Digital Commons Network^™

Cognition And Context: Rural–Urban Differences In Cognitive Aging Among Older Mexican Adults, Joseph L. Saenz, Brian Downer, Marc A. Garcia, Rebeca Wong

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objective—To describe differences in cognitive functioning across rural and urban areas among older Mexican adults.

Method—We include respondents aged 50+ in the 2012 Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS). Cognitive functioning by domain is regressed as a function of community size. The role of educational attainment in explaining rural/urban differences in cognitive functioning is examined.

Results—Respondents residing in more rural areas performed worse across five cognitive domains. The majority, but not all, of the association between community size and cognitive functioning was explained by lower education in rural areas.

Discussion—Respondents residing in more rural areas were disadvantaged in terms of …

Placing The Common Era In A Holocene Context: Millennial To Centennial Patterns And Trends In The Hydroclimate Of North America Over The Past 2000 Years, Bryan N. Shuman, Cody Routson, Nicholas Mckay, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Darrell Kaufman, Matthew E. Kirby, Connor Nolan, Gregory T. Pederson, Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

A synthesis of 93 hydrologic records from across North and Central America, and adjacent tropical and Arctic islands, reveals centennial to millennial trends in the regional hydroclimates of the Common Era (CE; past 2000 years). The hydrological records derive from materials stored in lakes, bogs, caves, and ice from extant glaciers, which have the continuity through time to preserve low-frequency ( > 100 year) climate signals that may extend deeper into the Holocene. The most common pattern, represented in 46 (49 %) of the records, indicates that the centuries before 1000 CE were drier than the centuries since that time. Principal …

Morphological And Histological Description Of Small Metoposaurids From Petrified Forest National Park, Az, Usa And The Taxonomy Of Apachesaurus, Bryan M. Gee, William G. Parker

United States National Park Service: Publications

Metoposaurids are Late Triassic temnospondyls that are abundant components of freshwater deposi- tional settings. Although metoposaurids are represented by hundreds of specimens in collections around the world, the vast majority pertain to large-bodied, relatively mature individuals, and as a result, the early stages of ontogeny are still poorly characterised. Small-bodied metoposaurids from North America have traditionally been assigned to Apachesaurus gregorii, interpreted as a diminutive taxon, but this interpretation has not been rigorously tested. Here we provide a morphological description of two new small-bodied metoposaurid specimens from Petrified Forest National Park, AZ, USA. Both provide various anatomical details that improve …

Testing Methods To Mitigate Caribbean Yellow-Band Disease On Orbicella Faveolata, Carly J. Randall, Elizabeth M. Whitcher, Tessa Code, Clayton Pollock, Ian Lundgren, Zandy Hillis-Starr, Erinn M. Muller

United States National Park Service: Publications

Outbreaks of coral diseases continue to reduce global coral populations. In the Caribbean, yellow band is a severe and wide-spread disease that commonly affects corals of the Orbicella spp. complex, significantly impeding coral reproduction, and hindering the natural recovery of Orbicella spp. populations. Caribbean yellow-band disease (CYBD) lesions may be severe, and often result in the complete loss of coral tissue. The slow spread of CYBD, however, provides an opportunity to test methods to mitigate the disease. Here we report the results of in situ experiments, conducted within Buck Island Reef National Monument in St. Croix, USVI, to test the …

U.S. Agro-Climate In 20th Century: Growing Degree Days, First And Last Frost, Growing Season Length, And Impacts On Crop Yields, Meetpal Singh Kukal, Suat Irmak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Significant air temperature changes have occurred globally during the 20th century, which are spatially variable to a considerable degree and these changes can have substantial implications in agroecosystem productivity. The agroclimate indicators that are responsible in these contexts are first fall frost (FFF), last spring frost (LSF), climatological growing season (CGS) length, and heat accumulation (growing degree days, GDD). We explore spatial and temporal trends associated with these indices across the continental U.S. (CONUS) during 1900–2014 using datasets collected at 1218 sites. On average, FFF has been occurring later (by 5.4 days century⁻¹), and LSF has been occurring …

Firm Structure And Environment As Contingencies To The Corporate Venture Capital–Parent Firm Value Relationship, Varkey K. Titus Jr., Brian Anderson

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is a valuable strategic tool associated with numerous innovative outcomes. However, less is known about whether CVC investing creates value for the investing (or parent) firm. Drawing from the attention-based view and contingency theory, we suggest that an increase in firm value from CVC investing is contingent on attentional mechanisms that discipline the selection of new investment opportunities. We posit that increases in firm value associated with CVC investing accrues to firms adopting specific operational structures and operating in particular environmental contexts. We find support for our research model in a sample of 95 companies between …

