Innovative Projects Realized

Improving efficiency and complexity of reporting for epidemiological insights and disease trends

Globally, there have been challenges in pulling together data, analyses, epidemiological insights, and unusual infection disease trends into comprehensive and regular reporting, that support pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations with timely intelligence for decision making. BlueDot has the knowledge and expertise to bring together these insights in a highly visual, easily understandable regular reporting format, by leveraging proprietary and publicly available data. However, there are challenges in scaling across diseases and locations to meet the growing demand for this content, as well as limited resourcing to improve upon processes, analyses, and methods to deepen our insights and improve efficiency.
Through the previous MITACS project, BlueDot began developing the infrastructure for the regular reporting format, by automating data pipelines and repeatable analyses and processes; in this project the interns will be helping with continuing to build out automated repeatable analyses across diseases and locations and incorporate more complex analyses to meet the variety of needs of our clients.
This project has several challenges and opportunities that interns with subject matter expertise and experience with relevant data can help with and learn from. BlueDot has started to develop a foundation for the regular reporting project, and the epidemic intelligence team has previously greatly benefitted from student support. They can be helpful every step of the way – determining usability of new data sources for communication of disease trends, thinking about how the data can be used for generating actionable insights, producing these regular reports with support from senior team members, including more complex analyses, and improving the overall processes for report generation and automation.

Security Investigation and Solutions to Online Advertising Fraud Problems

The market share of online advertising, also known as Internet advertising, has been increasing dramatically in recent years. On the other hand, malicious behaviors, such as click fraud, have degraded the effectiveness of online advertising. Via fraud clicks, a considerable amount of revenues have been lost to fraud conductors. For instance, based on a report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, click fraud accounts for as much as 36% of all advertising clicks, which costs defrauded advertisers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Due to the complexity of advertising networks, it is challenging to combat the online advertising fraud problems. To understand the technical landscape, this proposal will first conduct systematic research to investigate the problems. Following that, the proposed research will develop a fraud detection scheme and integrate the fraud detection and partner organization’s leading software protection technologies. With these new technologies, the partner organization will be able to develop new products and services which go toward enhancing the security of online advertising.

Linguistic Cues for the Extraction and Synthesis of Speech in Extreme Noise

Malaspina Labs Inc. develops algorithms for enhancing speech in extremely noisy audio signals for real-time applications such as hearing aids and mobile devices. Many classical approaches to speech enhancement are not applicable to these domains because of severe hardware and psychoacoustics constraints such as far-field, single microphone use cases (no beamforming), <=10 millisecond latency between input and output (1/10th the time of a blink of an eye) due to bone conduction acoustic feedback, <=40 MIPs CPU processing requirements (1/100th of the processing power of a smartphone) due to battery life constraints, and <=100 Kilobyte algorithm memory requirements (1 millionth of the memory of a current generation smartphone) due to target device memory constraints. The proposed project aims to extend Malaspina’s proprietary algorithms by exploiting linguistic cues to infer or constrain the detection of speech components in extreme noise while respecting the constraints of the target devices.

Revitalisation socio-territoriale en contexte nordique (suite)

Le projet se poursuivra cet hiver dans la municipalité de Baie-Johan-Beetz, une petite communauté nordique d’environ 80 habitant·e·s située sur la Côte-Nord du Québec. Comme plusieurs villages éloignés, elle fait face à des défis importants : centralisation des services, pénurie de logements, vieillissement de la population et difficultés à attirer de nouveaux résident·e·s.
Depuis quelques années, la municipalité travaille à revitaliser son territoire grâce à différentes initiatives comme le développement résidentiel, le marketing territorial et des projets portés par la communauté. Toutefois, un manque de ressources humaines rend difficile le suivi et la mise en œuvre de ces projets.

Ce deuxième stage permettra de poursuivre le travail engagé à l’automne, en continuant de soutenir l’équipe municipale dans ses tâches quotidiennes (gestion du site web, archives, communication, etc.) tout en approfondissant l’analyse des projets de revitalisation. Cette nouvelle étape visera aussi à identifier des idées ou des partenaires inspirants ailleurs pour aider la municipalité à faire avancer certains dossiers.

