Innovative Projects Realized

Universal ultrasound transmission pipeline and database development

Wosler’s mission is to “To improve accessibility and reliability of high-quality healthcare for all”. In order to achieve this we must be able to provide high quality imaging services to those in rural and remote areas. The ability to transmit high quality ultrasound images to a remote computer is an integral step for the development of systems that can support remote ultrasound services through traditional telecommunication or telerobotics. The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a universal system capable of transmitting and recording ultrasound data. The development of this system will allow Wosler to extend the reach of ultrasound services by enabling the continued development of a robotic ultrasound scanner as well as other telecommunication-based solutions. Additionally, the database that will be developed as a result of this project will be useful to Wosler over the long-term as it enables the ability to integrate artificial intelligence into our future work.

The Evaluation of Risk and Return for Community Impact Investments

The ‘Evaluating Risk and Return for Community Impact Investments’ projects seeks to engage one masters level student intern for one semester to work with the partners in designing a new evaluation tool or framework for the risk and return of community impact investments. The intern will gain an understanding of the investment policies and risk tools in place at the partnering organizations and will research how other organizations are evaluating the risk and return on impact investments. With this research, best practices will be summarized and an evaluation tool will be created. Vancity Community Foundation and Vancity Credit Union will benefit from this project, as they would like a more systematized evaluation tool for their own community impact investments.

Developing Standards of Procedure for Germline and Somatic Variant Interpretation for the Kids Cancer Sequencing (KiCS) Program at the Hospital for Sick Children.

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Documentation et analyse des enjeux et besoins d’une structuration de la représentation collective du secteur émergent de la baladodiffusion indépendante québécoise

Ce projet vise la documentation et l’analyse des besoins et modalités possibles de la structuration de la représentation collective du secteur de la baladodiffusion indépendante au Québec, secteur en émergence s’il en est, à travers à la fois des rencontres avec les acteurs et actrices du secteur et une étude de structures de représentation collective comparables implantées au Québec mais aussi des structures de représentation du secteur de la baladodiffusion sur des territoires tels que la France et la Belgique. Les objectifs de la recherche sont l’analyse de la mise en place d’une représentation collective du secteur de la baladodiffusion indépendante québécoise et la définition de ses modalités de succès et, plus largement, l’analyse de la manière dont peut se structurer de manière collective un secteur en émergence des industries culturelles et créatives ainsi que les rôles et besoins que doivent idéalement combler une structure de représentation collective dans un tel cas de figure.

AI-Driven Benchmarking Tool for Emission Reduction in Canadian Dairy Farms

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Our Mutual Friend: Developing collaborative tools to increase researcher & practitioner networking.

This project will create three online tools to help researchers initiate collaborations, decrease the hassles of project management during collaborations, and reduce the time spent applying for research grants. The first tool will help researchers find new partners for collaborative efforts by asking them a series of questions about their research interests and collaborative style, then suggesting collaborators and offering to initiate contact between researchers. The second tool will offer a simple, free-to-use, web-based tool that veers away from systems such as SharePoint. The main draw here is a low-learning curve “project management on one page” that can be used across disciplines. Finally, we will be creating a grant autocomplete form- one that pulls researcher information from their site profile, and populates a grant form with it. This serves to save time for researchers, since filling out one profile can then be applied to multiple grants.

Informer et former les étudiant·es à l’esprit critique face aux grands défis contemporains : changements climatiques et popularisation de l’IA générative

Le projet «Former à l’esprit critique face aux défis contemporains» se situe à un carrefour essentiel, où la crise climatique et l’avancée de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) redéfinissent notre société.

Le projet se propose de contrer l’influence des médias alternatifs et la baisse de confiance envers les médias traditionnels en s’appuyant sur des recherches récentes. L’ascension des médias alternatifs et la baisse de confiance envers les médias traditionnels, couplée à la prédominance des réseaux sociaux, ont en effet créé un terrain propice aux infox (Rae, 2021; Reuters Institute, 2022; Schimmele et al., 2021).

En collaboration avec l’Agence Science-Presse, il a pour but d’éclaircir les tactiques de désinformation sur les réseaux sociaux et d’évaluer l’impact de formations sur les pratiques informationnelles des étudiant.

Le projet se fixe plusieurs objectifs :
1. Synthétiser les relations entre les étudiants du postsecondaire et l’information.
2. Développer et tester une formation pour sensibiliser à la désinformation scientifique.
3. Documenter la réception de la formation et son impact sur les perceptions et pratiques des étudiants.
4. Établir une collaboration durable entre l’Agence Science-Presse et le milieu académique pour des interventions d’éducation.

Optimizing Biobanking Workflows: Evaluation of Laboratory Information Management Systems for Medium-sized Biobank

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Enhancement of stain remover product for dry cleaning purposes

Ensuring fabric longevity involves effective stain removal in both wet and dry cleaning. While wet cleaning is eco-friendly, it can damage fabric and consume resources. Dry cleaning, though superior for certain stains, poses environmental and health risks. This study seeks to enhance Vilimont Inc.’s oil and tar-based stain removers by 40-60%, with a focus on dry cleaning. We aim to incorporate less toxic additives, promoting efficiency, user-friendliness, and environmental responsibility in the industry.

Fresh Tracks & VR Product Development

Buffalo Buffalo is currently developing commercial Fresh Tracks, an innovative virtual reality game that combines skiing, music, and roguelike elements. This game offers an immersive VR experience where players navigate through mystical realms, guided by folklore narratives, and driven by a dynamic, original soundtrack. To bolster the development of Fresh Tracks, in addition to other concurrent projects at Buffalo Buffalo, we are seeking interns skilled in Art and Production. Their contributions will be instrumental in adding to the game’s visual aesthetics, production quality, and overall user experience. This collaborative effort is key to ensuring that Fresh Tracks not only stands out in the VR gaming market, benefiting Buffalo Buffalo through increased market presence and innovation in the burgeoning VR gaming industry.

Upgraded BSI – Strategy and Operations Intern

Upgraded uses software to help software, hardware, and venture-backed startups find and claim tax credits, grants, financing, technology savings & other hard-to-see opportunities. We’ve indexed thousands of savings opportunities to algorithmically recommend savings where they couldn’t find them before.

Upgraded aims to streamline client fulfillment processes using artificial intelligence (AI) to provide insights as well as streamline content and proposal creation. The core focus is ensuring that the content we generate is not generic but highly personalized and relevant to specific opportunities.

Upgraded plans to start with pilot process improvements that leverage
emerging AI technologies to draft applications, grants and proposals for clients. Using AI tools provides a rough draft on what the company should write when creating proposals, grants, applying discounts and drafting applications.

The overarching objective is to establish data collection processes, drafting methodologies and systems that enable executives and operations managers to execute proposals more efficiently with fewer resources. The ultimate goal of Upgraded’s approach is to create a comprehensive framework that includes data collection processes, drafting methodologies and systems.

These tools are designed to empower executives, and operations managers with the ability to
execute proposals with efficiency while requiring fewer human resources.

Using AI and ML to advance frailty detection and management

The combination of aging alongside chronic conditions such as primary biliary cholangitis leads to accelerated muscle mass loss that impacts physical function. At advanced stages, this is termed frailty. Frailty is one of the strongest predictors of poor clinical outcomes including death. In this project we will use multidimensional digital health data and artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to develop algorithms to predict frailty and tailor recommendations for frailty management.