Innovative Projects Realized

Top Executive Emotions and Strategic Change Initiation in Philanthropic Organizations

This study investigates how strategic changes are initiated in organizations. Using longitudinal real-time qualitative research, it explores how top executives and other actors’ emotions and feelings are managed in order to achieve desirable outcomes of strategic change. The process of strategy initiation in two major Canadian philanthropic organizations is followed in detail, with the aim of generating a robust theoretical explanation. It also aims to draw attention to implications for the practice of strategic management.

Ontology-based Middleware Services Facilitating Access to Data Sources

Many applications often need access to information from multiple independent data sources, including public sources found on the Internet and private sources e.g., hospitals. Software that sits between an application and the data sources, so called “middleware”, can help facilitate this access. However, development of this “middleware” can be very time consuming, is often only designed to support a limited set of data sources and is developed on a case-by-case basis. In reality, the data sources may not be fixed, i.e., new ones may come and others may change, and there are often semantic differences in the data that resides in those sources. The aim of this project is to look at developing automatic or semi-automatic approaches that can be used to reduce the development effort required to build domain-specific applications that need to access multiple data sources.

Determining Optimal Strategies to operate Not-For Profit Health Organizations

The goal of this project is to devise a strategy for improving the operations of Canadians for Health Research (CHR) to achieve long-term prosperity. CHR is a non-profit organization (NPO) and its mission is to provide Canadians with a comprehensive understanding of the importance of health research so that they may develop an informed perspective on a very complicated social issue. This extremely challenging task has major impacts upon its success or failure because public opinion votes to change government policies that shape the economics of our society. CHR is currently facing financial difficulties and wishes to reexamine its operating model. The intern will systematically analyze how CHR operates and summarize the current situation of the NPO. Appropriate to the current situation, the intern will provide a list of recommendations; each recommendation will be analyzed to determine the revenue it will generate upon its implementation over a course of time. The intern will outline practical timelines and prepare a comprehensive toolkit for CHR to realize these recommendations. Finally, recommendations will be supplemented by literature research and assembled in an academic article describing a general strategy that may be utilized by any NPO.

Development of High-Performance Energy-Efficient Hybrid Door Systems for the Canadian North

Reduction of energy consumption in every aspect of our daily life is considered to be the primary key to address the causes of global warming and resulting climate change. Buildings consume up to 40% of our total national energy requirement and thus increased energy efficiency of the built environment would certainly help mitigating the causes of climate change. Recent upgrades in National Energy Code for Buildings have recommended significantly higher energy efficiency and thus resulted in increasing the insulating values of walls, roofs, windows and attics. However, for many decades the energy efficiency or insulating value of the basic exterior door has been overlooked for various practical reasons such as thickness limitation, difficulties to resist airflow, etc. As a result a huge market demand has been created for high-performance energy-efficient doors. The proposed research project aims to integrate various state-of-the-art insulating materials and technologies in exterior door construction and develop high-performance energy-efficient door systems that are specifically suitable for northern Canada.

Development of a precise and robust INS/GPS navigation system using low cost MEMS sensors dedicated to autonomous multirotor applications

ARA Robotique is a company specialized in the development of a state-of-art flight controller for light multirotor UAV. One of the critical subsystems of a flight controller is its navigation system which measures the position and the orientation of the vehicle which is then used to ensure the flight stability and to operate the UAV. To complete its flight controller design, ARA Robotique is interested in developing a robust and accurate Inertial Navigation System (INS) based on low cost Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology. The disadvantage with low cost inertial sensors is that their measurements are affected by deterministic errors and stochastic noise that causes the INS solution to diverge rapidly. The goal of the project is to design an aiding system based on the Extended Kalman filter to combine the INS with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal to ensure convergence and elimination of the measurement noise.

Pre-clinical testing of novel high-strength bioabsorbable bone adhesives

There is an unmet need to replace surgical plates and screws in small joint and non-loadbearing orthopaedic surgeries. Despite a clear clinical need and market opportunity, there are no products available today that address issues such as long surgery times, high cost, patient discomfort, and reoperation for metal implant removal. Dartmouth Medical Research, Ltd. is a medical device development company focused on Bone Repairs using Absorbable Polymers and aims to solve these problems by adhering the bones with a “Hot Melt” resorbable polymer. This novel bone adhesive material simplifies bone fixation surgery and would be used to replace the bulky, expensive, and time-consuming mechanical fixators. More importantly, in long-term animal studies, such materials have shown a 158% increase in strength compared to traditional fixation techniques in non-load-bearing surgical applications. The project objective is to research, evaluate and test a new reinforced version of this technology.

