Waterloo Research

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Challenging Privatization in Governance by AI: A Caution for the Future of AI Governance
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2025-09-15) Brandusescu, Ana
Privatization is increasingly driving the uptake of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across various sectors. The drive for AI adoption, whether in the name of innovation or the economy, has dominated mainstream news. However, there is less public awareness of generative AI's devasting impacts on labour and the environment. Whether in self-regulation or government regulation, Big Tech influences the direction of governance of AI, which increasingly is evolving to governance by AI and the automation of jobs. "The future of work is already here," states a 2025 report from Human Rights Watch. "Workers around the world are increasingly hired, compensated, disciplined, and fired by algorithms."
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Can Emerging Technologies Address Rural Food Insecurity for Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa?
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2025-10-22) Dragusha, Valdrin; Brown, Andrea M.
Technological advances have the potential to increase agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and thereby respond to growing food insecurity. This paper, in light of what is being called "the fourth industrial revolution," reviews the potential of emerging technologies, in particular artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite crop mapping, for increasing agricultural production and addressing food insecurity in Africa. It concludes that unequal global development, and unequal access to, distribution and control of emerging technologies by China and the United States, combined with the prevalence of smallholder farming, makes positive impacts unlikely in the near future.
Accelerating Canada's Economic Transformation towards Industry 5.0: The Synergistic Potential of the Electric Vehicle (EV) Sector
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2025-11-12) Nathwani, Jatin; Ng, Artie
The main objective of this paper is to identify options of industrial development that are transformative and stand as unique contributors with high-potential for fostering sustainable economic growth, reduced carbon emissions to mitigate the threat of climate risk, and stable levels of employment opportunities through public-private partnership by fostering market-based solutions leveraging on private capital.
Canada's Deteriorating AI Position: A Comparative IP Perspective
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2025-12-15) Hinton, James W.; Blais-Savoie, Fabrice
Utilizing patent data, this paper will attempt to show a portrait of the world's AI patent landscape and explain what happened to Canada's apparent lead in the field. It will build upon methodology from previous reports to collect patent data, then identify current trends in cross-border AI patenting ownership flows, to finally evaluate the adequacy of current Canadian policy and chart a path forward, a path informed by a digital economy where knowledge rents reign supreme and wages stagnate.
The Economics of the Data-driven Economy and the Demand for Antitrust
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2026-01-15) Ciuriak, Dan
Antitrust is again in vogue; its long winter has ended. The revival of demand for antitrust is coincident with the advent of a new Gilded Age - this time in the context of an economy built on intangible assets - IP and (later, increasingly) data.
Beyond the App Store: Reproductive Governance and the Limits of Digital Autonomy
(Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2026-02-03) Jeziorek, Marika; Natasha, Tusikov
This paper interrogates how digital contraceptive apps govern reproduction through mechanisms of responsibilization, commodification and consent. While some, like Natural Cycles, are certified as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), and others, like Clue, emphasize compliance with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), regulatory protections remain partial and uneven.
Cultural ecosystem services and sense of place: post-rehabilitation assessment of Wadi Hanifah’s performance from a socio-cultural lens
(Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2025-12-24) Kashmiri, Shahad; Khirfan, Luna
This paper evaluates the socio-cultural performance of urban ecological rehabilitation through the lens of cultural ecosystem services (CES) and sense of place. Accordingly, it introduces a dynamic, context-sensitive evaluative framework that integrates place image, identity, and attachment as key performance indicators. The framework is applied to the rehabilitation of Wadi Hanifah in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, using a mixed-methods approach that combines document reviews, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews to assess shifts in the Wadi’s meaning and use post-rehabilitation. Findings reveal a transformation in the Wadi’s place image – from associations with degradation and utilitarian function to one centered on recreation and heritage. The results underscore how ecological rehabilitation can foster socio-cultural value and strengthen collective identity. The proposed framework not only supports future evaluations of Wadi Hanifah but also offers a transferable model for assessing similar projects elsewhere, advancing more holistic understandings of the interplay between ecosystems and human experience.
