Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Spatial 2015, Werner Kuhn, Matt Duckham, Marcia Castro

Journal of Spatial Information Science

This report summarizes the first in a new series of interdisciplinary unconferences, called SPATIAL. SPATIAL 2015 was focused on applying spatial information to human health, and was held at the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 9-11 December 2015.

Spatial Refinement As Collection Order Relations, Zhong Zhao

Journal of Spatial Information Science

An abstract examination of refinement (and conversely, coarsening) with respect to the involved spatial relations gives rise to formulated order relations between spatial coverings, which are defined as complete-coverage representations composed of regional granules. Coverings, which generalize partitions by allowing granules to overlap, enhance hierarchical geocomputations in several ways. Refinement between spatial coverings has underlying patterns with respect to inclusion—formalized as binary topological relations—between their granules. The patterns are captured by collection relations of inclusion, which are obtained by constraining relevant topological relations with cardinality properties such as uniqueness and totality. Conjoining relevant collection relations of equality and proper inclusion …

Routes Visualization: Automated Placement Of Multiple Route Symbols Along A Physical Network Infrastructure, Jules Teulade-Denantes, Adrien Maudet, Cécile Duchêne

Journal of Spatial Information Science

This paper tackles the representation of routes carried by a physical network infrastructure on a map. In particular, the paper examines the case where each route is represented by a separate colored linear symbol offset from the physical network segments and from other routes---as on public transit maps with bus routes offset from roads. In this study, the objective is to automate the placement of such route symbols while maximizing their legibility, especially at junctions. The problem is modeled as a constraint optimization problem. Legibility criteria are identified and formalized as constraints to optimize, while focusing on the case of …

Invariant Spatial Information In Sketch Maps — A Study Of Survey Sketch Maps Of Urban Areas, Jia Wang, Angela Schwering

Journal of Spatial Information Science

It is commonly recognized that free-hand sketch maps are influenced by cognitive impacts and therefore sketch maps are incomplete, distorted, and schematized. This makes it difficult to achieve a one-to-one alignment between a sketch map and its corresponding geo-referenced metric map. Nevertheless, sketch maps are still useful to communicate spatial knowledge, indicating that sketch maps contain certain spatial information that is robust to cognitive impacts. In existing studies, sketch maps are used frequently to measure cognitive maps. However, little work has been done on invariant spatial information in sketch maps, which is the information of spatial configurations representing correctly the …

Development And Evaluation Of A Geographic Information Retrieval System Using Fine Grained Toponyms, Damien Palacio, Curdin Derungs, Ross S. Purves

Journal of Spatial Information Science

Geographic information retrieval (GIR) is concerned with returning information in response to an information need, typically expressed in terms of a thematic and spatial component linked by a spatial relationship. However, evaluation initiatives have often failed to show significant differences between simple text baselines and more complex spatially enabled GIR approaches. We explore the effectiveness of three systems (a text baseline, spatial query expansion, and a full GIR system utilizing both text and spatial indexes) at retrieving documents from a corpus describing mountaineering expeditions, centred around fine grained toponyms. To allow evaluation, we use user generated content (UGC) in the …

Email Similarity Matching And Automatic Reply Generation Using Statistical Topic Modeling And Machine Learning, Zachery L. Schiller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Responding to email is a time-consuming task that is a requirement for most professions. Many people find themselves answering the same questions over and over, repeatedly replying with answers they have written previously either in whole or in part. In this thesis, the Automatic Mail Reply (AMR) system is implemented to help with repeated email response creation. The system uses past email interactions and, through unsupervised statistical learning, attempts to recover relevant information to give to the user to assist in writing their reply.

Three statistical learning models, term frequency-inverse document frequency (tf-idf), Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), and Latent Dirichlet …

Los Morteros: Early Monumentality And Environmental Change In The Lower Chao Valley, Northern Peruvian Coast, Ana Cecilia Mauricio Llonto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation presents the results of archaeological and geoarchaeological studies carried out at the site of Los Morteros and the Archaeological Complex of Pampa de las Salinas, lower Chao Valley, North Coast of Peru, between September 2012 and July 2014. This research focuses on the study of the mound-shaped site of Los Morteros and the environmental contexts in which this site developed. Previous excavations at the site considered Los Morteros as a “stabilized dune” whose top was used as cemetery for pre-pottery people around cal. 5000 B.P (Cardenas 1995, 1999). However, geo-radar explorations of the mound in 2006 and …

Minerva 2015, The Honors College

Minerva

This issue of Minerva includes an interview with Honors alumnus and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Bernard Lown; a celebration of retiring Assistant Dean, Barbara Ouellette; and memorial articles celebrating the lives of notable Honors supporters, Betsy Leitch and Dennis Rezendes. Other highlights include a spread on Honors student travel and community engagement; and an article on Honors graduate, Jill Pelto, whose artwork graces the front and back covers of the 2015 Minerva.

