Projets novateurs réalisés

The effect of annealing on the deformation and impurity segregation mechanisms in electrodeposited nanocrystalline NiCo alloy

Fully dense nanocrystalline alloys have high strength, hardness, and wear resistance due to their extremely fine (nano) crystals. This makes them of significant interest in different industrial applications which require excellent mechanical properties. A new nanocrystalline nickel-cobalt (NiCo) alloy, currently being developed with Integran Technologies Inc, Mississauga, Ontario, has a good combination of strength and wear resistance. We discovered that the strength of the alloy can further be improved by performing heat treatments at moderate temperatures after fabrication. On the other hand, the process related in the material sulfur impurities were found to make the alloy brittle if the heat treatment temperature is too high. However, the intrinsic mechanisms that lead to these changes in mechanical behavior remain not well understood. This project to be carried out at The University of Tokyo aims to examine these fundamental properties which will help in assessing the feasibility of accelerating the commercialization of the alloy for various applications.

Photogrammetry and water monitoring for Hyper-K

The next generation neutrino experiments like Hyper-Kamiokande will have statistical power, but the presence of detector systematics will limit the discovery potential of the experiments.
The uncertainties due to construction tolerances, support frame shift from PMT buoyancy, and the source deployment system, combined with uncertainties in PMT angular response, and position-dependent water quality, can limit the precision of our final measurements. Through the application of photogrammetry, position, and potentially direction, of each PMT and deployed calibration sources can be calibrated, independently from all other degenerate detector parameters including those mentioned above. Furthermore, mitigating the water-related uncertainties requires R&D of water purification systems, water quality measurement apparatuses, and ultra-pure and gadolinium (Gd) loaded water compatibility soak testing for future detector components. Through this internship at Kavli IPMU, I plan to contribute to the development of these novel techniques for controlling the detector systematics that are crucial for the high significance discoveries of Hyper-Kamiokande.

The Freeze Tolerance of the Terrestrial Slug, Ambigolimax valentianus

Land-dwelling slugs are routinely exposed to cold or freezing temperature during the winter. Some species of slugs can even survive partial ice formation within their bodies. How they survive low temperatures is largely a mystery as ice formation is damaging, and they lack external protection like shells. This project aims to determine the lower temperature tolerance of Ambigolimax valentianus, a species of invasive slug that has established damaging populations in Japan, Canada, and Europe. To do this, we will expose A. valentianus to sub-zero temperatures under different environmental conditions (day lengths and cold temperature acclimations) and measure their freezing points and overall survival. Then, we will attempt to determine if small molecules, called cryoprotectants, play a role in their freezing tolerance as they do in other species of molluscs. With this information, we can determine the factors that influence the lower temperature tolerances of A. valentianus, which if remarkable, would be a property that could allow them to outcompete native species.

Bright Minds & Bushy Tails: How education impacts animal-related attitudes in Japanese graduate students Japanese graduate students

“Iyashi” (i.e., well-being) can stem from human-animal interactions (HAI), like those developed through companionship, animal-assisted therapies, or animal cafes. Research suggests that prolonged exposure to, or education about, non-human animals may lead to a greater understanding of non-human animal sentience. What could be the impact of a short-term educational program on attitudinal change? This study will investigate the impact of two separate 2-week courses taught through the Hokkaido Summer Institute (one HAI-related and one non-HAI related) on graduate students’ perceptions of, and empathy towards, non-human animals. Students that participate in the HAI-related, but not the non-HAI-related, course are expected to show significant changes in attitudes toward the use of, and empathy for, animals. An ethical tendency towards idealism, but not relativism, is expected to positively correlate with scores on the above measures in the HAI course group. An ethnographic/qualitative examination of teaching practices in a Japanese graduate classroom will also be conducted. Results from this study will contribute to the Canadian public’s understanding, and appreciation, of the roles of non-human animals in the everyday lives of humans as well as the diversity of teaching strategies in Japan.

Intégration de la gestion des idées dans le processus de gestion de l’innovation technologique de l’IRÉQ

Ce projet comprend l’animation/observation de communauté de pratique pour modéliser et prototyper une amélioration du système de gestion des idées existant et à l’intégrer parfaitement à la gestion de l’innovation technologique de l’IRÉQ. Ce nouveau système permettra la valorisation des idées produites dans un contexte scientifique pour les amener vers un processus d’innovation technologique. Ainsi, ce projet se déroulera sur un an à travers 5 périodes/blocs et s’attachera 1 – à animer et observer les communautés de pratique afin de modéliser une amélioration du système de gestion des idées existant, 2 – à concrétiser cette modélisation par un prototype opérationnel visant l’intégration au sein du processus d’innovation technologique, 3 – à classer les idées au moyen d’une taxonomie organisationnelle, 4 – à valider la pertinence du prototype auprès des experts et la mettre en place de manière pérenne et/ou à la diffuser plus largement et 5 – à consolider le lien direct entre gestion des idées et innovation pour tendre vers l’innovation technologique et proposer un guide pour les communautés de pratique.

