Estimating Particle Size in the Ocean from High-frequency Variability in In-situ Optics

During this 3-year NESSF fellowship and seven-month no-cost extension, I published two papers as first author (Briggs et al. 2011; Briggs et al. 2013) and two papers as a co-author (Alkire et al. 2012; Cetinic et al. 2012). I am also co-author on one submitted paper and have worked on five additional papers that are in preparation (two as first author). I have given talks at four international oceanographic conferences: The 2012 and 2014 Ocean Sciences Meetings in Salt Lake City and Honolulu, the 2012 Ocean Optics meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, and the 2013 Liege Colloquium in Liege, Belgium. I also gave a 45-minute seminar at the Laboratoire d\u27Oceanographie Villefranche-sur-mer in France. In 2013 , I received the University of Maine’s NSFA Graduate Research Excellence Award in recognition of the research conducted under the NESSF fellowship. In addition to my research-related accomplishments, I successfully completed five graduate-level classes (paid for with NESSF funding) and passed my qualifying exams to ascend to PhD candidacy. My research focused on advancing methods for estimating two important oceanographic quantities - particle size and primary productivity (PP) - from autonomous platforms. The aim of my research is to pave the way for much greater global coverage of size and productivity estimates, both for direct application to ecological and biogeochemical studies and to validate and perhaps calibrate the growing number of global ocean color-based particle size and PP inversions

CMG Training in Spatio-Temporal Statistical Analysis of Multi-Platform Ocean Optical Observations

This project will be a five-week summer school on the topic of spatio-temporal statistical analysis and its application to multi-platform, multi-sensor bio-optical oceanic data. The summer school seeks to address some of the analysis challenges anticipated as the Integrated Ocean Observing System is established. These are associated with the very diverse range of spatial and temporal sampling afforded by the different components of such a system and contemporaneous process experiments. Statistical experts in spatial information engineering with experience in collaboration with ocean scientists will discuss some of the modern tools for statistical analysis of such data and associated challenges, while ocean scientists will introduce students to the data and the underlying science questions. The primary focus will be on analysis of the distribution of phytoplankton, which is known to be a patchy and intermittent field, the interpretation of measurements of which are complicated by advection. This should serve as a model for the study of statistical techniques that can then be applied to other environmental fields. An interdisciplinary group of approximately 16 students will be recruited, half with background in mathematical sciences and half with ocean science backgrounds. The goal is to introduce students to interdisciplinary research questions and provide stimulating ideas that they can subsequently apply in their dissertation research

Improvements to Sampling from the Research Vessel Ira C

The University of Maine\u27s Darling Marine Center is awarded a grant to equip the 42-ft Ira C., the Center\u27s largest vessel, with a well instrumented CTD, including optical sensors and a small array of sampling bottles plus a winch with conducting cable so that CTD work from the Ira C. no longer needs to depend on users bringing their own CTD and lowering by hand. This proposal is to expand the environments and variables within effective reach of the University of Maine\u27s marine laboratory, the Ira C. Darling Marine Center (the Center) in midcoast Maine. The Center is within a day\u27s access by sea of an unparalleled range of marine environments on the East Coast depths from intertidal to \u3e 200 m and substrates from rocks to gravels to sand to mud. Environments within a day\u27s reach include the coastal seas with the strongest latitudinal thermal gradients along the U.S. coasts and the largest seasonal range of temperatures. It includes the outflows of Maine\u27s three rivers with the greatest volumetric flows, the Penobscot, the Kennebec and the Saco as well as several of the smallest. It is ideally poised to help investigators do process-, ecosystem- and species-level studies of Gulf of Maine and estuarine environments and biota in the context of environmental variability and climate change. Broader Impacts: The Center has an outstanding group of faculty and scientists including some distinguished emeritus professors. The center also has a remarkable record of visiting scientists and students, drawing researchers from all over the U.S. and internationally. Clearly an attraction is the facilities (including a first rate library) and access to a unique spectrum of marine environments, biogeographically diverse populations of marine organisms, etc. The need for the proposed improvements is easily recognized. The authors describe how the facility is used for education and how the upgrades will increase users for both science and for education. The Center currently has NSF COSEE support, and the author proposes to leverage off this program for K-grey teacher training, undergraduate, and graduate and \u27world-class\u27 web-based educational outreach