Challenging The Norm Of Minimums: A Case Study Of Ada Design Standards On The University Of Nebraska–Lincoln Campus, Emily Drummy

Interior Design Program: Student Creative Activity

In the United States, over 30 million people have difficulties climbing stairs and require the use of a walker, cane, or wheelchair to move around (United States Census Bureau, 2012). All people interact with the built environment around them, including the some thirty million who deal with physical difficulties. While some can navigate the space around them easily, others have more difficulty due to certain barriers. Often, interior environments are designed with the able bodied in mind, not accommodating properly for the disabled even in the most basic of ways. Despite the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) …

Winter Bat Activity In A Landscape Without Traditional Hibernacula, Amy M. Hammesfahr, Rene E. Ohms

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Prior to 2014, bat research at Devils Tower National Monument (DETO) focused on bats present during the summer months. Biologists at DETO assumed local bats were strictly summer residents due to the presumed lack of typical habitat features associated with bat hibernation, such as caves and mines. This lack of traditional hibernacula features at DETO discouraged staff and research cooperators from studying winter bat populations. Despite the earlier assumption that bats were unlikely to hibernate on the monument, DETO documented significant winter bat activity through passive winter acoustic monitoring. This study is the first study at DETO that documents …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring At Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, 2017 Data Summary Report, Stephanie L. Rockwood

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2017 at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) and the Northern Great Plains Fire Effects Program (NGPFire). This was the seventh year of field work conducted by NGPN at AGFO.

In 2017, crew members from NGPN visited six long-term plant community monitoring (PCM) plots and NGPFire visited eight additional PCM and fire plant community monitoring (FPCM) plots to collect data on the plant communities at AGFO. This collaborative effort is part of a long-term monitoring program established to better …

The Influence Of Context On Metacognition And Its Measurement, Markeya S. Peteranetz

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

Metacognition enhances students’ efforts to effectively self-regulate their learning. It is a multifaceted construct that includes metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation, and metacognitive experiences. Metacognition theory clearly indicates that metacognitive regulation should be impacted by the context in which the learning takes place, but little empirical research has attempted to show this effect of context on metacognitive regulation. The purpose dissertation of this was to investigate how context influences undergraduate students’ use of metacognitive regulation. To this end, an instrument (the Metacognition Inventory for Post-Secondary Students; MIPSS) that assesses metacognitive knowledge globally and metacognitive regulation as a context-dependent construct was created …

Exploring Adolescent Dating Violence In Rural Communities: A Mixed Methods Study, Sarah A. Taylor

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

Adolescent dating violence (ADV) occurs nearly twice as often among rural adolescents than it does among non-rural adolescents. Research has suggested several reasons for this population difference. First, people in the rural context oftentimes have traditional gender role attitudestowards male dominance over women, which can be displayed in the form of relationship violence. People in the rural context also tend to have less access to friends and resources (e.g., social services), whichcan further perpetuate violence by limiting a victim’s opportunity to seek help. In addition, rural individuals tend to have a reduced sense of anonymity, and thus, victims may be …

Neogene Stratigraphy And Paleoenvironments In The Lauca Basin Of Northern Chile, Amanda Jones

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

This thesis examines a late Miocene to Pliocene sedimentary succession in the Lauca Basin, a topographically isolated, fluvio-lacustrine basin in the northern Chilean Altiplano. A sedimentary section within the Lauca Basin, composed of Lauca Formation sediments, was investigated using stratigraphic and petrographic analyses to define the Miocene to Pliocene paleoenvironmental history of the region. Geochronologic results indicate the section ranges in age from approximately 5.57 +/- 0.20 Ma to 5.44 +/- 0.16 Ma. The sedimentology of 36 samples was described, and twelve samples were analyzed petrographically. Five lithofacies were characterized: laminated mudstone (Fl), volcaniclastic mudstone (Fv), carbonate (C), evaporite (E), …

Reading Charlotte Brontë Reading, Madhumita Gupta

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This essay considers the significance of undirected childhood reading on an author’s mind and the reason some authors reference specific real books in their fiction. I argue that independent reading (as against schooling or formal education), and the direct and indirect references to certain books in Jane Eyre^[1] were deliberate, well-thought-out inclusions for specific purposes at different points in the story. When a title pointedly says Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, it is probable that a significant part of the author’s life has seeped into her creation which makes it essential to consider the relevant parts of her life to …

Between Global And Local: Geometric Patterns Of Gallic Roman Mosaics, Rebecca Salem

