Projets novateurs réalisés

Effet de l’intégration du temps depuis le dernier feu sur les courbes de productivité et le calcul de la possibilité forestière de l’unité d’aménagement 85-51

La possibilité forestière vise à déterminer la quantité de bois exploitable tout en assurant la pérennité des écosystèmes forestiers et de l’industrie forestière. Néanmoins, la méthode actuellement utilisée pour déterminer l’âge des peuplements sous-estime l’âge réel dans l’établissement des courbes d’évolution du volume à l’échelle des peuplements. Cette erreur augmente en fonction de l’âge et se répercute sur les courbes d’évolution du volume et sur le calcul de la possibilité forestière. Ce projet vise, pour une unité d’aménagement situé en Abitibi, à substituer l’âge moyen par le temps depuis le dernier feu afin de créer de nouvelles courbes de croissances et à déterminer cet effet sur le calcul de la possibilité forestière. Du fait du contexte local, il est difficile de déterminer à l’avance l’impact de l’utilisation du temps depuis le dernier feu sur l’ensemble d’un calcul de possibilité forestière. Néanmoins, cette étude permettra un affinement des courbes d’évolutions du volume et améliorera le calcul de la possibilité forestière.

Development of a portable laser-based system for soil analysis

The goal of our project is to develop a portable, laser-based technique for in-situ analysis of
agricultural soils. This work will implement and enhance a technique known as Laser Induced
Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for in-situ measurements of key soil properties, such as
carbon content. LIBS is a minimally invasive detection technique, capable of rapid multielemental
composition analysis with sub parts-per-million sensitivity. LIBS uses an intense
laser pulse to produce a plasma on a material surface, from which the emitted light can be
analyzed to determine elemental composition. Compared to conventional soil analysis
methods, LIBS requires little sample preparation and provides high-speed, waste-free soil
characterization. The proposed project will begin by optimizing LIBS for soil analysis using a
compact and portable laser system and producing an open-source database and calibration
suite of spectroscopic emission from known soil samples. Artificial intelligence techniques will
be applied to establish algorithms for fast and reliable identification of soil composition. This
knowledge will be further applied to develop and test a portable LIBS device that can be
deployed in the field.

Low-loss and loss-tolerant photonic quantum computing

Today, quantum computers of any architecture still operate in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) regime, with systems composed of tens to hundreds of noisy qubits that are not protected from errors. To
meaningfully solve challenging problems from industries using quantum computers, we need to make a system that is large enough in scale and robust to errors. The intern will be involved in Xanadu Architecture team’s
efforts in investigating promising approaches for tolerating and lowering noise and errors affecting photonic platforms. The aim is to lower the demands on hardware, shortening the time to build a universal, fault-tolerant
quantum computer.

The Environmental, Chemical and Physical Impact on Water Quality with the use of Stormflow Surfacing Permeable Rubber Pavement

Stormflow Surfacing (SS) has developed permeable rubber pavement (SSPRP) from recycled automobile tires. Their product focuses on alleviating sewage system stress during precipitation events. While there are no strict guidelines to the formulation of permeable pavers, SS is interested in proactively establishing baseline values for water quality and subsequently, investigate the effects of environmental factors on characteristics such as stormwater run-off, leaching/remediating/erosion properties of the product. The results of this project will also create references with respect to contaminants of concern (CoC), contaminant mitigation, installation, leachate/contaminant of concern for future permeable paver installation. The information gleaned from this research will establish a foundation that can be used for lifecycle analysis, comparison to other paving techniques, and applicable adjustments when standards for application of these products are created . In addition, this information may be used to bolster marketing of the product. This project has been divided into two (2) phases; Phase One (Pl) will investigate physical and chemical characteristics of the Stormflow Surfacing Permeable Rubber Pavement (SSPRP) by analyzing water quality with respect to leaching of SSPRP material, and the possibility of mitigating environmental contaminants of concern (CoCs). Phase Two (P2) will consider factors such as ultraviolet (UV) light, stress/compression/loading of use will be investigated to determine if the integrity of the SSPRP remains intact or if these physical/ environmental factors compromise its performance. Water quality characteristics such as turbidity and particulate matter will be investigated and the results also compared to the Phase One data.

Algae Photobioreactor Subcomponent Engineering Revision

Symbiotic EnviroTek Inc., developed and patented a proprietary technology for growing micro-algae for producing plant-based protein for human food, animal feed and for treating wastewater. The project includes engineering revision, fabrication and testing to certain subcomponents of technology to improve operational efficiencies and performance.

Clean Air for All: Enhancing Air Quality and Sustainability in Canadian Educational and Commercial Spaces

One Lightwave specializes in providing advanced UVGI air purification systems for classrooms and commercial spaces. The company’s mission is to improve the indoor air quality and health of building inhabitants. Their product line is specially designed to eliminate pollutants such as bacteria, viruses,and allergens that are commonly found in classrooms and commercial spaces. As this is a one-of-a-kind system, a challenge has been to locate key audience sectors at provincial and federal levels.

