Digital Commons Network^™

Effectiveness Of Academic Library Research Guides For Building College Students’ Information Literacy Skills: A Scoping Review, Erica Defrain, Leslie Sult, Nicole F. Pagowsky

UNL Libraries: Faculty Publications

Academic library research guides, ubiquitous tools for teaching information literacy, lack robust evidence for their effectiveness. This scoping review considered 1,724 publications, ultimately reporting on findings from 61 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Studies reviewed were highly individualized and primarily exploratory and correlational, with most using mixed methods designs analyzing data from student surveys and web traffic sources. Most studies focused on student satisfaction or guide usability as indicators of learning effectiveness, with few assessments of skills acquisition. We undertook this scoping review to assist practitioners in developing more impactful learning tools and practices as they create and assess guides.

Climate Smart Agriculture, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

There are several programs encouraging producers to reduce their carbon intensity, including United States Department of Agriculture climate-smart agriculture programs, the 2024 Nebraska Climate Action Plan, and the 2024 Nitrogen Reduction Incentive Act. The hope is that producers with lower carbon intensity (CI) scores will receive a premium for their products. Producers would be well advised to learn more about these programs, as reducing carbon intensity in agriculture seems to be an emerging agricultural policy trend that will be with us for some time to come.

Determining A Fair Rent For Farm Buildings, Glennis Mcclure

Center for Agricultural Profitability

Establishing a fair rent for farm buildings and storage facilities involves multiple factors. There isn’t a universal formula, as conditions vary depending on building type, usage, and local market conditions. However, a comprehensive evaluation of both fixed and variable costs, as well as cash and non-cash expenses, is essential.

Feeder And Live Cattle Markets Face Mixed Signals As Fall Approaches, Elliott James Dennis

Center for Agricultural Profitability

As the cattle market reopened following Labor Day, feeder and live cattle futures weakened to contract low levels of resistance. The October feeder cattle contract ended on a down note at approximately $230, as the market continues to grapple with whether prices will rise this fall amid uncertainty over how many heifers will go through sale barns. A significant factor contributing to current market conditions is the deterioration of pasture conditions, which has led to expectations that some feeder cattle will be brought to market earlier. However, this impact is tempered by a large hay crop and the availability of …

Setting Custom Rates For Fall Harvest, Gelnnis Mcclure

Center for Agricultural Profitability

We’re approaching the fall harvest again, so harvest rates are a topic of interest. Custom rates for harvesting operations in Nebraska have continued to increase based on data gathered from the latest biennial Nebraska Custom Rates Survey completed in 2024. Custom rate figures are provided by operators who perform custom hire services and respond to the survey. The first several pages of Part II of the 2024 report provide custom rate figures for harvesting grains and soybeans, followed by updated figures for hauling operations for grain and hay. The report is one source custom operators may use to help determine …

Information Seeking Behavior Of Faculty At Deeni Madrassas In Rawalpindi District, Pakistan, Asghar Ali

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study aims to investigate the information-seeking behavior of the faculty members of Deeni madrassas in the Rawalpindi District. This study used the survey method, and data were collected using structured self-administered questionnaires to 246 faculty members with 209 returns. The study found that information seeking from various formal and informal information resources was to prepare class lectures, preaching, and research. Holy books were an important resource for teaching and preaching, and journals were the most important source for their research. The study also found that the respondents frequently faced the bad experiences of library staff and a lack of …

Awareness And Use Of Open-Source Integrated Library Systems (Ils) Among University Librarians In Pakistan, Irfan Ali Tahmoor Hussain, Farhana Saeed Hashmi, Dr. Muhammad Tariq

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study investigates the awareness and utilization of Open-Source Software (OSS) for library automation within the context of University Libraries in Pakistan. Through a comprehensive survey of University Librarians, the research explores the extent of OSS adoption, with a focus on specific systems such as Koha and SLiMS. The findings show a high level of awareness and active use of OSS, particularly Koha, in library automation processes. Public sector universities demonstrate a greater inclination towards OSS adoption compared to private and semi-government institutions. The study outlines the predominant purposes for utilizing OSS, emphasizing cataloging and circulation services. Furthermore, it highlights …

How Much Green To Keep The Garden Clean? An Analysis Of The Willingness To Pay (Wtp) Of Home Gardeners For Biowrap Technology, Gengchen Kai, Kanji Fatema, Karina Schoengold

Cornhusker Economics

A research team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kansas State University, and South Dakota School of Mines are working on creating an alternative product that would use locally available materials to create a spray-on, biodegradable polymer that can suppress weeds and will biodegrade in a timeframe that is amenable to crop production. We broadly refer to this technology as BioWRAP (Bioplastics with Regenerative Agricultural Properties).