Mr447: Seasonal Water Table And Temperature Relationships In Calcareous Till And Residual Soils Of Central Maine, David E. Turcotte, Christopher C. Dorion, Nicholas R. Butler, Ivan J. Fernandez

Miscellaneous Reports

Water table depths and soil temperatures were monitored for four growing seasons in six calcareous till pedons developed on gently rolling to level till plains in Corinth and Exeter, Maine. These soils are part of a new catena that supports potato production in southeastern Penobscot County. Three of these coarse-loamy to fine-loamy pedons are moderately well drained Oxyaquic Eutrudepts taxadjuncts in potato fields, and three are somewhat poorly drained Aquic Dystric Eutrudepts in predominantly deciduous forest. Soil morphology, hydrologic data, and a,a dipyridyl applications support the described subgroup classification of each pedon, along with the udic moisture regime. Despite a …

River Restoration: Institutions, Boundaries, And Social Ecological Dynamics, Eileen Sylvan Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This human dimensions research, consisting of three manuscripts, explores the social and ecological dimensions of river restoration through an examination of the restoration trajectories of the Androscoggin, an impaired system, and the Kennebec, a restored system. Manuscript one examines the influence of biophysical and community attributes and institutional rules on policy stakeholders goals and actions within the two watersheds. For manuscripts one and two, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants, assembled documents pertaining to restoration actions, and conducted participant observation at stakeholder meetings. We qualitatively analyzed transcripts and documents. Results suggest that policy stakeholders’ understandings of biophysical and community …

Biogeography And Conservation Of Tidal Marsh Bird Communities Across A Changing Landscape, Maureen D. Correll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the current mass extinction crisis and continued fragmentation of resources worldwide, the outlook is dire for global biodiversity. Rising global temperature, sea levels, and storm frequency all create environmental conditions that can drive change in species abundance and distribution across a landscape. Those species reliant upon a single type of habitat and resource for survival, termed “specialists”, are particularly vulnerable to change due to their inability to utilize a variety of resources well. As a result, specialism is now considered one of the dominant factors determining extinction of species. In this dissertation I explore the effects of disturbance on …

Fluvial Deposition, El Nino And Landscape Construction In Northern Coastal Peru, Paul M. Pluta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The El Nino global climate anomaly is a major cause of weather variation that can have far-reaching effects on human populations around the world. Northern coastal Peru is an area of historically major impacts where strong El Nino events have resulted in catastrophic flooding and mass wasting, leading to significant social disruption. There is a growing body of literature on the prehistoric chronology of El Nino and how it affected human populations of the past, but more work is needed. In order to address the timing and characteristics of past El Nino events I investigated the alluvial sedimentary sequences at …

Integrated Analytical-Computational Analysis Of Microstructural Influences On Seismic Anisotropy, Scott E. Johnson, Christopher Gerbi, Andrew J. Goupee, Senthil Vel

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The magnitudes, orientations and spatial distributions of elastic anisotropy in Earth's crust and mantle carry valuable information about gradients in thermal, mechanical and kinematic parameters arising from mantle convection, mantle-crust coupling and tectonic plate interactions. Relating seismic signals to deformation regimes requires knowledge of the elastic signatures (bulk stiffnesses) of different microstructures that characterize specific deformation environments, but the influence of microstructural heterogeneity on bulk stiffness has not been comprehensively evaluated. The objectives of this project are to: (1) scale up a preliminary method to determine the bulk stiffness of rocks using integrated analytical (electron backscatter diffraction) and computational (asymptotic …

Wintertime Weather-Climate Variability And Its Links To Early Spring Ice-Out In Maine Lakes, Mussie Beyene, Shaleen Jain

Publications

In recent decades, Maine lakes have recorded their earliest ice-out dates in over a century. In temperate regions, seasonal lake ice-cover is a critical phenomenon linking climate, aquatic ecosystem and society. And the lengthening of the ice-free period due to warmer climate has been linked to increased algal growth and declining lake water quality, warming of water temperatures leading to alterations in aquatic biodiversity, and the shortening of ice-fishing period and other traditional winter activities over lakes. In this study, historical record of eight lakes and six benchmarked meteorological stations in Maine for the period 1950–2010 were analyzed to (1) …

Student Understanding Of The Boltzmann Factor, Trevor I. Smith, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship

We present results of our investigation into student understanding of the physical significance and utility of the Boltzmann factor in several simple models. We identify various justifications, both correct and incorrect, that students use when answering written questions that require application of the Boltzmann factor. Results from written data as well as teaching interviews suggest that many students can neither recognize situations in which the Boltzmann factor is applicable nor articulate the physical significance of the Boltzmann factor as an expression for multiplicity, a fundamental quantity of statistical mechanics. The specific student difficulties seen in the written data led us …