Pour la municipalité, le stage représente un appui concret et un regard extérieur utile. Pour la stagiaire, c’est une occasion de renforcer ses compétences en géographie, en développement local et en collaboration avec un milieu nordique.

Imagerie THz multispectrale assistée par l’IA

L’INO (Institut National d’Optique), entreprise à but non lucratif spécialisée dans le développement de solutions optiques pour l’industrie manufacturière, souhaite bâtir une base de données structurée d’images THz annotées à partir d’échantillons de plastiques représentatifs de cas industriels. Les principales activités comprennent la fabrication d’échantillons de différentes épaisseurs (par impression 3D et à partir de matériaux bruts), l’intégration d’inclusions contrôlées, la réalisation de campagnes de mesure avec plusieurs configurations (fréquences, polarisation) sur ses équipements, ainsi que le développement d’outils d’annotation et d’analyse comparant des outils maison et commerciaux. Ces travaux permettront de relier directement les signatures spectrales et texturales aux types de plastiques et aux défauts.

Les avantages économiques et sociaux attendus pour INO sont multiples : d’une part, la base de données permettra à INO de prédire rapidement, lors des consultations avec de nouveaux clients, la faisabilité et la pertinence de solutions d’imagerie THz, évitant ainsi des expérimentations onéreuses et optimisant l’allocation des ressources. D’autre part, elle constituera un socle pour le développement de futurs outils de diagnostic assisté par l’intelligence artificielle, renforçant la compétitivité d’INO et soutenant l’innovation dans l’industrie du recyclage, de l’emballage et de la fabrication avancée.

Genetic control of Reproductive Longevity in Mouse and Validation of a genetic marker panel to predict Fertility and Longevity traits in Holstein Dairy Cattle

Reproductive Longevity (RL) is a complex biological trait under the control of many genes. In Cattle, RL is a key productivity factor, especially for dairy cows. The proposed research aims to identify RL-controlling genes in mammals using: 1) a unique model system, selectively-bred mouse lines that reproduce twice as long and have twice as many litters as matched control lines and 2) cattle (bulls) with High or Low genetic merit for Longevity. The project Partner, Performance Genomics Inc. (PGI), is applying whole genome mapping and sequencing technologies (outsourced) to generate complete genomic datasets for mice and cattle. This will result in a set of DNA markers that will be validated using DNA and data from 3,000 bulls. The internship project will apply bioinformatics tools and approaches to “mine” the genomics data with the goal of selecting and ranking candidates for genes and mutations responsible for RL in mouse and/or cattle. The end result for PGI will be commercial DNA Markers tests for RL for livestock breeding, initially for Holstein cattle.

Eddy-sea ice interaction in the Arctic Beaufort Gyre in two high-resolution ocean-sea ice models

The Beaufort Gyre (BG) is the largest freshwater reservoir in the Arctic Ocean. It is climatologically anticyclonic and governed by the Beaufort High. Its dynamics have a profound impact on the general circulation, and the possible release of freshwater has significant climate implications. The equilibrium state of the BG has been proposed to be governed by the combined role of surface wind forcing, eddy fluxes, and the ice-ocean governor. In the context of global warming, the sea ice in the BG has been transitioning toward a state of thinner and younger ice, making it more dynamic and susceptible to external forcing. Eddies are crucial and active players in the transport and mixing of heat, salt, and momentum. Our proposed work will employ large datasets obtained from two state-of-the-art km-scale ocean models to investigate eddy-sea ice interaction in the BG. This work will showcase how km-scale models can help understand eddy processes and the impacts of climate change.

