Digital Commons Network^™

Providing Optimal Resident Sleep Hygiene In Assisted Living Communities; Opportunities For Design And Operation Teams To Collaborate And Share Their Unique Knowledge, Beverly B. J. Miller

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

Research is emerging relating sleep hygiene to disease pathogenesis including Parkinson's, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and increased cardiovascular risk. The application of circadian science as it relates to human wellness has intensified as a result. The quality of sleep significantly impacts the wellness of residents living in long term care, however sleep hygiene research is lacking in assisted living (AL) communities.

The thesis question inquires; How can operation and design teams collaborate to optimize sleep health for residents in assisted living communities? The research methodology utilized a two-phase process. Phase I identified three AL communities as test sites, providing case studies …

Attitudes Of Experiential Designers Across Design Disciplines, Danielle Degarmo

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

The expanded use of the term scenography is widening its understanding of the word to encompass many experiential design disciplines beyond its origin in theatre. At its essence, scenography is the culmination of a designer’s collaborative efforts to take a prompt, whether it be a client program, a script, or other, and produce a holistic assemblage of experiential design elements to spatially engage an end user. Many experts in across design fields have acknowledged that there is disciplinary cross over among those practicing in experiential design fields in terms of design output or intention. By means of designer surveys and …

Social Connections Across Migration: Do Golden- Crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia Atricapilla) That Socialize In Winter Also Breed Together?, Theadora A. Block, Bruce E. Lyon, Zachary Milakonis, Alexis S. Chaine, Daizaburo Shizuka

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Many birds that are territorial in the breeding season live in groups during the nonbreeding season, thereby gaining benefits such as protection from predators and increased access to resources. However, how the social connections in group life change across seasons in migratory animals is mostly unknown. We ask whether winter social connections continue during the breeding season in a migratory songbird. Golden-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia atricapilla) have distinct, stable winter communities that include both site and group fidelity across years: birds almost always rejoin the same social community each year after migration. If these birds have social connectivity across …

Rapid Evolution Of A(H5n1) Influenza Viruses After Intercontinental Spread To North America, Ahmed Kandeil, Christopher Patton, Jeremy C. Jones, Trushar Jeevan, Walter N. Harrington, Sanja Trifkovic, Jon P. Seiler, Thomas Fabrizio, Karlie Woodard, Jasmine C. Turner, Jeri Carol Crumpton, Lance Miller, Adam Rubrum, Jennifer Debeauchamp, Charles J. Russell, Elena A. Govorkova, Peter Vogel, Mia Kim-Torchetti, Yohannes Berhane, David Stallknecht, Rebecca Poulson, Lisa Kercher, Richard J. Webby

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses of clade 2.3.4.4b underwent an explosive geographic expansion in 2021 among wild birds and domestic poultry across Asia, Europe, and Africa. By the end of 2021, 2.3.4.4b viruses were detected in North America, signifying further intercontinental spread. Here we show that the western movement of clade 2.3.4.4b was quickly followed by reassortment with viruses circulating in wild birds in North America, resulting in the acquisition of different combinations of ribonucleoprotein genes. These reassortant A(H5N1) viruses are genotypically and phenotypically diverse, with many causing severe disease with dramatic neurologic involvement in mammals. The proclivity of …

A Global-Temporal Analysis On Phytophthora Sojae Resistance-Gene Efficacy, Austin G. Mccoy, Richard R. Belanger, Carl A. Bradley, Daniel G. Cerritos-Garcia, Vinicius C. Garnica, Loren Giesler, Pablo E. Grijalba, Eduardo Guillin, Maria A. Henriquez, Yong Min Kim, Dean K. Malvick, Rashelle L. Matthiesen, Santiago X. Mideros, Zachary A. Noel, Alison E. Robertson, Mitchell G. Roth, Clarice L. Schmidt, Damon L. Smith, Adam H. Sparks, Darcy E.P. Telenko, Vanessa Tremblay, Owen Wally, Martin I. Chilvers

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Plant disease resistance genes are widely used in agriculture to reduce disease outbreaks and epidemics and ensure global food security. In soybean, Rps (Resistance to Phytophthora sojae) genes are used to manage Phytophthora sojae, a major oomycete pathogen that causes Phytophthora stem and root rot (PRR) worldwide. This study aims to identify temporal changes in P. sojae pathotype complexity, diversity, and Rps gene efficacy. Pathotype data was collected from 5121 isolates of P. sojae, derived from 29 surveys conducted between 1990 and 2019 across the United States, Argentina, Canada, and China. This systematic review shows a loss of efficacy of …

