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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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The University of Maine

Journal

2015

Articles 1 - 30 of 42

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Spatial 2015, Werner Kuhn, Matt Duckham, Marcia Castro Dec 2015

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 Dec 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 Dec 2015

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 Dec 2015

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 Dec 2015

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 …


Minerva 2015, The Honors College Dec 2015

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.


Visualizing Patterns In Spatially Ambiguous Point Data, Jonny Huck, Duncan Whyatt, Paul Coulton Jun 2015

Visualizing Patterns In Spatially Ambiguous Point Data, Jonny Huck, Duncan Whyatt, Paul Coulton

Journal of Spatial Information Science

As technologies permitting both the creation and retrieval of data containing spatial information continue to develop, so do the number of visualizations using such data. This spatial information will often comprise a place name that may be "geocoded" into coordinates, and displayed on a map, frequently using a "heatmap-style" visualization to reveal patterns in the data. Across a dataset, however, there is often ambiguity in the geographic scale to which a place-name refers (country, county, town, street etc.), and attempts to simultaneously map data at a multitude of different scales will result in the formation of "false hotspots" within the …


Knowledge Formalization For Vector Data Matching Using Belief Theory, Ana-Maria Olteanu-Raimond, Sebastien Mustière, Anne Ruas Jun 2015

Knowledge Formalization For Vector Data Matching Using Belief Theory, Ana-Maria Olteanu-Raimond, Sebastien Mustière, Anne Ruas

Journal of Spatial Information Science

Nowadays geographic vector data is produced both by public and private institutions using well defined specifications or crowdsourcing via Web 2.0 mapping portals. As a result, multiple representations of the same real world objects exist, without any links between these different representations. This becomes an issue when integration, updates, or multi-level analysis needs to be performed, as well as for data quality assessment. In this paper a multi-criteria data matching approach allowing the automatic definition of links between identical features is proposed. The originality of the approach is that the process is guided by an explicit representation and fusion of …


A Comparative Study Of Linear And Region Based Diagrams, Björn Gottfried Jun 2015

A Comparative Study Of Linear And Region Based Diagrams, Björn Gottfried

Journal of Spatial Information Science

There are two categories of objects spatial information science investigates: actual objects and their spatial properties, such as in geography, and abstract objects which are employed metaphorically, as for visual languages. A prominent example of the latter are diagrams that model knowledge of some domain. Different aspects of diagrams are of interest, including their formal properties or how human users work with them, for example, with diagrams representing sets. The literature about diagrammatic systems for the representation of sets shows a dominance of region-based diagrams like Euler circles and Venn diagrams. The effectiveness of these diagrams, however, is limited because …


Editorial, Matt Duckham Jun 2015

Editorial, Matt Duckham

Journal of Spatial Information Science

No abstract provided.


The Olive Tree, Volume 23 Issue 1 Mar 2015

The Olive Tree, Volume 23 Issue 1

The Olive Tree

The Olive Tree, published twice each year by Fogler Library at the University of Maine, features articles about library projects, collections, technological innovations, and events. The hallmark of the Fogler Library Friends, an ancient engraving of an olive tree, was adopted from the title page of La Cosmographie Universelle by André Thevet. The two volume encyclopedia, which was published in Paris in 1575, is shelved in the Library's Special Collections Department. One of the longest living trees, the olive tree parallels the development of civilizations.


Book Review: Kofi Annan And The Role Of Morality In International Relations, Robert Potts Feb 2015

Book Review: Kofi Annan And The Role Of Morality In International Relations, Robert Potts

The Cohen Journal

This is a book review of Interventions: A life in War and Peace. The book was written by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.


The American Dream, Equal Opportunity, And Obtaining The Vote, Benjamin Wyman Feb 2015

The American Dream, Equal Opportunity, And Obtaining The Vote, Benjamin Wyman

The Cohen Journal

The United States was founded on the principles of inalienable and natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Out of those ideals arose the ideas of an American Creed and American Dream, which have provided aspirations for millions of Americans to pursue their dreams, and, with hard work, the chance to improve their situation in life. The fundamental values of the new American Creed became “liberty, equality, individualism, populism, laissez-faire, and the rule of law under a constitution” (Jillson 2004, 4) while the idea of an American Dream which was first instilled upon the citizens of the …


Let’S Act Now, While Things Are Good! Social Change And The Need For Policy Action In Maine’S Lobster Industry, Samuel Belknap Feb 2015

Let’S Act Now, While Things Are Good! Social Change And The Need For Policy Action In Maine’S Lobster Industry, Samuel Belknap

