Innovative Projects Realized

Electrical Material Characterization and Non-Destructive Diagnostics on Power Cable Dielectric Materials subjected to Thermal Aging – Phase II

Electric power is almost entirely transmitted through polymer insulated cables or wires in every home, factory, plant, or apparatus. If the temperature of a cable increases, it would be an indication that some accidents or malfunctions such as inflow of excess electric current occur in the cable. The generated heat, indeed, degrades the polymer insulations in cable, thus, making it unsuitable and unsafe for extra service. Therefore, it would be markedly valuable if the thermally-degraded portion in the cable can be located accurately without destroying the cable. In this project the electrical properties of cables are studied and employed as potential indicators to diagnose thermally-degraded regions of the cable. As a result, possible malfunctions in cables due to heatoverloads can be detected in an efficient, fast, low-cost, and non-destructive way which elevates the safety and lowers catastrophic risk in power transmissions.

Reconstruction of Historic Phosphorus Loadings to Mara Lake: Evaluation of Changes in Trophic State

Mara Lake in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada, experienced a large algal bloom in 2010. Such algal blooms can be harmful to the health of humans and livestock, and can damage the ecological, recreational, and resource values of the lake. The algal bloom was associated with increased nutrient inputs from human land uses in the lake’s watershed. This project will use a paleolimnological approach to make objective, credible inferences as to past changes in human caused nutrient loading to Mara Lake. Inferred changes in past nutrient levels will be compared to contemporary indicators of nutrient loading obtained from mass balance approaches. The data and anticipated results from this study will inform best management and remediation measures to manage nutrient loading and mitigate environmental damage at Mara Lake.

Examining health and resilience among trans people across geopolitical locations.

The proposed study aims to address how different social and political climates affects the mental and physical health of transgender and gender diverse people living across 4 U.S. states and 1 Canadian province. This is significant because we are at a turning point in history in which there is both increasing visibility of trans people in society as well as significant backlash and hostility toward this already marginalized group; collecting data among transgender people living in both rural and urban areas will enable further analyses of place-based differences in minority stress experience and health. During the fieldwork component of the project, I will be trained in mixed methods data collection and analysis, including the biomarker collection, and conducting semi-structured interview. I will also participate in write-up and publication of findings, which will result in at least one or two peer reviewed publication and a several conference presentations.

Optimizing Sea Cucumber Harvesting and Processing in Atlantic Canada

There are major areas of uncertainty concerning the exploitation and management of the sea cucumber (C. frondosa) industry in Atlantic Canada. This research project will address these gaps and give stakeholders a better understanding of C. frondosa, in order to make the best possible decisions relative to its management and conservation. The proposed research will also seek to identify concrete ways of optimizing sea cucumber harvesting and production, by increasing the quality, consistency, and competitiveness of the products, and exploring novel commercial avenues.

Optimization of Wastewater Treatment anaerobic digestion processes.

This project will test a variety of operating conditions used in anaerobic digestion (AD) in wastewater treatment (WWT) plants. The purpose is to identify optimal conditions for AD treatment process. Optimization of AD process would increase production of biogas for production of renewable energy, increase yield of bio-products for agriculture use, reduce WWT plant operating costs, and would decrease carbon footprint of municipal WWT plants. This study will use SENTRY-AD™ technology to monitor microbial activity under various treatment conditions. Data collected by the sensors will help to identify optimal AD operating conditions.

Human Activity-based Cycle Time Analysis for Optimizing Repeatable Processes on Manufacturing Floors

Over 70% of tasks in manufacturing are still manual and because of this over 75% of the variation in manufacturing comes from human beings. Human errors were the major driver behind the $22.1 billion in vehicle recalls in 2016. Currently when plant operators want to gain an understanding of their manual processes, they send out their highly paid industrial engineers to run time studies. These studies produce highly biased and inaccurate data that provides minimal value to the manufacturing teams. This project aims to create a smart production assistant that helps manufacturing plant operators gain unprecedented visibility into their manual production operations allowing them to optimize their worker efficiency while maximizing productivity.

