Innovations Realized

Augmenting Visions of Public/Access: Critical Disability Studies and Publishing

The intern’s research project will involve the overlaps of critical disability studies, surveillance studies, accessible design, Canadian publishing, and intersectional frameworks. This research will be mobilized to (a) produce accessible digital platforms for Public Access’s website and their journal, PUBLIC: Art / Culture / Ideas that are not only compliant with AODA requirements, but innovative; (b) organize a symposium that will engage the above areas of investigation and bring different community stakeholders together to share knowledge; (c) increase PUBLIC’s reach and impact; and (d) publish a themed issue on surveillance and intersectionality. This project will assist Public Access to become a leader in accessible design in the Canadian publishing industry; engage more meaningfully with disability communities as its readers, contributors, and other stakeholders; and remain at the forefront of emerging areas of academic theory, art, and design.

Digital Finance Institute Fintech Chatbot Project

The project will consist of taking an out of the box artificial intelligence technology solution. The research will involve researching its deficiencies and improving on them by creating a proprietary solution to maximized its efficiency and ability to mimic human interaction. In this particular case, the way that IBM Watson discovery collects information from the websites it searches is very time consuming. The student will be looking to build a technology that sources information from specific websites in great detail, but quickly so that the response time has little to no lag. This will allow the chatbot to provide human-like responses but with increased accuracy and detail using the collected information as its reference point.

Advancing methods and understanding: Status and drivers of mammal populations in Alberta

Biodiversity loss is a major concern worldwide. Alberta’s has abundant natural resources; however, developing these natural resources can impact species, including mammal species and those valued by the public. Understanding the impacts of disturbance on populations of mammals is necessary in order to inform environmental management. This project will harness existing data through the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute to enhance our understanding of mammal populations, such as moose and black bear, in Alberta, for the benefit of the province’s land-use decision makers and the public in general.

An optical function analysis for thin-film device structures

Informed thin-film device design, wherein layers of thin-films are deposited onto an underlying substrate, requires an understanding of the spectral dependence of the optical functions associated with the thin-film layers which constitute such a device. In this project, we aim to further understand the form of the optical functions for the various types of thin-film materials and then use this knowledge in order to aid in the interpretation of experimentally acquired transmittance and reflectance spectra. We will start with the assembly of a library of optical functions corresponding to the various types of thin-film materials. A series of models that aims to capture this physicality will then be devised. Finally, we will use these models in order to narrow the parameter space that must be probed in determining the spectral dependence of the optical functions associated with the thin-film layers from measurements of the transmittance spectrum at normal incidence and the reflectance spectrum at near-normal incidence. The company sponsoring this project aims to commercialize a software offering capturing the results of this project. They also aim to exploit the results in order to develop new solar-based products.

The effects of grapevine microclimate manipulations on Pinot Gris glycoside aroma compound abundance and diversity

This research project is a partnership between The Wine Islands Grower’s Association, and the University of Victoria. The goal of the project is to better understand how vineyard management techniques effect wine grape quality prior to wine processing. Pinot gris is the most important white wine varietal grown on Vancouver Island and throughout British Columbia. To understand how vineyard techniques affect quality gas chromatography and mass spectrometry will be used to identify and qualify the aromatic compounds present at harvest to maximize the potential of the grapes. Providing BC growers with standard operating procedures for vineyard management techniques to improve grape and wine quality is paramount.

Equine Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Ability to Help Fight Bacterial Infections

Antimicrobial resistance is a recognized and growing problem in equine medicine. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have recently been shown to have antimicrobial properties. We are interested in exploring if equine MSCs can reduce bacterial growth in vitro and to understand the cellular mechanisms governing such an effect. This project will provide a baseline for a long-term research program to discover new drugs and/or cell-based products that can potentiate current antimicrobials or even act as antimicrobials on their own in order to combat multidrug resistant bacterial infections in the horse. This foundational work will support future funding applications to conduct clinical trials in client-owned horses of natural diseases.

Mechanistic characterization of voltage sensor-targeted Kv7 activators

Epilepsy is a complex disorder, affecting roughly 1% of the global population. Treatments are available, but many patients (~1/3) are resistant to existing therapies, which have become economically challenging. In this project we will investigate a new class of anti-epileptic drugs that target neuronal voltage-gated Kv7 potassium channels. The intern will characterize the mechanism of action of Kv7 channel openers targeting the pore and the voltage sensor accelerating the development of therapeutics for epilepsy. This collaborative approach between Mitacs and Xenon Pharmaceuticals, the partner organization, allows for the recruitment of a highly trained expert, a post-doctoral fellow, which would be otherwise less economical. Overall, this strategic plan allows for maximum benefit to all parties by efficiently investing the resources to tackle the challenges in delivering effective therapies for patients with epileps

Fluvial Geomorphology Experiments in support of the Lynn Creek Flood Risk Assessment and Reduction Plan

Lynn Creek poses flood and erosion risks in North Vancouver, BC. The surrounding urban areas are not protected by structural flood protection measures, and flood mitigation has historically been conducted through gravel removals, which increase the depth of the channel. Recent analysis has shown that gravel removals are relatively ineffective at reducing the flood risk, which will continue to increase alongside climate change. In addition, Lynn Creek is a fish-bearing watercourse and gravel removals pose potential impacts to habitat.

