Projets novateurs réalisés

L’impact des services de rédaction Thèsez-vous sur les habitudes rédactionnelles et la motivation à rédiger des étudiants gradués

Au Canada, le taux d’abandon au doctorat s’élève à 50% et occasionne des coûts humains et financiers importants. L’organisme à but non lucratif (OBNL) Thèsez-vous offrent des services de rédaction telles que des groupes de rédaction et des retraites de rédaction dans le but d’aider les étudiants gradués à adopter de saines habitudes de travail, briser l’isolement et graduer. Dans ce contexte, une étude a été entamé pour connaître l’impact des services de rédaction Thèsez-vous sur les habitudes rédactionnelles et la motivation à rédiger des étudiants gradués. Récemment, l’arrivée de la pandémie Covid-19 et l’augmentation du sentiment d’isolement a entrainé l’OBNL à offrir ses services virtuellement et à agrandir son équipe d’animateurs. Le présent projet vise à documenter l’effet d’une participation aux services de rédaction de l’OBNL chez les doctorants, ainsi qu’à documenter comment les animateurs tiennent compte des savoirs acquis dans leur façon d’animer les services virtuels.

Vapor-phase metal additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM, or 3-D printing) with metals is a rapidly growing field catalyzing a revolution in modern manufacturing. The most common approach involves the use of metal powders as a feedstock material. The proposed research program will use metalorganic gaseous precursors such as Ni(CO)4 and Fe(CO)5 which facilitate low temperature (~200 C) deposition, forming solid metal deposits utilizing infrared light radiation-based heating. The low deposition temperature of nickel and iron carbonyls is attractive as it facilitates low thermal stresses during part building, providing the possibility of extreme dimensional accuracy for such process. The project will explore both stand-alone deposits using the concept of “laser writing”, as well as metal deposition on 3-D printed polymer substrates. The proposed technique will enable broadening Weber’s portfolio of products produced by conventional nickel vapor deposition process (using oil-heated mandrels as substrates).

Fundamental movement skills in children with physical disabilities

In Canada, 4.2% of children under the age of 15 years are living with physical disabilities. For children with physical disabilities, participation in physical activity is limited. A common factor attributed to reduced physical activity is physical literacy, defined as a multifaceted conceptualization of the abilities required to be engaged in physical activities for life. Fundamental movement skills, defined as basic skills required to accomplish a particular task, are essential for physical competence and higher level of physical activity. Children with poorer fundamental movement skills proficiency may demonstrate developmental delays. In partnership with Adaptavie, we aim to deepen our understanding of how children and youth with disabilities participate in physical education to improve their physical activity in Quebec schools. A better understanding of fundamental movement skills will help Adaptavie to tailor their adapted physical activity programs.

La relation entre les mouvements et l’expression sur canvas: un plugin IA de TouchDesigner pour réaliser de l’art interactif

Ce projet consiste à créer une plateforme permettant à des artistes de peindre sur un mur projeté avec leurs mouvements corporels. Ce projet a pour but d’explorer la relation entre les mouvements et l’expression sur canvas. Le stagiaire a l’expérience pratique pour développer l’algorithme d’apprentissage automatique, travailler avec une équipe multidisciplinaire et produire un plugin pour un logiciel commercial à la fin. L’ensemble du pipeline de recherche et de production sera un atout important pour lui pour sa future carrière. Avec nos partenaires nous testerons et déploierons la plateforme pour les productions actuelles de ces partenaires en Chine et au Canada. mDreams Pictures, Inc. bénéficiera de ce projet en mettant à jour sa plateforme de présentation vidéo en tant qu’offre de services de production vidéo virtuelle interactive en temps réel.

Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Nova Scotia

Although COVID-19 is considered a respiratory illness, the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been found in the feces of people infected with the virus. It is known that the virus survives longer in the gastrointestinal tract than in the respiratory tract. As such, wastewater has been used to determine the presence of the virus either before someone develops symptoms; receives a positive test result; or is an asymptomatic carrier of the virus. On a larger scale, wastewater may be monitored for SARS-CoV-2 to learn more about the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in a given population. By applying this method to a province-wide monitoring program, we will gather baseline data for SARS-CoV-2 occurrence in wastewater in vulnerable communities and learn more about the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 prevalence that may result from individuals traveling to Nova Scotia from outside the Atlantic Region.

The use of Carbon-Nanotube Aluminum/Copper Composite for Power Transmission Line and Inductor

The focus of this research project is possibilities of increasing the capacity of overhead power transmission conductors using Carbon Nanotubes (CNT). Current constraints to existing transmission conductors include: (i) high resistivity of the reinforcing steel strands; (ii) energy loss in the form of heat generated from this inefficiency; and (iii) and thermal expansion and increases the sag and length of the conductor. The unique properties of CNTs have generated much interest in their potential application to transmission conductors in the form of CNT-reinforced aluminum. A critical step in using CNTs within a new conductor is to develop a fabrication process that successfully transfers the properties of CNT to the matrix material of aluminum. A scrolling fabrication process has been developed, which may solve these challenges. Different strands of Al-CNT composite wires with different CNT concentrations will be fabricated.