Portus: Linking Alloy with SMT-based Finite Model Finding
(IEEE, 2025-11-25) Dancy, Ryan; Day, Nancy A.; Zila, Owen; Tariq, Khadija; Poremba, Joseph
Alloy is a well-known, formal, declarative language for modelling systems early in the software development process. Currently, it uses the Kodkod library as a back-end for finite model finding. Kodkod translates the model to a SAT problem; however, this method can often handle only problems of fairly low-size sets and is inherently finite. We present Portus, a method for translating Alloy into an equivalent many-sorted first-order logic problem (MSFOL). Once in MSFOL, the problem can be evaluated by an SMT-based finite model finding method implemented in the Fortress library, creating an alternative back-end for the Alloy Analyzer. Fortress converts the MSFOL finite model finding problem into the logic of uninterpreted functions with equality (EUF), a decidable fragment of first-order logic that is well-supported in many SMT solvers. We compare the performance of Portus with Kodkod on a corpus of 63 Alloy models written by experts. Our method is fully integrated into the Alloy Analyzer.
Disaggregating Distributed PV Power From Aggregate Measurements in Transmission Systems
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2025-08-25) Safari, Hediyeh; Cañizares, Claudio A.; Sohm, Daniel; Ahmed, Elyas; El-Samahy, Ismael; Dusseault, Maurice
The growing integration of Photovoltaic (PV) systems into distribution networks has limited visibility for system operators, as the power output of low-power PV systems is not typically monitored. The study presented in this paper introduces a novel approach for disaggregating PV generation from net-load measurements recorded at the transmission system level. The proposed technique is applied to actual data from an existing transmission line feeder to identify PV generation from net demand measurements. The developed methodology incorporates Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for detecting PV panels based on an algorithm that provides an accurate estimate of solar PV capacity. These estimations are validated against actual data from a local utility, showing a close match between the two. This information is then utilized in reliable software tools to simulate PV power generation in the studied region, which is then used to estimate and disaggregate the generated power from net-load data by applying multiple Machine Learning and Deep Learning models. The results demonstrate that, with the proposed approach, it is feasible to adequately disaggregate PV power generation from transmission feeder net-load measurements with minimal or no additional sensor infrastructure.
Le Projet Rideau Project : le théâtre « co-lingue », le bilinguisme officiel et le va-et-vient de la traduction
(Erudit, 2014-12-16) Nolette, Nicole
En 2009, le Théâtre la Catapulte, compagnie professionnelle francophone de création et de production théâtrale de la capitale nationale canadienne, montait un spectacle ambulatoire « co-lingue » où les spectateurs devaient circuler entre différents lieux du quartier central et historique du Marché By d’Ottawa. La composition de ce spectacle, le Projet Rideau Project, comptait six pièces de vingt minutes, dont trois étaient rédigées en français et trois en anglais, de six auteurs et metteurs en scène différents. Les négociations linguistiques au coeur du projet ont exigé l’apport de traducteurs de théâtre pour rééquilibrer la dynamique des langues dans le contexte de sa représentation : quatre pièces en anglais et deux pièces en français au festival de théâtre anglophone, et la proportion inverse au festival francophone. Selon sa propre appellation, « co-lingue », le Projet Rideau Project met en relief les enjeux dramaturgiques et traductologiques propres à la pratique et à la mise en scène de l’hétérolinguisme théâtral dans un contexte de bilinguisme officiel.
Simulation of a Vehicle-to-Grid Station for Heavy-Duty Fuel Cell Electric Trucks
(Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), 2025-10-20) Cetin, Arda Mert; Wu, Xiao-Yu
To combat the continuous increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transportation sector, electric vehicles are starting to be used more such as hydrogen (H2) in fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). An advantage gained from this solution is to use FCEVs as electricity generation devices in new vehicle-to-grid (V2G) stations. This research aims to model a FCEV-to-grid (FCEV2G) station under different situations and understand the profitability of such a station. The simulations consisted of power generation considering varying FCEV efficiency, hydrogen cycle, participation of FCEV, and a simplified decision-making process. Historic traffic and electricity data of Ontario were used in the analysis. Preliminary results suggested that even under the optimistic assumptions, technologies still need to be improved to make FCEV2G stations economically viable.
