Innovative Projects Realized

Groupe Nordik: enjeux et opportunités dans l’adoption du BIM pour la gestion de ses équipements

La gestion d’installation en phase d’exploitation et maintenance reste un véritable challenge pour les propriétaires d’actifs. La perte de données durant le cycle de vie du projet, l’accumulation de sources d’erreurs manuelles, l’inaccessibilité de la bonne information au bon moment font augmenter les coûts prévus à cet effet. Le but de ce projet est de montrer de quelle manière le BIM pourrait apporter une solution à ces problèmes, en mettant en avant les enjeux et les opportunités de son adoption. Le stagiaire apportera donc une analyse extérieure sur leurs processus internes et une liste de recommandations répondant aux besoins de la firme. Face à une entreprise qui dispose de nombreux équipements spécifiques à leur domaine d’activité, une gestion BIM facilitant le stockage, le suivi et la gestion des données serait un avantage concurrentiel considérable sur le marché.

Voyage Route Optimization for Ocean Going Vessels Balancing Cost, Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions

True North Marine is a Montreal based consulting company offering services on route selection and analysis to ocean going vessels. Current practice is finding shortest time routes. The IMO (International Maritime Organization) is implementing new regulations as of January 1st 2020, requiring vessels to burn fuel with much lower sulphur content (drop from 3.5% to 0.5%) with anticipated effect that fuel costs for vessel operators will significantly rise. It is expected that new routes balance operational cost, fuel and Greenhouse gases emission cost. Efficient planning in this new environment requires support from advanced analytics tools ranging from descriptive to prescriptive analytics. This project aims developing decision tools to support planning process. Based on forecast weather data, historical weather data, vessel characteristics and data obtained from monitoring past performance of vessels, these tools will allow analyzing many routes in order to determine the optimal speed / fuel consumption setting and best routing alternative. The project will develop new models and methods for voyage planning and train a group of highly qualified personnel (HQP) with multidisciplinary competence including Big data, analytics, optimization, planning under uncertainty, and large scale optimization.

Advancing methods and understanding: Status and drivers of mammal populations in Alberta

Biodiversity loss is a major concern worldwide. Alberta’s has abundant natural resources; however, developing these natural resources can impact species, including mammal species and those valued by the public. Understanding the impacts of disturbance on populations of mammals is necessary in order to inform environmental management. This project will harness existing data through the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute to enhance our understanding of mammal populations, such as moose and black bear, in Alberta, for the benefit of the province’s land-use decision makers and the public in general.

Optimization of rice and other protein based extrusion encapsulation

The proposed project deals with the extrusion encapsulation of bioactive components using rice and corn protein based food matrix. It is well recognized that the performance properties of natural lake pigment encapsulated products are influenced by the structural properties of the matrix protein used for the extrusion encapsulation. The type, mixture and nature of proteins can have a significant effect on the extrusion encapsulated product as well as its functionality. Significant changes in the product properties can be expected due to the difference in the manufacturing steps. Preliminary attempts by the company with enzymatic rice protein in extrusion encapsulation of natural pigments have not been successful. This project explores alternative procedures and optimization concepts to obtain a successful encapsulated product

Architecture and application of an innovative decision support module integrated to a primary care electronic health record

Ce projet vise le développement d’un module de support décisionnel intégré au dossier

électronique patient. En utilisant des méthodologies innovatrices sur l’analyse des données

des patients et sur la représentation des informations aux cliniciens et patients, le projet

cherche à résoudre l’impasse où se trouvent les systèmes informatisés d’aide à la décision

clinique et qui fait que ces systèmes à date ont eu très peu d’impact sur la pratique médicale.

L’hypothèse principale est que l’exploitation d’une matrice de patrons peut accommoder la

variété complexe de l’information diagnostique. Comme innovation centrale nous allons

construire et évaluer un engin intelligent qui fait le lien entre des patrons spécifiques à une

visualisation des connaissances contextuelles et moulée sur les façons de penser des

médecins et des patients; il sera aussi dynamique, de telles sortes que des tests

diagnostiques ou des thérapies peuvent être prescrites directement, ou des connaissances

supplémentaires peuvent être obtenues immédiatement…

Addressing Knowledge Gap in Sustainable Financing and Investment for Climate Conscious Canadian Investors

Sustainable investment is an expending sector of the mainstream financial market, yet there are few studies evaluating the trends, opportunities, impacts and knowledge gaps as they relate to Canadian investors. Understanding the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues related to business operations and investment are critical to understanding trends that are driving this shift towards sustainability in financial markets. The proposed study will identify future opportunities for the partner organization within four industry sectors significant affected or closely intertwined with the issues of climate change (oil and gas, energy generation, building infrastructure and agriculture). The aim is to identify both the likely rewards and potential risks posed to any investor seeking to use their financial resources to both benefit from and positively contribute to successful mitigation strategies and adaptation impacts linked with 10 different investment scenarios.

