Digital Commons Network^™

Remembering Sam Schuman, Ada Long, Anne Ponder, Ted L. Estess, Bernice Braid, John Knox, Rae Rosenthal, Jeffrey A. Portnoy, John Zubizarreta, John Korstad, Richard Badenhausen, Aron Reppmann

Honors in Practice Online Archive

At the start of his career in 1970 at Cornell College in Iowa, Sam Schuman taught and directed Shakespeare plays, and he also began his long and distinguished career in honors, attending his first NCHC conference in 1974. In 1977, he became Director of the University of Maine Honors Program and, during his four years there, hosted an Honors Semester on the Maine coast. In 1981, he became Academic Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, where Anne Ponder was Director of the Honors Program. He and Anne co-founded NCHC’s annual conference session …

Honors Inquiry In Ireland: Developing A Research-Based Study Abroad Experience For Honors Students, Steven Engel, Howard Keeley

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Honors programs and colleges have long placed experiential education at the core of their missions (Braid and Long). As universities have made experiential learning opportunities available to more and more of their students, a question arises about what makes honors experiential learning distinctive (Donahue). In the university-wide honors program at Georgia Southern University, we asked this question about honors study abroad offerings. With a limited staff and budget, we needed a good rationale for the honors program to develop and run a study abroad experience. Such an experience would need to provide experiential learning that would be distinctive in a …

An Integrated Learning Experience, Dennis R. Harkins

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Defining the practical and theoretical context of honors programs and courses in today’s complex educational climate is challenging. Many institutions have used budget shortages to make decisions to reduce honors offerings that are not in the best interest of the students. Funding for honors programs may seem to be extraneous, but these programs provide a pathway for students to excel academically, establish a higher academic bar, and pursue their personal areas of interest while distinguishing themselves as unique learners. Honors programs allow highly motivated students to navigate across the curriculum and to integrate subject matters at a higher level of …

The Beetles Of The Lesser Antilles (Insecta, Coleoptera): Diversity And Distributions, Stewart B. Peck

Insecta Mundi

The island arc of the Lesser Antilles lies at the eastern margin of the Caribbean Sea in the Western Hemisphere, and stretches from the eastern end of the islands of the Greater Antilles (at the Virgin Islands), south to a position near the continental islands of Trinidad and Tobago at the north eastern corner of South America. The islands are a part of the West Indian Islands biodiversity “hotspot” and have been available for terrestrial colonization for about the past 15 million years. This is a status report on present knowledge of the beetle faunas of these islands, which is …

City As Text™: To Blog Or Not To Blog, Margaret T. Konkel, David Gammack

Honors in Practice Online Archive

In any honors program, the freshman seminar is designed to introduce incoming students to the rigors of collegiate honors study. According to the National Collegiate Honors Council, an honors course ought to have objectives of developing: (1) “effective written communication skills”; (2) “effective oral communication skills”; (3) the “ability to analyze and synthesize a broad range of material”; (4) an understanding of academic and creative processes; and (5) independent and critical thinking (“Honors Course Design,” 2014). The Marymount University Honors Program’s honors freshman seminar (Honors 101) is no exception; its objectives follow many of the concepts outlined by NCHC alongside …

“Something He Could Do Without Being Taught”: Honors, Play, And Harry Potter, Susan Yager

Honors in Practice Online Archive

In a 2011 essay in JNCHC, Annmarie Guzy expressed concern that her honors composition course, which includes reading and writing about J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, “might be considered unorthodox material” (Guzy 89). Humanities faculty who teach Harry Potter, she speculated, might scandalize “other faculty, administrators, students, and the general public” because the series constitutes “popular work” rather than highbrow or literary writing. She had, however, no need for concern. Not only was Guzy’s Potter-themed composition course continued, but scholars in the humanities and elsewhere continue to mine the riches of the Harry Potter series. Its …

A New Species Of Drapetes Megerle (Coleoptera: Elateridae), With Taxonomic Summaries And A Key To The Species Of Northern North America, Paul J. Johnson