Double-Sided Queues and their Applications to Vaccine Inventory Management
(Wiley, 2025) Wu, Haoran; He, Qi-Ming; Erenay, Fatih Safa
We consider a double-sided queueing model with batch Markovian arrival processes (BMAPs) and finite discrete abandonment times, which arises in various stochastic systems such as perishable inventory systems and financial markets. Customers arrive at the system with a batch of orders to be matched by counterparts. While waiting to be matched, customers become impatient and may abandon the system without service. The abandonment time of a customer depends on its batch size and its position in the queue. First, we propose an approach to obtain the stationary joint distribution of age processes via the stationary analysis of a multi-layer Markov modulated fluid flow process. Second, using the stationary joint distribution of the age processes, we derive a number of queueing quantities related to matching rates, fill rates, sojourn times and queue length for both sides of the system. Last, we apply our model to analyze a vaccine inventory system and gain insight into the effect of uncertainty in supply and demand processes on the performance of the inventory system. It is observed that BMAPs are better choices for modeling the supply/demand process in systems with high uncertainty for more accurate performance quantities.
Un théâtre en ‘trois D’ dans l’Ouest canadien
(Erudit, 2018) Nolette, Nicole
Dans cet article, Nicole Nolette explore le potentiel du concept de « différenciation solidaire » pour l’analyse intertextuelle entre les littératures francophones de l’Ontario et de l’Ouest canadien. Les grandes figures des « trois D » de l’Ontario français (Patrice Desbiens, Robert Dickson et Jean Marc Dalpé), rejetées par la génération de Louis Patrick Leroux, réapparaissent dans la dramaturgie de Marc Prescott au Manitoba et de Gilles Poulin-Denis, originaire de la Saskatchewan. Nicole Nolette identifie les traces des trois D dans la langue, la route, la ville minière et les animaux représentés par Prescott et Poulin-Denis pour montrer comment la solidarisation littéraire de l’Ouest et de l’Ontario francophones peut également signifier une différenciation régionale.
Investigating Digital, Tangible, and Paper-Based Room Design at a Small Scale
(Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025-05) Kim, Junhyeok; Hancock, Mark
Miniature representations, like CAD and blueprints, are useful for designing a larger physical space. While experts are trained to use these methods, non-experts often lack this training. Nonetheless, non-experts can benefit from designing with miniature representations, yet their interactions with these tools are not well understood. In our work, we observed participants designing two rooms using three tools: an online planner, pen and paper, and Lego. We collected and analyzed data from the Desirability Toolkit, a semistructured interview, and observations of their design sessions. Our findings suggest that participants found each tool engaging and satisfying for different reasons, but paper more empowering and Lego more familiar, efficient, and unconventional. Participants also suggested that these tools had value at different design stages. We also identified that participants often had difficulty scaling objects to match realistic expectations in the paper and Lego miniature representations.