Thermal design of electric wheel integrated with hybrid battery pack

This project will integrate normal temperature battery (NTB) that is cheap but only can discharge above-20?, and low temperature battery (LTB) that is expensive but can work at -40? into an insulated housing with a smart hybrid battery management system. And a heat pipe with design trigger temperature will be integrated to the housing to prevent overheating of NTB, which will ensure the hybrid battery can work properly in both hot and cold environment. The partner, a lithium ion battery supplier, will increase its battery application in Canada by widening the working temperature range with a acceptable cost.

E-tailing Servicescape Features and E-shopping Satisfaction among Older Customers: A Multi-Country Comparison

Ageing is a global phenomenon, which presents challenges and opportunities for many nations, including Canada, China, and Germany, the foci of the study. In addition to the impact on pensions, health care, the labour market, consumer trends, and social services, the greying population also has far-reaching implications for businesses. As the population ages, changes in older customers’ retail behaviours have a direct impact on retail operations. While e-commerce in Canada, China, and Germany has experienced exponential growths, consumer research has focused on generations Y and Z (Ladhari et al., 2019) as they are digital natives and active participants of e-commerce activities. Scant research has focused on older shoppers and their e-shopping experiences and satisfaction, especially in a cross-cultural comparison context. However, the internet penetration among older consumers is increasing and thereby their impact on the e-commerce market (Lian and Yen, 2014). In contrast to the “digital natives” (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014), older consumers sometimes are facing difficulties to handle technological issues properly while shopping online. Therefore, this research project aims at identifying the most relevant factors in e-tailing for older consumers and how they could increase e-shopping satisfaction.

Anion Exchange Membranes for use in Industrial Electrolysis Systems for Salt-Splitting

Salt splitting is a technology in which an electrochemical cell containing 2 membranes to transport positive and negative ions, is used to produce sulfuric acid and caustic soda from sodium sulfate, a compound found commonly from industrial brine streams. Salt splitting electrolysis is a sustainable solution for the expanding markets of acid and caustic recovery and treatment of neutralization waste products, which would otherwise be disposed. One of the major challenges of this technology is to produce a relatively concentrated sulfuric acid product with high efficiency and low power consumption, due to leakage through the anion exchange membrane. Therefore, developing an anion exchange membrane with the capability of effectively blocking protons is key to the success of this technology.

PIC computer studies of plasma wave instabilities in the exhaust plume of the VASIMR propulsion engine

My proposed research project is devoted to Particle-in-cell (PIC) computer simulations to study the plasma waves instabilities in the exhaust plume of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) device. VASIMR is a type of electric propulsion plasma device, using the plasma as propellant, potentially for a long-term space mission with a much higher specific impulse than traditional chemical rocket.
Using a 2D3V PIC code and a VSim frameworks, the analysis of different instabilities present in this plasma device will be performed and compared with previous results. The focus will be on identifying the presence of instabilities in conditions of this device, study of the plasma instabilities mechanisms and its effects on performance of the device, and parametric studies of the role of different external parameters.

Geochronology and stratigraphy of the Eqe Bay greenstone belt, northern Baffin Island, Nunavut: implications for Archean geodynamics and mineral exploration in the Mary River

Greenstone belts are hosts to several types of mineral deposits worldwide, but such belts in Canada’s remote Arctic remain underexplored. Here we focus on greenstone belts of the ~2.7 billion-year-old Mary River Group, namely those exposed at Eqe Bay, northern Baffin Island, representing the best-preserved portion of the Group. A stratigraphically lower package of volcanic/sedimentary rocks is separated from an upper sedimentary package by an unconformity, a geological contact representing non-deposition (geological “lost time”). Both the lower and upper units contain quartzite; this rock contains appreciable zircon, which contains very small amounts of uranium that are used for absolute geochronological dating. Therefore, the analysis of detrital zircons from quartzites above and below the unconformity will allow us to determine how much time is lost between both packages. Results will have implications on the exploration program of our industry partner, Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., which holds mineral claims at Eqe Bay.

Quantitative Security Metrics in 5G Environment

The advent of 5G (fifth generation) telecommunication networks also brings new security challenges, in addition to many benefits to the community. Such is exemplified by its special nature of technology (as well as the new business model) and its deep involvement in people’s everyday life, hence more critical. We need proper security metrics to tell how secure these new networks are especially for decision makers. Our preliminary studies show that existing security metrics are insufficient for 5G networks (as they are not designed so). We would like to thoroughly study the state-of-the art metrics and standards and propose new security metrics that are more suitable for 5G networks.