Digital Commons Network^™

Quantifying Canal Leakage Rates Using A Mass-Balance Approach And Heat-Based Hydraulic Conductivity Estimates In Selected Irrigation Canals, Western Nebraska, 2007 Through 2009, Christopher M. Hobza, Michael J. Andersen

United States Geological Survey: Water Reports and Publications

The water supply in areas of the North Platte River Basin in the Nebraska Panhandle has been designated as fully appropriated or overappropriated by the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (NDNR). Enacted legislation (Legislative Bill 962) requires the North Platte Natural Resources District (NPNRD) and the NDNR to develop an Integrated Management Plan (IMP) to balance groundwater and surface-water supply and demand in the NPNRD. A clear understanding of the groundwater and surface-water systems is critical for the development of a successful IMP. The primary source of groundwater recharge in parts of the NPNRD is from irrigation canal leakage. Because …

Detecting Electron Motion In Atoms And Molecules, Hua-Chieh Shao, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

The detection of spatial and temporal electronic motion by scattering of subfemtosecond pulses of 10 keV electrons from coherent superpositions of electronic states of both H and T⁺₂ is investigated. For the H atom, we predict changes in the diffraction images that reflect the time-dependent effective radius of the electronic charge density. For an aligned T⁺₂ molecule, the diffraction image changes reflect the time-dependent localization or delocalization of the electronic charge density.

Unl Physicists Model Potential 4-D Imaging Technique, Tom Simons, Hua-Chieh Shao, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

A long-standing goal of science is to be able to understand how matter behaves at the atomic and subatomic level. How electrons rearrange when atoms or molecules come together is the essence of chemistry, and the ability to manipulate those rearrangements is the goal of the emerging sphere of nanotechnology. A fuller understanding could lead to enormous scientific and technological breakthroughs. Unfortunately, significant problems confront scientists and engineers in attacking the question. Not only are atoms and molecules very small, requiring highly specialized equipment to "see" them, everything at the atomic level happens very, very fast. For example, an electron …

Before We Go: Vacation Reading Suggestions

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat will be taking a holiday break until January 3. Before we move on to 2011, though, here’s a short round-up of pieces from 2010 that you shouldn’t miss:

• We’re still doing a bit of catching up as we recover from the end of the fall academic quarter, so please forgive us for being a bit behind on covering both the recent tensions between North and South Korea and also the controversial release of documents by WikiLeaks. On North Korea, read Evan Osnos, “Lips and Teeth,”and listen to Mary Kay Magistad of PRI’s The World. For a China …

Replacement Of Grazed Forage With Wdgs And Poor Quality Hay And Straw Mixtures, Sandra B. Villasanti

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A grazing study was conducted at the University of Nebraska Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory from mid-June to late-August across two years (2009 and 2010) to evaluate the effects of supplementation with mixtures of wet distillers grains (WDGS) and straw or hay on grazed forage intake. Twenty 1 ha paddocks replicated over two blocks were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: Control (CON) at the recommended stocking rate (1.68 AUM/ha in 2009 and 1.64 AUM/ha in 2010), and three double stocked treatments supplemented with 60% straw and 40% WDGS (STRAW), 60% hay and 40% WDGS (LOW), and 70% hay and 30% …

Reading Round-Up, December 17

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It seems there’s been an outpouring of writing about China lately—so much that we actually haven’t been able to keep up with it all (especially since for the China Beat editors, December brings with it the madness and mayhem that mark the end of an academic term). So, before we settle in for the holiday break, we thought we’d bring you a pair of reading round-ups that point to all the pieces we wish we’d been able to write during the past few weeks. We’ll post part I (focusing on Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace prize win) today and part II …

One Hundred Years Of Controversy, Paul R. Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“History is never for itself; it is always for someone” — Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History, p. 16

Controversies about the past are nothing new to modern Taiwan, but this one is something completely different, centering not on how to remember the Japanese colonial era, the 228 Incident, or the White Terror, but the forthcoming 100th anniversary of the Republic of China’s founding on January 1, 1912 (建國百年).

At the center of the current sturm und drang is Taiwan’s Academia Historica (國史館), the putative successor to the imperial Historiography Institute (same Chinese name) established from the Song to Qing dynasties. In …

Movies Of Electrons In Atoms, Michael Schirber, Hua-Chieh Shao, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

Physicists have long been able to snap atomic-scale pictures by shining a beam of electrons at a target, but filming the electronic structure of an atom as it changes in time is the next goal. A rapid "strobing" of electron pulses less than a millionth of a billionth of a second long should do the trick, according to a theoretical analysis in the 24 December Physical Review Letters. The authors demonstrate with computer simulations that ultrafast electron pulses could track the "breathing" state of an excited atom or the hopping of electrons between atoms in a molecule. Such movies open …

