Innovative Projects Realized

Thisforest: Developing A Forest Products Traceability Program for the Coast of BC 2

The research will look at how the Thisforest program advances the proposed traceability of timber, to provide a value-add to relevant industry stakeholders, including members of BC Wood and the BC Log & Timber Building Industry Association. The determination needed concerns the social and contextual value-added from forest traceability and how same will create revenue for such stakeholders and to what degree. Further to that is the need for “Proof of Concept” as initial research found that there is an industry appetite for the Thisforest traceability tool. This research will provide landowners, producers, timber brokers, and members BC Wood and of the BC Log & Timber Building Industry Association with data to make better-informed decisions on their timber traceability needs.

Green Solvents for Isopropyl Alcohol Replacement

Due to the increased demand for isopropyl alcohol industrial clients are turning to replacements for industrial uses. Producing an alternative for isopropyl alcohol for specific industrial applications is now a sought-after target. Creating an environmentally friendly alternative is desired since volatile chemicals used in industrial applications are a major contributor to smog formation. To combat smog formation in North America, agencies such as the Environment and Climate Change (Canada) and the Environmental Protection Agency (United States) enforce limits on the types and amounts of chemicals used in industrial applications. Computational methods will be used to identify potential solvent blend replacements for isopropyl alcohol for specific industrial applications. Suitable solvent blends will then be produced and fully characterized as well as tested for efficacy. The ultimate objective is to produce an environmentally friendly replacement for isopropyl alcohol for specific industrial applications.

From Form to Structure and Space

This grant proposes to look at innovation in materials and assembly which are afforded by our new design and fabrication technology so that Patkau architects can take this material innovation and move it to a conceived and completed project.

Production of Flow-Through Z-Pinches Using Advanced Methods

This project will develop a low cost prototype fusion reactor to create energy from water. We will find a better way to add the power to run it and to increase the efficiency of operation over previous versions of the machine. The interns will increase Fuse’s knowledge of the workings of the reactor and the devices that help run it and monitor it. Fuse will then be able to build a new and improved reactor that will achieve a long sought after goal of the scientific community of getting as much energy out of a fusion reactor as is put into it. This will attract a large amount of capital for Fuse to continue its research. Fuse, the University of Saskatchewan and Canada will be widely celebrated for this achievement.

Electrical Material Characterization and Non-Destructive Diagnostics on Power Cable Dielectric Materials subjected to Thermal Aging – Phase III

Electric power is almost entirely transmitted through polymer insulated cables or wires in every home, factory, plant, or apparatus. If the temperature of a cable increases, it would be an indication that some accidents or malfunctions such as inflow of excess electric current occur in the cable. The generated heat, indeed, degrades the polymer insulations in cable, thus, making it unsuitable and unsafe for extra service. Therefore, it would be markedly valuable if the thermally-degraded portion in the cable can be located accurately without destroying the cable. In this project the electrical properties of cables are studied and employed as potential indicators to diagnose thermally-degraded regions of the cable. As a result, possible malfunctions in cables due to heatoverloads can be detected in an efficient, fast, low-cost, and non-destructive way which elevates the safety and lowers catastrophic risk in power transmission

Vector Medical

The need for telemedicine IMEs is now greater than it has ever been. Vector Medical is aiming at researching this opportunity and developing strategies for the successful roll-out of a comprehensive suite of telemedicine IME services.
These services will help to evaluate health and an employer’s safety program, to develop solutions that optimize its policies and protocols and to implement these solutions according to the specific workplace. Particularly during post-pandemic economic recovery, these services will assist companies to advance their operations and contribute to their financial sustainability.

Energy Management System of Distributed Energy Resources

The distributed energy management system that needs to be optimized represents a control and command center for a network of distributed resources, which may operate within an isolated or weakly interconnected micro-grid. The controller’s primary functions are to communicate with each distributed energy resource controller to determine the operating status of each distributed energy resources and to issue energy management control commands to reliably manage the stable integration of the distributed energy resources with the larger scale grid. The distributed energy management controller can manage individual energy resources manually, automatically with preprogrammed control, or based on other additional external input received. The scope of this project covers simulation relative to control of individual energy resources, multiple energy resources as distributed across the application site, and the final integrated operation of multi energy resources as one system.

