Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Open Access Articles

Maine Won't Wait One-Year Progress Report, 2021, Maine Climate Council, Governor's Office Of Policy Innovation And The Future, Ivan Fernandez, Stephen Dickson, Susie Arnold, Cassaundra Rose, Troy Jackson, Russell Black, Nicole Grohski, Amanda Collamore, Linda Bacon, Brian Beal, Sean Birkel, Alix Contosta, Amanda Cross, Adam Daigneault, Phillips Demaynadier, Susan Elias, Glenn Hodgkins, Joe Kelley, Glen Koehler, Rebecca Lincoln, Pamela Lombard, Brandfield Lyon, Nicole Price, Jonathan Rubin, Joseph Salisbury, Peter Slovinsky, Alyssa Soucy, Robert Steneck, Sally Stockwell, Richard Wahle, Aaron Weiskittel, Carl Wilson

General University of Maine Publications

This document, an “Maine Climate Science Update 2021”, is an interim communication to the Maine Climate Council and the public about the ongoing work of the scientific community and recent events associated with climate change. It is divided into three sections: (1) current events that reflect the acceleration of extreme weather events in Maine and elsewhere with possible connections to climate change; (2) noteworthy scientific reports with national and international scope released in 2021; and (3) examples of recent peer-reviewed publications from the ongoing work of the scientific community to understand climate change in Maine.

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Mitigating Emissions Associated With The Production Of Traded Goods, Dan André Quirapas, Brian Irvyn Chan, Albert E. Lamberte, Maria Zunally Rapada, Krista Danielle Yu

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The environmental impact of international trade is a concerning issue in the fight against climate change. Trade liberalization—combined with globally fragmented environmental policies—is often associated with the formation of pollution havens. This is because trade enables emissions leakages, which is defined as the outsourcing of emissions-intensive production to countries with weaker environmental regulations. Therefore, literature on this subject has suggested that a globally coordinated policy response is necessary to mitigate the impact of trade on climate change (Aichele & Felbermayr, 2012; Ben-David et al., 2020; Felbmermayr & Peterson, 2020). However, some studies have found that unilateral policy actions have no …

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Analyzing Devops Teaching Strategies: An Initial Study, Samuel Ferino, Marcelo Fernandes, Anny K. Fernandes, Uirá Kulesza, Eduardo Aranha, Christoph Treude

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

DevOps refers to a set of practices that integrate software development and operations with the primary aim to enable the continuous delivery of high-quality software. DevOps has also promoted several challenges to software engineering teaching. In this paper, we present a preliminary study that analyzes existing teaching strategies reported in the literature. Our findings indicate a set of approaches highlighting the use of environments to support teaching. Our work also investigates how these environments can contribute to address existing challenges and recommendations of DevOps teaching.

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Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Foods From Street Trees In New York City, Ny, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

There is growing recognition that urban forests have the potential to combat food insecurity via their edible parts, namely fruits, berries, and nuts. Many tree species commonly planted in urban spaces have edible parts that may fulfill the nutritional needs of city residents that are food insecure, but no one has analyzed the value of city street trees to understand this potential. I analyzed New York City’s street trees by each species and their edible parts to measure this potential.

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Comparative Study Of Leachate Characterization: Implication For Sustainable Environmental Management, Osakpolor Marvellous Omorogieva, Victory Itua Igberase

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding the sources of environmental stressors, the role of geology, climate and technology would provide a guide to solving the problems posed by such stressor. The study examine the sources of wastes in Ikhueniro open dumpsite located in Benin city, Nigeria and characterize the leachate emanating from it. This will assist in adequate design of managerial scheme to tackle the menace posed by it while putting into consideration the role of geology, climate and technology. The key objectives are to carry out field study, characterize wastes in the dumpsite and collect raw leachate emanating from the wastes heap in order …

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Internal And External Factors’ Influence On Recycling: Insights From A Laboratory Experiment With Observed Behavior, Nooh Linder, Sonny Rosenthal, Patrik Sorqvist, Stephan Barthel

