Projets novateurs réalisés

Visualizing the contribution of microtubules and stretch-activated channels to cardiac arrhythmias

The heart is a complex organ that pumps the equivalent of an Olympic-sized swimming pool of blood to the body each day. To accomplish this incredible feet, millions of cells must work together in a coordinated manner, enabled by tight connections between their electrical and mechanical activity. In cardiac diseases these connections are disturbed, which can lead to deadly changes in the heart’s electrical activity, known as arrhythmias. Despite the clear link between the heart’s mechanical state and deadly arrhythmias, we do not have a good understanding of its importance, or the mechanisms involved. The goal of my research is to understand the importance of the heart’s mechanical sensitivity in cardiac arrhythmias. This will involve experiments in isolated whole hearts and advanced imaging techniques to measure cellular electrical activity and calcium cycling, combined with pharmacological interventions to determine the mechano-sensitive factors involved. Ultimately, my work will provide information critical for developing new treatments for the prevention of deadly cardiac arrhythmias related to the mechanical sensitivity of the heart.

An observational framework to diagnose imprints of land-atmosphere interactions on climate

Land-atmosphere interactions strongly impact the exchange of heat and water vapor between the land and the atmosphere and play an important role for regional climates. How heat and water vapor exchange affect the near-surface climate is linked to the diurnal growth and decline of the atmospheric boundary layer – the atmospheric layer, which is directly influenced by the land surface. The objective of the project is to develop and validate an observational framework to diagnose imprints of land-atmosphere interactions on climate. For this purpose, ceilometer observations, radiosonde soundings, and surface fluxes will be combined to analyse land-atmosphere interactions at a desert grassland site in Arizona. The results of this research will complement field observations in a mixed-wood forest in New Brunswick. The intern will learn how to plan and execute atmospheric observation campaigns and how the observations can be used to improve current understanding of regional climate change.

Strengthening Marine Protected Areas in Atlantic Canada and internationally by advancing the integration of social considerations within planning, implementation and management

This project aims to improve the implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Canadian Atlantic, and abroad, by advancing the integration of social equity considerations in MPAs design, implementation and management. The project integrates two case studies. The proposed Eastern Shore Island in Nova Scotia (Canada), and the Iroise Marine Natural Park in Brittany (France). Included in both case studies will be similar questions that explore social equity considerations in two different marine conservation processes: expectations linked to the future implementation of MPA – Canada case study; experiences linked to the long process of implementation and management of an already established MPA – France case study. The questions will explore experiences, lessons, challenges and opportunities from practitioners point of view, and viewpoints from key actors from within the local communities. These two case studies will generate comparative insights that will contribute to marine conservation in Atlantic Canada and France, and further the understanding human dimensions of MPAs in developed contexts.

Re-imagining knowledge mobilization in a carbon-constrained world: A design research on transnational and transdisciplinary collaborations for Adaptation Futures

Major sustainability challenges, such as climate change, are global; thus, addressing them requires active transnational and cross-sectoral approaches to knowledge sharing for collective action. However, the dominant practice of flying thousands of scientists and delegates to attend climate summits and international meetings is responsible for a significant share of carbon emissions. The question, then, is how to scale up global action while simultaneously reducing the environmental impacts of such operations. The goal of this research is to develop low carbon- and travel-intensive alternatives. It also examines how these alternatives may shape the issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion globally. In collaboration with Ouranos, the insights from this research will be experimented at the 2023 Adaptation Futures conference, which is supported by leading organizations and UN agencies. This Mitacs partnership will extend Ouranos’ mission to help Quebec and international communities to better adapt to climate change based on rigorous scientific knowledge.

The gender-based impact of stand your ground laws: a triangulated analysis of homicide trends and legal cases

This research award will support two interns to work as part of an international research partnership between Dalhousie University, Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Pennsylvannia. We aim to investigate: (1) the impacts that expanding civilian rights and ability to use deadly force in self-defense across the United States have had on rates of intimate partner homicide and (2) how self-defense cases involving violence between intimate partners (the most common form of violence against women) have been treated in the justice system depending on variations in state laws. Each intern will work on activities that support one of these two aims. We expect that this work will result in two peer-reviewed publications and a funding application that will support a larger investigation of not just whether changing self-defense laws impacts violence against women but also for whom and how, to better inform legal and policy reform that reduces (rather than exacerbates) social inequalities.

Experimental validation of data enabled predictive control

Developments in machine learning have increased interest in data-driven methods, particularly in predictive control. Data-enabled predictive control has been claimed to provide a data-driven end-to-end solution. It includes robustness guarantees obtained through regularization, borrowed from popular machine learning methods. These novel methods use data in a new framework, where analysis methods used in adaptive control and prior data-driven methods cannot easily be applied. Full understanding of the apparent robustness is lacking. This project aims to analyze the properties of data-driven predictive control and relate the method to prior results.

The student will implement data enabled predictive control for a quadcopter. Based on the theoretical results from this research project, the student will perform experiments to show when the method does and does not work. This experimental work is an integral part of this project and results from this work are expected to be included in a publication.