A study found that 30 out of 37 schools in New Brunswick had peak carbon dioxide readings of about the desirable amount. The testing results were published by GNB here.The Department of Education is planning to overhaul the systems, seven being completed last year. One Lightwave system is specifically designed to tackle these issues. This project will help optimize business processes, promote and create marketing campaigns and increase product distribution and network. Through completing these tasks, One Lightwave will be able to provide much-needed air quality support and interventions for Atlantic Canada.

Kwickadee Android Application

The project will be to build out the Android version of the Kwickadee dating app currently available on iOS. This will encompass a wide variety of feature sets including onboarding, login, profile creation, matching, date location selection, date setup and more to come! This will be a huge benefit to the partner organization as there is an estimated 41% of users in Canada on Android devices. This will allow us to reach an extended user base which is critical to this type of social application to succeed.

A computer vision-based approach for performance analysis of boxing sparring and competition

Quantitative performance analysis of boxing bouts is presently limited by the time it takes to manually process video footage, as well as the expertise that is required. We propose to develop an automatic performance analysis and action classification system for boxing sparring and competition bouts that is based on a computer vision action recognition pipeline. In recent years, advances in deep learning and the creation of large image datasets has produced numerous models for action recognition and pose estimation from monocular camera footage. However, many of these data sets focus on action recognition for day-to-day tasks, and thus accuracy in classification of pose and action diminish quickly when models trained on generic datasets are applied in specific domains. We propose to augment datasets of video footage with motion capture data by developing a synthetic dataset pipeline wherein variations of the motion, 3D environment, and camera angles are generated by a photorealistic game engine. Through domain randomization and adaptation techniques, our novel synthetic dataset will result in a model for robust classification of boxer actions and other metrics, such as ring position, and allow for unprecedented motion and performance analysis for boxing.

Calibration, Characterization and Optimization of Microwave Imaging System for Grain Monitoring

Microwave Imaging (MWI) is an emerging modality where the goal is to estimate the electrical properties of an object-of-interest. This is done by transmitting a microwave signal into the OI and collecting measurements outside the OI. The measurements are inputs to an optimization algorithm that solves for the unknown electrical properties. It has been proven using computational techniques that the proposed modality can be successfully adapted for monitoring moisture content inside grain bins. Based on the aforementioned study, prototype hardware and instruments, used in the actual grain-bin MWI system, have been designed and built.
In this work, calibration techniques for actual datasets collected from a grain-bin MWI system are investigated and applied. The calibrated data are then inverted using state-of-the-art inversion algorithms. Further, novel techniques for reducing the modelling error via hardware optimization are studied and tested using scaled prototype metallic chambers. The research is conducted at the Electromagnetic Imaging Laboratory at the University of Manitoba.

Application of Data Analytics for Warm Applied Solvent Process Pilot Analysis

This project will develop data-driven models for production performance analysis and optimization for solvent-assisted bitumen recovery operations and related processes. Effective operations of solvent processes are crucial for reducing GHG emissions associated with bitumen extraction processes. Although the recent developments in digital oilfield technologies have enabled real-time surveillance of downhole operating conditions and production data, analyzing a large amount of collected data remains challenging without customized data analytics tools. The industry partner has gathered a comprehensive data set in a pilot study. Machine-/deep-learning approaches will be integrated to establish relationships between reservoir characteristics, operational parameters, and production responses. The project outcomes will offer important insights into how to optimize solvent operations.

Thermodynamic and phase equilibrium modeling for inert anode species dissolved in the electrolyte used for aluminum production

Currently, aluminum is produced with the Hall-Héroult process. Usually, consumable carbon anodes are used, thus leading to high rate of emissions of greenhouse gases in the environment. Anodes based on a new carbon-free material are being developed in Québec by Elysis, which originated from a partnership between Alcoa and Rio Tinto. This would be very beneficial to the environment since O2 would then be emitted instead of CO2. This change in anode material requires to understand the possible reactivity between it and the cryolite-rich fluorinated electrolyte. This project is intended to provide reliable experimental data that will permit the best calibration of a thermodynamic model, compatible with the FactSage thermochemical software package. The developed model will be used to assess the reactivity and solubility problems associated with constituents of the anode and their partial dissolution in the electrolyte.

Cancel Culture: Who, What, Where, When and Why

Cancel culture has rapidly developed into a social phenomenon sweeping through the internet as a new-age moral enforcement mechanism. When individuals call out others for their actions (past or present), they are attempting to bring attention to said others in order to bring about a form of justice. As social media has provided a medium for any individual to have a voice, and the population of individuals watching everyone else’s behavior has become broader and more diverse than ever before. On the surface, it appears anyone can be cancelled by anyone for any reason and it all may look random or unjustified – but only at first. The student working on this project will be part of pioneering the academic literature on this topic. The proposed project will investigate the individual differences, including personal views and personality, that predict likelihood to experience moral catastrophizing, and in turn participation in piling on and ultimately canceling others.