University of Lethbridge
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The impact of trauma-informed care on patients in the emergency department
No full textTrauma is highly prevalent within the Emergency Department (ED). The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health ([CAMH], n.d.) defines trauma as the emotional response and physical reaction to a distressing event. Since 2019, ED’s have experienced increased incidence and severity of clinical presentations (Finkelstein et al., 2021; Powers et al., 2024). An increase in clinical presentations to the ED, increases incidence of trauma-exposure and prevalence of trauma. Despite a high incidence of trauma exposure and increasing prevalence of trauma in the ED, healthcare providers lack appropriate knowledge surrounding psychosocial care (Afzal et al., 2022). Patients who have experienced traumatization in health settings, are at risk of decreased future engagement with health services and an increase in high-risk behaviours (Reid et al., 2022; Whetten et al., 2012; Vallieres et al., 2025). Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) is a new emerging framework adopted by health practitioners to recognize and reduce impacts of trauma on patients (Brown et al., 2022). This quality improvement project aimed to pilot an education session to increase emergency nurses (EN) awareness surrounding TIC and its implementation in practice via an educational session. The project’s findings suggest ENs affirm the need for TIC education in clinical practice, within the ED
Developing concreteness through connections with mathematical representations
No full textThis paper presents a new framework called the Concretion-Based Learning Framework (CBLF). It is a tool created to support teachers in planning learning environments that promote conceptual understanding through the interactions that students have with multiple representations. Drawing from my teaching experiences, this project identifies gaps in existing models, such as the CRA model and the ACT model, specifically with how conceptual understandings are explicitly planned for. Drawing on research from Wilensky (1991), Hattie et al. (2017), and Wiggins and McTighe (2005), the project challenges previous understandings of concrete and abstract knowledge in mathematics and suggests that the process of concretion is the missing component when developing conceptual understandings. The CBLF challenges a more traditional linear instructional approach and suggests a cyclical planning process where goals, assessments, and instruction are intentionally aligned so that we can monitor the connections that are being made by students. In response to this need, a Teacher Clarity Tool was developed to guide the
instructional design process to promote alignment to achieve the goal of developing concreteness and mathematical proficiency
Uzbek music in Western style: the influence of folk traditions in the piano works of Georgi Mushel
No full textThis project focuses on Uzbek folk music elements in Soviet composer Georgi Mushel’s piano compositions. Through a detailed analysis of a selection of Mushel’s piano compositions, I have developed an informed interpretation of the folk elements in these works.
By working closely with native musicians and ethnomusicologists, Mushel absorbed the national music of the region. As Vaughan Williams wrote: “The great masters of music have never hesitated to build on folk-song material when they wished to” (1934, 80). Though Mushel was born in Russia and had French ancestry, he lived the majority of his life in Uzbekistan and tied himself up with Uzbek culture. He was influenced by the music of the region and felt its beauty which is expressed in his works.
Uzbek folk and traditional music is a vibrant reflection of the country’s diverse cultural history. It is characterized by modal scales, rhythmic cycles, and melodic ornamentation often performed with traditional instruments like the dutar, rubab, ghijak, doira, and nay. I found evidence of these musical elements and imitation of dutar and doira timbre in Mushel’s three piano compositions.
In this study, I explored whether the original Uzbek folk songs used by Georgi Mushel in his piano compositions are accessible today through scores or recordings. I also examined the specific musical elements from Uzbek folk traditions that Mushel incorporated into his works. Finally, I investigated how the stylistic nuances of Uzbek music mentioned above can be interpreted and expressed effectively on the piano
"Max and her 'pard": the Rocking P gazette (1923-5) and the cultural production of settler girlhood in southern Alberta
No full textPublished between 1923-25 by teenage sisters Dorothy and Maxine Macleay, the Rocking P Gazette is a unique example of girl-made media. Comprising seventeen issues averaging eighty pages each, the Gazette documented daily life on the Macleay’s ranches, the Rocking P and Bar S. Its imaginative fiction and artwork draw inspiration from the girls’ interpersonal relationships and experiences growing up on a ranch, making it an invaluable source for the history of childhood and girlhood in early twentieth century western Canada. This thesis argues that (1) the Macleay girls engaged with, appropriated, and adapted adult-made media for their homemade magazine, which produced and reproduced settler-colonial silences and cowboy culture, and (2) that they challenged conventions of age and gender by expressing a class-based power over their audience of adult male ranch hands. Drawing examples from Dorothy and Maxine’s written and artistic work, this thesis aims to demonstrate how girls in rural 1920s Alberta could be active cultural producers.SSHRC-MA (2022
Muslim immigrant women's experiences of mental health challenges in Southern Alberta, Canada
No full textThe purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of mental health challenges in Muslim immigrant women in Southern Alberta. Exploratory descriptive qualitative research design and semi-structured interviews with ten Muslim women were employed. Thematic analysis of these collected data showed that Muslim immigrant women participants experienced some mental health challenges due the intersection of pre-migration and post-migration factors. To cope with mental health challenges, Muslim women utilized a series of coping mechanisms including seeking professional help. However, some elements such as cultural and religious factors impacted their decisions. The study recommended that stakeholders, policy makers, and mental health professionals provide Muslim immigrant women with culturally safe services to promote their mental well-being
Sulfur diimides and their tin(IV) complexes, and contributions to improved models for X-ray crystal structures
No full textModernization of X-ray crystallographic structure model refinement using NoSpherA2 and an extensive investigation of the chemical and electrochemical properties of sulfur diimides (SDIs) and their tin(IV) chloride complexes are described.
