S6E9: What does Maine need to expand electric vehicle use?

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Maine will require a broader adoption of electric vehicles, according to University of Maine economist Jonathan Rubin. Officials from the Maine Department of Transportation and other state agencies have a role to play in fueling the transition away from gas-powered cars and trucks. To guide them, Rubin, professor of economics and director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, and his colleagues from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released a report that outlines strategies for reducing emissions from the transportation sector. On this week’s episode of “The Maine Question,” Rubin discusses the report and what is needed to usher in a greener transportation future for the Pine Tree State

A Canonical Quantization of the Baker's Map

We present here a canonical quantization for the baker's map. The method we use is quite different from that used in Balazs and Voros (ref. \QCITE{cite}{}{BV}) and Saraceno (ref. \QCITE{cite}{}{S}). We first construct a natural ``baker covering map'' on the plane \QTO{mathbb}{\mathbb{R}}^{2}. We then use as the quantum algebra of observables the subalgebra of operators on L^{2}(\QTO{mathbb}{\mathbb{R}}) generated by $\left\{\exp (2\pi i\hat{x}) ,\exp (2\pi i\hat{p}) \right\}$ . We construct a unitary propagator such that as $\hbar \to 0$ the classical dynamics is returned. For Planck's constant $h=1/N$, we show that the dynamics can be reduced to the dynamics on an $N$-dimensional Hilbert space, and the unitary $N\times N$ matrix propagator is the same as given in ref. \QCITE{cite}{}{BV} except for a small correction of order $h$. This correction is shown to preserve the classical symmetry $x\to 1-x$ and $p\to 1-p$ in the quantum dynamics for periodic boundary conditions.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures. Annals of Physics, to appea

Athletic Subculture within Student-Athlete Academic Centers

Citation: Rubin, L. R., & Moses, R. A. (2017). Athletic Subculture within Student-Athlete Academic Centers. Sociology of Sport Journal. (Forthcoming). http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2016-0138Over 400,000 student-athletes participate in NCAA intercollegiate athletics programs. Due to their dual roles as student and athlete, they have a different college experience than the general student population. Specialized academic centers and resources for student-athletes are part of the reason they are separated and often isolated from the rest of campus. Teams have their own unique academic subculture that influences each student-athlete in his or her academic pursuits. The purpose of this study is to explore the athletic academic subculture among student-athletes at the Division I level and the role the athletic academic center and special resources play in cultivating a separate culture from the campus culture. Symbolic interactionism was the framework used as the lens to view the results of this study in the context of neoliberalism

Related Services for Vermont\u27s Students with Disabilities

The purpose of Related Services for Vermont’s Students with Disabilities is to offer information regarding related services that is consistent with IDEA and with Vermont Law and regulations. It also describes promising or exemplary practices in education, special education, and related services. The manual’s content applies to all related services disciplines which serve students with disabilities, ages 3 through 21, who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP)

Buried shallow fault slip from the South Napa earthquake revealed by near-field geodesy.

Earthquake-related fault slip in the upper hundreds of meters of Earths surface has remained largely unstudied because of challenges measuring deformation in the near field of a fault rupture. We analyze centimeter-scale accuracy mobile laser scanning (MLS) data of deformed vine rows within ±300 m of the principal surface expression of the M (magnitude) 6.0 2014 South Napa earthquake. Rather than assuming surface displacement equivalence to fault slip, we invert the near-field data with a model that allows for, but does not require, the fault to be buried below the surface. The inversion maps the position on a preexisting fault plane of a slip front that terminates ~3 to 25 m below the surface coseismically and within a few hours postseismically. The lack of surface-breaching fault slip is verified by two trenches. We estimate near-surface slip ranging from ~0.5 to 1.25 m. Surface displacement can underestimate fault slip by as much as 30%. This implies that similar biases could be present in short-term geologic slip rates used in seismic hazard analyses. Along strike and downdip, we find deficits in slip: The along-strike deficit is erased after ~1 month by afterslip. We find no evidence of off-fault deformation and conclude that the downdip shallow slip deficit for this event is likely an artifact. As near-field geodetic data rapidly proliferate and will become commonplace, we suggest that analyses of near-surface fault rupture should also use more sophisticated mechanical models and subsurface geomechanical tests

Computational neuroanatomy: ontology-based representation of neural components and connectivity

Background: A critical challenge in neuroscience is organizing, managing, and accessing the explosion in neuroscientific knowledge, particularly anatomic knowledge. We believe that explicit knowledge-based approaches to make neuroscientific knowledge computationally accessible will be helpful in tackling this challenge and will enable a variety of applications exploiting this knowledge, such as surgical planning. Results: We developed ontology-based models of neuroanatomy to enable symbolic lookup, logical inference and mathematical modeling of neural systems. We built a prototype model of the motor system that integrates descriptive anatomic and qualitative functional neuroanatomical knowledge. In addition to modeling normal neuroanatomy, our approach provides an explicit representation of abnormal neural connectivity in disease states, such as common movement disorders. The ontology-based representation encodes both structural and functional aspects of neuroanatomy. The ontology-based models can be evaluated computationally, enabling development of automated computer reasoning applications. Conclusion: Neuroanatomical knowledge can be represented in machine-accessible format using ontologies. Computational neuroanatomical approaches such as described in this work could become a key tool in translational informatics, leading to decision support applications that inform and guide surgical planning and personalized care for neurological disease in the future