SCRIPTORIUM (Université de Moncton)
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The Analytics of Natural Resource Management
No full textThis chapter presents the theoretical framework of how society allocates scarce natural resources. We distinguish between the cases of nonrenewable resources and renewable resources. Nonrenewable resources differ from renewable resources because they have a fixed stock of reserves that, once removed, cannot be replaced. Extracting a unit of resource today means that a lower resource stock will be available for future extraction. For both renewable and nonrenewable resources, the economic analysis aims to determine (i) the flow of production over time and (ii) whether and when the resource stock will be depleted. In the case of nonrenewable resources, we present Hotelling’s theory of the mine as well as its extensions. In the case of renewable resources, we examine the derivation of Faustmann’s optimal rotation for even-aged forests. These building blocks will be used in the next chapter to test the dynamic efficiency of Cameroon’s resource management.udemauteur: Octave Keutiben; Francis Didier Tatoutchou
Increasing the Payload of a 7DOF Cobot
No full textCollaborative robotics has been a topic of great interest amongst researchers and industry in recent years. However, some challenges are ever present in the field of research, such as the high computational load of generating optimal trajectories in real-time while avoiding obstacles in complex environments, and the low payload capacities of collaborative manipulators. This work proposes a trajectory optimization method using fifth-order B-splines to increase a manipulator’s payload well above the designed payload capacity. The main goal of this work is to implement an algorithm capable of generating near-optimal trajectories with increased payload capabilities and low computational load. The trajectory optimization method is analysed with the use of a Kinova Gen3 7DOF collaborative serial manipulator. Simulation results show that the payload capabilities can be increased from 4 kg to 8 kg in a series of six bin picking tasks, designed to test the robot’s mid-range workspace. The work also compares 35 different optimization configurations to identify the best optimization parameters to increase the quality of solutions to a time-optimal payload increase problem. The analyses show that the algorithm can reliably find near-optimal solutions in an average computation time of 43.3 ms for all six bin picking tasks with an 8 kg payload with a 100% success rate. Finally, the algorithm is tested with payloads of up to 15 kg.udemauteur: André Gallan
Robert Bly in New Brunswick: The Cross-Border Poetics of Allan Cooper
No full textNew Brunswick poets have a history of looking to the United States for literary models. A recent example is Allan Cooper, the Alma, New Brunswick writer, editor, publisher, and translator, who since the late 1970s has spent much of his career emulating both the poetics and literary activities of the Minnesota poet, editor, and translator, Robert Bly. Not only did Cooper adopt Bly’s Deep Image poetics and the concept of the twofold consciousness: he also modeled the editorial policies for his creative-writing journal, Germination, on the editorial approach employed by Bly in his poetry magazine, The Fifties. Cooper also followed Bly’s example by performing translation as a means for improving his own poetic craft. Taken together, Cooper’s embrace of Bly as literary mentor corresponds to the beginnings of a larger shift away from Canada’s entrenched cultural nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s toward more internationalist cultural interventions by the mid-1980s.udemauteur: Thomas Hod
A novel statistical model for flood prediction in the Eel River watershed, New Brunswick, Canada
No full textA strong correlation between the effect of climate change and the increase in flooding frequency and magnitude has been reported in Canada. Consequently, there is a crucial need to examine the effects of future climate change scenarios on flooding conditions. The main objective of this research is to better understand the destructive effects of flood events under historical and future climate change conditions for a small watershed (Eel River watershed) in New Brunswick (NB), Eastern Canada. A practical model had been developed using the modified Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in MATLAB by the authors of this study. The architecture and data structure of ANN is characterized by a back propagation with the Levenberg–Marquardt method. The observed daily total precipitation, daily maximum and minimum air temperatures, daily discharge for the period 1967 to 1983, the simulated monthly maximum and minimum air temperatures, and monthly total precipitation for the period of 1996–2099 from the CanESM2, the second-generation Canadian Earth System Model (CGCM), were used as input of the model. The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5), as suitable climate change scenarios, were selected based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommendations for flood studies. Daily values of temperatures, precipitations, and discharges were converted to monthly mean values for better prediction of the output results. In addition, two series of observed discharges were prepared using mean monthly (Qavg) and daily maximum discharges (Qd) as the Target of the model. For more accurate analysis, the time frames of 1996–2012 (for the historical) and 2022–2038, 2039–2055, 2056–2072, 2073–2089, and 2083–2099 (for the future) were considered with a duration of 16 years for each time frame. The output results of ANN