Innovative Projects Realized

Managing Shared State for Video Games in a Networked Multi-coreEnvironment

Video Games require a vast array of different computations to present the desired experience. These
computations must be completed consistently to make the software responsive to the user. The
industry trend towards many separate processors (multi-core) in the same physical device and the
emergence of network based ‘cloud’ computing have created many opportunities, but also many
challenges for the game industry.
The goal of this project is to create efficient techniques to organize and schedule the com putations to
take advantage of all the processors available. These techniques must ensure that the results
produced correctly and are obtained quickly enough to satisfy responsiveness. Each of these
techniques will have a corresponding aspect that allows them to be used by programmers who are not
experts in util izing multiple processors.
While this project focuses on games, the benefits will be applicable to many domains, especially in the
emerging field of mobile consumer-oriented applications

Modélisation de la coulée de l’érable à sucre à l’échelle de l’arbre

L’érable à sucre est exploité depuis plusieurs siècles en raison de la concentration particulièrement élevée en sucre de sa sève. Malgré son importance économique, notamment au Canada, les paramètres qui régulent le mécanisme de la coulée à l’échelle de l’arbre sont encore mal connus. Des études précédentes ont mise en évidence l’influence des nombreux paramètres climatiques, édaphiques et intrinsèques à l’arbre influence le volume et la teneur en sucre de la coulée. Cependant, de nombreuses lacunes persistent, ce qui ne permet pas de comprendre les interactions entre les différents facteurs.
L’objectif de ce projet est de prendre en compte différents facteurs susceptibles d’influencer la coulée à l’échelle de l’individu. Il se focalisera à la fois sur des paramètres intrinsèques et extrinsèques. Ces résultats aideront les acériculteurs à mieux aménager leurs érablières afin d’optimiser la production d’eau d’érable.

Repurposing poultry industry wastes to generate high value microbial metabolites for plant growth promotion

The global population is projected to rise from about 7.2 billion in 2014 to 9.6 billion people in 2050 as predicted by the World Resources Institute. With a rapid growth of world’s population, there is a dire need for food. To cope with this ever-increasing demand for food, the use of large amounts of fertilizers, chemical pesticides and antimicrobial agents are being adopted. Although the use of agrochemicals increased plant productivity, they come at the cost of damage to the environment, agro-ecosystems and living organisms facing harmful residual effects. A more sustainable, environmentally conscious soil amendment to use as a replacement to synthetic chemicals is a bio-stimulant. Poultry industry waste consists of, blood, feathers and other body parts which cannot be sold. Poultry waste can be converted to protein hydrolysate, which will be used as a medium to grow bacteria which synthesize metabolite biostimulants. These biostimulants enhance seed germination, plant growth, nutrition uptake, and tolerance to stress conditions. The partner organization will train the graduate and post-graduate researchers to be entrepreneurs, thus encouraging new companies to be established in the region.

Polarity Reversal Electro-Oxidation for Water Treatment

Treating contaminated water is an energy intensive and costly process. Traditional methods such as biological reactors that require continuous aeration and temperature control, or chemically intensive disinfection processes are widely employed. These methods require addition of reagents and produce large amounts of sludge and hazardous byproducts. The development of more environmentally and economically sustainable treatment technologies is desirable. Electrochemical advanced oxidation processes have emerged as promising alternatives. In these systems, a current is applied to electrodes submerged in contaminated water. In electro-oxidation, electrochemical reactions produce strong oxidants that mineralize organics and inactivate pathogens. However, material precipitation on the electrodes in polluted waters reduces the contaminant removal efficiency and increases cell resistivity. It is suggested that intermittently reversing electrode polarity may remove the passivating electrode surface layer, while enhancing treatment performance. This study is designed to explore this idea, which ultimately could aid the transition to more sustainable water treatment practices.

Project Rescuers

This project will help small- to medium-size businesses move to online, allowing them to remain in business during the pandemic, as well as providing them with the opportunity to create a competitive advantage by leveraging local supply networks and the current sentiment to ‘buy local ‘during the pandemic. Creating strong local businesses also contributes to the development of a strong local economy making the Island less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions during an economic shock such as the second wave of COVID-19. In terms of contribution to the organization, I will be developing the client personas and initiate sales funnel activities, developing marketing plans, increasing brand awareness through implementing marketing plans, and participating in online networking events to build relationships with potential clients.