Email and Marketing Assistant

Nature Bee is a Canadian-based company creating microplastic-free, sustainable cleaning products. As we scale, we are looking to strengthen our digital marketing efforts—particularly our email marketing, retention strategies, and performance analytics across channels.
This internship project will focus on developing a robust, evidence-based email marketing strategy using Klaviyo, alongside reviewing paid ads performance to improve full-funnel engagement. The intern will analyze Nature Bee’s customer and subscriber data to create refined audience segments based on purchase history, email engagement, demographic details, and customer lifecycle stage.
The intern will conduct a literature and competitor analysis of lifecycle marketing best practices for purpose-driven, direct-to-consumer brands, especially those targeting eco-conscious consumers. They will design and implement new Klaviyo flows such as welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase education, and customer win-back campaigns. A/B testing of subject lines, timing, creative content, and CTAs will be conducted to optimize performance.
In addition to email, the intern will collaborate with the marketing team to evaluate Meta and Google Ads platform data, identifying how paid campaigns influence email signups, conversions, and long-term retention. They will help build an integrated dashboard to report on key email and ad metrics such as open/click rates, revenue per campaign, CAC, and LTV.
Deliverables include a comprehensive email marketing playbook, clearly mapped automation workflows, campaign test results, performance dashboards, and recommendations for ongoing optimization. This work will directly support Nature Bee’s growth goals by driving customer engagement and revenue while maintaining the brand’s commitment to sustainability and transparent communication.
Beyond this work, they will be supporting our marketing and operations team with other creative work, production support to gain a deeper understanding of the work we do, support with marketing channels from our creative director and communicating with sales support as well!

A Novel Torque Measurement Technique Based onPiezoelectric Sensors

In this project, a novel torque measurement technique based on piezoelectric sensors will be proposed to overcome the constraints posed by traditional methods such as strain gauges, magnetic pickups etc. Specially designed disks which are connected to the sensor will be mounted on the shaft. The proposed method will be used to compare relative twist in the shaft based on the phase difference between the disks. The angle of twist is then correlated to the torque applied. The proposed technique can be used as a low cost solution for torque measurement or rotating components. Finally, it is expected to publish the novel piezoelectric sensor based torque measurement technique in peer reviewed articles.

Advancing Climate Finance and Social Entrepreneurship

Through this project, interns will support organizations and initiatives advancing climate finance and social entrepreneurship in the Victoria and British Columbia ecosystem.

Debugging ML via Feature-guided Analysis: Analyzing Neural Network Robustness

Neural Networks (NN) use a set of individual units (neurons) connected together to learn a specific behavior from a dataset. For example, NN excel in classification tasks where given a dataset labelled with presence or absence of a feature in each entry, they are able to detect the feature presence on new inputs. This technology has been applied in many fields, including automotive, aerospace, medical and others.
A significant drawback of NNs is that their behavior is unknown, since it only depends on the training data and it is not understandable to humans. This significantly limits their applicability, especially in safety-critical fields. For this reason, NN interpretability is a growing field of research. Feature-Guided Analysis (FGA) is a technique that extracts rules from NNs and can help explain how the values assumed by individual neurons affect the outcome of the network.
This project aims at replicating the results of this technique on a new image-based dataset and improve upon the limitations of the existing technique. We further aim at employing this technique to analyze the robustness of the network, providing engineers with a description of which portion of the NN are more susceptible to perturbations on the inputs.

Exposing the Invisible – Designing with the Uncertainty of Wind

The objective of this project is to connect architects and wind engineers early on within a project so that affects associated with wind such as pedestrian comfort and building strength may be maintained from the start of a project. Rather than making post-construction modifications to a building through the costly use of screens, covers or even redesign, favorable wind conditions could be achieved through the collaboration between architects and wind engineers during the initial stages of design. This would reduce the dangers of increasing wind speeds on ground level, the costs to redesign or add in components and finally save time on construction. Instead of sealing ourselves inside buildings, we could begin to understand wind flows and expand our ideas of what architectural form, technologies and experiences could be created. The idea is to not only promote the goals of safe environments from RWDI but to also spread the word and clarify the importance of wind to a larger audience so that wind can play a larger role in the development of our cities.