Projets novateurs réalisés

Do Physical Activity Levels Predict Functional Improvements following a Structured Exercise Program for Women Undergoing Breast Cancer Treatment?

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canadian women, representing 26 percent of all diagnostics. The overall cancer survival rate has increased from 25% in the 1940s to 60%. Thus, the proportion of breast cancer survivors is increasing significantly. There is a consensus that survivors benefit from exercise during and after treatment. However, the benefits of exercise may vary as a function of the stage of disease, the nature of the medical treatment, and the current lifestyle of the patient. Based on a review of the oncology-exercise programs in Canada, there is no formal exercise program offered as an adjuvant therapy for cancer survivors in Atlantic Canada.
• Create opportunities for women currently being treated for breast cancer to exercise;
• Raise awareness of the benefits of exercise during breast cancer treatment; TO BE CONT’D.

Contribution to reshaping concept design – a general approach incorporating the state-of-the-art in design theories and model-based systems engineering

Subject:
Concept design is the first phase of the design process, the time needed to make basic decisions that set the specifications for a proposed artifact and begin to determine its ultimate shape. Starting from very general and very high level requirements (desires and needs), a first set of requirements is created; several concepts are evaluated, to the point where a concept can be retained for the detailed design and potentially for a setting-in-production.
Like all subsequent design phases, concept design is affected by the concurrent engineering trend with its wide range of stakeholder perspectives and design issues to consider. As concept design becomes more demanding, it is becoming increasingly important that the results of the design concept can be transparently and easily taken into account in subsequent development phases. To better support this first phase of design, the use of model-based systems engineering is studied. TO BE CONT’D

Machine Learning Modeling for Autism Spectrum Disorder Handling and Treatment

The project is about developing a decision support tool to provide a personalized handling and treatment for Autistic Syndrome Disorder patients. This decision support tool will integrate machine learning modeling that will be used to suggest optimal and personalized guidelines for a very large spectrum of ASD patients, not available so far. Theses guidelines will be used by concerned parents, teachers and therapist that are in charge of these patients. The partner is a company that offer accompanying and training services to ASD patients’ parents and therapists. Consequently, the expected outcome of this research work will allow the partner to provide services to ASD community not offered so far in any country, letting this company becoming a pioneer in this field.

Power transformers reliability modeling with data obtained in structure monitoring using fiber optics sensing

The intern will work on building power transformers’ aging models based on reliability theories and actual field test data collected using optic fiber based health monitoring technologies. This is part of a novel solution to handle the accident prevention and maintenance for major power and grid equipment. The novelty lies in that the model verification and execution will be realized with physical parameters directly obtained from transformers in real-time. The data used will be those collected on in-service transformers. While the candidate will take advantage of his prior experience in acoustic sensing technologies, his work for the model development will benefit from the industry co-workers who will assist the candidate with their expertise in the insulation aging. The work will make the data processing, modeling and analysis and customer report writing all computer-automated. The partner company will ensure a punctual delivery to customers of the outcomes from a service, including a report on the custom’s asset health condition and recommendations of maintenance actions.

Economic Implications of Policy Change in Rural Regions: Implications of Legalizing Cannabis in the Kootenay Region

How does policy created by the federal government impact local rural regions? What are the positive and negative implications of policy changes made in Ottawa? This research focuses on understanding the economic implications of changes in federal policies in rural areas. With better understanding, businesses and community serving organizations can better plan for economic implications emerging from policy change.
The Government of Canada has indicated the legalization of cannabis will take before summer 2018. As the federal government moves towards legalization, questions have emerged about how these federal and associated provincial and local government policies will impact rural regions. This research will investigate the economic implications of the proposed policy change of cannabis legalization in rural Canada. Through this research, the economic implications of this policy will be conducted in the Kootenay Region of British Columbia. The outcomes of this research will benefit regional stakeholders in the Kootenay region, including Community Futures Central Kootenay, to build enhanced economic strategic plans.

The impacts of agricultural insecticides and new regulatory schemes on the health of wild and managed bees.

Agricultural pesticides are one of several stressors contributing to the global decline of insect pollinators. More specifically, there is strong evidence of harm from neonicotinoid insecticides. Many jurisdictions are implementing new rules to restrict use of these common pesticides. While regulators have largely focused on reducing pollinator exposure to neonicotinoids, other insecticides also have the potential to harm pollinators. There is a need to analyze the full suite of agricultural insecticides to better understand the “pesticide stressor” and avoid regrettable substitutions as farmers reduce reliance on neonicotinoids. Furthermore, little is known about the extent to which restrictions on neonicotinoids will in fact support recovery of insect pollinators. Our research will address this gap in our knowledge through two objectives. First, we will produce a comprehensive review of the literature on the effects of currently registered insecticides on insect pollinators. Second, we will execute an experimental study of the impacts of new regulations on native bee communities.

