"Bitten by the entrepreneur bug" - critiquing discourses on women owner-managers/entrepreneurs in the Kenyan and Omani newspapers

Purpose This paper aims to critically analyze media discourses on women owner-managers/entrepreneurs (OMEs) in the Kenyan and Omani newspapers. Design/methodology/approach A critical discourse analysis is carried out on a total of 408 online media articles (174 articles from Omani newspapers and 234 articles from Kenyan newspapers) on women OMEs over the period 2010–2018. Articles are also classified based on their framing of women’s entrepreneurship. Findings Five main categories of media discourses are identified, i.e. discourses on government/institutional initiatives; women OMEs’ dependency; women OMEs’ femininity; women OMEs’ societal impact; and normalization of women OMEs. These gendered media discourses and underlying assumptions further perpetuate women OMEs’ subordinate position in society, weaken their social legitimacy and trivialize their roles as managers and leaders in society. Research limitations/implications The analysis was limited to online articles published in mainstream media. Future research could focus on offline print media from smaller media distributors or other distribution channels. Practical implications Policymakers and media houses need to pay greater attention to the subtle mechanisms reproducing gender stereotypes. Women OMEs should also take a more active role in constructing their identity in the media. Originality/value This paper highlights the underlying assumptions of media discourses regarding women’s empowerment that negatively impacts their social legitimacy. This paper also draws attention to media’s role in the trivialization of women OMEs’ leadership and managerial roles and subsequent marginalization of their social status

Kink oscillations of cooling coronal loops with variable cross-section

We study kink waves and oscillations in a thin expanding magnetic tube in the presence of flow. The tube consists of a core region and a thin transitional region at the tube boundary. In this region the plasma density monotonically decreases from its value in the core region to the value outside the tube. Both the plasma density and velocity of background flow vary along the tube and in time. Using the multiscale expansions we derive the system of two equations describing the kink oscillations. When there is no transitional layer the oscillations are described by the first of these two equations. We use this equation to study the effect of plasma density variation with time on kink oscillations of an expanding tube with a sharp boundary. We assume that the characteristic time of the density variation is much greater than the characteristic time of kink oscillations. Then we use the Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin (WKB) method to derive the expression for the adiabatic invariant, which is the quantity that is conserved when the plasma density varies. The general theoretical results are applied to the kink oscillations of coronal magnetic loops. We consider an expanding loop with the half-circle shape and assume that the plasma temperature inside a loop decays exponentially with time. We numerically calculated the dependences of the fundamental mode frequency, the ratio of frequencies of the first overtone and fundamental mode, and the oscillation amplitude on time. We obtained that the oscillation frequency and amplitude increase and the frequency ratio decreases due to cooling. The amplitude increase is stronger for loops with a greater expansion factor. This effect is also more pronounced for higher loops. However, it is fairly moderate even for loops that are quite high

Longitudinal Magnetohydrodynamics Oscillations in Dissipative, Cooling Coronal Loops

This paper investigates the effect of cooling on standing slow magnetosonic waves in coronal magnetic loops. The damping mechanism taken into account is thermal conduction that is a viable candidate for dissipation of slow magnetosonic waves in coronal loops. In contrast to earlier studies, here we assume that the characteristic damping time due to thermal conduction is not small, but arbitrary, and can be of the order of the oscillation period, i.e., a temporally varying plasma is considered. The approximation of low-beta plasma enables us to neglect the magnetic field perturbation when studying longitudinal waves and consider, instead, a one-dimensional motion that allows a reliable first insight into the problem. The background plasma temperature is assumed to be decaying exponentially with time, with the characteristic cooling timescale much larger than the oscillation period. This assumption enables us to use the WKB method to study the evolution of the oscillation amplitude analytically. Using this method we obtain the equation governing the oscillation amplitude. The analytical expressions determining the wave properties are evaluated numerically to investigate the evolution of the oscillation frequency and amplitude with time. The results show that the oscillation period increases with time due to the effect of plasma cooling. The plasma cooling also amplifies the amplitude of oscillations in relatively cool coronal loops, whereas, for very hot coronal loop oscillations the damping rate is enhanced by the cooling. We find that the critical point for which the amplification becomes dominant over the damping is in the region of 4 MK. These theoretical results may serve as impetus for developing the tools of solar magneto-seismology in dynamic plasma

Indications of Validity and Reliability of TIMSS Standards List with the Fourth Grade Cambridge Mathematics Curriculum from Mathematics Teachers and Supervisors Point of View in the Sultanate of Oman

