Innovative Projects Realized

Economic and energy efficiency assessment of biomass harvesting for a northern off-grid community: A case study at Brochet Manitoba, Canada.

In June 2011 Manitoba Hydro announced an investigation into the installation of a biomass gasification power plant to displace fossil fuel use at the off-grid community of Brochet Manitoba (Electrical Line Magazine, 2011). High and increasingly volatile fuel costs, risk of air and ground-water pollution, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the challenge of delivering diesel fuel are all major concerns associated with diesel energy in off-grid remote communities, including Brochet.

Two key components in determining the feasibility of biomass energy systems are: 1) the cost to harvest and transport the biomass feedstock, and 2) the carbon emissions incurred from harvesting and transport activities. Considering the truly remote location of the proposed biomass facility at Brochet, it is our hypothesis that the impacts of harvesting and transportation on the feasibility of the proposed project will be significant and transportation costs will be the largest cost factor.

Encapsulation efficiency and viability of phage-coated implants for the prevention and treatment of periprosthetic joint infections in high risk patients

The widespread use of antimicrobial compounds in recent years has led to a pronounced increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria. These resistant organisms require increased doses of strong antibiotics for prolonged periods for effective treatment. This is such a significant problem that the world health organization has put in place a global action plan to combat this phenomenon.

Unsupervised Learning of 3D Scenes from Images using a View-based Representation

7.2. Public Project Overview:
We’d like to address the issue of 3D reconstruction from 2D images. This means developing a machine learning algorithm that can take a regular photo as an input and generate a full 3-dimensional reconstruction of the contents of the photo. Such technology can be used creatively or to help the coming generation of robots better understand their surroundings.

Readmission AI: a predictive tool to assess patient risk of hospital readmission

Logibec Readmission AI is a predictive intelligence tool that accurately identifies the patient’s likelihood of being readmitted within 45 days of discharge. Rigorously and ethically developed with machine learning techniques in partnership with three large healthcare organizations in Québec, the predictive model uses reliable, accessible and timely clinical-administrative and sociodemographic data to provide clinically relevant stratification of readmission risk. The benefits of accurately identifying high risk readmission patients include improve population health, care experience and cost.

Machine Learning for Cancer Treatment Plan Benchmarking

Oncology specialists are few in numbers and cannot be present within every hospital or clinic providing their guidance and support. There are institutions in this world with oncology experts that can provide the best possible care and the knowledge of these experts is stored in medical case files within the hospital. With the power of machine learning and the internet, an organization without any experts can compare their cancer treatment plans to the top performing institutions in the world and receive constructive feedback on where their plan needs improvement. Bridge7 AI is developing a platform that allows clinicians around the world to compare and improve their plans with the help of experts in all medical fields.

Be Yourself: How to be a Positive Influencer On and Offline

It has been shown that a mother’s conduct, together with her relationship with her daughter, can directly and indirectly impact her daughter’s well-being and development (e.g., eating habits, body image, and self-esteem). Studies have shown that the mother/daughter relationship influences every stage of the daughter’s development, with particular influence in the formation of the young adolescent girl’s perception of herself and her body. As parent modelling exists offline between mothers and young adolescent daughters (11-14 years old), a similar influence is being exercised by the fast evolution of digital culture, such as social networking sites (SNSs). Working together with community members, mothers, scholars, and educators, we will co-create and evaluate a transformative learning experience for positive influencers, which will consist of a tangible Toolkit and Community Workshop. The materials will be an operational and sustainable outreach service for the Bulimia Anorexia Nervosa Association (BANA) to use after the funding period.

Multi-Channel User Linkage through Probabilistic Matching

People utilize multiple devices to complete various tasks, making their online identities fragmented. Advertising is as much about knowing when not to promote a product as it is about when to do it. For example, before being sent alcohol and cannabis ads, the user must be identifiable as being over 19. Age information may only be available on a channel different than the one through which the user is connecting. This makes it difficult to gain a holistic understanding of users and develop a single marketing strategy across devices. Pelmorex Audience, mobile advertising division of Pelmorex Corp., would like to explore advanced large-scale probabilistic matching techniques to link different representations of the same user across channels, in order to create a master set of user profiles. This will enable them to enhance the user experience by limiting ad repetition on different environments, while also customizing ads to their interests.

