Projets novateurs réalisés

Efficacité des amendements alcalins et cimentaires à stabiliser les résidus miniers problématiques dans des conditions de terrain

Les exploitations minières génèrent des quantités importantes de rejets miniers sans valeur économique. Parfois, ces rejets miniers contiennent des phases minérales qui peuvent s’altérer sous l’effet des conditions météorologiques. L’altération de ces rejets peut causer des problèmes environnementaux (contamination des eaux). Ce projet recherche vise à tester des scénarios de stabilisation des rejets problématiques en ajoutant des matériaux avec un apport d’alcalinité; cette technique est communément appelée ‘amendement minier’. L’ajout de la neutralité permettra de diminuer ou éliminer la contamination causée par l’altération des rejets miniers. L’efficacité des amendements miniers sera évaluée en utilisant des essais en conditions réelles du terrain. La méthodologie consiste à comparer les eaux provenant d’un résidu et les eaux provenant d’un résidu mélangé avec un amendement minier pour évaluer la performance de cette technique.

Mapping the surface flow velocity of Minas Passage using RADAR data

This project will investigate the use of RADAR data to estimate the ocean surface velocity in regions of interest, specifically where tidal turbines will be deployed in Minas Passage, Bay of Fundy. The Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) currently owns a single RADAR on the North side of the Minas Passage. Initial investigations have been done with this single RADAR; however, more intensive analysis must be done to reach the long-term goal of having a network of RADARs in the area. This network will monitor surface flow changes in real-time via a tidal atlas that will be operated by FORCE. This specific project contributes to this goal by assessing the feasibility of real-time flow monitoring with the single existing radar that FORCE currently operates. TO BE CONT’D

Circulating Tumour Cells and prostate cancer outcome

In Canada, 25,500 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, and 4,100 will

die of the disease. New approaches are required to predict clinical outcome and personalized

management of patients. Drs. Mai and Cayre will combine their two newly developed

technologies and work towards obtaining a new solid biomarker that enables the assessment

of a patient’s clinical outcome from the start. With the use of special filters, circulating tumour

cells (CTC) will be isolated from prostate cancer patients’ blood. These cells are

characterized using three-dimensional (3D) imaging of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes)

in the cells’ nuclei. This will be the first time these new technologies are combined to

investigate the link between CTCs, their 3D telomeric profiles and clinical outcome of prostate

cancer. A much better understanding and personalized management of prostate cancer,

which is a major goal of Cancercare Manitoba will be achieved by this project.

Deep Learning to assist requirement translation

Cutting edge techniques in artificial intelligence will be applied to extract semantic information from natural language and work towards building a system that can help engineers write clearer and less ambiguous requirements for complex systems. Models will be developed that are similar to current techniques used by popular translation tools, and will be adapted for paraphrasing and ambiguity reduction.

Development of the supporting peripherals for bioelectrode system operation in oxygenated environments

In this project, a pre-conditioning system to remove the oxygen prior to reaching a bioelectrode system sensor will be developed and tested. Bioelectrode system sensors require anoxic conditions for operation, and a low complexity solution would extend use cases of the technology. Bioelectrode system sensors measures the microbial activity of bacteria and the data can be used to optimize treatment efficiency, detect deleterious substances, and quantify Biological Oxygen Demand.

Advancing Out-of-Band Network Measurement for Multi-Hop Sensor Networks

This collaborative project with Rimeware will investigate out-of-band measurement approaches that can passively monitor the network traffic and provide rich detailed network information, e.g., latency, loss, route path, etc. The goal is to build a programmable system for accurate, generic, and robust network measurement. It includes two sub projects. In the first sub-project, we will research the sniffer deployment problem with lossy and correlated link models and develop a set of instructions that provide programmable interfaces for network administrators. In addition, we plan to build a set of programmable interfaces that are in highly abstract forms, which can simplify various typical network tasks from thousands of lines of code to just dozens. In the second sub-project, we intend to investigate the trace synchronization problem and build a range of measurement applications for multi-hop sensors networks. TO BE CONT’D

Investigation the effects of graphene nano-platelets on the electromagnetic properties of epoxy coatings

By growing of computer and electronic science and also wireless devices, which are used at home or at work, electromagnetic interference shielding is becoming increasingly evident. Electromagnetic waves emitted from electronic devices are noises that interfere with other electronic devices and impair their functioning. Due to the increasing spread of electronic and communication devices, these electromagnetic waves in our surroundings are more than ever. Due to the pollution caused by theses noises and their adverse effects on human health, designing and fabrication of an effective polymeric coating in order to reduce these contamination is essential. In this project we are going to use a novel type of carbon nano fillers, Graphene, to fabricate coatings which are conductive enough and have good dielectric properties to interact with the electromagnetic noises and shield them. Dispersion parameters will be changed and optimized to fabricate high efficient coatings.

