Projets novateurs réalisés

Continuing an Evaluation of the Skills for Safer Living Program by Developing and Testing an Outcomes Evaluation Measure

The proposed research project is an evaluation of the outcomes of a suicide prevention program, Skills for Safer Living (SFSL). The program is an intervention that targets individuals with a high risk of suicide as indicated by multiple prior suicide attempts. SFSL has been adapted from a previous program that has shown positive outcomes, but an evaluation of SFSL outcomes has yet to be done. In this research a measure to evaluate immediate and long-term outcomes of the program will be developed and tested in collaboration with program staff and participants to ensure the research suits their needs. The partner organization will to benefit from this research since the research will inform the organization of their effectiveness in achieving the intended outcomes of SFSL and of possible improvements that can be made to the program. The partner organization will also benefit from the development of a measurement that can be used by the organization after the completion of the internship to continually evaluate the program outcomes.

Advanced Dyes for Printed Organic Photovoltaics

This project aims to develop advanced power sources that can convert indoor light into electricity to operate electronic sensors for the Internet of things. The proposed new technology is termed “indoor photovoltaics”. The aim is to create flexible, lightweight, semi-transparent devices of different colours at a minimal cost. Using new chemistry principles, photoactive material design, device engineering, advanced printing and electrical connections, this team aims to deliver fully functional indoor power devices ready for market evaluation.

Budget impact analysis of adopting primary care-based case detection in the Canadian general population

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) represents a considerable burden to Canada, an issue exacerbated by the underdiagnosis of the disease in the general population. There is a need to improve early access to care for COPD patients; early intervention to manage symptoms can improve patient outcomes and reduce the likelihood of costly hospitalizations. This project will extend a previous cost-effectiveness analysis of primary care-based COPD case-detection by conducting a budget impact analysis to assess the affordability of this strategy for the Canadian healthcare system. The analysis will utilize the Evaluation Platform for COPD, an existing computer model that simulates the incidence of COPD in the general Canadian population, COPD diagnosis, progression, and major health outcomes, including utilization and quality-adjusted life expectancy.
The expected outcomes include:
1) Presentation of preliminary results at the Canadian Respiratory Research Network meeting in October, approximately the mid-point of the placement
2) An abstract for the completed project that can be submitted for presentation at a health economics and outcomes research conference, such as ISPOR 2023

Geo-political borders and at-risk species’ distributions and conservation

The research project will investigate the impacts of the US-Canada border on conservation of at-risk species around the region of the Okanagan watershed, in the context of culture, politics and land governance. Species distribution modelling will be used to compare distributions of selected species either side of the border, and environmental, social and geographical variables will be included to determine how differences in governance influence where species are found. Additionally, environmental suitability maps will identify regions either side of the border which may provide suitable habitat for at-risk species, even if not previously recorded there. The expected outcomes include a greater understanding of how conservation and species occurrence is influenced by political borders, which can then be used to better inform conservation decisions within North America and further afield. The project will highlight the importance transboundary and multidisciplinary cooperation to tackle the current global biodiversity crisis that we face.

Engaging Girls in STEM: An Exploration of Canadian, Non-Profit Online Educational Resources

In recent years, there has been a surge in non-profit organisations providing free online resources aiming to inspire girls to ‘get into STEM’ in Canada. Resources include instructional videos, blog posts and ‘role model’ biographies of women working in STEM. To maximise the potential of these online educational resources, research is urgently needed to better understand the content, the objectives behind their development, and how they are being used. This project aims to do this by focusing on the work of three non-profit organisations: Science World, the Canadian Association for Girls in Science and STEMforGIRLS. Following analysis of the organisations’ online resources, I will conduct interviews with developers and a group of girls who are engaging/have engaged with the resources. The findings will be invaluable for the development of future resources and the evaluation of similar initiatives.

The fluid dynamics of expanding lava deltas

When lava enters the ocean, the molten rock spreads out and solidifies, creating a new shelf of land known as a lava delta. There have been a number of significant examples of such events over the last few years, notably at Kilauea, Hawaii in 2018, and Cumbre Vieja, La Palma in 2021. The physics of these events are complex, with changes to the driving buoyancy force due to the higher density of the ambient water relative to air, and rheological changes occurring due to the rapid cooling of the molten material. We will formulate continuum models to capture the dominant physical processes and these models will be analysed and integrated numerically to yield predictions that can be compared with observations.

