Innovative Projects Realized

Feasibility and Initial Efficacy of Remote Home-Based CardiacRehabilitation— A Pilot Study

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is proven beneficial for patients with cardiovascular diseases. Currently, most healthcare systems in China provides limited CR program toward patients after the cardiac intervention. This is particularly true among the rural areas. Home-based cardiac rehabilitation (HBCR) is used to alternative center (hospital) based in many developed countries. In this proposed research, a pilot study will be carried out to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of using emergent mobile and information technology to deliver monitoring and feedback function in HBCR program. We aim at establishing the understanding the determinants of a successful home-based rehab program in terms of serviceability, reliability and adaptability of such mobile Health program in China. The findings from this pilot study are hoped to be compared with similar programs in Canada and other developed countries. The sensors used to monitor patients’ health indicators include Heart Rate (HR), Electrocardiography (ECG) and built-in geological sensors in smartphones. The rehabilitation programs will be customized according to the information collected from these sensors, and responses from the patient’s self-assessment. After the 3 months intervention, the participants’ health indicators and the program’s operational data are analyzed to assess the acceptability, feasibility and initial efficacy of the proposed HBCR program.

Stratégie de valorisation des techniques et technologies environnementales d’Écoboeuf

Peu de solutions sont accessibles aux agriculteurs pour adresser la problématique de l’adaptation et la lutte aux changements climatiques. Écoboeuf aspire à développer un portfolio de techniques et technologies propres applicables dans le contexte des régions périphériques boréales et à valoriser les réductions de gaz à effet de serres (GES) par la mise en marché de la production de ces fermes avec des marques alimentaires à valeur ajoutée environnementale (‘insetting’).
Le modèle de production d’Écoboeuf adresse simultanément plusieurs enjeux éthiques et environnementaux, ce qui résulte en une proposition de valeurs multifactorielle pour son produit. Cependant, les différents éléments de la proposition de valeur n’ont possiblement pas tous la même valeur aux yeux des consommateurs.
Ce projet vise à déterminer la meilleure approche pour capturer la marge de revenu supplémentaire atteignable par la commercialisation de produits alimentaires à valeur ajoutée environnementale. Une analyse de la valeur perçue des différents avantages du produit sera réalisée afin de cibler les composantes de la proposition de valeur ayant une forte propension à être payées des consommateurs. Les segments de clientèle sensibles aux éléments générant la plus forte propension de payer de la proposition seront ensuite identifiés et décrits. Une stratégie de distribution et de communication sera alors élaborée afin de choisir les canaux et messages les mieux adaptés pour ces segments de clientèle. Ce projet structura la stratégie de croissance d’Écoboeuf, participant ainsi à la transformation du secteur de l’élevage canadien et l’atteinte de ses cibles de réduction de gaz à effet de serre.

Empowering Literacy On-Demand with Interactive Multimedia

The project develops innovative delivery of beginning literacy lessons.
While learning to read and write stories of their own choosing, early learners have many urgent questions. Many of these questions have answers that can be easily explained using a multimedia demonstration. Children can access the answers independently, on demand, when the answers are in a digital repository with straightforward navigation.

In conjunction with outside educators and software developers, this project develops engaging multimedia explanations for Words, Sentences, and Texts, and tests the content with early learners, parents, and teachers.

Assessing the performance of an innovative IoT two-bin kanban “smart” shelve on a hospital’ logistics

While most of the research on RFID-IoT in healthcare sector focuses on mobile devices management and patient monitoring, this research contributes to our understanding of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to improve (internal) hospital’ medical supply logistics processes.
Although various replenishment-distribution point of use solutions are available in the market to meet the expanding workload, little is known about their real impacts on reducing costs, improving availability of medical supplies and driving better clinical outcomes. Additionally, with various competing solutions and supporting technologies, there is no single dominant model nor “best” replenishment distribution method. Managers are then wondering what is the “most appropriate” option for their use cases. The comparative analysis is not simple, since most of solutions are sold as proprietary solutions (lock-in licenses with vendors) with the underlying technological design, often presented at a high level by the vendors.
Following a Design Science approach, the purpose of this project is to develop an IoT two-bin kanban “smart” shelve replenishment system of medical supplies that can be used in a hospital nursing unit. This smart shelf combines various technologies including passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology and indicative led.
The originality of this project lies in combining RFID-IoT technologies and hybrid simulation modeling that uses data from a real project to explore the impacts of the technological solution on critical logistical business processes and its impacts on patient care as well.

