Innovative Projects Realized

DevBrawl – Investigation of game design withcognitive analysis in multi-player games

The objectives of this research project are to deepen understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of engagement in games, especially in the context of multiplayer games. The research will be leveraged by our organization in future research projects and commercial productions.

Human-in-the-loop artificial intelligence for identification of fish behavior with high-frequency periodic acoustic fish tags

Innovasea produces fish tags and receivers to track the presence and motion of fish and marine mammals while underwater. Fish tracking (acoustic telemetry) is used by researchers worldwide to determine the abundance and habits of marine life, make decisions about fishing seasons and allowed catches, and help protect marine mammals. Innovasea has developed a novel high-frequency tag technology that is suitable for very small fish and generates more precise trajectories. However, the new smaller fish tags send no explicit identification information so signals from a specific fish tag are isolated from background noise and other fish tags based on the period and/or pattern of the signals. To obtain useful fish tracking trajectories, Innovasea currently applies machine learning models that work in many environments but need to be retrained for other environments.

In this project we will apply advanced deep learning techniques to large manually processed training sets provided by Innovasea to eliminate the manual preprocessing steps.

Social Innovation Researcher in Residence – Zero Emissions Innovation Centre of Metro Vancouver

Metro Vancouver’s new Zero Emissions Innovation Centre’s (ZEIC) mandate is to catalyse, accelerate, and scale climate action innovation across Metro Vancouver through program delivery, impact investing, granting, partnerships, capacity building, and research. With the urgency and importance of city-led climate action rapidly increasing, and the impacts of a changing climate being directly experienced by communities across BC with growing frequency and significance, ZEIC’s success in achieving their mandate is critically important at this time. This project will harness the power of social innovation and systemic design methodologies to support ZEIC in de-risking innovations, and in un-locking climate action co-benefits (e.g. health and economic development) for communities. It will also draw upon equity-centered and decolonizing methodologies to build and nurture diverse collaborations and contribute to climate justice and reconciliation. Finally, this project will build the capacities of the ZEIC team in working skillfully with these methodologies long after this project is over.

Training in bioinformatics, more specifically omics sciences

L’étudiant participera à un entraînement structuré en bioinformatique visant à parfaire ses connaissances de Python et R. Le focus sera placé sur les sciences omiques et ultimement sont projet vise à la détection et l’identification de façon précoce des maladies des plantes, bien que le focus sera initialement placé sur la tomates, une culture importante pour le Cameroun et le Canada et qui souffre des mêmes maladies sur les deux continents.

Investigating spatial and temporal nutrient trends in the St. Lawrence River

Increasing our knowledge of Canada’s lakes and rivers is essential to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems and to ensure human enjoyment of these waterbodies. This project will work with the local Indigenous community, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, to better understand trends in nutrient levels along the Upper St. Lawrence River. Human activities, including agriculture, industry, and urbanization often contribute excess nutrients to lakes and rivers, degrading the aquatic ecosystem by triggering excessive growth of undesirable algae, which can reduce human enjoyment of these waterbodies. By analyzing nutrient levels in the Upper St. Lawrence River, this project will provide Indigenous communities, researchers, policymakers, industry, and local community members with vital information about the health of the St. Lawrence River. Additionally, by sharing this information in an open and accessible manner this project will contribute to future restoration, protection, and management of the Upper St. Lawrence River and other waterbodies in Canada.

Artificial Intelligence for Prostate Cancer Detection using Ultrasound

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Canadian men, and early and accurate diagnosis is critical for successful treatment. The proposed research aims to develop AI-powered tools to improve the accuracy of prostate cancer detection using ultrasound technology. In collaboration with Exact Imaging, we will develop AI tools that can analyze images from the ExactVu ultrasound system and help doctors more accurately identify cancerous lesions during prostate biopsy procedures. This could potentially increase the accuracy and reduce the risks associated with biopsy. This collaboration has the potential to improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden on the healthcare system. It will also help Exact stay at the forefront of AI-assisted medical imaging and provide their customers with a more effective tool for identifying prostate cancer.

room marketplace

Room Marketplace This will be an online marketplace where homeowners can list their rooms for rent and renters can rent a room. This Marketplace will allow users to collect and pay for a room, and write reviews in their room/renter. This will help our suit of companies rent rooms (we currently have 37 rooms we rent out). This will create a community of homeowners who have success in renting rooms out, we build trust with, and can then market our other services such as SweepNsleep software to allow their houses to function better with less effort.

