Innovative Projects Realized

Ships and Whales in Gitga’at Territory: Risks of whale-vessel interactions.

As whales recover from the past centuries of whaling and as global trade compels shipping traffic to increase, we expect negative whale-ship interactions such as fatal strikes and noise disturbance to become an increasingly serious issue. To develop cost-effective and broadly applicable methods of assessing the risks of ships to whale feeding grounds, I propose to work with the partner organization to conduct a vessel strike risk assessment based on 3 years of visual survey data in a remote fjord system of northern British Columbia that is slated for increased shipping traffic. I will analyze the data we collect to assess the risk of strikes with small recreational vessels and large ships for two whales species, humpback whales and fin whale. The methods we develop will inform mitigation measures in our study site and facilitate similar studies elsewhere.

Intelligence artificielle appliquée pour l’analyse, l’optimisation et l’innovation

Ce projet vise à développer et approfondir les connaissances et techniques nécessaires à la mise en oeuvre des algorithmes d’intelligence artificielle sur des données issues du monde réel. En partenariat avec de multiples acteurs industriels de la grande région de Québec, la Faculté de Science et Génie de l’université Laval, au travers de ses étudiants à la maîtrise professionnelle en informatique – Intelligence artificielle, offre son expertise en recherche et développement pour encadrer la recherche et le développement nécessaire au déploiement d’algorithmes issus de l’intelligence artificielle aux nombreuses problématiques rencontrés par lesdits partenaires de ce projet. Par l’analyse automatique de flux vidéos, de texte, de données 3D, ou géoréférencées, et jusqu’à la la production de prédictions et de décisions pertinentes au domaine des partenaires, les étudiants participants à ce projet favoriseront l’innovation et la compétitivité de nos partenaires industriels.

Multi-Document, Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis of Political News Articles

The main objective of the project is to upgrade the existing system at Gnowit to create a complex self learning automated decision support system. The system(crawlers) will automatically collect all the data related to any company, political system or a specific entity from the articles, blogs and reviews and create a more actionable report. The system will also check the credibility of the news and perform the controversy analysis. The mined information and knowledge will be saved and used to train a engine which could predict the future events of an entity or object. The system also tries to quantify the sentiment between multiple aspects.

Towards Automation of 3D Visualization & Analysis of Workspace Collisions on Construction Jobsites

Workspace Interferences/Collisions happen on construction jobsites when multiple resources (labor, equipment, material, etc.) don’t have enough space to coexist at the same time and will interfere with each other’s operations. These interferences affect performance, delaying the project, impacting cost, and may jeopardize the buildings’ integrity and people’s safety on site. Most of existing models simulate resources as being deterministic. However, the behavior of the crew interfering is more chaotic. The chaos mainly emerges from the dependency of the interferences and their consequences on the human interactions among crew members and between different crews. 85% of the respondents of a published questionnaire entailed the necessity for modelling the propagating effects of interferences and considering workspaces as stochastic. Accordingly, the research for this internship will focus on: 1) identifying the sources of uncertainty in workspace modelling 2) Testing the sensitivity of existing workspace models towards discovered uncertainties 3) Modifying the existing evaluation methods to account for uncertainties

Pure-sine GaN-based motor inverter

This project applies wide-bandgap (WBG) transistors to voltage level multiplier module (VLMM) topology in motor inverter applications. It is expected that this approach can yield the benefits of WBG motor inverters (high motor efficiency, fast control response, lower motor torque ripple, close to ideal sinusoidal motor current waveform, smaller filter size, lower cost filter, etc.) while leveraging the benefits of VLMM (lower component cost, high frequency switching only at low voltage, filter-less output signal) to yield a commercially viable highly-efficient pure-sine motor inverter.

Quantifying magnetic susceptibility of the human brain with MRI

Le potentiel des techniques d’écriture de la chanson pour les méthodes de communication des consultants en management

Le succès d’un consultant en gestion peut dépendre de sa capacité à communiquer son expertise, notamment par la production d’un wording (e.g. choisir la formulation spécifique du contenu textuel apparaissant dans un document donné) de qualité. Le wording est un élément fondamental dans la chanson, un mode d’expression synthétique, imagé et intégrant le point de vue du narrateur, qui mobilise aussi la poésie et le storytelling. Ce projet vise donc à explorer empiriquement comment les techniques propres à l’écriture de la chanson peuvent contribuer au wording des consultants, afin d’aider les individus à enrichir leurs méthodes de communication en contexte d’entreprise.

