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“I Had Time to Do My Research, Had Time to Think and Educate Myself”: Using Information Work for Nonbinary and Genderfluid Identity Self-Recognition during COVID-19 Isolation
Full text linkDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, nonbinary and genderfluid adults did information work to discover their gender identities as they explored information on social media, online, and in person. Due to cisnormative restrictions, this information was necessary to identify and validate their gender identity as authentic. During the pandemic, more nonbinary people were able to self-recognize their own gender because there was more time for reflection and more access to nonbinary narratives online, including representations of nonbinary life that defied White, thin, androgynous ideals. By analyzing interviews with 22 U.S. adults who came out as nonbinary during the pandemic, this qualitative study contributes to both the sociological study of nonbinary identity development and to the information science literature on deeply meaningful and profoundly personal information work. This study also contributes to further understanding of why it seems like more nonbinary and genderfluid people “came out” during the height of the pandemic
Should School Buses Be Green? A Sustainability Decision-Making Case Study
Full text linkThe Director of Transportation for Grenze Independent School District wants to transform the bus fleet to clean energy, but budget constraints are a constant barrier. The health and safety of pupils, particularly those with asthma, is a compelling feature of this case to engage students and explore the benefits and challenges of electric vehicles. The purpose of this case study is to encourage students to consider all stakeholders when analyzing data for business decision-making, thus utilizing the triple bottom line. Learning objectives for Module 1 are to (1) analyze financial data for optimal decision-making, (2) identify and describe environmental and social concerns, and (3) evaluate and support recommendations considering financial, environmental, and social factors. Module 2 learning objectives focus on governmental accounting concepts to (4) analyze the impact of bond issuance on taxpayers, (5) prepare related journal entries, and (6) explain the reporting of transactions on fund-based and government-wide statements
Central and Peripheral Routes of Oxytocin Administration Differentially Affect Oxycodone Conditioned Place Preference
No full textFinal Project Report - Buoyancy Glider Team
Full text linkThis report covers everything the team has accomplished over the Fall and Spring semesters, including math models, prototypes, tests, and test results. This report also includes an overview of the design’s subsystems, a section highlighting issues the team faced, an evaluation of the final design against the constraints, and a listing of recommendations for future work.
RoboNation, one of the project sponsors, provided the team with a SeaGlide model as an initial prototype. The SeaGlide is a water-bottle-sized buoyancy glider that the team used for basic testing and to develop ideas about creating a larger-scale buoyancy glider. The team completed tests measuring the distance the SeaGlide could travel and the weight it could carry. Although the SeaGlide was not designed to carry a cargo load, the team\u27s testing determined that it can carry 350 grams of dead weight, which is approximately 30% of its total weight. When testing the travel distance and speed, the team’s best test resulted in 6.57 meters of horizontal distance traveled over 4.27 meters of depth, equating to a slope of 33 degrees and a horizontal velocity of 0.2 meters per second. While the SeaGlide was a helpful base design, the final prototype was significantly different.
While the final prototype still operated on the same physical principles as the SeaGlide, the larger scale pushed the team to change much of the design. The engine underwent the largest design change and now uses a bladder instead of a syringe to take in and purge water from the hull. As the final prototype design was changed to adapt to available resources and the issues of scaling up, some of the tests the team had planned for the final prototype needed to be altered. Using independent subsystems of the final prototype, the team performed multiple tests: the buoyancy engine water manipulation test, the hull integrity test, and the buoyancy test. The full prototype test and the weight fluctuation tests were never performed because they were deemed too risky given the final state of the prototype. The buoyancy engine water manipulation test was intended to determine if the buoyancy engine is capable of producing enough force to purge the water inside the bladder. Testing determined that the engine produces a force of 10 pounds, which according to the team\u27s math model is capable of purging water at a maximum depth of 0.36 feet. `The hull integrity test evaluates how robust the hull is and how well it prevents internal leakage. After many iterations of redesign and testing the final hull design contains a sealed bladder and can be fully submerged without taking on significant water. However, the hull still struggles to maintain this sealing ability once it is loaded to be neutrally buoyant.
The buoyancy test evaluates whether the water taken into the bladder is enough to alter the buoyancy. This was done without the engine to prevent any potential water damage. The test proved that if the glider is loaded with around 84 pounds, the addition of a full bladder of water is enough to shift the glider from positive to negative buoyancy.