Our results show that the home garden market is potentially a significant one for a BioWRAP product. Continued work in the development of the BioWRAP technology is necessary to determine what the cost of a …

Cover Crop Utilization Across Nebraska And Implications For Cropland Lease Arrangements In 2024, Jim Jansen, Jeffrey Stokes

Cornhusker Economics

The Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Survey and Report 2023-2024 provides insight on recent trends in the market value of land and cash rental across the state. Each year, the special feature section covers topics on new or emerging issues related to the agricultural land industry in Nebraska. These topics reflect the interest expressed by panel members and readership of the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Highlights Reports. The special feature section in 2024 focuses on trends and considerations for cover crops across Nebraska and implications on lease arrangements.

Findings from the 2022 Census of Agriculture in Table 1 provide …

Working Capital And Cash Flow Tools To Improve Farm Business Performance, Matt Stockton

Cornhusker Economics

Working Capital and Cash Flow Tools to Improve Farm Business Performance by Matt Stockton

The point of this short essay is to briefly review the need and purpose of both tools, hoping that such a review will help farm managers and operators use them to reach their higher potential and improve their businesses and lives. Working capital represents the businesses’ ability to deal with short-term conditions and its resilience conferred upon it as a result of past performance in accumulating liquid assets. The cash flow document provides the ebb and flow of liquid assets during the normal cycle of doing …

The Feasibility Of Utilizing The Open Dynamic Interaction Network (Odin) App To Assess Rema Data Across 30 Days Among Those Recovering From Alcoholism, Dennis E. Mcchargue, Bilal Khan, Jesscia Phelps, Patrick Duryea, Kimberly A. Tyler, Arthur Andrews, Ellie Reznicek, Lucy Napper, Mohamed Saad, Hsuan-Wee Lee

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

About ~4 million people with an alcohol use disorder receive treatment annually, and frequent relapse has produced a rapid revolving door between recovery and use. This paper presents preliminary data from a prospective micro-longitudinal study (30 days) that examines co-evolution of relapse risk processes of people with alcohol use disorders who entered a short-term residential substance use treatment. The primary goal of the current data was to assess the feasibility of using the open dynamic interaction network (ODIN) responsive ecological momentary assessment (rEMA). rEMA collected daily estimates on affect, urges, sober-support engagement, and use. The ODIN app administered twelve questions …

Branching Out: Harnessing The Power Of Decision Trees, Jay Parsons

Center for Agricultural Profitability

In today’s world, full of risk and uncertainty, agricultural producers face a very challenging decision-making environment. Their decisions are often a complex sequence of choices made over time, during which uncertainties are revealed and additional information is gathered. A decision tree or decision flow diagram can aid in the decision-making process by providing a clear graphical representation of the sequence of events and relevant information.

A decision tree contains the relevant courses of action, event uncertainties, and potential outcomes in the order they are expected to occur through time. Like the decisions they are meant to represent, decision trees can …

Conservation Decision Making And Agricultural Land Leasing - An Experimental Investigation Of The Role Of Gender, Diya Ganguly, Simanti Banerjee, Christopher Gustafson

Cornhusker Economics

This research investigated the impact of landowner gender and of the different types of contract leases offered by them to a male tenant, on the conservation (or non-conservation) choice made by the tenant. Specifically, we investigate if a) female and male landowners offer different rental contracts and b) whether tenants choose different actions based on the landowner’s gender. For this purpose, we implemented a controlled, gender-context-loaded economic experiment with university students, in which we tested contract and land use choice under different treatments for three types of rental contracts – fixed rent, fixed rent with penalty, and fixed rent with …

Teacher-Child Interaction Quality In Free Choice And Associations With Child Peer-Related Social Competence, Yuenjung Joo

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Children’s peer-related social skills in early childhood set the stage for school readiness, social competence, and lifelong well-being. Preschoolers spend most of their classroom time in free choice, offering substantial opportunities for learning experiences that facilitate peer interactions that support social development. Yet, little is known about how early childhood teachers can best optimize children’s social learning without disrupting the benefits of play during this time. The purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers’ social support behaviors during free choice align with children’s social needs (i.e., fit of teacher-child social interaction) and the association between the fit …

Psychosocial Well-Being Facilitation Of Leader Identity Transitions For Retirees, Brooke Wells

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Leadership scholars have worked to advance the knowledge of leader identity—how one views oneself as a leader—across many age groups. However, there is still little known about leader identity in older adults. This study explored how older adults identified as leaders after exiting the workforce and in retirement. The retirement process often indicates a transition in which one plans to navigate life post-workforce. For some, retirement may be a signal of growing older. Social identity theory scholars argue that retirees do not always embrace this aging identity. Individuals’ thoughts regarding aging are complex. For those able to embrace and navigate …