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

It is often assumed that mosaicists working in different parts of the Roman Empire utilized specific repertoires of geometric patterns, specific to that locality, which formed distinct regional styles. Accordingly, scholarship has sought to assign particular layouts and ornamentation to different areas around the Empire: illusionistic patterns mimicking architectural elements such as coffering in the Eastern Roman Empire, black and white scenes of imagery with no geometric designs in central Italy, and large figural scenes bordered with geometric patterns in North Africa. But this existing model of regional difference does not explain the similarities that can also be seen. For …

Archaeology And Tourism In The Early 20th Century: Pompeii Through A Photographic Archive, Rebecca A. Salem

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Held at the University of Nebraska State Museum, the Iain C.G. Campbell collection contains thirty-nine photographs taken at Pompeii and Athens, forty-six postcards from multiple archaeological sites around the Mediterranean, and two Roman style lamps. Dating to the early nineteen hundreds, this collection was brought to Nebraska by Iain C.G. Campbell, the son of Gladys Annie Campbell née Theophilus, the original collector and the woman who is thought to be shown in two of the photographs from the collection. Campbell moved to Nebraska after his marriage to Gladys Perry, a native Nebraskan, and brought with him his mother’s collection. Donated …

Agricultural Production And Forest Preservation In The Brazilian Amazon, Felipe De Figueiredo Silva, Richard K. Perrin, Lilyan E. Fulginiti

Cornhusker Economics

Brazil has become a strong competitor in world soybean production. In 2014, Brazil produced 28% of the world’s soybeans, while the United States produced 34%. Brazil increased its production sharply during the 1990s and 2000s, partly due to the expansion into the Amazon forest region. Soybean was one of the main commodities that led to this expansion. In 2016, the Legal Amazon region produced 33% of the Brazilian soybean production compared to 15% in 1990 (Figure 1).

Energetic Tradeoffs Control The Size Distribution Of Aquatic Mammals, William Gearty, Craig R. Mcclain, Jonathan Payne

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Four extant lineages of mammals have invaded and diversified in the water: Sirenia, Cetacea, Pinnipedia, and Lutrinae. Most of these aquatic clades are larger bodied, on average, than their closest land-dwelling relatives, but the extent to which potential ecological, biomechanical, and physiological controls contributed to this pattern remains untested quantitatively. Here, we use previously published data on the body masses of 3,859 living and 2,999 fossil mammal species to examine the evolutionary trajectories of body size in aquatic mammals through both comparative phylogenetic analysis and examination of the fossil record. Both methods indicate that the evolution of an aquatic lifestyle …

Unl Emeriti And Retirees Association Newsletter, Spring 2018

UNL Emeriti and Retirees Association: Newsletters and Other Materials

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Emeriti and Retirees Association Newsletter, Spring 2018

Strategic Audit Of National Instruments, Grant Fishburn

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The research and analyses compiled in this paper provide a holistic view into the current situation that National Instruments faces as a company and what strategies it can take to overcome current and pressing issues. The goal of the audit is to determine a strategic recommendation for National Instruments that will achieve any number of goals and objectives set by the auditor in accordance to the situation at hand. In addition to this strategic recommendation, an implementation and contingency plan are developed to further expand upon how such a strategy would be created in the real world. The strategic recommendation …

High-Resolution Water Footprints Of Production Of The United States

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The United States is the largest producer of goods and services in the world. Rainfall, surface water supplies, and groundwater aquifers represent a fundamental input to economic production. Despite the importance of water resources to economic activity, we do not have consistent information on water use for specific locations and economic sectors. A national, spatially detailed database of water use by sector would provide insight into U.S. utilization and dependence on water resources for economic production. To this end, we calculate the water footprint of over 500 food, energy, mining, services, and manufacturing industries and goods produced in the United …

A Naturalist’S Guide To The Great Plains, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This book documents nearly 500 US and Canadian locations where wildlife refuges, nature preserves, and similar properties protect natural sites that lie within the North American Great Plains, from Canada’s Prairie Provinces to the Texas-Mexico border. Information on site location, size, biological diversity, and the presence of especially rare or interesting flora and fauna are mentioned, as well as driving directions, mailing addresses, and phone numbers or internet addresses, as available. US federal sites include 11 national grasslands, 13 national parks, 16 national monuments, and more than 70 national wildlife refuges. State properties include nearly 100 state parks and wildlife …

Umphlett Qci March 2018, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Mountain Snowpack

Enhanced Fire Activity During Winter

Utilities Impacted by Extreme Cold

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Winter Drought Conditions and Outlook

Youth Voice In A Rural Cradle-To-Career Network, Sarah J. Zuckerman, Jennifer Mcatee

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Outmigration, economic restructuring, and other challenges require rural communities to adapt. Area-based initiatives, such as cradle-to-career networks, have been seen as a means for increasing community resiliency through the simultaneous creation of social capital and civic and economic redevelopment. Community resiliency is often seen as a single-generation issue; however, developing youth’s voices provides simultaneous positive youth development and community civic development that can support community resiliency. This qualitative case study examines how youth voice opportunities were used in a rural cradle-to-career network to build towards future research on the role of youth voice in area-based initiatives and community resiliency.