Insecta Mundi

Seven species of Drapetes Megerle (Coleoptera: Elateridae) are recognized from northern North America. Drapetes chiricahua new species is described from southeastern Arizona and north-central New Mexico. Drapetes parallelus Van Dyke is a senior homonym of Drapetes paralellus Cobos by variant spelling, and a new synonym of Drapetes cylindricus Fall. Drapetes paralellus Cobos is replaced with Drapetes cobosi new name. Drapetes clarki Bonvouloir is not a North American species and is given a redesignated type locality in Brazil. Drapetes plagiatus (Boheman) is not a California species and is given a redesignated type locality in Panama. New state records are reported …

Procedural Modeling For Ancient Maya Cityscapes: Initial Methodological Challenges And Solutions, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Rachel Plessing

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Digital reconstruction of 3D cityscapes is expensive, time-consuming, and requires significant expertise. We need a 3D modeling approach that streamlines the integration of multiple data types in a time-efficient and low-cost manner. Procedural modeling—rapid proto-typing of 3D models from a set of rules— offers a potential solution to this problem because it allows scholars to create digital reconstructions that can be quickly updated and used to test and formulate alternative hypotheses that are derived from and linked to underlying archaeological data. While procedural modeling is being used to visualize ancient Roman, Etruscan, and Greek cities, in the Maya region the …

Acuta Journal Of Telecommunications In Higher Education

ACUTA Journal

In This Issue

President's Message

From the ACUTA CEO

Legislative/Regulatory Update

Technology Supports Learning at the University of Illinois

App Development as a Learning Tool

Death by Popcorn

It's a Bird...lt's a Plane...lt's a Drone!

Beating the Cell Capacity Crunch

Flipping the Classroom

Saving College Dropouts

Hybrid lT-The new Campus Landscape

The George Washington University lntroduces CAAREN

Flipping Classrooms to Change College STEM Teaching

Project Fi-the Wi-Fi-First Cell Phone

The Gravity Environment Of Zhouqu Debris Flow Of August 2010 And Its Implication For Future Recurrence, Diandong Ren, Lance M. Leslie, Xinyi Shen, Yang Hong, Qingyun Duan, Rezaul Mahmood, Yun Li, Gang Huang, Weidong Guo, Mervyn J. Lynch

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

This study investigates the geological background of the August 7-8, 2010 Zhouqu debris flows in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu, and possible future occurrence of such hazards in the peri-Tibetan Plateau (TP) regions. Debris flows are a more predictable type of landslide because of its strong correlation with extreme precipitation. However, two factors affecting the frequency and magnitude of debris flows: very fine scale precipitation and degree of fracture of bedrock, both defy direct observations. Annual mean Net Primary production (NPP) is used as a surrogate for regional precipitation with patchiness filtered out, and gravity satellite measured regional mass …

A Historical Perspective On Nebraska’S Variable And Changing Climate, Martha Shulski, William Baule, Crystal J. Stiles, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Nebraska is situated at the intersection of the northern and southern Great Plains, exhibiting a dramatic longitudinal gradient for precipitation and humidity, and benefiting from groundwater resources. The continental climate is highly variable temporally both for temperature and precipitation. Our assessment of long-term meteorological observations shows that over the last century the annual average temperature in Nebraska has warmed approximately 0.6°C, which is similar to the increase in the global average temperature over the same time period. Furthermore, we found minimum temperatures have warmed more than maximum temperatures, and winter and spring show the strongest warming. We found no significant …

Start With Us! Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In The Preschool Classroom, Tonia Renee Durden, Elsita Escalante, Kimberly Blitch

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Using an ethnographic case study approach, we examined how teachers and parents within an eth-nically diverse early childhood program conceptualized and implemented culturally relevant peda-gogy and how these primary caregivers were encouraging children’s sociocultural development and awareness. Data sources included questionnaires, interview transcripts, and observational field notes (classroom and community). Findings suggest there were multiple strategies and resources teachers used to facilitate the sociocultural growth of young children indicative of culturally relevant practices. However, we discovered there were mediating factors that impacted how and whether teachers were able to implement culturally relevant pedagogy in the early childhood classroom.

Training Conservation Practitioners To Be Better Decision Makers, Fred Johnson, Mitchell J. Eaton, James H. Williams, Gitte H. Jensen, Jesper Madsen

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Traditional conservation curricula and training typically emphasizes only one part of systematic decision making (i.e., the science), at the expense of preparing conservation practitioners with critical skills in values-setting, working with decision makers and stakeholders, and effective problem framing. In this article we describe how the application of decision science is relevant to conservation problems and suggest how current and future conservation practitioners can be trained to be better decision makers. Though decision-analytic approaches vary considerably, they all involve: (1) properly formulating the decision problem; (2) specifying feasible alternative actions; and (3) selecting criteria for evaluating potential outcomes. Two approaches …

The Groundwater Atlas Of Saunders County, Nebraska, Dana Divine

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Infanticide In Wolves: Seasonality Of Mortalities And Attacks At Dens Support Evolution Of Territoriality, Douglas Smith, Matthew C. Metz, Kira A. Cassidy, Erin E. Stahler, Richard T. Mcintyre, Emily S. Almberg, Daniel R. Stahler

United States National Park Service: Publications

Evidence for territoriality is usually correlative or post hoc as we observe the results of past selection that are challenging to detect. Wolves (Canis lupus) are considered territorial because of competition for food (resource defense), yet they exhibit classic intrinsic behaviors of social regulation (protection against infanticide). This emphasis on prey and infrequent opportunity to observe wild wolf behavior has led to little investigation into the causes of or competitive underpinnings in the evolution of wolf territoriality. We report 6 cases of territorial wolf packs attacking neighboring packs at or near their den; 2 attacks were observed in detail. In …

An Intensified Seasonal Transition In The Central U.S. That Enhances Summer Drought, S.-Y. Simon Wang, Joseph Santanello, Hailan Wang, Daniel Barandiaran, Rachel T. Pinker, Siegfried Schubert, Robert R. Gillies, Robert J. Oglesby, Kyle Hilburn, Ayse Kilic, Paul Houser

United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Publications

In the long term, precipitation in the Central U.S. decreases by 25% during the seasonal transition from June to July. This precipitation decrease has intensified since 1979 and such intensification could have enhanced spring drought occurrences in the Central U.S., in which conditions quickly evolve from being abnormally dry to exceptionally dry. Various atmospheric and land reanalysis data sets were analyzed to examine the trend in the June–July seasonal transition. The intensified deficit in precipitation is accompanied by increased downward shortwave radiation flux, tropospheric subsidence, enhanced evaporative fraction, and elevated planetary boundary layer height, all of which can lead to …

Leaps, Chains, And Climate Change For Western Migratory Songbirds*, Joseph J. Fontaine, Ryan J. Stutzman, Leonard Z. Gannes

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Climate change has increased worldwide temperatures, affected seasonal patterns, and altered important sources of natural selection. To manage wildlife populations successfully, we must understand how patterns and processes of climate change alter trade-offs between sources of selection to predict how individuals may respond, populations may evolve, and management actions may ameliorate the costs of changing climates. Here we discuss how the migratory patterns of leapfrog and chain migration facilitate or constrain responses by migratory songbirds to spatial and temporal variation in climate change across western North America. Based on 52 years of climate data, we show that changes in average …

Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena Australis) Calf Mortality At Península Valdés, Argentina: Are Harmful Algal Blooms To Blame?, Cara Wilson, A. Viviana Sastre, Monica Hoffmeyer, Victoria J. Rowntree, Spencer E. Fire, Norma H. Santinelli, Soledad Diaz Ovejero, Valeria D'Agostino, Carina F. Maron, Gregory J. Doucette, Margaret H. Broadwater, Zhihong Wang, Nora Montoya, Jon Seger, Frederick R. Alder, Mariano Sironi, Marcela M. Uhart

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

Península Valdés (PV) in Argentina is an important calving ground for southern right whales (SRWs, Eubalaena australis). Since 2005, right whale mortality has increased at PV, with most of the deaths (~90%) being calves <3mo old. We investigated the potential involvement of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in these deaths by examining data that include: timing of the SRW deaths, biotoxins in samples from dead SRWs, abundances of the diatom, Pseudo-nitzschia spp., and the dinoflagellate, Alexandrium tamarense, shellfish harvesting closure dates, seasonal availability of whale prey at PV and satellite chlorophyll data. Evidence of the whales’ exposure to HAB toxins includes trace levels of paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) and domoic acid (DA) in tissues of some dead whales, and fragments of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. frustules in whale feces. Additionally, whales are present at PV …

Regional Scale Cropland Carbon Budgets: Evaluating A Geospatial Agricultural Modeling System Using Inventory Data, Xuesong Zhang, Roberto C. Izaurralde, David H. Manowitz, Ritvik Sahajpal, Tristram O. West, Allison M. Thomson, Min Xu, Kaiguang Zhao, Stephen D. Leduc, Jimmy R. Williams

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

Accurate quantification and clear understanding of regional scale cropland carbon (C) cycling is critical for designing effective policies and management practices that can contribute toward stabilizing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. However, extrapolating site-scale observations to regional scales represents a major challenge confronting the agricultural modeling community. This study introduces a novel geospatial agricultural modeling system (GAMS) exploring the integration of the mechanistic Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model, spatially-resolved data, surveyed management data, and supercomputing functions for cropland C budgets estimates. This modeling system creates spatiallyexplicit modeling units at a spatial resolution consistent with remotely-sensed crop identification and assigns cropping systems …

Twentieth Century Droughts And Agriculture: Examples From Impacts On Soybean Production In Kentucky, Usa, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Investigating Diurnal And Seasonal Climatic Response To Land Use And Land Cover Change Over Monsoon Asia With The Community Earth System Model, Rezaul Mahmood

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Competition Expressed: Marking Places Within Rural And Urban Landscapes, Ralph J. Hartley, Sharon L. Kennedy

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The extent to which marking places with images, symbols and/or script on a landscape reflect the dynamics of a socio-economic environment continues to be a subject of interest in social science. Places become socio-culturally meaningful often because of the content of the markings on non-portable surfaces. In some contexts the information content of the markings reveal a perception of propriety when competition for space or other resources between groups and non-kin related individuals characterizes a social environment. In other contexts the content of markings reflect competition between individuals for resources, status, or prestige. Urban environments, dense with diverse human activities, …

Predictors Of Police Reporting Among Hispanic Immigrant Victims Of Violence, Dane Hautala, Kirk Dombrowski, Anthony Marcus

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of police reporting among Hispanic immigrant victims of violence. A sample of 127 Hispanic immigrants was generated through a chain-referral procedure in the city of Hempstead, New York. Participants were asked about their most recent victimization experiences, and detailed information was collected on up to three incidents. The analyses were based on a total of 214 separate victimization incidents, one third of which were reported to the police. Logistic regression analyses indicated that serious injury, multiple-victim incidents, and perceptions of discrimination increase the odds of a police report. Moreover, incidents involving …

Examining The Nuance In Public Opinion Of Pro-Lgb Policies In A "Red State.", Mathew Stange, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The red-blue state and urban–rural narratives— which depict that people living in red states and rural areas oppose pro-LGB policies—are popular frames for describing variation in public opinion of LGB policies by geographic re- gion. In a test case of a red state, we examine public opinion of pro-LGB policies to assess the accuracy of the red–blue and urban–rural narratives. Using data from a survey of Nebraskans (n = 1608), we found that public opinion was more nuanced than the red state narrative allows but that urban and rural respondents reported significantly different opinions of pro- LGB policies. Rural people, …

Invaded Invaders: Infection Of Invasive Brown Treesnakes On Guam By An Exotic Larval Cestode With A Life Cycle Comprised Of Non-Native Hosts, Elden T. Holldorf, Shane R. Siers, Jonathan Q. Richmond, Page E. Klug, Robert N. Reed

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background: Multiple host introductions to the same non-native environment have the potential to complete life cycles of parasites incidentally transported with them. Our goal was to identify a recently detected parasitic flatworm in the invasive Brown Treesnake (Boiga irregularis) on the remote Pacific island of Guam. We considered possible factors influencing parasite transmission, and tested for correlations between infection status and potential indicators of host fitness. We used genetic data from the parasite and information about the native ranges of other possible non-native hosts to hypothesize how it arrived on Guam and how its life cycle may be …

Winter Oilseed Production For Biofuel In The U.S. Corn Belt: Opportunities And Limitations, Aaron J. Sindelar, Marty R. Schmer, Russell W. Gesch, Frank Forcella, Carrie A. Eberle, Matthew D. Thom, David W. Archer

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

Interest from the U.S. commercial aviation industry and commitments established by the U.S. Navy and Air Force to use renewable fuels has spurred interest in identifying and developing crops for renewable aviation fuel. Concern regarding greenhouse gas emissions associated with land-use change and shifting land grown for food to feedstock production for fuel has encouraged the concept of intensifying current prominent cropping systems through various double cropping strategies. Camelina (Camelina sativa L.) and field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) are two winter oilseed crops that could potentially be integrated into the corn (Zea mays L.)-soybean [(Glycine max …

Assessment Of Population Structure Of Coyotes In East-Central Alabama Using Microsatellite Dna, Dalinda L. Damm, James B. Armstrong, Wendy M. Arjo, Antoinette J. Piaggio

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Canis latrans (Coyotes) are a management concern in the southeastern US because of their potential impacts on agriculture, other wildlife species, and human health and safety. This region is part of a recent range expansion by Coyotes, and information about their population structure in the southeastern US is lacking. In this study, we used microsatellite DNA to assess genetic diversity and population structure among Coyotes in east-central Alabama. We detected high genetic diversity (H_E = 0.78) and no population structure across the total sampling area. Additionally, we investigated population structure between urban and rural groups. We detected low but …

A Modeling System To Assess Land Cover Land Use Change Effects On Sav Habitat In The Mobile Bay Estuary, Maurice G. Estes Jr., Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan, Jean T. Ellis, Chaeli Judd, Dana Woodruff, Ronald M. Thom, Dale Quattrochi, Brian Watson, Hugo Rodriguez, Hoyt Johnson Iii, Tom Herder

United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Publications

Estuarine ecosystems are largely influenced by watersheds directly connected to them. In the Mobile Bay, Alabama watersheds we examined the effect of land cover and land use (LCLU) changes on discharge rate, water properties, and submerged aquatic vegetation, including freshwater macrophytes and seagrasses, throughout the estuary. LCLU scenarios from 1948, 1992, 2001, and 2030 were used to influence watershed and hydrodynamic models and evaluate the impact of LCLU change on shallow aquatic ecosystems. Overall, our modeling results found that LCLU changes increased freshwater flows into Mobile Bay altering temperature, salinity, and total suspended sediments (TSS). Increased urban land uses coupled …

Quantifying Renewable Groundwater Stress With Grace, Alexandra S. Richey, Brian F. Thomas, Min-Hui Lo, John T. Reager, James S. Famiglietti, Katalyn Voss, Sean Swenson, Matthew Rodell

United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Publications

Groundwater is an increasingly important water supply source globally. Understanding the amount of groundwater used versus the volume available is crucial to evaluate future water availability. We present a groundwater stress assessment to quantify the relationship between groundwater use and availability in the world’s 37 largest aquifer systems. We quantify stress according to a ratio of groundwater use to availability, which we call the Renewable Groundwater Stress ratio. The impact of quantifying groundwater use based on nationally reported groundwater withdrawal statistics is compared to a novel approach to quantify use based on remote sensing observations from the Gravity Recovery and …

Integrating Geoscience Into Undergraduate Education About Environment, Society, And Sustainability Using Place-Based Learning: Three Examples, David Gosselin, Steven Burian, Tim Lutz, Julie Maxson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

From water to energy, and from climate change to natural hazards, the geosciences (marine, Earth, and atmospheric science) have an important role to play in addressing a wide range of societal issues, with particular relevance to how humans can live sustainably on Earth. Although arguably important to developing solutions for many societal issues, more often than not, students have limited exposure to the geosciences in high school or college. To address this geoscience literacy problem, the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) Talent Expansion Center has engaged members of the geoscience community and their colleagues in allied …