Assessing, Restoring, And Centering Social-Ecological Relationships For Advancing Social-Ecological Resilience In The Northern Great Plains Grasslands, Katia Pilar Carranza Bernal

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Northern Great Plains grasslands are social-ecological systems that were shaped by evolutionary and Indigenous social-ecological relationships. European colonization disrupted many of these interactions, including the coupling of fire and grazing, and degraded social-ecological resilience, shifting these grasslands to a new state. For those reasons, my research focused on assessing, restoring, and centering evolutionary and Indigenous social-ecological relationships for advancing social-ecological resilience in the Northern Great Plains grasslands. I first performed a study in the Nebraska Sandhillls assessing the potential of patch-burn grazing to support grassland resilience by comparing its effects to those of rotational grazing. Through vegetation and bird …

Real-Time Cerebral Oximetry During Cognition, Sensorimotor Control, And Pneumotactile Perception In Neurotypical Adults, David J. Sanchez

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Continuous-wave functional near-infrared spectroscopy (cw-fNIRS) is a non-invasive brain imaging methodology designed to measure neural activity by detecting hemodynamic responses i.e., adjustments in blood flow and oxygenation to meet the brain’s metabolic needs. Findings on the use of cw-fNIRS by speech-language pathologists (SLP) and neuroscientists to assess cerebral hemodynamic responses during communication assessment and treatment are limited. This study aims to explore the brain’s metabolic response to various sensory processing tasks in neurotypical adults.

This research examines the relationship between cognitive load, sensorimotor control, and somatosensory processing, and hemodynamic modulation in the prefrontal cortex of 18 right-handed neurotypical adults. The …

Linking Risk Preference, Women’S Empowerment, Farm Investment And Household Well-Being, Samuel Olusesi Olumide

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A nuanced understanding of intra-household dynamics can inform the design of more effective empowerment and agricultural investment policies. By integrating household risk preferences and empowerment dynamics, this work offers valuable insights into the complex mechanisms driving household welfare and provides a framework for future interventions to promote gender equality and economic development in rural settings. This thesis addresses three core hypotheses: first, that the spouses of risk-seeking male heads are more likely to be disempowered compared to those of risk-averse male heads; second, that households with risk-seeking male heads and disempowered spouses are likely to invest more in farming activities; …

Dancing With Identity: How Women In It Navigate Leadership Construction, Amy Barry

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

Women are underrepresented in the information technology sector and experience pervasive gender bias in the typically male-dominated organizations. Barry explores how women navigate and shape their leadership identities within such an environment.

My Last Concussion, Shannon Valkr

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

MY LAST CONCUSSION is a thesis consisting of a critical introduction, a number of poetic influences, and a collection of poems. The introduction touches on the themes of the collection, my personal history with my subject, my changing approach to poetry, and a brief evaluation of the work as a whole. It details my approach to Catholicism, paganism, transgender identity, and oppression. My work grapples with both my current understanding of myself and my inability to enunciate my reality in the past. I aim to view divinity and personal history through a lens of queerness.

Advisor: Kwame Dawes

Leavers And Movers: Turnover Of Music Teachers In Nebraska, Christian G. Schuerman

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this study was to determine if the rates of music teachers leaving the teaching profession and changing schools were significantly different than those of teachers of other content areas in the state of Nebraska. This study used data from the previous nine years of the Nebraska Department of Education’s Education Directory in order to find results for the entire population. Results indicated that music teachers leave the profession at similar rates as teachers of other content areas, but move schools at significantly higher rates.

Advisor: Robert H. Woody

"I Will Write Mad Stories": The Hysterical "I" In The Diaries Of George Eliot, Charlotte Forten Grimke, Virginia Woolf, And Sylvia Plath, Jaclyn Marie Swiderski

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation focuses on the long history of hysteria and the ways in which it has been used to denigrate and silence disabled women. Women diagnosed as hysterical, by either the medical establishment or the court of public opinion, are denied the right to generate knowledge about and for themselves – they are epistemologically disabled. The author argues that hysterical women have unique ways of looking at and understanding the world which push back against their epistemological disablement. In order to uncover some of this history of hysterical women, this dissertation uses the diaries of four “hysterical” women over the …

Essays On Education And Labor Market Outcomes, Ishita Ahmed

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation focuses on the labor market or educational outcomes using applied microeconomic methods. Chapter 1 investigates the impact of waiting an additional year to start kindergarten on the socioeconomic achievement gap in Nebraska using longitudinal administrative data from the Nebraska Department of Education. I utilize fuzzy regression discontinuity design to find the effect of waiting on test scores. I find waiting a year to improve the test score, and this impact fades away over time. This fading pattern shows a considerable amount of heterogeneity across different demographic groups, suggesting an acceleration of the achievement gap. The study also investigates …

