Innovative Projects Realized

Tuktu – Peer to Peer Elderly Caregiving platform

As the world gets smaller, the distance between families grows larger. An increasing number of people are living far away from their loved ones, either in another city or in a different country altogether. Many leave behind their parents and other elderly relatives, with the distance making it next to impossible to provide support for their aging loved ones. The COVID pandemic has exacerbated this problem further and left the senior community particularly vulnerable leading to situations where the elderly not only lack the social support structures normally provided by their kids, they also experience increased loneliness and uncertainty because of the physical distance from their loved ones. Additionally, children and loved ones with such barriers often experience stress and anxiety from not having adequate information on the condition of their loved ones. This project supports the creation of a supportive community and encourages advancement in non-formal senior care using a location-based mobile application (and web platform) that matches the elderly to part time (non-formal) care givers for errands and companionship. This project will fulfill both a need a need to improve access to of services to vulnerable populations and provide an opportunity for income for those facing economic hardship.

Polyamide-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for High Performance Energy Harvesting & Self Powered Sensing Applications

Fast development of more powerful and smaller mobile electronics suggested the need for development of sustainable energy resources as well as innovative sensor systems with improved accuracy and reduced power consumption. Moreover, utilizing appropriate sustainable energy resources would be beneficial for environmental protection. Such demands resulted in a great interest toward development of the triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) to be used in future electronics. Triboelectric Nanogenerators are known as a robust system for mechanical sensing and mechanical energy harvesting by converting the mechanical energy into an electrical output. Given this background, the objectives of the proposed project would be design and development of polyamide TENG material with improved performance. This can be achieved by producing the TENG materials with enhanced effective surface morphologies, as well as improved dielectric and capacitive properties. Furthermore, with respect to the BASF goals, this project would be beneficial both scientifically and economically to the partner organization.

Privacy-preserving Federated Learning Algorithms and Dashboarding to enable COVID-19 health analysis

This research project will enable Krate Distributed Information Systems Inc. (Krate) to provide two software as a service (SaaS) cloud products that will integrate with the distributed computer platform of fellow startup Distributed Compute Labs (DCL) to aid COVID-19 researchers. DCL’s distributed computer is in use by scientists and researchers across Canada (this company’s product was approved by the Government’s “Help Canada Combat Coronavirus Disease” fast-track program). The two services that are being researched as part of this project are (1) Privacy-preserving artificial intelligence (A.I.) and (2) Privacy-preserving dashboard. Research outcomes of these studies provides services to COVID-19 health researchers that enables them to collaboratively focus on their research without worrying about protecting the participant’s data privacy.

Validation of a Computer Vision-Based Basketball Training Application

The proposed research project aims to advance the development of a novel basketball training application catered to youth basketball players. The prototype application designed by Pipeline Studios Ltd. uses machine learning to record and track youth basketball performance in a fun and entertaining atmosphere. The research project is designed to pair experts in human movement and mobile technologies with experts in computer science and youth content (Pipeline Studios Ltd.) to expand the development of this innovative system. Specifically, this project will examine the current validity of the prototype application and support the development of new performance metrics through the collection of gold-standard high-speed camera and wearable sensor data during shooting drills for youth and young adult basketball players. In doing so, this research collaboration will be foundational in both evaluating and improving the performance of the prototype application which is poised to support the development of youth basketball in Canada.

Agroecology and Food Security: The role of Community Seed Banks

This research represents the evolution of an existing partnership between SeedChange and Food: Globally Embedded, Locally Engaged (FLEdGE), a SSHRC Partnership Grant project conducting community-based research on sustainable food systems. The intern will work with these partners to explore the role of community seed banks in contributing to seed security and thus result in increased understanding of agroecology and food sovereignty. Through primary and secondary research, this project aims to explore the successes and limitations of community seed banks in order to expand the role of seed security and agroecology in in Canada. The outcomes will benefit SeedChange by increasing their research capacity, assisting in data analysis and knowledge dissemination while also building connections to researcher and policy-maker partners through FLEdGE. Agroecology has the potential to transform Canada’s food system to be more healthy, equitable, and sustainable, qualities which are increasingly important for the longevity and success of Canadian agriculture.

Wirelessly COVID-19 Patient Tracking and Risk Assessment Using Edge AI Platform

The ability of the health system to manage a massive influx of patients is based on the combination of four factors: the personnel, the equipment, the physical spaces and the system in place. A combination better known in jargon as the 4 “S” (staff, stuff, structure / space, system). A fifth factor that is often misunderstood is synchronicity. With great adaptation to the workspace and team structures, a newly trained staff with new equipment, and a system of critical processes that evolve according to the evolution of the environment and the healthcare system status, synchronicity is essential. This synchronicity requires real time data and automations to enable already pressured teams and a stressed healthcare organization to adapt to unforeseen requests and needs.

