Innovative Projects Realized

Study of DME Injection in Oil Sands Reservoirs

Thus far Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) has been the sole commercially viable in-situ recovery method to extract Canadian oil sands that are too deep for mining. It involves high pressure steam injection and bitumen production using horizontal well pairs located near the base of oil sands formations. While it has enabled conversion of significant resources to reserves (about 170 billion barrels), SAGD has many economic and environmental limitations. The public and government want to see the negative aspects of SAGD reduced significantly. The Accelerate Cluster project is aimed at improving SAGD sustainability through the injection of DME to accelerate oil recovery rates, decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and renew the role of the Canadian oil industry as a competitive member of the global oil production families.

Enzymes as an alternative to chemistry

Back to the Future: Have plants already evolved due to global change?

Experimental investigations in flow control of a high-lift configuration with Coanda Blowing

Using high-frequency data to estimate market impact costs of implementation of factor investing strategies

This research aims to conduct transaction cost analysis (TCA) of popular factor investment strategies (value, momentum, size) using intraday tick data. While trading over short-term and investment over long-term has been separate operations historically, the implementation trading cost can be a huge drag on the long-term investment performance. Therefore we would want to simultaneously consider the long term portfolio construction and the short-term execution costs of actually rebalancing the portfolio. TCA can help us in achieving the joint decisions.

A Monte Carlo simulation analysis for the financial health for New Brunswick Power Corporation under various risk factors

New Brunswick Power Corporation (NB power) is required to file a 10 Year Financial Plan to the EUB every year as part of the general rate application; and this plan must include a scenario analysis in order to demonstrate the potential effect on forecasted financial outcomes of reasonable variations in terms of some key factors/variables. The proposed research aims to enrich and improve the ‘what-if’ scenario analysis currently adopted by NB power from two aspects which will benefit the partner organization’s operations and strategy decisions for the next 10 years. (1) exploring and evaluating the possibility of improving the current scenario analysis by identifying extra important variables not included in the current practice; and (2) provide a complete and thorough scenario analysis by Monte Carlo simulation.

Enabling the next revolution in global food production through automatically labelled data sets and machine learning

We envision a future where it will be possible to lavish the same attention on individual plants in a large prairie crop farm as one might on those in a backyard garden. As camera sensors shrink in size, and self-driving vehicles continue to improve, such an idea is no longer the realm of science fiction. The remaining piece of the puzzle, however, is the need for a very large number of pre-identified images of crop plants and weeds with which to train a computer to recognize one from the other. Our research project is to develop the means to automatically generate and label such images and to make the resulting data sets openly available for Canadian researchers and companies. TO BE CONT’D

Developpement experimental d’outils de traitements et d’analyses dethermogrammes pour I’evaluation non destructives des materiaux par thermographie.

L’Evaluation Non Destructive (END) est une science meconnue, pourtant nous en sommes

tous affectee d’une maniere ou d’une autre. Elle permet I’inspection des materiaux afin de

tester leur qualite et integrite. Nombre d’industries de toutes sortes utilisent differentes

methodes d’END pour s’assurer que leurs produits et procedes fonctionnent correctement et

securitairement. Chaque methode d’END a ses forces et interets. La thermographie

infrarouge ou IRT est la methode d’END abordee dansce stage. Elle est par exemple utilisee

dans la detection des fissures, de decollements, de dommages par impacts etc. inflige aux

panneaux composites utilises en aerospatiale, construction navale et autre. Le but de cetle

recherche est de metlre au point un ensemble de procedures, d’outils de traitement et

d’analyse de donnees provenant de mesures par IRT, inciuant des outils d’analyse de

thermographie de phase pulsee prise en mode statique ou en mode de balayage. Un

systeme de mosarque permettrait enfin d’inspecter des surfaces d’envergure aussi grande

que souhaitee.

Semantic Close-Captioning of Natural Scenes for Foreign Language Learning

La domination sociale des élites gouvernantes de Metz dans l’espace lorrain (XIVe-XVIe siècle) : Conservation et gestion documentaire de l’activité judiciaire

Le projet de doctorat, conçu dans le cadre d’une collaboration scientifique entre l’Université d’Ottawa et l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, vise à comprendre les modes de légitimation de l’autorité urbaine à Metz, ville du Saint-Empire romain germanique entre le XIVe et le XVIe siècle. L’analyse approfondie des pratiques d’écriture des groupes dirigeants à Metz — incluant la production, la conservation et l’usage des documents — permettra d’appréhender les modes de leur domination sociale à la fin du Moyen Âge et leur inscription dans le territoire sous l’emprise de la ville. L’observatoire principal de la thèse est celui des pratiques de l’écrit telles qu’elles apparaissent dans un fonds archivistique concernant l’activité judiciaire de la ville : celui des correspondances urbaines. L’objectif du projet est porter un nouveau regard sur la logique sociale des pratiques de l’écrit (qu’elles soient médiévales ou modernes) et sur la dynamique de la construction du pouvoir urbain à l’échelle régionale.

Distance Estimation in Harbor Seals at the MSC in Warnemünde

E-mobility in India Scenarios Tool

I will build a scenarios tool to simulate the impacts of transportation electrification on India’s energy system, including the environmental and economic impacts. I intend to ensure that there is a focus on the environmental outcomes associated with such electrification, as opposed to a sole focus on the purely macroeconomic effects. Stakeholders from the government and industry should be able to use this tool to gain clarity on scenarios for e-mobility in India to help them make better decisions. The project will also include a public facing tool to help the public understand the implications of these decisions.

The end result of the project, a tool to assess scenarios for electrification of transportation in India, will also be easily adaptable useful to other countries around the world, so they could engage in the same type of exercise to assess the benefits of electrification. This means that the project will have significance not only to India but to others as well.