Projets novateurs réalisés

Développement d’un système d’aide au diagnostic en agriculture

En partenariat avec le compagnie XLKey, le projet vise à développer un système pour centraliser les données de milliers de producteurs agricoles afin de leur offrir des analyses qui leur permettront de situer la performance de leurs cultures et de leurs opérations par rapport à d’autres producteurs partageant des conditions semblables. Concrètement, en accumulant des données précises sur le sol, les plantes et les opérations, il sera possible de mieux cibler et chiffrer les problématiques auxquelles font face les producteurs, et ainsi les aider dans leurs prises de décision et permettra de faire une gestion des opérations en fonction des caractéristiques et des besoins précis de leurs champs. Donc, les entreprises agricoles connaîtront inévitablement une augmentation des rendements, une baisse des coûts de production ainsi qu’une baisse des émissions de GES.

First Nations Storytellers

The purpose of this internship is to research and identify best practice’s (desktop and interviews), make recommendations for marketing, products, and operations and finally to implement and evaluate. This will be done in cooperation with the co-founders. An ancillary benefit for the intern will be gaining business acumen through mentorship with the co-founders.

Développement d’un outil de détection des ponceaux par intelligence artificielle

Au niveau des municipalités, la gestion des ponceaux est de la responsabilité des gestionnaires de la voirie. Cependant, l’inventaire complet des ponceaux n’est pas toujours disponible en raison de l’éloignement de certaines zones rurales, et la non disponibilité historique des données du ministère des Transports du Québec pour ce type d’infrastructure. Afin de détecter et de répertorier les ponceaux isolés pour une zone d’études, MGA et l’Université de Sherbrooke proposent de développer un outil de recherche automatisé des ponceaux à partir d’images de drone à très haute résolution spatiale et des données géospatiales connexes

Discovery and synthesis of novel anti-viral compounds

Our ultimate goal is to develop small molecule drugs and validate their roles in viral replication inhibition. Collectively, we have the expertise in molecular and cell biology, biochemical, structural biophysical, and drug-discovery platforms. We have all the required infrastructure and resources available to realize our goals. Development of small molecule drug as antivirals include many steps and requires expertise from organic chemists, analytical chemists and cell biologists. The process includes synthesis of novel compounds, testing their solubility, stability and toxicity and finally validating anti-viral activity. The interns from NAIT will have the opportunity to learn drug development and validation strategies from analytical chemists and cell biologists.

Interns from NAIT has the perfect training about the instruments and techniques that API need for the novel drug synthesis pipeline for anti-virals. NAIT students will be involved in the drug analytical assays as well as cell bilogy assays. Particularly, students will be involved in testing drug stability, solubility and toxicity as well as cell based assays. Students will gain some industry work experience as well as build a bridge between academia and industry. We will identify experimentally validated novel small molecule hits with possibly anti-viral activity and deliverables including HPLC method validation for determining the stability of the novel compounds, development of a standard protocol and SOP for cell toxicity and viability assays, development of a standard method for plaque assays, and identification of lead compounds that shows the anti-viral activity.

Mobile Application Development

Ksalsuti Wellness Resources is seeking to create a mobile application to showcase the stories from the Turtle Island Series. The stories aim to improve to social and mental wellness of children by providing culturally relevant programming and materials from an Indigenous lens. These stories will have lessons embedded that focus on building positive self esteem, making positive choices, learning to manage emotions, dealing with anger in a positive way, showing care for Elders, dealing with worry, and building positive and meaningful relationships. The Mobile Application will play an audio recording of an elder reading the book in Indigenous languages Wolastoqey and Mi’gmaq. The Mobile Application will increase access, and exposure of the stories while also creating additional revenue streams for Ksalsuti. This project will enhance knowledge of Indigenous languages for the New Brunswick population and provide increased visibility for Ksalsuti’s products.

Characterizing the relationship between aroma profiles and odour perception in northern highbush blueberries

Blueberries consumption has increased in the last decades due to their delicious flavour and recognized health benefits. However, even if the blueberry flavour is naturally delightful, some consumers are concerned because this flavour is not consistent over weeks, which could result in a decreased purchasing interest. Blueberry flavour depends on many factors, especially the genetic and pre-/post-harvest factors. Cultivar selection is one of the most effective ways to modulate blueberry flavour, but berry breeders need to know which specific compounds they should regulate. Through a unique combination of chromatographic and olfactometric-mass spectrometric analyses, this project aims to determine which are the most impactful aromas from the hundreds of volatile compounds identified using instrumental techniques. The outcomes of this project could be used to understand the mechanisms driving the consumer preference in sensory studies and to assist in the prospective development of new selections with consistent flavour and enhanced marketability.

