Make & Save Cups is a business concept designed to provide reusable cups to coffee shop visitors with incentives of inexpensive pricing, customization, and sustainability efforts. In our current market, Starbucks and other beverage retailers offer discounts or rewards on purchases if you use reusable cups. However, the cups sold in these cafes are often overpriced, and the selection of different designs is limited. Through community outreach and user surveys, we were able to find out in greater detail why people have hesitations using reusable cups. Our most significant discovery was that people either don't have enough reusable cups or don't like cleaning their reusable cups because they are hard to clean. With these problems in mind, Make & Save Cups was developed to provide our customers with cheaper cups that are still of quality so that they can have more than enough reusable cups for whenever they need them. Our cups are easy to clean and dishwasher safe, allowing customers to wash cups in large batches easily. Another aspect of our business model is that Make & Save Cups will enable customers to design their own reusable cups at a significantly more affordable price point. We sold these cups outside our campus near established, busy cafes with a reusable cup incentive. We have a variety of art supplies, including stickers, paint markers, and more, which are completely included in the price of the cup. Make & Save Cups saves students money while saving the planet and gives them a unique and memorable experience that could potentially incentivize more widespread use of reusable cups. This semester, we accomplished our goals set last semester of fully launching our product, conducting more focus groups to gain data and feedback on our product experience, and keeping our focus on increasing the number of people who use reusable cups.

Make & Save Cups is a business concept designed to provide reusable cups to coffee shop visitors with incentives of inexpensive pricing, customization, and sustainability efforts. In our current market, Starbucks and other beverage retailers offer discounts or rewards on purchases if you use reusable cups. However, the cups sold in these cafes are often overpriced, and the selection of different designs is limited. Through community outreach and user surveys, we were able to find out in greater detail why people have hesitations using reusable cups. Our most significant discovery was that people either don't have enough reusable cups or don't like cleaning their reusable cups because they are hard to clean. With these problems in mind, Make & Save Cups was developed to provide our customers with cheaper cups that are still of quality so that they can have more than enough reusable cups for whenever they need them. Our cups are easy to clean and dishwasher safe, allowing customers to wash cups in large batches easily. Another aspect of our business model is that Make & Save Cups will enable customers to design their own reusable cups at a significantly more affordable price point. We sold these cups outside our campus near established, busy cafes with a reusable cup incentive. We have a variety of art supplies, including stickers, paint markers, and more, which are completely included in the price of the cup. Make & Save Cups saves students money while saving the planet and gives them a unique and memorable experience that could potentially incentivize more widespread use of reusable cups. This semester, we accomplished our goals set last semester of fully launching our product, conducting more focus groups to gain data and feedback on our product experience, and keeping our focus on increasing the number of people who use reusable cups.

In the developed world, we often take the positive correlation between openness to trade and development for granted. After all, the world has seen the greatest amount of economic growth ever in this relatively short period of time in which global markets have been very accessible. There can be many factors attributed to this perspective on the near-universal association between trade and wealth, such as its simple, intuitive reasoning, a historical drive for developed nations to seek out beneficial trade opportunities, or perhaps even a general lack of awareness when it comes to how such enterprising attitudes may impact those living in entirely different civilizations. Whatever the reasoning may be, the reality is that global trade or openness to it is not as cut and dry as many would like to believe, nor does trade openness come as freely as one might expect, as certain conditions are needed in order to foster access to well-developed markets. It has been observed recently that the cost of doing trade, so to speak, has been increasing globally as certain state and nonstate actors push against the free trade model developed by the United States after World War II. It is with this challenge in mind that we explore the recent changes in the balance of global power dynamics that have led to a decline in the openness of the globalized economy. Saying this, we are not advocating for an end to "globalization", rather, this paper is meant to observe multiple potential frustrations to the current economic global order and the resulting fallout of trade among the world’s top economies.

The symbiotic relationship between wood-eating termites and hindgut protists is crucial for termite digestion, with protists aiding in lignocellulose degradation. This relationship, dating back to the late Jurassic, resembles the ancestral association between termites and wood roaches, Cryptocercus, established over 150 million years ago. Paraneotermes simplicicornis and Kalotermes flavicollis, members of the Kalotermitidae family, harbor diverse symbiotic communities pivotal for wood digestion and nitrogen fixation. Parabasalians, such as Cristamonadea, exhibit morphological diversity, with some taxa being joeniids, calonymphids, or devescovinids, residing primarily in termite guts. To explore the coevolutionary history and morphological evolution, this study aims to describe devescovinid communities in P. simplicicornis and K. flavicollis using morphological and molecular approaches. Phylogenetic analysis reveals the relationships among Devescovina, Metadevescovina, Macrotrichomonas, and Calonympha. A misidentification of published sequence AB458854 Joenia annectens provides valuable insights into how species are classified, while the discovery of previously unknown symbionts demonstrates the extent of diversity within these ecosystems. Notably, Clade 2 was named Prototermanova, where novel Cristamonadea species were identified, exhibiting genetic and morphological similarities to Devescovina. Similarly, Clade 4 was labelled Trichoterm, where two novel Devescovina species challenged existing taxonomic classifications. DNA sequencing analyses provided additional validation, highlighting the genetic diversity and potential novelty of symbionts within the termite gut. Morphological examination aligns with previously identified genera, and BLAST analysis supports observations of potential novelty in certain symbionts. Protists from P. simplicicornis and K. flavicollis show close relation to Joenia and Devescovina, respectively. This study sheds light on the complexity of termite symbiotic relationships and underscores the need for continued research to fully comprehend protist diversity within termite guts.

This research examines supply chain performance and antecedents to better supply chain performance in manufacturing organizations, with a focus on manufacturing organizations following engineer-to-order and assemble-to-order production models. The variables of supply chain integration, internal communication, employee satisfaction, leader support, and the alignment of information and communication technology are empirically supported in affecting supply chain performance, and thus carry managerial and organizational implications in how they can be influenced, ideally for the benefit of manufacturing organizations. The data gathered for this study was obtained through interviews with sourcing professionals, as well as surveys distributed to corporate manufacturing employees. The findings on these variables fall in line with previous research explored in the report, adding credibility to previous studies, as well as their associated recommendations and implications. Organizational management and leadership, to improve supply chain performance, must strategically integrate information and communication technology, be clear and consistent in their messaging to employees, engage in effective conflict resolution, and provide support for necessary transparency and communication-enhancing initiatives.