Projets novateurs réalisés

La certitude morale chez Descartes

Que signifie être certain lorsque les conditions d’une parfaite démonstration ne sont pas réunies? Commet-on un abus de langage lorsque nous prétendons obtenir des certitudes en dehors du domaine des mathématiques? Cette question, d’intérêt crucial pour les sciences humaines, a reçu un traitement important au 17e siècle, où émerge une tendance à remettre en question la pertinence de la dichotomie traditionnelle entre connaissance démonstrative et connaissance fondée sur de simples probabilités. Ce projet de thèse, sur le thème de « La certitude morale chez Descartes », inscrit le philosophe français au cœur de cette problématique et comporte deux aspects principaux. Dans un premier temps, il s’agit d’évaluer la valeur épistémique de cette forme de certitude que Descartes qualifie de simplement « morale », par opposition à une forme de certitude que Descartes qualifie d’absolue. Dans un second temps, il s’agit de préciser le sens de ce vocabulaire singulier : que signifie l’adjectif « moral » dans le contexte des sciences? Ce séjour de 6 mois à l’Université de Princeton me permettra de discuter ces questions avec l’un des plus grands spécialistes de la question et de rédiger les chapitres de ma thèse qui portent sur ces deux questions.

Fluvial Geomorphology Experiments in support of the Lynn Creek Flood Risk Assessment and Reduction Plan

Lynn Creek poses flood and erosion risks in North Vancouver, BC. The surrounding urban areas are not protected by structural flood protection measures, and flood mitigation has historically been conducted through gravel removals, which increase the depth of the channel. Recent analysis has shown that gravel removals are relatively ineffective at reducing the flood risk, which will continue to increase alongside climate change. In addition, Lynn Creek is a fish-bearing watercourse and gravel removals pose potential impacts to habitat.

In response, the City of North Vancouver has engaged the consulting firm of Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. (KWL) to perform a flood risk assessment and develop a risk reduction plan. Through a MITACS project, KWL will be collaborating with the Biogeomorphology laboratory at UBC to conduct laboratory experiments which will aid in the flood risk assessment. The experiments will involve physical modeling of historical trends, current conditions, predictions of short-term and long-term movement patterns of gravel, and innovative approaches to sediment management. The results of these experiments will directly inform flood risk and sediment management on the North Shore region of the Lower Mainland, and possibly elsewhere.

Impact of climate change on domestic water requirements in Montréal

A stochastic model was recently developed to theoretically estimate per capita water consumption for various lifestyles, based on specific domestic water use activities. The intention is to populate this model with data from the City of Montréal, bearing in mind that metering of water consumption is uncommon in the study area. Therefore, calibration and verification of the model is anticipated to be a challenge. Climate change is expected to have an impact on water consumption. After model population for the current water use scenario, the results could be extrapolated to allow for the expected long-term impacts of climate change. In this research collaboration we aim to obtain model input parameters for the study area and to select the appropriate climate change scenarios.

An Advanced IP Based CDMA 2000 Communication System for Coal Mines (CCSCM)

The proposed project aims at developing an enterprise-level CDMA2000 Communication System

based on SIP Soft Switching technology and CDMA2000 emerging technology. It is called an

enterprise-level communication system because it has typically only thousands of subscribers rather

than millions of users as in the case for carrier-level systems; furthermore it has to be cost effective,

compact, and easy in deployment and maintenance to best fit enterpriser users, such as the many coal

mines companies in China. The overall project is organized into six prototype R/D sub-projects, which

are kept distinct for ease in concurrent development. There are several major design issues for the

CDMA2000 enterprise system with low cost and small footprint. These issues were not well addressed

in the CTC’s earlier product V1.0, but must be properly handled in the new improved version V2.0……TOBECONTINUED

Exploring the Meanings of Participants’ Fly-Fishing Experiences and Its Impact on Active and Healthy Lifestyle

This exploratory study will utilize indirect calorimetry (the method by which the type and rate of substrate utilization, and energy metabolism are estimated), accelerometer-based technology, photo-elicitation interviews, focus-groups, and a subsequent large-scale survey to answer the following research questions:
a) What is the energy expenditure of a typical fly-fishingday and its physical fitness requirement?
b) What are the meanings and significance of fly-fishingin the lives of participants?
c) How does fly-fishingcontribute to an active, healthy lifestyle?
d) What are the values, ethics, motivations, and participation patterns of fly anglers?
This innovative, collaborative, and broad approach to the research will contribute significantly to the existing literature and knowledge related to the phenomenon of fly-fishingand its role in an active and healthy lifestyle.

