Projets novateurs réalisés

Research and Experimental Testing of Liquid-Injection Thrust Vector Control Actuator (LITVC)

Reaction Dynamics is a small-satellite launch vehicle company aiming to build a launch vehicle using a revolutionary type of rocket propulsion. Launch vehicles rely on a sophisticated Guidance, Navigation, and Control algorithm to precisely navigate and stabilize their vehicle during flight. The company requires an innovative method to accurately deflect the thrust force of the engines, and a previous literature review has led them to proceed with a Liquid-Injection Thrust Vector Control (LITVC) mechanism. Reaction Dynamics seeks to gain an understanding of the phenomena at hand and develop a small-scale prototype of the mechanism’s actuator. By using experiments to tune a mathematical model, the company requires the assistance of a full-time intern to research, design, implement and analyze hot-fire tests of the control actuator.

Clinical Implementation of Contralateral Inhibition OAE Testing

The proposed research project seeks to develop protocols that will enable one to measure the functionality of the auditory brainstem in a way that is clinically viable and time efficient. This project aims to minimize the time necessary to conduct an inclusive otoacoustic emissions (OAE) test using contralateral acoustic stimulation. By setting threshold signal to noise ratios, outputs from the ear in response to specified pure tones centered around frequency levels imperative for understanding speech will be analysed. The analysis will look to highlight OAE responses above threshold to indicate efferent system functionality. The project will be a collaboration between Western and Vivosonic Inc., a reputable company focused on auditory diagnostics. Through this collaboration, it is expected that the partner will be able to develop software protocols that will allow them to conduct more objective testing using their system, thus increasing the usability and value of their technologies

Sketch Input for Interactive Component Recognition on Mobile Devices

For both aircraft assembly and maintenance, mechanics need to quickly access information about parts and determine part numbers. Part numbers can be retrieved from 3D models of the aircraft but locating such models within an airplane is very difficult, particularly on small mobile devices. An additional complication is that the objects to be recognized are often embedded with a larger assembly structure which can obscure portions of the objects. Our aim is to develop a prototype system that incorporates new methods to aid in the maintenance of complex machinery by utilizing the input/output feature-set of modern mobile touchscreen devices. We will develop a real-time recognition system of physical components using captured images. User interaction will include touchscreen sketching for augmenting portions of occluded components to improve recognition rates. In addition, the system will offer limited Augmented Reality tagging of components, providing a visual link to reference manuals describing the component………………………………….

Économie sociale et économie circulaire : potentiels de synergies et modèles d’affaires porteurs

Ce projet a pour objectif de faire la lumière sur l’effet de levier que l’économie sociale peut jouer dans une perspective de transition québécoise vers l’économie circulaire. Il permettra d’identifier les secteurs d’activités et les modèles d’affaires les plus porteurs pour les entreprises d’économie sociale dans le déploiement de boucles d’économie circulaire à une échelle locale ou régionale, pour ensuite transférer ces connaissances auprès des acteurs ayant la capacité d’initier et de soutenir de telles initiatives. Le projet de recherche réalisé par le stagiaire a pour objectif d’amorcer ces travaux en mettant en lumière les réalités et modèles des entreprises d’économie sociale québécoises investies dans les secteurs liés à l’économie circulaire et en identifiant les opportunités les plus porteuses au plan international.

Identification of Patient Barriers and Success Predicting Metrics for a Clinical Trial Testing Blood Derived Autologous Angiogenic Cell Precursor Therapy in Patients With Critical Limb Ischemia (ACP-CLI)

Regeneration of destroyed arteries using the patient’s own stem cells is an innovative new treatment for Peripheral Artery Disease, that is currently being tested in humans in a Phase II trial. Throughout clinical studies, there has been an issue efficiently recruiting patients and clinical trial sites. Recruitment is recognized as a key determinant of success for clinical trials. Thus, the purpose of this project is developing an effective and efficient patient and site recruitment plan for the Phase III clinical trial. This will be done by analyzing the metrics obtained from the Phase II trial as well as conducting a literature search. Additionally, the metric analysis and literature search will allow for the identification of study designs and the development of the framework for the Phase III clinical trial. These research projects will be completed alongside the creation of a metrics dashboard which is an invaluable tool in companies wishing to be efficient, organized and to make well informed, accurate decisions. The failure of a clinical trial has many scientific, ethical and financial implications thus the goals of this project is to develop methods and plans to aid in the success of the clinical development of ACP-01.

Price Elasticities and Promotion Cannibalization effect on promotion activities

Leveraging the entirety of point of sale and loyalty data collected across a category, as well as additional socio-economic and other supporting data sources, apply statistical modelling to identify the own-price elasticity of demand and cross-price elasticity of demand at regular and promoted price points across Unilever’s portfolio within that category. Subsequently measuring the promotional cannibalization of Unilever’s temporary price reduction activities across the market to assess the promotional events with the highest return on investment and revenue optimization potential.