Overall, the team developed a robust hull, a functioning buoyancy engine mechanism, and a useful model for the necessary loading of the glider. The remainder of this report discusses these designs and their testing in more detail
Final Project Report for Plastic Wall-E
Full text linkThe “Plastic Wall-E” team has worked diligently to design a processing and construction method that allows plastic waste to be incorporated into a structural wall with a minimal environmental impact. The project sponsors of the Samadhi Yoga retreat recognized a critical issue with the accumulation of plastic waste in remote locations requiring transportation to recycling facilities and in countries with major plastic pollution problems where there is typically a lack of proper recycling facilities. The project aims to address the plastic waste crisis by maximizing the density of plastic waste that can be contained in a masonry wall while minimizing the toxic emissions from melting plastic. Additionally, the team’s final plastic process design must allow for easy machine implementation.
The team\u27s final design consisted of two subsystems for testing: the plastic waste process for machine incorporation and a masonry wall configuration that allows for structural rebar and a significant storage of plastic waste. The final design for plastic processing was a plastic “cube” fabricated by funneling and compressing shredded plastic waste into an open water bottle that is then quickly heat-sealed and compressed to contain the loose plastic waste. This design addresses the project objectives by condensing plastic waste into a small sealed container that can be used as filler in a common masonry wall configuration while minimizing the quantity of plastic being melted.
The other subsystem focused on the configuration of the masonry wall that acts as a containment vessel for the sequestering of plastic waste while also being able to incorporate metal rebar for structural construction purposes. Based on ASTM codes for metal rebar spacing, the team will have a maximum spacing of 48 inches to allow as many empty spaces created in the wall [‘void columns’] where the plastic cubes can be contained [1].
To evaluate the effectiveness of the team’s final design, the team conducted two tests on the plastic processing subsystem to quantify the plastic density and emissions from cube production, and a test for the masonry wall subsystem by conducting simulated force testing.
The plastic density test quantified the amount of plastic waste that could be contained in each cube based on plastic mass. The average plastic mass for each cube was 87.93 grams or approximately 7-8 water bottles condensed into a 6-inch tall cube. Based on the dimensions of the cube and the estimated volume of the void column, approximately 30 cubes can fit when horizontally stacked into a void column. This translates to approximately 2.6 kg of plastic for every void column or around 10.5 kg of plastic waste for every 3.5-foot x 4-foot wall segment. This far exceeds the original project requirement which required 0.5 kg of plastic waste to be encapsulated in each brick, which would have a total wall plastic mass of approximately 5 kg.
The plastic emissions test evaluated the total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) and CO2 gas emissions during the heat compression process. Based on safety levels for air quality index (AQI), the team required emissions for TVOCs and CO2 to be below 0.2 mg/m3 and 800 ppm, respectively for an excellent classification or a good AQI classification emissions below 0.6 mg/m3 and 1000 ppm [4]. TVOCs and CO2 measurements were made with an indoor air quality detector during the production of 6 cubes and found a peak CO2 concentration to be ~801 ppm, while the TVOC had a maximum concentration of 0.223 mg/m3. These production emissions would meet an acceptable classification The masonry wall test evaluated the structural integrity of the team’s wall design and rebar spacing.
