Projets novateurs réalisés

Comparing the value of country foods with other food provisioning systems in Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories.

How can we describe and value harvesting, processing and sharing (costs as well as benefits) country foods in economic, nutritional, environmental and socio-cultural terms? How can we compare the value of country food with food that comes from other provisioning systems (e.g. imported/market-based foods and local food production)? These are important questions for both communities and decision-makers at multiple levels (from local to territorial to federal), and an initial review of the literature shows that there are complex decisions to be made about what “value” means and how it might be measured before any comparisons with other food provisioning systems can be undertaken. This research will review and synthesize the relevant literature, undertake an environmental scan to identify related projects and potential partners, interview decision-makers at multiple levels, community representatives (including from communities that might be interested in cooperating on this research) and experts in food systems and valuation. It will propose a framework and set of metrics for comparing the value of country foods, locally produced food and market-based imports. This framework will then be adapted for piloting in the context of one or two communities. TO BE CONT’D

Caracterisation du comportement electrique et thermique de structuresde materiaux composites de carbone dans Ie cadre de la recherche de solutions deretour de courant

Le projet vise a ameliorer la connaissance des proprh§tes electriques et thermiques des

materiaux composites dans Ie contexte de leur utilisation dans Ie milieu aeronautique. Pour

ce faire, il est envisage de soumet!re des echantillons de ces materiaux a des courants

electriques, pour en evaluer la distribution dans lesdits echantillons. L’echauffement cause

par ces courants sera mesure pour en arriver a des recommandations sous forme de seuils

de tolerance. Le projet envisage est primordial afin de permettre au partenaire de remplacer

les structures actuelles composees d’aluminium par des materiaux composites, dont les

caracteristiques mecaniques sont nettement superieures, et ainsi permet!re la construction

d’avions de prochaine generation plus performants.

Characterizing the stability of claims in neuroimaging

In recent years there has been a growing focus on evaluating the reproducibility of scientific findings. In neuroimaging this has been explored with respect to the impact specific choices in analysis software have on the resulting claims and their ability to be replicated across datasets or other tools. The focus of my Ph.D. involves the characterization of various tools and their relative stability, in other words, how significantly minor changes (such as noise in data, specific analysis choices, or computer hardware) affect the eventual results. This exchange will give me the opportunity to apply this exploration to functional MRI analyses, leveraging the experience provided by Dr. Maumet and her team in comparing disparate processing pipelines.

Predictive Control Approach to Convert Single-Zone Residential Buildings with Central HVAC Systems to Multi-Zone Systems

The current project aims to develop a novel energy management strategy for residential heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Controllable wireless air damping vents will adjust the air flow in different zones of the building allowing independent control of the temperature which results in enhanced thermal comfort and energy savings. The intern will collaborate with the partner organization on studying a novel predictive model to control the damping factor of the vents within fully closed to fully open range. The partner organization will benefit from the expertise of both the academic supervisor and the intern in HVAC and thermo-fluids to achieve a more effective control strategy for the system.

Modelling And Experimental Measurement Of Solution Gas / Solvent Dissolution And Exsolution In Heavy Oil

Foamy oil is commonly observed phenomenon during cold primary production of heavy oil reservoirs. Along with the pressure depletion, a type of anomalous flow of oil and gas phases appears when pressure is lower than the thermodynamic saturation pressure. Foamy oil is believed to bring positive effects to heavy oil recovery and well productivity by promoting favored fluid properties and oil swelling. The proposed study focuses on the description of the complex phase behavior of foamy oil systems to examine equilibrium versus non-equilibrium behaviour at different depressurization rates. It will provide deeper insight of the fundamental mechanisms associated with foamy oil evolution process, verify the influence of “supersaturation” of foamy oil on recovery performance, and establish a methodology to accurately determine the true thermodynamic bubble point pressure. Finally, numerical models which consider the thermodynamic and dynamic aspects for foamy oil phase behavior will be developed for field scale simulation.

PATH: Program to Accelerate Technologies for Homecare

The main objective of this project is to provide a testing and optimization platform that will accelerate the availability of smart systems for seniors’ home healthcare. The interns from this program will start developing a novel versatile connection protocol that will connect different devices and sensors to the hub provided by our industrial partner SMARTONE. Thus, one of the benefits of this proposal is the ability for SMARTONE to integrate many different devices through a single synchronized platform. In the next steps, the system will be installed in four different living labs and 350 real home units across Canada. The developers at SMARTONE and interns will have access to big data from different devices and locations to develop their own algorithms and Application Program Interfaces (APIs).

