Innovative Projects Realized

Visuospatial memory in active vision

Eye movements and visuospatial memory constantly interact to shape an efficient representation of the world. The behavioral link between eye movements and holistic scene memory has been extensively demonstrated, yet it remains elusive how visual item memory dynamically unfolds in active vision. Understanding the interplay between eye movements and memory, and identifying its neural mechanisms, is crucial for grasping why memory declines in older adults and those with neurological disorders. The project proposes, based on fMRI evidence, that gaze reinstatement—redirecting one’s gaze to previously observed locations, even without the original visual stimuli—triggers the recall of those visual items. The hypothesis will be tested with magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive high-resolution technique for probing neural activities and representations across the cortical surface. We plan to create a gaze-dependent visuospatial memory task that allows for precise control over experimental conditions, facilitating the examination of visuospatial memory. By integrating cognitive studies of eye movements with memory, employing eye-tracking and MEG techniques, and analyzing neural oscillations and decoding, our project aims to uncover the neural basis of how eye movements enhance memory retrieval. This research will pave the way for further cognitive and clinical research into the complex relationship between action and cognition.

Abdul Muhaimin Pandhiani – Proxure

The proposed project aims to enhance services at Proxure through research, strategy development, and marketing initiatives. By analyzing market trends, assisting with fundraising efforts, and refining marketing strategies, the project seeks to strengthen Proxure’s competitive position, attract investors, and increase brand awareness. Ultimately, these efforts will drive growth and success for Proxure in the competitive procurement industry.

Bridging the gap between diagnosis of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and prevention and/or early treatment of cardiovascular disease: a knowledge translation project

Our knowledge translation project aims to address knowledge and system gaps and missed opportunities for preventive medicine. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are associated with a higher risk of developing CVD, yet lack of patient and provider awareness and lack of system integration are barriers to providing preventative care and/or early treatment. Our project aims to bridge the gap between female-specific risk factors for CVD that manifest during pregnancy and the implementation of preventive care or early treatment as appropriate. Strategies include patient and provider education to underscore why this care gap matters as well as leveraging existing pathways to support patient navigation through the healthcare system and ensure pregnancy complications are captured and communicated back to the primary care provider. Preventive medicine leads to disease reduction, with lowered multimorbidity, polypharmacy and ultimately lower healthcare costs.

Stage en Design UX/UI – Système produits et « funnel » marketing

Le projet contribuera à actualiser et simplifier le système produit sur le site web de Carverinno Conseil pour le rendre plus intuitif et accessible, en intégrant son système à un plan marketing stratégique axé sur les formations en Design Thinking (ACTIVER), les sprints de stratégie (ORIENTER) et le UX Design Sprint optimisé à l’IA (ACCÉLÉRER). Notre hypothèse à valider est qu’en simplifiant les processus de vente en ligne et en offrant une meilleure expérience utilisateur, cela générera une augmentation significative des conversions et des ventes, contribuant ainsi à la croissance de Carverinno Conseil et au positionnement de l’entreprise dans son industrie.

Synthesis and Spectroscopic Characterization of Vanadium oxoComplexes for their Thermochromic Properties

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AI Improved Markerless Motion Capture For Dance

Motion capture is a technology to track human motion in 3D for replication with digital tools, such as mixed and virtual reality, video games, or movies. However, full 3D tracking requires the complex and finicky setup of multiple cameras that are prohibitively expensive to individuals or small studios. This is especially difficult with complex human movement such as in sports, dance, and more. While tracking with a single depth camera or webcam is possible, the quality of tracking is limited, and frequently tracked limbs will be lost due to fast 3D motion (e.g., a hand being obscured behind one’s back), which can ruin the capture, or require hours of tedious manual work to fix. Additionally, these cheaper capture methods are less stable, resulting in tracked motions appearing jittery, or jumping from position to position.

Antara Panja – ICTC

The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) is a national, not-for-profit workforce development organization focused on strengthening Canada’s digital economy. ICTC’s research team conducts labour market and workforce development research, as well as program evaluation for ICTC’s workforce development programs (run by ICTC’s programs team). ICTC intends to begin offering program evaluation services externally, and in particular to other organizations with STEM workforce development & education programs. In addition, ICTC intends to begin offering economic impact analysis as a stand-alone external service (previously a part of some research contracts). The Business Intern will work with ICTC to develop a strategy for differentiating our services, marketing our services, and finding the right opportunities to build a portfolio of first projects completed with clients.

