Innovative Projects Realized

Extraction de vocabulaire structure pour I’etablissement d’une politique deretention et de controle de courriels

Le projet consiste :!l extraire, a partir d’un Ires grand vOlume de courriels, un vocabulaire

structure qui pourra etre mis a profit pour I’elaboration d’une politique de retention et de

controle. Plus precisement, des methodes seron! developpees pour I’extraction d’un

ensemble de termes pertinents puis, dans un deuxieme temps, I’ensemble des relations

pertinentes dans lesquelles ces termes sont impliques. Les informations extrai!es seran!

mises en correspondance avec les concepts contenus dans une base de connaissances

existante, permettant un enrichissement du vocabulaire extrait avec toutes les possibililes

d’inferences qui y sont associees.

Improved Industrial Sustainability through Residual Redistribution andRecapture of Value from Underutilized Streams

To maximize usage of residuals and underutilized product streams at Port Hawkesbury Paper (PHP), this investigation is conducted with eco-industrial parks in mind, and a goal of increasing industrial sustainability. The streams investigated could act as a supplement to PHP’s current processes or an external feedstock for a collaborative relationship through waste as a form of currency. Inventory of potential available residuals, streams, and energy sources will be produced and evaluated as well as trial scale operations of potential projects (aquaculture, soil amendments, etc.). Overall the formation of an industrial symbiosis could be created not only locally, but the information gained from this study could act as a guide for other industries globally in the pursuit of industrial sustainability.

Searching for Supernova Neutrinos in the nEXO Experiment

nEXO is a planned rare nuclear decay search in xenon-136. The experiment will tell us whether the neutrino, somewhat like a charge-less and extremely light electron, and its antiparticle are identical. However, nEXO has extremely low backgrounds and thus is sensitive to a lot more than just decays in xenon-136. Core-collapse supernovae are stellar explosions that signify the birth of either a neutron star or black hole. In our galaxy, we predict to have around two per century. When the star collapses onto its core, it emits a huge burst of neutrinos which should be detectable by the nEXO experiment. These neutrinos will give us lots of information on both neutrino and supernova physics, both of which are poorly understood and difficult (rare) to observe. This project aims to identify the expected signals from the supernova neutrinos in nEXO, thereby recording the data for many years to come.

Carbon prepreg filaments for 3D printing high performance parts

There has been an extensive growth in additive manufacturing, 3D printing, over the past couple of years. At the moment, pure polymers are mainly used for manufacturing parts and they yield low strength and stiffness, not suitable for load-bearing products. The use of carbon fiber composites in 3D printing can significantly improve structural properties. Currently, there is no commercial 3D printing head capable of printing with carbon fiber prepreg filaments. A 3D printing head will be custom-built to accept these filaments and produce parts with high strength. If this project is successfully completed, Teijin Carbon can bring high performance materials to the 3D printing market. Canadian companies involved in 3D printing will benefit from this material and can manufacture structural parts to be used across wide range of industries. Aerospace, automotive, oil and gas are some examples.

Model based optimisation of operational level harvest planning and integration with tactical level plans: Towards the improvement of planning process performance

In this project, computer based models will be developed to support operational harvest planning suitable for the use by a large forest products company operating in British Columbia, Canada. The models aims to enhance decision making processes related to equipment/crew allocation, scheduling, transportation and vehicle routing. Findings of this project will have the potential to improve overall decision making in the forest industry, enhance the speed at which information required for decision making becomes available, support companies with robust estimates of consequences of various management decisions at operational and tactical levels, decrease costs and finally improving company’s competitiveness.

New Acoustic Insulation Meta-Material Technology for Aerospace

Sound pressure level in aircraft cabin are similar to a noisy work place. One of the most disturbing noise for passengers is related to the engine fan noise during take-off and approach. This noise is mainly tonal (i.e., at specific frequencies) and in the low frequency range (below 500 Hz) – see figure below. Reducing this noise for the comfort of passengers is an important and challenging issue in aeronautics. One way to reduce cabin noise is to use efficient thermal acoustic insulation blankets between the interior trim panel and the exterior shell. However, conventional acoustic materials (ex.: glass wools, foams) have reached their limits in terms of sound proofing, and non-conventional ones, such as metamaterials, need to be industrialized.

