Mary Dawson and Newton Park Training College: education, teacher training and expressions of citizenship in the long 1950s

Following the Second World War, revolutionary changes to national education resulted in a huge demand for teachers. It was women who stepped into this void, taking advantage of a profession which combined present opportunity and future flexibility. This thesis provides a case study of one establishment which trained such teachers. Newton Park Training College was founded in 1946, under the leadership of Mary Dawson, who served as Principal until her retirement in 1968. Dawson, as a university-educated woman herself, is part of a significant network of women who led the training colleges over this period, and she used the rhetoric and ethos of citizenship to validate the development of women’s participation throughout the teaching profession. This study argues that, as part of a widely expanding educational sector in an era of post-war reconstruction, women teachers were integral to public life and were able to demonstrate their personal agency and conduct their own lives in ways not possible for previous generations. This led to a new confidence for many women, who in turn served as conduits for change for those who followed. The period of the long 1950s presented women with a number of contrasting choices, of which the media image of the ‘lipsticked and aproned’ woman at home remains dominant. Such imagery presents much of the period as offering limited opportunity to women, yet this assumption is belied by the increasing visibility of married women engaged in public life, and the expectation of the women themselves that their contributions as active and responsible citizens were vital to national life. The thesis focuses on just one woman, one college, and a small group of students. But in doing so it unpacks the changing nature of a period of history in which women were able to exploit a public life through teaching. It adds to the knowledge of women teachers in the period and makes an original contribution through the in-depth analysis of one institution and its leader, and makes further contributions to scholarship in several areas. Specifically, these feature country house history in the post-war period, biographical and institutional history, and the contribution made by women like Dawson and her students through education in the twentieth century. The story of Newton Park College provides an assessment of the longer-term impact of women’s education and forces a reconsideration of the significance of this era. It also reinforces and complements recent scholarship which establishes the long 1950s as part of the continuity of progress towards women’s equality over the course of the twentieth century

Chapter G: Selenium poisoning in livestock

Selenium in certain soils may be taken up by plants in amounts sufficient to make forage toxic to animals. Seleniterous forage can be found in semiarid areas on soils typically derived from Cretaceous geologic material in the Western United States and Canada. Intoxication of livestock by seleniterous plants has been classified as acute or chronic. Acute poisoning results from consuming plants containing high selenium concentrations. Chronic selenium poisoning has been described in two forms: alkali disease and blind staggers. Alkali disease results from prolonged ingestion of plants containing, 5-40 ppm selenium in inorganic or organic forms. Alkali disease causes loss or hair, lameness, weight loss and probably reduces reproductive efficiency . Blind staggers is said to result from the consumption or selenium indicator plants. These plants, in contrast to the nonaccumulators, contain selenium in water soluble, nonprotein forms. Blind staggers causes animals to wander, walk in circles, and to have difficulty in swallowing; in addition, it may cause blindness. Information is presented that questions the attribution of blind staggers to selenium toxicosis

Reproductive response of ewes fed alfalfa pellets containing sodium selenate or astragalus bisulcatus as a selenium source

Selenium fed to open cycling ewes in the form of sodium selenate or Astragalus bisulcatus (a selenium accumulator plant) at 24 or 29 ppm selenium, respectively, in alfalfa hay pellets did not alter the estrous cycle length, estrus behavior, progesterone or estrogen profiles, pregnancy rate or outcome of parturition (P>0.05). There was wool loss in some ewes fed seleniferous pellets and the mean whole blood selenium levels were 0.45, 1.3 and 2.4 ppm, respectively, for control, A bisulcatus and sodium selenate; however, ewe condition and appearance remained good. All lambs appeared normal and the number of lambs born and the individual and total lamb weight averages were not significantly (P>0.05) different between treatment groups and control group

Selenium in seleniferous environments

Selenium is biologically important because (i) it is essential in animal and possibly plant metabolism, (ii) in many areas diets do not contain sufficient Se to meet animals' needs, and (iii) in other areas it is toxic to animals when it occurrs in high concentrations in soil, water, plants, fly ash, or in aerosols. Animals require 0.05 to 0.1 mg Se/kg in their diets to prevent Se deficiency but suffer Se toxicosis when dietary levels exceed 5 to 15 mg Se/kg. The earth's crustal materials generally contain <0.1 mg Se/kg. Higher concentrations are found in Cretaceous shales. The Se-accumulator plants growing on the seleniferous soils may contain hundreds or even thousands of mg Se/kg. However, the nonaccumulator grasses and forbs seldom accumulate >50 mg Se/kg and more often contain <5 mg Se/kg. Soils and plants may discharge volatile forms of Se into the atmosphere. However, plants may also absorb measurable amounts of gaseous Se from the atmosphere. Anthropogenic activities impact the amount of Se entering our nation's lakes, rivers, and the atmosphere. Combustion of coal and incineration of municipal waste exhaust Se into the environment. In addition, crop-fallow and irrigation practices that allow leaching waters to pass through seleniferous strata prior to intersecting with surface flow, augment the Se levels encountered by plant and animal life

