Listening to Natural English: A Manual for Teachers

This project is a manual for teachers who want to create their own listening comprehension materials and develop a variety of ways of using them. It consists of a cassette tape of short interviews done by native speakers of English and a thesis explaining why and how the author has created such materials and how he has used them in his classes. In the first chapter the author states that such an investment of time and energy by a teacher is justified by the results. He has found that the students are more interested and involved in their learning than with other ways of working on listening comprehension. He also says that the students show greater confidence and ability in using English outside the classroom. The following two chapters give three example lesson plans and some supplementary classroom activities that the author has used with the recordings. This is followed by a discussion of the steps the author takes in preparing for, and making the recordings. The final chapter consists of the transcripts of the recorded interviews

Research Note: Searching for Democracy in Colonial Southern Maine

The following article was originally written as a seminar paper for James Henderson’s colonial history class during Robbins’s brief tenure as a graduate student at the University of Maine. The methodology used in this research was quite innovative when it was written in 1966, as the so-called new social history had only just emerged. This era marked an exciting time in the social sciences, with new methods that allowed the historian to approach history “from the bottom up.” Using census records, land records, tax lists, suffrage lists, and an array of other data, historians were able to uncover what life was like for ordinary workers, women, slaves, the illiterate, and a host of others who had been previously marginalized in the historical record. In this article, Robbins explored the social, economic, and political development of the Lower Saco River region of Maine, guided by the methodology of the new social history. His interest was in uncovering the prevalence of political and economic democracy in colonial Maine. The following article represents the preliminary research he conducted in 1966 in order to determine the potential for further inquiries into this question. Through this research, Robbins unearthed an array of potential opportunities for the historian with access to local records in the towns of Saco, Biddeford, and Buxton, Maine. While not a finished article, this research note raises many issues ripe for additional examination. These issues will be discussed at the end of the article

Fiber optic microphone having a pressure sensing reflective membrane and a voltage source for calibration purpose

A fiber optic microphone is provided for measuring fluctuating pressures. An optical fiber probe having at least one transmitting fiber for transmitting light to a pressure-sensing membrane and at least one receiving fiber for receiving light reflected from a stretched membrane is provided. The pressure-sensing membrane may be stretched for high frequency response. Further, a reflecting surface of the pressure-sensing membrane may have dimensions which substantially correspond to dimensions of a cross section of the optical fiber probe. Further, the fiber optic microphone can be made of materials for use in high temperature environments, for example greater than 1000 F. A fiber optic probe is also provided with a back plate for damping membrane motion. The back plate further provides a means for on-line calibration of the microphone

Chern-Simons Actions and Their Gaugings in 4D, N=1 Superspace

We gauge the abelian hierarchy of tensor fields in 4D by a Lie algebra. The resulting non-abelian tensor hierarchy can be interpreted via an equivariant chain complex. We lift this structure to N=1 superspace by constructing superfield analogs for the tensor fields, along with covariant superfield strengths. Next we construct Chern-Simons actions, for both the bosonic and N=1 cases, and note that the condition of gauge invariance can be presented cohomologically. Finally, we provide an explicit realization of these structures by dimensional reduction, for example by reducing the three-form of eleven-dimensional supergravity into a superspace with manifest 4D, N=1 supersymmetry.Comment: 40pp, v2 added reference

A comparison of two complete rations for their effect on intake, production and energy balance of dairy cows and first lactation heifers

