More than any other life stage, the hatching of eggs is the most important factor in the maintenance of dabbling duck populations. Rates of nest success are suppressed by predators like foxes, coyotes, skunks, and crows. Populations of these predators can be artificially high due to habitat alterations resulting from human development. The Delta Waterfowl […]

Water use, land use and climate change can alter hydrology and effect the downstream availably of water and timing of flows. The Athabasca River is vital for supply of oil sands energy development and in-stream aquatic habitats. Much of the water for the river originates in the Mountain and Foothills Regions, in the Upper Athabasca. […]

The washrooms can be equipped with smart objects to be controlled and monitored to increase the customer satisfaction. This technology utilizes connected washroom equipment such as toilet paper, towels, soap dispensers, and water leakage sensors. In smart washrooms, the condition of the washroom is monitored and the management is informed when anything needs attention. This […]

Consumers are increasingly interested in how their pork is raised especially in terms of welfare (the five freedoms) and the use of antibiotics (in relation to antimicrobial resistance). This project will focus on pig behavioural traits such as aggressiveness, tail biting and social interaction and seek to develop new tools to allow these traits to […]

The aim of this project is to research and develop tools to assess and aid the diversification of organizations in the province of Alberta. Alberta is rich in resources, both tangible and intangible. Nevertheless, the price of oil, Alberta’s dependence on this tangible resource and related service have skewed the Province’s investment and entrepreneurial profile. […]

In this project we aim to generate simple assays similar to commercial pregnancy tests that can detect the presence of specific molecules (metabolites) related to disease conditions. We will use our knowledge and experience to generate easy-to-use strips that will allow specific detection of health-relevant metabolites that can be used in clinical or at-home settings […]

Presently medical personnel do not have adequate tools to assess disorders of conscious awareness after severe brain injury if the patients have difficulty speaking & moving. These people are frequently deemed unresponsive when they may be “in there” but unable to respond. Our research team has developed a rapidly administerable, portable system that measures brain […]

There have been many new operational drivers that require changes to the traditional training processes in small and medium companies, i.e. the advancement of technology, the mass retirement of the baby boomer generation, and the ever more dynamically-changing values of the web-generation workforce. Dealing with bridging the skill gaps may deem to uproot the company […]

To create the impetus for industry-level improvements in safety, the COAA has embarked on an initiative “Twice as Safe, Twice as Productive by 2020”. The purpose of this project is to support this initiative by understanding the safety cultures and the levels of maturity across the construction industry and motivating improvements in all Albertan construction […]

Increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance is becoming a major public health concern and is linked to use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics in agriculture. Sub-therapeutic antibiotics have been used for years in swine production to mitigate diarrheal diseases observed at weaning. Thus, development of alternative nutritional strategies to minimize sub-therapeutic antibiotic use is vital. Mannan-oligosaccharides may be […]

Predicting the quantity of mineral (gold, coper, etc) or hydrocarbon (oil, gas) extracted from a given deposit is difficult. One concern is the uncertainty in the resources underground. A few initial wells or drill holes give us access to an estimate of the quantity of resource, but there is great uncertainty because sampling can be […]

This project aims to provide real-world, verifiable estimates of impacts to watersheds from usage of back-country logging and resource roads. fRI in partnership with the University of Alberta, MiTACS and Canfor is testing computer-based tools developed in the United States to apply them to watersheds in Alberta. Given the different geography, soil types, and relief […]