A Basin Method of Nut Tree Culture

Nut tree culture in Iowa is confined almost entirely too selected and grafted varieties of the black walnut, Juglan nigra L. This tree is one of the dominants of the Elm-Ash-Walnut Associes of the Deciduous Forest Formation of eastern United States. Its native habitat is the upper flood-plains of rivers, creeks and even intermittent streams. In spite of the fact that Iowa is near the western limit of its range, the walnut thrives in the rich alluvial soil of well drained but moist floodplains throughout the state and attains a size almost as great as it does farther east near the center of its range

Gender equality and girls education: Investigating frameworks, disjunctures and meanings of quality education

The article draws on qualitative educational research across a diversity of low-income countries to examine the gendered inequalities in education as complex, multi-faceted and situated rather than a series of barriers to be overcome through linear input–output processes focused on isolated dimensions of quality. It argues that frameworks for thinking about educational quality often result in analyses of gender inequalities that are fragmented and incomplete. However, by considering education quality more broadly as a terrain of quality it investigates questions of educational transitions, teacher supply and community participation, and develops understandings of how education is experienced by learners and teachers in their gendered lives and their teaching practices. By taking an approach based on theories of human development the article identifies dynamics of power underpinning gender inequalities in the literature and played out in diverse contexts and influenced by social, cultural and historical contexts. The review and discussion indicate that attaining gender equitable quality education requires recognition and understanding of the ways in which inequalities intersect and interrelate in order to seek out multi-faceted strategies that address not only different dimensions of girls’ and women’s lives, but understand gendered relationships and structurally entrenched inequalities between women and men, girls and boys

The HgMn Binary Star Phi Herculis: Detection and Properties of the Secondary and Revision of the Elemental Abundances of the Primary

Observations of the Mercury-Manganese star Phi Herculis with the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) conclusively reveal the previously unseen companion in this single-lined binary system. The NPOI data were used to predict a spectral type of A8V for the secondary star Phi Her B. This prediction was subsequently confirmed by spectroscopic observations obtained at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. Phi Her B is rotating at 50 +/-3 km/sec, in contrast to the 8 km/sec lines of Phi Her A. Recognizing the lines from the secondary permits one to separate them from those of the primary. The abundance analysis of Phi Her A shows an abundance pattern similar to those of other HgMn stars with Al being very underabundant and Sc, Cr, Mn, Zn, Ga, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, and Hg being very overabundant.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 45 pages, 11 figure

Indigenous knowledge, skills and action:Indigenous women’s learning in the Peruvian Amazon

Drawing on long term ethnographic research in the SE Peruvian Amazon this article asks what kinds and forms of learning do indigenous women value, how are the knowledge and skills they value changing over time and what is the nature of their agency in the face of the discrimination and prejudice that permeate their lives. Harakmbut women’s lives have been transformed over the past 40 years in the wake of neoliberal globalisation, rapacious exploitative economic practices and unregulated illegal gold mining. Within this context, three types of learning emerge as important: learning about indigenous cosmology and way of life; experiential learning through engagement with an expanding capitalist society; and learning through training and capacity building for participation, voice and rights-based advocacy. The article argues that all three types of learning give meaning to Harakmbut women’s lives, their relationship to their history and their views of the world

X-ray Variability in the Young Massive Triple theta2 Ori A

Massive stars rarely show intrinsic X-ray variability. The only O-stars credited to be intrinsically variable are theta1 Ori C due to effects from magnetic confinement of its wind, and theta2 Ori A suspected of similar activity. Early Chandra observations have shown that the most massive star system in the Orion Trapezium Cluster, theta2 Ori A, shows rapid variability on time scales of hours. We determine X-ray fluxes and find that the star shows very strong variability over the last 5 years. We observed a second large X-ray outburst in November 2004 with the high resolution transmission grating spectrometer on-board Chandra. In the low state X-ray emissivities indicate temperatures well above 25 MK. In the high state we find an extended emissivity distribution with high emissivities in the range from 3 MK to over 100 MK. The outburst event in stellar terms is one of the most powerful ever observed and the most energetic one in the ONC with a lower total energy limit of 1.5x10^37 ergs. The line diagnostics show that under the assumption that the line emitting regions in the low states are as close as within 1 -- 2 stellar radii from the O-star's photosphere, whereas the hard states suggest a distance of 3 -- 5 stellar radii. The two outbursts are very close to the periastron passage of the stars. We argue that the high X-ray states are possibly the result of reconnection events from magnetic interactions of the primary and secondary stars of the spectroscopic binary. Effects from wind collisions seem unlikely for this system. The low state emissivity and R-ratios strengthen the predicament that the X-ray emission is enhanced by magnetic confinement of the primary wind. We also detect Fe fluorescence indicative of the existence of substantial amounts of neutral Fe in the vicinity of the X-ray emission.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Main Journa

Assessing gender mainstreaming in the education sector: depoliticised technique or a step towards women's rights and gender equality?

In 1995 the Beijing Conference on Women identified gender mainstreaming as a key area for action. Policies to effect gender mainstreaming have since been widely adopted. This special issue of Compare looks at research on how gender mainstreaming has been used in government education departments, schools, higher education institutions, international agencies and NGOs .1 In this introduction we first provide a brief history of the emergence of gender mainstreaming and review changing definitions of the term. In the process we outline some policy initiatives that have attempted to mainstream gender and consider some difficulties with putting ideas into practice, particularly the tensions between a technical and transformative interpretations . Much of the literature about experiences with gender mainstreaming tends to look at organizational processes and not any specificities of a particular social sector. However, in our second section, we are concerned to explore whether institutional forms and particular actions associated with education give gender mainstreaming in education sites some distinctive features. In our last section we consider some of the debates about global and local negotiations in discussions of gender policy and education and the light this throws on gender mainstreaming. In so doing, we place the articles that follow in relation to contestations over ownership, political economy, the form and content of education practice and the social complexity of gender equality

The magnetic Bp star 36 Lyncis, I. Magnetic and photospheric properties

This paper reports the photospheric, magnetic and circumstellar gas characteristics of the magnetic B8p star 36 Lyncis (HD 79158). Using archival data and new polarised and unpolarised high-resolution spectra, we redetermine the basic physical properties, the rotational period and the geometry of the magnetic field, and the photospheric abundances of various elements.}{Based on magnetic and spectroscopic measurements, we infer an improved rotational period of $3.83475\pm 0.00002$ d. We determine a current epoch of the longitudinal magnetic field positive extremum (HJD 2452246.033), and provide constraints on the geometry of the dipole magnetic field (i\geq 56\degr, $3210 {\rm G}\leq B_{\rm d}\leq 3930$ G, $\beta$ unconstrained). We redetermine the effective temperature and surface gravity using the optical and UV energy distributions, optical photometry and Balmer line profiles ($T_{\rm eff}=13300\pm 300$ K, $\log g=3.7-4.2$), and based on the Hipparcos parallax we redetermine the luminosity, mass, radius and true rotational speed ($L=2.54\pm 0.16 L_\odot, M=4.0\pm 0.2 M_\odot, R=3.4\pm 0.7 R_\odot, v_{\rm eq}=45-61.5$ \kms). We measure photospheric abundances for 21 elements using optical and UV spectra, and constrain the presence of vertical stratification of these elements. We perform preliminary Doppler Imaging of the surface distribution of Fe, finding that Fe is distributed in a patchy belt near the rotational equator. Most remarkably, we confirm strong variations of the H$\alpha$ line core which we interpret as due to occultations of the star by magnetically-confined circumstellar gas.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic