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

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

Recruitment and retention initiatives for African American and Hispanic teachers in selected school districts in Texas

The purpose of this study was to identify effective recruitment and retention initiatives for African American and Hispanic teachers. The research examined recruitment and retention initiatives used by school districts utilizing a survey instrument administered to a sample population of African American and Hispanic teachers within selected school districts in Texas. The sample population of 335 African American and Hispanic teachers was asked to provide their knowledge and perception of recruitment and retention initiatives that were relevant to them in their employment with a school district. The results of the survey instrument were examined for the similarities and differences in the recruitment and retention initiatives for African American and Hispanic teacher populations as perceived by the sample population of teachers. The subjects of this research study were African American and Hispanic teachers employed in school districts with a teacher population of at least seven percent of both African American and Hispanic teachers and a student population of at least 10,000 students reported to the Texas Education Agency. There were fourteen school districts selected based on this criteria, and four school districts agreed to participate in the study. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher??s recommendations include: (1) The top recruitment initiatives for African American and Hispanic candidates are humanistic factors: contribution to humanity and helping young people. Recruiters should emphasize these areas along with the location of job and financial assistance programs offered by the school districts to improved recruitment. (2) Attention should be given to the establishment of programs that focus on introducing the education profession to students in the middle school and high school settings. (3) Job satisfaction and job security are leading retention initiatives for African American and Hispanic teacher which can be accomplished by improving working conditions and increasing administrative support in a school district. (4) Provide opportunities for increased parental communication, participation and involvement in the school system to help increase retention with African American and Hispanic teachers. (5) Further study could determine if there is a relationship between the effective recruitment and retention initiatives and the years of experience of teachers

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

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

ALPS Implementation Conference

Intellectual Merit:A diverse suite of autonomous mobile platforms - including drifters, floats, underwater gliders and AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles), and the small sensors they carry - have collectively become known as ALPS, i.e., Autonomous and Lagrangian Platforms and Sensors . A small interdisciplinary workshop is proposed as a follow-on to the Spring 2003 ALPS workshop. The first ALPS workshop convened a group of scientists and engineering, representing diverse backgrounds and interests, who met to identify new science that could best be done with ALPS alone or in conjunction with other platforms; to address technological developments needed to improve the capabilities of ALPS; to elucidate models for making the technologies more accessible to the broader community; and to assess training, education and outreach efforts. Until the first ALPS workshop, there had been no focused plan that outlined how ALPS could enable new opportunities in cross-disciplinary ocean studies. The ALPS workshop produced a report that detailed the capabilities of these mobile platforms and outlined the exciting, new scientific opportunities for using ALPS for interdisciplinary studies of the ocean; the report is available one line at www.geo-prose.com/ALPS. The follow-on workshop, to be held in Winter 2005 will focus on the details of how ALPS can be used in specific types of studies that are best suited to mobile technologies. Secondary goals are a) to outline a future scientific conference to bring together a diverse community of present and potential users of Lagrangian and autonomous platforms and b) to plan a framework for exploring implementation models to make ALPS technologies more accessible to the broader scientific community. The proposed ALPS workshop will be small, with about 20 participants representing a diverse cross section of the ocean community. A draft report will be vetted and community comment incorporated in the document; the final report will be published in Spring 2005.Broader Impacts:The primary goal of the proposed workshop is to continue advancements in ocean observations and hypothesis testing made possible by mobile platforms. The full potential for using ALPS testing has not yet been fully explored; the workshop will detail mechanisms to do that. A scientific conference will help disseminate knowledge about using ALPS and results of ALPS experiments. An increasing number of investigators wish to use ALPS, but presently have no access to the technology; the workshop will address models to facilitate access to these tools and data by a broader community. The research resulting from ALPS technologies will contribute to a more powerful capacity to observe the oceans and to address issues of major societal concern, including climate change and ocean ecosystem health

