Indian Act Philanthropy: Why are Community Foundations Missing from Native Communities in Manitoba, Canada?

Could a philanthropic model aimed at community development enforce colonial policy rather than providing equitable economic opportunity? This research analyzes the transcripts of 20 public webinars on philanthropy and the Indian Act and maps the 54 community foundations in Manitoba, Canada. All 54 community foundations in Manitoba service only settler-dominated cities and municipalities, with none on Native communities. As community foundations serve only their specific geographical areas, the community foundations in Manitoba effectively concentrate wealth in settler-dominated cities and municipalities, taking away needed resources from Native communities. In excluding the poorest communities in Manitoba, this philanthropic model further entrenches marginalization, poverty, and health risks for Native people on Native communities

Turning conflict into collaboration in managing commons: A case of Rupa Lake Watershed, Nepal

A growing body of literature on the commons has provided fascinating and intricate insights on how some local institutions have successfully managed to avoid a seemingly inevitable “tragedy of the commons” once popularized by Garrett Hardin. Primarily benefitting from the recent studies on the commonpool resources conducted by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues, polycentric selforganization and autonomy, rather than the direct state or market control over the commons, are often recognized as key features of the long enduring commons.However, these commons are quite diverse and the outcomes are often multiple and complex, accentuating the needs to differentiate among multiple commons outcomes. Furthermore, relatively under-reported are the cases where the degradation of common-pool resources are actually halted, and even restored. This study examines both the turbulent history of fishery mismanagement in Rupa Lake, Nepal and its reversal built around the participation, engagement and inclusiveness in the governance of its watershed. We find that Rupa Lake’s experience tells two stories. Reflecting Hardin’s dire forecast, the Rupa Lake watershed verged on collapse as population grew and seemingly selfish behaviorintensified under an open-access regime. But the users also found a way to rebound and reverse their course as they adopted a bottom-up approach to fishery management and established an innovative community institution, the ‘Rupa Lake Rehabilitation and Fishery Cooperative’, dedicated to the sustainable governance of the commons. This case highlights how one community at the threshold of ‘tragedy’ transformed itself by turning conflict into collaboration, which we hope contributes to the effort of better understanding multiple commons

Growth status, curd yield and crop duration of late season cauliflower varieties

Cauliflower is an important winter season vegetable crop having year-round demand in Nepal. Due to longer crop duration in late winter season, there was a production of poor-quality curds and lower yield faced by the farmers in Terai region of Nepal. An experiment was conducted to identify the short duration late season varieties at Rampur, Chitwan Nepal during November 2016 to March, 2017. These varieties were Freedom, Titan, Ravella, Amazing, Artica, Bishop, Casper, Indam 9803 and NS 106 (introduced from USA, Europe and India), and Snow Mystique and Snowball 16 (introduced from Japan). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The highest plant height (71.9 cm) and canopy diameter (74.5 cm) at last harvest of cauliflower was mostly produced by Titan followed by NS 106, Snow Mystique, Bishop and Indam 9803. Similarly, significantly shorter period for final curd initiation of 65 days after transplanting was observed in Freedom and shorter period for final curd maturation of 77 days after transplanting was also recorded in Freedom than other varieties. Significantly, higher curd yield of 54.8 t/ha was produced by Bishop than other varieties. In conclusion, Bishop was the best hybrid variety while other suitable varieties were NS 106, Titan, Artica and Snow Mystique for better growth and higher curd yield in Chitwan condition. Similarly, Freedom was identified as short duration varieties which can minimize the negative effects in late winter season due to higher temperature

An Investigation of the Mechanical Properties of Swelling Clays and Clay-Kerogen Interactions in Oil Shale: A Molecular Modeling and Experimental Study

This work provides an insight into how the molecular interactions influence macroscale properties of two materials: swelling clay and oil shale. Swelling clays cause enormous damage to infrastructure: buildings, roads, and bridges. Understanding the mechanisms are essential to prevent the detrimental effects and use of these clays for engineering applications. Our group studied the effect of fluid polarity on sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT) swelling clay mineral using molecular modeling and experiments for bridging the molecular level behavior with the microstructure, swelling pressure, permeability, and compressibility. Various polar fluids (Dielectric Constant 110 to 20) found in landfill leachates are used. Our molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show that the nonbonded interactions of Na-MMT with polar fluids are higher than with low and medium polar fluids. These results are consistent with the results from Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy experiments. The polarity of the fluids and the fluid content influence the interlayer spacing, interlayer modulus, nonbonded interactions, and conformation as well as the shear strength parameters, the angle of internal friction (φ) and cohesion (c). Furthermore, the unconfined compressive strength experiments are used to evaluate the undrained cohesion at various swelling level. The nanomechanical properties, the modulus of elasticity (E) and hardness (H), of the undisturbed dry and saturated Na-MMT at various level of swelling are evaluated using nanoindentation experiments for the first time. The undrained cohesion, modulus of elasticity, and hardness decrease with increase in swelling level. Swelling controls the microstructure of Na-MMT clay, and the clay particles breakdown into smaller sizes with increase in swelling level. The Green River Formation located in the United States is the richest oil shale deposit in the world. Oil shale contains clay minerals, bitumen, and kerogen—a precursor to crude oil. A three-dimensional (3D) kerogen model is built from seven fragments, and the interactions of kerogen with Na-MMT is investigated using MD simulations to understand how the kerogen is bound to the clay mineral. The nonbonded interactions between Na-MMT and kerogen as well as among kerogen fragments are found. This work seeks to develop new methods to extract kerogen economically and efficiently.Department of Energy (DoE)Mountain Plains Consortium (MPC)North Dakota Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR

The role of fluid polarity in the swelling of sodium-montmorillonite clay: A molecular dynamics and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy study

Swelling clays are found extensively in various parts of the world, and sodium-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) is the main constituent of an expansive clay mineral. In this work, the swelling behavior of Na-MMT clay with a wide range of organic fluids, high polar through low polar fluids, is studied using a combination of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) technique and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The construction of the representative clay–fluid models is carried out, and the nature of nonbonded interactions between clay and fluids is studied using MD. Our FTIR and MD simulations results suggest the significant nonbonded interactions between Na-MMT clay and polar fluids, such as formamide and water. The nonbonded interactions of Na-MMT with methanol and acetone are significantly less than those in Na-MMT with polar fluids. The interactions of the fluids with various entities of the clay such as SiO, FeOH, MgOH, and AlOH captured via the spectroscopy experiments and modeling provide a finer understanding of the interactions and their contributions to swelling. The MD simulations are able to capture the band shifts observed in the spectra obtained in the spectroscopy experiments. This work also captures the conformations of interlayer sodium ions with formamide, water, methanol, and acetone during swelling. These nonbonded interactions provide insight into the molecular mechanism that the polarity of fluids plays an important role in the initiation of interlayer swelling, alteration in the orientations, and evolution of microstructure of swelling clays at the molecular scale. Keywords: Swelling clays, Montmorillonite, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) technique, Molecular dynamics (MD), Organic fluids, Polarit

Turning conflict into collaboration in managing commons: A case of Rupa Lake Watershed, Nepal

A growing body of literature on the commons has provided fascinating and intricate insights on how some local institutions have successfully managed to avoid a seemingly inevitable “tragedy of the commons” once popularized by Garrett Hardin. Primarily benefitting from the recent studies on the commonpool resources conducted by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues, polycentric selforganization and autonomy, rather than the direct state or market control over the commons, are often recognized as key features of the long enduring commons.However, these commons are quite diverse and the outcomes are often multiple and complex, accentuating the needs to differentiate among multiple commons outcomes. Furthermore, relatively under-reported are the cases where the degradation of common-pool resources are actually halted, and even restored. This study examines both the turbulent history of fishery mismanagement in Rupa Lake, Nepal and its reversal built around the participation, engagement and inclusiveness in the governance of its watershed. We find that Rupa Lake’s experience tells two stories. Reflecting Hardin’s dire forecast, the Rupa Lake watershed verged on collapse as population grew and seemingly selfish behaviorintensified under an open-access regime. But the users also found a way to rebound and reverse their course as they adopted a bottom-up approach to fishery management and established an innovative community institution, the ‘Rupa Lake Rehabilitation and Fishery Cooperative’, dedicated to the sustainable governance of the commons. This case highlights how one community at the threshold of ‘tragedy’ transformed itself by turning conflict into collaboration, which we hope contributes to the effort of better understanding multiple commons

Growth Status, Curd Yield and Crop Duration of Late Season Cauliflower Varieties

Cauliflower is an important winter season vegetable crop having year-round demand in Nepal. Due to longer crop duration in late winter season, there was a production of poor-quality curds and lower yield faced by the farmers in Terai region of Nepal. An experiment was conducted to identify the short duration late season varieties at Rampur, Chitwan Nepal during November 2016 to March, 2017. These varieties were Freedom, Titan, Ravella, Amazing, Artica, Bishop, Casper, Indam 9803 and NS 106 (introduced from USA, Europe and India), and Snow Mystique and Snowball 16 (introduced from Japan). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The highest plant height (71.9 cm) and canopy diameter (74.5 cm) at last harvest of cauliflower was mostly produced by Titan followed by NS 106, Snow Mystique, Bishop and Indam 9803. Similarly, significantly shorter period for final curd initiation of 65 days after transplanting was observed in Freedom and shorter period for final curd maturation of 77 days after transplanting was also recorded in Freedom than other varieties. Significantly, higher curd yield of 54.8 t/ha was produced by Bishop than other varieties. In conclusion, Bishop was the best hybrid variety while other suitable varieties were NS 106, Titan, Artica and Snow Mystique for better growth and higher curd yield in Chitwan condition. Similarly, Freedom was identified as short duration varieties which can minimize the negative effects in late winter season due to higher temperature