Innovative Projects Realized

Implementation of an automatic sound recognition system for activity daily living

In the framework of a collaboration between eBioMed chair of UTC-BMBI lab and Ubilab from Waterloo University, an automatic sound recognition system for activity daily living identification will be implemented on a Raspberry Pi card. This algorithm is able to analyse continuously the sound environment and to recognize distress sounds and was already proposed on a PC implementation. The first objective of the project is to transfer the algorithm on the limited resources of the embedded card. The system will be evaluated first, in our Living Lab and in a second step by our partner Senio@dom, in real conditions at home.

Ketamine use among teenagers

Ketamine was developed primarily as an anaesthetic agent for use in pediatrics, oncology, and veterinary practice. However, soon after its development and wider availability, Ketamine became a commonly abused drug around the world, particularly in East Asia. Further, Ketamine use among adolescents and young adults increases rapidly in recent years, thus understanding the long-term consequences of ketamine use is imperative. The study aims to examine the effect of Ketamine on teenagers’ cognitive functioning, brain network and connectivity. It is hypothesized that female ketamine users will demonstrate an altered brain response compared to males.

Creative Housing Options for Adults with Developmental Disabilities and High Complex Needs

A crisis is looming for many Ontario citizens with developmental disability and other challenges that make their support needs especially complex. In recent decades a process of deinstitutionalization moved the Province away from a morally problematic “warehousing” model towards one where people had an opportunity at meaningful lives in their communities. However, many are living lives that depend on family members who are stressed, aging, and in declining health, and there is no plan in place for what happens when these families can no longer carry that load. This project will gather and analyze information that will help clarify what can reasonably be done to help avert the looming crisis, but gathering information about what sorts of homes the people involve need and hope for, and by investigating creative approaches taken in other jurisdictions to evaluate their appropriateness for the Ontario context.

Industrial Economics Research Based on Multi-tier Supply Chain in the Background of Industry 4.0

First, student will summarize the research types, research approaches and research outputs on multi-tier supply chain in the last decade years by system literature review and use the design matrix and related design engineering methods to link the different research approaches, research types and research outputs to develop methodological frame of the multi-tier supply chain. The articles based on this study will be submitted to an international journal. Then , through the study of changes in supply chain strategies to explore “outsourcing or self-production” strategies under the background of industry 4.0 to support companies for improving investment strategies, production mode and product mix by game theory and sensitivity analysis etc. TO BE CONT’D

The Development of Multilingualism in a Bilingual Society

This project explores the way in which children learn language, focusing especially on those who come from international backgrounds, and whose families maintain the family language at home. In general, these kids tend to have a much better grasp of the local language (spoken in their school / city / country). We want to know what impacts the development of their family language, and what obstacles they face as they learn it. Specifically, we’re looking at the impact the identity of the local language and specific interventions (like Saturday language school) have on this family language.

Outdoor Microclimate Analysis for Enhancing Architectural Project Designs

The climate conditions of outdoor urban spaces is strongly influenced by the form and materiality of surrounding buildings. Features as specific as balconies and different-coloured claddings can contribute to the temperatures felt by pedestrians in the immediate vicinity. This project aims to discover architectural features which improve outdoor thermal comfort during the shoulder seasons of mixed climates (Spring and Fall). The implication is that outdoor leisure spaces such as courtyards, patios and rooftop terraces may be used for a larger part of the year – the shoulder seasons effectively become ‘stretched’. The method involves using computer simulations and applied physics to determine the relative influence of various architectural features on temperature. KPMB will benefit from the expansion of their design scope in a new dimension, which will grant them new opportunities to satisfy everyone who interacts with their projects.

Modeling recruitment in the Acadian Forest Region of North America using tree-list models

Predicting future wood supply is critical for stakeholders in the forest product sector to sustainably manage their activities. Such predictions are subject to various bio-physical factors. Several NB forest companies have made a priority to focus on the management of and adaptation to two of these environmental factors: climate change and, to a lesser extent, browsing by herbivores. The general objective of the project is to develop modeling tools to predict the regeneration of commercial hardwood species under environmental pressures. The project will produce deliverables targeted for forest stakeholders in New Brunswick and Canada. These deliverables will contain specific recommendations that forest stakeholders can use to sustainably conduct their sylvicultural activities in hardwood and mixed-wood stands. This project will foster economic growth of the forest industry in New Brunswick by providing solutions for sustainable and profitable operations in the context of a changing climate and environmental conditions.

