Projets novateurs réalisés

Calgary’s water main asset management using predictive models

All water utilities, engineering consulting firms, and provincial and federal departments in Canada responsible for design, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation, and development of a water distribution system would directly benefit from the outcomes of the proposed research. Efficient and effective asset management of water distribution infrastructure is a demand driven issue for any water utilities due to resources and budget constraints. The proposed research is targeting any water utilities under a good notion to improve asset management practices in Canada. Hence, City of Calgary’s water utility will be the first to benefit from the proposed research. The proposed asset management models can be adapted to other countries facing similar challenges. This research will help City of Calgary in specific and Canada in general to lead R&D in this domain. This research will train and prepare many high quality personnel’s that will be able to disseminate the knowledge in a near future.

Production of cellulose-based membranes with nanoadditions for air filtration

Global warming is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) trap heat, causing the planet’s temperatures to rise. Currently, the challenge is to achieve systems that solve problems such as environmental pollution through the design of green products and sustainable processes. Membranes are a selective barrier that allows certain species (molecules and ions) to pass through while blocking others. Cellulose-based membranes have been briefly studied as gas separation membranes to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. So far, various membrane production methods have been reported, with the phase inversion being the most versatile technique. The aim of the present work is to develop membranes for high separation performance towards pollutant gases (e.g., CO2). The membranes will be fabricated using cellulose-derived materials (e.g., CA) through phase inversion. The addition of nanomaterials (e.g., nanocellulose) will be explored with the intention to achieve desired structural and chemical properties. This approach aims to optimize membrane selectivity, permeability, and stability by exploring the influence of different nanomaterials and fabrication parameters. The project will contribute to advancing sustainable and high-efficiency gas separation technologies, addressing critical challenges in environmental remediation and industrial applications.

Étude stylistique et des techniques de production du verre mosaïqué en Grèce à l’époque hellénistique

Le projet s’inscrit dans le cadre de ma maitrise sur l’étude du verre mosaïqué de l’époque hellénistique et sera effectué en deux parties. La première est de visiter des musée qui exposent de la vaisselle en verre et des sites archéologique qui ont produit du verre. Ceci sera une collecte de données essentiel à la continuation de mon projet de maitrise afin d’avoir un contacte directe avec mon domaine d’étude et d’analyser les détails difficiles à voir par photo. Certains objets sont aussi uniquement disponible en personne. La deuxième partie du projet est de participer aux fouilles d’Argilos où je contribuerai au travail de chantier, au nettoyage des trouvailles et le catalogage de ces objets. Pendant mon séjour à Argilos, je visiterai également des musée est des sites archéologiques de la région.
De retour à Montréal je ferrai l’analyse stylistique et des techniques des objets en verre mosaïqué que j’aurai vu et photographié dans les musées et je ferrai un travail de catalogage.

Metabolic control of reproductive maturation

There is a critical period during late gestation in humans and perinatally in atricial animals like rats and mice , during which the building blocks of energy homeostasis, including the hypothalamic regulation of food intake and energy balance become established. During this early postnatal period, neuronal dendritic and axonal elongation as well as pruning takes place, creating the circuits involved in the control of metabolism and reproduction. The proposed project will study how early life alterations of metabolic status affect the developmental trajectories of hypothalamic neurons resulting in alterations of the timing of puberty and increased susceptibility to metabolic disease and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) during puberty and adulthood. This is part of an ongoing international collaboration between Dr Lomniczi’s lab (in Halifax) and Drs Solari and Peluffo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The participating institutions will benefit of reinforcing collaboration by the exchange of students, accelerating the discovery process as well as enhancing recruitment of students to our Graduate Programs.

Investigating pulse architecture for two-photon microscopy to improve capture of neural signals

Two-photon microscopy is a powerful imaging technique that allows to visualize and study living cells in the brain, immune system, and skin. It currently relies on lasers that emit specific pulse durations, but other pulse configurations may work just as well or better, and can be produced with smaller, more affordable lasers. This could make two-photon microscopy more accessible, especially for medical and clinical research.
This study aims to compare the current laser pulse settings with alternative configurations to see if they deliver similar or better imaging results. To do this, we will use two-photon microscopy to capture neural signals from the retina and brain of live mice, testing different pulse settings to assess their impact on image quality and neural activity.
The project is a collaboration between the Krishnaswamy Lab at McGill University and MPB Communications. MPB will design and build three lasers with varying pulse characteristics, which will be integrated into the Krishnaswamy lab’s microscope. The research will analyze neural data and image quality across these different pulse settings to determine the optimal configuration.
This study could lead to more cost-effective and efficient methods for two-photon imaging, benefiting both basic science and clinical research.

Enhancing Digital Product Strategy and Workflow Automation for Scalable Innovation

This project aims to enhance SolvedAF’s digital product strategy by developing a workflow automation system that streamlines client onboarding, project tracking, and internal collaboration. By integrating automation tools and optimizing business process workflows, SolvedAF will improve efficiency, reduce manual bottlenecks, and enhance the user experience for both internal teams and clients. The project will contribute to scaling SolvedAF’s operations by implementing structured frameworks that support data-driven decision-making and process standardization. The intern will work on digital product strategy, workflow automation, and process optimization, ensuring that SolvedAF remains a leader in delivering seamless digital solutions.

Monitoring Housing Diversity Project – Sustainability Scholar

The Edmonton City Plan was approved by Council in 2020 and sets ambitious diversified housing and land use targets to avoid premature fragmentation of agricultural lands while accommodating another one million residents. The Monitoring & Analysis Team, within the Urban Growth Unit lead the annual Growth Monitoring Program, the Geodemographic Projection Program, and Urban Growth Interactive Visualizations (including the Building Permit Dashboard). These programs support implementing the City Plan’s robust monitoring and analysis of housing and land use changes in Edmonton to track progress towards the land use targets.

There are three main issues that limit M&A Team’s ability to report on housing and land use:
1. The Team’s existing geospatial data layers only provide information on housing on residentially-zoned lands. This means all the dwelling units on land zoned for other uses (e.g. mixed use zones and institutional uses such as congregate living) are not counted.
2. Whether in residential or non-residential zones, many congregate living facilities (i.e. long-term care homes, university dormitories, seniors’ living facilities) have a single address for many people making it difficult to count those facilities relative to housing types such as apartments with similar population counts.
3. The accuracy of data on row housing units is not at an acceptable level for reporting at or more detailed than the neighbourhood geography.

The M&A team is requesting support from a Sustainability Scholar to complete the Monitoring Housing Diversity Project that will aim to fix the three issues above. Not only will this project fill a data gap, but will also allow the City to better calculate the supply and locations of all types of housing while understanding housing patterns for some of our vulnerable populations. The monitoring and analysis produced by the team is relied on by Edmontonians, City Council, various City branches, utilities, and the development industry.

Improving Onboarding and Curatorial Guidelines at the Camrose Museum

A major challenge facing the small museums like the Camrose Museum is a high rate of turnover in staff and volunteers, which limits the potential to offer innovative exhibits and programming that can respond to changing community needs. In order to address this challenge, one intern will produce a training manual and a set of curatorial guidelines. These documents will standardize the museum’s operating procedures while providing support for future staff and volunteers developing new exhibits and programming. This project requires expertise in museum studies, which will be provided by a University of Alberta faculty member based at the Augustana Campus in Camrose.

Simplified Identification of Insects using Software Tools and Digital Photography

Identification of insect prey is essential for understanding the foraging behaviours of insectivorous bat and bird predators. The intern will develop software tools that will aid a skilled entomologist with the rapid identification of insects from photographs taken from field collecting sites. The proposed tools will facilitate the identification of photographed insects to order/suborder and, in certain groups, possibly superfamily or family and will streamline the cataloging of insect inventories and the inclusion of metadata such as geographic location, collection time, number of specimens in a sample, etc. The resulting data could be used to in the analysis of predator activity at the collecting site which could be useful in reducing mortality and thereby improve conservation of species in industrial locations such as wind farms. The partner organization will benefit from this project by being provided a functional and useful identification tool to use in future projects requiring basic ID of insects from photographs, as well as the analysis of the provided insect images for the software tool development.

Développement de procédés d’assemblage en microélectronique pour l’interconnexion haute densité entre puces

Ce projet, en partenariat avec IBM Canada et son usine de Bromont, vise à développer des technologies avancées pour l’assemblage et les tests électroniques. IBM Bromont, la plus grande usine de son genre en Amérique du Nord, se spécialise dans des innovations comme l’assemblage flip-chip, les systèmes à haute densité et les tests avancés. Cependant, certaines nouvelles technologies, comme l’interconnexion à haute densité sur substrat organique, présentent des défis de fiabilité pour des applications complexes. Pour y remédier, IBM collabore avec l’Université de Sherbrooke à travers des stages de recherche. Ces stages permettront de tester et améliorer la fiabilité de ces innovations, notamment sur les interconnexions haute densité, la fabrication additive d’interconnexion et la gestion thermique des modules. L’objectif est de garantir des solutions robustes pour les besoins industriels.

Metaverse plugin

Development of a system (template, plugin, API) to integrate cloud based services such as GIS, IoT and interactive gaming streams into a browser based user interface.

artolog – Prototype

Le portail d’archives collectives artolog.ca a comme objectif de permettre aux artistes d’obtenir une visibilité équitable. Son mandat est de réduire la perte du patrimoine culturel Canadien. L’objectif est de finaliser le prototype afin que le portail soit sécurisé, accessible, rapide, facile à utiliser et compatible avec d’autres plateformes. S’y faisant, nous pourrons promouvoir le projet pour y rejoindre l’ensemble du Canada et améliorer la vitalité et la connectivité du secteur des arts.