Innovations Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

13270 Completed Projects

1072
AB
2795
BC
430
MB
106
NF
348
SK
4184
ON
2671
QC
43
PE
209
NB
474
NS

Projects by Category

10%
Computer science
9%
Engineering
1%
Engineering - biomedical
4%
Engineering - chemical / biological

Optimizing Numerical Weather Prediction for Clean Energy

Modern weather forecasts are made by computers that solve the complicated equations for air motion, heat, and moisture. Different computer codes, called weather models, use different atmospheric approximations, creating slightly different forecasts. This forecast diversity is good, because the average of all forecasts is often the most accurate, and the spread between forecasts measures uncertainty. Utility companies such as BC Hydro need accurate weather forecasts to manage their hydroelectric reservoirs, anticipate power arriving from wind and run-of-river sources, efficiently maintain their facilities, and optimize energy trading. At BCHydro’s request, we will enhance the forecast model diversity, and will further improve the output from each model using statistics to remove other errors. BC Hydro is keen for us to merge these day-to-week forecasts with seasonal forecasts, and to enhance the shorter-range “nowcasts” with local observations. The benefit is improved safety, reliability and economic productivity of BC Hydro operations.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Roland Stull

Student:

Simone Sperati

Partner:

BC Hydro

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Energy

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Study on Coal and Coke Mineralogy and Development of a Model to Predict Reactivity from Mineralogy of Coking Coals

Properties of metallurgical coke are very important in production of iron using blast furnace. About 90% of the coking coals produced are used for this purpose. Coal rank was historically used to evaluate coal for production of metallurgical coke. Coke reactivity index (CRI) and coke strength after reaction (CSR) with carbon dioxide are now routinely used rank and value coking coals. The properties of the other components present in the ash may be the controlling parameters defining coke properties, which has not been studied well. In this study, we have proposed characterizing the minerals in coking coal, examine the mineralogical changes that occur during coal carbonization and coke gasification process, and finally develop a model to predict CSR/CRI of coking coals using the knowledge to be generated from this project. Findings from this project can provide the technical support for improved mining, coal washing, and blend development to make high-CSR coke. Using high-CSR coke improves blast furnaces efficiency, improves energy utilization efficiency, and reduces CO2 emissions.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Rajender Gupta

Student:

Nisarg Tripathi

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

Accelerate

Monitoring the genetic health and structure of Grizzly bear populations in British Columbia to inform ecotourism and resource management

Grizzly bears represent a valuable economic, ecological, cultural and symbolic resource for British Columbia. In order to preserve this resource the current population of brown bears needs to be monitored to ensure the health of the population. One marker of health is the genetic health of the population. Genetic monitoring can also tell us important information about how related different bear populations are and how well these populations are adapted to their ecosystem. This study will use genetic markers to look at this population structure and adaptation of bears across the unique and varied landscape of British Columbia. We will additionally use genetic markers to investigate a recent island colonization by brown bears outside of all current bear population units. This information is crucial to the conservation initiatives of our partner Raincoast International and its Ecotourism partners.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Chris Darimont

Student:

Lauren Henson

Partner:

Raincoast Conservation Foundation

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Natural resources

University:

University of Victoria

Program:

Accelerate

Fast and robust real-time precise point positioning

Current real-time precise point positioning (PPP) systems still suffer significant challenges. One is its long position convergence time necessary before precise position solutions become obtainable. Another is its sensitivity to the loss/latency of high-frequency precise orbit and clock corrections, resulting in degraded performance. Those challenges have limited PPP’s adoption in many applications. This project aims to develop a fast and robust real-time PPP system. A positioning model based on uncombined observables will developed to facilitate ambiguity resolution (AR) and ionosphere-aiding which will help significantly reduce the position convergence time. A new real-time orbit and clock generation method will be developed to improve the robustness of PPP by reducing the system’s sensitivity to the loss/latency of precise orbit and clock corrections. A prototype system will be developed to assess the performance of the system for product development.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Xin Wang

Student:

Yihe Li

Partner:

Profound Positioning Inc

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Information and communications technologies

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Elevate

Biomarkers of Spinal Cord Injury

In this project, we will establish biomarkers that objectively reflect the severity of injury, measure its progression, and predict neurologic outcome after acute spinal cord injury (SCI). This will be accomplished by comprehensively analyzing blood and spinal fluid samples from acute SCI patients. In addition, we will conduct a parallel experimental study in a large animal model of SCI with a similar analysis of blood and spinal fluid samples. In addition, we will utilize the large animal model of SCI to establish the changes in blood supply, oxygenation, pressure, and metabolism after injury, in order to measure the progression of secondary damage and predicting (and possibly altering) the neurologic outcome. This work is beneficial to the Rick Hansen Institute as it is closely aligned with their mission to “identify, develop, validate, and accelerate the translation of evidence and best practices to reduce the incidence and severity of paralysis after SCI”.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Guohui Lin

Student:

Adriana Buzatto

Partner:

Rick Hansen Institute

Discipline:

Medicine

Sector:

Medical devices

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Development of low-cost feeding strategies for group-housed gestating sows

Feed restriction in gestating sows is required to prevent excessive body weight gain and the associated negative consequences on lactation, locomotion, farrowing, and feed intake during lactation. Aggression and stereotypies associated with restricted feeding become a welfare and production concern when the sows are housed in groups. Delayed gastric emptying, increased swelling of contents in the stomach, and/or fermentation metabolites associated with bulky or high fibre diets during gestation may increase feelings of satiety and ameliorate behavioural problems associated with restricted feed intake. In addition, feeding high-fibre diets to sows may result in an increase in litter size and growth performance of offspring. The proposed project will seek to examine the effect of feeding processed straw on metabolic indicators of satiety and behavioural measures in group-housed gestating sows and growth indicators of litter performance.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Daniel Allan Columbus