The Cohen Journal

The motivation behind this letter was a remark by Maine Department of Marine Resources Lobster Biologist, Carl Wilson. While attending the Rockland Maine based Island Institute’s annual Climate Round Table event, where fishermen, scientists, and others gather to talk about the past year in the Gulf of Maine, Wilson said, in reference to the lobster industry, “When the resource changes, everything changes.” This comment, poetic in its simplicity, got me to start thinking. I began retracing the history of Maine’s lobster industry to find examples of Wilson’s statement, and I was surprised by how many instances supported this comment. What …


A Legal Analysis Of The University Of Maine’S Ban On Firearms Following District Of Columbia V. Heller, Abigail Macdonald Feb 2015

A Legal Analysis Of The University Of Maine’S Ban On Firearms Following District Of Columbia V. Heller, Abigail Macdonald

The Cohen Journal

On April 16, 2007, the deadliest shooting by a single gunman took place on the college campus of Virginia Tech, taking the lives of 33 individuals (Johnson 2007). This event shook America, and yet the next year it was followed by six more shooting deaths at Northern Illinois University (Northern Illinois University 2008) and three more at Louisiana Technical College (BBC News 2008). Many universities around the country have responded to these events by either establishing firearm bans or strengthening and clinging to their existing policies, and the University of Maine is no exception (University of Maine 2004). Yet in …


Introduction, Secretary William S. Cohen Feb 2015

Introduction, Secretary William S. Cohen

The Cohen Journal

No abstract provided.


A Smiling Face Is Half The Meal: The Role Of Cooperation In Sustaining Maine’S Local Food Industry, Ethan Tremblay, Timothy Waring Jan 2015

A Smiling Face Is Half The Meal: The Role Of Cooperation In Sustaining Maine’S Local Food Industry, Ethan Tremblay, Timothy Waring

Maine Policy Review

The U.S. is experiencing a renaissance in local food production, and Maine is among the states leading that resurgence. This renaissance is influenced by many factors, and has both economic and social dimensions. This article examines the role of cooperation in the local food industry across a range of local food organizations. The authors conclude that cooperation plays different yet crucial roles in all local food organizations, and is an important part of the success of the local food industry as whole. The article considers the policy implications of these findings, and suggests that while the prevalence of cooperation is …


Public Libraries: Essential Infrastructure For The Public Humanities, Stephen Podgajny Jan 2015

Public Libraries: Essential Infrastructure For The Public Humanities, Stephen Podgajny

Maine Policy Review

Public libraries are a key component in the delivery of local humanities programs in Maine. Stephen Podgajny, executive director of the Portland (Maine) Public Library, outlines how public library infrastructure and resources support the humanities as collectors of humanities-related material, conveners and presenters of humanities programs, as collaborators with other humanities organizations, and as conservators of local historical collections. The author also discusses the future of public humanities and public libraries.


The Importance Of The Humanities: Reflections From Leading Policymakers, Linda Silka Jan 2015

The Importance Of The Humanities: Reflections From Leading Policymakers, Linda Silka

Maine Policy Review

Maine is fortunate in being served by state policy leaders who care deeply about the humanities and who have devoted considerable thought to the role of the humanities in Maine’s past, present, and future. In this article, Linda Silka interviews four of these leading policymakers about the human­ities and policy: Tom Desjardin, Peter Mills, Margaret (Peggy) Rotundo, and Earle G. Shettleworth Jr.


Why The Humanities Are Necessary To Public Policy, And How, Anna Sims Bartel Jan 2015

Why The Humanities Are Necessary To Public Policy, And How, Anna Sims Bartel

Maine Policy Review

To ask what this issue of Maine Policy Review asks is to assume that the humanities are valuable and/or useful, both in general and in particular to public policy. So we should be asking not only how policy can help the humanities but how the humanities can help policy. Anna S. Bartel sees several answers and tries to map them by exploring intersections of humanities and public policy and by asking what public policy needs that the humanities can contribute. Four stages of policy can all benefit from humanistic education, programming, and dispositions: conceptualization, crafting, implementation, and evaluation


Margaret Chase Smith Essay: Priorities Of The U.S. Senate Aging Committee, Susan M. Collins Jan 2015

Margaret Chase Smith Essay: Priorities Of The U.S. Senate Aging Committee, Susan M. Collins

Maine Policy Review

Senator Susan Collins of Maine discusses the three major priorities of the U.S. Senate Aging Committee: investing in biomedical research targeting diseases that dispro­portionately affect older Americans, such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes; protecting seniors against financial exploitation and scams; and improving retirement security.


