Projets novateurs réalisés

Enhancing Energy Solutions: A Comprehensive Approach to Efficiency and Sustainability

The purpose of this project is to improve process of operational activities by creating more efficient, customer-focused, and agile technical sales team. This project aims to streamline sales processes, optimize resource allocation, and improve collaboration within the team. Moreover, this project will systematically identify, address, and optimize sales and operations process and improve overall performance of the sales department. Additionally, this project will develop a support extension strategy that will be well planned, executed effectively, and capable of delivering enhanced services to customers and meet the growing demands of its customer base. The ultimate goal is to increase sales revenue, reduce operational costs, and create a more agile and customer-centric sales operation. This project methodology will be based on both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Desjardins-Rotman : Misrepresentation in ratemaking variables

When building predictive ratemaking models in Property & Casualty insurance, the quality of the models and the adequacy of the premiums we charge to clients are dependent on the quality of the data used when building those models. In certain cases, we know that some variables have the potential of being misrepresented in our data, be it because of omissions from the clients, late reporting of new information on some variables, etc. We would like to use our partnership with the Rotman MMA program to explore ways to identify and quantify this misrepresentation and thus improve the results of our ratemaking models.

Développement d’un nouveau stabilisateur de sol écoresponsable formulé à partir de déchets de biomasse pour utilisation en conditions nordiques.

Un stabilisateur de sol écoresponsable destiné à l’industrie de la construction pour le renforcement de sols meubles sera développé avec cette proposition de recherche. Une personne stagiaire de premier cycle universitaire en chimie participera à la formulation de plusieurs prototypes en utilisant différentes fibres végétales, biopolymères ainsi que différentes huiles de base. Cette personne stagiaire effectuera des analyses de viscosités sur ces formulations. Cette personne travaillera aussi à l’évaluation de la consistance de deux types de sols soumis à l’ajout de ces formulations. Également, une personne stagiaire en génie participera à la réalisation de deux tests critiques de compressibilité mécanique des sols (ASTM D2166 et ISO 17892-9) afin d’identifier les meilleurs prototypes stabilisateurs de sol développés. Cette personne stagiaire en génie agira également comme aide-opérateur en usine pour les premiers essais de mise à l’échelle du prototype stabilisateur de sols optimal qui aura été développé.

Effects of Uncertainty in Engineering Data on Design and Performance of Automotive Thermal Systems

This project will study how underbody components (tailpipe, muffler, rear fascia brackets and spare
wheel compartment) withstand thermal loads over time through the use of a heat-transfer model
(using RadTherm simulation package) of the vehicle under investigation as well as the first-order
Taylor Series expansion. The Taylor Series will be used to calculate the sensitivity of the output
(amount of radiation absorbed by each component) to the input (clearances and emissivity).
Specifically, the design objective for this research is to minimize thermal degradation of the
components over the lifetime of the vehicle. This project has the potential to improve the quality of
thermal systems on all Chrysler and Fiat vehicles by thermally protecting essential underbody
components.

Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Microsystems

The increasing occurrence of unprecedented natural disasters attributed to climate change serves as a constant reminder of the necessity to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. In order to harvest renewable energy sources as a
solution, our research proposes an innovative method of extracting maximum energy from ocean waves via piezoceramic material. In this work, the dynamics of the waves are modelled by a comprehensive data-driven
model, which characterizes small-scale mechanical motions. The approach involves using machine learning to model ocean wave characteristics such as wave amplitude, wavelength and wave period. This model can also
handle multi-dimensional and multi-variety data obtained by uncertain ocean environments. Our proposed microdevice is validated using advanced techniques, including artificial neural networks and deep learning, to
optimize its design in terms of structure and geometry sizes for efficient energy harvesting. The fabricated MEMSscale chip from the services of CMC (Canadian Microelectronics Corporation) is being measured and
characterized in our laboratory equipped with state-of-the-art analyzing instruments to confirm the supervior performance. In addition, a hybrid conditioning circuit, which can convert the generated AC voltage to a desirable
DC constant voltage output supporting the load of different environmental sensors, is actively being developed in the simulation and testing stage.