During the winters of 1975-76 and 1976-77, 76 Holstein cows and first lactation heifers were subjected to an 18 week continuous feeding trial beginning the week of their calving. Two complete rations varying in forage:concentrate ratio were fed; Ration 1 - 37:62 on a dry matter basis plus 4.5 kgs of alfalfa hay and 2.7 kgs of concentrate fed in the milking parlor, and Ration 2 - 54:46 on a dry matter basis plus 2.25 kgs alfalfa hay and 2.7 kgs of concentrate in the parlor. Thus there were four treatment groups: a) first lactation heifers receiving Ration 1, b) second or more lactation cows receiving Ration 1, c) first lactation heifers receiving Ration 2, and d) second or more lactation cows receiving Ration 2. Intake was considered both as complete ration dry matter, and with inclusion of alfalfa hay and parlor concentrate, total ration dry matter. Daily intake of complete ration dry matter was a) 9.75, b) 11.44, c) 9.54, and d) 12.32 kgs for the respective treatment groups showing a significant difference due to age (P \u3c .05) but not to ration. Daily total ration dry matter consumption was a) 16.28, b) 17.97, c) 14.03, and d) 16.80 kgs, respectively with (b) signi-ficantly higher and (c) significantly lower (P \u3c .05) than (a) or (d). Daily fat corrected milk production was a) 24.42, b) 29.63, c) 25.29, and d) 30.78 kgs respectively being significantly affected by age (P \u3c .05) but not by ration. Apparently the higher proportion of concentrate in Ration 1 allowed higher total consumption and a closer equilibration between energy intake and requirement although no increase in milk production was noticed

Relation of Light to the Growth and Movement of Plants (Address to the Academy)

At the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held at St. Louis last Christmas, the $1000 prize for the most outstanding paper presented at the meetings was awarded to Dr. P. W. Zimmerman and Dr. A. E. Hitchcock of the Boyce Thompson Institute. The paper for which they received the prize dealt with the results of their experiments on the effect of various chemical substances on the local initiation of adventitous roots on stems and leaves, proliferation, the swelling and bending of stems, the acceleration of growth and epinasty. Certain chemical substances including ß indoleacetic acid, ß indolebutyric acid, ß indolepropionic acid and α napthaleneacetic acid induce striking responses when applied to plants in solution in water or in lanolin paste

Science Fiction is Good for You Too: A Reply to Martha Nussbaum's Theory of Literary Engagement

In this study I examine the arguments made by Martha Nussbaum in Poetic Justice in defence of a positive role for literary engagement in the process of moral and political judgement formation. Nussbaum argues that novel reading offers a unique chance to engage our empathy in morally beneficial ways, because it stands as a kind of practice run for appropriate moral judgement through the adoption of an emotionally engaged yet critically distant “Judicious Spectator” stance when reading. I examine her account of the activity and purported benefits of reading and argue that her use of the Judicious Spectator concept is incompatible with her claims about the structure of novels and the experience of reading. I suggest examining an alternative set of fictions, namely the genre of science fiction and in particular Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness as a means to assess whether Nussbaum’s account plausibly captures the moral value of reading fiction. I argue that even a charitable reading of Nussbaum’s Judicious Spectator concept cannot explain the central thought experiment at the heart of Le Guin’s novel, as it invites readers to contemplate a re-evaluation of their own self-identities or foundational assumptions, allowing them to abandon beliefs and understandings that have perhaps unwittingly coloured their previous moral reasoning without undergoing the scrutiny of justificatory rigour. This resulting type of re-evaluation is, I argue, primarily self-reflective in nature and not externally directed to programmatic outcomes like the possible interpretations of the novel available to Nussbaum. This good, which I label ‘appropriate doubt’, is defended as a general feature of certain kinds of novel reading, and as worthy of moral attention. I conclude that this shows Nussbaum’s account of engagement with fiction to be at best, incomplete

Design Practices in Mobile User Interface Design

The purpose of this study was to determine optimal user interface design practices for differing age demographics and mobile operating systems. Specifically, users at three different age groups were administered a test to gauge their preference of mobile app icons. The style of the first set of icons, commonly known as flat design, was minimal and simple, with few colors, bevels or gradients. The second style of icons was a more realistic and detailed style known as skeuomorphic design. Users selected the preferred icons, and then took a brief survey to gauge their opinion. After the data was collected, it was analyzed to screen for trends among the users’ ages and mobile operating system. The results have helped identify the importance of age consideration when developing mobile applications for particular audiences. It was found that at 27 to 45 years of age, users tend to strongly prefer a flat design approach to mobile application icons with a strong majority of 65% choosing flat design over skeuomorphic design. A significant 68% of users with Google Android phones preferred flat design as well