Projets novateurs réalisés

Local Racism & Marginalization Study in the Cowichan Valley

While there are national and provincial data assessing issues involving marginalization, racism and discrimination, smaller regions require local data to develop strategies that benefit them directly. The current project aims to develop an anti-racism strategy for the Cowichan Valley region by assessing the attitudes towards marginalized groups, specifically ethnic and racial minorities, and the experiences of racism and discrimination. The project will provide the Cowichan Intercultural Society with a baseline understanding of these local challenges and enable them to conduct follow-up evaluations in the subsequent years. The project will also provide an evidence-base that will help guide community initiatives promoting an inclusive and welcoming community.

The effect of acute breathing interventions on physical, emotional and behavioural responses to a stressful situation.

Athletes who regularly use relaxation strategies have been are better able to interpret stress and anxiety symptoms as beneficial to performance. Intentional breathing is a relaxation strategy that applies positive and quick effects on the body physiological and perceived stress response, such as reducing heart rate and anxiety. The goal of this study is to explore the effect of intentional short breathing strategies in a known anxiety-inducing scenario to decrease symptoms of stress and anxiety under conditions of pressure and threat. Specifically, compared to a control condition, we are aiming to measure how the known physiological effects of intentional breathing strategies can help athletes compared to non-athletes control and regulate physical, psychological, and behavioural reactions to stressful conditions. The findings from this research will be used to curate proven acute breathing strategies for athlete and on-athletes to use in stressful situations. This work will position Canada’s leading universities and corporations at the cutting edge of our understanding of the human physiological and perceptual response to stress and provide effectie strategies to implement in stress-inducing situations.

Philanthropy and Seniors: Exploring Current Practices, Key Challenges, and Paths Forward

Prominent Canadian philanthropic foundations are instituting significant reforms in grantmaking policy and practice in order to meet the needs of socially and economically marginalized communities. However, the sector has largely ignored the social and economic issues faced by one growing subset of the population: senior citizens. This absence of aging as a lens through which to understand philanthropic policy and practice is particularly concerning within a COVID-19 context that has highlighted an ongoing crisis in seniors’ programs and care. This exploratory research project seeks to address this gap at the intersection of philanthropy and aging by: (1) exploring the unique social and economic challenges and barriers faced by vulnerable seniors in Canada; (2) documenting the current state of philanthropic practice around seniors’ issues in Canada; and (3) developing a resource/guide for grantmaking foundations interested in incorporating seniors’ issues into their work on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Développement de méthodes de culture in vitro pour des plants de noisetier

Le projet de recherche permettra de d’améliorer les techniques de culture en laboratoire pour des plants de noisetiers adaptés au climat canadien. Ce type d’arbre à noix est déjà présent au Canada, mais il n’est pas adapté pour produire des noisettes correspondant aux demandes de l’industrie et des consommateurs. Les variétés européennes qui sont cultivées présentement pour la production de noisette ne tolèrent pas le climat canadien. Il est possible de croiser des variétés canadiennes avec des variétés européennes pour produire un hybride adapté au climat nordique du Canada. Cependant, les techniques actuelles pour multiplier ces nouvelles variétés ne sont pas efficaces. Le projet de recherche permettra à Phytoclone de développer de nouvelles méthodes de culture adaptées aux nouvelles variétés de noisetiers afin de permettre la production de noisettes au Québec et au Canada.

Indoor object detection for personal assistant for the blind

Humanware develops since 2003 a GPS-based dedicated device which helps a blind person to orient himself and guide him to his destination. In this project, we want to enhance the user’s experience by providing a better understanding of the environment by interacting with the device in a more natural manner. This project addresses two types of environment: the outdoor world where we want to improve door-to-door navigation by guiding the blind pedestrian to the door of the final destination and the indoor world where the device becomes a personal assistant.

Évaluation d’un acidifiant alimentaire chez le poulet de chair

La demande pour les produits de consommation sans médicament est en croissance constante. Cependant, certaines infections communes chez le poulet de chair affectent la santé et la production, exigeant l’utilisation d’alternatives aux médicaments. Parmi ces infections communes, la coccidiose aviaire engendre des pertes économiques considérables pour les producteurs. Pour l’instant, les alternatives efficaces aux anticoccidiens pour la production de poulet de chair sont manquantes. Même si des vaccins se sont développés et sont disponibles, leur efficacité n’est pas optimale et ils sont difficiles à exploiter en raison, notamment, du bas âge des poulets à l’abattage. Nous proposons d’étudier l’effet d’un acidifiant alimentaire chez le poulet de chair, en présence et en absence de coccidiose aviaire. Cette étude pourrait permettre d’offrir au secteur de la volaille du Canada une solution naturelle et efficace pour contrer la coccidiose.