Business Strategy Intern To Develop Protein Distribution Channels For Spirulina

This project is initiated to shift this company from having developed an advanced algae cultivation platform developed through research, into a commercial enterprise. To achieve this we need to build demand for the algae product (spirulina) within the market place. As we succeed in creating demand, this will trigger the release of funding to continue to scale operations to achieve economies of scale that will enable better product margins to be achieved and ensure that investment capital will receive its due return on investment as well as enabling consumer product costs to decrease and thereby facilitate increased demand.

Key project objectives include: Identification of key Canadian Food Processors and Distributors, Contacting these processors and distributors with the intent of negotiating forward contracts to supply protein for production of consumer foods for sale through multiple sales channels. Intern will also spend time getting acquainted with lab and algae production processes to provide backup support for these functions

Design and synthesis of well-defined sphingomyelins by a modular, divergent strategy

In 2021, over 2.2 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were produced to combat a truly devastating pandemic. Such medications represent the fastest vaccines ever to be developed, with some of the highest efficiencies reported. The above vaccines contain messenger RNA (“mRNA”) trapped inside lipid nanoparticles (“LNPs”), which are globules composed of fatty substances and possessing a diameter of a few billionths of a meter. The fatty material in such LNPs includes a number of greasy compounds called lipids. The technology that enabled the creation of these life-saving medicines was developed through principles that constitute the focus of this application. The same technology can be harnessed to treat many diseases that are currently incurable.
One type of fatty agents that are essential for the proper functioning of RNA-LNP medications are “helper lipids,” among which the so-called “sphingomyelins” occupy a privileged position. Small quantities of sphingomyelins can be extracted from animal sources. However, this is biologically unsafe, to the point that pharmaceutical preparations avoid all animal-derived products. Furthermore, materials extracted from animal sources are mixtures of compounds, whereas medicines must contain well-defined, chemically pure sphingomyelins. This proposal aims to devise a practical, economical synthesis of sphingomyelins.

Assessing scientific rigour and 3Rs implementation in Canadian research: Investigating animal use protocols and stakeholder perspectives

Millions of animals are used in research each year. This practice is justified by the expectation that the benefits of such research will be significant, outweighing the harms imposed on animals during experiments. Indeed, animal research has led to countless improvements in human health and quality of life. However, there is growing concern that current practices are inefficient, with many animal experiments generating unreliable results, and findings that do not lead to effective human therapies. Implementation of scientific ‘best practices’ (e.g., appropriate statistical analyses, reducing unnecessary distress) has the potential to improve the outcomes of animal research, and reduce animal suffering during experiments. However, ensuring the uptake of these ‘best practices’ is challenging. In Canada, all animal research must be described in a protocol and approved by an animal care committee. These committees have the ability to request additional information or modifications to enhance the quality of research during protocol review, thus helping improve the reliability of findings and reducing animal suffering. In this project, I therefore aim to investigate the current impacts of animal care committees on research during this process. This will help identify opportunities to improve protocol review and the quality of Canadian research.

Développement d’un vaccin multivalent vivant atténué contre les infections respiratoires causées par les Escherichia coli pathogènes aviaires

La colibacillose aviaire est un problème économique de l’industrie avicole à une échelle mondiale. A ce jour, les traitements les plus employées contre cette maladie sont les antibiotiques. Cependant, une utilisation excessive et inappropriée des antibiotiques chez les animaux et les humains contribuent à l’émergence et/ou au renforcement de souches bactériennes résistantes aux antibiotiques. Cette résistance s’est déjà développée chez certains pathogènes notamment humains et aviaires et à ce jour, peu de traitement innovateur sont disponibles. Dans le cadre des industries avicoles, le développement de thérapies alternatives à l’utilisation des antibiotiques est priorité autant sanitaire qu’économique. La thérapie par vaccination reste l’une des options les plus envisageables afin de réduire au mieux les colibacilloses fréquemment recensées chez les volailles des industries. Les vaccins vivants atténués à partir de souches Escherichia coli peuvent induire une protection efficace en utilisant des voies d’administration pratiques pour l’industrie avicole (voie respiratoire ou orale). Celles-ci exposent les poussins à une gamme d’antigènes typiquement exprimés pendant une infection naturelle et induisent une réponse immunitaire polyvalente qui pourra augmenter la protection globale hétérologue contre une diversité de souches d’E. coli causant la colibacillose.

Deep Insight: An AI driven tool for advanced analysis of criminal case file data.

We will create a tool that leverages advanced Natural Language Processing techniques to identify various named entities and their relationships from the ample of police case files containing text data. We will also create a validation tool and a visualization tool that will help us create a trustable AI tool for advanced police case file analysis. Moreover, we will continuously consult with the subject matter experts for their input to make this tool more robust in a iterative basis.