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Despite research exploring autism in gender-diverse adolescents, no studies have elicited these individuals' perspectives. In-depth interviews with 22 well-characterized autistic gender-diverse adolescents revealed critical themes, including: recollections of pre-pubertal gender nonconformity; vivid experiences of gender dysphoria; a fear of social gender expression due to perceived animosity toward transgender people; and specific challenges that result from the interplay of gender diversity and neurodiversity. During the ~ 22 month study social gender affirmation increased in six participants and gender dysphoria attenuated in four participants. Given the ethical imperative to understand and prioritize the voiced perspectives and needs of autistic gender minority adolescents as well as the discovery of shared themes and experiences in this population, results should inform clinical research approaches and priorities.

The first nonpathologizing book for parents on trans and gender-nonconforming young people, Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper's The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals, urges unconditional love and acceptance of both trans youth and gender-nonconforming children. The authors encourage parents not only to support their young people but also to become advocates on their behalf.

The title of this jointly authored essay is meant to evoke new strategies in Native literary studies: the reaching back across time from the contemporary present to the historical past, the examination of the relationship between the academic fields of early and contemporary Native literature, and the growing recognition of the importance of alternative textualities. These strategies are joined by a network of relationships: intellectual, geographical, and textual, all of which gesture toward land as the glue that binds Native communities. Our collaboration is similarly linked. As scholars, we are situated at opposite ends of the field of Native studies: temporally, Fitzgerald in the present, reaching back through the centuries to uncover Native voices and communities; Wyss situated in the early American period, recovering Native voices that for too long have been left out of contemporary literary histories. Spatially, we are situated differently as well, with Wyss working on New England material culture and Fitzgerald working on fiction from Louise Erdrich, Diane Glancy, and Sophia Alice Callahan. In this essay, we raise the following questions: How do we see each other at the edges of Native literary studies? Perhaps more importantly, where do we meet? How do these two subfields, early and contemporary, intersect, even while recognizing that increasingly, they are part and parcel of the same intellectual and textual moment? How do they inform each other, and what are the implications of this for the broader field and beyond? Scholars in contemporary Native studies draw a number of important connections between the past and the present through

Beginning in early 1994, UNICEF Zambia made a commitment to emphasize the use of participatory methods in conducting its business. Specifically, this has meant adopting and experimenting with a participatory methodology named VIPP (Visualization in Participatory Programmes) which had been used in a wide variety of group events, ranging from planning and review meetings to training and team building. Three years later, a process evaluation was commissioned to examine the question: How has this initiative been accepted and what effect is it having on UNICEF-supported programmes in Zambia? Employing a widely-utilized framework for evaluating training effectiveness, the evaluation team traced the history of VIPP implementation in Zambia through document reviews and interviews. In addition, the evaluators collected data from three different programme sites in Zambia where VIPP had been used. Several participatory evaluation techniques were used to conduct this evaluation, the first exercise of its kind for assessing VIPP application in Africa. Through this evaluation exercise, the evaluation team has gained knowledge about the strategic benefits and application of VIPP that will help with future planning for VIPP in Zambia and that will also inform other UNICEF offices and organizations about the experience of implementing a participatory methodology for programme and organisational purposes. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The organic market has grown exponentially in Europe during the last ten years. However, the organic fruit industry in European states still has a relatively low market share of less than 1-5% compared with organic vegetables, milk and eggs that have achieved market shares of close to 10% of the total market. As well, conventional fruit growers still hesitate to respond to the generally good organic market demand. A major reason for this behaviour is the continuing high production risk due to less availability of effective management tools for the control of pests, diseases, weed and biennial bearing. The key pests and diseases in apple and pear include scab, sooty blotch, and fire blight as well as rosy apple aphid, pear sucker and codling moth, as well as post-harvest diseases like Gloeosporium rot. Another reason that holds up organic fruit expansion is that in fruit production, in contrast to milk or wheat, new and organic-specific marketing attempts are necessary for organic cultivars, less cosmetic “beauty”, etc.) but are presently scarce. In an ideal organic production system, all possible measures that lead to improved stability and self-regulation of the agro-ecological system have to be implemented (e.g. resistant cultivars, bio-diversity areas, lower planting densities, measures to avoid inoculum build-up, soil fertility). At present, most organic orchards have almost the same design as found in conventional production and often do not include system stabilising elements. Therefore, organic fruit production still depends largely on direct pest and disease control methods. In the last decade effective compounds and techniques have been developed such as Neem preparations, granulosis viruses, and mating disruption to control pests. Some new plant protection techniques e.g. clay powders, resistance inducers, better spray technique and spray timing models have been introduced. The introduction of new equipment, compounds, cultivars and decision support systems will further improve yield stability. However, for other limiting factors, such as weed competition, crop load regulation and market demands in respect to quality, innovative solutions have to be developed. The challenge for the future is to build up a credible (“true-organic”) and high quality multi-factor oriented organic fruit production that combines single factor solutions to a self-regulating, and possibly even organic pesticide-free, production system. Progress in this direction will lead to innovative organic production and marketing concepts that are clearly different from conventional ones. To achieve these goals, creative efforts along the whole chain involving producers, consumers, retailers, advisory services and researchers are essential.

The question of who defines the Native, and how, becomes complicated when Natives actively participate in a discourse that historically has defined them in their absence. Euro-American definitions of Native Americans have long been rooted in specific genres of written discourse-the captivity narrative, the travel narrative, European eyewitness accounts of "authentic" Native communities-diverse forms that nevertheless complement each other in their attempts to explain Native Americans to a Euro-American audience. Natives are regarded as "authentic" only as they fit into the preconceived generic constructions constituted by Euro-American observers. Jana Sequoya, a contemporary Native American scholar, emphasizes the frustrations of this situation: "In order to be perceived as speaking subjects, American Indians must adopt categories of meaning and codes of representation that convey an implicit set of goals in many ways contrary to those that articulate their own stories."' To be heard in the dominant culture, then, Natives must often negotiate story lines written about them with little regard for their particular experiences. The problem of representation is further exacerbated by individuals whose