Student:

Atta kofi Agyekum

Partner:

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

Discipline:

Animal science

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Saskatchewan

Program:

Elevate

Synthetic Routes to ATA and Related Derivatives

The complement system is an essential component of innate immunity, but also causes self-damage when the system is aberrantly activated or self-protective capacity is exceeded. There are many conditions where failure to protect against self-damage from the complement system has been implicated in the pathology, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinemia, atypical hemolytic uremia syndrome and age-related macular degeneration. Aurin tricarboxylic acid (ATA) and analogues have been shown to selectively block the harmful effects of unwanted complement activation. This project aims to develop synthetic routes to ATA and related analogues that generate the desired product in high yield and purity.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jennifer Love

Student:

Matthew Wathier

Partner:

Aurin Biotech Inc

Discipline:

Chemistry

Sector:

Pharmaceuticals

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Improving government performance through pay-for-success and pay-for-performance approaches

Governments around the globe are trying new approaches to solving complex social problems. They are increasingly moving away from the direct provision of social services towards more collaborative partnerships with the private sector. Pay-for-success, also known as pay-for-performance or Social Impact Bonds, is a method for engaging the private sector that has been gaining attention and support for their ability to raise non-government funds to finance social programs and increase collaboration between the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Pay-for-performance mechanisms are not new, however, the unique Social Impact Bond model is a relatively novel concept. The first Social Impact Bond was launched in 2011 and four years later there were 41 projects in development and operation. Although the approach shows promise, scholars have raised some concerns and questions. Some researchers argue that the pay-for-success approach might not be as effective and efficient as advocates claim. There is a clear need for theoretically driven empirical research into these new forms of financing government programs to determine if they are indeed more effective and efficient at helping those in need compared to more traditional public service delivery mechanisms.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Caroline Andrew

Student:

Brian Carriere

Partner:

Social Research and Demonstration Corporation

Discipline:

Political science

Sector:

Management of companies and enterprises

University:

University of Ottawa

Program:

Accelerate

Radio Acoustical Virtual Environment: from Lab to Field

Verbal communication in noise while wearing hearing protection devices (HPDs) is often difficult. Recently, a “Radio Acoustical Environment” (RAVE) was developed within the EERS-ETS Industrial Research Chair in In-Ear Technologies (CRITIAS) to enhance communication for people wearing HPDs in noise. With RAVE, speech is captured from inside the ear, denoised, and enhanced to be sent only to listeners within a given spatial range. This range is determined based on the changes in the talker’s vocal effort and background noise level. Currently, RAVE is at its prototype stage. During this Postdoctoral Fellowship, the algorithms developed for RAVE will be implemented on DSP and optimized. Subjective intelligibility tests will be performed to benchmark the speech-based algorithms. Finally, realistic features will be added to transmitted signals to enhance processes such as localization and distance perception. This project in partnership with EERS will enable the completion of a very unique and innovative commercial project.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Jeremie Voix

Student:

Rachel Bouserhal

Partner:

EERS Technologies 4.0 Inc

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Information and communications technologies

University:

Program:

Elevate

Establishing baseline heart rate variability profiles for exercise prescription and health monitoring among Special Olympics athletes

The change in the time intervals between adjacent heartbeats is known as Heart Rate Variability (HRV). The HRV of a well-conditioned heart is generally large at rest, whereas low HRV has been associated with adverse outcomes/conditions, including congestive heart failure, diabetic neuropathy, depression, and hospital admissions. As beat-to-beat variation is desirable, there has been considerable interest in improving HRV in the general population but very little research attention among individuals with intellectual disabilities
This project will build on the existing data being collected by Special Olympics British Columbia (SOBC) during the Functional Fitness testing by adding two simple measures: heart rate monitoring and the Six-Minute Walk Test. The findings will help monitor the health of individuals with intellectual disabilities and help ensure safe prescription of exercise in this population.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Viviene Temple

Student:

Laura St. John

Partner:

Special Olympics Canada

Discipline:

Physics / Astronomy

Sector:

Medical devices

University:

University of Victoria

Program:

Accelerate

Duplicate detection for billing systems

Merging different sub-companies into TELUS caused some of customer records to be repeated through the merged data-set. Algorithms are needed to determine the duplicate records. Currently a deterministic algorithm is being used in TELUS. In this project, we will investigate if machine learning can help to detect duplicates. Solving this problem has several parts. We have to preprocess the data and select some features from the TELUS records that help us in our model. A probabilistic model should be selected, implemented and tuned. Then, it is necessary to test the proposed model and compare that with the current systems.

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Faculty Supervisor:

David Poole

Student:

Bahare Fatemi

Partner:

Telus

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and communications technologies

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Development of colony-specific genetic markers for murres hunted off Newfoundland and Labrador

Thick-billed murres from breeding colonies throughout the North Atlantic, and common murres from colonies throughout the northwest Atlantic winter off Newfoundland, Labrador and Greenland where they are the object of an annual hunt. The winter murre or ‘turr’ hunt is an important part of the culture of coastal communities, and is protected under Canadian legislation. The colony of origin of hunted murres is unknown, although it is necessary to assess the impact of the hunt on specific colonies. The hunt could target colonies that are suffering great declines. With our project we propose to use genetic markers to assign hunted birds to their colony of origin and assess the impact of the murre hunt on common and thick-billed murres from different colonies.
Our results will be important for the management of the murre hunt, and used by Bird Studies Canada and Wildlife Habitat Canada to inform the government to improve hunting regulations in order to minimize the impact of the hunt on declining colonies.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Vicki Friesen

Student:

Anna Tigano

Partner:

Bird Studies Canada

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Accelerate

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