Developing high-capacity composite adsorbents for gold mill processes

Gold is the most economically important mined mineral in Canada, with a production value of $8.7 billion in 2017. Quebec and Ontario together accounted for more than 75% of the mined gold production in Canada in 2017. Economic, efficient, yet safe and environmentally responsible gold extraction is vital to Canada’s dynamic economy and environment, as well as the global competitiveness of Canada’s gold mining industries. This MITACS Accelerate project is aimed at developing high-capacity adsorbent technologies for applications in gold mill processes at Newmont Goldcorp, which are expected to improve process efficiency, economics, and environmental responsiveness.

Enhancing Electrical Neuromodulation of Bladder Function in Anesthetized Rats

Overactive bladder (OAB) is an incurable, chronic medical condition that is characterized by symptoms of urgency, frequency, nocturia and urinary incontinence. It affects approximately 18% of adults and over 30% of the elderly population. Saphenous nerve stimulation is a novel therapy aimed at treating OAB patients. It offers an alternative to bladder medication, which can have severe side effects such as dry mouth, cognitive impairments and hypertension. And, unlike sacral nerve stimulation, this novel treatment can be delivered to patients in a non-invasive manner. Recent clinical trials show that saphenous nerve stimulation can effectively reduce OAB symptoms in patients (e.g., 75% response rate), but there is still room for further improvements in clinical outcomes. The goal of this project is to investigate novel stimulation waveforms that further augment the bladder-inhibitory effects of saphenous nerve stimulation.

Design and Fabrication of a dynamic heater on thermochromic PVC with inkjet-printing of silver ink

This proposal introduces a novel approach for designing and fabricating a low-cost and low-power heater for a dynamic thermochromic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film. Thermochromic PVC has a reversible color change by a temperature variation and has applications in buildings. In order to have a dynamic thermochromic PVC, a heater is needed, that can be realized by inkjet-printing of a series heater pattern. Ink-substrate interactions, substrate properties, and electrical characteristics of the printed ink on the substrate are important factors for designing the heater pattern, which will be systematically characterized in the first and second steps of this project. Finally, the acquired understandings of these two steps will be used for designing and implementing the dynamic heater. The final porotype, has the ability to change its color dynamically. Thus the industrial partner can use this findings for producing a dynamic thermochromic PVC.

Development of an initial velocity model of Revell Batholith and surrounding Greenstone belts near Ignace, Ontario

This project aims to develop an initial velocity model of the Revell Batholith and surrounding Greenstone belts. Establishing a microseismic network in this area is planned to better understand the long-term seismic hazard and geology of the region and at the site-scale. In order to accurately evaluate and interpret the microseismic data coming from a planned microseismic network, a velocity model should be developed. With the purpose of monitoring potential geohazards, a geophysical data analysis will be carried out. Available data, such as parameters derived from downhole geophysical and core logs, will be assimilated through sequential gaussian simulation to build an ensemble of suitable velocity model realizations. Software such as SGEMS and GOCAD are available, however some algorithms will be developed and tested for this project.

Microwave Radar System for Stand-off Hazardous Gas Detection and Material Characterization

This project will advance development of technologies capable of detecting rapidly and reliable a range of gases harmful to humans. Student interns working in university labs and with our partner will develop new gas sensors using new materials that resonate in observable ways when they come into contact with harmful gases. These sensors will be small and extremely durable, potentially worn on garments or attached to workers’ tools. Student interns will also develop software and sensor readers enabling workers in diverse environments to quickly and easily detect and characterise a wide range of harmful gases, supporting rapid and accurately targeted response.

Link Prediction on Knowledge Graphs with Graph Neural Networks

Knowledge graphs store facts using relations between pairs of entities. In this work, we address the question of link prediction in knowledge graphs. Our general approach broadly follows neighborhood aggregation schemes such as that of Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN), which in turn was motivated by spectral graph convolutions. Our proposed model will aggregate information from neighbour entities and relations. Contrary to most existing knowledge graph completion methods, our model is expected to work in the inductive setting: Predicting relations for entities not seen during training.

Le marketing de contenu B2B dans les PME: état de l’art sur les enjeux d’implantation du marketing de contenu

Depuis quelques années, de plus en plus de petites ou moyennes entreprises intègrent le marketing de contenu dans leurs stratégies sur les réseaux sociaux. Ce marketing consiste «?à créer et à distribuer du contenu pertinent et précieux afin d’attirer, d’acquérir et d’engager un public cible clairement défini et bien compris, dans le but de générer une action rentable de la part du client?» (Content Marketing Institute, 2019, traduction libre).Toutefois, comment une PME peut-elle savoir si elle est apte à instaurer le marketing de contenu dans l’entreprise?? Cette recherche porte sur le marketing de contenu B2B dans les PME. Elle vise à concevoir une grille d’analyse qui dresse la plupart des décisions stratégiques de communication du marketing de contenu. Grâce à un stage dans l’agence Beauvoir, ce projet offre une opportunité unique de comparer les décisions stratégiques de communication dans la littérature scientifique à celles utilisées sur le terrain.