Effects Of Warm-Mix Asphalt Additives On Asphalt Mixture Characteristics And Pavement Performance, Jun Zhang

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the feasibility of several WMA mixtures as potential asphalt paving mixtures for Nebraska pavements. To that end, three well-known WMA additives (i.e., Sasobit, Evotherm, and Advera synthetic zeolite) were evaluated. For a more realistic evaluation of the WMA approaches, trial pavement sections of the WMA mixtures and their HMA counterparts were implemented in Antelope County, Nebraska. More than one ton of field-mixed loose mixtures were collected at the time of paving and were transported to the NDOR and UNL laboratories to conduct comprehensive laboratory evaluations and pavement performance predictions of the …

In Case You Missed It: Chop Suey, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In 1961, Julia Child published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, among the most celebrated cookbooks of the 20th century. Designed to demystify the intricacies of French cuisine and convince the “servantless American cook” that she could conquer any of the recipes contained therein, Child’s book helped to bring French food out of upscale city restaurants and into the kitchens of families across the country.

Sixteen years earlier, Buwei Yang Chao had taken on a similar task, though she met with much less widespread success than Child would. Chao’s How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (1945) did not only …

Testing Embedded System Applications, Tingting Yu

Department of Computer Science and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Embedded systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, controlling a wide variety of popular and safety-critical devices. Testing is the most commonly used method for validating software systems, and effective testing techniques could be helpful for improving the dependability of these systems. However, there are challenges involved in developing such techniques. Embedded systems consist of layers of software – application layers utilize services provided by underlying system service and hardware support layers. A typical embedded application consists of multiple user tasks. Interactions between application layers and lower layers, and interactions between the various user tasks that are initiated by the application layer, …

Centers Of Digital Scholarship And Library Leadership: Two Case Studies, Joan Giesecke, Harriette Hemmasi

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Conference Presentations and Speeches

Today’s Library Is Supporting the changing patterns of teaching, learning & research by combining traditional & new knowledge resources & services with emerging information technology in inviting physical & online spaces
The Library is Vital in All Phases of Academic Life & Scholarly Communications
Library Leadership Within Centers of Digital Scholarship is One Critical Path to Keeping Libraries Vital
Digital Humanities Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown University

The Download button (right) links to a PDF version of the PowerPoint presentation. The complete set of PowerPoint slides is archived (below) as a "Related file".

Rapid Landscape Transformation In South Island, New Zealand, Following Initial Polynesian Settlement, David B. Mcwethy, Cathy Whitlock, Janet M. Wilmshurst, Matt S. Mcglone, Mairie Fromont, Xun Li, Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall, William O. Hobbs, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Edward R. Cook

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Humans have altered natural patterns of fire for millennia, but the impact of human-set fires is thought to have been slight in wet closed-canopy forests. In the South Island of New Zealand, Polynesians (Māori), who arrived 700–800 calibrated years (cal y) ago, and then Europeans, who settled ∼150 cal y ago, used fire as a tool for forest clearance, but the structure and environmental consequences of these fires are poorly understood. High-resolution charcoal and pollen records from 16 lakes were analyzed to reconstruct the fire and vegetation history of the last 1,000 y. Diatom, chironomid, and element concentration data were …

Monitoring Soil Quality To Assess The Sustainability Of Harvesting Corn Stover, Douglas L. Karlen, Gary E. Varvel, Jane M.F. Johnson, John M. Baker, Shannon L. Osborne, Jeff M. Novak, Paul R. Adler, Greg W. Roth, Stuart J. Birrell

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Harvesting feedstock for biofuel production must not degrade soil, water, or air resources. Our objective is to provide an overview of field research being conducted to quantify effects of harvesting corn (Zea mays L.) stover as a bioenergy feedstock. Coordinated fi eld studies are being conducted near Ames, IA; St. Paul and Morris, MN; Mead, NE; University Park, PA; Florence, SC; and Brookings, SD., as part of the USDA-ARS Renewable Energy Assessment Project (REAP). A baseline soil quality assessment was made using the Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF). Corn grain and residue yield for two diff erent stover harvest rates …

How One Family Created Chinese America, Angilee Shah

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Hyphenated cultures seem to be a natural part of California’s landscape today, but it wasn’t always so. The Lucky Ones by Mae Ngai offers a fresh look at California history by reconstructing the lives of immigrant and second generation pioneers who lived between cultures when it was not such a common phenomenon. Ngai’s narrative brings Chinese Americans into a richer tradition of historical storytelling by humanizing an ambivalent, middle-class immigrant family, situating their lives within the more well-known histories of Chinese laborers and those who suffered from the 1882 Exclusion Act.

