University of Maine

About: University of Maine is a education organization based out in Orono, Maine, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Ice sheet. The organization has 8637 authors who have published 16932 publications receiving 590124 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Maine at Orono.

Experimental verification of episodic acidification of freshwaters by sea salts

Abstract: Short-term acidification of streams and lakes can cause fish kills and other adverse biological effects1,2. Such acid episodes may be due to acid deposition or the result of natural processes. The 'seasalt effect' is a natural process in which episodic input of seasalt-rich precipitation to acid soils can cause acidification of runoff3. Several cases of acid episodes observed in coastal regions of Norway4 and eastern United States5 have been ascribed to the seasalt effect. To test experimentally this effect we dosed a small pristine catchment in western Norway with dilute sea water. Runoff chemistry responsed immediately; pH dropped from 6.1 to 5.1, alkalinity from 20 to –2 µequiv. l–1 and labile monomeric aluminium increased from 15 to 95 µg l–1. This experiment verifies that high inputs of sea salts can cause natural acidification episodes due to cation exchange in small catchments with acidic soils.

Continuous Space Translation Models for Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach to perform the estimation of the translation model probabilities of a phrase-based statistical machine translation system. We use neural networks to directly learn the translation probability of phrase pairs using continuous representations. The system can be easily trained on the same data used to build standard phrase-based systems. We provide experimental evidence that the approach seems to be able to infer meaningful translation probabilities for phrase pairs not seen in the training data, or even predict a list of the most likely translations given a source phrase. The approach can be used to rescore n-best lists, but we also discuss an integration into the Moses decoder. A preliminary evaluation on the English/French IWSLT task achieved improvements in the BLEU score and a human analysis showed that the new model often chooses semantically better translations. Several extensions of this work are discussed.

Circadian and ultradian rhythms in period mutants of Drosophila melanogaster.

Abstract: Using digital techniques for signal analysis—the correlogram and a high-resolution analysis of time series, maximum-entropy spectral analysis (MESA)—we have detected both circadian and ultradian rhythms in the locomotor activity of free-runningper 0 males and in females lacking theper locus (per −; heterozygous for two deficiencies, each of which deletes the gene). Over half theper 0 individuals and half theper − individuals tested were rhythmically active, with dominant periods ranging from 4 to 22 h; most of the significantly rhythmicper 0 andper − flies clearly exhibited multiple periodicities. This novel pattern of rhythmic behavior is thoroughly distinct from the wild-type pattern. One hypothesis suggested by our observations is that theper + gene products mediate the coupling of multiple ultradian oscillators to produce wild-type circadian rhythms.

Cross-Cultural Analysis of Social Competence and Behavior Problems in Preschoolers

Abstract: A multi-national study using the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Inventory (SCBE-30) was conducted to investigate preschool children's social and emotional development across cultures. A total of 4,640 children from eight participating countries, including Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States were evaluated by their preschool teachers. The main objective of the study was to validate the SCBE-30 in each country and build a cross-cultural data set for the investigation of universals, as well as cultural differences, in the development of preschool children's social competence and the frequency and type of their behavioral problems. Results provide a clear case for the structural equivalence of the SCBE-30 across all samples, for universals in the structure of early social behavior, and possibly some differences that may be attributed to culture. The pattern of gender differences found in North American samples was found to generalize across cultural contexts ...

Three Views of Systems Theories and their Implications for Sustainability Education

Abstract: Worldwide, there is an emerging interest in sustainability and sustainability education. A popular and promising approach is the use of systems thinking. However, the systems approach to sustainability has neither been clearly defined nor has its practical application followed any systematic rigor, resulting in confounded and underspecified recommendations. The purpose of this article is to extend the notion of systems thinking as it pertains to sustainability pedagogy. The authors draw from systems theory and other literatures to develop three broad approaches to systems thinking: functionalist, interpretive, and complex adaptive systems (CAS). Each perspective is examined regarding its conceptual underpinnings, implications for sustainability, and pedagogical goals, objectives, skills, and exemplar projects and activities. The authors' goal is to provide the reader with an immanently practical set of ideas and pedagogical tools that may be readily adopted by management educators in any discipline.