The Demographic Transformation In Maine (And Beyond) Is In Full Swing, Lenard W. Kaye Jan 2015

The Demographic Transformation In Maine (And Beyond) Is In Full Swing, Lenard W. Kaye

Maine Policy Review

The article discusses the demographics of longevity and what it means for Maine. Lenard Kaye, guest editor, introduces the topic and describes the reasons for this special aging-focused issue of the Maine Policy Review.


The Emergence Of Age-Friendly Communities: The City Of Bangor, Benjamin Sprague Jan 2015

The Emergence Of Age-Friendly Communities: The City Of Bangor, Benjamin Sprague

Maine Policy Review

Although Bangor now has the youngest median age of any city in Maine, Benjamin Sprague describes the city’s efforts to engage its older residents, which has led to Bangor being ranked one of the top places to retire by Forbes Magazine and AARP.


The Future Is Now: Legal Planning For Elders, Jennifer Eastman Jan 2015

The Future Is Now: Legal Planning For Elders, Jennifer Eastman

Maine Policy Review

Legal planning for elders focuses on protecting retirement income and finding ways to pay for long-term health care. Jennifer Eastman discusses estate and tax planning and planning for retirement income, Social Security issues, and asset preservation. She notes that protecting elder adults requires planning and advocating for (or against) policy changes that could adversely affect elders.


Never Too Old To Lead: Activating Leadership Among Maine's Older Adults, Jennifer A. Crittenden, Lelia Deandrade Jan 2015

Never Too Old To Lead: Activating Leadership Among Maine's Older Adults, Jennifer A. Crittenden, Lelia Deandrade

Maine Policy Review

As Maine’s population ages, there will be a growing need to mobilize older Mainers to effect change in their local communities. There are few models available nationally that illustrate how to effectively train and engage baby boomers and older adults as leaders within community contexts. This article examines what is known about leadership development generally and highlights how one program in Maine is training and supporting older leaders who are using volunteer work to improve the health and well-being of their local communities.


"What Kind Of Place Do We Want To Live In?" Place, The Humanities, And Public Policy In Maine, Carol Norstrom Toner Jan 2015

"What Kind Of Place Do We Want To Live In?" Place, The Humanities, And Public Policy In Maine, Carol Norstrom Toner

Maine Policy Review

Carol Toner explores the intersection of the humanities, public policy making, and quality of place. In 2014, a local protest against the site of a potential new landfill in rural Maine demonstrates how citizens can draw from their history and culture when considering public policy and quality of place. In this case, the humanities informed the making of public policy to benefit the greater good. Maine enjoys a participatory public policy process that depends on informed public input. The humanities, especially history, literature, and philosophy, help prepare citizens for this important role by teaching critical thinking, imagination, and compassion. Maine …


Mapping The History Of The State: The Historical Atlas Of Maine, Stephen J. Hornsby Jan 2015

Mapping The History Of The State: The Historical Atlas Of Maine, Stephen J. Hornsby

Maine Policy Review

This article describes the creation of the Historical Atlas of Maine, one of the most significant scholarly achievements in the humanities to come out of the University of Maine. Conceived in the late 1990s, the atlas was published by the University of Maine Press in 2015. It represents an enormously ambitious attempt to map the historical geography of the state from the end of the last ice age to the end of the millennium in 2000.


The Digital Humanities Imperative: An Archival Response, Pauleena Macdougall, Katrina Wynn Jan 2015

The Digital Humanities Imperative: An Archival Response, Pauleena Macdougall, Katrina Wynn

Maine Policy Review

The authors offer a look at how as archivists at the Maine Folklife Center they are using new digital tools to both preserve historical resources and improve public access to them.


The Power Of Language In Changing A Community's Story, Linda Cross Godfrey Jan 2015

The Power Of Language In Changing A Community's Story, Linda Cross Godfrey

Maine Policy Review

To revive the community and reverse negative images of the town, community leaders in Eastport, Maine relied on the power of language. This article illustrates their efforts to inspire change by using words from well known leaders and replacing DE-words such as depressed and decline with RE-words such as rebound and renew.


The Economic Implications Of Maine’S Changing Age Structure, James Breece, Glenn Mills, Todd Gabe Jan 2015

The Economic Implications Of Maine’S Changing Age Structure, James Breece, Glenn Mills, Todd Gabe

Maine Policy Review

The authors analyze the major implications of Maine’s aging population on the state’s workforce and economy. They note that there are steps that can be taken to partially mitigate the negative impacts and capitalize on the opportuni­ties associated with an aging population.