Projets novateurs réalisés

Designing Service Transitions

Traditional approaches to healthcare in Canada are being transformed by new care models that address key challenges including a shifting tax base, changing consumer expectations, and the disruptive impacts of new technologies. These new care models offer an opportunity to rethink how health care services are designed and delivered. Our partners in the proposed research include practitioners engaged in rethinking how to provide services for senior citizens, deploying mental health counselling to wider audiences, and delivering new care pathways for cancer patients undergoing treatment. The goal of the proposed research is to support these practitioners by assisting in the design and implementation of care systems that integrate traditional roles and institutions with new digital opportunities, leveraging a ‘service design’ approach to orchestrate the complex set of people, processes, spaces, and technologies that must be considered to produce successful interventions.

Development of the Neural Network-Based Index Insurance : A Focus on Climate Change Risk Management

This project focuses on enhancing agricultural resilience to climate change by incorporating neural network-based optimization into weather index insurance designs. By utilizing advanced machine learning techniques, the initiative aims to improve the accuracy and appeal of insurance products for the agricultural sector, which is highly vulnerable to climate-induced weather unpredictability. The collaboration involves academia and industry partners, seeking to address current challenges such as high basis risk and low adoption rates of existing insurance models. The goal is to offer practical solutions that improve risk management in agriculture, ultimately contributing to food security and the stability of agricultural communities in the face of climate variability. Furthermore, this project will transcend the limitations of existing research by adopting generative models, a subfield of deep learning, for analysis.

Caractérisation mécanique et hygrothermique des blocs de terre comprimés à base du sol de termitière et d’un matériau biosourcé

Ce travail porte sur la formulation et l’étude du comportement hygrothermique de blocs de terre comprimée (BTC) stabilisés et améliorés par l’ajout d’un liant organique à base d’amidon, à des sols disponibles localement. Le but ultime est de diminuer les coûts et l’impact carbone des constructions. Les premiers résultats obtenus concernent la caractérisation physique, mais ses recherches exigent également une étude chimique des terres choisies et du liant organique pour maitriser l’interaction terre-liant. Les résultats des analyses élémentaires du liant organique biosourcé seront indispensables pour identifier la teneur en matière protéinique par l’analyse Infra Rouge et indiqué son état chimique. De plus, la détermination des propriétés chimiques et minéralogiques du sol de termitière Macrotermes (sp) et environnant ; ainsi que celui de Guérande révèlera les propriétés mécaniques déjà obtenues et hygrothermiques en cours de détermination. Cette nouvelle famille de BTC : terre – liant servira de valoriser les ressources de la terre dans un domaine autre que celui des briques en terre dans le secteur du Bâti, dans la protection environnementale et d’explorer une possibilité de valorisation du liant organique, nous présentons ici les enjeux et les objectifs affichés d’une telle démarche qui ouvrent la porte à des perspectives optimistes.

Modélisation du temps au retour au travail à la suite d’une invalidité en présence d’événements concurrents

THIS IS A GENERIC TEXT PUT IN PLACE AS THERE WAS NO PROJECT OVERVIEW

Collective excitations in correlated quantum materials

Building the Quantum Internet in Berlin

Design of a Spatially-Based Conservation Decision-Making Platform for the Peace River Break – December 2013

The Peace River Break is in the north east section of the province situated at the narrowest point of the Rocky Mountain range allowing for critical movement and ecological connections east-west over the Rockies and north-south between the mountain national parks and the Muskwa-Kechika Management area to the north. The purpose of this research project is to investigate the best practices to a) develop a publically accessible geo-spatial database (Digital Conservation Atlas) for the Peace River Break that brings together both community and traditional knowledge and values along with scientific and technical information and b) to develop a prototype for that database. This information will then be used by partners, Landsong Heritage Consulting, Ltd and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative to help shape conservation planning and implementation strategies for the Peace River Break

High-Performance Ethylene Production via Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Using Cu Diatomic Catalysts