Identifying Student Difficulties With Heat Engines, Entropy, And The Carnot Cycle, Trevor I. Smith, Warren M. Christensen, Donald B. Mountcastle, John R. Thompson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship

We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the second law of thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduate thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the second law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students’ struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible …

Putting The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Into Context, George H. Denton, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to develop new insights into the cause and pattern of events during the last glacial termination in South America and Antarctica. One emerging view is that a warming Southern Ocean (SO), driven by a chain of events initiated in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and tied to the interhemispheric climate seesaw of the last termination, was the underlying mechanism that drove the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) from its Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) position back to present-day grounding lines. This ocean thermal forcing would have impacted WAIS by accelerating basal melt rates on fringing floating ice …

Contribution Of Raman Scattering To Polarized Radiation Field In Ocean Waters, Peng Wang Zhai, Yongxiang Hu, David M. Winker, Bryan A. Franz, Emmanuel Boss

Marine Sciences Faculty Scholarship

We have implemented Raman scattering in a vector radiative transfer model for coupled atmosphere and ocean systems. A sensitivity study shows that the Raman scattering contribution is greatest in clear waters and at longer wavelengths. The Raman scattering contribution may surpass the elastic scattering contribution by several orders of magnitude at depth. The degree of linear polarization in water is smaller when Raman scattering is included. The orientation of the polarization ellipse shows similar patterns for both elastic and inelastic scattering contributions. As polarimeters and multipolarization-state lidars are planned for future Earth observing missions, our model can serve as a …

Spatiotemporal Wireless Sensor Network Field Approximation With Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network Models, François Neville

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As sensors become increasingly compact and dependable in natural environments, spatially-distributed heterogeneous sensor network systems steadily become more pervasive. However, any environmental monitoring system must account for potential data loss due to a variety of natural and technological causes. Modeling a natural spatial region can be problematic due to spatial nonstationarities in environmental variables, and as particular regions may be subject to specific influences at different spatial scales. Relationships between processes within these regions are often ephemeral, so models designed to represent them cannot remain static. Integrating temporal factors into this model engenders further complexity.

This dissertation evaluates the use …

On Dedekind’S “Über Die Permutationen Des Körpers Aller Algebraischen Zahlen", Joseph Jp Arsenault Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We provide an analytic read-through of Richard Dedekind's 1901 article “Über die Permutationen des Körpers aller algebraischen Zahlen," describing the principal results concerning infinite Galois theory from both Dedekind's point of view and a modern perspective, noting an apparently uncorrected error in the supplement to the article in the Collected Works. As there is no published English-language translation of the article, we provide an annotated original translation.

Method Development For Vitamin C Quantification In Two Complex Matrices, Hannah D. Hutt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following liquid chromatographic (LC) method developments and applied research studies were done using two complex food matrices, potatoes and elderberries, which are common to the state of Maine. Potatoes are Maine’s largest agricultural crop, a staple food in most U.S. households, and are, from an analytical standpoint, considered a complex matrix due to the high starch content that can be difficult to remove without degrading or removing nutrients in the process. Elderberries are an emerging crop in the U.S. because of their antioxidant and anti-viral properties and are found growing wild, throughout Maine. Elderberries are also considered a complex …

Detection Of Iron (Iii) Using Magnetic Nanoparticles, Kaiya Hansen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this work was to develop an iron (III) sensor which can be mounted on buoys and gliders and automatically measure iron (III) in the ocean. The method investigated in this thesis was based on anchoring the iron (III) chelator desferrioxamine B (DFB) to magnetic particles. DFB selectively binds iron (III), resulting in a complex which produces a broad absorbance band at 430 nm. This band can be measured via UV-Vis spectroscopy (UV-Vis). However, measuring oceanic iron (III) directly in solution is difficult because the concentrations can be very low, sometimes less than 1 nM. This problem could …

Reconstructing Late Holocene Hydrographic Variability Of The Gulf Of Maine, Nina Millicent Whitney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I present an annually resolved reconstruction of seawater temperatures in the

western North Atlantic from 1695-1915. This paleoclimate record was constructed

using oxygen isotopes measured in precisely dated Arctica islandica shells collected

off of Seguin Island in the western Gulf of Maine. The temperature reconstruction

was derived from this oxygen isotope time series using a modern d¹⁸O_w-salinity

mixing line developed for coastal waters in the Gulf of Maine from water samples

collected over the last decade. The d¹⁸O_w and salinity composition of these water

samples indicate that coastal surface waters consist of a …

Spectral Attenuation And Backscattering As Indicators Of Average Particle Size, Wayne Homer Slade, Emmanuel Boss

