Innovative Projects Realized

A Feasibility Study for Nature-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal at Nova Scotia Power’s Hydroelectric Facilities

“THIS IS A GENERIC TEXT PUT IN PLACE AS THERE WAS NO PROJECT OVERVIEW”

Biomechanical indicators of athlete performance, mental readiness, and injury prevention.

In simple terms, this project aims to study how a person’s body movements and mental state affect their physical performance and risk of getting injured. Interns won’t test collect data themselves but will use existing data from videos (motion capture) and surveys. They’ll use computer tools to find patterns and connections between the factors they analyze. The goal is to understand how a labour worker’s strength, mental focus, and movements are linked to avoiding injuries and career longevity. This information can help health & safety officers make smarter training plans and programs to keep workers safe and improve their performance. Steps have and will continue to be taken on behalf of Parados and the University of New Brunswick to keep the study participants information private and safe.

Addition of a software estimation capability to the SimSE educational software game

Estimation of software projects efforts is one of the early management tasks in a software initiative and a particularly challenging one. To train software project managers, simulation tools based on games concepts and technologies have been used successfully. However, available educational simulators do not tackle this first critical task in a software project, that is the estimation of the software project effort. This R&D project will add a
software estimation capability to an educational software used in software project management courses. It will integrate the COSMIC – ISO 19761 standard on software functional size measurement as well as software
estimation models. This project will integrate many concepts and techniques from the project management body of knowledge and the software engineering literature.

Network Facility Location for Eco- and Cost-Efficient Chemical Supply Depots Supporting Municipal and Industrial Water Treatment

USP currently works with storage facilities in a manner akin to a broker network, relying on numerous third-party locations for freight-in and warehousing. USP is considering a strategic revision of its supply chain dynamics, with the intention of optimizing their current supply network in an effort to become more sustainable and cost effective. USP is also considering potentially generating more in-house control over warehousing and distribution processes. In determining the best way to re-imagine their supply chain network, the partner organization is seeking assistance through the MITACS project to optimize their operations and create a more sustainable method of growing their operations. Ideally, given the ‘spread-out’ nature of USP’s customer base, the company will seek to find methods of accounting for uncertainty within their logistics and anticipate the growing complexity of the North American supply chain. Beyond a potential restructuring of its supply chain network, USP manages a growing network of customers. A constant question posed by the organization is how to forecast future demand. With an ever-growing customer base, the equal desire of marketing and logistics to anticipate future-state trends provides challenges as well as significant opportunity for the company.

Effet de la contamination sur les plantes lors de leur utilisation pour la phytofiltration du lithium

L’extraction et le traitement du lithium, qui est utilisé en grande partie pour les batteries de voitures électriques, posent des risques pour l’environnement, car ces activités peuvent avoir comme conséquence l’accumulation de
produits toxiques dangereux et de lithium en tant que tel dans les écosystèmes avoisinants. Le Québec possède des réserves importantes de spodumène, qui est le minerai de lithium le plus abondant au monde, et supporte
activement son extraction afin de stimuler l’économie. Le lithium qui se retrouve dans l’environnement et les eaux est non seulement toxique pour l’homme, ayant des effets délétères sur plusieurs organes, il est aussi toxique
pour les plantes, pouvant causer des dommages oxydatifs et une diminution du taux de croissance. Par conséquent, il est pertinent de se questionner sur les effets potentiels de l’exploitation minière du lithium sur l’environnement et la flore Québécoise en particulier. L’objectif général du projet proposé est d’étudier les effets des activités minières liées à l’extraction du lithium sur les plantes en 1) développant de nouveaux protocoles
d’analyses; 2) élucidant les mécanismes biochimiques de la réponse des plantes au lithium et 3) en caractérisant les conséquences de l’extraction du lithium sur l’environnement avoisinant une mine.

Design of an adaptable, customizable, and multi-user microfluidic process platform for fluidic applications

This NSERC Alliance MITACS grant brings together a world-renowned semiconductor micromanufacturing industrial leader Teledyne Micralyne, and a microfluidic device design and process development researcher to develop wafer-scale and versatile microfluidic fabrication processes adaptable to major microfluidic applications. It will provide a unique research and training opportunity for HQPs to enhance their professional and technical skills in the emerging fields of microsystems, semiconductor fabrication, instrumentation, and microfluidics through closely working with industrial leader.

Viewer-Centered Intelligent Advertising System for Bell Media

In this project we will develop an intelligent advertisement system for Bell. First, we try to better understand each customer’s preferences through the content they watch. In order to achieve this, we extract context attributes from the media content that a customer watches. The context attribute can be extracted by analyzing the video, audio, and the metadata. We then correlate these attributes with different product groupings such as retail, travel, insurance, etc. We establish these correlations by running focus groups, crowd sourcing and using publicly available data on product group spending as of function of the demography. This level of personalization will not only improve user satisfaction but also provides Bell Media with a more effective advertising platform, ultimately leading to increased engagement and revenue.