Integrating a mixed energy vector battolyser into a microgrid

Micro and minigrids supplied by solar and wind power are an important solution to remote access to electricity. This project is a feasibility study investigating adding a flow battolyser into a microgrid system. When installed in a micro/ minigrid, the flow battolyser supplies metered electricity and hydrogen gas to homes, small businesses, and community buildings such as schools and health centres. The flow-battolyser operates in three modes:

1. Discharging as a battery when electricity demand exceeds generation
2. Charging as a battery
3. Use excess electricity to produce hydrogen gas for use in cooking or backup generation or small cottage industry

This project will have four main outputs
1: Learn about the conditions a battolyser will experience in a microgrid that are different from ideal laboratory conditions
2: Trial a battolyser under microgrid conditions and understand how it impacts performance
3: Use the battolyser characteristics to inform how a microgrid could be controlled with multiple energy vectors
4: Develop a pathway for future collaboration

Machine learning for modelling and control of direct air capture systems

The placement project will investigate the use of machine learning for modelling and control of an offshore wind powered direct air capture (DAC) system. DAC remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere which is injected into deep-sea reservoirs and are a key negative emission technology, which are becoming increasingly vital as a climate change mitigation strategy to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement. The problem of controlling DAC systems is difficult due to the complex operation and the
intermittency of the wind power supply. A traditional approach for controlling DAC systems uses mathematical modelling, which is time consuming, requires specialist expert knowledge and is computationally expensive to execute. The project will use a data-driven approach to modelling and controlling DAC systems by drawing on the latest developments in machine learning such as deep learning and reinforcement leaning. The objective is to show the feasibility of machine learning in this setting and implement an adaptive, learning based controller that maximises the CO2 capture rate.

Policy and practice: understanding the built environment’s transition to a circular economy in the UK and Canada

Transition to a circular economy (CE) can lower emissions from the built environment by reducing material consumption and waste generation. Because of this, CE policies and adoption of CE practices are increasingly being seen across the globe. This project assesses the current state of transition to a CE in the Canadian and UK built environments, and considers how this is influenced by policy. In addition to a comprehensive review of existing policy instruments, construction sector stakeholders from each country will be consulted to measure current engagement with different CE strategies. From this, the relative state of CE transition in each context, as well as how this interrelates with policy, may be compared. Ultimately, the project will enable the formation of recommendations to enhance the adoption of CE in the Canadian and UK built environments.

Satellite remote sensing of melt water river discharge

The intern Samuel Valman will work with Professors André St-Hilaire and Normand Bergeron at IRNS to develop a system to monitor river water discharge using satellite earth observation. The method developed will focus on measuring discharge during the melt water season of rivers in Quebec. This meltwater period is traditionally the most difficult period to measure river discharge with traditional methods which can only measure discharge at a single point along the river system and are prone to errors during high flow events. This method will utilize the novel “cubesat” satellites flown in a constellation by Planet Imagery which enable daily high-resolution images of these sites. The project will require some fieldwork to create discharge rating curves based on river width which can then be used with this satellite measured river width to measure discharge values throughout the year.

The expected outputs of this product include a scientific research article on the success of the method and the production of a system that can be used for monitoring flood risk and water resources in the future.

Visualizing privacy analysis results

Health data usage is regulated by health data regulation, such as PHIPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHIPA). To support the increasing demand in healthcare, systems utilizing digital storage and processing personal data has become essential, e.g. hospital data management systems. However, these systems are often complex and prone to data theft, misuse, and other data privacy concerns. Therefore, satisfying data privacy goals and enforcing health data regulation is crucial for these systems. That, however, remains challenging due to ambiguity and interpretation of regulation’s natural language. In this context, the goal of this project is to help systems that deal with medical data to respect health data regulation. We are working towards building an automatic approach to guid system’s compliance with health data regulations. Software compliance with a regulation can be checked on the system design or on an operational model of a system implementation. In this project, we focus on the early stage, where one can check whether a formalization of the system requirements satisfies privacy data regulations. The formalization can be done using a descriptive formalism like temporal logic, instead of using an operational one, based on transition systems.

Development of CFD model applied to fluidized beds for waste gasification

Gasification of wastes (either urban waste or residues from forest and agricultural operations) at large scale is a challenging operation because of the heterogeneity of the feedstock. Enerkem has addressed such challenge via its state-of-the art Bubbling Fluidized Bed (BFB) technology coupled with secondary Cracking and Reforming that results in high conversion of Carbon to syngas and a quality of the Syngas that makes it suitable for Catalytic Processing. The Enerkem approach provides a sustainable alternative to both landfill and incineration. As a guide for the engineering scale up and in order to optimize the performance of the technology, advanced modeling tools are to be adapted to such systems. Identified areas for optimization include: enhanced feedstock flexibility, higher energy efficiency and lower operational and maintenance costs. Based on a fully functional demonstration plant at Westbury, the project aims to develop Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models in order to predict and optimize the BFB behavior. Specifically, a 3D thermo-fluid dynamics model will be developed for visualization of flow and thermal fields in the BFB. Specialized CFD software and Sherbrooke University’s high performance computer will be used to perform the numerical simulations.