Interim Performance Report, Lg‐71‐16‐0152‐16, Extending Intelligent Computational Image Analysis For Archival Discovery, February 2018, Elizabeth Lorang, Leen-Kiat Soh, John O'Brien

CDRH Grant Reports

No abstract provided.

Spectrally Based Bathymetric Mapping Of A Dynamic, Sandbedded Channel: Niobrara River, Nebraska, Usa, E. Dilbone, C.J. Legleiter, J.S. Alexander, B. Mcelroy

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Methods for spectrally based mapping of river bathymetry have been developed and tested in clear‐flowing, gravel‐bed channels, with limited application to turbid, sandbed rivers. This study used hyperspectral images and field surveys from the dynamic, sandy Niobrara River to evaluate three depth retrieval methods. The first regressionbased approach, optimal band ratio analysis (OBRA), paired in situ depth measurements with image pixel values to estimate depth. The second approach used ground‐based field spectra to calibrate an OBRA relationship. The third technique, image‐to‐depth quantile transformation (IDQT), estimated depth by linking the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of depth to the CDF of an …

Developing A Remotely Sensed Drought Monitoring Indicator For Morocco, Noureddine Bijaber, Driss El Hadani, Mariam Saidi, Mark D. Svoboda, Christopher Hain, Calvin Christian Poulsen, Mohammed Yessef, Atmane Rochdi

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought is one of the most serious climatic and natural disasters inflicting serious impacts on the socio-economy of Morocco, which is characterized both by low-average annual rainfall and high irregularity in the spatial distribution and timing of precipitation across the country. This work aims to develop a comprehensive and integrated method for drought monitoring based on remote sensing techniques. The main input parameters are derived monthly from satellite data at the national scale and are then combined to generate a composite drought index presenting different severity classes of drought. The input parameters are: Standardized Precipitation Index calculated from satellite-based precipitation …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Scotts Bluff National Monument, 2017 Data Report, Ryan Manuel

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2017 at Scotts Bluff National Monument (SCBL) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) and Northern Great Plains Fire Ecology Program (NGPFire).

During the seventh full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited eight long-term monitoring plots on May 22-25, 2017 to collect data on the plant communities at SCBL. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort to better understand the condition of the vegetation at SCBL. NGPN staff captured data relating to species richness, herb-layer height, abundance of individual native and non-native …

Acoustic Surveys Of Bats At Northern Great Plains Parks And Preliminary Results From 2014-16, Daniel S. Licht

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

From 2014-16, the Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (Network)—in collaboration with the Midwest Regional Biologist—used acoustic methods to monitor bat populations at 12 Network parks. Six parks were monitored using the nascent North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) framework. Six other parks did not meet a priori criteria for inclusion in NABat so they were monitored using similar methods, but a non-systematic sampling frame.

Fifty-five NABat stations were established along with 62 non-NABat stations. Stations were typically monitored for 4-7 nights each year using equipment that records the echolocation calls of bats. Fourteen mobile survey routes …

Systematic Approach To Identifying Deeply Buried Archeological Deposits, Anthony L. Layzell, Rolfe D. Mandel, Courtney L. Ziska, John R. Bozell

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This project is designed to assist cultural resource specialists involved in Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) project planning and development. The goal was to develop Geographic Information System (GIS) data layers that spatially delineate different landform-sediment assemblages (LSAs) and depict the associated geologic potential for buried cultural deposits in select watersheds in Nebraska. The Nebraska Buried Sites GIS resource will allow planners and cultural resource specialists to determine whether future project areas are likely to be free of deeply buried sites or whether subsurface exploration is necessary.

Mdpi Annual Report 2017, Mdpi

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Contents: Message from the CEO ● MDPI at a Glance ● Key Figures ● 19 Journals Launched in 2017 ● Preprints.org in 2017 ● Scilit in 2017 ● Sciforum in 2017 ● Institutional Open Access Program in 2017 ● OA Initiatives in 2017 ● Top MDPI Books in 2017 ● Journal Development in 2017 ● Journals Tracked for Impact Factor in 2018 ● Electronic Conferences in 2017 ● Call for Expression of Interest ● Physical Conferences in 2017 ● About MDPI ● Corporate Social Responsibility at MDPI ● Upcoming Physical Conferences in 2018 ● Collaborations with Societies ● JAMS ● …