The Relative Importance of Recirculated Seawater on Submarine Groundwater Discharge

While rivers are an important and highly visible pathway for freshwater to reach the ocean, another less noticeable, but also important, pathway is the discharge of groundwater from the sea floor. This phenomenon, known as Submarine Groundwater Discharge (SGD), is significant to the coastal ocean because it can carry water-based nutrients and pollutants into the sea, which then mix with the water and affect the surrounding sea life. The extent and mechanisms of this mixing depends heavily on how much of the discharge is fresh groundwater, and how much is recirculated seawater. This project aims to get a better understanding of this balance by combining groundwater theory with numerical models of the ocean, as well as by taking measurements using a novel technique. It is expected that the resulting tool will provide valuable insights into the drivers of this balance, as well as improve understanding of it under different conditions.

Combinatorial aspects of persistent homology

Topological data analysis is a tool used to analyze the shape of a given dataset. It allows one to find topological or geometrical features of even large collections of data. Persistent homology is one of the main approaches to topological data analysis in recent times. The strategy is to set some rule to build geometrical objects from data using a parameter given by a real number. As this parameter varies, the geometrical object varies, and persistence homology is the study of the evolution of these objects as the parameter increases.

Recent work aim to expend this strategy to using multiple parameter simultaneously. However, the mathematical models are more complex and further abstract theories need to be developed. This aims to lay foundations that will eventually allow the development of algorithms that can use these ideas in an efficient manner. Our goal is to contribute to this effort, with an approach that is combinatorial and algebraic.

Control of multi-agent robots: an opinion dynamics approach

The objective of this project is the development of a novel control strategy for multi-agent robots. The objectives are energy saving and efficient robots movements and manoeuvres within clustered environments. To this end, the research intern (with the help of the host and home supervisor) will be in charge of developing a novel distributed control strategy based on the exploitation of the opinion dynamics among the involved groups of vehicles. To this end, the intern will to start from recently published contributions of the host and home supervisors in order to derive a new approach that leverages the tools developed by both research groups. The resulting solution will be tested via laboratory experiments using a team of differential-drive robots available in the host supervisors research lab at Concordia University.

A Machine Learning-Guided Platform to Engineer Functional Analogues of Therapeutic Peptides

Comprised of a small chain of amino acids, therapeutic peptides are a unique class of drugs that have played a significant role in medicine since the discovery of insulin. Despite their importance in Pharma, the discovery of new peptides and the improvement of existing therapeutics remains a highly specialized domain and has not seen the cost barrier fall yet. Additionally, the pharmaceutical industry is heavily patent-protected allowing only a few major corporations to monopolize the market.
Novel platforms for designing patent-free mimetics of high-value peptide-based therapeutics can potentially mitigate this problem. Combining the advantages of synthetic biology-enabled cell-free systems with microfluidics, I propose to create a machine learning-guided platform for designing functional analogs of high-value peptide therapeutics that share less than 50% sequence identity with the original therapeutic.

On-the-fly World Models for Quadrupedal Robots

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) for quadrupedal robot control has recently become tractable. In under an hour, serviceable control policies can be obtained in simulation. However, transferring reinforcement learning from simulation to the real world is still an arduous task. We propose a novel two-agent setup that leverages the good sides of both model-free and model-based DRL. We propose introducing a new agent is to the model-free control policy. By tasking the new agent with regularizing differences in operating environments by generating world models on-the-fly that will act as regularizers over the control policy’s inputs, we will obtain a reliable sim2real strategy to help take quadrupedal control polices out of simulation and into the real world.

Ethical Awareness of Japanese Computer Science and Software Engineering Graduate Students on Text-to-Image AI-Generated Art

Text-to-image AI models for AI-generated art has recently gained extensive media coverage and has had a significant impact on Japanese art communities and Japanese digital content sites. I am particularly interested in investigating Japanese computer science and software engineering graduate students’ awareness of ethical issues embedded in the technology necessary to create AI-generated art. This is because these students are the primary demographic hired to work at research and development (R&D) labs at the forefront of such innovations. By understanding the amount of ethical values held by these students or the lack thereof, there will be a clear understanding of what gaps in digital literacy and ethical awareness are held by prospective researchers in the field. This will better inform what areas in computer science or software engineering higher education can be improved to increase ethical and critical thinking towards the technological development, creation, public evaluation, and moderation of AI-generated content and related technologies. These gaps will be addressed through the creation of an international workshop for computer science and software engineering graduate students to assess and critique text-to-image AI-generated art.

Heart-lung synchronizations during exercise

Patients diagnosed with heart failure often require the implantation of a pacemaker to improve cardiac function, which in turn, improves exercise tolerance and quality of life. Current pacemaker models work at a fixed time interval for a given heart rate (i.e. 1 second between heart beats at 60 beats per minute). However, the body’s natural homeostatic system creates variations in the time interval in line with one’s breathing cycle (termed respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA). A novel pacemaker model has restored RSA when implanted, showing large improvements in cardiac function in animal models of heart failure. While restoration of RSA at rest may improve cardiac function, this synchronization between heart rate and breathing disappears during exercise. Thus, Dr. Stembridge has set out to explore alternative heart-lung synchronization mechanisms in healthy populations during exercise, to guide future pacing principles for novel pacemakers. We will evaluate these mechanisms and their effect on cardiovascular function during exercise in healthy individuals. We hypothesize that cardiorespiratory phase synchronization will remain different across exercise domains in young healthy individuals, and hypo- and hyperventilation will lead to a decrease in left heart output during exercise and exaggerated heart rate response relative to exercise stage.