BioCentury Research Farm - Paint Booth Automation

o BioCentury Research Farm is an affiliate of Iowa State University and operates with the mission to support agricultural sciences and research in local regions. The Farm assembles parts for agricultural equipment. o The BioCentury Research Farm (BCRF) is requesting paint booth modification. The current paint booth has an exhaust fan that is manually controlled. The fan is operated with an appropriate cycle of about 85% of the time. However, the other 15% of the time, the fan is either not used, turned off too soon, or left on too long. o The issue has continued to waste time, affecting employee productivity. If parts aren’t dried or rotated in proper time, it will delay work cycles until the employee corrects the problem independently. Additionally, parts are not labeled with names or painting times. o The coding of a programmable logic controller and installation of the corresponding fully integrated system is to be conducted by the capstone team to fit the requirements of the BioCentury Research Farm. o Addressing the issue with the paint booth will remove manual labor costs by up to 30 minutes/day for BioCentury Research Farm. o Improvements from this project will extend beyond the BioCentury Research Farm. Parts will be rotated more quickly and efficiently, empowering BioCentury Research Farm to serve at higher capacity to clients

‘RE/TRS’ is a Girl’s Subject: Talking about Gender and the Discourse of ‘Religion’ in UK Educational Spaces

This article addresses what appears to be a retrenchment into narrower forms of identification and an increased suspicion of difference in the context of educational policy in the UK – especially in relation to ‘Religious Education’. The adoption of standardized management protocols – ‘managerialism’ – across most if not all policy contexts including public educational spaces reduces spaces for encountering or addressing genuine difference and for discovering something new and different. A theory of the ‘feminization of religion’ associated historically with Barbara Welter, provides some useful insights as to why this might be, suggesting that those in British society who would prefer to see greater separation from ‘religion’ in ‘secular’ schools may well also be caught up in forms of gender stereotyping

Primordialists and Constructionists: a typology of theories of religion

This article adopts categories from nationalism theory to classify theories of religion. Primordialist explanations are grounded in evolutionary psychology and emphasize the innate human demand for religion. Primordialists predict that religion does not decline in the modern era but will endure in perpetuity. Constructionist theories argue that religious demand is a human construct. Modernity initially energizes religion, but subsequently undermines it. Unpacking these ideal types is necessary in order to describe actual theorists of religion. Three distinctions within primordialism and constructionism are relevant. Namely those distinguishing: a) materialist from symbolist forms of constructionism; b) theories of origins from those pertaining to the reproduction of religion; and c) within reproduction, between theories of religious persistence and secularization. This typology helps to make sense of theories of religion by classifying them on the basis of their causal mechanisms, chronology and effects. In so doing, it opens up new sightlines for theory and research

Lived religion: Rethinking human nature in a neoliberal age

This article considers the relationship between philosophy of religion and an approach to the study of religion, which prioritises the experience of lived religion. Considering how individuals and communities live out their faith challenges some of the assumptions of analytic philosophers of religion regarding the position the philosopher should adopt when approaching the investigation of religion. If philosophy is understood principally as a means for analysing belief, it will have little space for an engagement with what it feels like to live out one’s faith

The role of self-gentrification in sustainable tourism: Indigenous entrepreneurship at Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site, China

This article examines three forms of tourism gentrification occurring within the newly inscribed (2013) Honghe Hani Rice Terraces UNESCO World Heritage Site in Yunnan, China. The indigenous Hani and Yi communities who populate this remote mountainous area, possess distinct cultural practices that have supported the rice terrace ecosystem for centuries. This article draws on interviews and non-participant observation conducted with inhabitants and newcomers to analyse the types of gentrification occurring within the site. We argue that indigenous cultural practices, and consequently rice cultivation in the area, are threatened by gentrifier-led and state-led gentrification combined with high levels of outward migration of indigenous persons. This could pose a significant threat to the sustainability of tourism at this site and may ultimately compromise the site’s World Heritage Status. In the midst of these dangers, some indigenous people are shown to be improving their socioeconomic standing – and becoming “middle class” or “gentry” – particularly through adopting entrepreneurial strategies gleaned from their encounters with outside-gentrifiers and tourists. This article proposes the concept of “self-gentrification” as a way to describe individuals who seek to improve themselves and their own community, while under threat of gentrification

Evolutionary History of Hunter-Gatherer Marriage Practices

Background: The universality of marriage in human societies around the world suggests a deep evolutionary history of institutionalized pair-bonding that stems back at least to early modern humans. However, marriage practices vary considerably from culture to culture, ranging from strict prescriptions and arranged marriages in some societies to mostly unregulated courtship in others, presence to absence of brideservice and brideprice, and polyandrous to polygynous unions. The ancestral state of early human marriage is not well known given the lack of conclusive archaeological evidence. Methodology: Comparative phylogenetic analyses using data from contemporary hunter-gatherers around the world may allow for the reconstruction of ancestral human cultural traits. We attempt to reconstruct ancestral marriage practices using hunter-gatherer phylogenies based on mitochondrial DNA sequences. Results: Arranged marriages are inferred to go back at least to first modern human migrations out of Africa. Reconstructions are equivocal on whether or not earlier human marriages were arranged because several African hunter-gatherers have courtship marriages. Phylogenetic reconstructions suggest that marriages in early ancestral human societies probably had low levels of polygyny (low reproductive skew) and reciprocal exchanges between the families of marital partners (i.e., brideservice or brideprice). Discussion: Phylogenetic results suggest a deep history of regulated exchange of mates and resources among lineages tha

Standard of civilization, nomadism and territoriality in nineteenth-century international society

In this chapter, the encounter between the Russian Empire and the nomads of the Eurasian steppe in the nineteenth century is analyzed using the theoretical framework of the standard of civilization. The creation of the Westphalian state-model in Europe in the seventeenth century, linked to the later emergence of the notion of the standard of civilization led to the ‘othering’ of the nomads of the Eurasian steppe as barbarians, as a threat to the borders of civilized Europe. The chapter presents also an argument to define ‘territoriality’ as not only an institution of international society of the time but also as a distinctive quality and requirement for being considered ‘civilized’. In this analytical framework, the nomads become the ‘other’, the ‘alien’, the ‘menace’, onto which projections of rationality and modernity were cast in order to prevent threats to Russia’s European and civilized identity. The chapter sheds light on the encounter between ‘fixed’ and ‘mobile’ units in the course of expansion of international society; contextualizes the role played by nomadic tribes in resisting the application of Westphalian spatial categories in the Eurasian space; and scrutinizes what the role of nomads was in constructing a European, civilized identity.PostprintPeer reviewe

From single-use to multi-use:Study of consumers’ behavior toward consumption of reusable containers

This study advances the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to identify the mechanism that underlies the consumption of reusable containers. A questionnaire including context, motivation, subjective norms, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, intentions and behavior items was developed and pre-tested on 180 students in a Canadian and a Chinese university respectively. Subsequently, the questionnaire was implemented in the form of an online survey and 1221 effective responses were collected from Western (n = 549) and Asian (n = 672) consumers. The findings revealed that the context and motivation variables are important antecedents to several TPB constructs. Context strongly impacts perceived behavioral control and motivations as well as attitudes. Motivation is clearly distinct from intentions and has a significant influence on both attitudes and intentions. In addition to the standard variables of perceived behavioral control, subjective norms and attitudes, motivation does have a significant impact on intentions. Furthermore, there are cultural differences in the way context impacts intentions and behavior in that Asians (Westerners) are influenced by context to increase reusable containers consumption through motivation (attitudes). Attitude is a significantly stronger predictor of intentions for Westerners than Asians