Projets novateurs réalisés

Concevoir un modèle de services de remplacement des propriétaires agriculteurs

Le secteur agricole est considéré comme un secteur clé, pour l’économie tant régionale que nationale. Parmi les différents enjeux de ce secteur, l’enjeu de la relève agricole est souligné par tous. Dans ce contexte, trouver de la main-d’oeuvre représente un défi significatif. Parmi les stratégies possibles pour atténuer la difficulté de la main-d’oeuvre, le présent projet verra à appuyer des acteurs du monde agricole afin de concevoir et de développer une première coopérative de solidarité de services de remplacement agricole. Ce type d’organisation existe en Europe et servira d’exemple de base pour définir, avec les producteurs concernés et les différentes parties prenantes, le modèle idéal pour les besoin des producteurs d’ici. Ce projet sera en mesure de valider ce modèle innovateur et la diffusion pourra également servir à d’autres secteurs.

Application de la modélisation et l’analyse statistique au traitement des données utilisées pour estimer le statut opérationnel d’environnements informatiques

Les entreprises ont de plus en plus recours à des sous-traitants pour gérer leurs systèmes informatiques. L’une des raisons expliquant cette tendance est le rôle qu’occupent maintenant les systèmes informatiques dans les opérations courantes. Il est inacceptable qu’une panne informatique amène l’arrêt de toutes les caisses enregistreuses des magasins d’une grande chaîne ou encore l’arrêt de l’émission de billets pour des spectacles lors de festivals. Les sous-traitants ont recours à des systèmes de surveillance à distance des environnements informatiques. Ces systèmes ont pour rôle de les aviser immédiatement de défaillances pouvant survenir dans les opérations. Les entreprises responsables veulent aller plus loin et prévenir les défaillances en les anticipant. Pour se faire, des fonctions plus poussées de sélection, d’analyse et d’interprétation des données reçues sont requises. Ce projet veut contribuer au développement de ces fonctions avancées. Ces fonctions seront développées et mises au point en ayant recours à de la modélisation et de l’analyse statistique. Une fois mises au point, ces fonctions seront mises à l’essai et adaptées aux conditions présentes dans quelques environnements informatiques gérés par le partenaire.

Development of carbon storage and emission flow diagram and input files for modeling of harvested wood products within British Columbia

The purpose of this project is to aid in the development of more complete carbon accounting within forestry carbon projects, by working towards a means of calculating long term carbon storage within harvested wood products in British Columbia (BC). The project will involve a literature review of harvested wood products manufacturing statistic in BC and product life-cycle information. Using the literature review, a diagram will be developed modeling the flow of carbon from initial forest harvesting to product disposal. This diagram will assist in the overall development of the conceptual carbon flow through the wood products life cycle, and will be used to develop technical descriptions of the input files for a product carbon storage simulation model. The research will improve full carbon stock accounting in Canadian forest carbon projects and increase the ability for forest carbon projects to proceed in Canada.

Bonding of dissimilar polymer materials for fabrication of microscale devices

Microfluidic systems, also known as “lab-on-a-chip devices”, take advantage of physical forces at the microscale to offer precise control and manipulation of fluids in micron-sized geometries. While these systems promise to revolutionize the life sciences industry, rapid fabrication of these devices during technology development remains a challenge, particularly the critical bonding step between thermoplastic parts. The proposed research will develop new strategies and techniques for bonding dissimilar polymer materials together, with applications in low-, medium-, and high-volume manufacturing of polymer-based microfluidic devices. Developing bonding strategies that produce high-quality sealed devices, and are amenable to high-volume production, is of major interest to Bio-Rad Laboratories Canada, who is a leader in the development of life sciences products for research in academic labs and the pharmaceutical industry, and is poised to capitalize on this research to advance their R&D operations.

Automated multi-target tracking in broadcast video cameras

Automated object detection and tracking in videos is still one of the challenging problems in computer vision. Generally, it is a very challenging problem due to the loss of information caused by the projection of the 3D world on a 2D image, noise in images, cluttered background, complex object motion, partial or full occlusions, changes in illumination, real-time processing requirements, etc. This project is about detection, identification, and estimation the location of all hockey players in a game in the real world co-ordinates using the broadcast video cameras. Therefore, this project contributes to constructing a fully automated and robust multi-object tracking system for sport player tracking that works in real-time with respect to the current hardware resources.

Space-borne water quality assessment

Understanding river water quality is critical for various purposes such as ensuring drinking water safety, protecting public health and aquatic habitat, monitoring pollution, and disease control. The traditional approach to investigating water quality is by acquiring water samples at fixed-locations, which is time and cost consuming and cannot discover spatial distribution of water quality over a large area. The goal of this proposal is using remote sensing imagery to provide a complementary method to map and monitor water quality in large areas at real time. Satellite images, acquired concurrently with ground survey, are utilized to model water quality by using ground-surveyed water samples as reference. Different water quality parameters are mapped, and provided to governments and water resource managers, in order to improve decision making, save mapping time, and reduce project budget. This study can be extended to water quality monitoring in lakes and shallow ocean environments. In addition, components of this study (e.g. bathymetric mapping, measurement of river channel geometry) can be used for fish habitat assessment, hydraulic modeling, and sediment transport analysis.

