Projets novateurs réalisés

Proposition d’un modele predictif pour les elections provinciales du Quebec

Le projet de recherche a pour sujet Ie developpement d’un modele predictif des elections provinciales du

Quebec en se basant sur les donnees historiques des elections 2008 ainsi que sur les donnees de sondages

effectuees avant Ie scrutin.

L’objectif est de chercher un modele qui va se rapprocher de la realite en predisant Ie mieux que possible Ie

nombre de sieges des differents partis lors des prochaines elections.

Le present projet de recherche entre dans Ie cadre des projets de recherche et developpement de I’entreprise

partenaire. En effet, Awane insight travaille actuellement dans Ie projet de modelisation pour la prediction des

futures elections et Ie projet sera parmi ses principaux poles de recherche.

Effects of cell culture plastics on dendritic cells activated using ImmunyrTM

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada. A promising new way to treat cancer is through the administration of immune cells that target the cancer – an approach called cancer immunotherapy. The goal of this project is to engineer better culture vessels to produce dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are the “gatekeepers” of our immune system. They can have the capacity to activate other immune cells to attack cancers. The project involves two industrial partners: Kanyr Pharma, Inc. and Saint- Gobain, Inc. Kanyr Pharma has developed a technology called Immunyr(TM) that can improve the function of the dendritic cells in culture prior to reinjection into the patients. Saint-Gobain is a multinational company that manufactures glass, ceramics and advanced materials, among others. Saint-Gobain also manufactures cell culture bags that can be used to culture dendritic cells. Kanyr Pharma currently produces these dendritic cells in plastic containers that are not functionally closed. Liquids are introduced into the containers manually through caps or lids. For clinical production of the dendritic cells, it would be safer to culture the cells in closed plastic vessels such as bags filled through tubing.

Joule M&V AI

Buildings have a high share of energy consumption in Canada. Real-time monitoring and analysis of energy use data can assist in improving the performance of the building and help reduce operating costs, lower utility bills, increase equipment life, improve occupants’ comfort, and increase retention and leasing rates; all while lowering carbon emissions. Joule M&V AI is a monitoring tool which captures data from building control systems and uses artificial intelligence (AI) analytics to automatically improve and optimize the operation of HVAC, detect faults and prepare a predictive maintenance schedule. Joule M&V AI goal is to ensure the sustainability and efficient operation of buildings.

Investigating the development and refinement of in-store community pharmacy safety practices derived from error-reporting and related incident data

Regulatory safety initiatives for Canadian community pharmacies have been rapidly evolving throughout the last decade and now feature requirements for expanding pharmacy offerings, implementing on-line error reporting, assessing quality improvement analytics, and incorporating comprehensive safety enhancement practices. With each province approaching this new regulatory environment differently, large-scale community pharmacy providers must navigate these complex demands, continuously design and implement enhanced safety practices, and meet ever increasing patient demands. Shoppers Drug Mart, as a nation-wide pharmacy provider, has been an industry leader in meeting these demands and is now seeking a research partnership that will facilitate the sharing of enhanced safety practices and data analytics methods more broadly across Canada, which will increase the capacity of all pharmacies to meet these evolving and escalating demands for patient safety.
The proposed project funds a graduate student to work with Shoppers Drug Mart safety specialists in assessing the present cross-Canada regulatory environment, designing and conducting a thorough investigation of the in-store safety analytic data presently collected by Shoppers Drug Mart, and preparing the results of the study for translation to Canadian pharmacy regulators, practitioners, and researchers.

« Les protocoles de consultation autochtones, le consentement libre, préalable et éclairé et des traditions juridiques autochtones au Canada et au Brésil : une perspective pluraliste – Études de cas brésilien »

Depuis 2014, au Brésil, les peuples autochtones élaborent des protocoles de consultation et de consentement pour les projets d’extraction et de développement qui seront réalisés sur leur territoire. Ces protocoles peuvent être fondés sur leurs traditions juridiques et leur interprétation des droits des peuples autochtones reconnues par le droit national et international. Ce projet de recherche souhaite comprendre comment les peuples autochtones du Brésil évaluent les processus de consultation et de consentement libre, préalable et éclairé (CLPE) qui suivent ou qui ont suivi leurs protocoles. Ce projet vise à répondre aux problématiques suivantes : comment les peuples autochtones évaluent-ils ces processus de CLPE? Considèrent-ils que l’État brésilien et les entreprises respectent leurs protocoles? Leurs protocoles les ont-ils aidés à être mieux consultés et à donner (ou non) leur consentement? Quels sont les principaux enseignements que l’on pourrait tirer de la mise en œuvre de ces protocoles? Et comment les leçons apprises pourraient-elles aider à créer de meilleures conditions pour la réussite de la CLPE?