Ngai is a professor and immigration historian at Columbia …

Modeling Heat Transfer During Cooling Of Ready-To-Eat Meat And Poultry Products Using Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis And Web-Based Simulation, Jihan F. Cepeda Jimenez

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations and Theses

The meat industry is required to comply with processing performance standards for preventing the growth of foodborne pathogens in products. These performance standards, established by the United States Department of Agriculture - Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) require a reduction of Salmonella spp (lethality standard) and limit the growth of sporeforming bacteria (stabilization standard) in certain processed meat products. In general, strategies used to comply with these standards are associated with thermal processing. Meat processors have difficulties complying with these performance standards. Moreover, thermal processing deviations are an issue in the meat industry that generate uncertainty regarding the safety …

Invasive Species And Climate Change, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

ISSUE

Climate change interacts with and can often amplify the negative impacts of invasive species. These interactions are not fully appreciated or understood. They can result in threats to critical ecosystem functions on which our food system and other essential provisions and services depend as well as increase threats to human health. The Invasive Species Advisory Committee to the National Invasive Species Council recognizes the Administration’s commitment to dealing proactively with global climate change. However, unless we recognize and act on the impact of climate change and its interaction with ecosystems and invasive species, we will fall further behind in …

New Release: Heart Of Buddha, Heart Of China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

James Carter, Professor of History at Saint Joseph’s University and Chief Editor of the journal Twentieth-Century China, has recently published Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth Century Monk (Oxford University Press). To explore the life and work of this extraordinary individual, Carter embarked on a series of “travels with Tanxu,” spending time in Buddhist temples from Harbin to Hong Kong (with stops in Qingdao, Ningbo, Yingkou, and Shanghai along the way). Here, in an excerpt from the prologue to his book, Carter explains the challenges he encountered in tracing the life of Tanxu, an …

Investigation Of Spatial And Temporal Processes Of Lake-Aquifer Interactions In The Nebraska Sand Hills, John T. Ong

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Interaction between surface water and groundwater is an important component of the water cycle that affects the physicochemical and biological characteristics of lakes, streams, wetlands, and seacoasts. Due to the complex interaction of geologic, topographic, and hydrologic factors, flow between lakes and groundwater remains poorly understood. Evolution of conceptual models over the past 30 years describes processes of advection, dispersion, and free convection that occur in different lake flow regimes. Few detailed field studies document the validity of these conceptual models because of the difficulty of studying the subsurface and the prohibitive cost of instrumenting large areas. In the semi-arid …

Year In Review: Books, Books, Books

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As 2010 draws to a close, many media outlets have begun releasing their year-end “best of” lists. We always take a careful look at these to see which China-related titles appear, and have seen more than a few familiar names pop up. At the New York Times, the “100 Notable Books of 2010” include Peter Hessler’sCountry Driving and Yunte Huang’s biography of Charlie Chan, as well as Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth by Hilary Spurling. Spurling’s work is also celebrated by Margaret Drabble at The Guardian, while both Pankaj Mishra and AS Byatt include Yiyun Li’s …

Study Of Two Human Myotubularin Homologs (Atmtm1 And Atmtm2) In Arabidopsis, Yang Zhao

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Phosphatidylinositol 5 phosphate is appearing to play an important role in signal transduction as lipid second messenger. The synthesis of this lipid signal is mainly conducted by a group of phosphatase called myotubularins (MTM) which can dephosphorylate on the 3’s position of Phosphatidylinositol (3, 5) bi-phosphate. Mutations in active myotubularins lead to severe diseases in human. However, this essential family has been scarcely studied in plants. Recently, two myotubularins (AtMTM1 and AtMTM2) have been identified as the homologs of human MTM Related protein 2 (MTMR2) in Arabidopsis. While some evidence has been provided to suggest the function of AtMTM1, …

Defining Teaching Excellence: A Phenomenological Study Of Seven Nationally Recognized Secondary Educators, Rosalee A. Swartz

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

Change has been an integral part of the American education system since the 1830s (Lucas, 1999) when universities began preparing students to teach. Over the past 20 years, changes including federal mandates (Disabilities Education Act, 1990; No Child Left Behind, 2003) and increasing diversity in school populations require a responding sensitivity from classroom teachers. In the midst of challenges that these changes present, teachers are increasingly asked to do more.

Research shows that nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave within the first five years of teaching, citing issues such as lack of preparation and mentorship, working conditions, pay, and …

Sources Of Altruistic Calling In Orthodox Jewish Communities: A Grounded Theory Ethnography, Stephen J. Linenberger

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

This study of altruistic calling the Orthodox Jewish community began with a line of inquiry, grounded in previous hypotheses and studies of factors that motivate altruism in the general population, including empathy, unintended consequences of altruism, altruistic role modeling, collectivism, and principlism. Counter to past research suggesting altruism is activated along an empathy-altruism path (Batson, et al., 2007) the findings of this study revealed a consistent low empathy response by participants when asked about their feelings about those in need. However, when asked to describe outcomes of helping situations, there was a consistent high empathetic joy response, indicating the helper …

Nebraska’S Centennial Mall: An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan, Shimmer Shack Advertising, Lauren Case, Jeff Price, Smidy Smidt, Kelsey Satra, Hilary Winter, Stacy James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

“A present touch on the future.”