Improvement of pyrolytic oil quality by physical and chemical technologies for replacing fossil fuel in heating system

The depletion of fossil fuels and the negative impacts of their extraction and combustion on the environment have encouraged scientists and industrial stakeholders to explore the development of alternative, and renewable energy resources such as bio-oil, which can be produced from biomass by pyrolysis and bio-oil upgrading. The main disadvantages of crude bio-oils derived from fast pyrolysis are their poor quality caused by the presence of water and oxygen compounds, high viscosity, instability during storage, low heating value, and high acidity to be used as a fuel in heating systems. In this research project, we propose an innovative integrated upgrading process (optimized sequential physical and chemical upgrading system) to produce high quality bio-fuel applicable in modified burner. INRS and IRDA will combine their respective expertise in energy and environmental processes to offer industrialists a technological approach based on the green energy. The aim of this project is to study on bio-oil upgrading in a laboratory scale in terms of the various influencing factors on condensing system and catalytic process, such as temperature and catalyst type in order to establish a strategy for scaling up the biofuel production process using domestic (Canadian) biomass like switchgrass.

Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) Pre-Detailed Design System (PDDS) for Turbines

The aero-engine design process is highly iterative, multidisciplinary and complex in nature. The success of an engine depends on a carefully balanced design that best exploits the interactions between numerous traditional engineering disciplines such as aerodynamics and structures as well as lifecycle analysis of cost, manufacturability, serviceability and supportability. Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) is the world leader in the design and manufacturing of small aero-engines. The proposed Chair program aims to deploy a fully automated and integrated P&WC Pre-Detailed Design System “PDDS” that is capable of finding the optimal balance between aerodynamic performance, cooling flows, durability, cost and weight in order to achieve better-integrated results, a step reduction in engine design elapsed time and the best product performance . The proposed program addresses only the “Turbine” part of the engine, being a critical component due to its high temperatures and stresses, cooling, material and coating requirements. TO BE CONT’D

Evaluating Collaborative GIS for Marine Conservation Planning

The advent of interfacing with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) on multi-user touch tables presents an opportunity for greater involvement and collaboration in marine conservation planning. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of collaborative GIS in small groups for Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) for conservation. The research focuses on two case studies in British Columbia and will involve actual government, non-government organizations and local communities engaged in MSP for conservation using multi-user touch tables and GIS. The primary benefits to Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society include rigorous and defensible spatial analysis for marine conservation planning and an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of using multi-user touch tables to engage partners and community.

Evaluation of light emitting diode arrays for shipping container plant factories

Controlled plant factories are closed and insulated environments that can be automated and artificially illuminated. They may be built in recycled shipping containers that are mobile, carrying enormous potential for food crop production and addressing food security in remote areas. However, lighting technologies and light positioning in these factories has not been optimized for different plant species. Our objective is to improve lighting and plant production practices in small plant factories. This research will explore how lighting systems and light positioning (overhead or side illumination), can affect plant growth. LEDs will be compared with high-pressure sodium and fluorescent lighting. This research will add to our knowledge of how plant growth is affected by specific light wavelengths and orientation. It will also contribute to system designs that improve biomass production and that will be completely automated in the future.

Structural evolution of the triple junction boundaries in the Lau and North Fiji backarc basins

Plate tectonics is a major driver of ore formation in the Earth’s crust. The metals contained in those deposits are critical to our global economy but are increasingly difficult to find. Many deposits were formed at microplate boundaries that provided the melt and fluid pathways for metals; however, the processes leading to microplate formation in ancient mineral belts are poorly understood. This study will investigate microplate formation at two modern analogs, in the NE Lau and North Fiji backarc basins of the southwest Pacific Ocean. These are type localities for tectonic triple junctions, which are a fundamental stage in microplate formation. We aim to understand the structural evolution of triple junctions in this modern context in order to gain a perspective on how microplates and associated crustal-scale fluid pathways formed in ancient submarine volcanic terranes that host ore deposits. Through detailed geological and structural mapping, using integrated ship- and satellite-based geophysical data, including bathymetry, gravity, and magnetics, the tectonic evolution of the Mangatolu triple junction (Lau Basin) and the central North Fiji Basin triple junction will be studied. To be cont’d.