Optimal experimental design for enhanced oil recovery monitoring with electromagnetic remote sensing

The amount of crude oil that can be extracted from an oil field can be increased by injecting gas or

water into the reservoir. This process, generically-termed enhanced oil recovery (EOR), can be

monitored using geophysical remote sensing techniques. In this project we will focus on monitoring of

EOR gas injection with time-domain electromagnetics (TDEM). TDEM uses electric and magnetic

fields induced in the earth to make inferences about the distribution of subsurface electrical

conductivity. We will develop techniques for recovering three-dimensional conductivity models from

observed TDEM data. In addition, we will examine how TDEM sensors can best be deployed to

recover high resolution conductivity models during gas injection

Optimal Initial Conditions for the Zeroth Law of Turbulence

In this research project, we wish to further understand turbulent flows and the laws that govern them. In particular, we hope to mathematical understand the phenomenon known as “anomalous dissipation” or the “zeroth law of turbulence”. This anomalous dissipation refers to when the viscosity coefficient in a fluid approaches zero, the rate of energy dissipation in the system approaches a nonzero limit. Although this shown been experimental, it is still yet to be understood from a physical and mathematical sense. In this research project, we propose to use an optimization approach to try and further understand this phenomenon. In this approach, we intend on combining the tools of scientific computing and mathematical analysis, to give insight to old-standing open problem. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of turbulent flows, this work will have a significant impact on several fields such as engineering and fluid mechanics.

The impact of public SME finance on R&D and innovation

It is well-known that the growth of young firms accounts for a disproportionate share of employment growth and the associated economic welfare. In Canada and Japan, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent around 99.7 percent of each country’s total firms and over 70 percent of each country’s total employment. However, SMEs are known to suffer from difficulties in accessing external financing, especially those that invest in R&D and innovation activities. Government initiatives targeting SMEs and those that invest in these riskier activities have been adopted worldwide to address their financing difficulties. The limited research on this topic has utilized outdated datasets within a single country context. This research project seeks to address these limitations by investigating the impact of public funding on R&D and innovation for start-up SMEs using more recent data and lead to a comparative study between two countries, Japan and Canada. Overall, this research seeks to shed light for policymakers on effective channels of funding for SMEs.

The influence of absolute strength on metaboreflex activation

Premenopausal women typically have lower blood pressure responses to static exercise compared to age matched men despite similar relative exercise intensity. Some research attributes this difference to an innate effect of biological sex due to differences in metabolism and sympathetic transduction, but work from our lab shows that matching for muscle strength abolishes within and between sex differences in blood pressure responses. This might be due to a matching of the muscle metaboreflex between men and women with similar strength, a pathway occurring during exercise which increases blood pressure from accumulation of metabolites. We propose to study the influence of the metaboreflex in mediating strength based differences in exercising blood pressure responses by measuring blood pressure during static leg exercise with and without partial vascular occlusion to increase metaboreflex activity, and to compare the responses between men and women. We hypothesize that increasing metaboreflex activation in women will match the blood pressure responses to that of men, and that in strength matched men and women increased metaborefelx activation will result in similar increases in blood pressure during exercise.

Prédisposition génétique à la neutropénie liée au traitement chez les patients atteints de leucémie infantile

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common malignant tumour in childhood. Over the years, the treatment of ALL has improved considerably. Intensive chemotherapy administered during the treatment protocol is nevertheless associated with adverse drug reactions. One of the adverse reactions associated with several anti-leukemic drugs is severe neutropenia, leading to life-threatening infections or frequent treatment interruptions. Genetic factors could influence the risk of neutropenia by modulating the progression of the disease and/or the effects of drugs. In this project, an association study between neutropenia and infections in children with LAL (whether or not these complications or their frequency occur) and genotypes of genetic variants will be conducted. Data on neutropenia and infections will be collected through hospital databases and medical records. The identification of polymorphisms that can predict the progression of treatment complications can help in the development of individualized treatment strategies that reduce the risk of toxicity.Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Dense gas in the galaxy merger NGC3256

Any physical processes that we aim to study in space have probably been influenced at some point by the process of star formation. Whether it be the interstellar gas and dust, the formation of clusters of stars, or galaxy evolution, star formation plays a role as a strong driving force for the physics behind these fields of research. In this project, we will use observational data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to study and compare the properties of two molecules, HCN and CN, in three nearby galaxies. HCN has been shown to trace the dense gas in which stars are forming, while CN is less understood but connected to HCN through chemical evolution. The goals of this project are to identify physical properties, such as temperatures and densities, of HCN and CN using multiple transition lines, compare the spatial distributions of the abundance ratios of the two molecules throughout the galaxies, and compare the results to the literature to offer support for or against existing ideas about where these molecules are dominant and the physical mechanisms producing the observed abundance ratios.

Paramétrisation des modèles climatiques de surface continentale à l’aide du code hydrologique intégré HydroGeoSphere. Application à différents bassins d’Amérique du Nord et d’Afrique de l’Ouest.

Les modèles climatiques de surface continentale utilisent une discrétisation spatiale de l’ordre de la centaine de kilomètres et reposent sur l’hypothèse de flux hydrologiques essentiellement verticaux. Ce choix, guidé par des raisons de temps de calcul, conduit à négliger la variabilité hydrologique sous maille et, de ce fait, à proposer des lois et paramètres effectifs pour la maille de surface continentale difficilement justifiables, car éloignés de ce qui est observé et mesuré localement. Pour remédier à ce problème, nous avons mis au point une stratégie de changement d’échelle qui permet, a priori, d’améliorer ces paramétrisations. Cette stratégie doit être validée à l’aide de simulations fines de bassins versants effectuées avec le code numérique HydroGeoSphere développé à l’Université Laval. Les bassins proposés se situent sur le continent Nord-Américain et en Afrique de l’ouest.