore, we want to contribute in the development of a new in-car infotainment system that is both interactive, personal, contextual (aware of the car’s location and surrounding services). More specifically, we aim to extend iNAGO’s existing conversational recommendation engine to the one that better understands user intent and proactively suggest the correct choices that navigate her to the point of her interest in an effective and efficient manner.

Export Development Canada – Business Integrity Internship (Summer)

Export Development Canada’s (EDC) Business Integrity team is responsible for ensuring Canadian organizations are operating ethically throughout each step of their business practice. My role as an intern on the Business Integrity team will involve the assessment of financial crime and reputational risks of the transactions and relationships EDC takes part in, in addition to supporting team operations and reporting.

Export Development Canada – Business Integrity Internship (Winter)

Export Development Canada’s (EDC) Business Integrity team is responsible for ensuring Canadian organizations are operating ethically throughout each step of their business practice. My role as an intern on the Business Integrity team will involve the assessment of financial crime and reputational risks of the transactions and relationships EDC takes part in, in addition to supporting team operations and reporting.

Bitcoin Well Web Services – Ghostlab – RES0054117

Ghostlab has a few major projects. These include: (1) their Ghost ATM software, (2) their administration panel, and (3) their Bitcoin Well web services.

(1) Ghost ATM makes cryptocurrency as accessible as cash. It aims to handle all the necessary components needed to complete cryptocurrency exchange so that users receive and simple and convenient experience.

Key Features:
– Identify verification
– Hardware SDK
– Software/hardware driver integration
– Crypto exchange services
– Crypto wallet service/applications

(2) The Ghost Admin Panel simplifies the implementation and management of Bitcoin ATM services. It offers ATM partners, owners/operators, and vendors enhanced solutions to move beyond the traditional ATM services, and enabling them to strategically manage the business of their ATM devices to satisfy consumers with Bitcoin services.

Key features:
– Configuration policy management
– Promo codes and user rewards
– Dashboard and analytics
– Inventory management
– Security and device tracking
– Fund management and transactions records
– Identity Management

(3) Bitcoin Well offers convenient and secure online and in-person solutions for users to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Their web services help new and intermediate users discover the benefits of using cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin Well offers business owners’ options to incorporate Bitcoin into their business with beautiful browser based applications that enable merchants to accept bitcoin TOBECONT