Embedded sensor fusion network

Highly accurate 3D object detectors require significant computational resources, and reducing computation and memory load while maintaining the same level of performance is a critical task for any safe and reliable autonomous vehicle. This research project investigates the deployment of an accurate 3D object detection model to a resource constrained architecture by changing the model structure, its parameters as well as its activity during operation. Through a multi-level optimization, both the amount of computation as well as the memory load will be reduced while maintaining 3D object detection performance. The knowledge gained from this experiment will help the industry partner to develop new architectures for ever more complicated computational tasks.

Creating a Predictive Vegetation Model to Guide Wetland Restoration in the South Arm Tidal Marshes

I will be focusing my study on a small tidal marsh called Frenchies Island within the South Arm Marshes of the Fraser River, which has become overrun with an invasive species of cattail. Frenchies, like many tidal marsh islands has had a dike constructed around its perimeter and has therefore been cut off from the natural incoming of water from the tidal cycle, as well as from high flows of the Fraser river. The goal of this project is to create a predictive model to forecast the type of plant cover that is likely to grow on the site, once the invasive cattail has been weakened or eradicated on the site. The model will be created by first characterizing both Frenchies and areas that are not dominated by cattail (undisturbed sites) through ground surveys in terms of the distribution of elevation, soil salinity and plant cover. The results from my mapping of the non-disturbed sites will be applied to Frenchies Island to create the predictive model. TO BE CON’T

Technical Research on Unconventional Resources Development in Canada

Within this project, interns will review the peer-review literature on the four different topics: (1) Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), (2) Hydraulic Fracturing, (3) Anomalous Induced Seismicity, (4) Surface and Ground Water access, transport, flowback chemistry, conservation, recycling, treatment and disposal after use in hydraulic fracturing operations.
The aim of the project is to perform the qualitative analysis of the listed subjects in order to compile scientific-based, unbiased information that will be used to update the partner website, presented at conferences as well as released to public in a form of bulletins. Moreover, student will be meeting regularly with the industry champions, to exchange the knowledge and discuss the most important aspects of the researched topics. The emphasis will be put on distinguishing true, scientific information from falsehoods and current misconceptions.

Molecular effects of novel high-CBD Cannabis cultivars: from mechanisms to novel applications and therapeutics

With the legalization of cannabis, a serious issue facing Canadians is: how will consumers know their products are safe and created with their health in mind? Many Cannabis products claim diverse health benefits, ranging from treating pain to reducing inflammation and affecting tumor growth. While this is incredibly exciting, have all of these products been researched to ensure their claims are rooted in scientific proof? Presently, from a wide variety of strains that are being grown by licensed producers of medical cannabis in Canada, none have documented research-proven medicinal properties. What medicinal properties do these strains have? How do they affect tumor growth? Can they cause any potential adverse effects? How do they affect normal somatic tissues and organs as well as the central nervous system (CNS)? These questions remain to be answered. TO BE CONT’D

Linear Stability Analysis and Coherent Structure Identification for a Stratified Bickley Jet

This project will involve the application of the methods of linear stability analysis to a type of canonical stratified shear flow known as a Bickley jet in order to identify dynamically relevant processes (manifested as “coherent structures”) and gain insight into turbulent mixing in the oceans and other geophysical flow regimes. The objectives of the project will be to develop a linear stability analysis code which builds on and broadens the scope of previous work, determine unstable regions of the flow where a transition to turbulence might take place, physically interpret the structures identified through linear stability analysis, and investigate non-linear evolution using the DIABLO Direct Numerical Simulation code. The hoped-for outcome is insight into turbulent mixing, especially as it occurs in the oceans, which will help to improve, for example, climate-change modelling.