TREATING INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES THROUGH BLOCKING P2Y6 RECEPTOR

Extracellular nucleotides can favour inflammatory diseases via the activation of P2 receptors. The proinflammatory P2Y6 is the dominant nucleotide receptor in human and murine intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) and its expression increases during inflammation. Interestingly, we found that the blockade of P2Y6 totally prevented inflammation in the murine DSS model.
This project will show whether and how the blockade of P2Y6 signaling in IEC can reduce, or even prevent, mucosal inflammation. This represents a new mechanism of regulation of intestinal inflammation that we anticipate can be targeted for the treatment of IBD patients.
At the end of this project, Inception will have the expertise of a method for identifying a candidate compound for treating, reducing or preventing chronic inflammatory bowel diseases.

Développement d’un béton modifié au latex adapté aux exigences de performance en milieu nordique

L’étude vise à comprendre et à optimiser la durabilité au gel-dégel des bétons modifiés au latex (BML). Elle comporte l’étude de la durabilité au gel-dégel (fissuration interne et écaillage) évaluée par des essais normalisés accélérés en laboratoire. Le projet permettra d’optimiser la formulation des BML en fonction des critères de performances mécaniques (résistance à la compression) et de durabilité (gel-dégel, écaillage, résistance à la pénétration des ions chlore, porosité) recherchés par les concepteurs et spécifiés par les documents normatifs. Le partenaire disposera d’un béton plus robuste et à haute valeur ajoutée découlant de ses caractéristiques de durabilité exceptionnelles. Cette très haute durabilité est actuellement très recherchée pour les travaux de reconstruction et de réparation des infrastructures de transport au Canada.

Improving sustainability and operations in residential development and its relationship to community resilience

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how productivity improvements in a local company could contribute to its municipality’s (community) sustainability goals, and, by extension, to local community resilience. I will be using an action research (AR) methodology to create positive change and productivity improvements in the case of a company as the basis for inductively understanding what mechanisms and impacts lead to sustainability and community resilience. The local company will benefit by implementing productivity improvements and sustainability. The community will benefit by having its local industry gain new skills, innovations, and capacity, which are critical to resilience.

Spatial analysis of changing climate and the climate rating of Saskatchewan’s arable agricultural land for property assessment purposes

This project uses a large amount of geographic information and advanced computing technology to re-evaluate the influence of climate on the productivity of Saskatchewan’s agricultural land, which represents about 40% of all the cropland Canada. The intern will combine digital maps of soil, land use, crop yield, elevation, and historical weather observations. By exploring the statistical relationships among these layers of data, the intern will discover the environmental factors that determine the yield of 10 types of crops, and then assign a climate rating to each of the 296 rural municipalities in southern Saskatchewan. This project increases the capacity of ISM Canada to apply their expertise in data management and analysis to the many environmental and economic issues that involve weather and climate.

Application of a new method for recovery of gold from electronic waste

Annually, around 50 million tonnes of electronic wastes is produced worldwide which contains valuable metals such as gold, copper, silver and palladium. Due to the lack of a suitable recycling technology, more than 80% of these wastes end up in landfills. The economic driving force for e-waste recycling has been recovery of precious metals, especially gold, in which more than 80% of the total value is attributed to gold alone. The current industrial processes for recovery of precious metals from electronic scraps are energy intensive, expensive, time consuming, and non-efficient. Finding a suitable recycling method to extract the maximum amount of valuable metals from e-wastes is a major challenge facing the electronic waste recycling industry today. Recently, we have developed a process using acetic acid that recovers gold selectively from gold plated electronic scraps like printed circuit boards (PCBs) with very high efficiencies. TO BE CONT’D