Innovative Projects Realized

Development of Efficient Methods Preprocessing Large Lidar Data Sets for Application to Road Design and Optimization

Technological improvements, competition in the survey services industry and the increased use of UAV’s (drone) has driven down the cost of LiDAR acquisition. As a result, LiDAR is rapidly gaining popularity in application in road planning and design. LiDAR data sets typically contain tens of millions of points. Efficiently processing this data efficiently presents challenges for software.

The proposed research seeks to investigate methods for preprocessing LiDAR data sets for road design and optimization. Included in this are algorithms and data structures for rapid conversion between TINs (Triangulated Irregular Networks), raster grids, and cross section models. The application of these methods would be tailored to civil engineering calculations such as contour generation earthwork calculations and alignment optimization.

Flow Weaver Virtual Reality Research Project

This project is intended to further the videogame industry’s understanding of user presence and immersive game design, where the player feels that they exist in a virtual space and can control a virtual environment with their physical body. Rather than trying to achieve immersion in a virtual world by escaping from the body, this project engages the player’s body on the other side of the screen through motions and mechanics enacted through virtual body ownership. The goal is to make the player feel that they actually exist in the game world and can affect it with actions that correspond to their on-screen virtual appendages. The Interns involved in this project will foreground their research by conducting tests and creating variations using the game Flow Weaver. TO BE CONT’D

Development of a New Test Method to Evaluate the Impact of Curing on the Near-surface Chloride Penetration Resistance of Concrete

The rate at which chlorides from deicer salts penetrate into concrete towards the reinforcing steel has a strong influence on the time-to-corrosion and service life of concrete structures. Thus, the permeability of the concrete cover layer protecting the reinforcement has to be minimized especially in severe exposure conditions. In addition to the type of concrete, the permeability of the concrete cover is influenced by early-age curing (keeping the concrete warm and wet to maintain cement hydration that fills in pores). There are currently no standard test methods for evaluating the impact of curing on surface durability and resistance to chloride ingress, so the purpose of this research is to develop a test method that can allow precast concrete manufacturers and owners of structures to determine adequate curing regimes. This will help prevent premature corrosion of steel reinforcement in concrete structure

Spatio-temporal patterns of snake bite and suicide in India

In epidemiological studies, most of the existing research tried to investigate the long-term trends (e.g., yearly) in the disease data. However, in this project we will investigate the spatio-temporal patterns of snake bite and suicide in India, both of which are the significant health concerns in India. For both snake bite and suicide, the seasonality interacted with space is likely to expect and the current existing modeling framework is not appropriate any more. This introduces new statistical problems and the epidemiological modeling framework needs to be extended. The India’s Million Death Study (MDS) provides the daily disease data related to snake bite and suicide, which enable us to investigate the spatial variation in seasonality, and the short-scale variation related to weather, wild life and economics. In addition, we will make useful conclusions about snakes, suicide, and the proposed methods will be broadly applicable.

Entrainment in turbulent round jets

Turbulent jets of gas or liquid play a crucial role in combustion of fossil fuels, the delivery of aerosols to the human airway and lungs and various industrial applications. One of the main features of a turbulent jet is that as it evolves from its point of origin it engulfs fluid from its surroundings. This entrainment enables the jet boundaries to spread. The turbulent entrainment process and the mechanisms that control the transport of mass, momentum, and scalars from a turbulent region of a fluid to a non-turbulent region are of widespread interest in science and engineering. Despite decades of research on turbulent flows, there still remain open questions regarding the entrainment mechanisms and as to whether small-scale or large-scale turbulent motions are dominant in the entrainment process. We propose to address this issue by comparing entrainment in jets emanated from origins with different boundary conditions created by placing different control rings at the jet exit nozzles. Accurate optical velocity and concentration measurements will reveal the entrainment coefficient and various length scales in different nozzle cases allowing for discovering a direct link between scales of motion and entrainment in turbulent jets.

Realistic Canadian wind power assessment and electricity cost

where the best sites, and combinations of sites are, is critical to facilitate private investment in wind

electricity. The proposed research with Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners L.P. will determine the

most desirable locations for large-scale wind farm deployment, as well as the cost of electricity

supplied by such farms to a selection of Canadian demand centres.

To accomplish this goal, simulated wind data from the US National Centres for Environmental

Prediction will be gathered from the past five years, at regular three-hour intervals, and used to predict

the amount of wind-generated electricity at each location in areas of predetermined high wind. This

output will be heavily dependent on realistic constraints, such as topography, seasonal effects and

manufacturer specifications. The cost of electricity will be calculated using input from Brookfield’s

experience with energy and transmission infrastructure, to ensure accuracy. The work provides a

backbone around which Brookfield can structure their portfolio of renewable generation assets.

Are stories just as transporting in your foreign language?

