Innovative Projects Realized

At-a-station measurement and prediction of flow and sediment fluxes in rivers

This project will make a major contribution to improve channel rehabilitation projects, which are reconstructing streams to imitate the natural form of the stream. These projects are very costly and their failure can cause high financial losses. The results of this project will lead to a decrease or elimination of the financial losses by improving the design of restored channels. In addition, this project will improve protection of the species-at-risk “Redside Dace” by improving the accuracy of monitoring the deleterious sediments entering their habitat.

High-throughput design and synthesis of novel nanomaterials for Li-ion batteries

This research project seeks to develop new low-cost and abundant materials for energy storage, like batteries, with an improved performance. The work will include the design, synthesis and characterization of the new materials, and, ultimately, will use them in fully functional devices. The project will focus in novel ways of combining elements and alloys with high conductivity in order to eliminate the expensive materials used nowadays in commercial batteries.
Based on the previous work done at the Toronto facilities, combinations known of metals such as Iron, Cobalt, Nickel and Tungsten will be put to the test so that the battery can attain higher voltage than the ones conceived presently.
The student will participate in computational materials design, building the machine learning models to describe the obtain data, materials synthesis in a high-throughput robotic system, materials characterization and battery testing. All experimental training on material fabrication and characterization will be provided in place.

Advancing biological phosphorus removal from wastewater using applied genomics

Wastewater can be damaging to the environment if left untreated. Microorganisms play important roles in removing harmful pollutants, such as organics and nutrients, within wastewater treatment plants. For instance, certain wastewater bioreactor designs promote the growth of specialized microbes that sequester phosphorus into their cells, which prevents harmful algal blooms in natural waters and enables sustainable nutrient recovery as fertilizer. Yet, we currently understand little about the types of microorganisms within these treatment processes, and what types of metabolisms they are performing. Such information is direly needed to develop engineering solutions that recover resources from waste and improve environmental water quality. This research will employ new genomics-based techniques to study the microorganisms that are active within a novel wastewater treatment process that AECOM is developing in partnership with the City of Penticton (British Columbia). TO BE CONT’D

Operational complexity in accounting research : measurement(s) and impacts

This project aims to find a better way to measure operational complexity for multi-segments firms, under an accounting perspective. Complexity is an important matter for accounting as many studies have documented how complex firms are harder to analyze for many stakeholders (financial analysts, auditors, regulators). Basically, operational complexity is currently proxied by the number of business segments in which a firm operates. This measure is incomplete because it does not account for the distance between segments – how they are related to each other – and their respective weight – what proportion of firm’s total sales they represent. Overall, this research project aims to find a better way to measure operational complexity in order to better the impact of complex firms on the main users of financial statements.

Inhibition du virus de l’hépatite B

L’hépatite B est un virus. Un virus utilise le matériel biologique de son hôte pour exister. L’hépatite B affecte chroniquement environ 240 millions de personnes à travers le monde. C’est conséquemment une pathologie de premier l’ordre lorsque l’on évoque la santé publique.
Ce virus affecte sans précédent la qualité de vie des gens qu’il parasite. Ce dernier affecte le foie d’où son nom « hépatite ». Contrairement à l’hépatite C, l’hépatite B ne requiert que 4 gènes virales pour se répliquer. Trouver un remède est alors difficile dû à sa dépendance biologique discrète dû à son mode de réplication. Autrement dit, ses interactions avec les cellules sont faiblement notoires. De plus, lors de la conception d’un remède, il faut penser aux effets secondaires de celui-ci. TO BE CONT’D

The Epidemiology of Fabry Disease and Metabolic Acidosis in Manitoba

The proposed project is for the postdoctoral fellow to access healthcare data for individual adults in the province of Manitoba in order to: 1) determine the rates of metabolic acidosis in Manitoba along with associated outcomes and risk factor profiles and 2) identify patients in Manitoba who are at high risk of Fabry disease but currently undiagnosed in order to facilitate disease screening and improve patient care. The postdoctoral fellow will use their statistical and programming expertise to link various datasets of physician visits, hospitalizations, laboratory results and drug prescriptions via a scrambled patient health number that is tied to a unique patient but unidentifiable to any researcher so to protect privacy. The postdoctoral fellow will conduct statistical analyses and then will compile their results into several reports complete with text, tables and figures to be presented to our clients. They will also create manuscripts based on their reports that will be suitable for publication in an academic medical journal. This project will help the partner (CDIC) understand the epidemiology of important chronic diseases, provide synergies with ongoing clinical trials conducted at CDIC, and will help establish CDIC as a capable research partner within the pharmaceutical industry.

