Innovative Projects Realized

Mise à l’échelle numérique de modèles hydrologiques pour les modèles de climat à grande échelle

La résolution spatiale horizontale des modèles climatiques régionaux est à l’heure actuelle encore assez grossière, de l’ordre de la dizaine de kilomètres. Cette résolution engendre une sous discrétisation spatiale du cycle hydrologique continental, et donc une estimation approximative des échanges d’eau et
d’énergie entre l’atmosphère et la surface continentale. Pour quantifier les erreurs associées à cette sous discrétisation, et pallier à ce problème, le projet proposé vise à mettre au point une méthodologie de changement d’échelle numérique pour les modèles hydrologiques décrivant le cycle de l’eau
continentale. Plus précisément, il s’agit de «partir» d’un modèle hydrologique numérique discrétisé finement puis de le sous discrétiser progressivement afin de : i) quantifier l’évolution des erreurs ; ii) proposer pour chaque discrétisation des paramètres physiques « upscalés » qui minimisent ces erreurs.
Le code numérique utilisé sera HydroGeoSphere, développé conjointement par les Universités Laval et de Waterloo. La méthodologie sera appliquée au bassin versant du Little Washita (USA).

Transformation de la gouvernance des ressources forestières au Québec dans le contexte du projet de loi no 28

À l’automne 2014, le gouvernement du Québec déposait le projet de loi no 28, entraînant notamment la fermeture des Conférences régionales des élus (CRÉ) qui étaient investies de certaines responsabilités en matière de forêt. Dans ce contexte, les acteurs territoriaux doivent se réorganiser afin de faire avancer les différents dossiers touchant l’exploitation et la gestion durable des forêts. À partir d’une étude de cas comparative qui fait appel aux entretiens semidirectifs et à l’analyse documentaire, ce projet vise à mieux comprendre les répercussions qu’aura cette loi sur la gouvernance des ressources forestières au Québec. Au terme du stage, nous proposerons des pistes de solution afin de faciliter la réorganisation des acteurs forestiers et valoriser les compétences acquises au cours des dernières années. Ce projet permettra au stagiaire de profiter de l’expertise technique et des contacts du CERFO dans le domaine de la sylviculture et de l’aménagement forestier durable, et au partenaire de mieux cibler ses interventions auprès de ses clients.

Development and testing of crops demonstrating improved biomass hydrolysis for biofuel production

Biobased products, mostly derived from plant biomass, have the potential to improve the sustainability of Canada’s natural resources and environmental quality while competing economically. Plant biomass, composed primarily of cell walls and modification of cell wall properties has the potential to improve biomass conversion to biobased products such as biofuels. Progress towards achieving this goal is currently impeded by a lack of knowledge of how cell walls are assembled and how their structure affects the processing of biomass. The scope of the proposed research is to identify new varieties of crops (rice, wheat, corn and switchgrass) having improved plant biomass properties. These will be identified using a multipronged approach that utilizes state of the art plant molecular biology techniques and a novel screening method.

Advancing Innovations in Affordable Housing Development in Ottawa

In an era of declining public spending, cities across Canada are in the grips of an affordable housing (and corresponding homelessness) crisis. Last year, in Ottawa, nearly 7,000 people stayed in an emergency shelter and more than 10,000 households were on a waitlist for affordable housing in Ottawa. Through targeted policy research and semi-structured key informant interviews with City of Ottawa staff, non-profit housing providers and private sector real estate developers, the project will analyze the City of Ottawa’s housing and planning policies to identify how existing policies can be used to better effect in order to increase the number of affordable housing units built annually in Ottawa. The study will also investigate best practices (e.g. innovative models and partnerships in the delivery of affordable rental and ownership housing) from other jurisdictions across Canada and determine how they might be applied to new private sector-led redevelopment projects in Ottawa, including the Oblate Lands and Chaudière Falls sites, where CCOC/CAHDCO is partner.

A statistical analysis of customer satisfaction prediction and call volume forecasting

Large businesses can incur enormous costs in servicing customers through call centres. Depending on the size of a company, the volumes of calls can be in thousands of calls per hour. Intern Thomas Bennett will work with Adroit Vista and his academic supervisors to develop a statistical methodology to optimally extract information from call center operational data sources to understand the customer experience and forecast call volume. The results allow Adroit Vista to develop a feasible approach for real-time forecasting and updating in order to offer automated recommendations to their clients on how to improve customer satisfaction and determine the level of staffing in the most cost effective way.

Stage de recherche en bibliographie matérielle : le genre littéraire du caquet aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles

Au XVIe siècle, Lyon est le deuxième centre d’imprimerie le plus important au royaume de France, après Paris. La base de données électroniques « Lyon 15-16 », qui contient la description bibliographique de quelque 20 000 éditions imprimées, témoigne de cette richesse. Parmi ces imprimés figurent les « caquets ». Il s’agit de courts textes narratifs publiés aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Ils mettent en scène, dans un esprit farcesque ou polémique, le jacassement d’individus assemblés (généralement des femmes de basse extraction sociale : harengères, lavandières, etc.). Ce projet consiste d’abord à repérer, à décrire et à comparer les caquets conservés dans la région lyonnaise afin d’accroître les connaissances bibliographiques sur ce corpus méconnu. L’analyse textuelle et la rencontre de spécialistes de la littérature d’Ancien Régime donneront ensuite lieu à une réflexion sur les notions de rumeur, de collectivité féminine et de public dans la première modernité. Plus précisément, nous étudierons la dimension métadiscursive des caquets, c’est-à-dire leur tendance à commenter leur propre
traitement du langage. Il se dégage en effet du flot de paroles des « caquetants » un discours critique sur la force médiatique du commérage, à une époque où l’efficacité politique de la sphère publique se développe.