Marine Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Measurements of the particulate beam attenuation coefficient at multiple wavelengths in the ocean typically exhibit a power law dependence on wavelength, and the slope of that power law has been related to the slope of the particle size distribution (PSD), when assumed to be a power law function of particle size. Recently, spectral backscattering coefficient measurements have been made using sensors deployed at moored observatories, on autonomous underwater vehicles, and even retrieved from space-based measurements of remote sensing reflectance. It has been suggested that these backscattering measurements may also be used to obtain information about the shape of the PSD. …

Temperature As A Proxy To Study The Flow Of Water Within Two Maine Streambeds, Jarrod D. Cicha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heat transport studies often focus on calculating an average direction and magnitude of groundwater flow within the streambed for long (3 days – 1 week) periods of time. Short-term changes in flow magnitude and/or direction within the streambed caused by near stream groundwater pumping and storms are not represented by these long term averaging methods. Temperature profiles collected in B Stream (Houlton, Maine) and the Stillwater River (Orono, Maine) were used to calibrate a one-dimensional heat transport model and quantify short-term hydraulic events in vertical groundwater velocity within streambeds. Temperature profiles were collected during the summer of 2014 with iButton …

Topographic Signatures Of Geodynamics, Samuel G. Roy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The surface of the Earth retains an imperfect memory of the diverse geodynamic, climatic, and surface transport processes that cooperatively drive the evolution of Earth. In this thesis I explore the potential of using topographic analysis and landscape evolution models to unlock past and/or present evidence for geodynamic activity. I explore the potential isolated effects of geodynamics on landscape evolution, particularly focusing on two byproducts of tectonic strain: rock displacement and damage. Field evidence supports a strong correlation between rock damage and erodibility, and a numerical sensitivity analysis supports the hypothesis that an order of magnitude weakening in rock, well …

Individual Tree Measurements From Three-Dimensional Point Clouds, Elias Ayrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study develops and tests novel methodologies for measuring the attributes of individual trees from three-dimensional point clouds generated from an aerial platform. Recently, advancements in technology have allowed for the acquisition of very high resolution three-dimensional point clouds that can be used to map the forest in a virtual environment. These point clouds can be interpreted to produce valuable forest attributes across entire landscapes with minimal field labor, which can then aid forest managers in their planning and decision making.

Biometrics derived from point clouds are often generated on a plot level, with estimates spanning many meters (rather than …

Regional Ocean-Colour Chlorophyll Algorithms For The Red Sea, Robert J.W. Brewin, Dionysios E. Raitsos, Giorgio Dall'olmo, Nikolaos Zarokanellos, Thomas Jackson, Marie Fanny Racault, Emmanuel S. Boss, Shubha Sathyendranath, Burt H. Jones, Ibrahim Hoteit

Marine Sciences Faculty Scholarship

The Red Sea is a semi-enclosed tropical marine ecosystem that stretches from the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba in the north, to the Gulf of Aden in the south. Despite its ecological and economic importance, its biological environment is relatively unexplored. Satellite ocean-colour estimates of chlorophyll concentration (an index of phytoplankton biomass) offer an observational platform to monitor the health of the Red Sea. However, little is known about the optical properties of the region. In this paper, we investigate the optical properties of the Red Sea in the context of satellite ocean-colour estimates of chlorophyll concentration. Making …

An Analysis Of Spatio-Temporal Landscape Patterns For Protected Areas In Northern New England: 1099-2010, Spencer Meyer, Mary-Kate Beard-Tisdale, Christopher S. Cronan, Robert Lilieholm

Publications

Context: Landscape ecology theory provides insight about how large assemblages of protected areas (PAs) should be configured to protect biodiversity. We adapted these theories to evaluate whether the emergence of decentralized land protection in a largely private landscape followed the principles of reserve design. Objectives: Our objectives were to determine: (1) Are there distinct clusters of PAs in time and space? (2) Are PAs becoming more spatially clustered through time? and (3) Does the resulting PA portfolio have traits characteristic of ideal reserve design? Methods: We developed an historical dataset of the PAs enacted since 1900 in the northern New …

Environmental Monitoring Report For Volturnus Deployment In Castine, Me, Damian C. Brady, University Of Maine Advanced Structures And Composites Center

Maine Sea Grant Publications

On June 13th, 2013 the University of Maine’s VolturnUS 1:8 floating offshore wind turbine was energized and began delivering electricity through an undersea cable to the Central Maine Power electricity grid. Deployment continued until late November 2014. The following describes the results of extensive environmental monitoring at the Castine site. The primary observations of the site were derived from weekly visual surveys, bat echolocation detectors, underwater acoustic receivers, and web camera surveillance. The latter method consisted of observing the turbine and platform by web camera every 15-30 seconds throughout the deployment.