Maine Perspective, v 10, i 3

The Maine Perspective, a publication for the University of Maine, was a campus newsletter produced by the Department of Public Affairs which eventually transformed into the Division of Marketing and Communication. Regular columns included the UM Calendar, Ongoing Events, People in Perspective, Look Who\u27s on Campus, In Focus, and Along the Mall. The weekly newsletter also included position openings on campus as well as classified ads. Articles include Gift to UMaine Honors Famous Landscape Pioneer; University Advancement Area Established as Part of Administrative Restructuring; and Conference on Prehistoric Climate, Culture Attracting International Researchers

Microbial community dynamics and methane cycling in rewetted temperate fens

Changes in land use and climate influence the methane balance of fen peatlands, and the peat microbial communities involved in methane transformation. Microbial communities, however, have rarely been studied in fens in this context. In this thesis, I used high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of DNA and cDNA, qPCR, and geochemical analyses to assess how rewetting and drying of fens influences methane producers (methanogens) and consumers (methanotrophs). Fen rewetting promoted the establishment of methanogens, while short-term drought promoted methanotroph establishment

Perceptions of student loan debt: a phenomenological study exploring black undergraduate students\u27 experiences.

The rising cost of higher education concerns many families in the United States, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of Black students\u27 perception of their student loan debt and how their financial knowledge influences their decisions at a public institution. This qualitative research provides space to empower individuals to share their stories through semi-structured interviews to get an account of their experiences. Grounded in Yosso\u27s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Theory, the study seeks to capture the unique ways Black students make financial decisions. The dissertation is divided into five chapters: introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and conclusion. Chapter one introduces the historical context, problem statement, purpose, relevant context, research questions, and significance of the study. Chapter two reviews the literature that focuses on existing literature about student loan debt among Black students and their financial decisions. Chapter three outlines the research design, including the justification for the qualitative phenomenological method. Chapter four shows the results from the participants\u27 interviews which comprised five themes, and the interconnection of the interpretive framework and themes. Six themes emerged in this study: the affordability of higher education, the burden of debt, striving for financial stability, cultural finance comprehension, a pathway to equity, and a racial/ethnic journey. Chapter five begins with an overview, a discussion of the interpretation of the findings, and examines the results from chapter four compared to the extant literature. Finally, chapter five concludes with the limitations and implications for research, policy, and practice

Communicating Creativity: A Workshop and Communication Tools for Teaching and Consulting in Creativity

This project developed tools to support a consulting practice integrating the author’s interests in creative process, design and organizational strategy. The focus is on educating students and clients about creativity, creative thinking, design and innovation. Design thinking concepts of user feedback and rapid prototyping were used during the project. The resulting products are materials for a multi-day graduate level workshop for design students, a creativity website including blogging capability and a four minute educational video aimed at helping establish an Aerospace Technology Center in Northern Illinois

Lambda-calculus and formal language theory

Formal and symbolic approaches have offered computer science many application fields. The rich and fruitful connection between logic, automata and algebra is one such approach. It has been used to model natural languages as well as in program verification. In the mathematics of language it is able to model phenomena ranging from syntax to phonology while in verification it gives model checking algorithms to a wide family of programs. This thesis extends this approach to simply typed lambda-calculus by providing a natural extension of recognizability to programs that are representable by simply typed terms. This notion is then applied to both the mathematics of language and program verification. In the case of the mathematics of language, it is used to generalize parsing algorithms and to propose high-level methods to describe languages. Concerning program verification, it is used to describe methods for verifying the behavioral properties of higher-order programs. In both cases, the link that is drawn between finite state methods and denotational semantics provide the means to mix powerful tools coming from the two worlds