Innovative Projects Realized

Nashwaak Watershed Restoration and Outreach

The Nashwaak Watershed Association Inc. (NWAI) was founded in 1995 as a non-profit organization dedicated to promote, conserve, and restore the Nashwaak ecosystem by using science-based methods, community collaboration, and advocacy for the watershed and its inhabitants. The organization’s vision is to see “people caring for a clean, healthy, and beautiful Nashwaak River watershed that supports and connects people and wildlife for years to come.”

The overarching objective of the project is to improve the natural infrastructure in the lower Nashwaak Watershed to enhance the capacity of the floodplain to contribute to improved freshwater quality (reduced sediment and contaminants, improved fish habitat, reduced bank widening due to erosion, etc.), and mitigate climate change impacts. Community education and outreach about the importance of watersheds will take place at public volunteer events, through school programming, and community workshops.

This project will build on our past restoration efforts, as we continue reforestation efforts on two municipal properties that are owned by the City of Fredericton and are largely composed of retired hayfields. Restoring these areas to natural floodplain forest will include the planting of 1500 live willow stakes and approximately 10,000 native tree seedlings, some as part of public planting events.

Mariner Innovations Cybersecurity Health Check Process Automation

Mariner has a team of over 350 people serving our clients across four lines of business. Mariner provides core IT and strategic advisory services, has globally commercialized six technologies and invests in the development of enterprise product offerings leveraging the capabilities of emerging technologies like Big Data and Analytics, Internet of Things, Cloud and Security. Due to surge in sophisticated threats, organizations like Mariner Innovations, need to constantly improve their security posture while balancing related costs with their business goals. So, Mariner’s Cybersecurity Health Check provides a comprehensive view of an organization’s overall security posture that examines the cyber security (based on the NIST Cyber Security Framework), Corporate Security, Supply Chain (based on both supply chain guidance and recent government decisions in both Canada and the USA), Interconnected systems, and Automation Systems. These provide a view of the programs that allow for a holistic approach to both security program monitoring and risk management.

Open-source software objects for modelling blood collection and production processes

We propose a project to port an existing blood clinic simulator to an open-source platform. We anticipate implementation of the newly redesigned model into the production environment. Once the model is established with Canadian Blood Services (CBS), we will survey the IE user group (IEUG) in CBS to determine usability, identify issues and solicit enhancements to the software objects. We will then determine a minimal set of objects needed to represent a donor clinic. These will be packaged and released for external users via PyPI or Git. We anticipate a release to both CBS personnel and to a wider user group.

The technology developed for this project will form the basis of a larger effort to refine existing open source simulation software in Python (Simpy). At present, Simpy lacks features common in more established simulation packages. In addition, Simpy is difficult to use and error prone, making model development burdensome in this environment. Thus, there is a need for open source elements to convert Simpy into a modern, transaction-oriented simulation package.

Immunotherapy of inoperable and locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

There are 768,000 new cases of liver cancer and 730,000 deaths worldwide every year. Only 15% of the cases are operable, and the median survival is generally <1 year. The close numbers of new cases and deaths indicate that liver cancer is a high mortality disease and urgently needs a new therapy. Approved therapies for inoperable liver cancer include chemotherapy (platinum, 5-FU, doxorubicin), targeted therapy (sorafenib, bevacizumab), immunotherapy (atezolizumab), and combination of the above. Recently, immunotherapy has become the front-line treatment for advanced and inoperable liver cancer. The patient’s immune system is suppressed within the liver by the tumor, and consequently the tumor cells are invisible to the patient’s immune cells. We are developing a new treatment that will wake up immune cells in the liver to specifically kill the liver tumor. This immune activating effect will be localized in the liver without global stimulation of the immune system in the patient, and thus will be effective but cause little toxicity. Our strategy is to develop a nanoparticle formulation that can localize an immune boosting drug in the liver, without the drug being absorbed into the blood stream to induce non-specific side effects.

Building Food Sovereign Campuses: A Practical Approach

Universities can be leaders in sustainability by building food sovereign campuses and communities. Instead, universities across Canada are contributing to unsustainable and unjust food practices by hiring multinational corporations (Aramark, Sodexo, Chartwells-Compass) that externalize social and environmental costs. The intern will continue the research from their Ph.D. dissertation about building food sovereign campuses and work with the Concordia Food Coalition to establish a viable alternative approach based in social economy. The Concordia Food Coalition has made agreements with the Concordia Student Union and Concordia administration to create a feasibility study to make the case for a social enterprise to take over the foodservice contract in 2026. This project will work with campus-community food organizations to build the internal structure that will mobilize personnel and resources to establish the social enterprise. The intern will also conduct research with other ‘alternative’ community-based university foodservice organizations to understand best practices in governance, finance, labour and structure. The information will be used to develop the new social food enterprise, to contribute to scholarly debates in the field of food studies and create a manuscript for a book about building food sovereign campuses.

Développer des outils pour cribler les activités antivirales d’alcaloïdes végétaux.

La pandémie de coronavirus a été un rappel brutal des dommages que peuvent causer les maladies virales. Actuellement, il existe des traitements antiviraux contre le SARS-CoV-2, mais l’émergence continue de variants demande une diversification constante de ces molécules. À cela, s’ajoute à un risque d’exposition aux agents infectieux déjà augmenté en raison de la mondialisation et du changement climatique comme des maladies décrites à l’origine comme tropicales i.e. causées par le virus Zika (ZIKV) et le virus de la dengue (DENV), de la famille des flavivirus. Il n’existe pas de traitement antiviral contre DENV ou ZIKV et donc la nécessité de découvrir de nouveaux composés antiviraux, est grande. Plusieurs molécules végétales, y compris du groupe des alcaloïdes, ont des propriétés antivirales. Les alcaloïdes des Amaryllidaceae sont un groupe de molécules à large spectre d’activités pharmaceutiques. Le projet proposé permettra de développer des outils viraux pour le criblage d’activité antiviral d’alcaloïdes.

