Study hereGive

Library

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.

Deposit your Research

Communities in OPUS

Select a community to browse its collections.

Recent Submissions

  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    What remains
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Art, 2026) Pouzesh, Nahid; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Fine Arts; Miller, David
    This thesis explores the relationship between body, memory, violence, and archival imagery through a practice-based artistic methodology grounded in the lived experiences of Iranian women. Drawing from informal and digital archives, including social media images, protest documentation, personal photographs, and circulated visual material, the project examines how images shaped by censorship, instability, and fragmentation can be transformed through material and spatial processes. Instead of treating images as fixed representations, the project approaches them as unstable materials that undergo physical transformation through cyanotype, image transfer, scanning, layering, ceramic processes, and installation. These methods introduce interruption, loss, distortion, and material variation, shifting the image from circulation into tactile and embodied form. A central concern of the research is the ethics of representing violence. Instead of reproducing graphic imagery directly, the project explores alternative strategies of visibility through fragmentation, radiographic imagery, partial transfer, and material mediation. In this way, the work attempts to resist the spectacle of violence while maintaining traces of bodily vulnerability and lived experience. The resulting installation functions as a spatial and material archive in which transparency, layering, suspension, and viewer movement shape how images are encountered. Through these processes, the thesis argues that artistic practice can operate as a form of embodied research, where knowledge emerges through physical engagement with images, materials, and space.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Wildflowers in the concrete: the interplay of art, self, parable, and good leadership
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education, 2026) Navratil, Alea C.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education; Wood, Kevin; Checkley, Doug
    Good leaders embody the dispositions of care, meaning-seeking, and growth, and promote these dispositions in others. By engaging in cycles of creation, through written narratives and art, then reflecting upon them, this project explores what good leadership is and the essentialness of its practice within the contemporary education system. This project acts as an invitation for other leaders to join in a similar process by creating, and engaging in deep reflection, in service to care, meaning-seeking, growth, and promoting leadership in others. Throughout this project, both the insights into answering and the insights while answering were considered. A heavy focus on effectiveness and efficiency exists within the current education system and leaders need to continue to bring humanity to the forefront of thoughts and practices.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Evaluating the impact of multiple stressors on vegetation succession after wildfire
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Biological Sciences, 2026) Alger, Genoa M.; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; McCune, Jenny L.
    Succession has been studied since the early days of ecology, yet it is uncertain how the properties of succession are affected by stressors such as climate change, human activity, and increasingly severe disturbance events. In this study, I examined post-fire vegetation succession in Waterton Lakes National Park (WLNP), located in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains, to ask how climate change, human disturbance and distance to seed sources affect the rate and trajectory of succession. I compared succession in burned sites with unburned sites to determine how the properties and drivers of succession after fire differed. To characterize the shifts in community types affected by fire and determine the persistence of those shifts, I described 12 community types and compared tree seedling densities between burned and unburned sites of those community types. I did not find strong evidence that climate change, human disturbance or increased distance to seed sources affected the rate or trajectory of vegetation succession post-fire. The trajectory of succession in burned plant communities tended to be consistent with a return to their pre-fire state, while in unburned communities the trajectory generally diverged from pre-fire composition. Burned areas shifted away from forested community types, and towards two new shrub dominated community types which were not present in WLNP prior to the fire. Most burned forested community types had regeneration of their dominant tree species, indicating a likely return of the pre-fire community type over time. My study shows that post-fire plant community succession in WLNP is largely resilient to modern stressors.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Hydrothermal liquefaction of Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Spirulina platensis: NMR analysis of bio-crude oil composition and molecular dynamics
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 2026) Javaheri, Shamim; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Hazendonk, Paul
    The increasing global demand for sustainable energy sources has directed significant research toward biofuels derived from renewable biomass. This thesis investigates the potential of Phytoplankton as a biofuel feedstock, focusing on its conversion into energy-dense biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). The study explores the influence of varying temperatures and pressures on the yield and chemical changes of the resulting products. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was employed to investigate the transformation of different organic functional groups—such as aliphatics, aromatics, and oxygen- or nitrogen-containing compounds—within the algal biomass during the HTL process. By tracking these changes, NMR enabled a deeper understanding of the chemical pathways involved, allowing for optimization of HTL conditions to improve biocrude yield while minimizing undesirable oxygenated by-products. The findings contribute to the broader understanding of biomass conversion chemistry and highlight the value of advanced NMR techniques in monitoring and guiding the production of cleaner, more efficient algal biofuels.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Maternal factors and their impact on the placental metabolome
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Neuroscience, 2026) Kenney, Thomas William; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science; Metz, Gerlinde A. S.; Montina, Tony
    Maternal stress during pregnancy has been correlated with adverse maternal and fetal health outcomes. The biological mechanisms underlying stress-linked risk and resilience factors, however, are still not fully understood. The placenta is a vital organ in mediating maternal-fetal interactions, and its function may reflect adaptations to psychological, environmental, and pharmacological exposures by the mother. This thesis includes two complementary studies that utilized nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy-based metabolomics in conjunction with multivariate and univariate statistical approaches to examine whether distinct prenatal exposures are associated with metabolic signatures in placental tissue. The first study examined maternal prenatal depression (MPD), with or without selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment, and its potential associations with placental metabolic profiles. This study identified unique placental metabolomic patterns associated with MPD without SSRI exposure, whereas placentas from mothers who were depressed and taking SSRIs were not statistically separable from non-depressed and non-SSRI-exposed controls. The second study explored prenatal maternal stress effects on placenta samples from mothers who were exposed to the 2011 Queensland Flood. Objective hardship and subjective distress measures were quantified using validated questionnaires to classify high and low stress groupings. Results indicated no discernable differences between high and low stress groups in either objective or subjective stress categories in placental metabolic profiles. Together, these studies demonstrate the utility of placental metabolomics for examining prenatal psychological, pharmaceutical, and environmental exposures with suggestions for improvement in future research.