Innovative Projects Realized

“I have spoken. Let my words be heard”: Writing as Relational Practice in Early Cree Life Writings

In this project, I will undertake research in the Church Missionary Society Archives to study the writings of Charles Pratt (c. 1816-1888) and James Settee (c. 1809-1902), two Cree men who worked as missionaries for the Anglican Church in Canada. My research will take me to Birmingham where Pratt’s and Settee’s writings are housed. I will analyse the texts themselves as well as the practice of archiving Indigenous writing in England in the late-nineteenth century. Part of my work involves compiling notes and copies of archival materials for further research. Through this project I expect to develop a better understanding of how Indigenous intellectuals negotiated relationships with church, government, and Cree communities through their writing. Finally, I will produce a paper on my findings and the archival research process for presentation to the Indigenous Literary Studies Association in Canada.

Investigating mental well-being as a predictor of language learning in refugee students

The RefugeesWellSchool Program is an initiative undertaken by the European Union to investigate preventive school-based interventions with the aim of promoting mental well-being of refugee and migrant adolescents. Five interventions are being implemented and studied across six European countries, with data collected on refugee students’ mental health problems, resilience, academic achievements, school drop-out and social support. The proposed research project will utilize mental health and academic achievement data from this program to investigate (1) whether trauma and mental health problems are negatively associated with language learning, and (2) whether mental well-being predicts success in language learning for recently arrived refugee students. The relation between the implemented preventative interventions and rates of language learning will also be explored qualitatively. Implications for Canadian refugee students and recommendations for the mobilization of acquired knowledge to a Canadian context will be discussed.

Simulation of Fluid-Bed Spray Granulation using rCFD-DEM

Fluid-bed granulation is the process of growing small particles into granules by spraying solids-containing liquids. It is an important process step in the production of various consumer-facing products like fertilizer, laundry detergent and food products that have to be of consistent quality. Industrial-scale granulators are notoriously difficult to build and prone to design flaws such as overwetting due to cold spots, leading to segregation and formation of clumps. The granulation process can be simulated by treating each particle as an individual element and solving the Newtonian equations of motion, as well as mass and energy balances over small time steps. However, when simulating large-scale granulators, the process becomes extremely computationally intensive due to the small time steps required to resolve individual particle collisions that occur on the order of milliseconds while the time scale of the process is on the order of hours. Recurrence Computational Fluid Dynamics (rCFD) is a novel technique that takes previously computed, highly resolved patterns and extrapolates the results, resolving mass and energy balances that do not require these small time steps. This technique can reduce the required computation time by approximately three orders of magnitude. TBC

The Impact of the Global Compact on Migration on the Legal Framework on Immigration in the UK

This project will investigate how the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (the Compact), the first inter-governmentally negotiated agreement to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner, is impacting how the United Kingdom specifically, and EU Member States in general, are drafting new laws, rules or practice guidance which relate to migration. As an international agreement that makes explicit the human rights obligations of States as they relate to migrants, the Compact can and should fill gaps within legislation to ensure that a comprehensive legal framework on immigration law is developed in the UK. The research will involve analyzing themes in government adoption speeches of new legislation, as summarized in Hansard entries, to help determine to what degree legislators are drawing on the Compact in shaping new legislation. Challenges and barriers will be identified.

Surrey Skookum Lab: An Indigenous Driven Social Innovation Project

Skookum is a word used in many cultures. In British Columbia, some Indigenous communities understand “Skookum” to mean strong or brave. The Skookum Lab was created to honour the strength and wisdom of Indigenous communities and to make innovative changes within the city of Surrey. We are inviting First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in Surrey to embark on a journey of understanding: what are the systemic causes of urban Indigenous child poverty in Surrey? The Skookum Lab will create spaces with, and for, the Indigenous community. These spaces will be places of creative dialogue and action in order to address the systemic causes of Indigenous child and youth poverty. From there, the Indigenous community will design and then test initiatives to make their dreams become a Skookum reality.

Ahmed Bluff Body Wake Dynamics and Tailpipe Exhaust Flow

Air quality is a major issue worldwide and has both health and cost implications. Major concerns deal with health issues due to noxious effects of nanoparticles and gaseous pollutant emitted by road traffic (including cardiovascular diseases, enhancement of allergies, pulmonary diseases etc.).It is well-know that transportation systems are a major contributor to pollutant emissions, being either solid (nanoparticles of carbon) or gaseous (Nitrogen Oxides). Regulations exist that limit the pollutant release into the atmosphere, but little is known about the dynamics of these particles when emitted from the exhaust pipe of a car. More information is needed regarding their interaction with the surrounding flow with respect to different incoming parameters (ground clearance, turbulence, interaction between cars, wind strength and direction, yaw angle). TO BE CONT’D