In response, the City of North Vancouver has engaged the consulting firm of Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. (KWL) to perform a flood risk assessment and develop a risk reduction plan. Through a MITACS project, KWL will be collaborating with the Biogeomorphology laboratory at UBC to conduct laboratory experiments which will aid in the flood risk assessment. The experiments will involve physical modeling of historical trends, current conditions, predictions of short-term and long-term movement patterns of gravel, and innovative approaches to sediment management. The results of these experiments will directly inform flood risk and sediment management on the North Shore region of the Lower Mainland, and possibly elsewhere.

Quantum Algorithms on NISQ Devices

With the small qubit devices now becoming accessible across various hardware and cloud platforms, it is imperative to find useful tasks for the devices to perform. Such devices are known as NISQ – Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum – devices. In this regime of a few qubits, we expect the physical qubits to be noisy in the absence of sophisticated error-correction or fault-tolerant coding techniques. Therefore, it is important to understand and identify qubit algorithms that are of interest in the immediate future or near term, capable of running usefully on NISQ devices. In particular, we are interested in qubits encoded in optical modes via the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill scheme.

Design of Fast Charging System with Flywheel Energy Storage for Integrated Transportation Electrification and Industrial Facilities

This project is aiming at the design and analysis of high-performance fast charging system (FCS) to decrease charging time and reduce the high demand effect in the power grid. Besides, the target fast charging system will support transportation electrification infrastructures, maximize customer satisfaction, reduced operational costs and CO2 emissions. The analysis of the FCS system will provide resilient features to ensure minimum operation interruptions. Also, the system maximizes the charging time by protecting battery life. The design of the system can use energy storage system (battery-flywheel) to reduce the adverse effects of the high demand in the power grid. Also, the analysis includes the sizing of the system for different type of environment and weather conditions.The project will give an advance technology advantages to the partner organization members and will contribute to help grow the low-carbon and “smart” technology eco-system in the country, leading to job growth and economic development over the long-term.

Adding value from coffee waste: low oxidized sterols in silverskin

Coffee production with imported beans has doubled in Canada since 2003. From this > 125,000 t of waste is generated most of which ends up in landfill. A significant component of the waste is as the pulp (cascara) and silverskin. In 2019, the Happy Goat Company roasted 50 t of green coffee beans yielding 300kg silverskin which will greatly increase in 2021. Silverskin teas have 3-6 times more caffeine than coffee beans and are rich in total phenolics, antioxidant capacity and phytosterols. There is good evidence of their safety. However, the coffee roasting process creates oxidized phytosterols in the silverskin which are somewhat toxic. Phytosterol Oxidation Products (POPs) have been reported in silverskin in several studies. We have a unique opportunity to examine POPs in silverskin considering a number of variables. These will include process, roast degree and the roast profile. When the final best conditions are chosen, measurement of caffeine, total antioxidant capacity and total flavonoids with be conducted in the final product and in the silverskin-derived beverages. The goal is to reduce waste from the roastery and add some value for the farmers in Ethiopia and Guatemala who produce coffee for the company.

Implementation of a low barrier hydromorphone distribution program to prevent fatal overdoses – Year two

North America is experiencing an unprecedented opioid overdose epidemic driven by the proliferation of fentanyl and fentanyl-adulterated drugs. Based at the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) and in collaboration with the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), I will undertake an ethno-epidemiological study to evaluate the implementation, uptake, and effectiveness of a novel low-barrier hydromorphone distribution program via a secure automated medication dispensing system targeting individuals at high risk of fatal overdose. The study will also examine barriers and facilitators to program scale up. The BCCDC is responsible for the implementation and operation of the distribution systems and program, with the BCCSU conducting the external evaluation. Data collection will involve qualitative interviews with 60 program participants and 15 stakeholders, as well as ethnographic fieldwork. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users’ (VANDU) mandate is to improve the lives of people who use drugs (PWUD), and they benefit by playing a key role in an evaluation and knowledge translation for a program with the potential to directly benefit PWUD. VANDU members will be included on a community advisory committee, be employed as peer research assistants, and be involved in future policy development and knowledge translation.