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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Care providers of Indigenous children and youth in the child welfare system: a scoping review
(Wiley, 2025) Ervin, Amanda R.; Dirk, Anika J.; Odekina, Hannah I.; Shahrabi, Fatemeh S.; Luck, Chloe E.; Greenshields, Mary C.; Victor, Janice M.
Indigenous 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.
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Photocatalytic defluorinative α-aminoalkylation of allylic difluorides
(ACS Publications, 2024) Semeniuk, Taylor; Dudas, Ty; Okeh, Esther; Felesky, Tanner; Hamel, Jean-Denys
A photocatalytic process was devised to synthesize monofluoroalkenes via defluorinative functionalization of allylic difluorides. N-Alkylanilines are used as precursors to α-aminoalkyl radicals, which undergo regioselective addition to allylic difluorides, and subsequent SET and fluoride elimination produce monofluoroalkenes. C–C bond formation on the aniline is site-selective for the least substituted carbon α to nitrogen.
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Photoredox decarboxylative 3-fluoroallylation of α-amino acids
(Wiley, 2025) Semeniuk, Taylor; Challenger, Jacob; Dudas, Ty; Toporkov, Dennis; van Hoeve, Miriam D.; Hamel, Jean-Denys
The photocatalytic decarboxylation of α-amino acids is an effective route to α-aminoalkyl radicals, which is also amenable to the derivatization of peptides through selective CC bond formation at the C-terminus. It is reported that, in the presence of an iridium photocatalyst, allylic difluorides are suitable radical traps to capture α-aminoalkyl radicals produced from α-amino acids, ultimately amounting to a defluorinative 3-fluoroallylation reaction. The catalytic system is applied to the derivatization of a wide breadth of N-protected amino acids and dipeptides in high yields, and the transformation displays great functional group tolerance. α-Amino acids of all substitution levels at the α-carbon led to the desired products in high yields. Post-functionalization of the monofluoroalkene-containing products reveals the potential to attain fluorine-containing organic compounds of greater complexity.
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The impact of executive function on stress, difficulties, and teaching behaviours of pre-service teachers on their first practicum placement
(Elsevier, 2025) MacCormack, Jeffrey; Brenner, Charlotte Ann
This article describes the impact of executive function on pre-service teachers’ experiences during their first practicum placement, with a focus on the key stressors and their perceptions of difficulties. Participants, pre-service teachers with normative executive function (n = 28) and elevated executive function difficulties (n = 23), answered weekly questions about their stressors and frequency of troubles while on their first practicum placement. Analyses of their responses suggest that pre-service teachers with elevated executive function difficulties report higher levels of stress and more frequent troubles than their peers with normative executive function skills. Implications for teacher education programs and practice are discussed.
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A manner of hermeneutics
(University of Calgary, 2025) Wood, Kevin
This article explores the interrelated notions of being, openness, and experience to engage a manner of hermeneutics as more than method, rather, as a way of being. A disposition to be present and attentiveness to learning is foundational for those who take up a hermeneutic stance. Through illustrative examples of hermeneutic pondering, the writing evokes a sensibility that positions hermeneutics as attuned to the nature of being, rather than bound to procedural method. It invites interpretation as a search for the essence of phenomena worthy of attention, while also recognizing that meaning may dissipate when concepts are abstracted from the situated immediacy of the present moment.