Modèles d’apprentissage profond pour l’auto-correction des prévisions météorologiques : application à la prévision de la demande sur le réseau électrique québécois et analyse de l’impact des tendances climatiques

A Hydro-Quebec TransEnergie (HQTE), la prevision de la charge (ou « prevision du MW») en operationnel repose sur de; model es parametriques constitues defonctions modelisantes non lineaires. Ces model es sont alimentes par des observations et des previsions meteorologiques, ces dernieres pouvant etre auto corrigees selon la ten dance observee dans Jes derniere;
heures. S’ils ont fait leur preuve et demeurent performants, on constate une lente degradation de leur capacite a prevoir en toute situation Jes besoins quebecois. Cette degradation est expliquee par plusieurs phenomenes: des changements dans le; comportements sociaux, dans la repartition geographique de la population, dans l’equipement en domotique, dans la composition de l’industrie electro-intensive. Les changements climatiques ont aussi leur part de responsabilite. Dans ce proja: de recherche, nous souhaitons etudier !’integration d’une couche neuronale d’auto-correction des intrants meteorologique; bruts, proposer une interpretation physique de ces modeles, puis analyser leur comportement dans un contexte de changement climatique.

Physical Demands Evaluations with Lifebooster Technology

Cargill is looking to improve the data collection and injury risk assessment process by leveraging the Lifebooster technology. The Lifebooster system has been leased and will be used for 12 months as a proof of concept project. The goal of the POC is to evaluate the ability to collect PDD data with wearable technology, and any improvements in accuracy and efficiency achieved through the use of technology versus the current manual/observation-based system.

Contrôle qualité des enrobés en usine par méthodes non destructives

Dans ce projet, le potentiel d’utilisation de l’essai de résonance par impacts pour faire du contrôle qualité en usine sur les enrobés bitumineux sera évalué. Cet essai est un essai non destructif, économique et simple à réaliser et il pourrait permettre de vérifier à la fois les propriétés volumétriques et les performances des mélanges formulés en usine. Dans un premier temps, l’essai de résonance par impacts sera mis en place au sein du laboratoire de contrôle qualité du partenaire industriel et la fiabilité de l’essai sera vérifiée. Par la suite, des essais seront réalisés sur différents mélanges afin de définir clairement la sensibilité des résultats par rapport à différents paramètres (type et teneur en bitume, teneur en vides, etc.). L’approche non destructive sera également utilisée pour optimiser des paramètres d’usinage de certains produits et déterminer des propriétés thermomécaniques des enrobés. Ce projet est une étape clé vers l’amélioration du contrôle qualité en usine des matériaux de chaussées.

Life Cycle Analysis of Electricity Generation and Battery Technologies for use in Ontario

As Ontario’s electricity grid continues to evolve, all technologies must be evaluated on a life cycle basis. This will ensure that potential environmental impacts and economic costs are understood in advance of installation, and will permit fair and comprehensive comparisons amongst alternatives.
This project seeks to investigate the life cycle environmental and cost performance of utility-scale photovoltaic (PV), wind, small modular reactor (SMR), and battery technologies for use in Ontario. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) will be employed to examine one project using each technology, as well as combinations of renewables and battery technologies. Analyses will be completed for typical supply chains, as well as hypothetical Ontario-/Canada-centric supply chains.

Consolidating High-Frequency and Textual Data for Optimal Anomaly Detection in Derivative Markets

In the last few years, a high increase in the interest of traders and investors towards financial instruments directly led to an important augmentation of the information received daily by exchanges. Exchange regulators, who constantly monitor markets to unveil potential infractions, traditionally perform their investigation manually and the notable growth in market activity represents an important risk of fraudulent events going unnoticed. In response to that new reality, exchanges around the globe are establishing automated surveillance systems that track market activity. In this project, we set out to design new artificial intelligence algorithms that will detect anything in the Montreal exchange’s market that seems abnormal or fraudulent in the market data and news, so that analysts can focus on these alerts. Such a system could potentially detect fraudulent cases that are currently going unnoticed, while drastically reducing human costs and validation time.

Optogenetic Suppression of Early After-depolarisations in a Computational Model of the Human Heart

The heart beats an incredible 2-3 billion times in one’s lifetime. This amazing feat is made possible by highly organised electrical signals passing through the heart tissue. Disturbances of the heart’s electrical activity (known as ‘arrhythmias’) can be deadly, as they impair its ability to pump blood to the body. While various treatments for the prevention or termination of arrhythmias exist, they generally lack in effectiveness and are often associated with harmful side effects, so the development of new therapies is needed. One new technology of interest for treating arrhythmias is proteins that are activated by light, which can be used to control the heart’s electrical activity. The goal of the propose project is to explore the potential for using these light-activated proteins for the prevention of deadly cardiac arrhythmias through computational simulations in a mathematical model of the human heart, to complement my ongoing experimental studies in isolated zebrafish hearts and advance its clinical relevancy.