Individuals from diverse backgrounds are routinely exposed to a second language, whether it is through formal education, within the community, or at home. As such, many individuals are consuming stories in a language other than their native tongue. Although past research has shown that sequential bilinguals typically report weaker emotional experiences when processing emotional content in their second language (Pavlenko, 2012), there is little to no research on how processing a story in a second language influences how engaged we are in a storyline and its characters. Hence, the proposed study will recruit French-English bilinguals who will read a story in either French (first language) or English (second language) followed by a measure of narrative transportation in each language. Based on previous findings from the emotion literature, it is hypothesized that reading a story in a second language will elicit lower scores in narrative transportation. Such findings will have implications for media consumption, literacy, and education.

Accelerated Generative Adversarial Networks

L’un des défis majeurs dans le domaine de l’intelligence artificielle est la disponibilité de larges banques de données utilisables pour entraîner les différents types de modèles. Les « Generative Aversarial Networks » (GANs) sont des algorithmes d’intelligence artificielle récemment développés qui permettent de générer des exemples échantillons d’apprentissage pour divers algorithmes d’intelligence artificielle dans des cas où les données d’entraînement ne sont pas disponibles ou ne sont pas assez nombreuses. Un GAN comprend généralement deux parties : un réseau de neurones générateur(G) et un réseau discriminant (D). La famille des GANs est la famille la plus connue des modèles génératifs. Le premier GAN a été introduit par Goodfellow et al. dans lequel le discriminateur et le générateur doivent être entraînés simultanément, un processus qui converge très lentement. TO BE CONT’D

Asymmetry of Resolved Galaxy Properties

To analyze spectroscopic images of galaxies, astronomers often assume galaxies are azimuthally symmetric and compress that information into a radial profile. However, it has not been tested whether different spectroscopically derived properties adhere to this axisymmetric assumption. In particular, recent studies have found that star-formation and gas metal content in galaxies is not always symmetric about the galaxy’s center, particularly for galaxies undergoing a close interaction with another galaxy of a similar size. We endeavor to measure the asymmetry of galaxies in the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) spectroscopic imaging survey. From this sample we will verify whether or not the majority of galaxy properties in such surveys can be considered axisymmetric, and identify the cases where asymmetry is large enough to caution against employing radial profiles. TO BE CONT’D

Entre neurosciences et droit. Le cerveau adolescent moyen du laboratoire au tribunal

Le présent projet s’intéresse aux manières dont les savoirs neuroscientifiques sur le développement du cerveau moyen adolescent circulent des laboratoires de recherche aux tribunaux. Au cours des derniers mois, j’ai réalisé une série d’entretiens aux États-Unis auprès d’acteurs impliqués dans la construction et la diffusion de ces savoirs. Je souhaite à présent me rendre en France afin de déterminer comment les savoirs produits outre-Atlantique sont intégrés ou tenus à l’écart des débats entourant la justice des mineurs. J’intégrerai l’axe de recherche Science et cognition du GÉMASS, un laboratoire de recherche prestigieux regroupant de nombreux chercheurs reconnus internationalement. Mes deux objectifs principaux seront d’une part de m’entretenir avec des acteurs scientifiques et du milieu de la justice des mineurs, et d’autre part, de participer à la vie intellectuelle du GÉMASS. Le discours des acteurs français me permettra de mieux saisir les forces sociales et culturelles nationales qui favorisent ou s’opposent à l’intégration des savoirs scientifiques sur le développement cérébral adolescent dans le contexte de la justice pénale. L’intégration du GÉMASS me permettra d’échanger, d’établir des collaborations et de diffuser les résultats préliminaires de cette recherche.

Quantitative biomarkers from Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the non-invasive method of choice for diagnosing and studying neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). However, conventional MRI that is currently used in clinics cannot provide a reliable measure of neuronal health. More specifically, it cannot distinguish healthy from diseased myelin, a key component of neuronal tissue that is damaged in MS causing functional deficits such as paraplegia or decreased visual acuity. Advanced quantitative MRI (qMRI) methods such as relaxometry, diffusion MRI and magnetization transfer are sensitive to myelin changes but are rarely performed in clinics due to technical challenges, such as long acquisition times.
The goal of my internship will be to explore the potential of a novel fast quantitative MRI technique called synthetic MRI. TO BE CONT'”D

Modélisation du devenir du phosphore et du calcium alimentaire chez la truie

L’objectif principal de ce projet est d’améliorer les connaissances sur le devenir du phosphore (P) et les facteurs interférents et d’utiliser ses connaissances pour développer un modèle mathématique représentant le devenir du P et du calcium (Ca) alimentaires chez la truie afin d’optimiser leur utilisation, de mieux définir les priorités de recherche et d’établir des recommandations minérales. Plus spécifiquement, les objectifs sont d’améliorer le bien-être et la longévité des truies et la durabilité de la production en: 1) Adaptant le modèle du devenir du phosphore et du calcium alimentaires développés chez le porc en croissance à la truie, 2) Explorer et acquérir des informations essentielles sur le métabolisme phosphocalcique, 3) simuler le remodelage des réserves osseuses chez les truies, et 5) établir des stratégies optimales d’alimentation en P et Ca en utilisant le modèle développé.