Innovative Projects Realized

Developing an Ergonomic Risk Assessment Tool and Work Rotation Plan

The overall objective of this project is to reduce ergonomic risk and the potential for workplace injury across the entire production facility. Repetition, force and posture are factors that can lead to fatigue and injury among workers in a manufacturing setting. By developing an ergonomic demands and risk assessment tool based on current research, the risk associated with each workstation in the facility will be quantified, and recommendations to reduce or eliminate risk of potential injury will be provided. Job rotation schedules will also be proposed that utilize the data from the ergonomic assessments to vary the type of physical demands that worker are exposed to in different areas within the facility. This will reduce the chance of workplace injuries and hopefully increase worker satisfaction.

Une plate-forme interactive pour l’analyse des données génétiques et climatiques

Advancements in DNA sequencing technology throughout the 1980s triggered a transformative shift in evolutionary biology. This groundbreaking period led to the emergence of the field of phylogeography, introduced by John Avise and colleagues just over three decades ago. This highly integrative discipline delves into the intricate connections between xthe history of Earth, ecology, and the diversification of life forms. Phylogeography entails tracing the geographic patterns of the evolution of species, where new species originate from common ancestors, by studying their migrations across different regions.

The goal of this project is to develop and implement an innovative, open-source software platform that stands out for analyzing phylogenetic trees based on phylogeographic processes. This user-friendly tool will be accessible to the scientific community, complemented by a comprehensive guide and various datasets. Its capabilities will empower researchers to address scientific inquiries, such as comprehending the correlation between genetic makeup, geographical distributions of species, and climatic parameters.

The platform will encompass a species mapping feature, a graph generator, and an interactive analysis tool, constituting the core components of the dashboard. The new webpage or the new application will be deployed on an institutional server, enabling simultaneous interaction by multiple users.

Autonomous Landing and Recharging of Indoor UAVs

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are expected to carry out tasks of increased complexity, expanding in indoor environments such as warehouses and healthcare settings. However, indoor environments impose unique challenges to UAVs as the enclosed space is relatively small and safety is crucial for people working in the same space. Furthermore, the unavailability of GPS leads to the reliance of onboard sensors, and the performance is influenced by environmental factors such as lighting. The development of an autonomous landing system for indoor UAVs with required safety and efficiency is a high priority research topic. The primary objective of the proposed research project is to develop a comprehensive landing and recharging station for indoor UAVs. The system will enhance UAV endurance and usability for various indoor applications, facilitating continuous UAV operations without human interventions. A battery recharge and monitoring system will also be developed, including a docking method to align the UAV for contact-based recharging and to ensure efficient, fast and safe recharge of UAV batteries. Two interns are planned for the proposed project: one focuses on the investigation and development of autonomous landing control and the other on development of a recharging station for indoor UAVs.

Prediction des retards et de la performance de ponctualite aux arrivees et departs de YUL Aeroport International Montreal-Trudeau

THIS IS A GENERIC TEXT PUT IN PLACE AS THERE WAS NO PROJECT OVERVIEW

Design ethical AI systems for nautical crime database

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing accounts for as much as 26 million tonnes of fish each year, with a value ranging from $10 to $23 billion USD. Despite its significance, there is a notable lack of comprehensive international databases on nautical crimes, including illegal fishing. This gap presents a significant challenge for effectively monitoring and addressing these activities. Advanced machine learning models and large language models (LLMs) are powerful tools for creating a database. However, their use in this context particularly requires extra attention due to its close relation to legal matters and human rights. Our research aims to construct efficient systems to create a nautical crime database while upholding AI ethics and ensuring transparency throughout the process. Our projects are divided into two themes: (1) exploring efficient models to filter relevant articles from web search results and (2) building a system to accurately extract information from the relevant articles.

AMH, predictive tool of ovarian response to a superovulation treatment in the cow

In dairy cows, future generations are created by embryo transfer techniques, which entail a superovulation treatment followed by fertilization in the field or in the laboratory. Due to enormous pressure exerted by breeders, cows are now superovulated very young, even before puberty and thereafter are superovulated routinely. Despite improvements in this technique, there is still variability in the ovarian response to treatment and loss of ovarian response after the 5th or 6th superovulation treatment. This project aims to predict ovarian response in pre-pubescent and in adult cows that are undergoing repeated superovulation treatments using an endocrine anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) assay. We will determine whether this assay could also predict the loss of ovarian response to treatment. Companies such as Boviteq face these problems every day and would directly benefit from the results of this study.

Senior Smart Health Monitoring System

The population of Canadians aged 85 and older is rapidly increasing, with over 861,000 people in this age group recorded in the 2021 Census, more than double the figure from 2001. The number of seniors aged 85+ continues to rise and could triple by 2046, reaching 2.5 million. Additionally, over 9,500 centenarians now live in Canada, a 16% increase since 2016. The increase in longevity, particularly among those aged 85 and older, often correlates with a rise in chronic conditions and health-related challenges, making continuous health monitoring essential for maintaining quality of life. With the objective of monitoring and improving the health, quality of life, and well-being of seniors, their families and communities, this project proposes a Senior Smart Health Monitoring system. The system has two primary components: a wristband, to be worn by people in need of care, for real-time health data collection and a set of cellphone apps/software for data management and monitoring. Additionally, the product will offer features such as video and audio surveillance, GPS tracking, and emergency SOS calls.

