S7E7: How can business savvy help Maine farmers succeed?

Like opening any business, starting and operating a farm can be challenging without any in-depth entrepreneurial knowledge or skills. To help strengthen support for farmers’ business skills, University of Maine faculty members Erin Percival Carter and Stephanie Welcomer established the Business, Agriculture, and Rural Development (BARD) technical assistance training program in the Maine Business School. The BARD program trains UMaine students to serve as consultants for farmers and operators of other small-scale and sustainable agricultural businesses. These students can assist agribusinesses with various aspects of commerce, such as data-management, price-setting, marketing, financial and strategic forecasting, market segmentation, product development, market intelligence and consumer research. The BARD program recently received a $292,000 award from the Small Business Administration that was requested by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King through the FY22 Congressionally Directed Spending process, known as earmarks. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Carter, an assistant professor of marketing, discusses how business savvy can help farms succeed

OER Initiatives and the Liberal Arts College

Presentation slides for a webinar hosted by the Partnership for Liberal Arts Collaboration and Exploration (PLACE) and co-presented with Caitlin Carter (Franklin & Marshall College) and Ron Joslin (Macalester College). The presenters discussed their work in support of OER awareness, adoption, and creation at their institutions, each at a different stage in the process. After detailing the current situation at each campus, the presenters offer common obstacles faced in the liberal arts college context and practical advice for overcoming them

S4E1: How does Cooperative Extension Help Mainers Thrive?

While University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s roots are in agriculture, the 106-year-old organization helps all Mainers thrive with its relevant research-based programs that promote child development, nutrition, robotics, entrepreneurship and more. Recently, “more” has included providing communities with much-needed resources during the pandemic. In this initial podcast of Season 4, host Ron Lisnet discusses Cooperative Extension’s past, present and future with UMaine and University of Maine at Machias President Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Cooperative Extension Dean Hannah Carter, who says the trusted organization can be like Google for Mainers seeking information

Demonstration of the COBRA Teardrop Concept using Two Smallsats in 8-Hour Elliptic Orbits

Space Resource America Corporation is engaged in developing new concepts for communications satellite systems that will avoid interference with any of the Geostationary satellites and can provide a significant increase in global capacity compared with that of the GEO ring. Additionally, since all satellites in such a system are flying in formation, they will not interfere with each other. The company has filed for a series of patents on the orbital arrays, or constellations, that appear to hold the most promise in satisfying both commercial and government requirements. Each of the three active arcs of a single 8-hour satellite has a ground trace that resembles a coiled COBRA, and the orbits were so named. The acronym-like name COBRA was later amplified to “Communications Orbiting Broadband Repeating Arrays”. One of these arrays employs six 8-hour period leaning elliptical orbit satellites describing three continuous closed paths in the Northern Hemisphere. Ground antennas follow these satellites as their active arcs describe a repeating teardrop-shaped closed path in the sky. The tracking rate is very slow- averaging about 10 degrees/hour. It is possible to demonstrate all of the features of this array, however, with only two satellites. SRA is planning such a demonstration using two smallsats with a limited broadband communications payload. The communications payload will operate at Ku band or higher. The repeating ground tracks of this planned satellite duo will allow for an 8-hour demonstration daily in each of three Northern Hemisphere regions. The three teardrop shaped loops are separated in longitude by 120 degrees. One teardrop is centered upon the United States, the second on Japan and eastern China, and the third on central Europe. Conveniently, each regional demonstration will begin and end at the same local time of day. The use of smallsats for this demonstration is very desirable, in order to hold down costs of both satellites and launch vehicles. The design lifetime of the satellites will be approximately six months to a year, with the satellites being de-orbited at the appropriate time

Ariel - Volume 11 Number 1

Executive Editors Ellen Feldman Leonardo S. Nasca, Jr. Business Managers Barbara L. Davies Martin B. Getzow News Editor Aaron D. Bleznak Features Editor Dave Van Wagoner CAHS Editor Joan M. Greco Editorial Page Editor Samuel Markind Photography Editor Leonardo S. Nasca, Jr. Sports Editor Paul F. Mansfiel

Modelling and mapping of exceedance of critical loads and critical levels for acidification and eutrophication in the UK 2013-2016. Final report

This report covers the work of the original contract (2013-15) and the following one-year extension (2015-16). The overall purpose of this project was to maintain, and where appropriate update, the UK critical loads database, and to provide estimates of critical load and critical level exceedance based on current pollutant deposition or concentrations, and scenarios for the future. The exceedance results were used to inform policy makers on the areas of sensitive habitats and designated sites potentially at risk from air pollution and were updated annually to provide a UK indicator of the impacts of air pollution on ecosystems. The project also supported the UK National Focal Centre (NFC) for critical loads modelling and mapping. The 1-year extension to this contract additionally included the biodiversity modelling required to enable the UK NFC to begin work in preparation for responding to the 2015-17 “Call for Data” under the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)

