Innovative Projects Realized

Managing Beech Bark Disease with ecological economic options

American beech is a tree species that is distributed from the southeast of the United States up to the southeast of Canada. It has significant ecological and economic importance in Canada, especially in southern and central Ontario and Quebec. The beech population is suffering from beech bark disease, which kills most of the mature individuals, causing a reduction in nut production, which is used as a food source for many mammals and birds, also reducing the possibility of achieving merchantable values for logs. This project will collect data to produce mathematical models of tree development and evaluate a set of plausible management options to deal with the problem. It will also provide Haliburton Forest, and others from forest sector, with optimal silvicultural treatments and management strategies including do-nothing or replace beech with other tree species to sustain beech forests and forest ecosystem goods and services, in general, in a cost-effective way.

Ongoing innovation with energy-economy-emissions models

The goal of this project is to support the research of two master’s students whose work would advance methods for estimating the impacts on emissions, the economy, energy costs and housing affordability resulting from government environment, technology, economic and urban form policies and investments – occurring at all three levels of government in Canada. The modelling and data advances resulting from this project and the training these two interns will improve Canada’s ability to cost-effectively achieve its GHG commitments, notably its net-zero by 2050 target. After graduating, the students will be highly qualified personnel likely to play key roles in the efforts of Canada and other countries to accelerate the global energy transition that is essential for preventing a catastrophic outcome for humanity.

50 ans de luttes syndicales pour les professeur.e.s de l’Université du Québec à Rimouski

En 2023, le Syndicat des professeures et des professeurs de l’Université du Québec à Rimouski (SPPUQAR) fête le 50e anniversaire de son accréditation. L’occasion est saisie de faire un retour sur ces années, dans un contexte où un nombre inégalé de syndicats de professeur.es sont en négociation afin de réclamer de meilleures conditions pour réaliser leur mission et celle de l’université dans son ensemble. Il faut dire que l’institution universitaire vit une situation inédite : accroissement des effectifs étudiants aux cycles supérieurs, faible augmentation du corps professoral, intensification du rythme et de la compétition en recherche, charge administrative, reddition de comptes et bureaucratisation accrue, course à l’enseignement à distance accélérée par la pandémie, etc. Le présent projet propose donc de réaliser le bilan des enjeux, luttes et contributions du SPPUQAR au cours des 50 dernières années. Pour ce faire, la stagiaire fera la synthèse de différents documents d’archives (presse, organisation, etc.) pour répondre aux questions suivantes : comment le syndicat a-t-il joué son rôle au sein de l’UQAR et à l’échelle régionale et nationale? Comment s’est-il inscrit dans les alliances syndicales universitaires? Dans quels dossiers, politiques, économiques ou sociétaux, a-t-il pris position?

Stagiaire en Data Science

Le stage proposé d’une durée de 4 mois a pour objectif d’aider notre entreprise à maximiser l’exploitation de ses données, en particulier celles concernant les différents entrepôts canadiens. Les missions principales du stagiaire se diviseront en deux catégories : la réalisation de modèles de données et des tâches stratégiques.

Dans la première catégorie, le stagiaire participera à la création d’un modèle de machine learning capable d’identifier des champs spécifiques (prix, entrepôts disponibles, réductions, dimensions, etc.) dans les données collectées, afin de simplifier le processus de mise à jour du site web. Actuellement, ce processus est effectué manuellement (à l’exception de quelques entrepôts partenaires qui mettent à jour les champs directement) et prend beaucoup de temps.

Par la suite, le stagiaire assistera l’entreprise dans ses réflexions liées aux données et proposera d’autres modèles permettant l’automatisation ou l’amélioration des performances de certaines tâches, en utilisant des modèles de machine learning ou d’optimisation. Selon le temps nécessaire pour développer ces modèles, le stagiaire les réalisera ou planifiera leur réalisation.

Dans la seconde catégorie, le rôle du stagiaire consistera également à aider l’entreprise à améliorer sa stratégie de collecte, d’utilisation et de valorisation des données, afin de rendre possibles d’autres projets de machine learning à l’avenir.

Stage en entreprise visant la mise en œuvre de la stratégie de croissance de LBB Stratégies

LBB Stratégies est une firme d’experts conseils en stratégie et performance organisationnelles, études stratégiques, événements sportifs, infrastructures et droit du sport œuvrant et intervenant auprès de clients locaux à internationaux principalement en sport, loisir et vie active. LBB a connu une croissance soutenue de son chiffre d’affaires et est maintenant reconnue comme un chef de file au Québec et Canada en sport et vie active. Œuvrant auprès de clients du sport amateur et olympique, sport professionnel, gouvernements, municipalités, entreprises privées, événement sportifs, LBB désire consolider et rehausser sa présence dans l’industrie du sport, du loisir et de la vie active. Parallèlement, LBB cherche à développer de nouveaux marchés dans des industries qui expriment des besoins et services conseils similaires. LBB vise à définir et orienter sa stratégie de croissance sur la base du contexte actuel du marché en sport, loisir et vie active, le tout appuyé de données quantitatives et de références comparatives.

C’est dans ce contexte que LBB désire s’adjoindre d’un nouveau membre stagiaire afin de la soutenir dans la réalisation de ses objectifs de croissance et de mise en marché notamment en événements, infrastructures, stratégie et droit du sport et dans de nouveaux marchés.