Gamified Learning About Cryptocurrency: A Survey of Investors’ Attitudes, Concerns, and Expectations towards Learning Cryptocurrency via Video Game-Based Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2023-06) Hadan, Hilda; Zhang-Kennedy, Leah; Nacke, Lennart; Mäkelä, Ville
This report was prepared as a final research report in response to the Mitacs Accelerate Program, in partnering with the Steam Exchange Inc. Cryptocurrency has brought about transformative changes in business practices, leading to a growing prevalence of cryptocurrency trading platforms. However, comprehending the intricacies of cryptocurrency, including mining and trading, can be daunting due to their inherent complexity. Engaging in cryptocurrency trading carries various risks, encompassing technical, legal, and market-related factors, which necessitate investors' comprehensive understanding. Gamification has been actively applied for educational purposes to make learning more engaging, motivating, and fun and consequently achieve better learning outcomes. To support cryptocurrency investors’ learning about cryptocurrency, thereby preparing them for successful crypto-trading, we developed a browser-based game that introduces cryptocurrency and related topics. Through an online survey, we assessed the effectiveness of this gamified learning approach, and we investigated investors’ attitudes, concerns, and needs for learning about cryptocurrency. Overall, participants in the study recognized the potential benefits of game-based learning in improving their understanding of cryptocurrency. Their familiarity with game design elements in educational contexts indicated their acceptance of gamification strategies for learning. Participants, even those with cryptocurrency trading experience, exhibited moderate confidence in their cryptocurrency and blockchain knowledge, highlighting the need for educational interventions to bridge the knowledge gap. Results indicate that the game-based cryptocurrency learning approach has great educational value. Participants highly rated the game's enjoyment and playfulness but emphasized the importance of creating a more immersive and engaging experience to enhance its educational impact. The findings of this research indicate that the current learning game, with necessary improvements, has the great potential to effectively educate learners while offering an enjoyable and motivating learning experience. Based on the research, we identified essential requirements for improving the current learning game for the future. We produced guidelines to support Steam Exchange Inc. in further developing and enhancing this gamified learning approach beyond the project's completion. We also hope that the insights we gained from this research will inform the future design of gamified learning platforms that can meet users’ expectations and address their concerns.
The consequences of high-flexion postures on arterial wave reflections
(Springer Nature, 2025-10-23) Zaheer, Aida; Peckett, Kimberly H.; Pereira, Tania J.; Acker, Stacey M.; Au, Jason S.
Although central wave reflections are critical for aortic pressure regulation, the control mechanisms involved in humans are understudied. This study investigated the impact of upper- and lower-limb high-flexion postures on central arterial wave reflections. Twenty-two healthy adults (11 females, aged 25 ± 3 years) underwent three randomized and counter-balanced positions to evaluate the effect on central wave reflection: supine legs and arms anatomical position; supine two legs bent and arms straight; and supine two arms bent and legs straight. Characteristic impedance, forward and backward pressure waves, and pulse characteristics were measured via the central pressure-flow relationship in the frequency domain at the end of each posture hold. Central diastolic blood pressure increased during arm flexion only (67 ± 9 mmHg vs. 62 ± 9 mmHg; p<0.01). Central systolic blood pressure, augmentation index, forward wave amplitude, reflected wave amplitude, central wave reflection magnitude, and characteristic impedance were unaffected by varying limb flexion positions (all p>0.05). Acutely bending the arms and legs did not influence central wave reflections, likely related to a minimal effect of conduit artery bending, versus microvascular involvement, as suggested in previous studies. These findings underscore the importance of identifying the specific vascular regions responsible for wave reflection generation and support the need to refine central pressure augmentation models to accurately localize the dominant sources of wave reflection in humans.
« Words are not simple play things! » : L’hétérolinguisme théâtral chez Louis Patrick Leroux
(Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, 2014-09-16) Nolette, Nicole
This article explores how, in the 1990s, Canadian playwright Patrick Leroux broke away from previously prevalent representations of bilingualism in minority Franco-Ontarian drama and made multilingualism and translation into theatrical “play things”. His most playful performance text, Le Rêve totalitaire de dieu l’amibe, features as many games as issues at stake for staging experimental minority theatre. Substractive ideologies around bilingualism are torn apart, heterolingualism is raised and deconstructed like a strange tower of Babel and translation becomes BabelFish-like. L’ombre du lecteur anglais (The shadow of the English reader) and an Anglophone commentator are added to a production that is constantly reworked, retranslated and surtitled. The trajectory of the production from Ottawa to Sudbury (in Ontario) and Saint-Lambert (in Quebec), and then on to Montreal and to Hull, delineates a playground for translation riddled with layers of address to spectators, depending on their level of comprehension of the languages spoken on (and off) stage.