High Throughput Phenotyping: Field Based Triticale Breeding And Educational Resource Impact, Catherine Kay Mick

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Triticale (Triticosecale) is a multifunctional hybrid cereal crop that adopted the hardiness of rye and wheat's high-yielding and nutritional qualities. Plant breeding programs work to improve the quality and number of varieties available to producers through multiple rounds of evaluation and selection. However, traditional phenotyping methods are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and destructive, creating a phenotyping bottleneck. Remote sensing using unmanned aerial systems has the potential to alleviate this issue and change the evaluation of phenotypes in a breeding. Demand for educational resources to advance public awareness and prepare the workforce has increased with the utilization of more technology in …

Value Added By Using Joint Displays In Mixed Methods Research, Elizabeth Svoboda

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

Mixed methods research collects, analyzes, and integrates rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a deeper understanding of a phenomenon than would be gained by using either method alone. Integration is one of the key features of mixed methods research and consists of mixing qualitative and quantitative research in a systematic way to generate new inferences or follow-up studies. However, the process of integration can be challenging to draw on expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods, decide when and how to integrate qualitative and quantitative research, and combine multiple data sources in a coherent way to generate new inferences. …

Human Dimensions Of Woody Encroachment Management In Nebraska, Emily Rowen

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

Woody plant encroachment (WPE) is a social-ecological problem that will challenge conservation professionals and agricultural producers to adapt their management strategies. This research first examined WPE from the perspective of individual conservation professionals through an online survey. Conservation professionals’ attitudes about adaptation to vegetation transitions, such as WPE, were of interest because these attitudes are one measure of how prepared this group is to respond to WPE. Hypothesized predictors of adaptation attitude were tested through linear regression modeling. These predictors included ecological change, observation of WPE, or risk perception. It was found that risk perception was the strongest predictor of …

On Dyadic Parity Check Codes And Their Generalizations, Meraiah Martinez

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In order to communicate information over a noisy channel, error-correcting codes can be used to ensure that small errors don’t prevent the transmission of a message. One family of codes that has been found to have good properties is low-density parity check (LDPC) codes. These are represented by sparse bipartite graphs and have low complexity graph-based decoding algorithms. Various graphical properties, such as the girth and stopping sets, influence when these algorithms might fail. Additionally, codes based on algebraically structured parity check matrices are desirable in applications due to their compact representations, practical implementation advantages, and tractable decoder performance analysis. …

United Express Strategic Audit, Ryan Hakim

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

United Express is the regional brand of United Airlines, a worldwide airline from the United States. United Express provides excellent domestic and international service from smaller airports to United Airlines hubs. With a volatile and solid industry of vast competition and operational styles, this report seeks to give an industry analysis of the regional airline industry with relation to United Express’ position. It surveys the industry using a PESTLE analysis along with Michael E. Porter’s Five Competitive Forces Model. United Express has many resources and competitive advantages which headline the advantages it boasts to be a regional airline industry leader. …

Game-Theoretic Approaches To Optimal Resource Allocation And Defense Strategies In Herbaceous Plants, Molly R. Creagar

Department of Mathematics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Empirical evidence suggests that the attractiveness of a plant to herbivores can be affected by the investment in defense by neighboring plants, as well as investment in defense by the focal plant. Thus, allocation to defense may not only be influenced by the frequency and intensity of herbivory but also by defense strategies employed by other plants in the environment. We incorporate a neighborhood defense effect by applying spatial evolutionary game theory to optimal resource allocation in plants where cooperators are plants investing in defense and defectors are plants that do not. We use a stochastic dynamic programming model, along …

Amorphous Boron Carbide-Amorphous Silicon Heterojunction Devices, Vojislav Medic

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

This dissertation will show successful development and characterization of amorphous boron carbide-amorphous silicon heterojunction device with potential for neutron detection. The amorphous hydrogenated boron carbide (a-BC:H) has been extensively researched as a semiconductor for neutron voltaic device fabrication. Naturally occurring boron contains 19.8% of boron isotope B¹⁰ that has a high absorption cross section of thermal neutrons at lower energies, and boron carbide contains 14.7% of that B¹⁰ isotope. Therefore, as a semiconductor compound of boron a-BC:H has the ability to absorb radiation, generate charge carriers, and collect those carriers. Previous work on a-BC:H devices investigated the fabrication …

