Digital devices have the potential to play a positive role in the classroom.  For example, longhand note-taking has been shown help learners better remember what they’ve learned than typing notes on a keyboard.  With younger generations more accustomed to using digital devices in their everyday lives, it is important that the educational system finds a […]

The project aims to refine a process developed by Terra CO2 Technologies to use a small proportion of geopolymer cement made from mine tailings to solidify and stabilize a bulk volume of tailings against leaching and water contamination. Beyond tailings stabilization, waste mineral geopolymer cement may be advantageous as an environmentally-friendly replacement for Portland cement […]

Wildlife have remarkable adaptations for responding to environmental change; however rapid increases in the magnitude of environmental disturbances may compromise their ability to cope. Physiological measures, such as hormones, provide a window into the responses of wildlife to environmental change. We propose to identify and rank the relative importance of multiple potential stressors that could […]

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory disorder of the lung, and one that affects 2.6 million Canadians and 380 million people worldwide. Although the disease affects a large population worldwide the therapies used for treatment remain imprecise. With the lack of disease modifying therapies there is a pressing need to discover novel targets […]

Sustained operation of sanitary pumping stations in Richmond BC is critical to the health and safety of its residents. The overarching goal of this research project is to investigate strategies to improve urban resilience by operating the sanitary pumping station loads in coordination with distributed energy resources (DERs), including renewable generation and energy storage. Particularly, […]

Blockchain is a decentralized and immutable data structure. The information stored on blockchain is tamper-resistant, immutable and transparent. Blockchain is an interesting platform for managing digital certificates without a central authority. Because paper certificates can be easily faked or tampered with modern computer skills. Additionally, using a central authority for issuing distributing certificates is inefficient. […]

Thousands of kilometers sewage pipelines suffer from severe bio-corrosion caused by prolonged exposure to highly aggressive environments. Over the past several decades, many approaches have been developed to reduce the risk of concrete bio-corrosion with variable degrees of success. Over the last 6 years at UBC, a novel cement-free corrosion-resistant coating material was developed to […]

To sustain its leadership in the world marketplace, the Canadian pulp industry must continue to increase pulp quality, while it improves manufacturing efficiency, reduces energy consumption and decreases impact on the environment. Properties of a manufactured pulp vary with production parameters and characteristics of the feedstock. To produce pulps of the highest quality at lowest […]

This project investigates a new perspective on the intersections of architectural form generation, sustainability, building performance simulation and computation, and is meant to research an energy performance-driven building space organization method in the preliminary design phase. It will enquiry clear design questions, and present results using a visualization method that addresses the problem for both […]

Recent severe forest fire activity and loss of vegetation from Mountain Pine Beetle has resulted in impacts to river channel stability and Chinook salmon habitat in several key sub-catchments of the Thompson River Watershed. Interest exists in conducting remedial work to improve and restore salmon habitat in several locations, but risk of ongoing channel instability […]

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common illness that affects millions of Canadians, yet there are no effective therapies to treat it. Genes play a role in COPD development, and our proposal aims at identifying those genes in lung tissue that cause the disease. The Providence Airway Centre is very committed at helping COPD […]

Salmon are inarguably one of the most culturally, ecologically, and economically important fish in British Columbia, however, their stocks have been declining since the 1990’s. The Cohen Commission of Enquiry expert panel emphasized that juvenile mortality during the first months at sea was the most likely cause of fishery declines. This Mitacs project represents Phase […]