My Sunshine

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4428/thumbnail.jp

Lucy Sprague Mitchell

A short biography of Lucy Sprague Mitchell written around the time the Bank Street Writers Lab was established. Written by Writers Lab members Mary Phelps and Margaret Wise Brown.https://educate.bankstreet.edu/books/1020/thumbnail.jp

Social Equity Matters in Payments for Ecosystem Services

Although conservation efforts have sometimes succeeded in meeting environmental goals at the expense of equity considerations, the changing context of conservation and a growing body of evidence increasingly suggest that equity considerations should be integrated into conservation planning and implementation. However, this approach is often perceived to be at odds with the prevailing focus on economic efficiency that characterizes many payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. Drawing from examples across the literature, we show how the equity impacts of PES can create positive and negative feedbacks that influence ecological outcomes. We caution against equity-blind PES, which overlooks these relationships as a result of a primary and narrow focus on economic efficiency. We call for further analysis and better engagement between the social and ecological science communities to understand the relationships and trade-offs among efficiency, equity, and ecological outcomes

What Do Schools Want? Assessing Elementary School Administrator and Teacher Preferences Related to Nutrition Education Program Scheduling

Extension is positioned to provide school-based nutrition education programs as required by the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act. To enhance program acceptance and sustainability, it is important to consider school administrators\u27 and teachers\u27 interests and preferences regarding nutrition education programming. The project described here assessed interest in nutrition education, scheduling, and implementation format preferences among 34 elementary school administrators and 45 elementary school teachers. Among administrators and teachers interested in Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service\u27s county educators providing nutrition education programs, the general trend was for in-school student education, consisting of four weekly programs, 30 minutes in length

The effectiveness of beach mega-nourishment, assessed over three management epochs

Resilient coastal protection requires adaptive management strategies that build with nature to maintain long-term sustainability. With increasing pressures on shorelines from urbanisation, industrial growth, sea-level rise and changing storm climates soft approaches to coastal management are implemented to support natural habitats and maintain healthy coastal ecosystems. The impact of a beach mega-nourishment along a frontage of interactive natural and engineered systems that incorporate soft and hard defences is explored. A coastal evolution model is applied to simulate the impact of different hypothetical mega-nourishment interventions to assess their impacts’ over 3 shoreline management planning epochs: present-day (0–20 years), medium-term (20–50 years) and long-term (50–100 years). The impacts of the smaller interventions when appropriately positioned are found to be as effective as larger schemes, thus making them more cost-effective for present-day management. Over time the benefit from larger interventions becomes more noticeable, with multi-location schemes requiring a smaller initial nourishment to achieve at least the same benefit as that of a single-location scheme. While the longer-term impact of larger schemes reduces erosion across a frontage the short-term impact down drift of the scheme can lead to an increase in erosion as the natural sediment drift becomes interrupted. This research presents a transferable modelling tool to assess the impact of nourishment schemes for a variety of sedimentary shorelines and highlights both the positive and negative impact of beach mega-nourishment

Microwave Gaseous Discharges

Contains reports on two research projects

Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?

This essay is about human resource management, internal labor markets, and assorted theories of wage behavior. A stereotype of managerial activities and policies is sketched out in the first section, which, although reflecting a parochial (U.S.) orientation, is intended to approximate a set of real-world conditions to which analyses of labor market behavior should presumably relate. In the second section, we consider "institutionalist" interpretations, which either .supplement or challenge standard market analysis by appeal to the historical record, the behavioral sciences, or even the consensus of expert behavior. In particular, the importance of "conventional" forces, based heavily on perceptions of equity, interpersonal preferences, and custom and practice, is revealed by the scholarship and insights of Henry Phelps Brown. Next (section II) are assessed the claims and contributions of a sample of theories based on the assumption of individualistic utility maximization in competitive markets: the theories of equalizing wage differentials, human capital, deferred compensation, transaction costs, implicit contracts, and (least conventional) efficiency wages. None is found to be lacking in interpretive value or relevance to one or more attributes of the stereotype, and all help to relate it to a wider family of markets and to economic behavior. In general, however, this group is less satisfactory in explaining why wages should be high enough—in a present value sense and relative to market-clearing levels—to contribute to the relative insulation of internal labor markets and to restrict employment. An exception is provided by efficiency wage theory, in particular by one of its older variants which, because it is based on group (rather than individualistic) psychology and behavior, is discussed in the following section (V)

Old open clusters and the Galactic metallicity gradient: Berkeley 20, Berkeley 66, and Tombaugh 2

To study the crucial range of Galactocentric distances between 12 and 16 kpc, where little information is available, we have obtained VI CCD imaging of Berkeley 20 and BVI CCD imaging of Berkeley 66 and Tombaugh 2, three distant, old open clusters. Using the synthetic colour magnitude diagram (CMD) technique with three types of evolutionary tracks of different metallicities, we have determined age, distance, reddening and indicative metallicity of these systems. The CMD of Be 20 is best reproduced by stellar models with a metallicity about half of solar (Z=0.008 or 0.01), in perfect agreement with high resolution spectroscopic estimates. Its age is between 5 and 6 Gyr from stellar models with overshooting and between 4.3 and 4.5 Gyr from models without it. The distance modulus from the best fitting models is always (m-M)0=14.7 (corresponding to a Galactocentric radius of about 16 kpc), and the reddening E(B-V) ranges between 0.13 and 0.16. A slightly lower metallicity (Z ~ 0.006) appears to be more appropriate for Be 66. This cluster is younger, (age of 3 Gyr), and closer, (m-M)0=13.3 (i.e., at 12 kpc from the Galactic centre), than Be 20, and suffers from high extinction, 1.2 < E(B-V) < 1.3, variable at the 2-3 per cent level. Finally, the results for To 2 indicate that it is an intermediate age cluster, with an age of about 1.4 Gyr or 1.6-1.8 Gyr for models without and with overshooting, respectively. The metallicity is about half of solar (Z=0.006 to 0.01), in agreement with spectroscopic determinations. The distance modulus is (m-M)0=14.5, implying a distance of about 14 kpc from the Galactic centre; the reddening E(B-V) is 0.31-0.4, depending on the model and metallicity, with a preferred value around 0.34.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, 8 tables Accepted 2010 November 5. Received 2010 Novembe

Microwave Gaseous Discharges

Contains reports on two research projects

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Insights from Lymph Nodes & Bone Marrow and Clinical Perspectives

B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) is characterized by highly variable distribution of tumor mass between peripheral blood, bone marrow and lymphoid organs which is important for staging, classification and prognosis. These clinical findings with novel data about importance of B-cell receptor and its stimulation with the support of microenvironment indicate important role of tissues (lymphoid organs and bone marrow) in the pathogenesis of B-CLL. Here is presented the novel approach of simultaneous characterization of B-CLL cells form peripheral blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes by flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry, defining inter- and intraclonal diversity with respect to various molecules. These include adhesion molecules (integrins, immunoglobulins, selectins), chemokine receptors (including CXCR-4), signaling molecules and prognostic factors (CD38 and ZAP-70), proliferation and apoptosis markers (including Ki67, AgNORs with PK index, survivin, bcl-2) and therapeutic targets (CD20 and CD52) and residual hematopoietic stem cells. A number of interesting significant interactions have been discovered, pointing to the important role of neoplastic cell microenvironment. These may in addition to insights in pathogenesis and roles of different microenvironments add to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of B-CLL patients