Création d’un outil de modélisation géospatiale d’un réseau cellulaire

Networks, Economics & Strategy (NE&S) est une entreprise de conseil spécialisée dans les stratégies pour les secteurs des télécommunications et de la technologie. Ils possèdent une vaste expertise, allant de la planification des réseaux à l’analyse économique. Avec les changements rapides dans les télécommunications, une question clé est de savoir comment gérer automatiquement l’offre et la demande pour chaque réseau cellulaire. La solution proposée vise à développer un outil de gestion et de visualisation des réseaux communication, aidant ainsi à améliorer l’analyse et la modélisation géospatiale. Cet outil facilitera la prise de décision pour les décideurs du secteur.

Testing a new parameterization for barotropic mesoscale ocean eddies in an Arctic basin setup

Accurate modelling of the climate is of paramount importance in developing strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change. The ocean is a crucial component of the climate and simulating accurate ocean conditions in climate models is therefore extremely important. However, the energy required to reach a high degree of accuracy in modelling the ocean is large. Smarter ways of thinking are required to reduce the energetic cost of modelling the ocean while still retaining a high degree of accuracy. This project will test a new method for modelling the Arctic Ocean which has a low energy cost. We will compare the results of a highly-accurate, high energy cost model, with that of the new method to determine if this method can produce accurate results at a fraction of the energetic cost. This new method may be used in future climate models depending on the outcome of this project.

The genetics of species formation in Amazonian birds: the case ofthe Silvered Antbird

This project aims to study how species form in the Amazon using the Silvered Antbird as a model. This species has diverged into two morphologically divergent forms. Where these forms come into geographic contact, populations appear morphologically and genetically intermediate suggesting they form a hybrid zone. To investigate the extent of genetic mixing between these forms I will use a genome-wide sample of tens of thousands of genetic markers sampled between eastern and western forms where they come into geographic contact. This data will be used to compare patterns of genetic merging, and to search for genes that may be important in promoting species formation.

Reductive defunctionalization of biomass-derived polyols and lignin models using environmentally friendly silane reductants and a new and stable boron-based catalyst

There is a need for alternative and renewable methods to produce liquid fuels and commodity chemicals and decrease the world’s dependence on fossil resources. In this regard, the modification of simple, non-food (plant) biomass-derived chemicals is an important goal towards providing a sustainable access to high-energy molecules as potential fuels and other starting materials for the synthesis of drugs, agrochemicals, and other high-value commodity chemicals. The objective of this project is to apply and optimize a novel stable catalyst developed in the Hall Laboratory towards the breakdown of biomass-derived polyols like monosaccharides and lignin models, and evaluate its reactivity and selectivity to afford value-added chemicals under various reaction parameters. In particular, to maximize atom-economy, we will aim to optimize the reductive deoxygenation of unprotected monosaccharides. Hand in hand with this optimization, with the Oestreich Laboratory we will study the potential mechanism of action of any transformation that provides product in acceptable yield and selectivities, which will guide future improvements. This collaboration exploits recent fundamental discoveries towards applications of great importance to Canada and Germany.

Intermodal container allocation problem in rail yards

In this project, we propose to develop innovative methods to improve the efficiency of yard operations in intermodal terminals where containers awaiting to be loaded on the trains are temporarily stored. The management of yard operations involves allocating storage space to containers on the yard, and assigning cranes and/or other handling equipment to transfer the containers to the rail cars. The lack of proper planning and mishandling of containers can lead to large delays and significant rise in the operating costs. Thus a major challenge for the terminal managers, which we plan to address in this study, is to plan and co-ordinate the yard practices in accordance with the planned train schedules, and re-plan their operations quickly in events of last minute changes in the trains’ scheduled times.
Canadian National provides transport and logistics services through large intermodal terminals, and thus the proposed problem is very relevant for their operations. The main objective of the proposed study is to minimize the yard processing time and operating cost involved in the storage and transfer of containers, using sophisticated optimization based methods.

Application of AI for industrial Lidar object recognition

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The process of embedding sustainability throughout a global organization

This project aims to explore how organizations with global operations implement change initiatives for greater environmental and social sustainability. Specifically, we are interested in how employees from various company sites make sense of these change and enact initiatives and whether there are different patterns of sensemaking and enactment among the company’s global subsidiaries. When completed we expect this research to better equip companies pursuing major changes around sustainability issues by identifying potential sources of resistance or divergent interpretations

Laser stripping of Polyamide coating over Platinum thin wire conductors

Laser wire stripping is an emerging technology, and this project aims to develop a laser process to achieve adequate stripping of the polyamide insulation from the platinum wire. To optimize the process, the laser parameters (speed, power, and focus) must be fine-tuned. Post stripping, the project focus will shift to identifying the characteristics of the platinum owing to the thermal influence of laser processing. For this, Scanning Electron Microscopy shall be used to study the effectiveness of soldering. Also, tensile testing will be conducted on both pure platinum, and wire stripped platinum to benchmark the properties for the laser stripping process. Additionally, there is a need to design a Jig/Fixture together with a machine vision system to simplify the stripping process that can be operated by anyone at the partner organization with out requiring specialized skill set.