Selenium poisoning in livestock: a review and progress

Selenium in certain soils may be taken up by plants in amounts to render them toxic. Seleniferous forage can be found in most of the western states. Intoxication of livestock by seleniferous plants has been classified as acute and chronic. Acute poisoning results from consumption of plants having high levels of Se; chronic Se poisoning has been described in two forms— alkali disease and blind staggers. Alkali disease is said to result from the consumption of seleniferous grains and grasses, and is manifest by loss of hair, lameness, and loss of weight. Blind staggers is slid to result from the consumption of Se indicator plants and is manifest by wandering, circling, loss of ability to swallow, and blindness. Some research casts doubt on the above classification of Se poisoning. Research using pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) indicates that the source of Se does not alter the type of lesion or signs of poisoning observed. There are data available that suggest that blind staggers is not related to Se poisoning

Opposite correlations between cation disordering and amorphization resistance in spinels versus pyrochlores

Understanding and predicting radiation damage evolution in complex materials is crucial for developing next-generation nuclear energy sources. Here, using a combination of ion beam irradiation, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, we show that, contrary to the behaviour observed in pyrochlores, the amorphization resistance of spinel compounds correlates directly with the energy to disorder the structure. Using a combination of atomistic simulation techniques, we ascribe this behaviour to structural defects on the cation sublattice that are present in spinel but not in pyrochlore. Specifically, because of these structural defects, there are kinetic pathways for the relaxation of disorder in spinel that are absent in pyrochlore. This leads to a direct correlation between amorphization resistance and disordering energetics in spinel, the opposite of that observed in pyrochlores. These results provide new insight into the origins of amorphization resistance in complex oxides beyond fluorite derivatives

Comparative toxicity of selenium from seleno-DL-methionine, sodium selenate, and Astragalus bisulcatus in pigs

Selenium is an essential micronutrient, although ingestion in excess in pigs can cause disease conditions including neurological dysfunction and chronic skin and hoof lesions. Controlled feeding trials in growing swine, using the same Se content in feed sources, resulted in higher concentrations (p 0.05) of Se in blood and organs of pigs fed seleno-DL-methionine compared with those receiving Astragalus bisulcatus or sodium selenate. Clinical signs of Se toxicity including neurological signs of paralysis were more severe and occurred sooner in the A. bisulcatus group than in the sodium selenate or seleno-DL-methionine groups. All five pigs fed A. bisulcatus developed neurological signs of paralysis, and in four the signs occurred within 5 days of the start of treatment. Four of five pigs fed sodium selenate also developed paralysis, but this occurred 4 to 21 days after treatment began. The fifth pig in the group developed signs of chronic selenosis. Two of five pigs fed seleno-DL-methionine developed paralysis on 9 and 24 days, respectively, and the remaining three developed chronic selenosis. Selenium fed to pigs in three forms [plant (A. bisulcatus), sodium selenate, or seleno-DL-methionine] resulted in neurological dysfunction and lesions of symmetrical poliomyelomalacia. These were most severe in the A. bisulcatus group, which also had polioencephalomalacia. Although seleno-m-methionine caused the greater increase in tissue and blood Se concentrations, this did not correlate with severity of pathological changes, since animals fed A. bisulcatus developed more severe and disseminated lesions

Photorefractive planar waveguides in BaTiO₃ fabricated by ion-beam implantation

For the first time to our knowledge, photorefractive properties have been observed in planar waveguides fabricated by the technique of ion-beam implantation in BaTiO3 single crystals. The implantation was carried out by using 1.5 MeV H+ ions at a dose of 10-16 ions/cm2. For a given input power, a decrease in the effective photo-refractive two-beam coupling response time of ≥102 has been observed, owing to a combination of optical confinement within the waveguide and possible modification of charge-transport properties induced through implantation. Experiments carried out on the two-beam coupling gain show that the gain direction has been reversed in the waveguide compared with that of the bulk crystal

Selenium poisoning in cattle (Chapter 74)

Selenium is readily absorbed by all plants. However certain soils contain selenium in amounts and forms that render some plants toxic to animals, plants have been divided into two groups according to their ability to accumulate selenium: (i) primary selenium-accumulators or indicator plants, which include species of the Astragalus, Haplopappus and Stanleya genera. These plants accumulate low molecular weight, water soluble organic compounds and selenate (Anon., 1980) to give selenium levels of 50 to several thousand mg kg-1; and (ii) non-accumulator plants which include grasses, shrubs, small grains, alfalfa and some forbs. These plants usually accumulate less than 50mg kg-1 (generally 5-12mg kg-1) selenium as organic forms in plant proteins. Selenium poisoning in livestock most frequently involves these non-accumulator plants