Innovative Projects Realized

Seismic vulnerability assessment of reinforced concrete buildings subject to main shock and aftershocks

Detecting Malicious Insiders in Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud Computing represents a significant shift in how computing resources and services are being used. While it opens up an era of promising innovations, it raises significant security challenges which must be addressed for ubiquitous adoption of the technology. Malicious insider activities have been identified as one of the top threats faced by cloud environments. The purpose of the current MITACS proposal is to research and develop an insider detection scheme for cloud computing environment based on user behavioral activities and patterns. The new insider detection model will be implemented in a future release of BioTracker, which is the flagship product of Plurilock Security Solutions Inc., the industrial partner for this project.

Effect of operating parameters on particle migration velocity in wet electrostatic precipitators

Canada is committed to reducing the level of acid gas and toxic emissions from its coal burning or cement production plants. Since many airborne particles of less than 1 micrometer in diameter are toxic and hazardous for human respiratory system, special environmental concerns are directed towards controlling the emission of ultrafine particles. Wet and dry ESPs are more reliable particulate control devices due to higher collection efficiency, lower pressure drop, lower energy consumption and capability to operate over a wide range of gas temperatures. WESP technology has been developed to collect fine particulate, heavy metals and acid mist for industrial applications. The main objective of this project is to simulate a WESP with hexagonal collecting tubes, one of the major products of the company, and investigate the effect of different operating parameters and geometrical characteristics on precipitator performance for collecting submicron particles to improve the quality of product offerings. 

Leacock Museum National Historic Site – Conservation Study

The research project will investigate and analyze a range of existing site and building conditions that may require upgrading and/or conservation at the existing Leacock Museum, former home of Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock. The site is a National Historic Site, located in Orillia, Ontario. Research will be focused on: barrier free accessibility; exterior cladding; exterior historic woodwork condition; energy savings; and assessment of the site as a cultural heritage landscape. The research will provide +VG Architects, the sponsoring partner, site condition data and options for potential conservation strategies. This will assist +VG Architects in preparing a comprehensive planning document to assist in prioritizing future capital maintenance projects for this National Heritage Site.

Design of a Generic Framework for Custom Hardware Integration into the Android Platform

The design of a perfect hardware accelerator has always amounted to only a moderate victory if poor software support is provided. Hardware accelerators are found in everyday devices and are beginning to take hold in mobile platforms including video codecs to security based hardware solutions. The key to an effective hardware solution is the interface provided to it. Programmers use this interface to interact with the hardware and software while considering both design perspectives. A transparent mechanism will be described which adheres to existing design flows and respects legacy code. Elliptic Technologies Inc. looks to use this research project to further improve their excellent product integration directions and facilitate ease of use with their customers lowering development costs and time to market. 

Integration of ergonomic concerns and simulation capabilities into a company’s model, engineering design and development process

This project aims to assist a company in developing Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Human Factors modeling (HFM) capabilities. Simultaneously the project aims to explore the impact of alternative engineering designs with a Human Factors (HF) focus. These two aims will help understand factors that affect the uptake and application of the DES and HFM in work system design. The participating company is Research In Motion (RIM), which is a well known Waterloo, Ontario based telecommunication company. Better understanding and improved simulation capabilities will enable RIM to work towards optimizing its production process, increasing the efficiency of its production launch and, simultaneously, reducing risk exposure to workers through improved human factors. This study is part of a bigger study which aims to understand the barriers and facilitators that influence the integration of ergonomic concerns into a company's production model and development process.

Athlete and Coach Perceptions of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport

Currently, the staff of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) is uncertain of how Canadian athletes, coaches, and members of the Canadian sport community perceives their efforts and programs. This research will identify if the current policies and procedures for anti-doping rule violations reflect the CCES in a positive (advocate for athletes and Canadian sport) or negative (enforcer of rules) role. This proposed research looks to examine how stakeholders view the role of CCES and whether or not their perceptions of the CCES are positive or negative. Using qualitative research methods, including interviews and focus groups, this research will analyze how some of the CCES’s key stakeholders (athletes, sports administrators and coaches) perceive its efforts. The results will be used to inform the CCES staff how the organization is perceived by stakeholders in the Canadian sport system in order to reconcile its mission, values, and mandate with the perceptions of some of its key stakeholders. 

