Innovative Projects Realized

Development of models to monitor vitamin D activity

Vitamin D compounds are being developed for the treatment of chronic kidney disease. The purpose of this proposal is to develop a cell-based screening platform that will allow the rapid assessment of relative efficacy of a library of compounds. The intern will use recombinant DNA methodology to generate a cell-based assay in which the green fluorescence protein will be inserted into a vitamin D responsive gene; thus, permitting the visualization of vitamin D signaling in real-time. This same recombinant DNA construct will be designed in such a way that it can be further used to establish a line of mice in which tissues responding to vitamin D compounds will “glow”. This may permit the visualization of pharmacodynamic properties of compounds in live animals.

Classifying Innovation Management Forms Using Ontology Reasoning

In this project, the goal is first to design a domain ontology that models the innovation management forms semantically. At this step, the ontology contains domain-specific background knowledge, which is expressed using terminological statements. Then every completed form and the value of its fields are asserted as instances of different concepts of the ontology. Afterwards, an ontology reasoning algorithm is deployed to classify every completed form into various categories defined in the ontology. This method enables us to determine a form’s category based on its fields, even if it is not associated with a form name or number. The company will use the designed ontology and the devolved system as part of its intelligent innovation management.

Gas-Diversion Detection Techniques using Guided Wave Ultrasonic Testing

Detection of natural gas diversion in residential pipelines is important for public safety. To maintain utilities companies’ reputation and customer satisfaction, such diversion must be detected in a nonintrusive manner, without digging or using endoscope cameras. Thus, it is important to develop techniques for residential gas pipeline diagnosis using an external small device that can detect a diversion if it exists, and determine its location. The goal of this project is to develop non-intrusive diversion detection and localization techniques using ultrasound signals and signal processing.

Developing a Compact, Medium Range 3D Imaging LiDAR System

The main technical objective for the intern is to contribute in developing a breadboard that utilizes the laser, receiver and scanner technologies and create a potentially very small lidar.
The intern other objectives might also include:
• Investigate the transmitter choices and down?select the best one
• Examine the available detector arrays
• Evaluate whether MEMS mirrors can be used for low?power, high?frame rate applications
Adoption of compact lidar technologies is critical for Optech to remain competitive in the expanding market for lidar solutions. Optech’s traditional single?detector lidar design remains the preferred approach for the traditional civilian survey and mapping market– however, Optech has identified several growth opportunities which will require the integration of miniaturized and robust lidar technology. The application of active imaging systems for terrestrial topographic survey/mapping, rover navigation, proximity operations and rendezvous/docking will greatly benefit from this new architecture’s ability to minimize the SWaP and simultaneously maximize range and resolution for mapping applications.

Changing children’s awareness and behavior toward environmentally sustainable practices through educative programs

In order to improve the understanding and awareness for students about the management of energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable practices, this study will evaluate the effectiveness on changing children’s awareness and behavior toward those aspects through of the implementation of educative material, previously developed by Nature’s Ride, by way of scholastic workshops on primary school children. This study is foreseen helping students gain a clearer understanding of energy-saving practices in their everyday life, to achieve a greater awareness level. A stage of the collection of research data will be done through the use of questionnaires, at the beginning and the end of the fall and winter semesters, to identify the effectiveness of the educative program on their awareness and behavioral change about environmentally sustainable practices. Consequently, according to the responses provided by each child, it will be determined the methodology that will allow an improvement in the educative program delivery to reach a superior grade of learning and consciousness by those students who will attend workshops.

Understanding Montreal festival soundscapes

Quartier des spectacles is a dense multi-cultural hub with large outdoor festivals, also housing an ever-growing residential population due to new high-rise development projects. Given the need to balance vitality with quality of life, this project focuses on expectations of residents and festivalgoers in terms of their sound environment. We implement a methodology to assess the needs of multiple stakeholders and investigate the role that sound plays in the holistic experience of urban spaces.

This project, using Quartier des spectacles as a living laboratory for original collaborative research, is essential to balance the needs of various stakeholders (event promoters, residents, workers, etc.) in order to consolidate this model, unique to Montreal. The findings will be used to create a sound management plan for recreational activities in public places in the Quartier des spectacles and beyond.

An investigation of the occlusive properties of smart polymeric particles usingquantitative image analysis of dentin microtubules

Many young adults are affected by tooth sensitivity stimulated by eating or drinking something hot, cold, sweet or acidic, which impacts their life quality. Tooth sensitivity can start when the softer, inner part of the tooth called dentin becomes exposed. The dentin contains a large number of parallel microtubules that run from the outside of the tooth to the nerve in the center. When it is exposed, these microtubules can be stimulated by changes in temperature or certain foods resulting in the sharp pain. The common treatment is application of occluding agents to block the exposed microtubes. In this project, in collaboration with BTI, we propose to fabricate, optimize and characterize an ‘in vitro dentin model’ using a 3D printing process suitable for evaluation of occlusive particles made by BTI based-on smart polymers and microparticres, potentially able to occlude/penetrate into dentin microtubules to address teeth hypersensitivity.