Competences, skills, learning sources and the support needs of individuals who purchase small established enterprises

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/685 on 08.03.2017 by CS (TIS)Although a significant number of small firms are purchased as going-concerns these businesses are rarely studied as a separate sub-group. The research conducted here therefore focuses on small businesses that were purchased as established enterprises, namely the skills and competences that are required to operate them successfully. The study also looks to identify the learning and knowledge sources that are the most beneficial to the Owner-Managers of these firms and determine how their needs might best be supported. The study concerns small firms that are located in the South West of England (Torbay and South Hams) and comprises quantitative and qualitative research that is presented in three Phases. Phase I which comprises a postal questionnaire administered to a sample of 350 small business purchasers is used to (1) test a number of propositions and (2) identify issues that require further examination. Extensive use is therefore made of Chi-square, one-way analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance. The results generated by the questionnaire revealed a number of areas that required further examination, namely the reasons for training abstention; the role played by informal training; key sources of learning; the type of support that is most needed and whether skill prioritisation is linked to small firm ownership within this context. These issues form the basis of Phase 2 of the research, which comprises face-to face interviews held with a number of accountants (n=10), who could provide information concerning small firms from a professional and therefore different perspective However in order to fulfil the research objectives further research was required. Phase 3 of the research therefore comprises face-to-face interviews held with a cross-section of the OMs surveyed. Although the results generated by these two phases of the research show that there are no skills that are particular to this sub-sector, skill prioritisation is significantly influenced by ownership in this context. Whilst the most popular forms of skill development are informal training and experiential learning, working alongside the present owner(s) prior to taking over the business is the richest source of learning. Given that the research (1) shows that those who purchase established enterprises prioritise skills in a particular way (2) identifies a particular form of learning that takes place when time is spent working alongside the present owner(s) (3) establishes a need for specialist support and (4) proposes a framework, which can be used to formulate learning plans, the study therefore makes a significant contribution to the existing body of knowledge on small firms

Collaborative Proposal: Cascadia Slope Circulation Study

Intellectual Merits:This project will continue to observe and understand the physics and biology of the highly productive northeast Pacific boundary current region over the continental slope off Washington and Oregon - the Cascadia slope - with an autonomous, sustained presence. For over a year, Seagliders, long-range autonomous underwater vehicles, have been deployed to survey the temperature, salinity, dissolved, oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence, and optical backscatter structure of the slope off. Washington. Seagliders have collected data on sections from the continental shelf edge offshore 220 km at fortnightly intervals, reporting back data after each dive, on deployments typically lasting 4-5 months. The objective of the observations has been to detect seasonal and inter-annual variability in this part of the California Current system by collecting highly spatially and temporally resolved observations. Using Seagliders makes possible extended high resolution observations that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive if carried out by ships. This three-year project will: 1) analyze more than 16 months of Seaglider observations already collected, 2) continue the Seaglider observational program to over the continental shelf, and 3) analyze the newly collected data to describe the seasonal and interannual structure of the northern California Current system. Extension in time over the existing Seaglider repeat transects is necessary to confidently describe seasonal and interannual variability in the Cascadia slope region and to resolve and understand the (primarily advective) processes that are responsible for this variability. The data in hand offer tantalizing hints at the low frequency variability, but the 1.5 year record along two cross-slope sections is too limited to support quantitative understanding.Broader Impacts:The results from this project will improve physical and biological understanding of climate change. By autonomously measuring important oceanographic parameters over a sustained period of time, it will be possible to establish an unprecedented climate record in an economically important area. By expanding the spatial coverage of the autonomous transects, we will be able to resolve and understand the contribution of advection. The results of this project will benefit resource planners by helping to understand the coastal zone ecosystem and influences of large scale ocean circulation on coastal and estuarine conditions in the Pacific Northwest. We will continue our outreach activities with presentations to local schools, open houses, public talks, and contacts with print and electronic media on local, national and international levels