The team required the wall to be able to withstand a compressive stress of 3 ksi and a shear stress of 0.3 ksi. The wall was tested via two CAD models made in Autodesk Inventor, a model of the full wall to test tipping and a smaller-scale model to test mortar slipping. Considering both models, the wall experienced a maximum Von Mises stress of 1.0 x 10-3 ksi meeting the compressive and shear stress requirements outlined by the project requirements
(Un)worlding with Karipuna’s Shadowy Alliances: the Mirangã and the Isolados
Full text linkThis ethnographically inspired article investigates the ways in which the Karipuna Indigenous people in Rondônia defend their land in the Western Brazilian Amazon against forces of deforestation and dispossession. I focus on the Karipuna’s plurivalent and collective forest spirits called the mirangã, through life experience accounts of two survivors from the “pre-contact” era who embody the Karipuna-mirangã connection. Through an analysis of the onto-epistemological entanglements in which the mirangã and my interlocutors are situated, I articulate another front of the Karipuna’s multi-faceted resistance: the struggle of worlding vis-à-vis the non-indigenous world. This process also reveals the association (from the Karipuna’s point of view) between the mirangã and isolated Indigenous people (os isolados) in the Karipuna Land, whose existence has been questioned for decades. This connection-in-the-making, deployed by “shamanism without shaman”, is viewed as a form of cosmopolitical approach. By combining ethnographic inquiry with close examination of personal documents, I illustrate how the Karipuna’s dynamic world-making process (in which I partially participated and became affected) allows for multiplication by populating their world with their significant Others
Ratting on the coca spirit or mastering exchange? Andoque negotiations of power and commodification between forest and market
Full text linkAsserting the importance of analyzing Indigenous involvement in the extraction and trade of nonhuman entities against the backdrop of Amazonian perceptions of personhood, this article investigates the risks and opportunities that coca commercialization by the Andoque of Northwest Amazonia, Colombia, holds for the Andoque’s relationships with the coca spirit, other nonhuman entities, and non-Indigenous agents. Considering the triangular relational dynamics between coca producers, urban consumers, and nonhumans as an inflection of Amazonian mastery dynamics within the context of market economic exchange, I analyze the Andoque’s statements and practices relating to this activity through the etic distinction between gifts and commodities and the emic one between pets and orphans. I contend that the greater the agency attributed to coca, and the higher its degree of inalienability from the producer, the more it enables people to dominate human and nonhuman agents, but also to be dominated by them. My analysis of the Andoque’s idealized strategies for handling the commercialized coca—and its counterpart, non-Indigenous goods—as well as their inconsistent pursuit reveals the Andoque’s general indecision in navigating power relations with the nonhuman and non-Indigenous entities involved. My findings challenge prevailing observations on a shift in animist societies from perceiving nonhumans as persons to viewing them as things upon commercialization, suggesting instead a more nuanced understanding of commodification processes and their broader implications in such societies
Bahsé Ahpose: o adocicamento das águas e dos peixes como regeneração da vida no Alto Vaupés, Noroeste Amazônico
No full textNas paisagens etnográficas do Noroeste Amazônico brasileiro se encontra o Rio Vaupés, na Terra Indígena do Alto Rio Negro, no Município de São Gabriel da Cachoeira. Nessas paisagens, os povos do Vaupés fazem o Bahsé Ahpose, o adocicamento das águas e dos peixes na prática do tinguijamento. O conhecimento desse ritual e sua prática resulta do encontro de conhecimentos cosmológicos e cosmopolíticos na vida dos povos do Vaupés. Esse rito se realiza pelos diálogos dos kumuã (xamãs), para quem o adocicamento faz parte da fórmula presente na taxonomia de todas as “rezas” benéficas e está sempre presente nelas. Realiza-se o rito em três momentos: na preparação, na realização do tinguijamento e no adocicamento pós-tinguijamento. Este último é o “benzimento” de reordenamento (bahsé ahponukõsé) do local tinguijado e a adocicação das águas e dos peixes, como forma de negociação com wai mahsã (seres cósmicos) porque envolve as suas moradas. Para os povos do Vaupés Bahsé Ahpose evita a escassez dos peixes e ordena os locais ou lugares de subsistência (dehsubasé ahpose). É um ritual envolto em relação cosmopolítica com os ahko mahsã (gente água) e o wai mahsã (seres cósmicos). Neste artigo, juntamos as perspectivas de dois antropólogos indígenas e de um etnólogo americanista para argumentar que o não cumprimento das regras e preceitos estabelecidos pelas divindades criadoras (demiurgos/avôs do universo) e a não observância do rito de adocicamento “mumipose” (tornar a água em mel) é o que podem tornar o tinguijamento uma prática predatória
“Before, we didn’t eat manioc flour”: Historical and social transformations in food techniques among Indigenous Peoples of the Rio Negro basin in the Brazilian Amazon
Full text linkManioc flour is currently considered one of the main foods consumed by Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. It is fundamental both to the traditional diet and to adding an Indigenous flavor to urban dishes. This article presents an analysis of historical sources that position manioc flour as an important trading commodity since the 19th century and shows how its internal consumption seems to have grown in recent decades. This significance contrasts with the role of manioc flour in mythic narratives about the origin of foods, where it is either not mentioned among the Tukano peoples or referred to as civilized food among the Aruak (Journet 1995). Descriptions of the technical processing of manioc flour, along with the production of two types of beiju (a flat bread), indicate that various types of flour that were once produced have converged into a single type throughout the Upper Rio Negro. The article aims to demonstrate how the civilization process led Indigenous peoples to adapt and/or intensify manioc flour production using techniques they traditionally possessed, responding in their own way to contact relations