Freshwater mussels as biosensors for environmental pathogens

In an era where emerging zoonotic diseases pose a constant threat to biodiversity and public health, there is an urgent need for innovative and robust pathogen surveillance systems. Freshwater mussels, often overlooked in the realm of disease surveillance, may hold the key to revolutionizing our understanding of pathogen dynamics and providing early warning signs of potential outbreaks. By filtering water to acquire nutrients, freshwater mussels uptake pathogens present in the environment that may threaten public health if undetected. We propose to test cutting edge genomics technologies to detect such pathogens present in freshwater mussels. In this way, we aim to use the natural filtration ability of freshwater mussels as a more efficient and effective way to detect pathogens in the environment than currently available time-consuming and expensive methods such as mass screening of wild animals across the environment or manual filtration of copious volumes of water.

Developing an AI Social Media Marketing for Online Learning Platform

An innovative learning platform is currently under development for Canadian market, but localization is necessary. Mathematics and Science subjects for Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) is chosen to initialize this localization process. In recent months, AI technologies, particularly ChatGPT, demonstrated an astonishing potential to the world. Creating contents for social media is one of well recognized features and they are expected to grow and accelerate. In this EdTech project, the objective is to integrate Python programming and existing AI tools to generate contents and design social media pages or advertisements for marketing and future business development.

Methology (Tentative work plan)
A) Problem (8-10 weeks)
– define scope of works such as topics and summaize content requirements
– program to generate a spreadsheet of contents utilized AI tools
– validate the content generations, revisit the problem if needed
B) Execution (8-10 weeks)
– generate proposed social media graphics
– if applicable, short videos with English vocal
– publish social media posts automatically (e.g. Instagram or facebook)
C) Refinement (4-6 weeks)
– analyze the outputs and optimize the system (~1/4 of time, 6 weeks)

The outcome of this project is an automatic system to generate social media contents and publish posts (or advertisement). Upon the success of this phase, the next phase of this project is to optimize the posts to attract audiences and promote the learning platform.

ACL Prevention Program for Athletes

This project will focus on the prevention of ACL injuries with a proper 8 week program based on scientific research to date. The goal is to target basketball and soccer athletes to reduce the number of injuries that are occurring in this population with proper flexibility, strength, agility and rest combined.

Product design and market outreach to help young adults understand, improve and make financial literate choices

Perks Pilot Inc. is a new and innovative solution to help match financial services and tools to those that can most benefit. This Mitacs project will aim to develop educational strategies to help young adults understand financial services. Two interns will be brought on to understand the market, build a target profile and then design and execute educational strategies that will be used alongside our launch and marketing strategies to expand our product offering.

Mobile Application & Marketing Project

Ksalsuti Wellness Resources is a Mi’gmaq non-profit organization located in Oromocto, New Brunswick. Our goal is to support the social and emotional well-being of children and youth by creating culturally inclusive resources. Ksalsuti hired an intern in the spring of 2023 to create a mobile application to extend the exposure of its newly published books, the Turtle Island Series. The books were designed to provide critical social and emotional well-being tools to children that can be used at home and in the classroom. The mobile app featured a read along function whereby elders read out the story in Mi’gmaq and Wolastoqey. Each page in the book is displayed in the app. On each page the reader is able to play the audio version of the book in Wolastoqey and Mi’gmaq. Hy Pham was chosen as the co-op student who completed the proof of concept for the mobile app under the supervision and guidance of Dr. Paul Cook. Hy was able to complete a proof-of-concept for the mobile app. By obtaining Mitacs funding, we can hire another student to expand beyond the initial phase of the project and complete more language translation recordings for the mobile app. Ksalsuti is also seeking to further develop and implement its marketing strategy. This involves updating the user experience of our website, as well as creating social media content. Ksalsuti would benefit from gaining more momentum in marketing and developing a greater network for our products and services, especially for the mobile app being developed.

Marine Critical Parts

To develop a synchronized critical supply chain solution for the maritime industry to help in reduction of operating cost and lead times of ordering.

Evaluating the Confidence of Metabolite Rankings in NMR Metabolomics Data

The proposed project is for the intern to develop an algorithm to decide on the suitability of a group of chemical compounds to transfer from one detection instrument (low throughput) to another detection instrument (high throughput). For ease of use and cost considerations it is preferable for these chemical compounds to measured using a high throughput instrument. The company has validated a set of compounds on the low throughput instrument and would like to transfer these to a high throughput instrument. The value to the company is that experimentation is expensive and time consuming and the number of compounds the company is analyzing is large. If an algorithm can be developed to identify (prior to experimentation) which chemical compounds will have a higher chance of success, this will lower the cost and will speed up the time for the company to get its product to market.