Innovative Projects Realized

Development of Integrated Energy and Organic Waste Treatment Model for Rooftop Solar Greenhouse and Grocery Store in a Smart Community

S2E Technologies is a consulting company leading the design and implementation of two Smart communities, to be located in London and Guelph, Ontario. The aim of this research collaboration is to assist S2E with the modeling, design, and analysis of rooftop solar greenhouses integrated with grocery stores, anaerobic digesters and livestock barns. The analysis will consider advanced energy design measures capable of reducing energy demand and generating renewable energy on-site, such as from solar and biomass resources. The research will generate new knowledge and a methodology for modeling and design of rooftop greenhouses.

Making it Work! How to Effectively Manage Employees On the Move

Many employees commute long distances for work or work for long periods in different geographic locations than where they live. Organizations are increasingly called upon to manage these forms of employee mobility in ways that sustain and maximize organizational productivity, as well as employee, and family well-being. Yet there is very limited research to inform how these situations should be managed for positive outcomes. In this project we identify leading and promising human resource management policies and practices that enable organizations to manage mobile workers in ways that sustain productivity at the same time as employee and family well-being. The Vanier Institute of the Family has been a leader in research related to family well-being and this project expands the focus looking at organizational factors that influence family well-being when employees must commute long distances for work.

Developing Tools to Evaluate the Effectiveness of NGO WaSH Interventions in Low to Middle Income Countries

H2O4All is one of many small, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to address the needs of the 663 million who lack access to safe drinking water and the 2.4 billion who are without access to sanitation facilities in low- and middle-income countries. Unfortunately, evaluation of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) interventions are rarely a priority for NGOs like H2O4All whose projects are time and budget sensitive; this is concerning because without evaluation we cannot determine H2O4All’s impact on the communities in which it works. Therefore, we will evaluate H2O4All as a case study to understand the factors that influence the success of a WaSH intervention. In addition, we will produce a set of cost-effective tools that H2O4All and similar NGOs (both inside and outside the WaSH sector) can use to continually evaluate their work.

Can tree species mixing improve resilience and productivity of boreal forests?

The project aims at better understanding the role the stand composition may play in increasing resilience of the Quebec forests to future climate variability. We propose that by increasing the degree “mixing” of different species within forest stands, we can make forest more adapted to climatically unfavourable conditions, those frequency may increase in the future. We also argue that such increased degree of species diversity in the forest may positively affect its productivity. We will test these hypotheses and will attempt to understand the underlying mechanisms of observed effects by using an array of methods looking at short- and long-term records of tree growth, soil microbial composition of the soil, and the vegetation structure of the forest floor.

Épreuves d’État et épreuves de la Police en Tunisie

À l’aube des «printemps arabes» de 2011, une série de conflits impliquant les forces policières sont survenus en Tunisie, en Égypte, en Libye et en Syrie. Ces conflits apparaissent parmi les éléments précurseurs de ces révolutions (Ashour 2013). Est-ce qu’un mouvement de contestation qui remet en cause la légitimité de la police, comme la dénonciation de la répression policière, est une épreuve à la légitimité de l’État? Est-ce qu’une épreuve à la légitimité d’un gouvernement, comme un mouvement de contestations ou de violences politiques, pose une épreuve à la légitimité de la police, qui incarne un symbole et une figure visible de l’État? À partir du cas tunisien, nous tenterons de répondre à ces questions en examinant les épreuves qui remettent en cause la légitimité de l’État, de la police et leurs effets interdépendants.

Design and Implementation of Bio-Inspired Student Clustering Approach Based on Students’ Annotations on Web-based Reading Materials

When students read a book, they usually annotate important words in the text. Students may perhaps miss some important information while reading the book. If students are reminded about the potentially important annotations, they may achieve better academic performance later, in terms of having better marks for written exams, quizzes, and other learning activities. With an annotation system’s help, teachers can create
online reading activities for students and review students’ annotations on the e-text. This project aims to design and implement a bio-inspired clustering method. The proposed method can cluster students into groups according their annotation behaviours. The clustering results will be used by the annotation system to find content that might be important for students, but that, they did not annotate, and remind them to
review the content again. The expected outcome of the proposed method is to produce fast and accurate clustering results.