Easy Care at Home

Internship at Easy Care at Home is to launch a new to market product in the Health Care space. The product is a cloud based application that connects personal support workers and those that are needing care. Easy Care at Home is a response to the gap in the market of individuals needing care having limited visibility and no reliable safe source to find personal support workers. Current practice is to rely on alternative open market place websites.

In addition, PSW also struggle to obtain safe and consistent work even with an agency. ECAH is able to solve that gap by allowing PSW’s to take charge of their work, manage their own schedule ad be able to set their own rates.

ECAH’s aim is to solve this gap and create a safe and secure marketplace for finding reliable caregivers. Interns will focus on product development, customer acquisition, user centered design and marketing.

Mindfulness for Mental Health: Tailoring the DeRose User Experience

DeRose Meditation delivers meditation classes to thousands of users worldwide with the goal of improving personal wellbeing, work performance, and overall life for its clients. Through thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with developers of DeRose Meditation, meditation class leaders, and long-time program users, this project will articulate a “Theory of Change” model specific to DeRose Meditation, which will define fundamental, active components of the program, how these components are invoked to generate change, and key outcomes associated with participants in the program.

Real-Time VLT Player Data Personae Classification

The goal of this project is to train a machine learning model that can identify player’s personae using VLT (Video Lottery Terminal) data within a transactiontime limit. The personae are results of the previews MITACS project. Using unsupervised learning each playing session was associated with a playstyle. Identifying the playstyle as soon as possible is of great importance since it can be used later for problem gambling detection in early stages of playing. Another challenge this project tries to solve is to estimate an optimal limit for transactiontime. It is preferred to identify the personae earlier with higher accuracy. Another challenge is to propose a good method for feature extraction. For the previews MITACS project a complete session was used for identifying the personae, therefore the feature space is not sparse unlike this project. To overcome sparse feature space problem, proposing new features or deep neural networks that ease feature extraction task.

Projet Entourage : développement, implantation et évaluation d’outils d’intervention centrés sur le réseau social de femmes victimes de violence conjugale

Le projet Entourage répond à un besoin identifié par des chercheuses et intervenantes en violence conjugale, à savoir de développer des pratiques permettant d’améliorer le réseau des femmes victimes et, conséquemment, d’assurer leur sécurité à long terme. Réalisé en partenariat avec l’Alliance des maisons d’hébergement de 2e étape pour femmes et enfants victimes de violence conjugale, le projet Entourage vise à développer, implanter et évaluer des outils d’intervention centrés sur le réseau social des femmes. Il permettra 1) d’analyser les pratiques actuelles et les besoins des intervenantes en ce qui concerne l’intervention centrée sur les réseaux ; 2) de développer des outils concrets en collaboration avec les membres d’un comité de travail issus des milieux de pratique ; 3) d’implanter les outils dans les maisons d’hébergement intéressées à participer et 4) d’analyser l’implantation et les impacts des outils. Cette dernière étape, rarement réalisée en violence conjugale, permettra d’assurer la robustesse des outils mis en circulation.

BSI Internship at RailVision Analytics

Founded in 2017, RailVision Analytics positions itself as an AI expert in the Rail industry. It specializes in custom data analysis, software solutions and consulting for the rail industry. Its specialties are Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Custom Solutions, Advanced Algorithms, Mobile Applications, Web Development, and Rail Equipment. The objective of the project is to support RailVision Analytics in modifying their business operations to adapt to the new economic reality.
My expected project activities will include: 1) conduct marketing research and competitor research; 2) Collect information of potential clients 3) Finance support (budget plan, ratios calculation); 4) Funding proposals support 5) Social media marketing; 6) Business travel for connection 7) Strategic planning projects.