were predicted daily maximum (Qd) and mean (Qavg) discharges under the impact of climate change scenarios. As a part of the developed model, Flood Frequency Analysis (FFA) was undertaken using the generalized extreme value (GEV) and the three-parameter lognormal (LN3) distributions based on the predicted and observed discharges. The performance of FFA and ANN were demonstrated using the Anderson–Darling (AD), the Chi-square (CS) tests and coefficient of correlation (R) and mean squared error (MSE), respectively. In conclusion, the three most critical time frames with the highest values of predicted discharges were 2022–2038, 2056–2072, and 2073–2089 for RCP4.5 and 2039–2055, 2073–2089, and 2083–2099 for RCP8.5. Also, based on the FFA, the magnitudes of flood recurrence for the future time period of 100 years will dramatically increase according to the most critical time frames of 2056–2072 and 2039–2055 for RCP 4.5 and 8.5, respectively. Findings indicated that the Eel River watershed will encounter severe floods, and about a 50% increase in mean discharge, especially for the critical time frames. Finally, flood occurrences show increasing trends due to climate change effects in the most critical time frames.udemauteur: Guillaume Forti
Leveraging RNA Interference to Impact Insecticide Resisitance in the Colorado Potato Beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata
No full textThe Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, is a potato pest that can cause important economic losses to the potato industry worldwide. Diverse strategies have been deployed to target this insect such as biological control, crop rotation, and a variety of insecticides. Regarding the latter, this pest has demonstrated impressive abilities to develop resistance against the compounds used to regulate its spread. Substantial work has been conducted to better characterize the molecular signatures underlying this resistance, with the overarching objective of leveraging this information for the development of novel approaches, including RNAi-based techniques, to limit the damage associated with this insect. This review first describes the various strategies utilized to control L. decemlineata and highlights different examples of reported cases of resistances against insecticides for this insect. The molecular leads identified as potential players modulating insecticide resistance as well as the growing interest towards the use of RNAi aimed at these leads as part of novel means to control the impact of L. decemlineata are described subsequently. Finally, select advantages and limitations of RNAi are addressed to better assess the potential of this technology in the broader context of insecticide resistance for pest management.udemauteur: Pier Jr Mori
Character-level arabic text generation from sign language video using encoder–decoder model
No full textVideo to text conversion is a vital activity in the field of computer vision. In recent years, deep learning algorithms have dominated automatic text generation in English, but there are a few research works available for other languages. In this paper, we propose a novel encoding–decoding system that generates character-level Arabic sentences from isolated RGB videos of Moroccan sign language. The video sequence was encoded by a spatiotemporal feature extraction using pose estimation models, while the label text of the video is transmitted to a sequence of representative vectors. Both the features and the label vector are joined and treated by a decoder layer to derive a final prediction. We trained the proposed system on an isolated Moroccan Sign Language dataset (MoSLD), composed of RGB videos from 125 MoSL signs. The experimental results reveal that the proposed model attains the best performance under several evaluation metrics.udemauteur: Mustapha Kardouchi; Moulay Akhlouf
RFIDeep: Unfolding the potential of deep learning for radio-frequency identification
No full textAutomatic monitoring of wildlife is becoming a critical tool in the field of ecology. In particular, Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) is now a widespread technology to assess the phenology, breeding and survival of many species. While RFID produces massive datasets, no established fast and accurate methods are yet available for this type of data processing. Deep learning approaches have been used to overcome similar problems in other scientific fields and hence might hold the potential to overcome these analytical challenges and unlock the full potential of RFID studies. We present a deep learning workflow, coined “RFIDeep”, to derive ecological features, such as breeding status and outcome, from RFID mark-recapture data. To demonstrate the performance of RFIDeep with complex datasets, we used a long-term automatic monitoring of a long-lived seabird that breeds in densely packed colonies, hence with many daily entries and exits. To determine individual breeding status and phenology and for each breeding season, we first developed a one-dimensional convolution neural network (1D-CNN) architecture. Second, to account for variance in breeding phenology and technical limitations of field data acquisition, we built a new data augmentation step mimicking a shift in breeding dates and missing RFID detections, a common issue with RFIDs. Third, to identify the segments of the breeding activity used during classification, we also included a visualisation tool, which allows users to understand what is usually considered a “black box” step of deep learning. With these three steps, we achieved a high accuracy for all breeding parameters: breeding status accuracy = 96.3%; phenological accuracy = 86.9%; and breeding success accuracy = 97.3%. RFIDeep has unfolded the potential of artificial intelligence for tracking changes in animal populations, multiplying the benefit of automated mark-recapture monitoring of undisturbed wildlife populations. RFIDeep is an open source code to facilitate the use, adaptation, or enhancement of RFID data in a wide variety of species. In addition to a tremendous time saving for analysing these large datasets, our study shows the capacities of CNN models to autonomously detect ecologically meaningful patterns in data through visualisation techniques, which are seldom used in ecology.udemauteur: Nicolas Lecomt