Accords de Partenariat Trans Pacifique et libéralisation du marché laitier: impacts économiques sur le secteur laitier canadien

Avec les derniers accords, en matière de politique commerciale canadienne, il devenait nécessaire d’analyser l’impact économique de ces accords sur l’industrie laitière en prenant compte les résultats des travaux déjà entrepris sur ce sujet. L’objectif général de notre étude est d’analyser l’impact des réformes commerciales suite à l’AECG (Accord Économique Commerciale Globale) et au PTP (Partenariat Trans Pacifique). A base des données de référence de l’année 2014, nous allons formuler et calibrer une fonction objective par les prix à partir de laquelle on fera des simulations numériques à l’aide du logiciel GAMS. C’est-à-dire, définir une relation fonctionnelle entre le prix et les principaux éléments susceptibles de l’influencer, ensuite introduire cette fonction dans le logiciel. Avec les différents scénarios résultants des reformes, nous allons bouger certains éléments de la fonction objective pour voir leurs impacts sur le prix. Nous analyserons les impacts à l’aide des résultats de la simulation sur le prix intérieur, la production canadienne de lait, le bien-être de divers groupes du secteur (consommateur, transformateur et producteur).

A Model-Driven Framework for Meta-Data Harmonization in Business Intelligence

Datasets obtained from different sources are often heterogeneous: they do not share a common internal structure, even though they are nominally about the same subject matter. This makes reporting against datasets difficult without laborious, manual efforts to clean and transform the data. This project will investigate the feasibility of an approach to abstract the harvesting of metadata from multiple content generated Business Intelligence (BI) reporting systems. The interns will leverage previous work on model-driven engineering tools and meta-data harmonization to create a generic application framework for systematic, automated, meta-data harmonization to support business intelligence reporting. This will allow business analysts and researchers to flexibly define BI reports that integrate data from many different data sources in a much more efficient manner. This will enable Mark 3 Research Inc. to develop and market new and improved tools and products for this market space.

Bow Valley Innovations Carbon Capture Technology

Using solids to trap carbon dioxide is an alternative to the conventional and expensive solution based method. The Shimizu group at the University of Calgary has developed an outstanding candidate solid for CO2 capture from flue gas streams based on laboratory studies. This proposal will expand the experience of three interns to bridge science to process and system level engineering while offering expanded professional experience through networking with Bow Valley Innovations, the patent licensee, and their partners.

Development of an Intelligent Mobile Personal Emergency Response Systems and Vital sign monitoring – Phase 2

Epic Safety is the research and development arm of Aban Security Systems Ltd., specializing in Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) and Tele-Health. To continue its innovations, the company is planning to grow its technical and manufacturing presence in Canada. As this is a highly specialized technical field, Epic has faced challenges in hiring the highly qualified personnel to further advance its technology, and hence, is working with Dr. Golnaraghi. The envisioned Mobile PERS includes a combination of sensors to record a user’s movement/activities and vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate etc.). A processor will be in communication with various sensors to intelligently monitor a user’s motion to determine if a notable event (such as a fall or a health problem) has occurred. In this proposal, the SFU team will look at design of the sensory system and testing the proof of concept to ensure its reliability of measurements.

Transitioning from a non-profit to a financially self-sufficient business model: Pathways, barriers, and strategies for bc211

bc211 is a non-profit organization that seeks to change its business model in the face of decreasing availability of traditional funding sources and increasing demand for its services. The research project will identify and assess various alternatives in which dual objectives can be met. Using mixed methods approaches and financial planning tools, this project will aim to develop a comprehensive plan. The project would serve as a valuable source for bc211’s future directions. From the student intern’s perspective, the project will offer unique research insights on characteristics of business model transitioning in the social service sector, an area that remains understudied. Additionally, the project offers significant professional development opportunities for the intern.

Research on cross platform mobile development

Project title: Research on cross platform mobile development

Sponsor or Orgnazition: WebTech Wireless Inc.

Supervisor: Qianping Gu

Intern: Maryam Hamidirad

The WebTech Wireless Company plans to provide vehicular management services on different mobile platforms. More specifically, the company is interested to explore different features of the web-based application to be run on mobile devices and also find methodologies to integrate the development platform of the vehicular management applications into different mobile platforms. We intend to explore different cross-platform methodologies and finding the optimal methodology based on the constraints of mobile platforms and fleet management systems.