Innovative Projects Realized

The role of the media in corporate philanthropy: Media amplification

Does corporate philanthropy affect firm performance? Over the past decades, a considerable amount of scholarly attention has been devoted to examining this relationship. Some studies provided evidence for the positive relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate performance, while others found no empirical support for such relationship. This mixed and inconclusive evidence calls for the need to scrutinize the underlying mechanisms by which corporate philanthropy can be beneficial for firm performance. The proposed project will explore whether a firm’s success in drawing positive media attention to its donations is the precise mechanism by which corporate philanthropy affects firm performance. Engaging in corporate philanthropy is inevitably costly to a firm. The primary economic benefits accruing to a firm from spending resources on charitable giving may come through obtaining social approval from external stakeholders. Corporate philanthropic activities failing to draw attention from the media are likely to be insufficient to outweigh the costs of giving, because those activities have little or no influence on stakeholders’ perceptions of how much a firm cares about and gives back to its communities. To be cont’d.

Time Series Forecasting for Stress Testing Models and Credit Transition Matrices: Research & Development

Consistent with industry norms, ATB Financial conducts both mandatory and discretionary stress tests of the whole institution and of its credit portfolio. This project aims to contribute to the refinement of the in-house expertise on methodologies employed to measure credits risk and the overall level of risk of the institution. These activities normally require management to provide an estimate for ATB’s financial performance, capital and liquidity position conditional on a set of predefined scenarios. The focus of the research project is on the estimation of default probabilities and loss given default.

MADMAX – Building a Novel Dark Matter Detector from Scratch

Psychological Distress among Immigrants in Montreal

In this proposed research project, I plan to study the lived experience of migration, and the factors underlying psychological distress, among international students in Montreal, Canada. I propose to analyze archival data and conduct interviews in order to accomplish this. Upon completion of the project, I will return to Japan and conduct a parallel study in Osaka in order to compare results across the two contexts. I have decided to carry out this research in Canada because it is a country with a very large population of immigrants and a long history of multiculturalism, in contrast to Japan. My proposed co-supervisors and I anticipate that the results of this project will improve our knowledge about the experiences of immigrants, the impact of migration on well-being, and similarities and differences between the Canadian and Japanese contexts.

Brain networks of complex arm functions after stroke

Stroke is the most frequent neurological disorder leading to long-term disability by an impairment in movement control. In this project we aim to quantify the damage to a patient´s brain with a newly developed method: Tractography-based Lesion Assessment Standard (TractLAS). This tool provides a patient-specific quantification of the whole-brain structural network damage caused by stroke. Therefore, it creates a way to link network damage to clinical symptoms and behavioral impairment.
This project represents a unique scientific direction, since the expertise and previous work of the collaborators complement each other in a unique way: on one hand we will use a new methodological approach to quantify the effect of lesion on disconnection in the whole brain and, on another hand we will provide a thorough and cutting-edge assessment of sensorimotor performance deficits in a group of stroke patients using clinical scores and robotic technology. We believe that this work will result in important neuroscientific, clinical and methodological advances.

Optimal decentralized control systems with unreliable communication links

In traditional control systems such as industrial plants, automobiles, HVAC systems, etc. consist of a single dynamical system that is controlled by a single controller. Such systems are referred to as centralized control systems. Many of the modern control systems such as networked control systems, Internet of Things, mobile robotics, vehicular platoons, and smart grids consists of multiple dynamical systems that are controlled by multiple controllers. Such systems are referred to as decentralized control systems. The optimal design of centralized control systems is well understood. For centralized control systems with linear dynamics, quadratic cost, and Gaussian disturbances (abbreviated as LQG systems), the optimal control strategy is easy to synthesize and easy to implement. However, the optimal design of decentralized control systems is still an open area of research. In other words, there is no approach to obtain the optimal design of a general decentralized control system. Most of the result in the literature investigate models with specific features and exploit the features of the model to establish that the optimal control strategy is linear and has a finite dimensional representation. To be cont’d.

Tracking the parasympathetic nervous system, emotions, and wellbeing in daily life.

Wearable body sensors are groundbreaking in that they allow for continuous and unobtrusive physiological measurements. The promise is that someday soon, smartphones will monitor our bodily state and thus prevent all kinds of wellbeing implications: acute physiological issues like stroke or heart attack; less acute but still serious illness, such as chronic illnesses caused by destructive behavioural patterns; and everyday psychological experiences such as stress and bad mood. But this is not yet a plug and play matter; simply attaching a heart rate sensor does not fulfill this dream. Physiological data is complex and the scientific validation of continuous real-life physiological measurements is still scarce. There’s a lot to be learned about how different physiological markers can be used to inform us about underlying physiological and psychological processes. The present study is a first step in a program aimed at exploring whether readings from a wearable sensor can be used to improve physical wellbeing by way of improving emotional regulation.

