The Religious Lexicon Embedded in Public American Curricula

What is the relationship between one\u27s own religious beliefs and their everyday colloquial diction choices? Moreover, why is the subfield that encompasses the intersection of sociolinguistics, education, and religious studies one that has gained little scholarly interest in recent years, where one could argue the importance of religious belief, and other socio-political beliefs in education have come center stage in the heart of American political debate? This article will tackle this broad range of topics through a case study focusing on my primary research question: How does a teacher’s own religious identity affect the religious language utilized in their classroom assignments and materials? And moreover, what is the possible impact this has on the religious majority and non-majority identifying students? This study utilizes a primary data-set consisting of three focus groups, each conducted with the partnership of C. Hunter Ritchie (CHR) Elementary School, located in Fauquier County, Virginia. In turn, there is heavy emphasis on sentiment analysis and basic statistical analysis of a collection of both in-class and homework materials provided by each grade level within CHR. This religious studies project is conducted utilizing a strong emphasis on grounded applied linguistic and sociolinguistic methodologies coupled with religious studies theories, discussed throughout the article. With the coupling of statistical and sentiment analysis of focus group transcriptions, along with qualitative primary datasets collected from the focus groups, I analyze and observe how the teachers\u27 general lexicon utilized with their colleagues and within the classroom, is in part, a product of both their own religious background along with the popular religion of the school district itself. I use this in order to herein provide a grounded hypothesis of how this might affect levels of subject-matter retention, focus, and senses of inclusivity and belonging, in Christian and non-Christian students. This project provides further grounding for the continuation of this study, and for the argumentation of effective research methods that can be used to intertwine methodologies of both sociolinguistics and religious studies into the future. In turn, it is my hope that with this grounding, there is now the space for furthering in-depth scholarship focused on the relationship between religious identity, and personal, colloquial, and professional lexicon creations

How God Writes History: A Gramscian Analysis of Religion and Nature in the Writings, Life, and Legacy of John Muir

Representations of John Muir, America’s most famous environmentalist, and religion have been highly variegated. A mythological figure of American environmental politics, Muir and his legacy have been an ideological apparatus for presidents, environmentalists, and naturalists performing acts of identification for themselves and their country. Furthermore, religion and environmental scholars have often used Muir as a case study for what they call “nature religion.” Lost in this myth-making labor are the politics of sacred spaces and national discourse. Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of common sense and the intellectual, which this thesis uses to analyze John Muir’s poetics of American wilderness and role in relationship to the nineteenth-century genteel class. By contextualizing Muir’s religion-making and myth-making practices using the critical insights of Gramsci and Gramscian analytic frames, this thesis studies the relationship of Muir’s socio-historical context with the common sense that shaped his nation-making discourse. This is accomplished by the framing of religion using antiessentialist and critical-contextual lenses. Next, this thesis situates Muir in relation to race, class, and ethnic positionality. Last, Muir oriented himself to the colonial relations of the American wilderness. Situating John Muir in contextual and complex relations of power challenges simplistic notions of religion and functions to reconsider the role of the historical production of Muir, or the Muir-myths. By situating John Muir as an intellectual of the American genteel class with settler common sense thought, this thesis demonstrates that John Muir’s religious wilderness narratives constructed American colonial mythology

Measures of Ethnicity: Competing Concepts in Search of Clarity

Why have many researchers historically relied on combined measures and explanations for the scholarship on ethnic polarization and ethnic fractionalization? In this article, I argue for the adoption of a new research mechanism that differentiates between both variables in order to test them independently vis à vis their relationships to civil war severity. The presence of a more ethnically polarized state seems to make it more difficult for the opposition groups to coordinate and to mount an effective attack/opposition against the government, thus limiting overall casualties. This also increases the difficultly for the government forces to identify the group(s) that constitute the primary rebellious forces and to attack them. I find empirical support for my expectations: when analyzing ethnic polarization with a measurement independent from ethnic fractionalization, it presents an increasingly statistically significant relationship to civil war severity. I utilize Lacina’s (2006) primary dataset to test the effect that ethnic polarization has on civil war severity, and find that there is a weakly significant and negative relationship between the two variables. My findings suggest the increased importance of popularizing separate future mechanisms in order to better define and measure ethnic polarization and ethnic fractionalization

Book Review: A Critical Analysis of Miroslav Volf’s 2015, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World

Book review of Miroslav Volf\u27s (2015) Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World

Passive Rocket Diffuser Theory: A Re-Examination of Minimum Second Throat Size

Second-throat diffusers serve to isolate rocket engines from the effects of ambient back pressure during testing without using active control systems. Among the most critical design parameters is the relative area of the diffuser throat to that of the nozzle throat. A smaller second throat is generally desirable because it decreases the stagnation-to-ambient pressure ratio the diffuser requires for nominal operation. There is a limit, however. Below a certain size, the second throat can cause pressure buildup within the diffuser and prevent it from reaching the start condition that protects the nozzle from side-load damage. This paper presents a method for improved estimation of the minimum second throat area which enables diffuser start. The new 3-zone model uses traditional quasi-one-dimensional compressible flow theory to approximate the structure of two distinct diffuser flow fields observed in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and combines them to provide a less-conservative estimate of the second throat size limit. It is unique among second throat sizing methods in that it accounts for all major conical nozzle and second throat diffuser design parameters within its limits of application. The performance of the 3-zone method is compared to the historical normal shock and force balance methods, and verified against a large number of CFD simulations at specific heat ratios of 1.4 and 1.25. Validation is left as future work, and the model is currently intended to function only as a first-order design tool

Physical Simulation of Rocket Exhaust Aerodynamics Using Heated Ethane: Conceptual Foundations

Heated ethane (C2H6) has been proposed as an alternative to inert gases for use as a motive fluid in the experimental simulation of rocket exhaust plumes. By adjusting stagnation temperature, the isentropic exponent of ethane can be tuned to approximate those produced by common rocket propellants including hydrogen, hypergols, alcohols, and hydrocarbons. As a result, ethane can be made to follow a nozzle expansion process which is nearly identical to realistic rocket engine flow fields. Additionally, its high auto-ignition temperature and resistance to condensation enable the testing of expansion ratios much larger than conventional inertgas testing. NASA SSC has performed quasi-one-dimensional analyses using the Chemical Equilibrium with Applications (CEA) code as a preliminary means to compare flow fields produced by non-reacting ethane to those of reacting combustion products. A LO2/LH2 rocket engine operating at a chamber pressure of 5.0 MPa and a mixture ratio of 6.1 was used as an example case to demonstrate ethanes efficacy as a simulant. Errors for key similarity parameters were compared to legacy cold-flow test methods. Additional errors induced by machining tolerances and chemical impurities were also examined. Results suggest that at a 3% geometric scale and ~500 K ethane stagnation temperature, an error of less than 2.5% throughout the flow field is realistically achievable along the dimensions of Mach number, Reynolds number, pressure ratio, and isentropic exponent. The development of an experimental test bed for validation of this configuration is currently underway

Foam-Metal Liner Attenuation of Low-Speed Fan Noise

A foam-metal liner for attenuation of fan noise was developed for and tested on a low speed fan. This type of liner represents a significant advance over traditional liners due to the possibility for placement in close proximity to the rotor. An advantage of placing treatment in this region is the modification of the acoustic near field, thereby inhibiting noise generation mechanisms. This can result in higher attenuation levels than can be achieved by liners located in the nacelle inlet. In addition, foam-metal liners could potentially replace the fan rub-strip and containment components, ultimately reducing engine components and thus weight, which can result in a systematic increase in noise reduction and engine performance. Foam-metal liners have the potential to reduce fan noise by 4 dB based on this study

Improved hydrogen gas production in microbial electrolysis cells using inexpensive recycled carbon fibre fabrics

Growing energy demands of wastewater treatment have made it vital for water companies to develop less energy intensive processes for treating wastewater if net zero emissions are to be achieved by 2050. Microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) have the potential to do this by treating water and producing renewable hydrogen gas as a product, but capital and operational costs have slowed their deployment. By using recycled carbon fibre mats, commercially viable MECs can brought closer to reality, where recycled carbon fibre anode MECs treating real wastewater (normalised ~3100 L d−1) were producing 66.77 L H2 d−1 while graphite felt anode MECs produced 3.65 L H2 d−1 per 1 m3 reactor, anodes costing £5.53 m−2 and £88.36 m−2 respectively, resulting in a total anode cost saving of 93%. This could incentivise the development of larger pilot systems, opening the door for generating greater value and a more sustainable wastewater treatment industry