Aerobic landfill treatment: reduction of greenhouse gas emission, leachate treatment and downstream processing

Landfilling of waste is an operation that has huge impact on both water and air quality. Modern landfills can be designed to minimize impact on groundwater resources and reduce Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in old landfills, which typically undergo a slow, anaerobic biodegradation process that

produces methane gas. It is estimated that global methane emissions from landfills are between 30 and 70 million tonnes each year, most of which currently come from developed countries. Methane and carbon dioxide are two major greenhouse gases (GHG). Methane traps 25 times more thermal

energy in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane emissions from Canadian landfills account for 20% of national methane emissions. SALT Canada Inc. has been working on a landfill site in Fort McMurray, Alberta, in order to convert an anaerobic site to an aerobic operation and hence achieve carbon neutrality. The company strives to treat the organic matter in the landfill expeditiously and with minimum or no impact on the environment and achieve a stable landfill ready for mining and land reclamation. SALT Canada is partnering with researchers at Western University to address this goal. TO BE CONT’D

Painting a Picture of the Alberta Energy System: Using Visual Tools for Scenario Planning and Prototyping Innovations with Stakeholders

The Energy Futures Lab (EFL)9 is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder dialogue and public engagement process designed to answer the question “How can Alberta’s leadership position in today’s energy system serve as a platform for the transition to the energy system that the future requires of us?” The aim of this research project is to investigate the use of visual tools such as landscape visualizations and interactive simulations to help participants understand the current energy system in Alberta and explore potential system interventions. The research will use existing published material, including modelling of the systems to be included in this study, to construct visual tools describing some of the key behaviours of those systems, and to engage participants in the construction of exploratory and normative scenarios that illustrate the consequences of different course of action.

Development of novel MRI quantitative measures to correlate degenerative changes in the cervical spine with neurological dysfunction

Patients with cervical spine degeneration are difficult to diagnose and treat. Some patients will not benefit from surgical intervention while others require immediate surgical management to avoid permanent neurological deficits. Distinguishing between these patient groups is very difficult, and not effectively done with current protocols. Medical imaging is part of the current diagnostic protocol for these patients but the interpretation of the images and their contribution to patient diagnosis is unreliable and not consistent across radiologists. Advances in image analysis and computer power now allow for three-dimensional reconstructions of medical images and will facilitate the development of novel measures of spinal cord compression and degeneration. Therefore, this research project aims to establish a novel imaging protocol based on new advanced image technique analysis to improve the diagnostic value of medical imaging in order to provide a more clear and timely diagnosis for patients with CSM and determine the most effective treatment approach. As a world leader in medical orthopaedic devices, Medtronic Canada Inc will not only benefit from the results of this project but also from the collaboration with an established team of scientists including renowned orthopaedic surgeons and engineers.

Development of a ‘Point of Care’ traumatic brain injury management device using electroencephalography to guide treatment and rehabilitation

Using electroencephalography based technology, it is possible to study brain function over short periods of time. Building on previous Mitacs funded research, we are developing a point of care device based on the Halifax consciousness scanner called NeuroCatch, that is cheap, portable and easy to use. The ability to monitor changes in brain function after injury is critical in determining the effectiveness of therapy and guiding rehabilitation. The interns will carry out clinical studies comparing brain function in patients with traumatic brain injury and comparing the results with healthy individuals. This project will help the sponsoring company, Health Technology Connex, meet its mandate to commercialize novel technologies to improve the health care outcomes for patients. In addition, the interns will benefit by receiving funding to support their studies as well as being exposed novel, realworld research opportunities in medical technology in both an academic and business environment.

Parallel Electromagnetic Transients Simulation UsingExtended-Frequency Dynamic Phasors

This internship aims to develop a new computer method for simulation of large electric power systems. Simulation of these systems is challenging due to their complexity and size, which translates into massive computational loads. The new simulation method will be faster by using parallel computing, will be more customizable than existing methods, and will assist power system designers and operators to gain deeper insight into the operation of the power grid. The intern will collaborate with computer simulation experts from the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre in developing this new method, which is then expected to be incorporated into their power systems simulation program.

Emulsion Injection for Enhancing the Fast-and-Uniform SAGD Start-up Process

Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage is the most commonly used in-situ thermal method for recovering bitumen from oil sands formations in western Canada. In this process, two parallel horizontal wells, about 5 m apart vertically, are drilled near the bottom of the formation. Before production, the bitumen between the two wells has to be heated, to become mobile, by circulating steam through the wells for several months. A new technology has been developed to make the inter-well bitumen flow in only a week, in which water is forced into the sands to dilate the pores, followed by steam injection. However, the oil sands formation is not uniform, which can leave some regions untouched. The project will develop a method called emulsion injection to create uniform dilation of the oil sands. Experiments and computer modelling will be conducted to design emulsions for the process. A field trial will be conducted to test the method.