Conversational Grammar- Feminine Grammar? A Sociopragmatic Corpus Study

One area in language and gender research that has so far received only little attention is the extent to which the sexes make use of what recent corpus research has termed “conversational grammar.” The author’s initial findings have suggested that the majority of features distinctive of conversational grammar may be used predominantly by female speakers. This article reports on a study designed to test the hypothesis that conversational grammar is “feminine grammar” in the sense that women’s conversational language is more adapted to the conversational situation than men’s. Based on data from the conversational subcorpus of the British National Corpus and following the situational framework for the description of conversational features elaborated in the author’s previous research, features distinctive of conversational grammar are grouped into five functional categories and their normed frequencies compared across the sexes. The functional categories distinguish features that can be seen as adaptations to constraints set by the situational factors of (1) Shared Context, (2) Co-Construction, (3) Real-Time Processing, (4) Discourse Management, and (5) Relation Management. The study’s results, described in detail in relation to the biological category of speaker sex and cultural notions of gender, suggest that the feminine grammar hypothesis is valid

The Vehicle, December 1959, Vol. 1 no. 5

Vol. 1, No. 5 Table of Contents To The Readerpage 2 JudyRobert Mills Frenchpage 3 The FarmerRobert C. Millerpage 5 Bah! Humbug!The Skepticpage 5 Looking BackwardThe Optimistpage 7 Strangers in the TownAl Brookspage 7 Not Once OnlyA.B. Carterpage 8 OlogyRon Kellypage 8 SnowJean Nightingalepage 8 Moment of PowerJ.B. Youngpage 9 LifeRobert C. Millerpage 13 The Restless SeaRhonda McGowanpage 14 Approaching of the YuleRoger Perkinspage 14 The Old ModelMary Ellen Mockbeepage 15 \u27Tis the SeasonR.M.F.page 15 The Spirit of ChristmasKathleen Ferreepage 16 Christmas in the HeartKathleen Ferreepage 16 That\u27s BoysKathleen Ferreepage 16https://thekeep.eiu.edu/vehicle/1001/thumbnail.jp

The Vehicle, December 1959, Vol. 1 no. 5

Vol. 1, No. 5 Table of Contents To The Readerpage 2 JudyRobert Mills Frenchpage 3 The FarmerRobert C. Millerpage 5 Bah! Humbug!The Skepticpage 5 Looking BackwardThe Optimistpage 7 Strangers in the TownAl Brookspage 7 Not Once OnlyA.B. Carterpage 8 OlogyRon Kellypage 8 SnowJean Nightingalepage 8 Moment of PowerJ.B. Youngpage 9 LifeRobert C. Millerpage 13 The Restless SeaRhonda McGowanpage 14 Approaching of the YuleRoger Perkinspage 14 The Old ModelMary Ellen Mockbeepage 15 \u27Tis the SeasonR.M.F.page 15 The Spirit of ChristmasKathleen Ferreepage 16 Christmas in the HeartKathleen Ferreepage 16 That\u27s BoysKathleen Ferreepage 16https://thekeep.eiu.edu/vehicle/1001/thumbnail.jp

An Institutional Theory perspective on sustainable practices across the dairy supply chain

AbstractThe need for sustainable practices in the food supply chain, particularly in the area of energy reduction, is becoming acute. The food industry currently has to contend with multiple competing pressures alongside the new challenges of sustainable production. We applied Institutional Theory to explore the role of supermarkets in the development of legitimate sustainable practices across the dairy supply chains. The paper focuses on dairy supply chain organizations and their consumption of energy. We conducted 70 semi-structured telephone interviews with various stakeholders across the supply chain. Findings revealed that the majority of actors in the supply chain identified supermarkets as the dominant player, and that the supermarkets exert pressure on other smaller organizations across the supply chain. Although some organizations wished to pursue a sustainable agenda through integrating new rules and legitimate practices within their own organization, the dominant logic appeared to be one of cost reduction and profit maximization. There was also evidence that supermarkets and other large organizations attempt to replicate publicly available information on green successes for image purposes. We conclude that the dominant logic of cost reduction is so well established that challenging the dominant logic may prove difficult. The challenge is therefore to complement the dominant logic with sustainable practices across the whole supply chain, a role Government needs to play. This will require a broader more systemic approach to encouraging sustainable practices including investment and financing practices, so that all members of the dairy supply chain can co-operate and contribute to energy reduction