An Investigation Of Match For Lossless Video Compression, Brittany Sullivan-Reicks

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

A new lossless video compression technique, Match, is investigated. Match uses the similarity between the frames of a video or the slices of medical images to find a prediction for the current pixel. A portion of the previous frame is searched to find a matching context, which is the pixels surrounding the current pixel, within some distance centered on the current location. The best distance to use for each dataset is found experimentally. The matching context refers to the neighborhood of w, nw, n, and ne, where the pixel in the previous frame with the closest matching context becomes the …

Low-Power, Event-Driven System On A Chip For Charge Pulse Processing Applications, Joseph A. Schmitz

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

This dissertation presents an electronic architecture and methodology capable of processing charge pulses generated by a range of sensors, including radiation detectors and tactile synthetic skin. These sensors output a charge signal proportional to the input stimulus, which is processed electronically in both the analog and digital domains. The presented work implements this functionality using an event-driven methodology, which greatly reduces power consumption compared to standard implementations. This enables new application areas that require a long operating time or compact physical dimensions, which would not otherwise be possible. The architecture is designed, fabricated, and tested in the aforementioned applications to …

Fashion Around The Francophone World: A 20-Unit Lesson Plan For Teaching Students 7-12 How To Discuss Clothing In French, Justin Solheim

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper is the directions for a high school French world language curriculum at the novice-low level. The curriculum covers 20 class periods, or four weeks, and it uses a variety of pedagogical techniques and technologies to help students quickly learn and retain French vocabulary and grammar. Each class period is 40 minutes. The lessons use a variety of assessments and feedback to help students improve and allow the teachers to monitor student achievement. The following lessons focus on forming basic sentences and practicing the basics of subject-verb agreement, while teaching the vocabulary for different types of clothing in the …

Responses Of Maize To Different Irrigation Regimes In Semi-Arid Western Nebraska, Swathi Palle

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As the “Cornhusker State”, Maize (Zea mays) is an important crop in Nebraska. However, farmers in the state are challenged by unstable supply of surface water and limited groundwater resources. A better understanding of maize's response to water stress that occurs at different growth stages can help implement the best irrigation practices that conserve water while maintaining yields. In this study, we conducted field experiments at the Panhandle Research, Extension, and Education Center to compare the responses of maize to eight irrigation treatments which included both limited and deficit irrigation regimes during 2022 and 2023 growing seasons. Specifically, …

Renovating The Ipmu Via Internet Of Things For Pollutant Emission Estimations In Poultry Facilities, Joshua Dotto

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The emissions of ammonia (NH₃), particulate matter (PM_2.5), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) are major concerns in poultry facilities. They can pose environmental concerns and nuances. Robust and affordable measurement systems are needed to accurately measure in-barn concentrations and quantify the emissions.

The Intelligent Portable Monitoring Unit (iPMU or PMU3) developed in 2016 was reconstructed into PMU4 to include upgraded NH₃ and PM_2.5 sensors and wireless connectivity for a low-cost, robust, and accurate air quality monitoring device with contactless data transfer using the concept of Internet of Things (IoT). In addition, a user-friendly …

Spatial Release From Masking In Anechoic And Reverberant Environments, Drake Andrew Hintz

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Listening with both ears provides children with access to binaural and monaural cues that are helpful for understanding speech in competing babbles. Specifically, when the target and masker are spatially separated, children can gain an intelligibility benefit which is known as spatial release from masking (SRM). Recent work [Peng et al., 2021 JASA] suggested that school-age children demonstrated immature SRM using binaural cues that are distorted by reverberation. In this follow-up study, we further investigate the effect of reverberant distortion on individual auditory spatial cues, namely binaural and monaural head shadow cues. We compare SRM between adults and school-age children …

Early Childhood Language Gains, Kindergarten Readiness, And Grade 3 Reading Achievement, Jessica A.R. Logan, Shayne B. Piasta, Kelly M. Purtell, Robert Nichols, Rachel E. Schachter

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In this preregistered study, we used latent change score models to address two research aims: (1) whether preschool-aged children's language gains, over a year of early childhood education, were associated with later performance on state-mandated, literacy-focused kindergarten readiness and Grade 3 reading achievement assessments, and (2) whether gains in language, a more complex skill, predicted these outcomes after controlling for more basic emergent literacy skills. There were 724 participating children (mean = 57 months; 51% male; 76% White, 12% Black, 6% multiple races, and 5% Hispanic or Latino). We found that language gains significantly predicted kindergarten readiness when estimated in …