Characterizing the concentration and makeup of microplastics in wastewater effluent and stormwater overflows to the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers and evaluating microplastic removal in wastewater streams with a newly developed mesh sock.

The research aims to examine the amount and type of microplastics in wastewater streams entering the Ottawa River. As wastewater treatment has been identified as one of the main conduits of microplastics to freshwater environments, the research will sample both wastewater effluent and combined sewer overflows to get a better understanding on how many, and what types of microplastics enter the Ottawa River via these pathways. By investigating the amount and make up of microplastics in wastewater streams, the research can provide valuable information to RESTco, so the company can further develop and test tools for effective micro and nano-plastic removal from wastewater streams and existing pollution in wild waters.

Improved transductive regression using interconnected data

The explosion of data from personal phones, apps, and sensors have enabled powerful machine learning algorithms to help computers identify, categorize, and evaluate information without the help of humans. However, teaching computers how to identify, categorize, and evaluate information usually requires feeding the computers a lot of data pre-labelled by humans. The pre-labelling process is costly and time consuming. The goal of this project is to develop new algorithms to teach computers to identify, categorize, and evaluate information with less pre-labelled data. These new algorithms will use hidden relationships within the information itself, and will also be able to integrate other related data in a way that is easier for the computer use. If successful, these algorithms will be able to learn more from data, while reducing the burden of producing pre-labelled data.

Robust project scheduling policies for naval refit operations at Thales Group

In large-scale construction projects such as naval refits or aircraft overhauls, project execution is subject to considerable uncertainty and a baseline schedule quickly becomes unachievable. For naval environments, high variability in work scope and duration occur at every stage. Furthermore, tools and equipment can fail or not be on-site when needed. Human resources are drawn from a pool of workers coming from a mix of fixed-capacity-unionized workers and contractors. To limit the effect of unexpected but inevitable schedule disruptions, resource (equipment and workers) buffers are used to absorb the changes and protect schedule quality. This project will explore the recent developments in critical chain project management (CCPM) and propose mathematical models to evaluate the effectiveness of time and resource buffers in improving schedule stability, and ways these buffers can be implemented in navy refit optimization to provide the best overall schedule adherence. The models will incorporate time-quality, capacity-cost, cost-risk trade-offs.

Air Quality Assessment for a chemical manufacturing plant.

Pollutants from various anthropogenic sources contaminate the environment which in tum

affects the ambient air quality. When general population gets exposed to these contaminant

through contaminated air they would have adverse health effects. The objective of the project is

to perform air quality assessment for a chemical manufacturing plant, located in Alberta (exact

location is confidential). This assessment predicts how the pollutants get dispersed in the

atmosphere. In order to perform this assessment the information regarding the source, site,

meteorological data, and receptor information will be collected. Using these data the Emission

characterization and air dispersion modeling will be carried out. The output from the model

Phase de transfert de la recherche sur de développement de la Relation de coopération au sein d’établissement d’enseignement au niveau des collèges privés non-subventionnés du Québec. Modalités de mise en place d’un dispositif relationnel de coopération au collégial.

Ce projet recherche porte sur la mise en place d’un nouveau dispositif relationnel de coopération pour favoriser une gestion de classe efficace au collégial. Ce projet de recherche propose comme premier objectif de décrire le processus de mise en place et de maintien du dispositif relationnel de coopération de St-Germain (2016) pour favoriser une gestion de classe efficace et comme deuxième objectif d’identifier les limites de sa mise en place. Ce groupe de recherche s’intéresse aux approches de la gestion de classe auprès des étudiants adultes et plus précisément au développement des savoir-être qui favorisent le partenariat entre l’enseignant et son groupe classe.