The Effect of the Roll-to-Roll Process on Catalyst Ink Morphologies

As climate change concerns rise due to our increased dependence on fossil fuels, fuel cells are a promising clean energy technique that can be used to address Canada’s growing energy concerns. A fuel cell uses hydrogen fuel in combination with oxygen to produce electricity with only water as a by-product compared to harmful fossil fuel emissions (e.g., CO2). The performance of a fuel cell is primarily dictated by the structure and composition of a catalyst layer. The catalyst layer is composed of catalytic materials (e.g., platinum nanoparticles), carbon support, and a polymer membrane. In industrial processes, the catalyst layer can often be prepared using a roll-to-roll process as a means to scale-up production methods, but this can result in structural and compositional defects. To assess the variations in the roll-to-roll process (e.g., mechanical and thermal impacts from rollers, material deformations, slurry uniformity, etc.) and the effects on the fuel cell performance, this study will investigate the catalyst layers at different positions during the deposition process to better understand the effects of variations in the catalyst ink on electrochemical performance.

Optimal Winter Road Maintenance (WRM) Operations

The proposed research aims to find the optimal application rates of liquid chemicals which are applied to a road surface before and during a snow storm. These chemicals are used to accelerate the melting of snow and ice. The effects of various factors such as traffic, pavement temperature and other environmental factors on the performance of these chemicals will also be investigated. In addition, alternative types of machinery currently used to distribute solid chemicals on the roadways will be compared to examine their effectiveness. Existing research in the use of both liquid and solid chemicals will be summarized and a survey of maintenance practices of different municipalities will be
conducted and the results documented and compared.
The partner organizations will benefit from the knowledge generated from this research with improved decision making on their winter road maintenance operations and reduced salt usage.

Theoretical prediction of hematin anhydride EPR properties

Hemozoin is a crystal formed by the Malaria parasite to detoxify heme released during hemoglobin digestion. Although inhibiting Hemozoin formation has been used as an action mechanism for very potent anti-malarials, the underlying mechanism is still unknown, particularly the heme oxidation step. We believe that given the low oxygen environment in which malaria thrives, heme oxidation might happen at the crystal interface. Hemozoin’s semi-conductor behaviour would allow electrons to be transported through the crystal.
The objective of this PhD is to use a computational approach to simulate the electronic processes behind hemozoin formation.
The internship will focus on the unusual magnetic properties of hemozoin. Variations in heme substituent groups can lead in different behaviour in multiple frequency electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, and establishing a model explaining these differences would set the groundwork to understanding hemozoin’s electronic properties.

Modeling heterologous protein production in the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Production of protein in different organisms has attracted interest since the first biotechnological production of insulin. Efforts had been made throughout the years to study several organisms like bacteria and yeast to produce exogenous proteins with commercial interest. During the last decades microalgae have attracted the attention as platform of production of complex proteins. For instance, diatoms can absorb CO2 and accumulate lipids more efficiently compared to other microalgae. However, diatoms are still not well understood and even though there have been many publications regarding their potential, there are still not as well characterized as other unicellular organisms. Therefore, the intern will be studying the accumulation of protein by building up a mathematical model, to analyze opportunities of improvement for proteins in the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. This will be done using an enhanced reporter protein that emits fluorescence and facilitates the study of protein accumulation in a single cell.

Disparities in Settlement and Integration of Racialized Newcomers in Atlantic Canada: Lived Experiences, Root Causes, and Effective Remedies

There is a wide range of ways this project can contribute: from highlighting the lessons of history through literature review to amplifying marginalized voices in the community and investigating causes, channels, and consequences of such discrimination in accessing settlement services, to exploring the best possible anti-discrimination policies and practices, to developing a culturally and racially responsive settlement service delivery model in Atlantic Canada, which will improve racialized immigrants’ integration performance and maximize their human capital and contribution to the community.
The results of this study will help understand the settlement needs of immigrants in the Atlantic Canada’s labour market, which will provide a reference for the partner organization’s employment support programs for immigrants. This, in turn, will assist employers in the region to achieve the goal of a more welcoming and diverse workplace.

Virtualized Wireless Access in the Green Sustainable Telcommunication Cloud System

This project is primarily focused on virtualizing wireless access network so that multiple operators can share the same
physical resources while being able to stay isolated from each other. The basic idea is to allow wireless access points
from different operators form a single virtual access point that efficiently manages its available resources. The goal is
to exploit the advantages that can be obtained from virtualizing the air interface (i.e., spectrum sharing), protocol
virtualization and flow-based virtualization. We consider wireless technologies with long and short ranges, e.g.,
cellular networks and wireless local area networks. In particular, we investigate on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) and
WiFi wireless systems. We will mainly focus on spectrum-based virtualization which is the deepest form of
virtualization and is expected to offer more flexibility than protocol- and flow-based ones; it should, however, be
noted that spectrum-based virtualizations require flow-based virtualization to isolate the network traffic.

Accountium – Machine Interpretation of Client Instructions

Creative Emporium provides digital Account Maintenance, minimizing human intervention. Using cutting edge technology, Phase I of the Accountium platform has been completed in 2023 April. Now, the company has identified a need to streamline the hiring and payroll process for their clients. They like to embed a payroll module as an integral part of Accountium and will continue developing the payroll module to include functionalities, supported by Optical Character Recognition (OCL), Natural Language Processing (NLP), full-stack development and machine learning techniques, that will simplify the process of hiring, onboarding, and processing the first and subsequent payroll for new hires. The module will handle interactions with clients, e.g., email instructions requesting payroll updates or report printings on specific dates. These features are not available in existing accounting packages in the market. Accountium will eliminate a lot of manual document upload and download steps.