Silica Fault Mirror Development Along the Cordillera Blanca Detachment Fault, Peru

Earthquakes occur along planes of geologic weakness called faults. Thin, light-reflective surfaces on faults are called fault mirrors and often considered signatures of previous earthquakes along these faults. The Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes provides a natural laboratory to explore meter scale exposures of fault mirrors. Three naturally formed fault mirror samples were collected from the Cordillera Blanca detachment fault which runs along the edge of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. Prior work on this fault reveals that it is capable of destructive earthquakes every few thousand years and is a significant earthquake hazard to the surrounding communities. The goal of our investigation is to discover the textural and chemical properties of silica FMs and use that information to determine the deformation processes involved in their formation. Our results document multiple fault slip events, variations in grain size and a thin zone of no discernable grains directly below the fault mirror surface. Our chemical observations reveal the material the fault mirror has developed on is crystalline (quartz). This result differs from prior observations of silica fault mirrors which show they can develop on a non-crystalline to partially crystalline material. We suggest that if these fault mirrors formed during earthquake slip events, that the accommodation of slip within a small zone plays a role in propagating slip along the Cordillera Blanca detachment fault

Preparing for Professional Practice: Writing Pedagogies and Affective Complexities of Student Writing in Nursing, Medicine, and Clergy Education

(with Marilyn Oerman, Duke University School of Nursing; Earle Waugh, University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry; Reg Grant, Dallas Theological Seminary; and Sandi Glahn, Dallas Theological Seminary). Symposium at the 3rd International Writing Research Across Borders (WRAB) Conference on February 22, 2014, Paris, France. The goal of this symposium was to engage in a collaborative, disciplinary discussion of teaching genres, focusing on the relationships between the social, moral, and affective functions from which students develop their intellectual and professional identity

The changing nature of interactional patterns associated with learning to write in one baccalaureate nursing program

Chaudoir, S., Lasiuk, G., & Trepanier, K. (accepted, under review). Journal of Writing Research, Special Issue. 2016. The article will present findings from a case study that explored the discursive interactional patterns of students learning writing assignments across four years of one Canadian baccalaureate program and how these interactions influenced students’ intellectual development and professional growth

A Case Study of Learning Writing Assignments in the Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum

2014. Slides for the April 28th presentation at the Collaborative Faculty Development Conference in Alberta. Overview included student & instructor responses to learning to write from Years 1 to 4 and implications for undergraduate nursing education. Discussion of faculty development included issues of genre-specific feedback, student reading challenges, and curricular constraints/enablers to learning to write across all four years

Taking Risks in the Contact Zone: Personal, Political, and Professional Narratives in Surgery Education, Academic Medical Journals, and War Trauma

2015. Panel presentation (with Susan Sample and Jessie Richards, University of Utah) for the 66th Annual Conference on College Composition and Communication. Proposal shows discussion items for panel presenters regarding personal, political, and professional narratives that have been (re)adapted by rhetoric and composition across educational, professional, and war institutions. I present on a 6-year study of medical students' reflective writing about surgical rotation experiences education, which reveals that students' chosen genres and narratives characterize significant aspects of personal epistemology in medical training and emphasize their need for relational and empathetic surgical educators in medical education

HIV-positive parents, HIV-positive children, and HIV-negative children’s perspectives on disclosure of a parent’s and child’s illness in Kenya

HIV disclosure from parent to child is complex and challenging to HIV-positive parents and healthcare professionals. The purpose of the study was to understand the lived experiences of HIV-positive parents and their children during the disclosure process in Kenya. Sixteen HIV-positive parents, seven HIV-positive children, and five HIV-negative children completed semistructured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the Van Kaam method; NVivo 8 software was used to assist data analysis. We present data on the process of disclosure based on how participants recommended full disclosure be approached to HIV-positive and negative children. Participants recommended disclosure as a process starting at five years with full disclosure delivered at 10 years when the child was capable of understanding the illness, or by 14 years when the child was mature enough to receive the news if full disclosure had not been conducted earlier. Important considerations at the time of full disclosure included the parent’s and/or child’s health statuses, number of infected family members’ illnesses to be disclosed to the child, child’s maturity and understanding level, and the person best suited to deliver full disclosure to the child. The results also revealed it was important to address important life events such as taking a national school examination during disclosure planning and delivery. Recommendations are made for inclusion into HIV disclosure guidelines, manuals, and programs in resource-poor nations with high HIV prevalence

Ask the Surgeon: What do Pre-Clinical Students Want to Know about Surgeons?

(with Jonathan White, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry). Presentation at the 2013 Canadian Conference of Medical Education on April 22, 2013, Quebec City, Quebec. Dissemination of results from a 4-year study of questions posed by pre-clinical medical students about the practice of surgery. Themes included: life as a surgeon, experiences in the operating room, memorable operations, dealing with difficulty, career choice/advice, relationships with patients, and residency

Neural networks and dynamical systems

AbstractModels for the identification and control of nonlinear dynamical systems using neural networks were introduced by Narendra and Parthasarathy in 1990, and methods for the adjustment of model parameters were also suggested. Simulation results of simple nonlinear systems were presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the schemes proposed. The concepts introduced at that time are investigated in this paper in greater detail. In particular, a number of questions that arise when the methods are applied to more complex systems are addressed. These include nonlinear systems of higher order as well as multivariable systems. The effect of using simpler models for both identification and control are discussed, and a new controller structure containing a linear part in addition to a multilayer neural network is introduced