Innovative Projects Realized

Three dimensional (3D) ultrasound image analysis of the female pelvic floor

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is the descent of the pelvic organs into the vaginal canal, affecting up to 50% of the female population. Pessaries are intravaginal medical devices used to alleviate the symptoms of prolapse. However, pessaries are fit through trial and error and finding the right fit is not guaranteed for all patients. Cosm Medical aims to develop custom pessaries to overcome these challenges. The process of developing custom pessaries involves a novel ultrasound imaging technique to provide quantitative measurements of the vaginal canal. This project is a critical first step towards the evaluation of the imaging technique for providing the required measurements. This project focuses on analyzing the obtained ultrasound images from POP patients to predict the right pessary for successful fit. The goal of Cosm Medical is to build a Canadian medical device company with a global reach to improve the lives of 1 million women by 2026.

A Comparative Study of the Explicit and Implicit Attitudes of Heterosexual College Students in China towards Gay Men

In a heterosexual-based sociocultural environment, homosexuality has often been ostracized. Negative social attitudes towards homosexuality has impacted the legalization of gay marriage, of LGBTQ2 peoples’ access to social support and their mental health experiences. Before the 1990s, researchers often studied social attitudes at only a conscious, or explicit, level. Later research has suggested that implicit social cognitive processes also play an important role in the formation and changing of social attitudes towards others. Research with Chinese college students has shown that that they hold a positive explicit attitude towards homosexuality, whereas implicit bias exists. However, there are only few studies on the causes of this phenomenon, and, therefore, there is little research examining explanations for why Chinese college students have a negative attitude towards gay men.
This work will be an extensive review of existing literature to identify variables that may be contributing to a difference in implicit and explicit attitudes towards gay men in Canadian and Chinese samples. Based on these identified variables, this work will propose an appropriate quantitative or qualitative methodology that would be appropriate for answering my research questions of interest.

The Underlying Emotional and Facial Dynamics of Positive Affect

Positive and negative affects underlying facial expressions are detected and perceived by facial cues, markers and physiological responses. Therefore, the facial cues, markers and physiological responses are important in detecting and perching emotional states. For example, researchers have found that the area of the eye dominates individual’s perception and classification of faces. As well, researchers have found that higher skin conductance levels are indicative of increased emotional arousal. Also, a recent study demonstrates stereotyping biases in infants as it found that infants associate own-race faces with happy music and other-race faces to angry music. Therefore, these studies demonstrate that facial and emotion perception and cognition is influenced by many variables.
Building on this, foundational research by Dr. Lee has demonstrated the negative and positive affect have not been analyzed in depth. This research study plans to extend on previous work to investigate the facial and physiological markers that are associated with positive affect, and the factors that account for differences in positive affect emotions. Overall, this study plans to analyze positive affect and physiological processes involved in emotion response, detection and perception through multimodal methods.
It is expected that there will be significant differences in facial and physiological responses derived

Development of Solar Micro-Reactors for Steam Methane Reforming

Hydrogen is often seen as an energy carrier that can support our growing need for greener energy. However, current methods to produce hydrogen are cost prohibitive or generate large volumes of CO2, namely by the combustion of natural gas (NG) to provide heat to the commonly used steam methane reforming (SMR) process. By using established concentrated solar power (CSP) technology to provide heat instead of combustion, it is possible to reduce CO2 emission and NG consumption. A solution developed at Université de Sherbrooke uses micro-reactors to harvest the heating power of the sun for SMR. This strategy could provide a method to produce large volumes of greener hydrogen while reducing its cost. The research project covered by this proposal aims at demonstrating the economic and technological viability of this approach and is split in 4 different tasks, each of them covered by an intern.

Impact of maternal cognitive sensitivity on children’s empathy development

I intend to address the gap in the literature about the relationship between parenting and children’s empathy development by systematically examining the relationship between a specific type of parenting practice: maternal cognitive sensitivity, and how it promotes children’s empathy development. The main objective of this study is to explore how cognitively sensitive parenting fosters the development of children’s empathy. My study is embedded within a large longitudinal study previously conducted and completed in Dr. Jennifer Jenkins’ lab, that examined influences on children’s development using a within family design.

For my proposed study, I will use existing data from Dr. Jenkins’ study and I will focus on data about the youngest child in the family. To explore the proposed regression model, I will conduct hierarchical regression analyses to examine the relationship between maternal cognitive sensitivity and children’s prosocial skills.

I expect to find that the specific parenting practice examined has a positive impact on children’s empathy development.

Intersectionality and career decision-making in young Chinese women studying in Canada

I propose a qualitative inquiry about the factors that influence female Chinese international students’ decisions to return to work in China or remain abroad. I will create a semi-structured interview intended to discover what themes emerge for these women through this experience and the important factors in their decisions. Although there is existing research on intersectionality and career theories, I want to apply it to this particular population. As career counsellors, we must expand our cross-cultural knowledge in order to tailor our support of young Chinese women making important career decisions, and vocational well-being is a crucial element of overall well-being.