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Internal psychological factors, such as intentions and personal norms, are central predictors of pro-environmental behavior in many theoretical models, whereas the influence from external factors such as the physical environment is seldom considered. Even rarer is studying how internal factors interact with the physical context in which decisions take place. In the current study, we addressed the relative influence and interaction of psychological and environmental factors on pro-environmental behavior. A laboratory experiment presented participants (N = 399) with a choice to dispatch a used plastic cup in a recycling or general waste bin after participating in a staged “yogurt taste …

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Sound In Video Games: How Sound Is An Important Aspect Of The Virtual Experience, James Boen

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

This paper will take the form of an analysis, with video games as the medium/text that will be analysed. Although analysis is typically reserved for poems, books, short stories, or plays, video games are simply a form of conveying ideas and a form of text that is representative of the 21st century. Video games is a rare medium that has an interactive element, which can alter/enhance the experience an audience member can have, even if there were the same audio/visual components in a film or play. In most forms of media with an audio component, the analysis is done by …

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Effectiveness Of Plastic Ordinances In Santa Monica, Ca: Do Regulations At The Municipal Level Reduce Plastic Waste?, John W. Hayes

School of Public Policy Capstones

Plastic is a cheap, robust and versatile material with numerous practical uses that contribute to the convenience of modern day life. However the very same properties that make it uniquely diverse and hardy also contribute to the hazards it poses to the ecosystems and human health. If current consumption and manufacturing practices remain unchanged, there will be hundreds of millions of additional tons of plastic introduced into the environment over the coming decades. To mitigate this issue, some cities, such as Santa Monica, have implemented ordinances and policies directly aimed at this growing problem, albeit with ambiguous results. To better …

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Associations Between Family-Based Stress And Dietary Inflammatory Potential Among Families With Preschool-Aged Children, Valerie Hruska, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Alison M. Duncan, Jess Hines, David W. L. Ma

Faculty Publications

Chronic stress is known to influence dietary choices, and stressed families often report poorer diet quality; however, little is known about how family-based stress is linked with dietary patterns that promote inflammation. This study investigated associations between family-based stress and the inflammatory potential of the diet among preschool-aged children and their parents. Parents (n = 212 mothers, n = 146 fathers) and children (n = 130 girls, n = 123 boys; aged 18 months to 5 years) from 241 families participating in the Guelph Family Health Study were included in the analyses. Parents reported levels of parenting distress, depressive symptoms, …

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Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey

Earth and Planetary Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Multiple linear regression was used to determine the relationships between diversity-independent factors (i.e., abiotic, climatic) 2, 5, and 10 Myrs-prior to the most elevated Phanerozoic extinctions. We constructed five abiotic variables from Phanerozoic proxy records1–5 to compare to extinction rates: mean temperature, temperature instability, carbon cycle instability, continental weathering rates, and habitat instability. All three models were statistically significant (P < 0.05) and explained > 70% of the variation in Alroy’s6 three-timer generic extinction rates. However, the 2 Myr-prior model explained the most variance in extinction rates and had the most predictive power, based on adjusted and predictive R2 (~ 72% and 41%, respectively). Carbon …

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Optimization Of Simple And Inexpensive Paper-Based Assay For Lead, Kyla Dewittie, Sagar S. Patel

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines state that lead is a toxic metal that humans should not be exposed to in any amount. Due to corrosion of water pipes, lead can enter drinking water and be consumed by millions of people. As a group, we decided to reduce this issue by creating a simple and inexpensive paper-based test to detect lead(II) in water. The signal for this test results from encapsulating a phenanthroline-based probe in synthesized polymer nanoparticles. This test will display a colorimetric change, turning from yellow to bright orange if lead(II) is present in the water system. In …

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Water Pollution And Environmental Concerns In Anesthesiology, Marc Kostrubiak, Christine Vatovec, Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, Donna Rizzo, William Paganelli, Mitchell Tsai

Larner College of Medicine Fourth Year Advanced Integration Teaching/Scholarly Projects