As atmospheric CO2 levels rapidly increase due to industrialization, electrocatalytic reduction technology using renewable energy to convert CO2 (CO2RR) into valuable multi-carbon products such as ethylene, ethanol, and propanol is in the spotlight. Copper is the only metal that can form these C2+ products due to its unique properties. Despite many studies, morphological and chemical changes during the reaction reduce the efficiency of copper, affecting product selectivity and stability. To overcome these challenges, in this study, we attempted to develop stable and efficient Cu diatomic and cluster catalysts by modifying their electronic structure by adding other metals (e.g., P, S) to improve ethylene selectivity by controlling the binding energy of the intermediate. Explore. This study seeks to make CO2RR processes more economical and scalable, aiming to use less metals and increase stability, and to provide new insights into the catalytic mechanisms potentially involved.

Molecular interrogation in LPHS: Unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms of LPHS

Loin pain-hematuria syndrome (LPHS) is a rare human disease with a reported prevalence of 12 per 100,000. It is predominantly observed in women with the age at symptom onset ranging from the first to sixth decade of life, with most patients being in their late 20s or early 30s. The characteristic features of LPHS are unrelenting loin pain and the presence of blood in urine. In most cases, the pain is so intense that the patients have to quit their jobs, require anti-depressants, go on long-term disability, and many contemplate suicide. LPHS imposes a significant health and economic impact in terms of loss of productivity and quality of life in a young population as these patients are shuffled among numerous healthcare providers in search of a diagnosis. Due to an inadequate understanding of what causes LPHS, the goal of management has been limited to symptomatic pain relief using narcotics, which in many cases leads to opioid dependency. This study is the first discovery-based proteomics study in the LPHS field. We anticipate that the results from this study will help unravel possible molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for LPHS, thus, eventually guiding the development of precise diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

Integrating Lean in SOPs to obtain continuous improvements in building construction

Building construction sector plays important roles in Canadian economy, which also has high demand. Studies in
this field can make substantial contributions to the society. This study is proposed to explore the usage of a
standard documentation, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are a set of detailed and concise written
instructions that describe the sequential steps required in jobs and projects.
While the SOPs have been widely used, however limitations exist when creating, following, and updating SOPs.
Therefore, this project will rely on the industry partner as a practical case to (1) develop a clear guideline of how
to develop SOPs for building construction operations; (2) propose a Lean SOP and its implementation strategies;
(3) propose a follow up procedure to track the alignments of real operations with SOPs. Eventually, it is expected
that thought the Lean SOP, we can increase the efficiency of construction by reducing wastes, time, and injuries
as well as optimizing production processes.

Studying weak-to-strong-generalisation using influence functions

A crucial reason that it is possible to train ML systems to outperform human experts in narrow domains such as protein folding or chess, is because for these well-defined problems, it is easy to produce a reliable reward signal. However, current techniques for aligning frontier models with human goals, such as human feedback, are only as good as the human’s ability to evaluate the model’s output. Safety concerns arise when models are trained in more complex domains which humans don’t yet know the answers to and where human feedback may therefore be unhelpful at directing the AI towards the intended goal. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of a phenomenon known as weak-to-strong generalisation, which demonstrates that models are in fact able to generalize beyond human performance even when the training feedback is unreliable. Specifically, this project will test hypotheses for why weak-to-strong generalisation is possible by studying which training examples contribute most to the model’s predictions. Progress on these questions would have substantial implications for AI progress, as well as for approaches to aligning AI systems with human preferences.

Wi-Fi Blocking Wallpaper Testing and Characterization

This project seeks to develop a wallpaper that blocks Wi-Fi signals for shielding rooms and buildings. A thin layer of conductive ink is printed onto the wallpaper using a repeated pattern that is designed to reflect signals from the two Wi-Fi frequency bands. The pattern has been designed by the applicant in partnership with G Group, a local development company that invests in new technologies, and can be integrated into traditional building techniques. In this project, the intern will test prototype wallpaper samples in the lab to confirm that shielding occurs at the correct Wi-Fi frequencies and then will conduct box tests where the shielding effectiveness of the wallpaper is measured using a smartphone as a receiver.