Web2.0 + Web3.0 Approaches to the Information / Decision Interface in Public Policy

After more than half a century (or perhaps many centuries) of reflection on how observations

and evidence interact with public policy processes, conclusions about the proper relationship

between scientific inquiry and political discourse remain elusive (witness, e.g., continuing

controversy surrounding the issue of human contribution to global warming). Revolutions in

how data and knowledge are accumulated and shared, and how on-line discourse is

facilitated, have not diminished the debate or clarified the relationship. Indeed, the scale of

observations, records, data, information, knowledge and opinion that must be taken into

account in public policy and governance decisions continues to grow, without any

corresponding scaling of our ability to manage that flow. This research cluster brings together

emerging trends in Web2.0 (the social web) and Web3.0 (the semantic web) to investigate

new approaches for engaging participatory mechanisms for public policy deliberation,

collaborative enterprise-wide policy analysis, and semantic data-mining in support of

evidence-based deliberative policy formation. The benefits to the partner centre on solidifying………..TOBECONTINUED

Impact of older siblings’ cognitive sensitivity on children’s empathy development

Sibling relationships provide an important context for both positive and negative socialization in childhood. Although there is extensive anecdotal and scientific evidence which demonstrates that older siblings influence their younger siblings’ social development, I intend to specifically address the gap in the literature about how older siblings might promote empathy development in younger siblings. My research question is: how do cognitively sensitive siblings foster the development of their younger siblings’ empathy?
For my proposed study I will use data from a large longitudinal study previously conducted in Dr. Jenkins’ lab. I will analyze the data on the youngest child in the family (i.e. target child). To explore my research question, I will conduct hierarchical regression analyses to examine the relationship between older sibling cognitive sensitivity and their younger siblings’ empathy.
Expected outcomes include a positive correlation between older siblings’ cognitive sensitivity and younger siblings’ empathy.

Patterns of neural activity in math anxious students during a math test

Math specific anxiety is thought of as a performance-based anxiety, in which increased arousal and negative thoughts inhibit performance on mathematics assessments (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001; Dew, Galassi, & Galassi, 1984; Levine, 1995). Mathematics anxiety interferes with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of life and academic situations. When anxiety arises during stressful math tasks, students have difficulty sustaining attention and might feel restless, experience frustration about feeling “stuck” on one part of a test, and they might begin to disengage from the task because they feel they won’t succeed (Pekrun, 2006). This project will attempt to gain a comprehensive understanding of the neural mechanisms that drive this phenomenon. The research questions will address whether students with high anxiety and fear of mathematics demonstrate different patterns of processing in the brain during a mathematics test. The findings from this project will inform future research in the cognitive and neural processes involved in mathematics learning for students who experience mathematics anxiety. Understanding the neural processes that drive mathematics learning will help researchers develop intervention strategies that can be used in the classroom when negative emotions arise surrounding mathematics learning and achievement.

Impact of parental cognitive sensitivity on at-risk children’s empathy development

The objective of this study is to explore how cognitively sensitive parenting fosters the development of children’s empathy in at-risk children.
To date, there is some research that suggests that the parent-child relationship contributes to the development of empathy in children. Parents who exhibit cognitive sensitivity promote mutual and positive interactions, adjust their behaviour according to what children need, and provide clear verbal and non-verbal directions (Prime et al., 2014; 2015). It is hypothesized that this type of sensitive parenting may foster the development of empathy in children, and can moderate risk for children who face environmental adversity.
For my proposed study I will use data from a longitudinal study previously conducted in Dr. Jenkins’ lab that examined influences on children’s development. I will use data about the youngest child in the family (i.e. target child). I will conduct quantitative analyses to examine the relationship between environmental risk, maternal cognitive sensitivity and children’s empathy at preschool age and how they predict subsequent children’s empathy when children were between 5-9 years old.

Applications of Blockchain for Cross-Border Deposits in the Finance and Banking Sector

Blockchain technology changed how e-payments work and opened the door for development of advanced and secure e-payment systems. Currently, cryptocurrency is the only well-known, successful application of blockchain technology. However, the application of blockchain technology is not limited to cryptocurrencies. Many distributed ledger technology experts discussed the benefits of applying blockchain in many sectors such as, finance, government, healthcare, energy, supply chain, and transportation. One important sector expected to benefit significantly from blockchain is the banking sector. Banks and financial institutions around the world are investigating blockchain applications. Perhaps banks are slowly and carefully examining blockchain, but they are actively exploring the technology. In this research project, we are collaborating with Scotiabank and the Cross- Border Institute (CBI) to investigate the applications of blockchain technology in Cross-Border Deposits. The project aims at developing a platform for cross-border banking to reduce the cost and the time required for cross-border deposits.

Perfectionism as Mediator of Adult Attachment Styles and Alcohol Problems in Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adulthood is an important transitional time between the ages of 18 to 25, that is characterized by both increased possibilities and increased risk behaviours. As such, alcohol problems are frequently found among emerging adults. Research has found that individuals with high levels of insecure attachment have more alcohol problems due to their negative view towards themselves and others. Similarly, attachment insecure individuals are more likely to possess maladaptive perfectionism, which is characterized by extremely high self-criticism, ruminative concerns over mistakes, and a permanent sense of failure. Furthermore, perfectionistic cognitions are defined as frequent automatic thoughts and images involving the need to be perfect. Research has found that perfectionistic cognitions are associated with various mental health issues, but there is no research examining the specific role of perfectionistic cognitions in the forming of alcohol problems. Similarly, although maladaptive perfectionism has been found to mediate the relationship between attachment style and alcohol problems, there are no studies that examine perfectionistic cognitions. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to test the mediating role of perfectionistic cognitions in the relationship between insecure attachment styles and alcohol problems among emerging adults