Innovative Projects Realized

Santana Airfield: linking place, identity, and memories through performance into civic participation

This project explores how an artistic oral history-based audio walk can be used as a tool for connecting locals, visitors and immigrants with a place and engage them as participants in public debates concerning local development projects in the Azores. Santana Airfield, Azores, is an abandoned complex risking demolition. Zoning laws are changing the landscape. The personal narratives of elders linked to it are also in danger of being lost. The intent of this project is to have participants explore the land and buildings of Santana Airfield in a walking performance before and while listening to the sound art followed by a post-walk discussion on how this artistic practice can be used to foster community engagement in transformative activities as compared to other forms of calls to action. The research ends with the documenting of the participants’ initiatives such as media output, petitions, and town hall meetings to turn Santana Airfield into a heritage site.

A continued optical function analysis for thin-film device structures

Informed thin-film device design, wherein layers of thin-films are deposited onto an underlying substrate, requires an understanding of the spectral dependence of the optical functions associated with the thin-film layers which constitute such a device. In this project, we aim to continue to develop our understanding of the form of the optical functions for the various types of thin-film materials and then use this knowledge in order to aid in the interpretation of experimentally acquired transmittance and reflectance spectra. We will start by continuing to expand, curate, and complete a library of optical functions corresponding to a plethora of thin-film materials. A series of models that aims to capture the underlying physicality captured in this library will be devised. We will then use these models in order to narrow the parameter space that must be probed in determining the spectral dependence of the optical functions associated with the thin-film layers from measurements of the transmittance spectrum at normal incidence and the reflectance spectrum at near-normal incidence. Finally, we aim to develop a protype software package that aims to capture the results of our investigations.

Encrypted control for Cyber-Physical Systems

The project is devoted to make encrypted control systems more practical and valuable to the industry and ensure the security of safety-critical industrial control systems.

The research outcome is the development of a novel computationally efficient and secure MPC-based encrypted control system that is appealing to a wide range of safety-critical industrial sectors, including but not limited to Energy, Smart Manufacturing, and Smart Transportation. To this end, an non-encrypted computationally low-demanding MPC strategy developed by the home supervisor and the encrypted control solutions developed by the host supervisor will be investigated, and a new encrypted design will be developed.

Personalization with Integration of Sensor Signals in Cloud Architecture

$50B of unrealized GDP will occur by 2030 in Canada if the skill gap challenge is not addressed. With the acceleration and uncertainty of a borderless economy, Employers, Educators and Jobseekers will continue to be in constant flux. The greatest cost to Small & Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) is the hiring, skilling and training of new hires, and the cost when they leave after a day or after 30 days.
Recent seismic talent layoffs at the conglomerates of Amazon, Twitter, Facebook have now started this ripple effect and won’t take long to impact SMBs, Jobseeker and Educators.

ELSTec : Efficient lightweight structures made by automated fiber placement (AFP) of thermoplastic composites

This project deals with the continuation of a project at Concordia University in 2020 via Mitacs Globalink research
award. The project investigated different manufacturing scenarios of a thermoplastic skin/grind structure using automated fiber placement (AFP) in the Concordia Center for Composites labs. The thermoplastic skin/grin structure was successfully fabricated via AFP in-situ consolidation.
Now, this project will evaluate the plate with the help of the existing experimental facilities at Concordia University. The goal is to evaluate the performance of the in-situ consolidated skin/grid structure through mechanical testing and microscopy analysis. Mechanical test will be performed using universal testing machine and stiffness and strength properties will be extracted. Void
content and delamination of the specimen will be investigated with microscopic analysis. Finally, the results are compared with a Finite Element (FE) analysis to get further insight of the failure behaviour. With the results it is possible to benchmark the developed skin/grid structures with already existing’s ones and it should be possible to draw conclusions to improve the structure itself and the manufacturing process with AFP.

Swine feed efficiency improvement and meat quality co-selection using genome wide technologies Year Two

Improving feed efficiency (FE) and meat quality (MQ) are Canadian swine industry priorities that will increase sustainability and competitiveness. It is difficult to improve these traits simultaneously by traditional breeding methods due to limited knowledge of genetic interactions, limitations on animals that can be measured and the high cost of measurement. High throughput genomic technology has the potential to positively impact these issues. Our overall purpose is to develop a genomic assisted breeding program to simultaneously improve FE and MQ. This collaboration will benefit the partner’s long term competitiveness through implementation of genomic technology into existing breeding programs and training of high qualified personnel. An example of the potential economic benefits to the industry by improving FE: herd feed conversion (kg feed/kg pork) is now ~3:1, each 0.01 improvement in FE (e.g. 3.00 to 2.99) represents ~200,000 tonnes of feed/yr saved, worth approximately $55 million to the Canadian pork industry.