Twisted foldings and double moment graphs

Schubert calculus is a well-established area of modern geometry that studies configurations and intersections of linear subspaces. Since its invention more than a century ago, it became one of the fundamental tools in different areas of mathematics, physics and computer science that deal with solving various types of linear equations. A typical question which is addressed by the methods of Schubert calculus can be stated as: How many parameters one needs to describe general solutions to a given system of linear equations satisfying some linear boundary conditions. The proposed project is dedicated to developing new formulas and algorithms that help to establish new relations between linear systems associated to different configurations of the so called root vectors.

In simple words, we look at certain configuration of vectors that are stable under reflections (the root system). To each such configuration we assign a system of linear equations (global sections of structure sheaf on the moment graph). Folding this configuration of vectors into a smaller one (performing the twisted folding) we obtain smaller system of linear equations. Solving the latter, one recovers most of the solutions of the original (large) system. TO BE CON’T

Ré-optimisation en temps réel pour la réfection de navires

La planification de la réfection d’un navire est une tâche difficile qui requiert un effort considérable en termes de ressources qu’il faut gérer. Elle comprend plusieurs centaines d’activités d’inspection, de désassemblage, de réparation, de remplacement, de reconversion, de modernisation et de réassemblage. De plus, il faut prendre en compte les contraintes d’espace qui limitent le nombre de ressources employées dans chaque zone de travail. Cette planification est souvent sujet à des perturbations (par exemple, un employé en retard, une tempête, une machine en panne, etc.) de deux types : i) mineures qui nécessitent des ré-optimisations fréquentes et rapides ou ii) majeures qui sont moins fréquentes mais qui demandent plus de temps de calcul. À notre connaissance, les logiciels commerciaux connus ne répondent pas à ce besoin. Le planificateur doit tester lui-même différents scénarios manuellement afin de construire/reconstruire un plan de projet acceptable. TO BE CONT’D

A Day in the Life of a Kindergarten Child: Immigrant Children in Transition – Pilot Study

Young immigrant children, like immigrant adults, are faced with many challenges surrounding acculturation. In order for them to be able to live within and between two cultures there is a need for them to understand the traditional values and beliefs of their family’s heritage, as well as the cultural values and beliefs of the society and the school system in their new country (Berry et al., 2006). Factors such as the quality of schooling and parent involvement in schooling have been identified as important to successful integration of the family into the community and to the long-term school success of children in transition. However, very little is known about how these factors interact and transact to enable these young children develop a secure cross-cultural identity. A Day in the Life of a Kindergarten Child: Immigrant Children in Transition, is a proposed pan-Canadian investigation, the aim of which is to explore………TBC

Cross Domain Recommendation System for the food industry

The proposed research will enable customers to see personalized recommendations based on multiple factors such as their order history, their preferences and contextual information such as the meteo and the day of the week. The main expected benefit is to increase the average bill by showing personalized recommendation

Biparental haploid cells to generate genomically designed offspring

In natural selection, differential fitness relies on the chromosomal shuffling during meiosis that enables the production of haploid gametes that are genetically different. However, meiotic-induced genetic variability can be an economic burden to the animal breeding industry since offspring often do not inherit the most desirable genes from their parents. Although genomic markers are currently being used to identify superior offspring at birth or even sooner, animals or embryos are frequently culled for not inheriting the best genes from their parents. This project is aimed at eliminating meiotic uncertainty from cattle breeding programs by determining the genomic value of both parental gametes before fertilization. Oocyte and sperm-derived haploid cells will be produced and analyzed to identify those carrying a superior genome to generate offspring. TO BE CONT’D

The Next Generation Agriculture: Botanical extracts and essential oils as the new antimicrobials against microbial contaminants and diseases of Cannabis

The majority of license producers (LP) Cannabis producers have witnessed evidence of powdery mildew and grey mold and bud rot diseases. Plant yields and ultimate profitability can be severely undermined by these diseases. Medicinal plants produce essential oils in the form of secondary metabolites. The essential oils have the potential to be used as antibacterial, antifungal compounds. The proposed research will screen a wide range of medicinal plants and essential oils for their potency against fungal diseases and mycotoxigenic organisms that affect Cannabis production and products. TO BE CONT’D