Innovative Projects Realized

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

A Design Approach toward Developing Criteria for Effectively Assessment of the Information Literacy

The National Engineering Research Center for E-learning in Central China Normal University is a pioneer research center in the field of education, and we have theories and tools of education and education informatization assessment in the field of learning and education.

One main objective for our group is to effectively design students’ assessment criteria of information literacy. Information literacy is considered as the basic skills set of and the key competency for the 21st century. Assessing and evaluating the level of students’ information literacy is not possible without assessment criteria.

In this project, the Environment Based Design (EBD) methodology will be used to design the assessment criteria of information literacy for K-12 students. After getting the criteria, they will be compared with information literacy assessment criteria designed by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement and used in International Computer and Information Literacy Study from the background of criteria design, the participants, the period, the specific information literacy assessment criteria class and so on for verifying the rationality and usefulness of the criteria.

Outils et méthodes de planification du transport adapté

Le transport adapté des personnes ayant des besoins particuliers est une activité qui demande des outils et méthodes de planification différents du transport collectif régulier. Dans ce projet, nous proposons trois éléments : 1) des modèles de prévision de la demande de transport adapté à court et moyen terme, 2) un outil de planification permettant de fusionner les déplacements de transport adapté au service régulier de transport collectif et 3) un module d’évaluation pouvant être utilisé pour examiner différents scénarios de desserte des usagers en fonction des composantes de la demande, des ressources disponibles et de nouvelles technologies (véhicules autonomes, véhicules électriques, infrastructures accessibles), le tout basé sur un calculateur de trajets accessibles à la clientèle en fonction de leur incapacité fonctionnelle.

Évaluation de la santé et du bien-être des veaux laitiers destinés à l’élevage des veaux de boucherie

Ce projet de recherche, en cours, est mis en place en concertation avec les principaux acteurs de la filière laitière québécoise principalement les producteurs bovins, le ministère de l’agriculture, les chercheurs de la faculté de médecine vétérinaire et l’association des médecins vétérinaires praticiens du Québec.
Le but de ce travail est d’améliorer les connaissances sur la filière veau de boucherie – veaux laitiers transitant par les lieux de rassemblement pour la vente (encans) – afin d’optimiser la santé et le bien-être des veaux laitiers et leur qualité en engraissement.
Structurant pour l’ensemble de la filière, il vise à documenter les points critiques associés à des anomalies chez l’animal afin de permettre la valorisation des veaux laitiers, l’amélioration de leur suivi et une meilleure performance en engraissement.

Functional investigation of the dynamics of TERRA and hTR in cancer cells

The research project is focused on the relationship between cancer and telomeres. It is intended to be a functional investigation of the dynamics of TERRA, a long non coding RNA transcribed at telomeres, and hTR, the telomerase RNA subunit, in human cancer cells. TERRA is an important molecule implicated in telomere maintenance and genome stability. Interestingly, TERRA interacts with the telomerase enzyme; however, the molecular details and implications of TERRA-telomerase interactions remain to be elucidated. A main objective of the project is to study the localization dynamics of TERRA and the telomerase RNA in human cancer cells. Preliminary results from our laboratory indicate that, in cancer cells, TERRA localizes to Cajal Bodies, a subcellular compartment. Since it is known that telomerase localizes to Cajal Bodies and this localization is essential to telomerase maturation, I will investigate whether TERRA and telomerase RNA both co-localize with Cajal Bodies in cancer cells and whether and impaired localization of telomerase to Cajal bodies also impact on TERRA localization. My results are expected to help understanding the function of TERRA in the regulation of telomerase in cancer.

The Tabletop Makerspace: A Portable Low-Cost Personal Fabrication Toolkit

This project will be a collaboration between the School of Interactive Arts at Simon Fraser University and Science World in Vancouver, British Columbia. A portable low-cost set of tools will be assembled to support “maker” activities, educational do-it-yourself building project that use electronics and personal fabrication technology. Personal fabrication technology refers to a new generation of desktop sized fabrication machines that create physical objects from computer files. The toolkit will be used to conduct workshops with the Future Science Leaders program at Science World. FSL is

a science enrichment program for high school students. Workshops will be used to collect data on the use of personal fabrication technology.

Reinforcement Learning for Aviation Training

This project seeks to explore the use of a class of artificial intelligence algorithms called reinforcement learning for the purpose of aiding the training of new pilots. In the process, we seek to “teach” an algorithm how to fly an aircraft by exposing the AI pilot to a virtual environment and providing it with flight data and a goal. Alternatively, the algorithm could learn by observing human pilots. If this approach is successful, it could lead to better autopilot systems as well as teaching aids for new pilots by simulating their response to different flying environments and helping instructors select the most appropriate training exercises.