The Development of Solid-state Membrane for High-Performance Solid-State Li Batteries

As a leader in the production and use of renewable energy, Canada is committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. In addition, Canada will ban the sale of fuel-burning new cars and light-duty trucks from 2035. To reach this goal, it is very urgent to develop new energy storage technologies for various applications, including electric vehicles (EVs) and grid energy storage. Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are the most popular battery systems, however, the technology can further benefit from improvements in terms of safety, lifespan, and energy density. Accordingly, solid-state batteries (SSBs) have recently emerged as a promising alternative energy storage system due to their ability to overcome the safety concerns presented by the flammable liquid electrolytes used in traditional LIBs. Benefitting from the use of solid-state electrolytes, SSBs can achieve greater energy density, longer-lasting performance and enhanced safety by replacing flammable liquid electrolytes. However, the manufacturing of SSLBs with high energy density, high performances, and low cost is now the bottleneck for practical application. To realize the energy density of the SSBs, the fabrication of thin SSE membranes with high ionic conductivity, strong mechanical properties, and interfacial compatibility is key.

A comparison of dairy with plant-based alternatives in seniors. Clinical study.

Our objective is to compare the effects of fluid milk (2% and lactose-free) and a simulated milk beverage, with plant alternatives to dairy on management of insulin resistance in older adults 60-75 years.

Dairy foods have a unique matrix and are a rich source of high-quality protein, healthy fats, and essential nutrients. Despite this, consumption of dairy (fluid milk, cheese as well as yogurt) in Canada has declined since 2004, particularly in the adolescent and older populations. This shift is encouraged by Canada’s Food Guide which acknowledges the inclusion of only low-fat dairy and greater emphasis on plant foods with water as the beverage of choice. These recommendations put the elderly at risk of adopting eating patterns favoring nutrient deficiencies, obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey show that elderly individuals who were emphasizing plant-based diets were low in protein and other essential nutrients. We have demonstrated that the consumption of dairy stimulates many metabolic responses that control blood glucose and appetite as well as provide essential nutrients. We have preliminary data showing this is not achieved by their plant-based alternatives…

Sheet Production of Advanced Aluminum Alloys via a Novel Thin Strip (TS) Casting Route

There has been a surprising increase in the demand for aluminum sheet primarily driven by the increased sensitivity to the negative environmental impact of plastic beverage containers, as well as the ever increasing demand to achieve substantive lightweighting of automobiles. Traditionally, aluminum sheets are made by casting molten aluminum into ~500 mm thick ingots through Direct Chill (DC) casting, and then scalping, homogenizing, hot rolling, and cold rolling to reach the final gauge thickness. Recently, a novel Thin Strip (TS) casting process has been developed by Hazelett CASTechnology ULC, which allows for direct casting of thin aluminum sheets of 2-5 mm thickness, thereby significantly reducing the energy requirement for processing to thin gauges, as well as offering a significant reduction in both capital and operational costs. However, the metallurgical properties of the TS sheets, their response to the subsequent cold-rolling/heat treatment processes and thus the final mechanical properties can be very different from the conventional norms. Therefore, product development using the TS route requires a comprehensive approach to process design/optimization of final mechanical properties).

Restorative Sport Nova Scotia: Toward a Restorative Sport Ecosystem

This innovation project will design and incubate a provincial restorative approach to respond to complaints arising from maltreatment in sport and enhance provincial capacity to work in a human-centered way across sport to mitigate and prevent further maltreatment by building inclusive and healthy cultures. This shift in responding to harm in sport begins by acknowledging the central role of relationships in sport and in turn the importance of sport in building strong and healthy relationships and communities. This project builds upon the internationally renowned restorative justice initiatives in Nova Scotia rooted in the research and scholarship of Professor Llewellyn. Restorative justice is a relational approach to justice that pays attention to the context, causes and circumstances in responding to harm and conflict. This ensures that underlying systemic issues are identified and addressed to secure “just relations” at interpersonal and institutional levels.

Experimental Investigations for Improvement of Oil Control for an Orbiting Sealing Application

Prime candidates for cleaner propulsion are the non-reciprocating combustion engines that combine high efficiencies of volumetric engines while being well-known for their high power density. Unfortunately, these engines are also well-known for their oil consumption that needs to be reduced before they are used for aerospace applications in order to meet customer perceptions, weight and forthcoming emission regulations. The first targets are to address leakage through the face-sealing Oil Control Rings (OCRs) and injected oil spilling away from the gas seals as they can be drastically reduced from current values without a significant impact on engine durability. This proposed project aims at reducing oil consumption through the development of improved OCRs and injection strategy.