Understanding mixed-severity fire regimes, their dynamics and their resilience to climate change in the southern Alberta Foothills – Year two

Mounting evidence shows that boreal and mountain forests are not solely driven by high severity fires that kill most of the above-ground vegetation (i.e. stand-replacing fires). Indeed, wildfire severity can be highly heterogeneous, leading to spatially complex forest landscapes, with multiple species and uneven ages. Many existing fire dynamics models do not explicitly consider the complex interactions and feedbacks between fire, vegetation and climate, which drive mixed-severity fire regimes. Yet such a model is crucial both for immediate landscape management and to manage for climate change. This project aims at building a spatially explicit, landscape dynamical model of mixed severity fire regimes using the SpaDES (SPAtial Discrete Event Simulator) framework. We will build upon an on-going Mitacs Accelerate project, during which model development and data compilation have been initiated, and take it further to consider climate change impacts on wildfire patterns and vegetation dynamics, but also changes in ecosystem stability and resilience. Our mixed-severity fire (MSF) model will be calibrated and validated on a study area in the southern Alberta Foothills, where evidence of MSF regimes exists and is being investigated further by another Mitacs Elevate project that will supply data for model calibration and validation.

Understanding mixed-severity fire regimes, their dynamics and their resilience to climate change in the southern Alberta Foothills

Mounting evidence shows that boreal and mountain forests are not solely driven by high severity fires that kill most of the above-ground vegetation (i.e. stand-replacing fires). Indeed, wildfire severity can be highly heterogeneous, leading to spatially complex forest landscapes, with multiple species and uneven ages. Many existing fire dynamics models do not explicitly consider the complex interactions and feedbacks between fire, vegetation and climate, which drive mixed-severity fire regimes. Yet such a model is crucial both for immediate landscape management and to manage for climate change. This project aims at building a spatially explicit, landscape dynamical model of mixed severity fire regimes using the SpaDES (SPAtial Discrete Event Simulator) framework. We will build upon an on-going Mitacs Accelerate project, during which model development and data compilation have been initiated, and take it further to consider climate change impacts on wildfire patterns and vegetation dynamics, but also changes in ecosystem stability and resilience. Our mixed-severity fire (MSF) model will be calibrated and validated on a study area in the southern Alberta Foothills, where evidence of MSF regimes exists and is being investigated further by another Mitacs Elevate project that will supply data for model calibration and validation.

Towards the development of a bone substitute-based targeted drug delivery tool to treat bone metastasis

We aim to develop human bone extracts mixed with commercially available bone putty and prepare customized 3D print materials, both of which are infused with anti-cancer drugs. These bone substitutes could be used to fill and stabilize the large empty spaces and to locally deliver anti-cancer drugs that kills any remaining tumor cells and promote bone healing following tumor resection in patients with bone metastasis. We also aim to establish a 3D bone metastasis-like model that will be used to test the drug delivery from bone substitutes. J & J could adopt and manufacture these new treatment modalities and commercialize them for hospitals to treat patients with bone metastasis.

Multilingual Semantic Similarity Engine

To communicate with their end users, businesses regularly produce written documents such as letters, notices, statements, etc.., in various languages. A set of rules are usually used to ensure that information in these documents is ‘correct’ and consistent across languages and communication channels. However, with the increasing volume and variety of information being sent out to clients, it becomes difficult to preserve the semantics of client messages across vocabulary and language variations. This project aims at creating algorithms capable of measuring semantic similarity of two text documents regardless of the natural language being used for each document. The set of similarity algorithms must scale with the size of the corpus being used.

Next-generation antibody drug for immuno-oncology treatment: anti-TIM3 antibody development

Unprecedented advances have been made in the treatment of cancer through the use of antibody against immune checkpoints, priming immune system instead of targeting cancer, with approval of several antibodies for multiple cancer types. However, so far we are merely seeing the tip of the iceberg because responses to this form of therapy are not universal.
Next-generation antibody drug is needed. TIM-3 negatively regulates immune system and is one of the next generation targets. We have generated 13 clones of TIM-3 antibodies, potentially can be anti-tumor drug. Here, a serial of experiments in biochemical, cellular, and animal models experiments are proposed. Evolution of this understanding will ultimately help guide treatment strategies to enhance therapeutic responses.

Research on the Social and Ecological Impacts of “The Thingery” Community Sharing Platform

The Thingery Sharing Inc. is the logistics provider and parent organization of five co-operatively owned community-level goods lending libraries known as Thingeries located throughout the Lower Mainland of BC. As a data-intensive enterprise, Thingery Sharing Inc. has the potential to track the social and ecological impacts of community level goods sharing. However, the existing literature provides insufficient guidance on how to structure indicators of social impact in the newly emerging sharing economy. This project will use social impact research to identify and understand the impact that a Thingery has on the social connectivity and ecological footprint of its members. It will analyze these findings to develop a set of metrics that can be incorporated into Thingery Sharing Inc.’s information systems for ongoing analysis and planning.