4-H Saskatchewan Internship

4-H Saskatchewan Council Inc. is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to provides learning, growing, and developing experiences to youth across the country. The organization is currently looking to modernize its registration process for the club’s next year (2021). Around seven years ago, 4-H Saskatchewan worked alongside a local Saskatoon firm to create a a revised registration software. However, despite these progressive changes, the organization is currently seeking a new registration software. Implementing a revised registration system will ultimately benefit the organization by being more efficient and fitting 4-H Saskatchewan’s unique needs. 4-H Saskatchewan club leaders presently use manual data entry modes and the organization as a whole largely relies on paper for managing data. This Mitacs business strategy internship will provide the partner organization with a student seeking alternative software programs to revamp its registration process. The student intern will be responsible for researching varying softwares that may be beneficial to 4-H Saskatchewan’s current strategic plan. Another responsibility of the student intern will include comparing each of the softwares to surface the pros and cons of each, as well as determine the functioning and cost.

Business Strategy Internship – Art Gallery of Hamilton

The main objective of this project is to address Goal One of the AGH Strategy for Future Success; Improving information management and systems integration for greater collaboration, efficiency and effectiveness. The goal is broken down into three enabling strategies which include; develop and implement an enterprise content management strategy; look at ways to improve system efficiency and system integration; and develop a business intelligence strategy.

Engineered Code – Harrison Phillips – Edwards BSI

Engineered Code Consulting, Inc. (ECC) is a software consulting company that provides businesses with two major services: Website and web app creation and management, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a data management platform mostly focused on customer relationship management; that is, databases of customers and how those customers relate to the corporation. ECC’s projects for clients usually focus on either website creation or Dynamics, though the two can be combined using the Microsoft Power Apps platform, which ECC specializes in. The intern will review EEC’s current business processes and suggest meaningful improvements to improve efficiency. Then the intern will create a marketing strategy for EEC’s new learning management system.

Acrolab Aerospace Product Expansion – Business Strategy

Acrolab is in need of research and strategic business planning support to enable their operations to proceed successfully with expanding their product offerings within the aerospace sector.

The objective scope of this project is to prepare research to support Acrolab’s business operations as it prepares to launch a new product within the aerospace industry. Within this scope, the major activities to be undertaken include determining market/customer potential in the space sector (new and existing product), identify resources (internal and external) required to produce the product(s) and define/create the funding model to launch the product(s). If time permits during this internship, a sustainable business launch plan for Acrolab’s new product will be developed and delivered.

BenchBoss Marketing Internship

BenchBoss is an amateur basketball platform that provides coaches with the ability to track live-game stats and effortlessly share the information with players immediately after a game. Due to Covid-19, sports competition has been severely impacted which has forced BenchBoss to pivot and develop new features that teams can use to stat practice, while giving individual players the ability to stat their skill development workouts. I will be responsible for researching the benefits of tracking both team practices and individual training sessions and the impact the tracking of statistics can have to both team and individual performance levels. How many teams are tracking practices? Are these teams more successful than teams who do not track practice? Do individuals that track their progress have more growth and long-term success than individuals who don’t? I will try and answer these questions and share my information with BenchBoss so that they can properly develop these features and use the results to execute their marketing and sales strategy.

Boundary Effects on Spatial Collision Data Aggregationto Areal Units

Traffic accident data aggregation relates with boundary issues is OTS’s first project with University of
Calgary. Several years of collision data, traffic network and neighborhood will be collected from OTS.
This project contains implicit knowledge to improve the data aggregation method which has significant
impact of data sharing on neighborhood boundaries. The first part of this study will focus on literature
review and practicing existing methods to identify key factors and issues influencing the collision data
aggregation on neighborhood boundaries. The second part is to find new efficient method of data
aggregation from historical traffic safety related data. Results from the proposed study will help OTS
to prepare more reasonable and justifiable spatial collision dataset for City of Edmonton. The propose
study result expects to assist analyzing traffic accidents to reduce collision frequency and make the
City of Edmonton safe from traffic accidents.

Real Property Management Professionals Inc

Real Property Management Professionals Inc. was impacted through the financial challenges that tenants saw through astronomical job loss rates. The pandemic conveyed so much uncertainty and left tenants hesitant on the implications of government funding.
The intern’s role is to assist in overcoming pandemic rental challenges by working with tenants to secure properties affordable for their specific incomes and vacate proactive marketing to find new tenants for properties. There is a need for higher levels of safety to ensure Real Property Management Professionals Inc. is creating a socially distanced and touchless process for new tenants. An intern will allow the organization to contribute to the overall vision of leading the industry in solutions that create wealth and redefine the way you think about property management. The project contribution will bring systems to Canada that are not currently being used in the Property Management Sector and involve making long-term changes that have a national reach. Challenges that will be researched include advertising, communication, showings, maintenance and health and safety.