Developper une regie commerciale de culture biologique du fraisier a joursneutres hors-sol

L’experience sera conduite sous tunnels a la Ferme des Fraises de rile d’Orleans inc. Les

fralsiers a jour neutre (IN) seron! plantes en pots. Les pots seront disposes sur des dalles

suspendues aux structures des tunnels. Des espaces d’environ 1,3 m entre les rangs

permettront Ie passage de la rnacl1inerie et les operations culturales. Un systeme de fertigation assurera I’arrosage et la fertilisation des plants. L’irrigation sera geree a I’aide de

tensiometres electroniques et d’un systeme de lecture en continuo Lors de la premiere annee.

trois regies de fertigation seront comparees pour deux substrats et deux cultivars de fraisiers a IN. Les parametres edaphiques et les variables contribuant aux composantes du

rendement et de qua lite seront mesures a I’interieur de chacune des parcelles. Les variables

relatives a la stabilite physico-chimique du substrat seront mesurees.

Les beneficies attendus pour I’entreprise seront de permettre augmenter la production des

fraisiers ainsi que dameliorer la qualite de ses fruits. en occupant un…….

AI-powered operating system for buildings: new performance metrics

In the real estate sector, a large volume of data is produced by businesses, commercial users and building visitors in a great variety of forms. For instance, three extensive sources of data come from unstructured text (e.g. documents, contracts), numerical data containing resources consumption and sensor/image-type data describing user behavior. A challenging problem for the sector is how to process the generated data into a useful asset that can provide insights to help business decisions, optimize user navigation and automate building-related processes. In this context, modern machine learning offers a plethora of solutions, ranging from well-established predictive statistical models to natural language processing techniques for automatically analyzing texts. Given the variety of out-of-the box machine learning methods, it becomes essential to be able to compare solutions efficiently in terms of quality measure, model training and generalization capacity for annotated data, as well as intrinsic metrics for non-annotated data. TO BE CONT’D

Technology transfer of bioenergy systems for remote communities

The goal of this research is to use the developed information around the technical, economical and social political challenges for the implementation of small-scale bioenergy systems in remote indigenous communities in Canada. The targeted outcome creates a multi faceted model to evaluate the success and impact of future installation with less input factors to simplify the technology transfer and lower the overall investment requirements for communities or stakeholders. The project therefore attempts to promote and ease the installation of clean technologies in Canada to reduce carbon emissions, create job opportunities and retain money in local communities. The usage of local biofuels would further decrease the risk of wild fire in small communities and remote locations.

Novel strategies to handle noise in schools: the potential of soundscape based approach

In schools, sounds and noise can affect the students’ and the teachers’ well being. They are constantly exposed to noise and the latter can create a sound environment that is inadeqaute for the students to study and concentrate properly. This project will explore potential benefits of visual and auditory design to establish with minimal budget and intervention high quality spaces in school-contexts that help in creating an agreeable soundscape in the school. This project has three principle hypothesis (1) visual cues can influence the level of produced speech and as such control the background noise in schools, (2) providing well-designed restorative areas in schools can help students and teachers to cope better with noise exposure through-out the day, and (3) low-cost and highly effective interventions in the class rooms and the school as a whole can be realized through creative use of visual and auditory design.

R&D in the Social Impact Sector: documenting practices, assessing current needs and prototyping support models to enhance R&D capacity.

Despite the existence of pockets of deep expertise, there is not broad R&D capacity and talent in the social impact sector. Contributing factors include program based funding mechanisms, limited talent influx and partnerships with other sectors, among others.
The goal of this project is to explore different models to increase R&D capacity and supports for the sector. This includes examining current approaches to R&D, research on best practices for R&D supports (given the nuances of the social mission space), and testing a few distinct R&D support and capacity building models/interventions to arrive at solutions that can increase impactful R&D in Canada’s social impact sector.

ERVK as an ALS biomarker

The Endogenous retrovirus-K (ERVK) group are retroviruses which are found in human DNA and are linked to the disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Research has found that ERVK is more active in the brains and spinal cords of ALS patients. ALS is a disease that results in a patient’s gradual paralysis and for which there is no cure. As well, ALS is difficult for doctors to diagnose as there is no one test to determine if a patient has the disease. For this reason, I will be investigating the utility of measuring the levels of ERVK proteins in patient blood samples as an ALS biomarker. As ERVK is shown to be active in ALS, I predict that levels of ERVK protein found in a patient’s blood will be correlated to the severity of their disease symptoms. If this is the case, ERVK has the potential to be developed as a biomarker to help diagnose ALS earlier in patients and lead to earlier interventions and treatment.