Grain Farmers of Ontario Internship: Assessment of plant to plant yield variation in Ontario corn fields

Differences in plant growth rate and development stage of corn plants within a field have been associated with lower yields. This plant-to-plant variability has been attributed to temporal variability in plant emergence, plant spacing variability, and post-emergent environmental stresses. The role that basic corn production practices such as tillage, crop rotation, and nutrient application play in plant-to-plant variability is understudied. A further understanding of this relationship can lead to further yield gains in the future. An internship with the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), an organization that represents all 28,000 grain farmers in Ontario allows me to apply this research to actual corn producers and members of the GFO to provide insights on complex corn production issues. It w ill also give me the opportunity to network with GFO members, employees, and industry partners by being involved in several industry-wide events throughout the summer.

Fluorescently-labeled nanoparticle target for imaging

There is currently a great need to develop better imaging probes for studying biological process. In this proposed internship, Drs. Pacheco and Hashir will be evaluated an aluminum coated alloyed quantum dot system. These quantum dots are brighter than organic fluorophores and with the aluminum surface coating, these quantum dots are less pervious to environmental factors. This internship is beneficial to Market Link Scientific because they have a w hole animal optical system and are evaluating possible applications of this instrument. The quantum dots are useful contrast agents for them and hence, the interns will assess the utility of these quantum dots probes in imaging applications.

Hybrid Solar Panel

The project’s main objective is a further reduction of dependence on fossil fuels in our everyday electric appliances. Fossil Fuels are used to generate electricity and they emit dangerous greenhouse gases to the environment which one of its consequences is the familiar global warming phenomena. By integrating a heat exchanger to the original solar PV system, the efficiency of the solar cells are maintained (17-19%), and with the additional usage of the waste energy to heat domestic water ( or HVAC), the total demand on fossil fueled electricity will decrease dramatically and thus, increasing the overall system’s efficiency and reducing the carbon emissions. Although the total product price will increase, but due to the extra savings through the usage of the waste energy, the payback will decrease from 7 years to 5-6 years.

Identifying and understanding the impact of competing goals on self-care compliance among patients with Chronic Heart Failure

Failure to follow self-care recommendations for chronic heart failure (CHF) not only threatens patients’ lives and well-being, but is costly to the health care system. Most approaches to increasing patient compliance are based on the assumption that individuals will adhere w hen armed  with information about “what” (to do) and “why” (they should do it). We argue that this approach misses the mark by failing to address the “so what?”, that is, the CHF and Non-CHF related goals and values that really matter to patients. The aims of this study are to 1) develop a clinic-friendly tool to assess patient goals and competing priorities, and 2) determine whether competing priorities predict patient compliance above and beyond level of patient know ledge. It is expected that findings will inform the design of future CHF self-management interventions and also help Sykes Assistance Services develop wellness-coaching programs for individuals in the workplace.

Real time prediction of a wind farm power output

Presently, wind farms in Canada have a capacity of 4,588MW while Newfoundland and Labrador have a capacity of 54MW. Canada’s wind resource is immense and well distributed in rural areas throughout the country and more wind farms are under construction. Utilities need information about wind farm output power few hours in advance so that they can plan operation of their thermal units. Therefore, prediction of wind farm output power production is essential for system operation. In this research project a simple model of a wind farm will be developed that will include models of wind turbines, variation in wind speed with height, variation in wind speed over the site area and the wake interaction between wind turbines. Using the simple model output power of a wind farm will be predicted. A computer code will be developed to do real-time calculations of wind power output using a High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC). Such model and computer code will be very useful for wind power producers and utilities.