Developing and implementing a marketing plan and strategy for TRICOAST Education.

TRICOAST Education Inc. offers products and services to assist educators identify students in need of assistance or additional services beyond prescribed instruction, even when students have not yet mastered the language of instruction. Our products and services include:
• access to our digital platform and the curriculum-based dynamic assessment (CBDA).
• online resources to complement the CBDA.
• the ability to produce individualized student evaluation reports containing quantitative results and qualitative observations, comments, and pedagogical suggestions.
• audio files of each student; and,
• certification training for CBDA users.

As a start-up company, we need to produce a detailed and comprehensive marketing plan. The general objective of the intern’s work will be to play a pivotal role in steering the company’s strategic direction by generating a comprehensive marketing followed by its implementation plan. After developing the marketing plan, the intern will set up its implementation process including developing key metrics to measure the marketing process involving stakeholders, like internal employees, contractual workers, external marketing agencies, ad platforms like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, as relevant. The intern will develop Excel-based tools to keep a strong handle on past, present and future of various data points and metrics of the marketing plan over time, so that the data can be meaningfully available to management and investors.

Investigating the association between head acceleration events and neurocognitive impairment in elite mountain bikers

While mountain biking is a sport of growing popularity among adolescents and adults alike, it is also notoriously injurious. Mountain biking is associated with high rates of head injuries, and exposure to sub-concussive head acceleration events. Despite this, limited research has investigated the extent to which mountain biking participation contributes to brain injury and cognitive impairment. Novel neuroimaging technology for Neurocatch allows for a standard, sensitive on-site evaluation of the potential neurophysiological changes associated with extreme sport exposure such as mountain biking. As the intern and industry partner are both avid mountain bikers, they are leveraging the novel neuro-imaging technology and access to the mountain bike community to better understand the neurological exposure of the mountain biking participation. The proposed research will investigate the associated neural and cognitive changes following a mountain biking run and explore how this relates to the number of head accelerations sustained by the mountain biker.

Decolonizing Museums: Deaccession, Curation and Spatial Design in Dialogue

This project is about making museums more open, fair, and inclusive. It focuses on how museums decide to remove certain artworks from their collections or re-introduce and contextualize artworks from a decolonized, anti-racist worldview, as well as the museum architecture and the exhibition spaces. Through comprehensive research, interviews with experts, and community discussions, we aim to develop a guide to help museums make these decisions in a way that engages community conversation, respects community values and challenges biases. This work may even inspire an exhibition showcasing the application of these new ideas. The project will contribute to improving the accountability of museums to their communities, fostering more inclusive and diverse representations in their collections. It’s about giving the community a voice in shaping our shared cultural heritage.

Atmospheric methane removal through selective hydrogen peroxide dispersal

Methane is a GHG that is at least 28 times more potent than CO2 and a significant contributor to ground level ozone (which impacts health and agriculture). Inversion Point Technologies will work with the intern to simulate methane removal from the air through addition of natural oxidizing agent in hydrogen peroxide. The intern will work to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and technological/economic viability and feasibility of the approach. By simulating this approach using state-of-the-art atmospheric models, we aim to learn how we can best enhance and use this natural process for climate change mitigation. The project will be conducted in partnership with Carleton University, and will improve our understanding of methane removal in the atmosphere, while demonstrating an innovative solution to reducing GHG emissions and ground level ozone.

Advanced manufacturing techniques for Stirling engine components

Ekstera has developed a new Stirling engine capable of converting sustainable heat sources into power at high efficiency. Their patented design requires new components with unique requirements that are complicated to
manufacture. Dr. Hosseini is the director of the Machining Research Lab at Ontario Tech University, with expertise in advanced additive and subtractive manufacturing. This project is a partnership to apply the manufacturing
expertise of Dr. Hosseini’s research team to develop the components necessary for Ekstera’s Stirling engine.
Ekstera will benefit from this manufacturing expertise to produce the components for a commercially viable Stirling engine that is easy to manufacture and scale. Ekstera can then use their technology to generate sustainable
electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.