Development of Copper Based Additive Manufacturing Techniques

The goal of the project is the development of copper for Rapidia’s innovative paste extrusion process. Copper is a highly sought-after material with unique properties that has a wide range of applications in various industries including biomedical, electrical, manufacturing, and energy storage. The ability to 3D print copper parts on our system will thus have a large impact on several manufacturing industries.

Distributed Positioning and Formation Management Techniques in a Swarm of Robots

In this project, by considering a team of heterogeneous robots available at the host institution, the intern will develop a trajectory planning method that ensures target enclosure in the presence of noisy measurements. Such a planner will leverage a positioning algorithm developed to take advantage of all the robots’ onboard sensors.

Specifically, the objective of this project is twofold:
1. Develop a robust and computationally efficient positioning solution in the presence of a heterogeneous team of robots. The ultimate goal is to use all the robot’s onboard sensors to design a positioning system that can automatically adapt to the available measurements.
2. Plan trajectories for the multi-agent system such that the agents are driven around a team leader.

To meet the above objectives, Bayesian theory-based techniques will be used to design a reliable sensor fusion algorithm for positioning in the multi-agent system.

Portrait de la communauté de lépidoptères alpins du parc national de la Gaspésie

Dans un contexte de perte de biodiversité et de changements climatiques, le projet propose de documenter et caractériser la communauté de papillons des sommets alpins du parc de la Gaspésie. Les milieux alpins subissent l’effet des changements climatiques à un rythme 2 à 3 fois plus rapides qu’ailleurs. L’étude établira un portrait initial précis de la composition de la communauté de papillons ainsi que de la relation existante entre la coloration foncée des papillons et l’altitude à laquelle ils vivent (trait très sensible à la température de l’environnement des papillons). Ces informations serviront de point de comparaison initial, permettant à l’insectarium de Montréal de documenter les impacts des changements climatiques sur la communauté et ultimement d’évaluer leur rôle dans la problématique de l’effondrement de la biodiversité. Pour y arriver, l’insectarium de Montréal compte continuer de réaliser des suivis des papillons dans le parc tous les 5 ans.

Swine feed efficiency improvement and meat quality co-selection using genome wide technologies

Improving feed efficiency (FE) and meat quality (MQ) are Canadian swine industry priorities that will increase sustainability and competitiveness. It is difficult to improve these traits simultaneously by traditional breeding methods due to limited knowledge of genetic interactions, limitations on animals that can be measured and the high cost of measurement. High throughput genomic technology has the potential to positively impact these issues. Our overall purpose is to develop a genomic assisted breeding program to simultaneously improve FE and MQ. This collaboration will benefit the partner’s long term competitiveness through implementation of genomic technology into existing breeding programs and training of high qualified personnel. An example of the potential economic benefits to the industry by improving FE: herd feed conversion (kg feed/kg pork) is now ~3:1, each 0.01 improvement in FE (e.g. 3.00 to 2.99) represents ~200,000 tonnes of feed/yr saved, worth approximately $55 million to the Canadian pork industry.

Predicting the risk of cardiovascular diseases using multi-modal and multi-data types

In this internship, we will leverage the power of AI multi-modal algorithms to build a system for predicting the risk of cardiovascular (heart) diseases by extracting features from tabular data (clinical data and demographics) and the medical images in order to predict the risk of cardiovascular diseases at 5 years and 10 eyars. We have the access to a database of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) database that consists of thousands of patients’ information (genomics, metabolomics, clinical, and imaging) with cardiovascular diseases. We will clean the data then we will use the patients’ clinical data combined with medical images to predict the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The multi modal algorithm will be built by deep learning technology using supervised learning. The target variable will be the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases at 5 years and 10 years. Eventually, we will compare our propositions with the published results (pool cohort equation and Framingham risk calculator), and interpret our innovation in manuscripts and presentations.

Tree retention in harvests: A tool to accelerate forest birds’ recovery

Approximately one-third of songbird species which migrate to the Canadian boreal forest to breed
require older forests for nesting and foraging. In Alberta, older boreal forests are altered by ongoing industrial activity, such as logging; the birds that rely on these habitats are sensitive to this change. Forestry companies are constantly developing and testing new logging methods in order to mitigate their impact on wildlife habitat and populations. Some of these techniques, such as residual retention and understory protection, leave stands of mature trees in a harvest area as a habitat patch for wildlife. These habitat types are used by several species of mammals, but their potential as habitat for birds as the harvested forest recovers has yet to be quantified. Identifying the suitability of mature tree retention for bird species is crucial because these methods may be effective tools in maintaining healthy avian populations and biodiversity when logging activities alter Alberta’s boreal forest.