Ground Disturbance and Downed Woody Materials following Diverse Timber-Harvest Methods in the Pockwock Watershed

The forWater Network, funded by the federal government as well as industry partners and provincial governments, is a national research network looking into the impacts of forest-management strategies on drinking-water source quality and treatability. forWater Network researchers at Dalhousie University (including Duinker, the supervisor in this application) are working with Halifax Water and Westfor Management Inc. to determine how the Pockwock forested watershed can be managed to improve water treatability. A key issue here is the movement of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). DOC movement from the land to the water has increased in recent decades, and that increases the cost of treating drinking water to acceptable standards. The Halifax study centres on integrated simulation modelling to build and analyze long-term scenarios of forest management and climate change and their effects on DOC levels in Lake Pockwock. The modelling is supported by monitoring of water moving through the forested landscape as well as detailed measurements of the carbon stocks in the forests themselves. Experimental timber harvests will reveal what happens to DOC movements under different harvest regimes. With the project proposed herein, we intend to make a thorough characterization of two additional important variables in forest carbon assessment:

PredictNow.ai Business Strategy Internship

The intern will be primarily be asked to help carry out our ongoing customer discovery project. The intern will also help assist the business team with its existing sales and marketing plan. Finally, the intern will have a regular shift as a first point of contact monitoring the customer support requests, assisting the customers with their issues and elevating problems to other members of the support team when the intern can not solve the problem.

The intern will conduct interviews with new customers to address their pain points as well as incorporate their feedback into the overall PredictNow.ai inbound marketing plan. The intern will also help manage our social channels as well as develop marketing materials to share online. The intern will also eventually work with clients to properly format their data files with the features that provide their machine learning model with effective predictive power.

Clearview Advisory Business Strategy Internship

Clearview Advisory is a boutique advisory firm founded in 2017 that helps business owners with high value projects – Mergers and Acquisitions, divestitures, financings, joint-ventures, business integration management and strategic planning. While Clearview works with businesses across many sectors, its expertise lies in the Food & Beverage industry.
Up until recently, Clearview has grown entirely through word of mouth. The firm wants to continue to expand its business more formally, but currently lacks the bandwidth internally to do so due to its work-load with current clients. We have now orchestrated a business development plan with multiple marketing initiatives working together in concert (social media campaign, brochure, email scripts, etc.), and require additional support in order to execute on these initiatives.

WEMA Inc. – SUCCESS – SEVIA Business Model

In order for all countries to achieve the aspirational goal of universal cervical cancer elimination, global, regional and national efforts, including the collaboration of a broad spectrum of key stakeholders, are required to ensure rapid progress along the entire spectrum of prevention, control and care. Scale Up Cervical Cancer Elimination with Secondary prevention Strategy (SUCCESS) aims to contribute to these global efforts through shifting 4 countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guatemala and Philippines) from opportunistic cervical cancer screening models to systematic service provision that reaches 70% population coverage. The SUCCESS project plan has been designed to achieve ambitious objectives, with 185,000 women screened within 3 years, including 75,600 (40%) women living with HIV in these four countries. The project is led by Dr. Karen Yeates, Professor of Medicine at Queen’s University, and Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Associate Professor of Population Health and Medicine, New York University Grossman School of Medicine.

Model Development for Ground-Engaging Tools using Real-Time Numerical Terramechanics and Discrete-Element Method

This Ph.D. study will focus on simulating and validating soil flow behavior models using numerical terramechanics for three distinct applications of soil flow behaviors from operations of construction equipment: hauling loose material (wheel loader), excavation of soil (backhoe loader/excavator) and pushing large quantities of soil (bulldozer). Numerical terramechanics models will be compared with DEM models in terms of prediction of forces on ground-engaging tools and to quantify soil flow behavior. The main advantage of this type of real-time simulation allows for direct control of the equipment to quickly observe the general soil behavior (for design optimization) and for training purposes of operators.

Deep Subduction Zone Dynamics: Implications of deep tremor and slow slip from the rock record

Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives under the other, host large earthquakes. Recently, scientists detected faint tremors coming from deep parts of subduction zones and termed them as deep tremor and slow slip. These tremors were accompanied by a minor land shift toward the ocean. These signals appear to be revealing deep, slow, silent earthquakes that transfer stress up into the locked zone, where large earthquakes originate. Ancient subducted rocks are found in a few places at the Earth’s surface can reveal the mechanisms of locking and slip that produce slow earthquakes. Through field studies and microstructural analyses, I will determine which processes cause these events and investigate the mechanisms of slow earthquakes. These estimates can be used to constrain stress accumulation which controls the size of the earthquake and time till the next large earthquake. Notably, this project will contribute to the advancement of forecasting methods necessary for developing effective disaster mitigation plans.