Taurine depletion impairs cardiac function and affects tolerance to hypoxia and high temperatures in brook char ( Salvelinus fontinalis )
No full textPhysiological and environmental stressors can cause osmotic stress in fish hearts, leading to a reduction in intracellular taurine concentration. Taurine is a β-amino acid known to regulate cardiac function in other animal models but its role in fish has not been well characterized. We generated a model of cardiac taurine deficiency (TD) by feeding brook char (Salvelinus fontinalis) a diet enriched in β-alanine, which inhibits cardiomyocyte taurine uptake. Cardiac taurine levels were reduced by 21% and stress-induced changes in normal taurine handling were observed in TD brook char. Responses to exhaustive exercise and acute thermal and hypoxia tolerance were then assessed using a combination of in vivo, in vitro and biochemical approaches. Critical thermal maximum was higher in TD brook char despite significant reductions in maximum heart rate. In vivo, TD brook char exhibited a lower resting heart rate, blunted hypoxic bradycardia and a severe reduction in time to loss of equilibrium under hypoxia. In vitro function was similar between control and TD hearts under oxygenated conditions, but stroke volume and cardiac output were severely compromised in TD hearts under severe hypoxia. Aspects of mitochondrial structure and function were also impacted in TD permeabilized cardiomyocytes, but overall effects were modest. High levels of intracellular taurine are required to achieve maximum cardiac function in brook char and cardiac taurine efflux may be necessary to support heart function under stress. Taurine appears to play a vital, previously unrecognized role in supporting cardiovascular function and stress tolerance in fish.udemauteur: Simon Lamarr
Factors influencing the dietary intake of rations of Canadian soldiers in the Arctic: A national survey
No full textPurpose: To document Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) soldiers’ perceptions of factors influencing their dietary intake of combat rations during Arctic field training. Methods: A bilingual digital questionnaire was sent nationally to soldiers who trained in the Arctic between 2015 and 2018. It consisted of 6 open-ended and 33 closed-ended questions on factors influencing ration intake and acceptability. Results: Of the 54 completed questionnaires (response rate: 31%), 6 were incomplete and were excluded. The final sample consisted of 48 military personnel from nine provinces with an average of 12.1 ± 6.8 years of CAF experience. Factors with the greatest negative impact on dietary intake were food temperature, eating on the move, exercise and activity schedules, and equipment needed for preparation and eating. Participants reported consuming between 61% and 71% of their rations. They noted that a considerable amount of time was required to prepare the rations since they were frozen. Sixty-five percent of soldiers reported weight loss while training in the Arctic. Conclusions: Multiple factors influenced soldiers’ dietary intake and practices. These results will guide future research and assist in decision-making regarding possible changes to Arctic rations.udemauteur: Denis Prud'homm
Intimidation dans la fratrie pendant l'enfance et l'adolescence: impact sur les relations amoureuses à l'âge adulte
Get PDFL’intimidation dans la fratrie est souvent considérée comme faisant partie du développement normatif des enfants et des adolescents. Ainsi, elle tend à être négligée, et ce, tant au niveau de la recherche que de l’intervention. Dans le cadre de la présente thèse, l’objectif est d’évaluer l’effet médiateur de l’estime de soi et des attitudes à l’égard de la violence conjugale dans le lien entre l’intimidation dans la fratrie pendant l’enfance et l’adolescence et les comportements de contrôle du partenaire amoureux au début de l’âge adulte. Cette étude s’appuie sur un échantillon de 214 jeunes adultes de 18 à 29 ans qui ont grandi avec au moins un frère ou une sœur et qui sont présentement en relation amoureuse. Les participants ont complété une série de mesures évaluant leur expérience d’intimidation dans la fratrie pendant l’enfance et l’adolescence, leur estime de soi, leurs attitudes à l’égard de la violence conjugale et les comportements de contrôle de leur partenaire amoureux. Les résultats d’analyses médiatrices révèlent la présence de relations indirectes entre l’intimidation dans la fratrie pendant l’enfance et l’adolescence et les comportements de contrôle du partenaire amoureux au début de l’âge adulte. Plus précisément, l’expérience d’intimidation par un membre de la fratrie pendant l’enfance et l’adolescence est associée à une estime de soi plus fragile et à des attitudes moins défavorables à l’égard de la violence conjugale au début de l’âge adulte, qui elles sont liées à la perception d’un plus grand contrôle relationnel de la part du partenaire amoureux. Des pistes de recherches futures et des implications sociales et cliniques sont suggérées.thesis: D. Psy. (psychologie), Université de Moncton 202