Innovative Projects Realized

Crude Utopia: The Performance of Energy Transition in Canada

A wave of energy-related theatrical productions and performances has emerged in Canada in the past decade. “Crude Utopia: The Performance of Energy Transition in Canada” analyzes eight such cultural and artistic productions, ultimately arguing that moments of utopia within them gesture toward possibilities beyond human dependence on oil. Such utopic moments allow audiences to “practice” how to transition from oil to more sustainable energy structures. In light of the current momentum of activities such as fracking and Arctic drilling – made necessary by the depletion of easily-accessible oil and gas reserves – the insight that Canadian theatre and performance can provide about energy transition is both vital and urgent. This project will play a role in this transition by providing analysis to facilitate Canada’s movement toward cleaner energy and sustainable energy-use practices. It will also help to inform the creation of future theatrical productions as part of Open Theatre Company, which aims to build bridges for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all levels of experience to come together to explore, create, and develop theatrical work that is sustainable and environmentally conscious.

Exploring Jomon Period Food and Ground Stone Technology through Starch Residues in Southwestern Hokkaido, Japan

The Jomon Period (ca. 16,500 – 2,300 years before present) represents a significant part of prehistory in the Japanese Islands, and this longevity is largely tied to the complex human-environment relationships in Jomon society. My project examines these environmental interactions through microscopic plant remains from Jomon grinding tools, using the residues of human activities to better understand food practices and technology. Grinding tools are commonly interpreted as plant processing implements, and are often seen as evidence for the use of nuts, but my ongoing analysis suggests this is not wholly accurate, especially for Hokkaido. Thus, my current project aims to explore a range of possible uses grinding tools had, as well as the plant resources Jomon communities used for food, materials, and medicines. This research will result in a more comprehensive list of starchy plant species used by Jomon people, and further evidence about a poorly understood category of artifacts.

Pre?misses d’une arche?ologie de la perspective exo-centrique dans les images en mouvement

L’objectif de mon se?jour de recherche en Belgique est de consulter des documents d’archives pour mener a? bon port la troisie?me et dernie?re e?tape de mes recherches doctorales. Mon projet de the?se porte sur une technique cine?matographique que j’appelle la perspective « exo-centrique », soit une image inhabituelle et encore largement méconnue qui traverse néanmoins l’histoire du cinéma. L’objectif de mon séjour de recherche est d’inventorier les exemples de cette technique a? travers l’histoire (grâce aux sources d’archives) afin d’en tracer l’e?volution et l’impact. Gra?ce aux recherches documentaires que je ferai en archive, je compte notamment expliquer les fondements de cette image très inhabituelle qui trouve racines dans les mouvements d’avant-garde cinématographiques en Europe. TO BE CONT’D

Gestion combinee de I’allocation des ordres de fabrication aux usines et desroutes de livraison aux clients chez Toiture Mauricienne

Toiture Mauricienne fabrique des fermes de to its qu’elle livre directement a

partir de ses usines et entrepOts aux sites de construction de ses clients. Lorsqu’un client appelle,

I’ordre de fabricalion (OF) est generalement alloue a I’usine disponible la plus proche du site de

livraison. Une fois les cherpentes fabriquees, cheque usine confectionne des routes de livraison en

prenant des decisions d’allocation des OF aux usines, de choix de remorques et de grues, de choix

des jobs de livraison par camion, et de sequence de livraison, tout en respectant un ensemble de

contraintes liees aux fenetres de temps, a la capacite des remorques, et au retour en charge pour

integrer les transports inler-usines. Ces processus d’allocation des OF et de confection de roules

limitent I’efficacite des routes ainsi conc;;ues. En effet, puisque les routes sont realisees….

Industrial waste tire-derived pyrolytic oil upgrading to fuels and lubricants

Following the COP21 conference in Paris, Canada has made significant commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In order to meet these ambitious targets, the evolution of the current energy scenario towards the use of alternative sources of carbon is mandatory. The use of waste as a source of energy is particularly interesting because it represents a problem to manage. Among them, scrap tires are especially challenging, in particular those from the mining industry due to their size, composition etc. Hence, this project aims at converting the tires into an alkanes mixture. The latter will be treated to produce different lubricants and diesel fuel to the mining industry. This approach would hence help displacing fossil fuel and positively impacting on GHG emissions in the country. The project will also help the partners to gain an exhaustive perspective of the market and value of the products derived from their process.

Potentiel antimicrobien et anti-biofilms d’extraits de coproduits du concombre de mer (Cucumaria frondosa)

La transformation du concombre de mer (Cucumaria frondosa) est une activité récente au Canada, présente au Québec et au Nouveau-Brunswick. Cette nouvelle pêcherie a su trouver des marchés lucratifs en Asie et joue maintenant un rôle crucial pour maintenir l’activité économique de communautés côtières dévitalisées. Actuellement, la transformation du concombre génère beaucoup de coproduits (40% et plus de la biomasse) qui sont envoyés au compostage. Ce projet vise à tester le potentiel de valorisation de ces coproduits pour le développement de nouveaux agents antimicrobiens alternatifs aux antibiotiques ou biocides chimiques reconnus pour leurs effets nocifs sur la santé humaine et sur la santé des écosystèmes naturels. Différents extraits de concombre de mer seront testés pour leur capacités antimicrobiennes et anti-biofilms. Les retombées du projet seront l’obtention de nouvelles molécules bioactives d’origine naturelle alternatives aux agents chimiques utilisables dans la bioprotection contre les microorganismes pathogènes en agroalimentaire, et contre la formation de biofilms dans le secteur des revêtements antimicrobiens.