Translated Québec Theatre in the New Millennium: Established Authors and a Few New Trends
(Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies, 2019-02-16) Nolette, Nicole
In 1988, Québec theatre in translation became "awesome" (Conlogue qtd. in Koustas 1995, 98). "Toronto loves Québec," unironically exclaimed the title of a 2012 article in the Québec theatre magazine Jeu (Côté 2012, 49). In another aptly named article, "From 'Homespun' to 'Awesome:' Translated Quebec Theater in Toronto," Jane Koustas chronicles the evolving response to French-Canadian drama by the main target of its translations: English Canada. Critics attending the translation of Gratien Gélinas' Bousille et les justes at the Royal Alexandra in Toronto in 1962, for example, insisted on its "homespun" qualities, "emphasiz[ing] that which conformed to their vision of quaint, rural Quebec while dismissing the larger questions addressed by the play" (Koustas 1995, 86). Paired with indifference or hostility, this response subsisted through the emergence of what Michel Bélair (1973) called nouveau théâtre québécois, which engaged with the sociopolitical specificity of a rapidly modernizing Québec in the vernacular of Montreal's working class, joual. The dialect's mix of French and English, as well as the context embedded within it, caused issues for translators, who struggled to find an equivalent in English (Bosley 1988). The production of Michel Tremblay's Forever Yours, Marie-Lou at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto in 1972 showed how the nouveau théâtre québécois, whose sociopolitical particularities were considered undigestible to critics, could be read as universal or "Canadian" (Koustas 1995, 93). Perhaps predictably then, critics adopted "a less defensive, more open attitude" (82) in the 1980s, when theatre artists in Québec started to craft work that was considered "more universal" (97) in scope, or more interested in constructing and deconstructing the possibilities of drama, theatre and performance, as well as in producing pieces that could travel internationally, as in the imagistic and multilingual travelling works of Robert Lepage or Gilles Maheu.
Entre traduction et circulation : réciprocités de la World Literature et du théâtre francophone du Canada
(University of Toronto Press, 2020-01-30) Nolette, Nicole
Cet article emboite le pas aux récentes propositions de David Damrosch quant aux perspectives d’avenir de la World Literature. Nous y considérons une conjoncture particulière, celle de la World Literature, de la traductologie et des arts francophones du Canada. L’article envisage d’abord les approches mondialisatrices que les études préalables sur les productions artistiques québécoises et franco-canadiennes ont préconisées avant de considérer ce qui semble demeurer l’angle mort de ces approches, c’est-à-dire la traduction, elle-même au centre de la conception de Damrosch pour la World Literature. Nous ouvrons ensuite la discussion à deux enjeux plus contemporains de la World Literature : l’hypermédialité du théâtre et ses manifestations « ultramineures » au sein des arts québécois et franco-canadiens. Le dialogue instauré entre ces pages s’engage sur le terrain des modalités d’adhésion de la World Literature à des réflexions sur la mondialisation qui, comme l’ont souligné plusieurs critiques postcoloniales, demeurent, en l’absence d’études véritablement « globales », profondément centrées sur les expériences littéraires étatsuniennes. En centrant les propos théoriques de la World Literature sur des enjeux des arts québécois et franco-canadiens souvent invisibilisés par ces premiers, nous proposons leur élargissement aux potentiels interdisciplinaires de la traduction et de la circulation des œuvres théâtrales hypermédiales. Réciproquement, les discours de la World Literature, jusqu’à présent peu représentés dans les études culturelles francophones du Canada, s’y avèrent d’une grande richesse en introduisant des concepts relativement nouveaux et en valorisant des pratiques qui resteraient elles-mêmes relativement sous silence.
Quelques futurités du traduire dans les fictions théâtrales franco-canadiennes
(Oltreoceano: Rivista sulle migrazioni, 2022-01-29) Nolette, Nicole
Cette contribution sur les fictions théâtrales franco-canadiennes aborde les futurités du traduire qui s’y manifestent depuis les années 1990, notamment la vision néo-babélienne d’un monde cybernétique plurilingue et la possibilité d’une traduction automatisée en langue non-standard par une interprète cyborg.

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