Shimmer Shack is a group of five senior advertising majors from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. We set out in August 2010, to assist Nebraska’s Centennial Mall (NCM) and the Lincoln Parks and Recreation to promote the renovation of NCM and to increase statewide awareness of the brand NCM itself.

Through our research these last few months, we have seen the need for a newly renovated space that connects two great entities of our state: the State Capitol and the University of Nebraska. We discovered that Nebraskans are very proud of their state and that …

An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan For Nebraska’S Centennial Mall, B.Bach Advertising, Brian Muhlbach, Crystal Wulfekuhl, Bryce Wergin, Kelsey Nowka, Colin Clifford, Tyler Vaughan, Stacy C. James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

Built in 1967 to commemorate the state’s Centennial year, Lincoln’s Centennial Mall is the open pedestrian mall area spanning from the Capitol Building on K Street north to the Nebraska State Historical Society on R Street. Managed by the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department, the Mall has been the site for many important political and social events, including Robert Kerry’s announcement for his candidacy for President as well as local festivals and functions like Rib Fest and World Day on the Mall. But, as of 2010, the once-grand fountains have been mostly filled in, the steps are not handicapped accessible, …

Nebraska's Centennial Mall -- Where You Go To Grow: An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan, Secret Radio, Pam Orr, Brianne Hake, Jessica Simpson, Stephanie Scharf, Charles Wetzel, Stacy C. James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

Situation Analysis
Nebraska’s Centennial Mall, extending from the State Capitol seven blocks north on what would be 15th Street, serves as a scenic connection between Nebraska’s iconic State Capitol and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Mall is currently in a state of disrepair, but a restoration project will soon begin. Our task is to implement a statewide awareness campaign to encourage all Nebraskans to visit and take pride in Nebraska’s Centennial Mall. In essence, the new Mall is the front yard and primary entrance to the State Capitol and should be viewed and appreciated as a symbol to the state …

Soil Behavior Under Blast Loading, Jichong An

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding the behavior of soil under blast loading is very important to engineers in mining, tunneling, and military construction. Due to the very complex structure of a soil mass it is very difficult to describe its constitutive relation, especially when it has different water contents and it is under blast loading conditions. New protective system designs subjected to blast loading need to be proved its validation prior to predict effect of explosive before implementation. Full-scale, buried explosive tests are costly. Finite element simulations play a significant role in the design of protective systems, for example a bottom platform of lightweight …

Hu Jingcao On Liang Sicheng And Lin Huiyin

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In October, CCTV’s high-definition channel broadcast a new six-hour, eight-episode documentary on the famous husband-and-wife duo Liang Sicheng (梁思成, 1901-1972) and Lin Huiyin (林徽因, 1904-1955). Liang is renowned as a pioneering architectural historian, Lin as a writer, but their presence in China’s historical consciousness defies easy categorization. Both came from prominent families (Sicheng’s father was Liang Qichao, the scholar and reformer of the late Qing and early Republican period) and they left multifaceted legacies (their son, the noted environmentalist Liang Congjie, died in Beijing on October 28; American artist Maya Lin is Huiyin’s niece.)

Titled “Liang Sicheng Lin Huiyin,” the …

The Use Of High Distillers Grains And Nutrient Management In Beef Feedlots, Amy R. Rich

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of feeding wet distillers grains (WDGS) at 70% and wheat straw at 25% (DM basis) on finishing steer performance and N mass balance in open feedlot pens. Four treatments were tested as a 2x2 factorial with factors being diet and pen cleaning frequency (monthly or at the end of the feeding period). In both experiments the CON treatment (corn based diet) had greater DMI, ADG, HCW, marbling and fat depth. There was greater N intake and N excretion for both the WINTER and SUMMER experiments on the WDGS. Not all the additional …

Ecological Impacts Of Stream Bank Stabilization In A Great Plains River, Christopher M. Pracheil

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

Reduced ecological complexity, decreased water quality, and accelerated stream bank erosion are common disturbances in rivers with agriculturally dominated watersheds. Massive bank failures, increased sediment loads, and decreased riverine habitat are current problems in the agriculturally dominated Cedar River of central Nebraska. In an effort to slow erosion and prevent further ecological degradation, 20 reach scale stream bank stabilization projects were installed on the Cedar River from 2001 to 2004. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of the Cedar River stream bank stabilization projects on the ecological conditions within the Cedar River. Stream bank erosion, suspended …