The Still Unfathomed Trans+Oceanic

For centuries, violence against mermaids has coexisted alongside slippery sexualizations in much of Newfoundland’s folk and popular cultures. This is demonstrated most grievously in colonist Richard Whitbourne’s 1620 text, A Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland. The fishy reality of simultaneous disposability and desirability also mirrors the life histories of trans women and sex workers in the capital port city of St. John’s. Imagining mermaids as trans and sex-working ancestors in a province that has been structured by ecologies of fish trade, this work of research-creation drifts through precarious survival in the North Atlantic

Being After Being Has Washed Away

Thinking with an assemblage of Black, Indigenous, crip, decolonial, and trans feminist creative and theoretical work, this poem explores fishy felt knowledges of sex work, outmigration, colonial erasure, and archival absence in the lives of trans women from Ktaqamkuk/Newfoundland.En s’appuyant sur un assemblage de travaux créatifs et théoriques de féministes noires, autochtones, crip, décoloniales et transgenres, ce poème explore les expériences à sensation poisseuse du travail du sexe, de l’émigration, de l’anéantissement colonial et de l’absence d’archives dans la vie des femmes trans de Ktaqamkuk (Terre-Neuve)

Effect of Process Approach to Writing on Senior Secondary Students’ Achievement in Writing (Plateau Central Senatorial District)

This study set out to ascertain the effect of process approach to writing on senior secondary students’ achievement in writing in Plateau Central Senatorial District. The study also examined the differential effect of process approach to writing on male and female students’ achievement in writing. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. The sample consisted of 128 senior secondary students selected from two co-educational secondary schools from Plateau State using a random sampling technique. The study adopted a quasi-experimental non equivalent pretest-posttest research design. One intact class was assigned the experimental group and the other the control group. Data were generated using Students’ Essay Writing Achievement Test (SEWAT) which was an instrument designed by the researcher. Means and standard deviations were used to answer research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. Hypotheses tested revealed that students exposed to process approach to writing exhibited higher achievement (p=0.00˂0.05) in writing than those who were taught writing using the conventional methods. In addition, male and female students taught using process approach to writing did not differ significantly in achievement (p=0.95>0.05). Based on the findings, it was recommended that teachers of English language should be encouraged to use process approach in teaching writing and that more emphasis should be placed on teaching strategies that will focus on building and developing students’ writing skills.Key words: process approach, product approach, essay, writing, achievement

Tax Reform Proposals on a Gift Tax on the Transfer of Property by Nonresidents

This Note raises taxation issues pertaining to a gift tax on the transfer of property by nonresidents under current United States tax rules. It further illustrates patterns and trends to evade a gift tax using transaction maneuvers. These issues are defined in three categories: a gift tax on the transfer of property situated only within the United States by a nonresident, no gift tax on the transfer of intangible assets, and transferee liability. In response to such issues, this Note calls for corresponding proposals to resolve gift taxation problems. It proposes that a gift tax should be imposed on the transfer of property by a nonresident whether the property is situated inside or outside of the United States. It also proposes that intangible assets transferred by a nonresident should not be exempt from gift taxation. Lastly, this Note proposes that in a gift transaction made by a nonresident, a U.S. donee should be required to withhold a tentative amount of gift tax from the nonresident donor to enhance taxpayer compliance with tax regulations

La kénose du Dieu Trinité dans la théologie de la Croix de Jürgen Moltmann

Notre travail de recherche pose la question de la présence de Dieu au coeur de la souffrance humaine. Une réponse nous est donnée dans la théologie de la Croix de Jiirgen Moltmann, théologie qui présente un Dieu qui s'abaisse, s'humilie et souffre ; un Dieu trinitaire qui, de toute éternité, par amour, se donne tout entier, porte en lui toute misère, toute souffrance, les faisant siennes jusqu'à subir volontairement l'abandon et la mort infâme sur la Croix et qui, au plus profond de la déréliction, fait surgir la vie nouvelle. C'est donc sous l'aspect de la kénose et celui de la souffrance créatrices que Dieu se révèle à nous et nous invite, à son exemple, à assumer notre propre souffrance, à nous rendre solidaires des plus malheureux, à lutter sans cesse contre le mal, la misère et l'injustice

