Projets novateurs réalisés

Quick Draw History – the NRA, the Politics of Memory and the Great Gun Debate

My project will join a nascent research perspective on the NRA, that looks at the organization as a key player in the social construction of gun culture in the United States. The NRA does this using tools like its youth educational outreach, online television network, museums and its firearms training programs (which instruct over 750,000 Americans annually). My dissertation will examine how the NRA uses these tools to influence the perceptions of the American public not just towards their present, but their past. It will argue that the NRA both draws upon and shapes historical meta-narratives regarding the role of firearms in America’s past because controlling a people’s understanding of their past is a powerful tool for determining the conditions of possibility for the present. These narratives are intended to forward the perspective that firearms have played an integral part in American history and that the US has a cultural tradition of firearms ownership. In order to understand the NRA’s influence, I must first understand how the NRA mobilizes narratives about the past to serve a political purpose. To be continued…

Next Generation User Product Documentation

Product documentation is an important information tool connecting any business to its end-users and customers. Comprehensive product documentation will likely result in positive evaluation of the products by the customers and may influence their future purchasing decisions. Many studies show product documentation remains an essential element of any new product even for modern electronic devices used for information and communication technologies. Paradoxically, comprehensiveness of product documentation may increase its complexity, rendering it unusable for the customers partly due to information overload. Survey results showed the major challenges in developing valuable product documentation to be: customer demands for concise customized information, product complexity requiring large volume of information, shortened documentation lifecycle due to technological advancements, and reduced budgets to produce sophisticated documentation. This project will examine existing documentation, explore alternative means of delivering product information to the end-users in order to deliver an exceptional user experience and improve ease of use.

Recovery of nickel from awaruite: froth flotation and atmospheric acid leaching behavior of the natural nickel-iron alloy

The Decar Nickel District is located in British Columbia. With more than 2 million tonnes of Ni, the district represents a significant resource. The nickel occurs in an uncommon mineral awaruite which is an alloy of nickel and iron. Due to its strong ferro-magnetic properties and high density (SG 8.0) it should be easily recoverable using magnetic separation followed by gravity concentration. However, the presence of significant amounts of magnetite which as similar physical properties makes it difficult to separate the awaruite from the magnetite. After preliminary investigations it was found that awaruite can be floated and leached with sulfuric acid. The proposed investigation is to understand why flotation and leaching are working for awaruite and to evaluate which would be the best solution to concentrate and extract nickel from the Decar Nickel District.

Sélection d’un ensemble d’amorçage pour l’apprentissage actif appliqué à la prédiction structurée

L’apprentissage automatique est une tâche d’intelligence artificielle où un algorithme apprend une certaine tâche à partir d’exemples. Ce projet a pour objectif de réduire autant que possible la quantité de tels exemples qui doivent être vus par un algorithme pour atteindre des niveaux de performance acceptables. La raison étant que ces exemples sont souvent produits par des humains, et que le coût de cette production en termes de travail manuel est important. La réalisation de ce projet aura pour conséquence de faciliter l’adoption de techniques d’apprentissage automatique dans de nouveaux domaines, résultant dans des gains d’efficacité.

Conception and optimization of hybrid energy systems for sustainablecommunities

In a society aiming at achieving high sustainability objectives, new urban developments

represent an interesting opportunity to implement innovative hybrid energy systems. That is

the case of the Petite Riviere project, a future sustainable community of approximately 1,500

housing and commercial units located in the city of Montreal, Quebec. The community will

rely on a hybrid district energy system for building heating and cooling purposes, as well as

for the production of domestic hot water.

The proposed centralized hybrid energy systems are complex and require detailed energy

simulation in order to choose the most suitable energy-supply options. Optimization of hybrid

systems, both in terms of energy-efficiency and carbon intensity is also required in a highsustainability

perspective.

The partner organization, BuildGreen Solutions, is a sustainable development services

company in charge of building and community-scale projects such as Petite Riviere. The

results of the project will enrich BuildGreen’s exptertise and will be valuable both for Petite

Riviere and future projects.

Synthesis of transition-state inhibitors of galactofuranosyltransferase 2

The project aims to prepare transition-state inhibitors of the enzyme galactofuranosyltransferase 2 (GlfT2), on purpose to find a potential treatment against tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is still one of the worldwide deadliest infectious disease and drug resistance cases are rising.

In humans, most tuberculosis infections are caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Gft2 enzyme is involved in the construction of the mycobacteria cell walls wich are paramount for each bacteria cell survival in his host. Futhermore, there are no efficient inhibitors for the GfT2 enzyme reported.

This project will be focused on the development of multi-step synthesis strategy on purpose to obtain the desired inhibitor and its analogues. Once the inhibitors prepared and characterized, each one of them will be tested in vitro in France, at the CNRS of Rennes.