Inductively heated methane pyrolysis

The partner organization intends to decarbonize it’s Canadian lime kilns. One option is to switch to biogenic sources worldwide, although doing so will still result in CO2 emissions. A preferred option is to switch to hydrogen, because it is clean and results in higher kiln efficiency. The technology described in this proposal would advance these efforts by using methane from the existing carbon infrastructure and converting it into hydrogen and solid carbon.

Methane pyrolysis is a CO2-free method of producing hydrogen. Being an endothermic process, energy input is necessary, and emission-free energy is needed to keep the process CO2-free. Using clean electricity is one strategy, however resistive heaters have drawbacks such as high costs and poor heat efficiency. This proposal suggests the use of inductive heaters to heat catalyst to produce clean energy. Additionally, in order to avoid the manage the carbon that deactivates traditional solid catalysts, mechanical carbon removal at moderate temperatures will be employed.

Retrieval augmented answer generation using M-Files Metadata

Multisource Multi Modal RAG framework: The project will focus on developing a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system that can effectively combine and synthesize information from multiple sources within M-Files, utilizing multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) for enhanced accuracy and context. The research will address challenges related to integrating and harmonizing disparate document formats, sources of information and metadata structures, optimizing cross-model communication, evaluation, and ensuring accurate, contextually relevant answer generation while maintaining information integrity and security.

Evaluation of Hydrological Models and GRACE/GRACE-FO in the South Saskatchewan River Basin

Canada, with 20% of the Earth’s freshwater resources, is experiencing changes to its terrestrial water cycle as the impacts of climate change progress. This can lead to complex water storage changes manifesting as flood risks and droughts on various spatiotemporal scales. This project aims to compare a state-of-the-art physics-based hydrological modelling platform, namely HydroGeoSphere, part of the Canada1Water project, with independent products from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its follow-on mission. Specifically, the Alberta portion of the South Saskatchewan River Basin will be evaluated over the two decades of monthly snapshots of Earth’s time variable gravity field, used to derive terrestrial water storage anomalies. The analysis will be carried out using the newly developed Aquanty and spherical harmonic solutions of the Canadian Geodetic Survey of Natural Resources Canada. Calibrating the various terrestrial water storage models using satellite gravimetry data will improve the model output and will help fill the gaps in Canada’s hydrologic data to effectively characterize and manage terrestrial water resources, during times of high-risk flooding and droughts. Results will directly impact government and industry efforts designed to improve community access to freshwater necessary for quality of life in the South Saskatchewan River Basin.

Projet de stage en journalisme à CScience Le Lab

Stage en journalisme au sein de notre organisme CScience Le lab. En tant qu’OBNL opérant un média journalistique reconnu par la Fédération professionnel des journalistes du Québec, spécialisé et multiplateforme, et œuvrant pour la réduction de la fracture scientifique et l’information du public quant aux retombées de l’innovation technologique sur la société, nous faisons face à de nombreux défis et obstacles à notre mission : la crise des médias, la montée de la désinformation, le manque de moyens et de ressources pour assurer une couverture de terrain fréquente et étendue sur la scène de l’innovation québécoise, le besoin de recruter malgré tout des talents ayant les compétences et la rigueur journalistique qui s’imposent, et le besoin d’innover sur le plan technologique et multimédia, de sorte à proposer des contenus novateurs et traitant l’information de manière plus engageante. Répondre à ces enjeux requiert d’agrandir l’équipe de journalistes et de mobiliser des talents qui ont déjà une maîtrise des concepts de déontologie et de rigueur journalistique, une formation académique en journalisme, mais qui ont aussi une capacité d’apprentissage et un désir d’évoluer dans l’écosystème de l’innovation, afin de contribuer à vulgariser des sujets scientifiques et technologiques complexes auprès de notre auditoire, en tirant le meilleur du numérique à travers divers reportages et productions journalistiques pour différents supports : magazine électronique, revue interactive et émissions balado. Répondre à ces défis contribue à assurer le canal de diffusion et d’information auprès de notre auditoire, dans l’intérêt du public et de la démocratie, puisque nous estimons que notre média spécialisé et innovant joue un rôle essentiel en matière d’éducation scientifique et numérique.

Life cycle assessment of anaerobic digestion process

Gazifère is focussed on large scale implementation of RNG as fuel as it owns and operates a 1?000 km gas system. It is true that utilization of a waste such as pulp and paper mill sludge is a beneficial approach for the environment as it helps in waste management and related emission to air, water, and soil. In the meantime, the production of RNG is associated with consumption of materials, fuels, energy along with emission to the environment. The various factors such as source of materials, fuels, transportation related emissions, storage related infrastructure, upgradation and utilization of the final product are implicit in the production process. Each stage is accompanied with some impact on the environment. All this need to be considered to estimate the environmental consequences of this bioprocess. Hence, it is essential to know the environmental impacts of the RNG production using pulp and paper mill sludge as substrate. In the large picture, this will help in establishing environmental friendly practices for treatment and management of waste in Canada.