Developing biomarker identification tools for neurodegenerative diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases have caused massive economic burden on the healthcare system as well as reduced patient and caregiver’s quality of life. Identifying biomarkers for early clinical diagnosis, tracking of disease progression, and evaluation of treatment therapies is critical. However, developing such tools remains a significant challenge. The goal of this project is to manage and analyze complex data sets collected from a large sample of patients with neurodegenerative diseases from multi-modal assessment platforms to investigate decline of speed of information processing in the brain. A central neuroinformatics platform, developed by the partner company, InDoc Research is utilized to integrate the large volumes of data across multiple diseases and different data types. Processing speed is a core and basic ability reflected in many brain functions, and deficits in speed of processing are common to many neurodegenerative disorders. TO BE CONT’D

Evaluation of low-lignin alfalfa in mixtures with grasses

Forage nutritive value is a key component of profitable dairy production with forage fiber concentration and digestibility being critical, as high quality forages can reduce requirements for high-cost concentrated feeds. One approach and new technology developed to increase forage quality has been the release of high digestibility/lowlignin alfalfa cultivars, as alfalfa is the main forage legume used in eastern Canada. These cultivars overall have a lower lignin concentration and/or greater digestibility compared to standard cultivars and thus be harvested at a later stage of development, resulting in greater yields and potentially greater persistence. There is, however, currently to our knowledge very limited information on the benefit of using low-lignin/highly digestible alfalfa cultivars in mixtures with grasses. TO BE CONT’D

Assessment of deep learning for analyzing radar signals in maritime environment

The proposed internships aim at investigating the relevance of deep learning (DL) techniques for target detection in radar data processing. More specifically, we are looking to demonstrate the feasibility of DL techniques to deal with unusual types of data (i.e., radar data) in situations where an well performing processing with classical techniques is a challenge (e.g., detection of objects in noisy scenes from a maritime environment caused by the interference produced by the reflection of the radar waves on the sea). The project is broken down into three main sub-goals: (1) review of relevant literature on radar detection in a maritime environment, (2) exploitation of existing datasets (e.g., IPIX, CSIR), and the state-of-the-art on radar simulation, and (3) application of DL, in particular convolutional neural networks (CNN), for suppressing sea clutter and detecting targets in radar image in maritime environment. TO BE CONT’D

Full characterization of Drug-Drug interactions using deep learning methods

Better understanding Drug-Drug interactions (DDIs) is crucial for planning therapies and drugs co-administration. While, considerable efforts are spent in labor-intensive in vivo experiments and time-consuming clinical trials, understanding the pharmacological implications and adverse side-effects for some drug combinations is challenging. The majority of interactions remains undetected until therapies are prescribed to patients. We propose to use computational tools for predicting interactions in order to reduce experimental costs and improve safety. To achieve this, we will use data about the drugs and information about their biological target that are available at the beginning the drug R&D process. Our hypothesis is that artificial intelligence will improve DDI characterization and provide information earlier in the drug development process. Creating such comprehensive tool will help to reduce the risks associated to drug interactions.

Endogenous quality turnover, macroeconomic dynamics and the informal economy

To what extent do changes in the size of the informal sector affect changes in the quality of goods consumed in developing countries? It is well known that a poor assessment of the quantity and quality of goods consumed by households could lead economic models to underestimate the fluctuations of most macroeconomic variables. However, in developing countries, nearly 40% of economic activity is informal and is therefore hidden from the public authorities in order to avoid taxes and compliance (Schneider et al., 2010). This hidden production gives very little information on the quality as well as the number of varieties of goods consumed by households. We therefore propose in this research project to examine the role of the informal sector in the volume and quality of demand made by households. Our results will gain insight into the fluctuations of economic variables in order to recommend effective stabilization policies.

(In)visibilité de la contamination radioactive dans la photographie japonaise post-Fukushima : expositions et médiation

Mon projet doctoral examine la création artistique contemporaine japonaise suite à l’accident nucléaire de Fukushima, survenu au Japon en mars 2011. J’étudie plus particulièrement le travail photographique de trois artistes japonais qui permettent de rendre visible la contamination radioactive et observe leur réception. Mes recherches au Japon seront composées de séries d’entrevues avec les artistes composant mon corpus, de spécialistes et de professionnels du domaine, de recherches archivistiques, de visites d’expositions, d’une enquête de terrain dans l’ancienne zone d’évacuation et, pour finir, de recherches à l’Institut international de recherche sur la paix (Université de Meiji Gakuin) avec le Professeur Shintaro Namioka. Les résultats attendus pour ce séjour de recherche au Japon concernent principalement la récolte de données pour mener à bien ma thèse doctorale et mes projets dans le domaine de l’art japonais. TO BE CONT’D