Report of Progress: January 1 to December 31, 1952

Each calendar year the Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station submits a Progress Report to the University of Alaska and the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the 2 cooperating agencies under which it operates. This 1952 report segregates the work of each department, reporting briefly the progress made on each project currently under investigation, contributions to scientific knowledge or to the public interest and phases of the work to receive special attention during the coming year. Due credit is given to cooperating agencies and to various station personnel where more than one department is involved on a project. Briefly reported, also, are improvements and additions to physical plant, personnel changes, publications of the station during the year, and sources of financial support.Preface -- Project reports: Soil science, Horticulture, Animal industry, Engineering, Economics, Agronomy, Entomology, Plant Pathology -- Director's comments: Personnel and organization, Physical plant, Needs of the Station, Publication

Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station Circular, No. 7

“P O T A T O E S are an important food in Alaska. Matanuska V alley farmers can produce enough to meet the needs of the Anchorage area if the crop can be kept satisfactorily from one year to the next. The Alaska climate, however, makes better-than-average storage and management necessary to insure a continuous supply throughout the year.Custom storage -- Storage pit -- House-basement storage -- Earth-covered storage -- Sawdust-covered storage -- Frame storage with shell circulation -- Round-roofed storages -- Matanuska Experiment Station storag

Bulletin 12

As early as 1898 investigations of the agricultural possibilities in Alaska were begun along the southern coast and westward along the Aleutian Islands. In the reports of these investigations frequent reference is made to the variety and abundance of the native grasses, whose value for hay and ensilage in feeding livestock was well-known even .at that early date. In some districts, as many as 40 varieties and species were found. Letters written in the same year from widely-scattered points throughout the Territory indicate that the native grasses were widely disseminated, flourishing as far north as the Yukon River. As a family, the legumes native to Alaska, while widely disseminated, are not so predominant as the grasses. In some small areas they are quite abundant. In other sections, only a few varieties are found in scattered locations. As a whole, they form only a small proportion of the forage plants of the Territory. In their native habitat, the grasses and legumes bear seed and propagate readily. Under cultivated conditions, however, considerable difficulty has been encountered in germinating seed of either the native grasses or legumes successfully. It has been found that close grazing or mowing for hay or ensilage year after year depletes the stand of the grasses and legumes. Also, the period during which the native grasses may be pastured or cut for hay with maximum yield and nutritive value is short. For these reasons, the Agricultural Experiment Stations of Alaska have given considerable attention to studies and trials of cultivated varieties of grasses and legumes for pasture and hay. The experimental data on the grasses and legumes tried at the several Stations are briefly summarized in the following report, giving the variety of grass and legume, the years it was seeded, and the results. No attempt has been made to include detail. Scientific names have been eliminated as much as possible, except where they are necessary for definite identification. Varieties of grasses and legumes best adapted to each section of Alaska are listed in the Summary on Page 42.Introduction -- Sitka Station -- Kenai Station -- Rampart Station -- Copper Center Station -- Fairbanks Station -- Kodiak Station -- Matanuska Station -- Grasses: General Description -- Comparative Table of Wild and Tame Grasses -- Grasses suitable for hay and pasture -- legumes -- Grass and legume seed mixtures for hay and pasture -- Seed bed preparation and seeding -- Harvesting the crop -- Summary -- Bibliography -- Inde

Report of Progress: January 1, 1950 to December 31, 1950

Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station Staff -- Director's Report -- Fairbanks Experiment Station, Report of Superintendent -- Matanuska Experiment Station, Report of Superintendent -- Petersburg Experimental Fur Station, Report of Superintendent -- Soil Science Project Reports -- Horticulture Project Reports -- Animal Husbandry Project Reports -- Agricultural Engineering Project Reports -- Agricultural Economics Project Reports -- Agronomy Project Reports -- Entomology Project Reports -- Alaska Work and Line Project Inde

Administrative Report of Progress: January 1 to December 31, 1951

This booklet is a compilation of annual administrative reports required of the Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station, a public supported research institution. Shown here is a complete outline of research problems under study during the year just ended. Objectives financ ial support, accomplishments during 1951 and lines of aproach to be emphasized during the next crop season are a l l set forth in detail. Also indicated is the intricate cooperation established with allied agencies, perfected in an effort to eliminate overlapping in adjacent areas of interest. Staff assignments are presented in order to fix responsibilities and to give credit vhere due. A brief discussion of the physical plant is also included to show what progress has been made in the building program, now some three years old, and to point out certain housekeeping problems that, in the public interest must be solved in the near future

On the Use of Blanketed Atmospheres as Boundary Conditions for Stellar Evolutionary Models

Stellar models have been computed for stars having [Fe/H] = 0.0 and -2.0 to determine the effects of using boundary conditions derived from the latest MARCS model atmospheres. The latter were fitted to the interior models at both the photosphere and at tau = 100, and at least for the 0.8-1.0 solar mass stars considered here, the resultant evolutionary tracks were found to be nearly independent of the chosen fitting point. Particular care was taken to treat the entire star as consistently as possible; i.e., both the interior and atmosphere codes assumed the same abundances and the same treatment of convection. Tracks were also computed using either the classical gray T(tau,T_eff) relation or that derived by Krishna Swamy (1966) to derive the boundary pressure. The latter predict warmer giant branches (by ~150 K) at solar abundances than those based on gray or MARCS atmospheres, which happens to be in good agreement with the inferred temperatures of giants in the open cluster M67 from the latest (V-K)-T_eff relations. Most of the calculations assumed Z=0.0125 (Asplund et al.), though a few models were computed for Z=0.0165 (Grevesse & Sauval) to determine the dependence of the tracks on Z_\odot. Grids of "scaled solar, differentially corrected" (SDC) atmospheres were also computed to try to improve upon theoretical MARCS models. When they were used as boundary conditions, the resultant tracks agreed very well with those based on a standard scaled-solar (e.g., Krishna Swamy) T(tau,T_eff) relation, independently of the assumed metal abundance. Fits of isochrones to the C-M diagram of the [Fe/H] = -2 globular cluster M68 were examined, as was the possibility that the mixing-length parameter varies with stellar parameters.Comment: 54 pages, including 20 figures and 3 tables; accepted (July 2007) for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Certified Professional Co-Active Coaches: Why They Enjoy Coaching

The evidence-base for the practice of coaching continues to flourish, despite the fact that very little is known about the practitioners (i.e. the coaches) themselves. It is of value to understand how coaches perceive their practice. Such information can be utilized to create a common knowledge-base about coaches that can be used, in turn, to track trends and forward research that evaluates coaching services. As the use of Co-Active coaching in facilitating behaviour change continues to rise it becomes important to learn more about Certified-Professional Co-Active Coaches (CPCC). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate what CPCCs enjoy about being coaches. These results were contained within a larger survey. A total of 390 CPCCs who were over 18 years of age, could read English, and had access to the Internet participated in the current study. Findings included: that witnessing clients change their lives; the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from coaching; the collaborative relationship with clients; the autonomy and flexibility of the profession; and the gratification received from using their skill set were the main reasons CPCCs enjoyed coaching. This paper elaborates on these findings and makes suggestions for future research

Project overview and update on WEAVE: the next generation wide-field spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope

We present an overview of and status report on the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). WEAVE principally targets optical ground-based follow up of upcoming ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single spectrograph, with a pair of 8k(spectral) x 6k (spatial) pixel cameras, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R~5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R~20000. The project is now in the final design and early procurement phase, with commissioning at the telescope expected in 2017.Comment: 11 pages, 11 Figures, Summary of a presentation to Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 201