Advanced Characterization of Zirconium Hydrides in Zr-2.5Nb Pressure Tube in CANDU Reactors

In the operation of CANDU reactors, the Zr-2.5Nb pressure tubes holding the cooling water and fuel bundles are susceptible to hydride cracking-induced crack initiation mechanisms, known as delayed hydride cracking and overload crack initiation. For structural integrity evaluation of CANDU pressure tubes, of fracture toughness and hydride crack initiation models were developed. However, the hydride morphology input for the model is still based on microstructures taken decades ago. By applying more advanced electron microscopes and establishing corresponding sample preparation procedures on hydrided pressure tube samples with similar thermo-mechanical history of real in-reactor components, better data input will be generated for the models to ensure more success tube integrity evaluation. Findings from this project will also benefit the industry partner with established sample preparation method for imaging hydrides at different length scales.

Development of a novel plant biostimulant made of encapsulated Rhodopseudomonas palustris

The agricultural sector is currently facing a conundrum, whereas the needs to produce more (food, fiber, bioenergy) are ever increasing, the land and resources needed to produce them are diminishing. Furthermore, consumers and legislators pressure for environmentally friendly products are increasing accordingly, the development of sustainable alternatives such as the use of plant growth-promoting rhyzobacteria (PGPR) for improving agriculture production is gaining interest. Bio-inoculants thus represents an open and growing market.
The overarching goal of this work will be to isolate and select potential bacteria and develop a microcapsule formulation for the development of a commercial bio-inoculant formulations by Ulysse Biotech in the near future.

Breadth of the Wild: global patterns of niche across latitude in the marine realm

A widely recognized pattern in ecology is the latitudinal diversity gradient: increasing biodiversity with decreasing latitude. However, why there are fewer animals at the poles than in the tropics remains poorly understood. The latitude niche-breadth hypothesis (LNB) suggests that stable climates of the tropics allow for increased specialization (smaller niche), which in turn allows for more species to occupy the total available niche space. At the same time, the highly dynamic climate of the poles drives the evolution of generalists that can adapt to a wide range of conditions (larger niche), limiting the number of species that can occupy the total niche space. While the fundamental question of “What drives species richness?” on land remains debated, it is even less understood in the marine environment. The oceans are characterized by high species mobility and dispersal, movement into the depths and across latitude, and variations in temperature driven by water stratification in addition to seasonality. The difficulties of monitoring such an immense, dynamic ecosystem have limited the LNB hypothesis from being formally tested in the marine realm, and only recently have modern tools become widely available to do so. TBC

Modelling rainfalls by dynamic copulas

Supervisors: Mélina Maillhot (Concordia University, Montreal) and Elena di Bernardino (CNAM, Paris).
Postdoctoral Fellow: Fátima Palacios Rodríguez (INRIA Sophia Antipolis- Méditerranée, Montpellier)

The main aim of the project is to provide adequate models for rainfalls time series by representing the time dependence related to flood events with Vine copulas. Copulas are easily understandable multivariate models allow for defining any type of dependence structure between random variables. Vine copulas are characterizes by trees of copulas. Firstly, we will concentrate our study on rainfall in Paris, since data and models (excluding copulas) are available and will allow a comparison of the methods. Secondly, in order to quantify the risk of floods in the considered geographic area, we aim to provide appropriate estimators of suitable multivariate risk measures using our proposed models. Finally, we would like to help to improve insurance’s regulation in Canada to ensure considerable prices of flood risk coverage.

Coupling the liquid pool and wellbore hydraulic module of the “Prediction and Optimization Software Package”

In the last decade optimization is expanded in many applications from food production to sophisticated applications such as engine fuel efficiency. In the proposed package, it is tried to apply optimization techniques along with physics based analytical and semi-analytical methodologies to create a compelling framework which can help thermal-process based oil industry to reduce their GHG and also better evaluate their CAPEX. Many SAGD projects are overspent on their facilities due to under prediction or overprediction of their oil production expectations. this package will help operators to predict their expectations and improve their predictions as more inputs are provided such 4D seismic, temperature and pressure observation wells, production data, and geological characterization.

Caring Beyond Borders: Policies Impacting Transnational Families in Canada and Around the Globe

With the current trends in population aging and migration, comes very real everyday questions for families all around the globe. Who in the family will require care as they age? What will that care entail? Who will provide that care? Now imagine if these questions must be negotiated between families separated not only by vast distances, but also geographical, political and cultural borders.
We currently lack the knowledge about the needs and experiences of these diverse families of migrants, which have also been neglected to date in policy-making in Canada and worldwide. The main goal of my project is to conduct a scan of relevant Canadian and international policies and migration regimes that impact migrants’ and their ability to exchange care to loved ones both near and far. TO BE CONT’D