OPUS: Open Ulethbridge Scholarship

Open ULeth Scholarship (OPUS) is the University of Lethbridge's open access research repository. It contains a collection of materials related to research and teaching produced by the academic community.

Self-archiving your research in OPUS is one way to meet Open Access policies of granting agencies. It is important to retain your final, post-peer-reviewed drafts for submission to OPUS, as this is often the only version publishers will allow to be archived. Click here for information on the U of L Open Access Policy.

Check here for more information about OPUS.

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Recent Submissions

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Settler colonialism, race & space: articulating the criteria and disparities of municipal in(ex)clusion in Lethbridge, Alberta
(Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Political Science, 2023) Moncrieff, Allison K.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Belanger, Yale
This Master of Arts thesis aims to discover if criteria for inclusion is present within the City of Lethbridge through surveying business owner and City Council perspectives on the community’s former supervised consumption site (SCS). My research complements and builds upon previous academic work done in Lethbridge and shows that Indigenous inclusion is interpreted through a settler colonial lens which alternatively seeks to reinforce Indigenous exclusion. Inclusion premised through a settler colonial ideology and intent – or, as I have coined, in(ex)clusion - undermines the cultivation of authentic municipal inclusion. The SCS case study highlights the range of settler transfers that emerge when normative expectations about Indigenous social participation are challenged or unmet. Settler colonialism’s presence in municipal environments demands greater study if, in the spirit of reconciliation, authentic municipal inclusion is to develop.
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Improving faithfulness in abstractive text summarization with EDUs using BART
(Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science, 2023-04-27) Delpisheh, Narjes; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Chali, Yllias
Abstractive summarization aims to reproduce the essential information of a source document in a summary by using the summarizer's own words. Although this approach is more similar to how humans summarize, it is more challenging to automate as it requires a complete understanding of natural language. However, the development of deep learning approaches, such as the sequence-to-sequence model with an attention-based mechanism, and the availability of pre-trained language models have led to improved performance in summarization systems. Nonetheless, abstractive summarization still suffers from issues such as hallucination and unfaithfulness. To address these issues, we propose an approach that utilizes a guidance signal using important Elementary Discourse Units (EDUs). We compare our work with previous guided summarization and two other summarization models that enhanced the faithfulness of the summary. Our approach was tested on CNN/Daily Mail dataset, and results showed an improvement in both truthfulness and good quantity coverage of the source document.
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Dressed to kill: the costume design for Merry debaucheries and a Dance with death
(Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Drama, 2023) Johnson, Jaime; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Fine Arts; Wasilewski, Julia
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death has been adapted with both metaphorical and literal representations of death as in Mia van Leeuwen’s devised adaptation performed at the University of Lethbridge in 2022 for A Night at the Grand Guignol: 2022. In the costume and mask design for Prospero and his court members I endeavoured to contribute to the atmosphere of a strange world where nothing mattered except the amusements of an elite group hiding from the terrors of a real-life threat of plague. I also sought to create a unique representation of death, personified, that is both beautiful and terrifying. In this paper I outline the research into the obscure style of theatre used in this production, its connection to Gothic literature, the historical representations of Death in art, and the costume design for the Emcee character, Prospero and his court, and the Death character.
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The potential molecular mechanisms of various treatment combinations between cisplatin, cannabidiol, cannabis extracts, and intermittent serum starvation on colorectal cancer cell lines
(Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Biological Sciences, 2023-05-01) Cherkasova, Viktoriia; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Kovalchuk, Igor; Kovalchuk, Olga
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide. The mortality rates remain high despite the wide variety of multiple preventive and treatment options. Platinum-derived chemotherapy medications are often combined with other conventional therapies for treating different tumors, including colorectal cancer. However, the development of drug resistance and multiple adverse effects remain common in clinical settings. Thus, there is a necessity to find novel treatments and drug combinations that could effectively target colorectal cancer cells without affecting normal tissues and lower the probability of disease relapse. To find potential synergistic interaction, I tried multiple different combinations between cisplatin, cannabidiol, cannabis extracts, and intermittent serum starvation on colorectal cancer cell lines. Based on the cell viability assay, we found that combinations between cannabidiol and intermittent serum starvation, cisplatin and intermittent serum starvation, as well as cisplatin, cannabidiol and intermittent serum starvation, can work in a synergistic fashion on different colorectal cancer cell lines. I analyzed differentially expressed genes and affected pathways in two colorectal cancer cell lines to further understand the potential molecular mechanisms behind the treatments and their interactions.
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Place conscious Theory of Knowledge: promoting responsive dialogue about place through Theory of Knowledge
(Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education, 2023) Picard, Suzanne M.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education; Marynowski, Richelle
This paper outlines a Master of Education project website (https://sites.google.com/epsb.ca/place-conscious-tok/home) that explores teaching Theory of Knowledge using place conscious pedagogy and complementary approaches from place-based pedagogy. The website includes context-building resources for teachers that are new to Theory of Knowledge, new to place conscious pedagogy, or interested in the neurodevelopmental benefits of place conscious approaches to education. Teaching tools take the form of six flexible Pathways with related resources for formative assessment, summative assessment, and professional self-reflection. This paper outlines the benefits and rationale for each Pathway’s collection of resources, and for Parent Resources and autobiographical About Me sections linked to the homepage. Through this website, educators can explore how place conscious pedagogy can enhance responsive dialogue, mindfulness, resilience, self-reflection, and community engagement for IB students, staff, and their surrounding communities.