هدفت الدراسة لتوفير قائمة موثوقة تتمتع بدلالات صدق وثبات مرتفعة، لموائمة معايير الدراسة الدولية للعلوم والرياضيات TIMSS مع منهاج الرياضيات كامبريدج للصف الرابع في سلطنة عمان، وتكوّنت القائمة من 39 معيارا، توزعت على خمسة محاور(الأعداد الكاملة، العبارات الجبرية، القياس، الكسور والأعداد الكسرية، الهندسة). طبقت القائمة على عينة تكونت من 616 (584 معلمًا، 32 مشرفًا). توصّلت الدراسة إلى أن المعايير كانت فعّالة لقياس محاور القائمة، وكذلك توصّلت إلى عدة دلالات للصدق تمثلت في الصدق الظاهري وصدق البناء، وتوصلت أيضًا إلى دلالات مناسبة ومرتفعة لثبات القائمة. وأوصت الدراسة باستخدام القائمة لمراجعة منهاج الرياضيات كامبريدج للصف الرابع في سلطنة عمان للحكم على مواءمته لمعايير الدراسة الدولية للعلوم والرياضيات TIMSS

Genetic diversity of the Nubian ibex in Oman as revealed by mitochondrial DNA

The Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) is patchily distributed across parts of Africa and Arabia. In Oman, it is one of the few free-ranging wild mammals found in the central and southern regions. Its population is declining due to habitat degradation, human expansion, poaching and fragmentation. Here, we investigated the population's genetic diversity using mitochondrial DNA (D-loop 186 bp and cytochrome b 487 bp). We found that the Nubian ibex in the southern region of Oman was more diverse (D-loop HD; 0.838) compared with the central region (0.511) and gene flow between them was restricted. We compared the genetic profiles of wild Nubian ibex from Oman with captive ibex. A Bayesian phylogenetic tree showed that wild Nubian ibex form a distinct clade independent from captive animals. This divergence was supported by high mean distances (D-loop 0.126, cytochrome b 0.0528) and high FST statistics (D-loop 0.725, cytochrome b 0.968). These results indicate that captive ibex are highly unlikely to have originated from the wild population in Oman and the considerable divergence suggests that the wild population in Oman should be treated as a distinct taxonomic unit. Further nuclear genetic work will be required to fully elucidate the degree of global taxonomic divergence of Nubian ibex populations

Bilateral Diaphragmatic Paralysis Following Paediatric Cardiac Surgery : Experience of four cases at the Royal Hospital, Muscat, Oman

Bilateral diaphragmatic paralysis (BDP) is a rare complication of paediatric cardiac surgery. We report four children who developed BDP following cardiac surgery who were managed at the Royal Hospital, Muscat, Oman, between 2009 and 2014. All four children suffered severe respiratory distress soon after extubation and required re-intubation within two hours. In addition, all of the children underwent a tracheostomy as an interim method for ventilation. The four children were successfully weaned from positive pressure ventilation following the functional recovery of at least one side of the diaphragm

Prediction of solid formation conditions in mixed refrigerants with iso-pentane and methane at high pressures and cryogenic temperatures

High boiling-point components in mixed refrigerants can improve the performance of natural gas and hydrogen liquefaction facilities. However, such heavy compounds can freeze out from the refrigerant mixture, posing blockage and plant shutdown risks for cryogenic heat exchangers. To improve the predictions of these conditions, freezing and melting temperatures of pure iso-pentane and (methane + iso-pentane) binary systems were measured at temperatures down to 87.5 K and pressures up to 13 MPa. The iso-pentane melting data are compared with predictions of a thermodynamic model embedded in the ThermoFAST software package. Adjusting the model's fusion molar volume change parameter to force agreement with the measurements reduced the deviations of the experimental data from the model by over 90% relative to the default parameter value. The measured melting data for binary mixtures were used to confirm solubility predictions for iso-pentane in mixed refrigerants. Adding 20 mol% iso-pentane to a methane-rich refrigerant increases the available duty for cooling natural gas or hydrogen from (313–123) K by a factor of three. This improvement outweighs the risk of freeze-out in this refrigerant with the melting temperature being 98 K, which is 15 K lower than the minimum temperature needed for LNG production

Author Correction: Chlorination disadvantages and alternative routes for biofouling control in reverse osmosis desalination (npj Clean Water, (2019), 2, 1, (2), 10.1038/s41545-018-0024-8)

In the original version of this Review Article the affiliation and address for Lorenzo Rosa were incorrectly given as “University of Parma, Department of Information Engineering, Parma 43121, Italy”