Innovative Projects Realized

Excitation Energy Transfer in the Chlorosome Light Harvesting Complex

In Green Sulphur Bacteria, the chlorosome is the organelle responsible for the harvesting of solar energy, and for the transportation of this energy to the rest of the photosynthetic system. This is attained through the use of many pigment molecules, on the order of thousands, that are present within the chlorosome. These pigments absorb the sun’s energy in the form of electronic excitations. Recently developed models for the electronic structure for the chlorosome, in which the pigments are arranged as molecular nanotubes, will be adapted for use with quantum-dynamics simulations to model excitation energy transport within the chlorosome. This will create a more detailed picture of this fundamental energy transport mechanism in natural photosynthetic systems like Green Sulphur Bacteria, and will promote our understanding of both natural and bio-inspired photosynthetic systems.

Effet de la fatigue sur l’interaction entre la douleur et l’effort physique

Dans le cadre de mon doctorat, j’ai pu mettre en évidence que 30 min d’engagement dans une tâche cognitive exigeante induit une la fatigue mentale associée à une augmentation de la perception de l’effort lors d’une tâche motrice subséquente. Des données du laboratoire de Dr Pageaux suggèrent une interaction entre la douleur et l’effort nécessaire pour maintenir une performance motrice. Ce projet a pour but d’intégrer les travaux de nos deux laboratoires, afin de mieux comprendre l’effet de la fatigue sur la douleur et l’effort nécessaire pour maintenir une tâche motrice.
La fatigue sera induite par l’engagement prolongé dans une tâche cognitive exigeante (Stroop). La douleur, l’effort et la performance motrice seront mesurés avant-au milieu-après la réalisation de la tâche cognitive. Une seconde visite, contrôle, reproduira ce protocole à l’exception de la tâche c

Creating a Digital Marketing Model Built on Corporate Social Responsibility

The proposed project seeks to better understand how contingency, dynamic capability, and task-technology theories factor in business process management models that apply to the business needs of SMEs and allow multiple system integration. Because a lot of research shows that the alignment of the business and IT goals of a company is crucial for business system success, the proposed project will focus on studying the possible integration of business goals and IT capabilities in the process of business management system creation. Finally, the research project will analyze the application of the four decision areas (people, strategy, execution, and cash) and three focus points (priorities, data, and rhythm) in business system improvement and apply them to develop and implement solutions for the company.

Distributed Net-Enabled Information Fusion and Resource Management underUncertainties

Scalable systems must seamlessly grow to absorb large data sets and incorporate increasing

numbers of processing units within in various communication fabrics. Broadly considered, this concept

applies to cores sharing memory, processors sharing a bus, nodes sharing a network in a

grid/cluster/cloud, or services sharing compositions of components. Ironically, attempts to add more

resources-whether they are physical processing elements or higher-level services-cannot always

be easily incorporated into existing systems.

This project explores practical means of achieving scalability by considering three different but interrelated

issues: parallel design patterns for high level system organization, tool support to help

developers reason about the tradeoffs between programming effort and system performance, and

light-weight resource monitoring and composition tools to support this evaluation. Combined, we

believe these three elements will support software development practices critical for building scalable

systems, as well as produce much needed corresponding tool support to assist developers in modern

software evolution and maintenance.

Méthodes de prédiction pour la collecte d’huile usagée

Le projet de recherche porte sur la prédiction probabiliste d’une demande intermittente.
On cherche à prédire la distribution statistique du niveau de remplissage d’un réservoir en fonction du temps, à l’aide des données des derniers services. Ces prédictions permettront d’optimiser les fenêtres de temps des prochains services. De ce fait, on augmentera le taux de remplissage moyen des réservoirs collectés ainsi que la profitabilité des routes.

Songs, Stories and Sacred Fire: Fostering Reconciliation Through Collaborative Research in Unama’ki

This is a program of research activities through which we will create and compile materials about L’nu and broader Indigenous histories and experiences related to military history. Our materials are to guide the Atlantic Memorial Park Society in its development of Indigenous content at their new heritage site in North Sydney. Songs, Stories and Sacred Fire: Fostering Reconciliation through Collaborative Research in Unama’ki is a collaborative arts-based project, grounded in Indigenous knowledge and traditions. Our project team involves a partnership a group of researchers based at the Centre for Sound Communities, involving multiple generations of researchers from Membertou First Nation and Cape Breton University, and the Atlantic Memorial Park Society. Our project includes many different activities and outcomes to foster dialogue across Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, and to facilitate lasting social impact for our work. It includes education and public programming; publications; and the production of digital media (e.g., audio and video recordings). Participants of the project will be involved in a variety of Indigenous and arts-based research processes including film screenings of earlier collaborative research, creative workshops, teepee storytelling sessions, digital storytelling workshops

L’intégration professionnelle des étudiants en situation de handicap chez Hydro-Québec

