The Early Promise of TBRI Implementation in Schools

The program known as Trust Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®) began as an exploration into the detrimental behaviors of foster and adopted children placed in homes with unsuspecting caregivers who assumed their living environment would result in positive results rather than fear based emotions and behaviors. The researchers at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development (KPICD) at Texas Christian University held summer camps for adopted children and through that work developed an intervention to meet the needs of children who had experienced trauma. KPICD identifies these young people as “children from hard places” (Purvis & Cross, 2005). Copeland et al (2007) reported that an estimated 68% of children in the United States have experienced some sort of trauma. This astounding statistic holds great meaning for teachers and administrators, because these children from hard places routinely manifest aggressive and undesired behaviors due to an altering of their physiology. The literature on TBRI® at this point mostly has chronicled success with families, group homes and summer camps (McKenzie, Purvis, & Cross, 2014; Howard, Parris, Neilson, Lusk, Bush, Purvis & Cross, 2014; Purvis & Cross, 2006). TBRI® has only recently been implemented in school settings. This report provides an overview of the impacts of trauma, trauma related work in schools, and the four articles published to this point related to the use of TBRI® in schools

Death after closed adolescent knee injury and popliteal artery occlusion: a case report and clinical review.

A healthy adolescent male soccer player sustained a radiograph-negative, effusion-negative physeal injury of the proximal tibia from a ground-level fall with traumatic occlusion of the popliteal artery. Orthopaedic evaluation and arteriography were delayed for 72 hours after the injury. He arrived at a tertiary referral center in multisystem organ failure secondary to lower extremity ischemic necrosis, septic pulmonary thromboembolism, and systemic shock. Emergent medical evaluation, a high index of suspicion, and a careful neurovascular examination are imperative after every closed knee injury in the young athlete

Evaluating the biogeochemistry and microbial function in the Athabasca Oil Sands region: Understanding natural baselines for reclamation end-points

Understanding the biogeochemical processes governed by the complex metabolic pathways of microbial communities is paramount in understanding overall ecosystem services. Their ability to adapt to the world’s harshest environments allows them to thrive in otherwise hostile environments. The Athabasca Oil Sands of Northern Alberta, Canada, constitutes one of the largest oil sands deposits in the world. This uniquely hydrocarbon-rich environment is a diverse and complex ecosystem governed by strong anthropogenic (i.e. industrial mine sites) and natural environmental gradients (i.e. substantial bitumen outcroppings). The economically significant oil sands deposit produces millions of barrels of bitumen daily, with waste materials (i.e. sands, clays, residual bitumen etc.) pumped into large settling basins called tailings ponds. The Government of Alberta requires oil sands operators to return their mine sites to a reclaimed landscape after mining has completed, thus leaving an enormous task of determining appropriate reclamation procedures, target end-points and water quality targets. However, what remains unknown is an understanding of the baseline biogeochemical fingerprint of the natural McMurray Formation (MF) – the geological strata constituting the mineable bitumen ore. Additionally, there has yet to be any studies focusing on the microbial function in the MF, a vital research gap that would provide insight into how the indigenous microbial communities deal with this ubiquitous, natural hydrocarbon presence. The research comprising the chapters of this dissertation, are the first to reveal the active, in-situ metabolism of the bacterial communities within the MF. Novel metatranscriptomics approaches from in-situ samples are used to characterize the microbial metabolic processes governing these ecosystems, to better understand what may constitute viable ecosystem reclamation end-points. Functional characterizations are compared to hydrocarbon signatures and redox state of the various study sites. Results indicate a unique microbial consortium with both energy and xenobiotic metabolic pathways tailored to the complex hydrocarbon substrate of the MF. Further, the sensitivity of this metatranscriptomics approach was tested and validated as a means of tracking hydrocarbon exposure down a river continuum. Clusters of closely related co-expressing genes revealed patterns of expression indicative of exposure to the hydrocarbons of the MF, providing interesting methodologies to track pollution exposure in a hydrodynamic context. Finally, a field-scale mesocosm study was used to track the biogeochemical evolution of tailings following a novel detoxification treatment and further compare back to the natural reference sites also studied. Treatments caused the reduction of toxic organics and the promotion of microbial taxa adept at metabolizing complex organics. These cumulative insights into the natural and anthropogenically impacted ecosystems of the Athabasca Oil Sands region provides much needed characterizations of reference/baseline environments from which to guide best management practices and gauge reclamation success

Physics and Mathematics Behind Tomographic Techniques of Medical Imaging

Aside from that of x-rays, the important methods of medical imaging provide 3-dimensional views of the human body. The mathematics behind this is called reconstructive tomography. Indeed, “C.A.T.” is an anagram for computed axial tomography. There are two other important tomographic techniques in use. Magnetic resonance imaging and positron imaging. In this thesis we explain the physics and some of the mathematics behind each

Open, Risky, and Antioppressive: Hope for an Agonistic Deliberative Model. A Response to Empowering Young People through Conflict and Conciliation: Attending to the Political and Agonism in Democratic Education

First, I review the context for the need of new deliberative models, specifically agonistic deliberative models, for public discourse and for use in training students for public discourse. I then highlight five specific points that I trouble and enrich, principally through the work of Giroux, Arendt, Biesta, and Duarte. While I agree that there is great value in Lo’s description of the agonistic deliberative model, I advocate for what Biesta would call a weaker model of deliberation, one that sets the conditions for transformative education but one that does not act as an instrument for it