Characterization of pharmacogenetic variants in a Brazilian admixed cohort of elderly individuals

Differences in our genes can increase or decrease susceptibility to certain diseases and influence response to drugs. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genetic variation impacts efficacy and toxicity of drugs. To date there are more than 1200 pharmacogenes described in literature, but only a small fraction of them have been implemented into clinical practice to inform prescription decisions. In the case of Brazil and Latin American, population admixture between three major ancestral groups (Native American, European, and sub-Saharan African) plays a key role for pharmacogenomics implementation because extrapolation of data derived from studies with well-defined ethnic groups is clearly not applicable to most of the population. Thus, the aim of this project is to asses common and rare variants in clinically relevant pharmacogenes in an admixed cohort of Brazilian individuals and to identify the origin of these variants by mapping the local ancestry. These findings will provide a high resolution map for studies of pharmacogenomics in admixed population and contribute to the characterization of novel rare variants that could impact on functional variability in pharmacogenes.

Machine-Learning assisted computational search for new Li-Ion

The objective of this project is to apply machine-learning algorithms for the assisted computational search of new energy materials. In particular, cathodes for Li-ion batteries and solid-electrolyte interphase systems will be explored.
Development of new high-performance battery materials is an integral component of overcoming the dependence on fossil fuels and ending the energy and climate crisis. Cobalt, the main component in state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries, has already tripled in price in the past few years, and significant further increases are expected with a shift to electric vehicles and battery grid storage. Novel and cheap materials are urgently needed. Materials discovery in chemistry and material science often relies upon trial and error, and thus, proves challenging since a rational design approach is not present. This project tries to tackle this issue while using an assisted computational search approach to find alternative cathode materials.

DSP-Based Digital Controller for a Bi-Directional DC-DC Converter

The objective of this research is to design and implement a controller based on a Digital Signal

Controller (DSC) for the operation of the bi-directional DC-DC converter developed by Alpha

Technologies Ltd. As a result of this work, the intern must provide the partner organization with the

appropriate firmware to run the DSC and its proper documentation. To achieve this goal the intern will

work for a four-month period to complete the following five stages: system modelling, controller

design, DSC peripherals modelling and controller firmware development, DSC-Converter integral

simulation, and experimental implementation and tests. The development and use of modern

methodologies for implementing digital controllers for power converters will help the partner to

develop capabilities to upgrade other power conversion topologies as part of their family of products.

Kant et l’Académie de Berlin

À ce jour, peu d’études ont été réalisées sur la contribution de l’Académie de Berlin à la pensée d’Emmanuel Kant. Pourtant, cette influence est non seulement véritable, elle détermine grandement l’évolution de certains des thèmes centraux de la philosophie kantienne. Pour ces raisons, une thèse faisant l’analyse des écrits de Kant et des personnages gravitant dans le giron de l’Académie de Berlin permettra d’émettre des hypothèses crédibles sur le rôle joué par cette institution dans la genèse des idées de Kant. Un travail de ce type pourrait certainement représenter une contribution utile aux études kantiennes, dans la mesure où il s’efforcera d’offrir une compréhension des écrits kantiens articulée autour des débats métaphysiques et scientifiques de leur époque. Seul un séjour à Berlin m’offre la possibilité de consulter certains mémoires archivés à la Bibliothèque d’État qui sont étroitement liés à mon sujet de recherche. J’espère notamment y trouver une documentation pertinente permettant d’approfondir nos connaissances sur le débat des forces vives. La supervision de Tobias Rosefeldt promet d’enrichir significativement mes démarches. Elle me permettra de côtoyer d’autres chercheurs et étudiants qui partagent mes intérêts de recherche.

Digital literacy technologies: Applying empirical evidence to optimize reading outcomes

Learning to read is the single most important skill that children learn in elementary school. Squiggle Park is an innovative company that designs digital literacy games that allow children to have fun while learning this critical skill. The Language and Literacy Lab at Dalhousie University has international-level scientific expertise in the process of children’s reading development. This MITACS cluster is a partnership between these business and scientific leaders—with the goal of improving the effectiveness of its products. Student interns will develop and validate new content, with an eye towards increasing Squiggle Park’s market share.

Establishing the role of the hippocampus in working memory impairments in children with focal epilepsy

Working memory impairments are a common co-morbidity of pediatric epilepsy and adversely impact school performance and quality of life. Research in adults with temporal lobe epilepsy suggests that brain networks established in long-term memory (i.e., hippocampus in the mesial temporal lobe) may be involved in working memory, but it is not yet known whether these findings extend to children with focal epilepsies. This research will examine the neuroanatomical underpinnings of working memory impairments in children with focal epilepsy. We will use task-based fMRI to examine hippocampal connectivity, and correlate results with cognitive performance and parent-report of working memory. Children with focal epilepsy will exhibit impairments in working memory and greater working memory problems in daily life, compared to typically developing control children, which in turn will be associated with alterations in hippocampal connectivity. This study will contribute to our understanding of memory impairment in pediatric epilepsy, inform pre-surgical evaluation of memory in clinical practice, as well as the development of interventions.