Translation as a Productive Cultural Space: Gao Xingjian in Translation

My proposed project focuses on the translation and reception in France of works by the Chinese-French writer, Gao Xingjian, the laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000. I will use Gao’s novels in French translation as a case study to problematize the pessimistic views on the untranslatability between Chinese and Western languages as well as the manipulation of Chinese literature in the West. Through textual analysis, I argue that translation creates a productive space beyond the limits of the source and target cultures in the contact zone. My stay at the Gao Xingjian Centre in the Department of Asian Studies, L’université d’Aix-Marseille will give me the opportunity to collect the first-hand materials and exchange with the experts as well as with Gao himself. In addition, I intend to communicate the outcome of my research in France in a conference presentation as well as in an article published in a peer-review journal.

Thermal breakdown of analog lunar rocks

The proposed research will study the rock breakdown on the Moon due to thermal fatigue caused by the thermal stresses arising from diurnal temperature changes. This is done through data analysis, modeling, and physical experiments. This work is important because it fills a key gap in our understanding of the processes by which the lunar regolith – the name given to the fine debris layer, tens to hundreds of meters thick, that covers the surface of the Moon – forms and evolves. Additionally, understanding the nature and origin of the regolith will be important because the regolith will undoubtedly serve as a key resource for future human exploration and habitation of the Moon.

GEOIMPACT: Geophysical study of mid-size impact structures

The GEOIMPACT project aims to study several meteorite impact craters in Canada by using geophysical methods (for example seismic waves, electricity or magnetism). In the Solar System, meteorite impact craters are the most abundant morphologic features on rocky bodies (planets, asteroids) such as the Moon and Mars. However, the Earth has only about 180 known impact craters, most of them being either highly eroded by past tectonic and climatic processes, or buried. Therefore non-destructive geophysical methods that probe the subsurface are particularly suitable for studying such structures, and few studies using such methods have been done in the past. Thus, the present project will allow researchers to conduct an important field-based geological and geophysical survey on craters of the Canadian High Arctic. Geological interpretations of new data will help to better understand the currently available lowresolution geophysical signals over similar impact structures on other planets (Moon, Mars).

Selenium removal from waste waters by electrochemical reduction

Because of the toxicity of selenium, its removal from waste water is a crucial treatment before discharging. Selenate (Se(VI)) and selenite (Se(IV)) are the most common species of Se in waste waters. There are many efficient methods for removal of selenite from wastewaters (e.g., ferrihydrite chemical co-precipitation, cementation, or adsorption) while the removal of selenate is difficult to achieve due to its high mobility, weak adsorption (to be co-precipitated), and kinetically slow reduction rate. So, the main concern of this research is to remove selenate by selective reduction to selenite to enable the co-precipitation of Se with iron. The ultimate goal is to remove selenate in order to meet the receiving water standards in BC and Canada. This project can be a possibility for Seabridge Gold to venture into new markets. With an increasingly short supply of water to serve the world markets and industries needing revolutionary ways of saving costs, Seabridge Gold can tap into the emerging world of water treatment.

Modification chimique de la lignine et de la cellulose pour le renforcement de composite

Ce projet vise à utiliser les polymères naturels du bois, la lignine et la cellulose, afin de remplacer des produits de sources pétrolières dans la composition des plastiques, produits isolants et matériaux composites. L’usine Kruger de Trois-Rivières a démarré en août 2014 une usine pilote de filaments de

cellulose (FC) de pâte thermomécanique. Ces FC ont des propriétés de résistance mécaniques exceptionnelles, une densité faible (légère) en plus d’avoir une coloration relativement neutre. Nous obtiendrons ainsi à partir de ressources renouvelables, le bois, de nouveaux matériaux biosourcés. De plus, le procédé de fabrication est vert puisqu’il n’utilise aucun produit chimique ni enzyme et ne produit pas de rejet (rendement de 100%). Il sera nécessaire de combiner ces FC avec des polymères plastiques afin d’obtenir des matériaux composites pouvant être utilisés dans divers domaines dont l’emballage, l’automobile, aviation, les équipements industriels, etc.

Conversion of Petroleum Coke to More Valuable Products with Zero CO2 Emissions

The production rate of petcoke is growing rapidly because of continuous increase in the volume of heavy crudes. This poses a long-term challenge to the upgrading and refining plants to find an economical petcoke utilization approach and reduce their waste products and also environmental impacts. In addition to its profitability feature, this technology should ideally have minimum environmental impacts. Thus, the aim of this project is development and techno-economic optimization of a commercial scale petcoke-based plant that employs novel technologies to produce fuels, chemicals and electricity with zero CO2 emissions. After investigation of different scenarios, the best strategies (based on profitability, thermal efficiency, capital cost, CO2 emissions, etc.) will be introduced to the industrial partner for further research and possibly experimental tests.