A Study on The Power of Storytelling to Persuade Suspects to Confession

Police interrogations of suspected offenders plays a pivotal role in criminal investigations and subsequent prosecutions. Unsurprisingly, the way police interrogate suspects has been the subject of much scrutiny as they sometimes lead to false confessions and incarcerations. Surprisingly, however, the effect that various techniques have on eliciting false confessions has not been the subject of much empirical testing. In the current study, the effect of the use of storytelling (e.g., stories of how others have confessed to the interrogator) on confession rate (i.e., admissions of guilt) will be examined. University students (N = 128) will be recruited for a study on problem solving ability, some will be invited to cheat on the task (making them guilty) and some will not (making them innocent). Later, the researcher will accuse all participants of cheating, but will tell the student a story about a previous cheating incident (where admission to the infraction was forgiven) for half of the participants, and will try to get the participant to admit to cheating and sign a written confession. “TO BE CONT’D”

Stage en robotique à l’université national de Colombie à Medellin

Le projet consiste à développer un robot fermier pour un système aéroponique. Le système devra être complètement autonome. Ainsi, il possédera différents capteurs qui devront être intégrés: caméra, capteur d’acidité, capteur de conductivité électrique dans l’eau, capteur d’humidité, etc. Grâce à ces informations, le robot devra se déplacer et effectuer différentes tâches: semence, transplantation, récolte, etc. En résumé, le but est de rendre un lit aéroponique complètement autonome de manière à ce que son propriétaire puisse suivre en temps réel sur une plateforme virtuelle l’état de ses plantes et qu’il n’ait à intervenir dans le processus que pour décider de la sorte de plante à cultiver et d’aller chercher le produit de la récolte.

Le projet comporte deux objectifs principaux. Dans un premier temps, il faudra concevoir, construire et programmer un robot mobile cartésien semi-autonome capable de répondre aux besoins d’une culture aéroponique, en utilisant des algorithmes de contrôle et une vision informatique. Dans un deuxième temps, le projet consiste à concevoir, construire et programmer d’un lit aéroponique ayant la capacité d’adapter le traitement des cultures en fonction des conditions spécifiées par le robot mobile cartésien.

“TO BE CONT’D”

Use and Awareness of Donor Advised Funds Style Structures in Australia

When making charitable contributions, there are several options for Canadians to consider beyond a cash donation to a charity. Well known structures include foundations, endowments, and life insurance policies. Less well known, but of increasing importance is the donor-advised fund (DAF) structure known in Australia as sub-funds. This is an account within a foundation, whereby the donor makes a contribution and immediately receives a receipt for tax purposes. As a separate step, the donor advises the foundation as to how the funds should be disbursed to operating charities. There are no account-specific disbursement requirements.
While DAFs have existed in Canada since 1952, until 2004, DAFs were relatively obscure and little used. Since 2004, Canada’s largest financial services firms have all either established their own or partnered with an existing foundation such that DAFs are now part of wealth management services for high net worth clients. Typically for DAFs affiliated with financial services, the investment advisor continues to manage the assets such that the donor receives the tax benefit without the investment advisor having to sacrifice the asset management fees.
“TO BE CONT’D”

Étude des vulnérabilités sanitaires aux évènements météorologiques extrêmes et élaboration de seuils d’alerte pour le Québec

La relation entre les variables météorologiques et la santé humaine, bien qu’abondamment étudiée, demeure difficile à préciser. Au Québec, les seuils d’alerte initialement développés pour la chaleur et mortalité toutes causes, doivent être adaptés pour d’autres impacts sanitaires spécifiques pouvant être liés à des phénomènes météorologiques comme le froid extrême, le verglas, ou encore les tempêtes. Par contre, avant de développer de nouveaux seuils, les relations entre les variables météorologiques et les maladies doivent d’abord être étudiées. Diverses méthodologies ont été appliquées dans la littérature pour définir ces relations et établir des seuils, mais ces dernières ont certaines lacunes et limitations méthodologiques. Elles doivent de plus être validées pour leur application dans le contexte québécois et canadien. L’objectif de cette étude est de raffiner l’élaboration de seuils météorologiques d’alertes sanitaires pour plusieurs situations d’extrême importance pour l’adaptation aux changements climatiques en santé, pour le Québec et le Canada.

Large Data Manipulation Research to Bolster the Canadian Insurance Industry and the Macro-Economy

Nuera has been acquiring customers and data for the past 3 years and is launching an internal initiative to mine the data to find insurance claims trends. The objective of this initiative will consist of analysis and reporting on our data sets to find trends that lead to claims frequency and severity, in an effort to reduce claims costs, and consumer insurance pricing as a result. We will also be identifying customer behaviors and how those behaviors contribute to insurance purchasing and claims.

Crawler Crane Load Distribution Beneath Timber Mats

The scope of this research is to develop new equations for the load distributions beneath timber mats from a crawler crane, for various types of soil, by using numerical software. This would enable industrials to accurately estimate the behavior of stresses in soils, in order to reduce the costs of ground preparation for cranes by using fewer layers of timber mats, or reducing the amount of remedial ground work that may be needed under current calculation methods.