Medications administered by anesthesia health care providers and subsequently excreted into the water supply system have the potential to affect ecological systems. Presently, there is a lack of literature examining which medications or metabolites enter the waste stream. Further, assessments of their potential environmental impact are often unknown or simply not considered as an externality of medical practice. Recent work examining the practice of anesthesiology has explored the solid waste stream, and the global warming potential of anesthetic gases, however the potential aquatic impacts remain unexplored. To address the potential for waterborne pollution and environmental toxicity, we extracted the total …

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Predicting College Students’ Future Intentions To Engage In Public-Sphere Water Conservation Behaviors, Austin Wise, Donald Johnson, George Wardlow, Kathi Jogan

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to describe selected college students’ (N = 252) perceptions of and future intentions (FI) to engage in public-sphere water conservation behaviors, and to determine if FI could be predicted by a single or linear combination of student demographic characteristics and latent variables. A majority of respondents agreed a growing population will negatively affect water quantity (90.5%) and there is a need for water resource management (85.6%). A majority disagreed or strongly disagreed that they (53.4%), their family (57.1%), or their friends (67.5%) practiced water conservation, or that people in their hometowns were concerned about …

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Answers In The East: An Examination Of China's Renewable Energy And Its Application To Central Appalachia, Lillian Hamm

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

While much of China’s electrification has depended on coal, recent decades illustrate the country is heavily investing in and implementing renewable energy as a power source. Even China’s coal-rich provinces, like the northeastern province of Shanxi, have been making the transition to renewable energy. The central Appalachian states comprised of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, western Virginia, and northeastern Tennessee share many characteristics with China’s Shanxi province including economic resources, climate, and geography. Yet, central Appalachia has not been able to easily transition to renewable energy. However, there are various cultural, political, and technological differences between the two regions to explain …

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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

General University of Maine Publications

Mitigating Emissions Associated With The Production Of Traded Goods, Dan André Quirapas, Brian Irvyn Chan, Albert E. Lamberte, Maria Zunally Rapada, Krista Danielle Yu

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Analyzing Devops Teaching Strategies: An Initial Study, Samuel Ferino, Marcelo Fernandes, Anny K. Fernandes, Uirá Kulesza, Eduardo Aranha, Christoph Treude

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Urban Forests And Their Potential To Combat Food Insecurity: Analyzing Foods From Street Trees In New York City, Ny, Kristen Cooney

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

Comparative Study Of Leachate Characterization: Implication For Sustainable Environmental Management, Osakpolor Marvellous Omorogieva, Victory Itua Igberase

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Internal And External Factors’ Influence On Recycling: Insights From A Laboratory Experiment With Observed Behavior, Nooh Linder, Sonny Rosenthal, Patrik Sorqvist, Stephan Barthel

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Sound In Video Games: How Sound Is An Important Aspect Of The Virtual Experience, James Boen

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Effectiveness Of Plastic Ordinances In Santa Monica, Ca: Do Regulations At The Municipal Level Reduce Plastic Waste?, John W. Hayes

School of Public Policy Capstones

Associations Between Family-Based Stress And Dietary Inflammatory Potential Among Families With Preschool-Aged Children, Valerie Hruska, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Alison M. Duncan, Jess Hines, David W. L. Ma

Faculty Publications

Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey

Earth and Planetary Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Optimization Of Simple And Inexpensive Paper-Based Assay For Lead, Kyla Dewittie, Sagar S. Patel

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

Water Pollution And Environmental Concerns In Anesthesiology, Marc Kostrubiak, Christine Vatovec, Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux, Donna Rizzo, William Paganelli, Mitchell Tsai

Larner College of Medicine Fourth Year Advanced Integration Teaching/Scholarly Projects

Predicting College Students’ Future Intentions To Engage In Public-Sphere Water Conservation Behaviors, Austin Wise, Donald Johnson, George Wardlow, Kathi Jogan

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Answers In The East: An Examination Of China's Renewable Energy And Its Application To Central Appalachia, Lillian Hamm

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects