Notes on Microctonus Spp. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Introduced to Iowa Against the Alfalfa Weevil, Hypera Postica (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

The braconid parasitoid Microctonus colesi was released in Story and Boone counties, Iowa, but not recovered from collected alfalfa weevils, Hypera postica. Sampled adult weevils were parasitized at an overall seasonal rate of 41.5% by Microctonus aethiopoides, although it had not been released in the immediate vicinity

Participation and Decision Making: A Three-person Power-to-take Experiment

It is often conjectured that participatory decision making may increase acceptance even of unfavorable decisions. The present paper tests this conjecture in a three-person power-to-take game. Two takers decide which fraction of the responder's endowment to transfer to themselves; the responder decides which part of the endowment to destroy. Thus, the responder can punish greedy takers, but only at a cost to herself. We modify the game by letting the responder participate in takers' transfer decision and consider the effect of participation on the destruction rate. We nd that participation matters. Responders destroy more if they (1) had no opportunity to participate in the decision making process and (2) are confronted with highly unfavorable outcomes. This participation eect is highly signicant for those responders (the majority) who show negative reciprocity (i.e., destroy more when takers are greedier).fairness, participatory decision making, power-to-take game, procedural fairness, reciprocity

Experiential Learning with Experiments

This paper discusses the implementation of experiential learning techniques in a behavioural economics class. In order to deepen students' understanding of both behavioural economics and the experimental approach to research students in the course developed and conducted variants of economic experiments. We believe that the process of designing and implementing the experiments fostered a better understanding of the material than simply participating in classroom experiments would have done. Students worked in small groups to develop their versions of the experiments. Thus, the complete process promoted genuine active learning by engaging the students both individually and collectively.

Does a University graduate need a portfolio?

Every year an increasing number of employers get interested in the university graduates, most suitable for the requirements the companies set. However, the standard CVs often do not reveal the potential and peculiarities of formation of graduate competences. The authors suggest using portfolio instead of a CV. The authors analyzed 1797 portfolios of TPU students and offered optimal structure and criteria of portfolio. In addition, the authors provide an example of how the achievements reflected in portfolio can be considered. The conclusion is made about the necessity of the portfolio. The authors determined employer’s role in the formation and evaluation of the portfolio. Moreover, the value of tracking the dynamics of growth of portfolio components is denoted as a new performance evaluation system in higher education

The Modernity of Zaha Hadid

During the heyday of postmodernism in the 1980s, as architects turned to historical styles, urban traditions, and popular culture to rebuild the public support that modernism had lost, Zaha Hadid declared that modernity was an incomplete project that deserved to be continued. This was an inspiring message and its bold vision was matched by projects such as the competition-winning design for The Peak in Hong Kong (1982-1983). Hadid\u27s luminous paintings depicted the city and the hillside above it as a prismatic field in which buildings and landform were amalgamated into the same geological formation of shifting lines, vibrant planes, and shimmering colors, at once tangible and intangible, infused with the transformative energy that Cubist, Futurist, and Expressionist landscapes had sought to capture

Bioconstructivisms

On meeting the German structural engineer Frei Otto in 1998, Lars Spuybroek was struck by the extent to which Otto\u27s approach to the design of light structures resonated with his own interest in the generation of complex and dynamic curvatures. Having designed the Freshwater Pavilion (1994-97) using geometric and topological procedures, which were then materialized through the exigency of a steel structure and flexible metal sheeting, Spuybroek found in Otto a reservoir of experiments in developing curved surfaces of even greater complexity by means of a process that was already material- that was, in fact. simultaneously material, structural and geometric. Moreover. Otto\u27s concem with flexible surfaces not only blurred the classic distinctions between surface and support, vault and beam (suggesting a non-elemental conception of structural functions) but also made construction and structure a function of movement or, more precisely, a function of the rigidification of soft, dynamic entities into calcified structures such as bones and shells. Philosophically inclined towards a dynamic conception of the universe - a Bergsonian and Deleuzian ontology of movement, time and duration - Spuybroek embarked on an intensive study of Otto\u27s work and took up his analogical design method. A materialist of the first order, Spuybroek now developed his own experiments following those of Otto with soap bubbles, chain nets and other materials as a way to discover how complex structural behaviours find forms of their own accord, which can then be reiterated on a larger scale using tensile, cable or shell constructions

Walter Benjamin and the Tectonic Unconscious: Using Architecture as an Optical Instrument

The writings of Walter Benjamin include appropriations and transformations of modernist architectural history and theory that offer an opportunity to broaden the interpretation of how the relationship between the \u27unconscious\u27 and technologically aided \u27optics\u27 is figured in his commentaries on cultural modernity. This essay focuses on three moments in his writings, each of which touches on this topic in a different way: first, on Benjamin\u27s reading of Carl Bötticher\u27s theory of architectural tectonics as a theory of history in which the unconscious serves as a generative and productive source that challenges the existing matrix of representation; secondly, on Benjamin\u27s transformation of Sigfried Giedion\u27s presentation of iron structures into optical instruments for glimpsing a space interwoven with unconsciousness, a new world of space the image of which had seemingly been captured by photography; and thirdly, on Benjamin\u27s suggestion that the mimetic faculty continues to play within representation, history and technology to produce similarities between the human and the non-human. In each instance, Benjamin reworked the dynamic dualism of nineteenth-century architectural tectonics - (self)representation seeking reconciliation with alterity - into a dialectic. In so doing, he set the cause of revolution (of a modernity yet to come) against metaphysical and utopian claims, progressive and regressive alike