NoSpherA2, an X-ray model refinement tool recently integrated into the free-to-use Olex2 program, is shown by thorough comparative analysis to significantly outperform conventional Independent Atom Model (IAM) methods. Consistent improvements in hydrogen atom placement and non-H bond precisions demonstrate the benefits of incorporating NoSpherA2 into routine processing of crystallographic data.
The synthesis of a systematic series of SDIs is presented alongside a comprehensive study of their fundamental properties, both on their own and as ligands in tin(IV) complexes. Their voltammetric behaviour is meticulously documented and suggests the SDIs are acting as redox-active ligands. This foundational work positions SDIs as promising candidates in this very active field of research, and provides warrant and clear direction for future endeavours therein
Post-fire vegetation regeneration during abnormally dry years following severe montane fire: southern Alberta, Canada
No full textOpen access article. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) appliesFire regimes across montane regions of western Canada are changing resulting in longer fire seasons, higher intensity fires, and shortening fire return intervals. The implications of high severity fire and warmer, drier early post-fire conditions on herbaceous understory vegetation regeneration and seedling recruitment in the southern Canadian Rockies are not well known. The overall objective of this study is to quantify trajectories of vegetation recovery (species, structural characteristics, and biomass) during early years of abnormally warm, dry conditions following a high severity fire in two moisture endmember sites Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada. Here, we compare the within and between year spatial and temporal variability of vegetation growth and species density and how these change over time and across the broader area as an indicator of ecosystem resilience within these endmember sites. Moderate to extreme drought occurred during the years following fire at Waterton, where 2021 was ranked as the 2nd driest year in 26 years. Despite this, the moist site was characterised by greater herbaceous vegetation recovery with few lodgepole pine seedlings (average biomass = 335 g m−2), while a drier site had greater seedling recruitment over a period of 5 years. Variations in site environmental conditions were more impactful than differences between years (drought) on post-fire vegetation recovery. Use of remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) remotely sensed data provided an effective means for quantifying variability in regenerating vegetation height (structure from motion), cover (green chromatic coordinate), and biomass when compared at plot level (R2 = 0.53, 0.53, and 0.30 respectively) using optical photogrammetric methods. The research presented has implications for forest and fuel management in Canada as national parks and forest agencies consider historic use of heterogeneous species patches. High density of lodgepole pine seedling recruitment in mineral soils and under very dry conditions indicate resilience to drought. This will require continued and expanded monitoring as other tree species recruits populate the post-fire environment.Ye
Care providers of Indigenous children and youth in the child welfare system: a scoping review
No full textOpen access article. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) appliesIndigenous children continue to be significantly over-represented in child welfare systems in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. This scoping review represents a subset of a larger review, the objective of which was to consolidate the extant literature on Indigenous child welfare. The results from the broader review were categorized into 10 different subtopics, of which care provider experiences, the topic of this article, is just one. This review summarizes research pertaining to foster parents and kinship caregivers of Indigenous children within the child welfare system. Key findings included caregivers' financial challenges, rewards of fostering, barriers to providing Indigenous cultural and relational connections, barriers to recruiting Indigenous foster parents and mistrust of the child welfare system. Recommendations emphasized Indigenous-run programmes, education and training for service workers and recruiting foster families willing to maintain youth connections to family and culture. This review further identifies a small but growing collection of Indigenous-led or co-authored scholarship that is bringing more balance and knowledge to a topic still dominated by Western research models and biases.Ye
Going beyond the dyadic paradigm: the dynamics of social play and brain development
No full textRough-and-tumble play (RTP) during the juvenile period is critical for developing social competency and some of its associated neural underpinnings in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), yet little is known about how individual variability in play experiences affects development. This thesis investigates whether rats show preferences for specific play partners, what factors influence these choices, and how differences in RTP contribute to behavioral and neural outcomes. Using group play paradigms, I found that rats form partner preferences based on factors such as familiarity, play style, and strain; however, these preferences depend on social context. Indeed, among familiar group members, not all individuals are equally preferred, leading to unequal RTP experiences. The effects of juvenile variability in RTP was assessed by manipulating juvenile experiences and by tracking the life history of individuals reared in groups. Rats reared with a higher-playing strain engaged in less RTP and turn taking than those reared with same-strain partners and later exhibited social deficits and altered mPFC neuron morphology. Similarly, when reared in groups, individuals that naturally engaged in less role reversals during RTP showed impaired social competence and atypical mPFC development. These findings suggest that some rats fail to benefit from RTP. A possible reason for such failure is that early-life influences may impair rat sociability. To explore this, I used neonatal isolation as a model of early life adversity (ELA). ELA did not alter role reversals with familiar partners but reduced both RTP frequency and role reversals with unfamiliar individuals, suggesting that pre-juvenile experiences can indeed impair the mechanisms that maximize the benefits gained from juvenile RTP. Together, these results show that rats preferentially play with certain partners, and this can influence the value of experiences derived from RTP, which combined with individual differences in play cooperation, can shape developmental outcomes.This research would not have been possible without financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which provided me with a Canadian Graduate Scholarship. I am also grateful to the University of Lethbridge and the Government of Alberta for their financial support throughout my studies