Praying To Tiktok, Seeking The Self: How Rhetoric Reveals And Conceals The World’S Most Powerful Guru Of The Postindustrial Age, Samantha L. Gillespie-Hoffman

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Imagine a world where the most powerful leader is a wellness guru that runs an elaborate church with millions of followers. The guru is so powerful that everyone believes they can read minds and make ordinary people rich and famous. The guru controls forms of communication, media channels, consumer tastes, and what people eat, drink, say, and even think. What if this guru was not human but actually an algorithm? Does this sound like the plot of a science fiction novel? I argue that this scenario is closer to reality than most will admit. In this project, readers encounter a …

Estate Planning: Stepped-Up Tax Basis, Anastasia Meyer

Center for Agricultural Profitability

A key consideration in estate planning is the transfer of assets to the next generation as 98% of farms are family owned and operated. Additionally, active operators or retired farmers own 75% of U.S. farmland (AgAmerica, 2023). As the average age of an operator increases, there is going to be a large transfer of farmland and other assets in the future whether by gifting, selling, or passing the farm to the next generation through inheritance.

Stepped-up basis is a tax provision that allows the value of an inherited asset to be adjusted to its fair market value at the time …

Graduate Socialization Experiences Of International Married Women From South Asia, Paushali Saha

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examined the graduate socialization experiences of international married women from South Asia using phenomenology. Prior research has shown that graduate socialization processes like relationships with faculty, opportunities to conduct research, and networking with others in the field are key to success in graduate school and obtaining desired positions after school. Interviews with four married South Asian women revealed that for them, faculty relationships were imperative to their success. Additionally, their husband and family support made a big difference in their ability to engage in their graduate studies and be successful. They also reported the multiple roles they hold …

Terminating A Verbal Farmland Lease In Nebraska, Jessica J. Groskopf, J. David Aiken

Center for Agricultural Profitability

Some farm leases are not written but are verbal or "handshake" agreements. Because nothing is in writing, the parties may have different recollections of their agreement, making lease disputes more difficult to resolve. The most common legal issue associated with verbal farm leases is how a lease may legally be terminated. For verbal leases in Nebraska, six months advance notice must be given to legally terminate the lease. In contrast, the termination of a written lease is determined by the terms of the written lease. If the lease does not address termination, the lease automatically terminates on the last day …

Revision Of Trachyderines Related To Sphaenothecus From North America With Description Of Three New Genera, And New Species Of Lophalia Casey, 1912, Mannophorus Leconte, 1854, And Ischnocnemis Thomson, 1864 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae: Trachyderini), Bryan K. Eya

Insecta Mundi

The genera Lophalia Casey, 1912, Mannophorus LeConte, 1854 and Ischnocnemis Thomas, 1864 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae: Trachyderini) are recharacterized by providing additional morphological features to enhance the delineation of these genera. Two species, Lophalia cribricollis Bates, 1892 and Ischnocnemis luteicollis (Bates, 1885), are transferred to a new genus Lophaliamorpha Eya with Lophaliamorpha luteicollis (Bates) new combination as the type species. Ischnocnemis skillmani Chemsak and Hovore, 2010 is transferred to a new genus Paramannophorus Eya with Paramannophorus skillmani (Chemsak and Hovore) new combination as the type species. A new genus Microteroschema is created to accommodate two additional species from Mexico: Microteroschema parvum …

Risk Factors For Online And In-Person Stalking, Intrusive Harassment, And Violence Within A Community Sample, Elisha J. C. Chan

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Stalking and intrusive harassment (SIH) and stalking violence are prevalent and serious public health concerns associated with significant physical, psychological, financial, and social consequences. The growing proliferation of technology and the internet has only exacerbated the problem as SIH behaviors can be easily perpetrated via electronic means. Given its prevalence and negative impact, it is imperative to investigate the risk factors for online and in-person SIH and stalking violence to better predict and mitigate its detrimental effects. The current study therefore aimed to 1) examine the descriptive characteristics associated with online and in-person SIH and stalking violence; and 2) identify …

Three Essays In Food Security And The U.S. Sugar Program, Jacob Michels

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Chapter one devises an approach to adjust estimates of the number of food insecure for changes in sedentarism over time. Existing methodologies are biased upwards and date back several decades. We build a household model utilizing a Stone-Geary utility function, which rationalizes households shifting their labor decisions towards sedentary activities. Our comparative statics examine the impacts of changes in the productivities of sedentary types, as opposed to my physically demanding types, of activities and also their returns. Our empirical approach is informed by our theoretical model and comparative statics, in which we construct a unique pseudo-panel dataset. Sitting time serves …