Fishy fragments: trans women's worlds in Ktaqamkuk/Newfoundland

This portfolio-style thesis and work of autoethnographic research-creation explores the historical lives of trans women in Ktaqamkuk/Newfoundland, Canada. Working with an assemblage of archival remains, felt knowledges, and poetic imaginations – what I call fishy fragments – of trans women’s worlds in Newfoundland, I reveal how the past five decades of our lives have been shaped by loss, sex work, and oceanleaving. Loving and honouring fishy fragments as a way to seek more heartful modes of inquiry in trans historical studies, this thesis offers a creative counterarchive of Newfoundland trans women’s worlds by thinking with trans+oceanic emotional geographies

The unrecognized importance of carbon stocks and fluxes from Swamps in Canada and the USA

Abstract Swamps are a highly significant wetland type in North America both in terms of areal extent and their role in terrestrial carbon cycling. These wetlands, characterized by woody vegetation cover, encompass a diverse suite of ecosystems, including broad-leaved, needle-leaved, mixedwood or shrub/thicket swamps. Uncertainties in the role of swamps in carbon uptake and release continue to be substantial due to insufficient data on variabilities in carbon densities across diverse swamp types and relatively few flux measurements from swamp sites. Robust measurements of rates of vertical accretion of swamp soils and the associated long-term rates of carbon accumulation, alongside measurements of carbon losses from swamps, are needed for emerging frameworks for carbon accounting, and for assessments of the impacts of climate warming and land use change on this important wetland type. Based on data compilation, we present here a comparative analysis from a series of North American swamp sites on carbon dioxide, methane and dissolved organic carbon fluxes, aboveground biomass, net primary productivity, and soil carbon properties including bulk densities, organic carbon contents, peat depths, rates of vertical accretion, and rates of long-term carbon accumulation. We compare these properties for four major swamp types: needle-leaved, broad-leaved, mixedwood and shrub/thicket swamps. We show differences in carbon fluxes, biomass and NPP across the four types, with broad-leaved swamps having the largest CH4 flux, highest soil bulk densities, thinnest peat depths and lowest soil organic matter contents, whereas needle-leaved swamps have the smallest CH4 flux, highest aboveground biomass and highest NPP. We show high soil carbon stocks (kgC m-2) in all types of swamps, even those where organic deposits were too shallow to meet the definition of peat. However, we note there is a significant lack of studies focused on swamp carbon dynamics despite their abundance across Canada and the United States.</jats:p

Farmers perceptions of climate change related events in Shendam and Riyom, Nigeria

Although agriculture in Nigeria is the major source of income for about 70% of the active population, the impact of agrarian infrastructure on boosting productivity and supporting livelihoods has increased. Climate change and the increasing trend of climate-related events in Nigeria challenge both the stability of agrarian infrastructure and livelihood systems. Based on case studies of two local communities in Plateau state in Nigeria, this paper utilizes a range of perceptions to examine the impacts of climate-related events on agrarian infrastructures and how agrarian livelihood systems are, in turn, affected. Data are obtained from a questionnaire survey (n = 175 farmers) and semi-structured interviews (n = 14 key informants). The study identifies local indicators of climate change, high risks climate events and the components of agrarian infrastructures that are at risk from climate events. Findings reveal that, changes in rainfall and temperature patterns increase the probability of floods and droughts. They also reveal that, although locational differences account for the high impact of floods on road transport systems and droughts on irrigation infrastructures, both have a chain of negative effects on agricultural activities, economic activities and livelihood systems. A binomial logistic regression model is used to predict the perceived impact levels of floods and droughts, while an in-depth analysis is utilized to corroborate the quantitative results. The paper further stresses the need to strengthen the institutional capacity for risk reduction through the provision of resilient infrastructures, as the poor conditions of agrarian infrastructure were identified as dominant factors on the high impact levels

Molecular Insights into Inhibition of the Methylated Histone-Plant Homeodomain Complexes by Calixarenes

Plant homeodomain (PHD) finger-containing proteins are implicated in fundamental biological processes, including transcriptional activation and repression, DNA damage repair, cell differentiation, and survival. The PHD finger functions as an epigenetic reader that binds to posttranslationally modified or unmodified histone H3 tails, recruiting catalytic writers and erasers and other components of the epigenetic machinery to chromatin. Despite the critical role of the histone-PHD interaction in normal and pathological processes, selective inhibitors of this association have not been well developed. Here we demonstrate that macrocyclic calixarenes can disrupt binding of PHD fingers to methylated lysine 4 of histone H3 in vitro and in vivo. The inhibitory activity relies on differences in binding affinities of the PHD fingers for H3K4me and the methylation state of the histone ligand, whereas the composition of the aromatic H3K4me-binding site of the PHD fingers appears to have no effect. Our approach provides a novel tool for studying the biological roles of methyllysine readers in epigenetic signaling