Innovative Projects Realized

Construction et mise en place d’une compétence de décision et de gestion de crise au sein d’une équipe de direction : une approche ethnographique

En 2001, t‘Hart, Boin et Heyse anticipaient déjà la pluralisation des crises que vivent les firmes. À l‘heure actuelle, le public est plus que jamais sensible aux messages qu‘envoient les organisations à leurs commettants et la gestion des épisodes de crise est maintenant un enjeu permanent dans la stratégie d‘entreprise. À l‘ère de mondialisation, les systèmes sont interreliés pour des gains en compétitivité, mais cette imbrication a également pour effet de multiplier les risques et l‘intensité des crises. Dès lors, la gestion de crise devient une compétence cruciale pour assurer la pérennité de l‘entreprise et la protection du public. Suivant un épisode critique en 2012, Sandoz Canada est devenue très sensible à l’acquisition de cette compétence. Devant le défi d’éviter que les dysfonctionnements ayant mené à cette crise amènent un nouvel épisode, l’entreprise a mis sur pied une cellule de crise avec pour mandat de contrecarrer une nouvelle occurrence. L’objectif est d’identifier rapidement et corriger toutes les erreurs, avant que leur accumulation n’amène une nouvelle pénurie de médicaments. Les pharmaceutiques oeuvrent dans un secteur d‘activité revêtant de hauts risques avec une technologie complexe. La tâche est donc ardue et l’échec est souvent synonyme de crise.

Influence of stress history on sediment transport and channel bed evolution in gravel-bed rivers

Sediment transport in gravel-bed rivers controls the river morphology, aquatic habitat, and landscape evolution. The sediment supply together with the flow dictates the amount and texture of the supplied sediment to the channel and likely influences the transport rates, bed stability, and evolution of the bed surface. However, the previous research mainly focused on the effects of increasing flow and sediment supply on transport rates. How does the bed surface evolve with rising and falling flows and sediment supply in terms of armouring, sediment clusters, bed protrusions, and surface grains size is relatively unexplored? We proposed a flume-based experimental study to explore the impacts of past flows (stress-history) and sediment supply on transport rates and bed evolution. The outcomes of this study might help in improving bedload transport rates and other river processes including flow resistance. We plan to publish the results in peer-reviewed journals to disseminate knowledge, which will benefit river scientists and policymakers.

Fluorescence Sensors for Singlet Oxygen

This proposed project is to develop efficient sensing materials and devices that can detect trace amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS), in particular a type of activated oxygen, namely singlet oxygen. Detection of singlet oxygen is an important but very challenging task in biological and pharmaceutical applications. The main difficulty in detecting singlet oxygen is due to its very low stability and trace amounts. Certain molecules can capture singlet oxygen through rapid chemical reactions, which result in emission of fluorescence light. They are therefore useful fluorescent molecular probes for rapid and sensitive detection of singlet oxygen. In this work, we will synthesize a range of low-cost but high-performance molecular probes to achieve highly sensitive detection of singlet oxygen as well as other ROS. Prototype devices will be fabricated using these molecular probes as the key components, so that real technological applications can be found in various fields.

Local Community Television Segment

Pattison Media focuses on providing local news and event coverage across our television, radio, and digital platforms. In Medicine Hat, Pattison operates two radio stations (Wild 94.5 and MY 96), one television station (CHAT) and one digital news website (www.chatnewstoday.ca).

We are regulated by the CRTC and a condition of our licence is the requirement to produce a minimum of 25 hours per week of locally reflective content(content that is specific to the local market we serve). We want to exceed this requirement through the production and launch of a new community based program. This daily show will use innovative ways to tell the Medicine Hat story. We will talk to local people, promote and attend community events providing residents with the type of local coverage they won’t get anywhere else.

Maximizing Benefit from Hearing Technologies for Persons with Early Stage Alzheimer’s Disease Year One

There is a strong connection between hearing loss and cognitive impairment, particularly dementia, in old age. The number of Canadians with dementia is expected to reach 9% of adults over the age of 60 by 2038. With these large numbers and limited health resources, caregiving will increasingly fall upon family and friends. Caregiving for persons with

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is frequently associated with elevated levels of emotional and physical distress. Concomitant hearing and cognitive loss in care recipients may lead to even higher levels of caregiver burden. To alleviate this burden, this project will provide hearing aids to AD patients and a communication intervention will be created and administered to patients and their caregivers in an attempt to improve communication functioning in both target groups. The proposed research project will enable the industry partner to extend provision of hearing aids to this vulnerable population.

Étude de l’évolution de différentes dynamiques sociales sur un espace public numérique (Twitter)

Ce projet de recherche est basé sur l’étude de mouvements « numériques » s’étant développés sur le réseau social Twitter. Cet outil de microblogging développé en 2006, permet aujourd’hui, à tout un chacun de facilement y donner son opinion sur divers sujets/débats et d’y prendre part (en publiant une photo, en utilisant un certain hashtag, …).
Même si cette pratique est parfois décriée par certains comme du « militantisme de canapé » (et que cela permettrait uniquement à certains de se donner bonne conscience, sans qu’il n’y ait de réels effets). Nous ne pouvons pas nier les effets qu’ont eus des mouvements comme MeToo ou encore BlackLivesMatter (organisation de manifestations, ouverture de la discussion sur des sujets considérés comme tabous, …).
L’idée de ce projet est donc d’étudier les facteurs d’émergence (ou non) de certains mouvements à l’aide d’outils de traitement automatique du langage et de scripts nous permettant de quantifier ces mouvements.

A Brand New Micro Aerial Vehicle with Shape Morphing Wings for Wildlife Research and Monitoring

Our project proposed an invention of a fully self-contained, autonomous flying robot that can mimic the morphology of the bat wings. Inspired by its attractive flying characteristics, our flying robot could achieve more agile flying ability in hovering and turning than conventional micro aerial vehicles. Meanwhile, the shape-morphing and flapping wings help the robot fly more quietly than quadrotors. All the advantages lead to a lot of interesting applications, including monitoring in complex geographic sites like underground mines, quiet maneuvering to study flying ecosystem, safe inspection of power transportation system, to name a few. Along with the novel, robust control and navigation methodology, this invention is expected to act as a smart flying vehicle to perform tasks in complex geographic environments independently.

Portrait des résidents des milieux denses

La recherche vise à réaliser des portraits socioéconomiques et sociodémographiques des résidents types des milieux denses (aires TOD) afin de connaître leurs besoins (ex : taille et coûts des logements, écoles, parcs, moyens de se déplacer, etc.). Ces portraits permettront à la Ville de connaître les besoins de ses futurs résidents et ainsi l’aider à planifier le développement de son territoire et à développer des outils d’aménagement adaptés à ces besoins.

Innovating at the Intersection of Emotions and AI-based Language Models

Canadians have experienced tremendous mental health challenges over the last few years. At the same time, systems to address mental health are over-burdened. There is thus a clear need to scalable and low-cost technologies that could support the mental and emotional wellbeing of Canadians. This project is about developing innovations in artificial intelligence that could support the mental and emotional wellbeing of Canadians. Artificial intelligence (AI) is making stunning advances. Germane to this proposal are advances in AI for natural language processing. More specifically, language models which can generate text have been increasing in sophistication and have been used as conversational chatbots. But these “conversational AIs” have some limitations. For example, language models stop short of actually “understanding” language. Instead, they use of probabilistic estimation of word sequences to generate text. Language models also seem to reproduce the some of the social biases that may be present in their training datasets. As these language models sometimes produce surprising and inappropriate texts, their use as agents for supporting mental health and emotional wellbeing has, to date, been limited.

Simulateur de système de propulsion hydrique à base de batterie et de multipile à combustible pour un hélicoptère

L’industrie aéronautique amorce un virage irréversible vers l’électrification de la propulsion des aéronefs. À travers ce projet Bell Textron voudrait analyser les performances d’un système hybride batterie – multipile à l’échelle 1 (grandeur réelle). La compagne s’est donc adjoint une équipe de recherche de l’Institut de recherche sur l’hydrogène afin de mettre en place un simulateur de grande qualité. À travers une approche « Top Down », il serait possible de travailler simultanément sur la mise en place des modèles mutiphysique et la gestion thermoénergétique de l’ensemble des sources.

Multifunction system for measuring endothelial cell remodeling under laminar and turbulentpulsatile flow related to heart disease Year One

A London-based company, Novel Cardiovascular Systems Inc, has developed a unique multifunction system for measuring endothelial (arterial wall) cell remodelling under different types of laminar, turbulent and intermittent pulsatile flows that are associated with the onset and development of heart disease, notably atherosclerosis (narrowing of the artery). In order to accelerate the product to market, NCSI must validate the system with respect to cell biology and blood flow mechanics. Specifically, cell viability and the accuracy of hemodynamic (blood flow) measurements in an in vitro flow channel must be quantified. The proposed research will examine endothelial cell response under a range of realistic and quantified pulsatile flow conditions, thereby providing invaluable contributions to the literature. More importantly, for NCSI, it is critical to realize the project to accomplish a fully validated system in order to accelerate timeto- market. In addition, the project will further expand the capabilities of current flow system.

Effective Climate Governance for Canadian Credit Unions: Cooperating for a Greener Future

The goal is to develop a best practice guide for Canadian credit unions, focusing on the legal duties of Canadian directors and officers in respect of managing climate change, best practices for corporate boards, reporting on the latest global research on best climate governance practices for credit unions.