Projets novateurs réalisés

Visual memory and the pedometer in navigating desert ants.

Desert ants rely on multiple systems in order to successfully navigate, including memorizing snapshots of their visual surroundings and path integration. During path integration, foragers record both their heading direction, through a sky compass, and the distance from the nest through a step-counter giving the forager an estimate of the nest’s location while they forage. Foragers traveling long distances in environments with many visual landmarks need to store multiple snapshot memories along their foraging route, and it is unknown how foragers separate these visual memories of different points along the route during learning. Here we examine if the pedometer affects visual memory acquisition of multiple visual memories through using artificial skylines erected along foraging routes. If the pedometer does act as a context cue aiding in panorama acquisition, snapshot memories acquired at sites separated by large differences in the forager’s pedometer should result in high navigational performance and memory. When these skylines are learned closer to each other along the route, memory and navigational performance should suffer.

Perceptions of Fairness and Equity of Accommodated Classroom Assessments for Students with Disability

Research on assessment accommodations for students with disabilities is well-documented in the literature. Assessment accommodations are the arrangements made by the teacher such as allocation of more time on the tests to give disability students a fair and equal opportunity to show their learning as well as possible. However, much of the research on this area has focused on the types of accommodations that are available for teachers to give to these students in standardized testing contexts, with little research on how teachers percieve and practice accommodations in their ongoing assessments (i.e., such as asking questions). Therefore, this project aims to understand how teachers, disability students, and their parents understand the practice of assessment accommodations within classrooms. To address the purpose of this project, researchers at my host university has started a study in secondary-schools in Australia. I will join this big project and bring my research expertise in assessment fairness to analyze how we can create assessment accommodations that are fair for disability students based on the responses of teachers, disability students, and their parents. The results of this study will also help think about fairer accommodation practices for students with disabilities in Canadian secondary schools.

Lessons from Project Synergy: A Guide to E-Mental Health in Canada

E-mental health, which is an emerging field that utilizes technology to improve access to care, has shown strong potentials to address the overwhelming demand for mental health services. Australia is currently undertaking an unified effort between clinicians, researchers, private sector, the government, and the users to provide a rigorously evaluated digital platform through Project Synergy. This multi-million dollar project can be the point of entry for many Australians who seek mental health care. Currently, Canada is also facing overwhelming demand of mental health services but does not have a such e-mental health project at the scale of Project Synergy. My goal is to conduct a process evaluation of Project Synergy and bring back my learning experiences back to Canada. This will guide unified effort to develop and evaluate large scale e-mental health platform in Canada.

EVALUATION DE FILIERES DE TRAITEMENT DES EFFLUENTS CONTAMINES AUX BPC

Le projet de stage vise a repondre aux besoins du partenaire ABB Inc. en termes d’identification des meilleures

filieres de traitement des effluents contamines aux biphenylpolychlores (BPC). Le projet repose sur: (i) la

caracterisation technique et economique des procedes adaptes a I’enlevement des BPC; (ii) Ie developpement

d’un protocole generique d’evaluation et de suivi de filieres de traitement basee sur I’analyse de la satisfaction;

(iii) la validation du protocole sur la base de donnees reelles collectee sur Ie terrain. L’identification de filieres en consideration d’une part des caracteristiques techniques et economiques des technologies identifiees et

d’autre part, leur capacite a s’adapter aux variations des debits et des concentrations a trailer en integrant la

specificite des sources (toit, terrains) dans Ie schema des fiux a traiter.

Structural controls and modification of the Big Bulk Cu-Au porphyry system, Stewart District (northwest BC): constraining the geologic environment during porphyry emplacement

Porphyry Cu-Au-Mo systems, especially those formed along continental active margins, are generally considered to have formed in contractional tectonic environments of crustal thickening, surface uplift and rapid exhumation (e.g., Sillitoe, 2010). The tectonic environment of porphyry systems formed in island arcs, such as those located within the Stikine terrane of northwestern BC, are not as well understood. The Stewart district is a ~170 km long, linear belt of mineralization within the Stikine terrane and hosts the Kerr-Mitchell-Sulphurets deposit, the largest undeveloped gold reserve in Canada. Recent regional and detailed mapping studies in the district have presented compelling evidence for emplacement of these systems into an extensional regime, which contradicts the classic contractional model. My research seeks to test this model and its applicability to the region as a whole by reconstructing the Early Jurassic basin geometry, structural architecture and stress regime that provided permeable pathways for magmatism and hydrothermal fluids at several less well studied mineralized systems within the district. If the observations indicate that the porphyries were deposited in extensional basins, a new exploration model for porphyry emplacement can be implemented which will benefit exploration in Canada.

Identifying key factors for effective cleaning of EEG data using machine learning approaches

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.