Measurement of the physical and thermo-physical properties of molten salts and their interactions with materials of construction

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) represent the next generation in nuclear power reactor technology with the benefits of being non-greenhouse-gas emitting forms of power production and providing inherent safety, lower construction and operating costs and proliferation resistance. As part of the recently announced New Brunswick SMR Research and Development Cluster, Moltex Energy proposes to build their first-of-a-kind Stable Salt Reactor (SSR) at the Point Lepreau site in southwestern NB. Research and development activities surrounding the redox control for the SSR fuel and coolant salts are key to ensuring adequate corrosion and degradation rates for the materials of construction. This Mitacs supported project aims to develop the facilities and capabilities required to undertake molten salt properties and corrosion research at UNB and will support the education and training of three highly qualified professionals (HQPs) including a Post Doctoral Fellow, a PhD and a Masters student.

Fusibles parasismiques pour diagonales de contreventements en acier

La solution la plus economique pour rendre une structure de batiment resistante aux charges laterales apportees par les vents ou les seismes consiste a former des cadres rigides en y ajoutant des diagonales. Ces diagonales sont soumises a des efforts axiaux: la traction et la compression. La capacite d’un membre d’acier etant plus elevee en traction qu’en compression, il convient de former un fusible qui rendre son comportment similaire pour ces deux sollicitations. Le projet de recherche s’inscrit dans un cadre d’optimisation des structures exposees a un risque sismique. Les efforts communiques par les diagonales seront limites par un fusible, ce qui permettra de liberer la structure de la surcharge due a une resistance trop importante de la diagonale en traction. Des lors, des economies d’acier sont possibles pour les elements de la structure porteuse, et les assemblages moins sollicites pourront etre reduits: d’ou une economie sur la fabrication………

Laboratory and field scale biodegradability assessment for Pela case products for environmentally end-of-life management

Pela, incorporated under Open Mind Development Corporation (OMDC), manufactures environmentally sustainable products, such as compostable smartphone and laptop cases. Pela aims to lead the industry in taking complete responsibility for its manufactured products and continuously improve their lifecycle so that they have the most renewable and sustainable beginning of life, and the most graceful end of life. The Pela Case is made of Flaxstic®, which is comprised of compostable bioplastic elastomer and flax straw materials. In this proposal, both field- and laboratory-scale biodegradability assays will be conducted for OMDC’s products (i.e., smart cell phone cases) to investigate their end-of-life fate in various controlled and un-controlled bioreactor environments. The field-scale testing will be conducted at Glengrow composting facility (Kelowna, BC), where plant materials such as lawn trimmings and pruning are composted. The laboratory-scale aerobic (composting) and anaerobic (digestion) biodegradability assays will be conducted at Bioreactor Technology Group Laboratory at University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus.

Techniques for Mapping, Analyzing and Improving Complex MultifunctionalProduct Development Processes

Existing methods and techniques for process mapping will be considered to develop a process

framework which will be adapted to perform analysis and provide improvements to the process.

Analysis techniques will be applied to detect redundant, duplicated or misaligned process activities.

Results will provide means to assess and evaluate the discrepancies between the actual and desired

processes. Solutions will be developed to reduce these discrepancies to obtain a smoother, leaner and faster process.

The process map to be built consolidates different viewpoints of the process and the engineering

knowledge to reflect the interdependencies and the information flow throughout the process. This will

contribute to improvement of the structural awareness across different functions that contribute to the

process, thus foster more effective coordination of the work. Application of the process suggestions

that will given as the deliverable of the project will allow faster and leaner development proces

Multiphysics modeling of novel electrical powertrain for medium-duty trucks

Electric motors for traction applications come in many types, but in-hub induction motor with concentrated winding is not one of them. This specific configuration is of high interest for Nordresa – an electric truck manufacturer based in Montréal, Canada. In effect, this motor type presents numerous advantages: because of the concentrated winding and the absence of permanent magnet, the manufacturing cost is low; and because of the direct drive configuration, the maintenance and failure modes are reduced to a minimum. However, concentrated windings are not typically used in induction motors due to the high torque ripples caused by the stator harmonics. In the recent years however, researchers gained interest in this moty type due to recent advances in winding configurations and motor performance modeling. We propose the development of an in-hub induction motor with concentrated winding, along with the multiphysics model to predict its performance – a magnetic equivalent circuit model coupled with a thermal model. A cooling system will also be developed concurrently. We aim to maximize the motor’s torque density. The model will be validated with a full-scale prototype.

Automatic Tracking, Localization and Orientation of Hockey Players, Using Broadcast Videos

Automatic analysis of sport videos is an attractive research area in computer vision that is driving the sport analytics towards a more technological edge. By automatically analyzing sport videos, lots of information could be drawn that benefits the teams, coaches, referees, players and even the fans, such as: extracting strategy of the game, technique and performance of each individual player, performance of the referee in a competition, and etc. This area of research, although attracted many researchers in computer vision community, is still in its infancy. This project focuses on automatic analysis of the broadcast hockey videos. Explicitly, in this project, as the initial step towards higher level analysis of the hockey games, precise tracking and localization of the players on the ice-rink will be performed and the body orientation of the players will be determined, using the advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques.