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The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- January 2017, Natalie Umphlett, Jamie Lahowetz, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

30th anniversary......................1

Stakeholder engagement activities......................................2

Product highlights..................3

AWDN information.................4

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

Services update........................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Nebraska Early Childhood Workforce Survey: A Focus On Providers And Teachers, Amy M. Roberts, Iheoma U. Iruka, Susan L. Sarver

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

The Nebraska Early Childhood Workforce Survey was undertaken by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska to better understand the current status, working conditions, and attitudes of caregivers and teachers working with children from birth through Grade 3. Representing the largest and most comprehensive survey ever completed of the state’s early childhood workforce, it provides important insight into the everyday challenges of the professionals who care for and educate our youngest citizens. Research has long made clear the important role adults play in young children’s lives. Children who form strong relationships with adults feel safe to explore …

Local To Global: Developing Solutions And Creating Impacts. Annual Report Fy 2017, Robert B. Daugherty Water For Food Global Institute

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Administrative Materials

FOREWORD - Hank M. Bounds, President, University of Nebraska

PREFACE - Peter G. McCornick, Executive Director

Focus Areas: Where we are headed We are committed to helping the world efficiently use its limited freshwater resources to ensure food security for current and future generations. The diversity of projects and activities in this report reflects the complexity of the challenges we face in achieving this goal through technical and policy research, education and communication. Our research and policy development efforts are focused within five areas to maximize the expertise of DWFI staff, our colleagues at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) …

Potential Surprises – Compound Extremes And Tipping Elements, Robert Kopp, David R. Easterling, Timothy Hall, Katharine Hayhoe, Radley Horton, Kenneth Kunkel, Allegra Legrande

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

1. Positive feedbacks (self-reinforcing cycles) within the climate system have the potential to accelerate human-induced climate change and even shift the Earth’s climate system, in part or in whole, into new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past (for example, ones with greatly diminished ice sheets or different large-scale patterns of atmosphere or ocean circulation). Some feedbacks and potential state shifts can be modeled and quantified; others can be modeled or identified but not quantified; and some are probably still unknown. (Very high confidence in the potential for state shifts and in the incompleteness …

Identifying International Agricultural Concepts For Secondary Agricultural Education Curriculum, Nathan W. Conner, Hailey Gates, Christopher T. Stripling

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The globalization of the agriculture industry has created an emerging need for agricultural education in the United States to take a more globalized approach to prepare students for future careers in agriculture. The purpose of this study was to identify international agricultural concepts for secondary agricultural education curriculum. A Delphi study was used to obtain a general consensus by a panel of experts, and 24 overarching concepts were identified to incorporate into an internationalized secondary agricultural curriculum within the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Career Cluster. The overarching concepts were placed into five categories including: (a) production, (b) business, (c) …

Biomass From Marginal Cropland: Willingness Of North Central Us Farmers To Produce Switchgrass On Their Least Productive Fields, Richard K. Perrin, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Mustapha Alhassan

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

15 Photographs 15 Curators, Matty Cunningham, Ryan Dee, Shane Farritor, Charlie Foster, Derrick Goss, Richard Graham, Pablo Morales, Carrie Morgan, Walker Pickering, Judith Sasso-Mason, David J. Sellmyer, Jamie Swartz, Sriyani Tidball, Elizabeth Vanwormer, Michelle Waite

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

The museum invited fifteen individuals from the university community—faculty, students, staff, administrators—to each choose a photograph from Sheldon’s permanent collection and write a brief reflection on or response to the work. The selected images span history, genres, and styles, just as the participants represent diverse intellectual and creative interests on campus. Equally varied are the reflections themselves. Some participants describe qualities that have drawn them to particular images; others consider the ways art provides a fresh lens for their specialized work in other disciplines.

Photographs:

Monte Gerlach Rising Form

Sarah Charlesworth Candle

Stanley Truman Joinery, Coloma, California

Carrie Mae Weems …

Students’ Opinions About Science And Technology In Turkey And The United States: A Cross-Cultural Study, Hunkar Korkmaz, Julie Thomas, Nilgun Tatar, Serpil Aktas

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The aim of this study is to determine the thoughts of Turkish and American middle school students on science and technology. One intact school was assigned randomly for this study from both countries. The sampling of the study contains 479 students (363 Turkish students, 116 American students) from two countries aged between 11 and 13. The data for the study were obtained by using ROSE Survey. The results of the study revealed similarities and dissimilarities on science and technology between the students of the two countries. The findings of the study are thought to improve the education of universal science …

Management And Modeling Approaches For Controlling Raccoon Rabies: The Road To Elimination, Stacey A. Elmore, Richard B. Chipman, Dennis Slate, Kathryn P. Huyvaert, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Amy T. Gilbert

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Rabies is an ancient viral disease that significantly impacts human and animal health throughout the world. In the developing parts of the world, dog bites represent the highest risk of rabies infection to people, livestock, and other animals. However, in North America, where several rabies virus variants currently circulate in wildlife, human contact with the raccoon rabies variant leads to the highest per capita population administration of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) annually. Previous rabies variant elimination in raccoons (Canada), foxes (Europe), and dogs and coyotes (United States) demonstrates that elimination of the raccoon variant from the eastern US is feasible, given …

Review Of Writing The Stage Coach Nation: Locality On The Move In Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Ruth Livesey

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Starting from the observation that so many of the major Victorian novels are set, not in the railway age in which they were written, but in the horse-drawn world of the previous generation, a world that is 'just past', this fine study explores the ways in which novelists from Waiter Scott to Thomas Hardy use the stage coach to connect particular localities, often closely observed and substantially realized, to the larger framework of the nation. This turning back to the past is not, Ruth Livesey insists, a retreat from the complications and dislocations of a modern present into a simpler …

Evolutionary Explanation For Invasive Abilities Of Centaurea Stoebe (Spotted Knapweed) In Introduced Areas Invasion And Its Effects On Biodiversity In Native Areas, Erin Koren

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Exotic species are those which have been dispersed, either by chance or human action, to an environment outside of their native range. Only a small portion of these exotics are able to become well established in the invaded population and even expand beyond it. The ones that can are termed invasive species (Muller-Scharer, Schaffner & Steinger, 2004; Bais et al., 2003). Broz et al. (2007) estimates that 25,000 species of invasive plants are in the U.S. invading 700,000 hectares of United States wildlife habitat per year and tallies the economic burden of invasive plant species to be around $35 billion …

A Cultural, Economic, And Industrial Analysis Of The Republic Of Poland And Its Financial Services Industry, Jeremy Eberly

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Through its thousand-year existence, the state of Poland has been a continental anomaly. The very existence of the state was questioned, challenged, and influenced by foreign powers intent on empire. At the end of World War II, the then-communist Polish state remained tightly under the influence of the Soviet Union. After years of underlying dissatisfaction with the pitiful performance of a centrally planned economy, the Poles, through “Solidarity,” forced democratic reforms in the late 1980s and capitalism was formally embraced. Explaining why the Poles rejected communism, French anthropologist and renowned political scientist Emmanuel Todd suggests that the roots of the …

Authors & Endmatter (Jnchc 18-1)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the Authors

About the NCHC Monograph Series

NCHC Monographs & Journals

NCHC Publications Order Form

In This Issue (Back cover)

Southeast Farallon Island Arthropod Survey, Jeffrey Honda, Bret Robinson, Michael Valainis, Rick Vetter, Jaime Jahncke

Insecta Mundi

Effective island conservation depends on thorough biodiversity surveys and species assessment. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in coordination with Point Blue Conservation Science undertook a two-year insect survey of the Farallon Islands, California, in order to catalog current insect and spider species on the island and to gather information that will be used to examine prey dynamics to aid in the conservation of the endemic salamander Aneides lugubris (Hallowell). The report lists 11 insect orders representing 60 families, 107 genera and 112 insect species on Southeast Farallon Island. Holometabolous orders were the most represented on the island with Coleoptera …

Foreign And U.S Educated Faculty Members’ Views On What Constitutes Excellent Teaching: Effects Of Gender And Discipline, Emad A. Ismail, James E. Groccia

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study identifies views of foreign-educated faculty who teach in American universities on what constitutes excellence in teaching based on different demographics using the online version of the Teacher Behavior Checklist. Faculty from 14 institutions within the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB) were asked to rank the top 10 of 28 teacher qualities of excellent teaching. The final faculty sample consisted of 448 participants, of which 309 were United States-educated (US-educated), and 139 were foreign-educated. The majority of the foreign-educated faculty were from Asia and Europe. Results showed that both US- and foreign-educated faculty agreed on eight qualities as the …

Trends In Nebraska's Wage Distribution, March 2017

Bureau of Business Research Publications

Trends in Nebraska's Wage Distribution, March 2017

A Model-Based Assessment Of Potential Impacts Of Man-Made Reservoirs On Precipitation, Jesse Winchester, Rezaul Mahmood, William Rodgers, Faisal Hossain, Eric Rappin, Joshua D. Durkee, Themis Chronis

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Land-use land-cover change (LULCC) plays an important role in weather and climate systems. Human modifications of land cover include building reservoirs and thus creating artificial lakes for multipurpose use. In this research, the authors have completed a Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model–based assessment of impacts of two large parallel lakes on precipitation. This area is located in the western part of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee and known as the Land between the Lakes (LBL). To determine the impacts, this study has replaced the lakes with grass, deciduous forests, and bare soil and conducted model simulations for three …

Pest Management: The Historical Management And Developed Resistance Of Western Corn Rootworm, Insect Resistance Management, And The Future Of Control, Mollie Mcmahon

Department of Entomology: Distance Master of Science Projects

Western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera Le Conte, is a corn pest in the United States that has demonstrated overwhelming success an overcoming pest management strategies. Whether it is cultural, chemical, or transgenic control, western corn rootworm has managed to adapt, develop resistance, and create chaos among farmers and agriculture industries. Insect Resistance Management is a component of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Excellence Through Stewardship global organization. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates resistance through laws and regulations and with the help of other government organizations. The goal is to delay resistance, extend trait durability, and protect the environment …

Assessing The Potential For Raw Meat To Influence Human Colonization With Staphylococcus Aureus, Margaret Carrel, Chang Zhao, Dipendra Thapaliya, Patrick Bitterman, Ashley E. Kates, Tara C. Smith

Geography Program: Faculty Publications

The role of household meat handling and consumption in the transfer of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) from livestock to consumers is not well understood. Examining the similarity of S. aureus colonizing humans and S. aureus in meat from the stores in which those individuals shop can provide insight into the role of meat in human S. aureus colonization. S. aureus isolates were collected from individuals in rural and urban communities in Iowa (n = 3347) and contemporaneously from meat products in stores where participants report purchasing meat (n = 913). The staphylococcal protein A (spa) gene was sequenced for all …

A Novel Diffuse Fraction-Based Two-Leaf Light Use Efficiency Model: An Application Quantifying Photosynthetic Seasonality Across 20 Ameriflux Flux Tower Sites, Hao Yan, Shao-Qiang Wang, Kai-Liang Yu, Bin Wang, Qin Yu, Gil Bohrer, Dave P. Billesbach, Rosvel Bracho, Faiz Rahman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

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Diffuse radiation can increase canopy light use efficiency (LUE). This creates the need to differentiate the effects of direct and diffuse radiation when simulating terrestrial gross primary production (GPP). Here, we present a novel GPP model, the diffuse-fraction-based two-leaf model (DTEC), which includes the leaf response to direct and diffuse radiation, and treats maximum LUE for shaded leaves (ε_msh defined as a power function of the diffuse fraction (D_f)) and sunlit leaves (ε_msu defined as a constant) separately. An Amazonian rainforest site (KM67) was used to calibrate the model by simulating the linear relationship between …

Protocol For Surveying Bat Use Of Lava Tube Caves During Winter In Craters Of The Moon National Monument And Preserve, Version 1.0, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Kathleen Slocum, Todd Stefanic, Shawn Thomas, Meghan Lonneker, Gordon Dicus

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

The mission of the National Park Service (NPS) is “to conserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment of this and future generations” (NPS 1999). To uphold this goal, the Director of the NPS approved the Natural Resource Challenge to encourage national parks to focus on the preservation of the nation’s natural heritage through science, natural resource inventories, and expanded resource monitoring (NPS 1999). Through the Challenge, 270 parks in the national park system were organized into 32 inventory and monitoring (I&M) networks.

The Upper Columbia Basin Network Inventory …

Protocol For Surveying Bat Use Of Lava Tube Caves During Winter In Craters Of The Moon National Monument And Preserve, Standard Operating Procedures, Thomas J. Rodhouse, Kathleen Slocum, Todd Stefanic, Shawn Thomas, Meghan Lonneker

United States National Park Service: Publications

Background

The Upper Columbia Basin Network I&M (Inventory and Monitoring) program and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve are collaborating to monitor winter bat use in Arco Tunnel, which is a safely accessed cave in the northern portion of the monument that consistently has been found with the largest number of bats (~30/year) among the set of caves recently inventoried. The standard operating procedures documented here and the methods described in the associated protocol narrative will also be used to periodically inventory other caves within the monument and surrounding preserve as park resources and safety (winter environmental and …

2016 Nebraska Water Leaders Academy - Final Report, Mark E. Burbach, Connie Reimers-Hild

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

The effective management of Nebraska’s water resources is evermore challenged by variations in weather, climate, technology, socioeconomic policies, and regulation. Anthropogenic climate change, declining water tables and stream flows, increasing demands on freshwater, aging water infrastructure, fiscal constraints, and impacts on aquatic organisms are particularly imminent challenges in Nebraska and around the world (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2013; Pittock et al., 2008; USACE, 2010). Sustaining freshwater ecosystem services in the face of emerging environmental threats presents an immense societal dilemma worldwide (Pittock et al., 2013; Rockström et al., 2009, Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The rapidly changing conditions of water resources in …

Determining Soil Erosion Rates On Semi-Arid Watersheds Using Radioisotope-Derived Sedimentation Chronology, V. O. Polyakov, M. N. Nichols, M. A. Nearing

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

This study investigates erosion dynamics of the past 90 years in three small semi-arid watersheds with histories of grazing and vegetation change. Activity of ¹³⁷Cs and excess ²¹⁰Pb from 18 cores collected from sedimentation ponds were measured using a gamma spectrometer. The sediment was dated using a constant rate of supply (CRS) model. This study represents the first time that reservoir sediment accumulation rates determined from fallout isotopes have been verified by direct volumetric measurements of aggradation based on topographic surveys. Measured sedimentation in the ponds ranged between 1.9 and 2.3cm y^-1, representing average sediment delivery …

Restoring Civil Rights To The Disabled In Health Insurance, Valarie K. Blake

Nebraska Law Review

I. Introduction

II. The Disabled, Health Insurance, and Benefits Discrimination ... A. The Relationship Between Medical Need and Disability ... B. Health Insurance and the Disabled ... 1. Public Insurance ... 2. Private Insurance ... C. The Role for Civil Rights in Health Insurance

III. The Access/Content Distinction and Health Insurance ... A. Alexander v. Choate ... B. The Access/Content Distinction Post-Choate ... C. Critiques of the Access/Content Distinction

IV. Reinstating Civil Rights for the Disabled in Health Insurance ... A. Section 1557, Agency, and the Access/Content Distinction ... 1. Section 1557 ... 2. Section 1557’s Impact on the …

Mapping Quality Of Life In Nebraska: The Geographic Distribution Of Poverty, Grant Daily, Rodrigo Cantarero, Maria Rosario De Guzman, Soo-Young Hong, Sarah Taylor, Aileen Garcia, Jeong-Kyun Choi, Yan Ruth Xia

Mapping Quality of Life in Nebraska

Headings:

What is poverty?

Federal definitions of poverty: the poverty line

General poverty and poverty brackets

Poverty and vulnerable populations

Child poverty (under 18 years)

Young child poverty (0 - 5 years)

School age poverty (6 - 17 years)

Elderly poverty (65+)

Comparing child, adult, and elderly poverty

Minority poverty

Key points

Nebraska vs. United States

Geographic distribution

Poverty in children and the elderly

Poverty rates for racial/ethnic minorities

References

Ncuwm Talk And Poster Abstracts 2017

Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Species Distributions Models In Wildlife Planning: Agricultural Policy And Wildlife Management In The Great Plains, Joseph J. Fontaine, Christopher F. Jorgensen, Erica F. Stuber, Lutz F. Gruber, Andrew A. Bishop, Jeffrey J. Lusk, Eric S. Zach, Karie L. Decker

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

We know economic and social policy has implications for ecosystems at large, but the consequences for a given geographic area or specific wildlife population are more difficult to conceptualize and communicate. Species distribution models, which extrapolate species-habitat relationships across ecological scales, are capable of predicting population changes in distribution and abundance in response to management and policy, and thus, are an ideal means for facilitating proactive management within a larger policy framework. To illustrate the capabilities of species distribution modeling in scenario planning for wildlife populations, we projected an existing distribution model for ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) onto …

List Of Contributors

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The 42 contributors include Salvatore Gaspa, Cécile Michel, Marie-Louise Nosch, Elena Soriga, Louise Quillien, Luigi Malatacca, Nahum Ben-Yehuda, Christina Katsikadeli, Orit Shamir, Agnes Korn, Georg Warning, Birgit Anette Olsen, Stella Spantidaki, Peder Flemestad, Peter Herz, Ines Bogensperger, Herbert Graßl, Mary Harlow, Berit Hildebrandt, Magdalena Öhrman, Roland Schuhmann, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, John Peter Wild, Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert, Julia Galliker, Anne Regourd, Fiona J. L. Handley, Götz König, Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo, Stefan Niederreiter, Oswald Panagl, Giovanni Fanfani, Le Wang, Feng Zhao, Mari Omura, Naoko Kizawa, Maciej Szymaszek, Francesco Meo, Felicitas Maeder, Kalliope Sarri, Susanne Lervad, and Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen.

Reframing Islamic Art For The 21st Century, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The celebrated Islamic galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York reopened in 2011 as “Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.” Other major collections of Islamic art have been reorganized and reinstalled in Berlin, Cairo, Cleveland, Copenhagen, Detroit, Kuwait, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Singapore, and new museums of Islamic art have been established in Doha, Qatar; Honolulu, Hawaii; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Sharjah, U.A.E. In addition, the first museum in North America dedicated to Islamic art recently opened in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This article explores this global phenomenon, …