Méta-analyse sur l’effet d’un extrait de plante sur les performances des poulets en croissance et identification des facteurs de modulation

Les antibiotiques facteurs de croissance ajoutés dans les aliments pour animaux a été récemment interdite au Canada et leur utilisation sera considérablement restreinte dans le futur. Ainsi, plutôt que de seulement contrôler les maladies entériques, des efforts doivent être faits pour améliorer la santé de l’écosystème intestinal. Il existe de nombreuses alternatives telles les huiles essentielles qui sont utilisés depuis des décennies chez l’homme pour leurs propriétés antimicrobiennes, Le mode d’action de ces produits n’est pas bien connu et leurs impacts sur la croissance et la prévention des maladies digestives restent essentiellement variables malgré le grand nombre de publications sur les alternatives aux antibiotiques chez les poulets de chair. La méta-analyse a été choisie comme outil pour résumer et quantifier les connaissances acquises sur le produit Oleobiotech Poultry qui sera comparé avec une base de données exhaustives sur l’utilisation d’huiles essentielles dans l’alimentation des poulets. TO BE CONT’D

Tip-a: A New Carcinogenic Factor of Helicobacter pylori

This research project involves investigating how Helicobacter pylori is causing gastric cancer. We will be investigating proteins which have been shown to target the nucleus and cause a cancerous microenvironment, as well as epithelial-mesenchymal transition cells in their recombinant forms. Currently, there is little known about the effects of these proteins in their endogenous forms. To address this, we will be using knockout models to determine the immunogenic and oncogenic effects of these proteins on host cells using a variety of molecular biology techniques. We suspect that the knockout models will display less immunogenic and oncogenic effects when compared to our wild type. By conducting experiments under physiological conditions, we may be able to address gaps in the research as well as provide further insight as to how Helicobacter pylori causes gastric cancer. Understanding these mechanisms may lead to novel prevention or treatment strategies.

Big data configuration for Industry 4.0 Robotics

This project relates to the configuration of data generated by several robotic arms during the manufacture of an Airbus A350. Robots generate an enormous amount of data during these type of processes, and the data is crucial for future analysis of how to improve the process. In order to be analyzed, the data must first be annotated. The annotation is currently a manual task, which is tedious and time-consuming. The objective of the project is to create a tool which can be used for automatic annotation and configuration of the data output from the manufacturing process. The proposed data configuration tool could take one of a few different forms. In the simpler form, the tool might assist an operator in configuring the data in a smart way. For example, instead of having to decide how to store each individual dataset, the tool might be a user interface that suggests similarly configuring a large amount of data that comes from the same source. A more advanced assistance tool might configure the data automatically, and could learn to adjust the configuration based on operator corrections.

Using longitudinal data to understand gender differences in bicycling over time

This project explores reasons why there are differences in bicycling behaviour between men and women using two longitudinal datasets. It leverages synergies between two research teams examining bicycling uptake Brisbane and Vancouver. Brisbane and Vancouver are promoting active transportation by bicycle through investing in physical bicycling infrastructure, education programs, and promotional activities. Though it is well documented there is a gender disparity in bicycling, research explaining gender differences in bicycling is limited, however infrastructural improvements and promotion are hypothesized to reduce the disparity. The student (Ms. Sersli) will examine the data to determine changes in bicycling over time and how this varies between men and women in a Brisbane-based cohort using statistical modeling techniques, and she will also examine changes in bicycling and confidence in a Vancouver-based cohort. The expected outcomes include two manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals.

Reconnaissance automatique de produits à partir des requis dans les appels d’offres

Ce projet de recherche vise à développer une technologie de pointe qui permettra à une entreprise d’identifier rapidement les appels d’offres les plus intéressants pour elle en fonction des produits et services qu’elle offre. Elle lui permettra également de produire ses soumissions plus rapidement et efficacement.
Plus précisément, l’objectif est de développer un logiciel capable d’extraire automatiquement tous les requis d’un appel d’offres et, à partir de ces requis, d’identifier les produits et services que l’entreprise est en mesure de fournir. Le logiciel pourra déterminer dans un premier temps quels appels d’offres sont les plus intéressants pour l’entreprise et, dans un second temps, préparer automatiquement un projet de soumission. L’approche qui sera utilisée fera appel à des techniques d’intelligence artificielle, soit l’apprentissage profond (« deep learning ») à base de réseaux de neurones et l’analyse sémantique latente.

Caractérisation de l’activité du cortex sensorimoteur, par électro-encephalogramme haute densité (EEG-HD) chez les jeunes enfants avec une paralysie cérébrale et atteinte unilatérale spastique

Le projet de recherche réalisé a pour but d’étudier la dynamique temporelle du réseau action-observation chez l’enfant hémiplégique. Pour ce faire, 20 enfants âgés de 3 à 12 ans atteints de paralysie cérébrale hémiplégique ou d’hémiplégie acquise dans un contexte de tumeur cérébrale ou d’accident vasculaire cérébral seront étudiés par électro-encéphalogramme haute densité dans 4 conditions : repos, action, observation d’action et cohérence cortico-cinématique (étude de la cohérence entre les rythmes cérébraux et les signaux d’accélérations enregistrés par un accéléromètre lors de mouvements passifs). Cette étude devrait permettre de mieux comprendre les mécanismes de plasticité post-lésionnelle du cortex moteur. Par ailleurs, elle ouvre la voie à l’étude neurophysiologique de la plasticité cérébrale mise en jeu lors de différentes techniques de rééducation motrice, dont celles par observation d’action, et devrait donc contribuer à adapter ces techniques chez l’enfant.