Integrating Constraint Programming Scheduling into an AI Planner

OPTIC is a state of the art piece of research software designed to allow computers to autonomously plan complex tasks, such as construction projects, rail timetables and other planning and scheduling tasks. Currently, OPTIC handles the scheduling process using a technique known as Mixed Integer Programming (MIP). In this project, the aim will be to integrate a new, alternative mechanism for performing the scheduling process, known as Constraint Programming (CP). With the help of expertise at the University of Toronto, this new approach will significantly improve on OPTIC’s ability to schedule certain types of problems, by hybridising the scheduling approach between MIP and CP techniques.

Data-driven modeling of the impact of Asphalt surfaces on the UHI phenomenon

the physics-based modeling of the impact of road pavement characteristics on UHI can be complex and inaccurate. On the other hand, advances in data science and machine learning along with the ever-increasing computational power offer data-driven modeling opportunities that are relatively easy to setup. In recent years, with the rise of the Internet of things (IoT) and embedded sensors, a large amount of road pavement construction data can be generated and collected. This represents an opportunity to develop accurate data-driven models relating various design/construction/operation parameters referring to asphalt construction and maintenance with UHI.
The general objective of this research is to enhance an understanding of the data capturing, analysis and processing techniques currently conducted at the Concordia University, in particular by the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering. With this in mind, by participating in this programme I seek to answer the following questions, as part of my PhD researcher project:

(1) Based on previous research projects conducted by the researchers Nassim Masoudifar and Amir Sharif, what are the best approaches to treat real-time streams of data? And,
(2) What is the best statistical approach to extract suitable features to represent the climatic characteristics of urban areas.

Terahertz imaging of a vortex beam generated from a printed vortex phase plate

Printable electronics is a new advanced manufacturing technology, which allows a low-cost and simple fabrication of optical devices. The production consists of three main steps: choosing the materials, printing, and sintering. At first, a metallic ink and a substrate must be chosen. The second step is a printing which could be realized even with a common printer from our home or office. In the last step, the sintering should be applied to make a conductive structure from a printed trace. We use an ink-jet printer to create an optical device in the form of a vortex phase plate (VPP). It is able to generate a vortex beam, such a tornado. This beam has a lot of potential applications for many fields, such as biomedical, optical tweezers for manipulation of particles, a high-resolution microscopy, and telecommunications. We designed and printed a set of VPPs and changed the conductivities by varying the parameters of the sintering. To analyze the strength of the vortex beam as a function of the printed ink conductivity, we have used a terahertz spectroscopy. This is a powerful well-known non-contact, non-destructive and highresolved technique to characterize the properties of materials. To be cont’d.

An Examination of Early Childhood Educators’ (ECEs) Knowledge, Self-Efficacy and Risk Tolerance for Outdoor Play Among Young Children in Childcare

Playing outdoors in exciting, risky activities has been shown to positively impact the health of children. However, children are often restricted from engaging in this type of play due to safety concerns. Educating adults who care for children about the importance of outdoor risky play is an important step to help improve children’s opportunities for outdoor play in childcare. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the success of a workshop, developed and delivered by the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario, at improving early childhood educators’ knowledge of outdoor play, their confidence to promote outdoor play among children, and their everyday tolerance for risk in childcare. Any improvements noted after participating in the training will demonstrate success. The results will be used to inform future training for YMCA childcare staff to ensure that educators are knowledgeable and confident to support the implementation of outdoor risky play within their programs.

ADAJ- Pratiques juridiques controversées

La présente demande concerne le chantier de recherche sur les « Les pratiques juridiques controversées » :
Une partie des coûts de la justice est attribuable à des pratiques situées aux limites de la déontologie professionnelle : rapport collusoire entre praticiens, multiplication des dépenses douteuses, honoraires abusifs, exploitation de l’ignorance des justiciables, engagement dans des procédures qui auraient pu être évitées par un recours judiciaire à la Conférence de règlement amiable, introduction de procédures dans le cadre de dossiers dont les fondements en droit sont clairement faibles, etc. Des problèmes équivalents traversent sans doute la profession notariale.
Une étude sur les principales causes de dénonciation au Syndic du Barreau et de la Chambre des Notaires et sur leur issue, de même qu’une enquête menée auprès des praticiens permettra de compléter cet inventaire et conduira à une redéfinition des formations offertes en matière de déontologie professionnelle, particulièrement à la lueur du projet en cours de réforme du Code de déontologie des avocats.

Le chantier de recherche sur la « Les pratiques juridiques controversées » fait partie d’un grand projet de recherche en partenariat sur l’Accès au droit et à la justice (ADAJ) supporté par le Conseil de recherche en science humaines..TBC