In this project, we want to rapidly assess the risk of COVID-19 infection of people living in a building or healthcare facilities through analyzing their distance to other people who might or might not have been in contact with COVID-19 patients. This will be achieved with the help of wireless data collection, and artificial intelligence algorithms running on the hardware and software platform located within or in proximity to the building.

Modelling COVID-19 in humanized lungs ex vivo

The outbreak of COVID-19 has devastated the whole world. The conventional drug-discovery-pipeline to develop a new drug for this novel disease does not fulfill the immediate demand for a therapy. The scientific outcomes of in vitro models do not recapitulate the physiological conditions and in vivo models are not yet operational. Therefore, there is a need for a robust platform to undertake extensive pre-clinical studies to rapidly provide a thorough understanding of any pharmaceutical agent of interest prior to proceeding to clinical trials. We have developed humanized lungs that previously demonstrated promising results when tested for ventilation induced injuries and other lung destructive lung diseases. Using the same principals enable us to model COVID-19 in humanized lungs, which will closely resemble COVID-19 acute respiratory syndrome. Our model will enable rapid but comprehensive studies in the efficacy and mechanisms of putative drugs for COVID-19.

Leveraging a social learning space for disability sport to mitigate the impact of Covid-19

The project aims to understand and support Canadian wheelchair curling leaders (i.e., coaches, athletes, and sport administrators) to return to sport and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Bringing coaches together virtually and educating them to provide athlete support remotely can have a positive effect on the sport landscape post-pandemic. The intern will identify the sport gaps and strengths and align Curling Canada’s resources and goals with provincial return to play guidelines. The research activities include conducting interviews with stakeholders, analyzing the data, writing both research and applied reports for knowledge translation. The applied learning activities involve nurturing the social learning space based on the needs of the stakeholders as per the research activities. The expected outcomes are facilitating the communication between wheelchair curling leaders by providing a social learning space and publishing of two papers in peer review journals. The project will inform other Canadian disability sport organizations.

Positive Youth Development and Youth Sports during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The goal of the project is to understand how athletes have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through online surveys and interviews, the researchers hope to learn about the way
the pandemic. They also want to know what athletes are doing to cope and how their families and coaches are supporting them. Study findings will guide the partner organization in their development of holistic recommendations and automated tools optimized through artificial intelligence. In turn, these tools will be used to support athletes, families, coaches and sport organizations return to play in the post-pandemic era while prioritizing physical and mental health.

PCR lab-on-chip system for rapid and sensitive identification of SARS-CoV-2 infected case

There is an urgent call for development of fast and sensitive diagnostic tools for early and on-site detection of infected individuals for containment of the current COVID-19 outbreak. These tools should also require minimal training procedures so that personnel with different backgrounds can run them on-site and get accurate data in short periods of time. In response to this need, here through an interdisciplinary research we aim to develop a novel, portable PCR lab-on-chip system to detect infected individuals with SARS-CoV-2 (in replacement of sending samples to specific labs for analysis, which may take days). It is noteworthy that the cost of the tests via the proposed system is estimated to be about $3/test, i.e. significantly lower than current detection methods. For the new tool, we are proposing to use self-collecting, non-invasive saliva sampling, which can be achieved even at individuals’ homes.

Development of the early immune response assay in saliva

The current coronavirus outbreak highlights the importance of point-of-care (POC) rapid screening tools to identify and understand COVID-19 spread within the population. As countries work on flattening the disease curve, it is anticipated that billions of COVID-19 tests will be required for the next 12-24 months. Also, it is widely understood that the next pandemic will not be a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when”. To address this urgent need, we have partnered with Sensoreal Inc., a Montreal-based biotech company, to develop a rapid multiplex test based on their proprietary microfluidic liquid-handling technology. The envisioned product consists of a customizable, analyzer, and disposable microfluidic cartridge. Such a highly flexible liquid handling platform miniaturizes and automates existing laboratory procedures suitable for the broad range of rapid testing kit applications. This innovation will allow fast responses to future epidemics using similar technology to enable a global strategy that prevents an out of control pandemic.

The Impact of Sustained Time in Human Care on the Migratory Behaviour of the Endangered Loggerhead Shrike

Our research will assess the degree to which variation in migratory behavior in Loggerhead Shrike is altered due to sustained periods of captivity. Information will be obtained from a captive population of Loggerhead Shrike. Behaviour of captive birds will be recorded on video cameras and analyzed to determine the level of migratoriness displayed by differently aged birds. The pedigree (i.e. relatedness) of each bird will be used for analyses of heritability of migratory behaviour. By working within a species, our experimental design will control for differences in dispersal ability inherent among species.