Implementation of Environmental Social and Governance Initiatives of Canadian Mining Companies

The overall goal of the proposed research project is a creation of a database on corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and broader Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives sponsored by Canadian mining companies in the extractives sector, with a particular focus on programs directed to community development. The data aims to provide communities and other stakeholders with knowledge on community development and other programs implemented across the sector. The outcome will support the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) in identifying areas where its expertise can be applied and assist in engaging with the industry on implementation of CSR and community engagement initiatives.

The Politics of Framing Youth and Doing Development in Nigeria

The research that I plan to conduct in this internship is part of my doctoral work. Through an ethnographic examination of the everyday realities of young men and women in West Africa’s largest marketplace, my PhD research will examine the relationship between livelihood opportunities, policy, and youth social action in Onitsha Eastern Nigeria. This research will ask: what kinds of external social, historical, and political forces are youth exposed to that shape their choices and life opportunities? Against the challenges that confront young people, what new forms of adaptation and resilience are being devised? How do young men and women work with and against established gendered forms of economic organization in African urban centers? How are they affected by neoliberalism and government policies? I will utilize this internship to advance the understanding of youthfulness and youth framing in Africa, arguing that effective youth intervention programming is contingent on a new conceptualization of what it means to a “youth” in Nigeria today. I argue that “being youth” in today’s Nigeria, and indeed in many parts of Africa, must be understood around certain key issues including information technology, migration, the dynamism of livelihood, among others.

Elaboration d’un système intégré de management des processus de production industrielle

Ce projet de recherche vise à tester des nouveaux modèles d’intégration des systèmes et de planification, de simulation, d’anticipation des opérations au sein de l’entreprise Sotrem-Maltech. Les retombées attendues sont de deux ordres : dans un premier temps l’entreprise bénéficiera d’une base d’information unique et partagée au sein des différents postes fonctionnels, dans un second temps, l’entreprise sera à jour des pratiques de planification opérationnelles pour mieux se positionner face à la concurrence mondiale.

Zipstall – On-line and Off-line Parking Availability Prediction

Searching for parking has many terrible impacts, such as wasted time, fuel, and emissions, overpaying for parking etc. To ease the pain of parking, the goal of this project is to develop a method of collecting information from multiple sources (crowd-sourced information from parkers, active paid session information from managers/parking enforcement, and availability information from enforcement patrols) and utilize various machine learning methods including K-Nearest Neighbors, Neural Network, Decision Tree and Time Series models to predict real-time on-street and off-street parking availability at the users’ estimated arrival time. Afterward, Zipstall can provide the users with personalized parking recommendation once the availability prediction of parking areas is accurate. The partner will benefit from participating in the program as advancements in the methodology of tracking and predicting real-time parking availability, which will enable the delivery of a vastly superior customer experience to the partner’s clients.

Differentially private models for detection of previously seen data

Jumio is constantly facing fraudulent attacks of repeated nature when a series of similar images with minor changes are submitted. To be able to respond effectively it is necessary to be able to learn previously seen fraudulent data. At the same time we have to deal with very sensitive private data and therefore it’s becoming a major concern for multiple reasons.

First, just comparing to all already seen data is not feasible technically due to optimization issues. And second most importantly it would cause legal issues due to privacy concerns and restrictions.

Predicting acoustic and pollutant emissions from combustion equipment using experiments and machine learning

Several engineering equipment ranging from those used for portable power generation, to medium scale gas turbine aircraft engines, and large scale land-based power generation units burn fuel to produce either electric energy or generate propulsive force. This energy conversion takes place inside a combustion chamber which emits noise and combustion pollutants. The objective of the present study is to first perform experiments and analyze data to understand the relations between noise and pollutant emissions. Then, artificial neural networks will be used to perform data mining, developing models that facilitate prediction of both noise and pollution emission from the combustors.