2020-2021 Field Seasons Of Maize Gxe Project Within The Genomes To Fields Initiative, Dayane Cristina Lima, Alejandro Castro Aviles, Ryan Timothy Alpers, Alden Perkins, Dylan L. Schoemaker, Martin Costa, Kathryn J. Michel, Shawn Kaeppler, David Ertl, Maria Cinta Romay, Joseph L. Gage, James Holland, Timothy Beissinger, Martin Bohn, Edward Buckler, Jode Edwards, Sherry Flint-Garcia, Michael A. Gore, Candice N. Hirsch, Joseph E. Knoll, John Mckay, Richard Minyo, Seth C. Murray, James Schnable, Rajandeep S. Sekhon, Maninder P. Singh, Erin E. Sparks, Peter Thomison, Addie Thompson, Mitchell Tuinstra, Jason Wallace, Jacob D. Washburn, Teclemariam Weldekidan, Wenwei Xu, Natalia De Leon

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Objectives: This release note describes the Maize GxE project datasets within the Genomes to Fields (G2F) Initiative. The Maize GxE project aims to understand genotype by environment (GxE) interactions and use the information collected to improve resource allocation efficiency and increase genotype predictability and stability, particularly in scenarios of variable environmental patterns. Hybrids and inbreds are evaluated across multiple environments and phenotypic, genotypic, environmental, and metadata information are made publicly available. Data description: The datasets include phenotypic data of the hybrids and inbreds evaluated in 30 locations across the US and one location in Germany in 2020 and 2021, soil …

Aicropcam: Deploying Classification, Segmentation, Detection, And Counting Deep-Learning Models For Crop Monitoring On The Edge, Nipuna Chamara, Geng (Frank) Bai, Yufeng Ge

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Precision Agriculture (PA) promises to meet the future demands for food, feed, fiber, and fuel while keeping their production sustainable and environmentally friendly. PA relies heavily on sensing technologies to inform site-specific decision supports for planting, irrigation, fertilization, spraying, and harvesting. Traditional point-based sensors enjoy small data sizes but are limited in their capacity to measure plant and canopy parameters. On the other hand, imaging sensors can be powerful in measuring a wide range of these parameters, especially when coupled with Artificial Intelligence. The challenge, however, is the lack of computing, electric power, and connectivity infrastructure in agricultural fields, preventing …

Accelerated Evolution Of Sars-Cov-2 In Free-Ranging White-Tailed Deer, Dillon S. Mcbride, Sofya K. Garushyants, John Franks, Andrew F. Magee, Steven H. Overend, Devra Huey, Amanda M. Williams, Seth A. Faith, Ahmed Kandeil, Sanja Trifkovic, Lance Miller, Trushar Jeevan, Anami Patel, Jacqueline M. Nolting, Michael J. Tonkovich, J. Tyler Genders, Andrew J. Montoney, Kevin Kasnyik, Timothy J. Linder, Sarah N. Bevins, Julianna B. Lenoch, Jeffrey C. Chandler, Thomas J. Deliberto, Eugene V. Koonin, Marc A. Suchard, Philippe Lemey, Richard J. Webby, Martha I. Nelson, Andrew S. Bowman

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic virus highlights the need to fill the vast gaps in our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 ecology and evolution in non-human hosts. Here, we detected that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced from humans into white-tailed deer more than 30 times in Ohio, USA during November 2021-March 2022. Subsequently, deer-to-deer transmission persisted for 2–8 months, disseminating across hundreds of kilometers. Newly developed Bayesian phylogenetic methods quantified how SARS-CoV-2 evolution is not only three-times faster in white-tailed deer compared to the rate observed in humans but also driven by different mutational biases and selection pressures. The long-term effect of …

United States Social Security Administration Response To The Office Of Science And Technology Policy Memo, 2022: Public Access Plan (December 2023)

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

SSA response to OSTP memo, 2022: Public Access Plan (December 2023)

Psychological Effects Of Immigration: A Comprehensive Review Exploring Social Identity, Acculturation And The Effects Of Cultural Attitudes And Systemic Factors On The Well-Being Of Immigrants, Huda Abu Nasab