Moriscos, gender, and the politics of religión in 16th and 17th Century Spain

Los moriscos experimentaron una política religiosa en la España de los siglo XVI y XVII que a la vez les empoderaba y les desempoderaba. Mientras las autoridades cristianas usaron de manera creciente la ortodoxia religiosa para definir el nuevo estado emergente, los moriscos se volvieron hacia sus hogares donde preservaron muchas prácticas de su identidad hispano-musulmana. La documentación de archivo y la literatura del periodo revelan el liderazgo de muchas mujeres moriscas en esta resistencia doméstica.Moriscos experienced a politics of religion in 16th and 17th- century Spain that both empowered and disempowered them. As Christian authorities increasingly used religious orthodoxy to define their newly emerging state, Moriscos withdrew into their homes where they preserved many practices of their Hispano-Muslim identity. Archival documents and writings of the period reveal the leading roles that many morisco women played in this domestic resistance

Alien Registration- Perry, Mary C. (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/23088/thumbnail.jp

Should This Just-in-time Competency-based Skill-builder Web App Go Open?

We built a grant-funded learning platform and competency-based skill-building modules to help under-prepared students overcome common academic skill gaps while working on course assignments. Early research results show students actively use “JUICE” overviews, tutorials, and practice games and provide compelling evidence of improved persistence. Should JUICE go OER? How

Collaborative Research: Incorporation of Sensors into Autonomous Gliders for 4-D Measurement of Bio-Optical and Chemical Parameters

This research project is conducted under the auspices of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP). Partners include the Univ. of Maine, Univ. of Washington, several commercial instrument manufacturers, and two local government agencies. The project addresses an ocean sciences requirement for new ocean observational capabilities for continuous, high-resolution measurements of oceanic processes that include characterization of distributions, mechanisms, and rates of processes involving chemical and biological variables together with physical variables in the ocean. The overall objective is to add new capabilities to a small (1.8 m, 52 kg) autonomous underwater glider that moves horizontally and vertically using variable buoyancy control and wings. It can perform hundreds of cycles per launch from surface to 2,000 m or less, report data back (including GPS location) in real time upon each surfacing, and be reprogrammed from shore. New sensors will be developed and integrated into the system for dissolved oxygen and various inherent optical properties of seawater, all measured at the same time and space scales as physical properties. The project encompasses development of new sensors, miniaturization of several extant sensors and extensive field tests. The research team includes industrial partners, local governments working on practical societal/scientific issues; biological, physical and optical oceanographers; and an education effort from 8th grade through graduate school. The specific goals of this project are: • to extend development of an autonomous, underwater glider to be capable of measuring biological, optical, physical and chemical variables on the same time and space sales, in real time, and in diverse environments;• to develop small, light-weight, low-power sensors for measuring dissolved oxygen, inherent optical properties (IOPs) of seawater, chlorophyll a fluorescence (the primary surrogate for phytoplankton biomass), and other fluorescing compounds;• to verify with ground-truth measurements the high quality data collected by the glider;• to demonstrate the glider\u27s capabilities for real-time, data-adaptive sampling;• to enhance understanding of the dynamics of key physical and biological parameters in Puget Sound that are essential to assessing human impacts on water quality;• to demonstrate the glider\u27s ability to significantly improve validation of satellite ocean color data by sampling at the appropriate scales; and • to engage undergraduates and graduate students in engineering tests and research applications. The newly developed optical sensors for IOPs and chlorophyll a fluorescence would be easily adaptable to other platforms, and hence be easily and rapidly available to the general oceanographic community. Also, the glider will be able to operate in areas beyond Puget Sound including both coastal and open-ocean environments