Advanced Simulation Methods for a Next Generation Computational Fluid Dynamics Solver Year One

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that is focused on using numerical methods to solve and analyze practical engineering problems involving fluid flow. The purpose of the proposed research project is to develop novel simulation methods directed at applications in sensitivity analysis and design optimization. Sensitivity and optimization studies are becoming more common as engineers are challenged to determine optimal operating configurations for their designs. This project is directed at improving the tools available for conducting such studies through a partnership with ANSYS Inc., the market-leading developer of commercial CFD software. All development will be implemented and tested within the ANSYS CFD framework with the end goal of releasing the features to customers and establishing a technological advantage to ANSYS and its customers in the areas of sensitivity analysis and optimization.

Recycling of Fiberglass Parts for re-use as Structural Parts

Large fiberglass parts cannot be easily recycled. In this proposal, a recycling method will be developed to meet the needs of Proslide. Waste Fiberglass generated by Proslide will be transformed into recycled parts that can be re-used by the company. This will accomplished in several steps by first taking the waste parts to a recycling facility to break down the parts into useable fiberglass material. The material is then converted to a material that can be used by industrial 3D printing machines. The 3D printer is then used to produce complex shaped parts. There are many technological steps in this recycling process that require research and development in order to achieve success. The entire process represents a contribution to the

Analyzing the MRI Data from Premature Infants

Brain segmentation is crucial for providing accurate predictions to the patients due to the information which can be extracted from it, such as the shape and size of the tissue, underdeveloped or injured regions, and annual comparative results for brain growth. Segmentation of infants’ brains currently requires deep expertise and is a labor-intensive process, typically performed by an experienced radiologist, and typically only for research studies, and not for routine clinical care. Automatic segmentation methods would highly increase the number of infants with brain injuries for whom we would have segmentation data, enabling further studies of neurodevelopmental outcomes. The goal of our research is to build an automatic segmentation solution, which could segment brain MRIs for neonates, at-term infants, and older children. The model would be also able to label white matter injury, which is one of the most common and dangerous injuries in preterm infants, and can be used to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes. Using segmentation results and the provided meta-data in a form of clinical labels, we can build an outcome predicting model. The provided results from the prediction model are going to be useful for medical researchers to analyze the feature importance that impacted the result.

Computer aided system based on Image processing technique for assessment ofspinal cord from MRI Year One

The spinal cord is one of the most imponant neurological structures in the body. Noninvasive image-based assessment of this structure is an increasingly demanding healthcare service. This project is a preliminary development stage of a computer-aided spinal-scan assessment software toolkit which aims at faciiitating the diagnosis of spinal cord problems. In parlicular, the proposed project is to design computational methods which automatically extract image fearures. such as structure sizes, location and intensity, thereby enabling the diagnosis of spinal cord disorders in an efficient, reproducible and accurate manner.

A Marketable Formulation that Kills Overwintering Ticks (Ixodes scapularis).

We have developed a natural product acaricide that is based on balsam fir (Abies balsamea) essential oil. The product kills overwintering ticks. It is designed to be applied to lawns, gardens and municipal parks in the late fall to kill ticks over the winter. The purpose of this project is to complete testing under semi-natural conditions, conduct a final field test (beta test) of the product this winter, and bring the product to market.

Toward microservices: an intelligent modernization and optimization of service points location system at Hydro-Québec

This partnership project with Hydro-Québec focuses on providing a better-informed optimization for service point location and modernizing the architecture of the optimization system. Our objective is to leverage the abundant data from Hydro-Québec to build robust forecasting models that can predict the workload demand at each potential or available service point. We also aim to improve the quality of the service point location optimization system through an intelligent, automated and data-driven detection of the violations of fundamental design principles that negatively impact the design quality of the system. We will then work on the recommendation of migration steps towards a modern microservices architecture style that makes the engineering of complex software intensive systems, flexible, scalable, and easy-to-perform.