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Immigration is a life-altering experience that can greatly affect an individual's identity, sense of belongingness, and well-being. The United States is known as a nation of immigrants; however, many immigrants have faced challenges related to assimilation and the development of their social identities in a new society. For example, immigration challenges often include adapting to a new culture, learning a different language, and navigating unfamiliar healthcare and educational systems. There are many factors that influence how immigrants adjust in their host country, such as acculturation challenges, cultural attitudes towards immigrants, and the availability of essential resources. This literature review aims …

An Icfd Fluid Model Used In A Mash Tl-6 Vehicle Model, Md Zunayed Habib

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The objective of this thesis was to develop an ICFD finite element model of a partially filled deformable container suitable for impact scenarios. This model will be later incorporated into the existing TL-6 vehicle model, which is a tractor-tank trailer vehicle model. Previous finite element fluid models for the TL-6 vehicle used an elastic fluid model, which could not predict the fluid behavior correctly.

A study was conducted on the ICFD modeling and an improved ICFD model has been developed using the LS-DYNA, a finite element analysis software. Different properties and parameters of the fluid and the container were adopted …

Amorphous Boron Carbide-Amorphous Silicon Heterojunction Devices, Vojislav Medic

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

This dissertation will show successful development and characterization of amorphous boron carbide-amorphous silicon heterojunction device with potential for neutron detection.

The amorphous hydrogenated boron carbide (a-BC:H) has been extensively researched as a semiconductor for neutron voltaic device fabrication. Naturally occurring boron contains 19.8% of boron isotope B¹⁰ that has a high absorption cross section of thermal neutrons at lower energies, and boron carbide contains 14.7% of that B¹⁰ isotope. Therefore, as a semiconductor compound of boron a-BC:H has the ability to absorb radiation, generate charge carriers, and collect those carriers.

Previous work on a-BC:H devices investigated the fabrication …

Job Satisfaction, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is job satisfaction?

Job satisfaction is generally thought of as the degree to which an individual likes or dislikes their job (Spector, 1997). Along with organizational commitment, it is one of the most commonly studied job attitudes and is used as a way to gauge how employees feel about their jobs and as a reflection of how well the organization is functioning. Job satisfaction is commonly considered as either “a global feeling about the job or as a related constellation of attitudes about various aspects or facets of the job” (Spector, 1997, p. 2). Thus, job satisfaction is …

Embracing Uncertainty: A Narrative Case Study On Teacher-Learner Relationships Through Restorative Justice Practices In Education, Zachary Schafer, Guy Trainin

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

Restorative justice practices in educational settings recognising trauma and extreme life circumstances have become increasingly relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing impacts of climate change. This narrative inquiry uses Clandinin and Connelly’s suggestions for data collection and narrative structure to describe the interactions between one teacher and one learner over the course of two years in a programme created as an alternative to school suspension. Using a dual framework combining a variety of perspectives from restorative justice practices and Chen’s model of uncertainty management in science education, the researchers iteratively and thematically analysed the teacher-learner interactions. The storied …

A Global Faostat Reference Database Of Cropland Nutrient Budgets And Nutrient Use Efficiency (1961–2020): Nitrogen, Phosphorus And Potassium, Cameron I. Ludemann, Nathan Wanner, Pauline Chivenge, Achim Dobermann, Rasmus Einarsson, Patricio Grassini, Armelle Gruere, Kevin Jackson, Luis Lassaletta, Federico Maggi, Griffiths Obli-Laryea, Martin K. Van Ittersum, Srishti Vishwakarma, Xin Zhang, Francesco N. Tubiello

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Nutrient budgets help to identify the excess or insufficient use of fertilizers and other nutrient sources in agriculture. They allow for the calculation of indicators, such as the nutrient balance (surplus if positive or deficit if negative) and nutrient use efficiency, that help to monitor agricultural productivity and sustainability across the world. We present a global database of country-level budget estimates for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) on cropland. The database, disseminated in FAOSTAT, is meant to provide a global reference, synthesizing and continuously updating the state of the art on this topic. The database covers 205 countries …

Do Organic Farming Practices Improve Soil Physical Properties?, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Sabrina J. Ruis, Charles A. Francis

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Organic farming (OF) is a reemerging system that could address food security and adverse environmental footprints of conventional farming (CF). However, how OF affects the soil physical environment, an essential pillar for soil ecosystem service delivery, is not well understood. This paper (1) reviews published global literature up to 13 July 2023 regarding the impacts of OF on soil physical properties compared with CF and (2) underlines research needs. Literature indicates OF improves some soil physical properties relative to CF although studies on some properties were few. Specifically, OF increased wet aggregate stability, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and plant available water …