Malgré la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, l’intégration des personnes en situation de handicap dans les entreprises reste faible. Plus précisément, 39% des personnes avec incapacité occupent un emploi comparé à 72% des personnes sans incapacité (OPHQ, 2014). Ne pas avoir d’emploi est l’un des principaux facteurs de risques d’exclusion sociale (OPHQ, 2017).
Cette recherche examine les préoccupations et besoins de ces étudiants de niveau post-secondaire en situation de handicap au moment de réaliser un stage d’été professionnel chez Hydro-Québec. Les résultats de cette recherche permettront de mieux comprendre les enjeux des étudiants et des gestionnaires lors de cette intégration professionnelle. Ainsi, de proposer des recommandations pour favoriser l’inclusion des personnes en situation de handicap en emploi.

Quantum Algorithms on NISQ Devices

With the small qubit devices now becoming accessible across various hardware and cloud platforms, it is imperative to find useful tasks for the devices to perform. Such devices are known as NISQ – Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum – devices. In this regime of a few qubits, we expect the physical qubits to be noisy in the absence of sophisticated error-correction or fault-tolerant coding techniques. Therefore, it is important to understand and identify qubit algorithms that are of interest in the immediate future or near term, capable of running usefully on NISQ devices. In particular, we are interested in qubits encoded in optical modes via the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill scheme.

Immersive Visual Analytics for Large Industrial Data

We investigate new possibilities for industrial data visualization and analysis with the latest Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (AR/VR) technologies. In this cluster research, we will apply the state-of-art visual analytics methodologies to the forestry, manufacturing and mining industries, and evaluate the potential benefits for the newly introduced technologies. The research outcome may benefit industrial sectors of one fifth of Canadian economy, and provide numerous local high-tech jobs, enhancing the competitiveness of the partner Canadian company on the global stage of industrial data analytics.

Développement d’un système automatisé de suivi de l’avancement d’un projet de construction à l’aide des technologies d’acquisition de données

Ce projet vise à proposer un système qui va permettre aux surintendants et aux gérants de construction de pouvoir évaluer et suivre l’avancement des travaux. De plus en plus de projets basent leur conception sur des modèles 3D permettant l’accès à plus d’informations et de détails que les plans 2D traditionnels. Ainsi, le système proposé va évaluer l’avancement du projet en récoltant les données du chantier à l’aide d’objets connectés, et va automatiquement mettre à jour l’échéancier ou le modèle 3D. Le but est de limiter l’intervention humaine et d’automatiser ce processus afin d’éliminer les sources d’erreurs et de gaspillages afin d’aller vers une productivité optimale.
Ce système permettrait à l’organisme d’estimer l’avancement de ses projets et d’avoir des informations précises en temps réel permettant aux gérants de prendre les bonnes décisions et de contribuer à mieux maîtriser les coûts et les échéanciers des projets et de satisfaire le client.

Investigation of Low-Ductility Geogrid Reinforcement for Ground-supported Concrete Structures

Steel rebars are the dominant reinforcement elements in reinforced concrete structures due to their relatively adequate manufacturing, material property and established construction codes. In an ideal environment and under nominal loading, conventional concrete reinforcement is expected to govern the design strength based on which they are designed. However, under environmental loading conditions, such as very low or very high temperature, deterioration of the steel reinforcement is accelerated and lead to significant structural, economic and environmental losses. In Canada, especially the north, steel reinforcement deteriorates due to the above mentioned reasons and an alternative is motivated. Recently, geogrid material is proposed to replace conventional reinforcement for various structural and nonstructural elements. While the latter possess undesirable effects on concrete structure behavior, new geogrid material, ConForce Grid, poses solutions to the common geogrid problems and has the potential to act as adequate reinforcement for structures prone to abnormal environmental conditions. The research work aims at understanding ConForce Grid under standard and environmentally influenced conditions. The research work also aims at creating useful results for the proposed structural elements.

Pacific sand lance habitat management framework

Forage fish, including Pacific sand lance, play a critical role in marine food webs in the Salish Sea. They feed on plankton and transfer this energy to predators like Chinook salmon. In turn, Chinook are an important prey item for the federally listed Southern resident killer whale, playing an important role in their survival. Any variations in forage fish productivity, and distribution resulting from human impacts (e.g., shipping, expanding ports) can contribute to widespread and unanticipated ecological impacts (e.g., recent losses of iconic predators like salmon, and whales). Protection of forage fish and their habitats through improving sustainable coastal ecosystem management practices will play a key role in ensuring the health of forage fish populations, their dependent predators and the ecosystem as a whole. The proposed project will increase our understanding of how to reduce human impacts on coastal nearshore habitats and thus provide resources/information to habitat managers to do so. Data gathered as a result of this project will support the development of evidence-based management tools, which will help to improve sustainable coastal ecosystem management practices in the Strait of Georgia and surrounding areas.