An Evaluation of Targeted Physical Environmental Interventions in Louis Brier Home & Hospital

In response to the number of residents at Louis Brier Home living with dementia, this project seeks to implement environmental modifications to support resident orientation (specifically related to the hallways and door frames). Based on the data analysis from the observations and focus groups, recommendations will be made for modest physical environmental modifications to promote residents’ quality of life. The partner organization will not only increase quality of care for their residents, but also promote environmental designs other older long term care facilities can implement while awaiting building upgrades.

Alloy and process optimization for improved mechanical properties in age-hardenable and work-hardenable Al sheet manufactured via a new production process termed thin strip casting, TSC

Conventionally, structural Al sheets are produced via casting thick ingots using Direct Chill (DC) technique, followed by an energy-intensive reduction procedure to the final thickness. A new production process developed by CASTechnology, termed Thin Strip Casting (TSC) technique, can directly output thin sheets, thus reducing the cost as well as the carbon foot print associated with the sheet production. The fundamental differences in the TSC vs. DC processing routes, however, impose a widely different metallurgical response in the sheet material, which may drastically affect the optimized processing conditions (e.g., rolling/heat-treating sequences and individual conditions) and thus the final mechanical properties. The proposed internship projects aim at establishing a relationship between the alloy/process conditions and the evolution of mechanical/performance properties of various age-hardenable and work-hardenable Al alloys. A comprehensive alloy/process design can potentially lead to manufacturing cost-effective Al sheets with superior mechanical properties to conventional DC counterparts.

Efficient Detection and Mutli-Target Tracking of Persons in Real-Time Video Surveillance

Locating and identifying multiple individuals in a scene are challenging tasks in real-time video surveillance applications. Although tracking allows to locate a person over time, automatically tracking multiple targets under real-world conditions is a challenging problem due to changes in appearance, occlusions and complex backgrounds. Target models are typically adapted for robust discriminative tracking, although representative training samples must be selected on-line such that knowledge corruption is avoided. This project seeks to develop adaptive systems that can robustly detect and track a variable number of people captured in video sequences for real-time visualization and person re-identification applications. Multi-target tracking methods will autonomously create, associate and remove person tracks based on information extracted from the appearance of each person’s head. For efficiency, different heads being tracked will be associated from frame to frame over constrained target search regions. Tracking-by-detection approaches will be developed for robust tracking, where head appearances are modeled using classifiers that are continuously adapted to changes in the operational domain though on-line and incremental learning. In particular, the proposed systems will incorporate accurate head detection using adaptive ensembles of classifiers based on diverse head representations.

Social Innovation Language and Narratives in Edmonton, Alberta: An Intersectional Approach

This project seeks to build on existing research regarding the current challenges in social innovation work in Alberta, as articulated in Alberta Social Innovation (ABSI) Connect’s 2016 Report on the Future of Social Innovation.

To accomplish this, the intern will interview people in Edmonton who are from multiple marginalized identities (e.g. racialized, identifying as a gender or sexual minority, working class, disabled, etc.) who do work that’s considered as social innovation work through Frances Westley’s definition of social innovation, but may not have the same visibility or recognition as those who do social innovation work in mainstream networks. The intern will then gain a better understanding of the language and narratives that marginalized individuals and/or communities use when talking about social innovation work.

This project will employ an intersectional theoretical framework by seeking and centering individuals or communities doing social innovation work from multiple marginalized identities. An intersectional theoretical lens centers and analyzes the experiences of the most disadvantaged, while using this knowledge to design interventions that are rooted in social justice.

oN DuTy! – Innovative Program on NonDestructive Testing (NDT) – Part 3

NonDestructive Testing (NDT) is a key discipline in major industrial sectors to ensure quality and safety. Several methods are regularly employed in areas ranging from x-ray or ultrasound testing of metallic or composite components in the automotive and aerospace industries, to the inspection of petrochemical ducts using eddy currents or acoustical emissions. The present proposal combines different NDT-related subjects under the oN DuTy! training initiative supported by the NSERC CREATE, whose main objectives are of developing an enriched, unique and innovative Technical and Professional training experience in NDT for students and postdoctoral fellows through a network of leading NDT universities and industrial partners, thereby facilitating the transition of new researchers from trainees to productive employees in the Canadian workforce. The investigated subjects are at the forefront of current worldwide research efforts in NDT and deal with a variety of applications and challenges according to the actual needs of the partners.