Création d’un service de développement de l’image de marque pour athlète professionnel.

L’athlète professionnel peut être vu comme un véhicule marketing. Tout comme un produit, son image de marque peut donc être travaillé et développé. Cela apportera de la valeur à l’athlète qui sera bénéfique lors de sa carrière et lors de son après-carrière. L’utilisation de concepts existants comme le conceptual model of athlete brand image ainsi que le modèle de cycle de vie d’un produit seront utilisés pour construire un modèle concret applicable dans

l’évaluation et la classification de l’image de marque de l’athlète selon son cycle de vie en tant que professionnel dans le sport. L’objectif du développement de cette échelle sera d’orienter et d’appuyer les responsables marketing de SEM dans l’élaboration d’une stratégie marketing long terme pour le développement de l’image de marque d’un athlète selon les différentes étapes de développement de sa carrière professionnelle.

Subcutaneous Immunoglobulin Therapy in Myasthenia Gravis Exacerbation

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is caused by an immune attack on the nerve and muscles junctions and manifests as severe and sometimes life threatening muscle weakness. A number of effective immune modifying medications are available for MG. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) – a fraction of blood harvested from thousands of donors and containing high concentration of immunoglobulins, is a highly efficacious therapy for MG. Unlike some other therapies, response to IVIG is quick and therefore commonly used in MG patients in whom rapid response is needed. Recently, a highly concentrated form of IVIG has become available that can be given under the skin i.e. subcutaneously (SCIG), which may have several potential advantages over IVIG. Our center is currently leading a clinical trial designed to optimize the use of SCIG in MG patients. The purpose of this study is to further explore various biological characteristics of SCIG that determine its efficacy, response duration and adverse effects in MG patients. Our findings would also be applicable to several other immune mediated diseases of nerves and muscles, which are treated with immunoglobulin therapy.

Evaluation Capacity Network: Aligning Evaluative Thinking and Practice among Early Childhood Stakeholders

This project aims to provide much needed evidence to service providers and program managers working in the field of early childhood development (ECD). Early childhood programs are required to provide evidence of tangible outcomes to validate the impacts of their programs. Organizations, though, do not always have the knowledge, resources, or capacity to support such processes and the intent of gathering such evidence is interpreted differently depending on the individual sector. This case study will document how two different sectors partner to support and assess the impact of a social support/housing program for young teen parents. The program is supported by an emerging partnership between an early childhood program and a housing society. This project will identify the resources and capacities needed for these organizations to effectively gather evidence of their program and services impacts.

Aerobic landfill treatment: reduction of greenhouse gas emission, leachate treatment and downstream processing

Landfilling of waste is an operation that has huge impact on both water and air quality. Modern landfills can be designed to minimize impact on groundwater resources and reduce Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in old landfills, which typically undergo a slow, anaerobic biodegradation process that

produces methane gas. It is estimated that global methane emissions from landfills are between 30 and 70 million tonnes each year, most of which currently come from developed countries. Methane and carbon dioxide are two major greenhouse gases (GHG). Methane traps 25 times more thermal

energy in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane emissions from Canadian landfills account for 20% of national methane emissions. SALT Canada Inc. has been working on a landfill site in Fort McMurray, Alberta, in order to convert an anaerobic site to an aerobic operation and hence achieve carbon neutrality. The company strives to treat the organic matter in the landfill expeditiously and with minimum or no impact on the environment and achieve a stable landfill ready for mining and land reclamation. SALT Canada is partnering with researchers at Western University to address this goal. TO BE CONT’D

Design and development of helical pile testing apparatus

This research will focus on designing an apparatus and developing a testing protocol for determining the capacity of helical piles in collaboration with Stable Ground Solutions. A helical pile is a type of deep foundation that consists of a shaft and helix or multiple helices. The testing of piles can be expensive and time consuming using current standard testing methods. There is also a lack of research and publications focused on helical piles and therefore they are not commonly used. This project will deliver a detailed design of the apparatus for the industry to fabricate the prototype. The proposed technology will allow the industry to conduct safe, timely and efficient tests on soils. Stable Ground Solutions will commercialize the apparatus as a tool for engineers to obtain the bearing capacity of soils using helical piles.

Facilitating knowledge transfer by sharing experience before carriers disappear

The knowledge and skills of long-term employees are vital to the success of any business. When they leave, retire or are no longer available to perform their functions new employees are hired to take on their job functions. Somehow the skills of the departing long-term employees have to be transferred to the newly hired. The most effective way for transferring the skills to the new employees is mentoring. The aim of this project is therefore to put in place a system for facilitating knowledge transfer from long-term employees that are experts in they job functions to novices before the experts are no longer available.