Modeling and simulation for predictive building control using high-resolution climateforecasting

The state-of-the-art of building energy management systems uses model predictive control to compare alternative control strategies prior to implementation. Climate conditions dramatically influence the control strategy selection. These rely on conventional climate forecasting that provides coarse resolution with respect to both time and space (e.g. 1 hour, 50 km). The industrial partner Green Power Labs Inc. (GPLI) and Dalhousie University propose to use high-resolution climate forecasting at the sub-hourly and building level resolution (e.g. 15 minute, 5 m) to enhance the accuracy of the forecast utilized in predictive building control. In this project, the Post-Doctoral Fellow, in collaboration GPLI, will carry out advanced building performance simulation to determine the energy/cost/greenhouse-gas-emission performance of such technology applied to a range of commercial buildings in a range of climates. This project will benefit GPLI by defining performance and optimal markets as they rollo-out the new high-resolution forecast and predictive building control technology

AI-Based Approaches to Improve Business Intelligence Solutions

The goal of this project is to improve Business Intelligence solutions to stay competitive in the market. We aim to take the learning efforts off the user’s shoulder using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. We will develop AI technologies to help users answer questions that can be expressed in natural language and use existing data to make decisions while increasing their confidence in their results. We will investigate and develop Natural Language processing techniques to integrate within the Web-based Excel feature of Nectari’s BI software to facilitate its use for non-experts. Augmented analytics tools and approaches to allow interaction with the end-users will be developed to find insights from spreadsheets and to allow users to be involved in the solutions improvement. A methodology to detect anomalies will be developed while providing explanations. An import part of the project will be dedicated also to develop accurate forecasting and budgeting models. The project will consolidate Nectari as an international leader in the development of BI solutions, and will allow to acquire new knowledge for better training of highly qualified personnel.

Conception et développement d’une plateforme drone hydrographique de surface versatile à faible coûts pour des levés en zones côtières.

La conception et le développement des plateformes drone hydrographique de surface à faible coûts sont pleinement insérés dans les efforts déployés par la communauté Hydrospatiale pour la génération d’un jumeau numérique des océans et des zones côtières. Une telle plateforme se veut versatile. Ainsi, différents professionnels pourront bénéficier d’une telle plateforme pour les levés en différents contextes, notamment dans la surveillance de l’érosion côtière, l’inspection des structures marines, les levés bathymétriques, l’auscultation de l’infrastructure côtière, etc. Cette plateforme drone permettra l’installation de différents capteurs à faible coûts pour l’acquisition des données spatiales (e.g. caméras, LiDAR et sondeurs). L’utilisation d’une telle plateforme drone est surtout requise dans les zones peu profondes qui représentent un risque élevé pour la navigation et par conséquent pour l’acquisition de données spatiales.

Using the Total Focusing Method (TFM) to accurately size flaws for probability of detection (POD) purposes

Hydro-Québec has found that welding flaws induced during the manufacturing of hydraulic turbine runners are prone to fatigue damage. To avoid catastrophic failure, they developed a life estimation model that relies on flaw detection and sizing through non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection procedures. Probability of detection (POD) gives the probability or likelihood that a flaw of a given size will be detected in a part by an inspection procedure; it is used as an indicator of its reliability. POD value is computed through the statistical analysis of inspection data obtained on qualifying coupons. These coupons contain known flaws with a designed size distribution. However, even intentionally fabricated flaws are often not the size and location that the manufacturer intended or documented them to be. On the other hand, recent developments in ultrasonic phased array signal processing indicate that Total Focusing Method (TFM) is a powerful NDT method that can provide accurate flaw sizing information. The current proposal, therefore, aims to validate the use of TFM to accurately size the flaws present in qualifying coupons. In fact, TFM sizing tolerance will be assessed by X-ray micro-tomography and destructive salami slicing.

Étude de la capacité des sondes électromagnétique pour la mesure localisée des décharges partielles sur les barres et bobines du stator d’alternateurs

Ce projet a pour but d’améliorer le contrôle de qualité et l’entretien des gros équipements de production d’énergie électrique, soit les grands hydro-alternateurs. Une des parties problématiques de ces équipements est l’enroulement situé dans la partie fixe de la machine, soit le stator. Ce dernier est en effet soumis à des importantes contraintes électriques, mécaniques et thermiques qui peuvent avec le temps causer des bris. Ce projet développera des outils permettant de s’assurer de la qualité de ces composantes ainsi que pour déterminer leur état pour les machines en service depuis plusieurs années, voire plusieurs décennies. Ces outils permettront une meilleure fiabilité et une meilleure planification des opérations de maintenance.

UBC Precast Design Studio -Exploring Seismic Response of Precast Connections

Mitacs Accelerate has funded the first year of the Precast Design Studio. In this second and third year, the Mitacs intern, Chadia Uwamahoro, will conduct experiments on conventional horizontal connections to understand their cyclic behavior. The test setup and the experimental data will advance the scientific knowledge on the cyclic response of precast concrete shear walls and provide the infrastructure to facilitate the Precast Design Studio in future years. Grouted dowels and welded steel plate connections are being used in the precast industry; however, there is currently no data about their behavior in case of an earthquake. Data from these experiments will influence the industry’s future designs and use of these connections.