Digital Commons Network^™

Harbor Seal Population Decline In The Aleutian Archipelago, Robert Small, Peter Boveng, G. Vernon Byrd, David Withrow

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

Populations of Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, and northern sea otters declined substantially during recent decades in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region, yet the population status of harbor seals has not been assessed adequately. We determined that counts obtained during skiff-based surveys conducted in 1977–1982 represent the earliest estimate of harbor seal abundance throughout the Aleutian Islands. By comparing counts from 106 islands surveyed in 1977–1982 (8,601 seals) with counts from the same islands during a 1999 aerial survey (2,859 seals), we observed a 67% decline over the ∼20-year period. Regionally, the largest decline of 86% was …

Distribution And Environmental Limitations Of An Amphibian Pathogen In The Rocky Mountains, Usa, Erin Muths, David S. Pilliod, Lauren J. Livo

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Amphibian populations continue to be imperiled by the chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). Understanding where B. dendrobatidis (Bd) occurs and how it may be limited by environmental factors is critical to our ability to effectively conserve the amphibians affected by Bd. We sampled 1247 amphibians (boreal toads and surrogates) at 261 boreal toad (Bufo boreas) breeding sites (97 clusters) along an 11° latitudinal gradient in the Rocky Mountains to determine the distribution of B. dendrobatidis and examine environmental factors, such as temperature and elevation, that might affect its distribution. The fungus was detected at …

Paleoclimatic Significance Of Chemical Weathering In Loess-Derived Paleosols Of Subarctic Central Alaska, Daniel R. Muhs, Thomas A. Ager, Gary Skipp, Jossh Beann, James Budahn, John P. Mcgeehin

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Chemical weathering in soils has not been studied extensively in high-latitude regions. Loess sequences with modern soils and paleosols are present in much of subarctic Alaska, and allow an assessment of present and past chemical weathering. Five sections were studied in detail in the Fairbanks, Alaska, area. Paleosols likely date to mid-Pleistocene interglacials, the last interglacial, and early-to-mid- Wisconsin interstadials. Ratios of mobile (Na, Ca, Mg, Si) to immobile (Ti or Zr) elements indicate that modern soils and most interstadial and interglacial paleosols are characterized by significant chemical weathering. Na₂O/TiO₂ is lower in modern soils and most …

Carbon Cycling At The Landscape Scale: The Effect Of Changes In Climate And Fire Frequency On Age Distribution, Stand Structure, And Net Ecosystem Production., Michael G. Ryan, Daniel M. Kashian, Erica A.H. Smithwick, William H. Romme, Monica G. Turner, Daniel B. Tinker

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Understanding the interactions between climate, fire and forest characteristics-- and how carbon dynamics are affected by these factors--remains an important challenge in ecology. As the size and severity of fires in the western US continues to increase (Westerling et al. 2006), it has become increasingly important to understand carbon dynamics in response to fire. In this study, we investigated these key interactions in the landscape of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). We asked how initial post-fire heterogeneity in forest structure (especially tree density and stand age) controls carbon dynamics over the full life cycle of individual forest stands, and how climate-mediated …

The History Of The Unl Water Center From 1964, Water Center, School Of Natural Resources

Nebraska Water Center: Administrative Materials

Water is an integral part of Nebraska’s economy and well being in a state that depends on an adequate supply for all uses, including agricultural, municipal, industrial, recreational and wildlife habitat.

Nebraska is fortunate with regard to its water supply, having tremendous groundwater reserves which are estimated to be in excess of two billion acrefeet (an acre-foot being enough water to cover one acre of land with a foot of water, or approximately 325,000 gallons), combined with an estimated annual precipitation of 86 million acre-feet and annual average surface water inflows of 1.7 million acre-feet, give the state adequate supplies …

Population Abundance And Growth Rate Of Western Gray Whales Eschrichtius Robustus, Amanda L. Bradford, David W. Weller, Paul R. Wade, Alexander M. Burdin, Robert L. Brownell Jr.

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

The western population of gray whales Eschrichtius robustus is one of the most endangered whale populations in the world. Recent studies of this population off the northeastern coast of Sakhalin Island, Russia, have produced a photographic dataset that was utilized for the first mark-recapture assessment of western gray whale abundance. Given encounter histories of 129 individually identified whales spanning 25 monthly capture occasions from 1997 to 2003, a closed capture estimator was employed to estimate the number of individuals using the study area in each year. Temporary emigration probabilities were then applied to the closed capture estimates to enumerate the …

Flower Power: Tree Flowering Phenology As A Settlement Cue For Migrating Birds, Laura J. Mcgrath, Charles Van Riper Iii, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

1.Neotropical migrant birds show a clear preference for stopover habitats with ample food supplies; yet, the proximate cues underlying these decisions remain unclear. 2.For insectivorous migrants, cues associated with vegetative phenology (e.g. flowering, leaf flush, and leaf loss) may reliably predict the availability of herbivorous arthropods. Here we examined whether migrants use the phenology of five tree species to choose stopover locations, and whether phenology accurately predicts food availability. 3.Using a combination of experimental and observational evidence, we show migrant populations closely track tree phenology, particularly the flowering phenology of honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), and preferentially forage in …

Community Social Interactive Processes And Rural Adolescents’ Educational Outcomes: What We Know And What We Need To Know, Omolola A. Adedokun, Mark A. Balschweid

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

The low educational outcomes of rural adolescents have long been a subject of research among educational and social researchers. In particular, extant studies have explained the high rates of high school dropout and low rates of college completion among rural adolescents mainly in terms of the structural and economic disadvantages associated with rural life. However, more recent research have employed social capital theory to show that rural adolescents‟ educational outcomes are shaped not only by the structural elements of their communities, but, also importantly by the dynamics of the social interactive processes taking place within this social environment. The present …

Expressions Of Power – Luxury Textiles From Early Medieval Northern Europe, Sonja Marzinzik

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses on luxury textiles from archaeological and non-archaeological contexts in north-western Europe. Select case studies of the 6th to 10th centuries AD, with reference to earlier and later examples, are used to introduce the contexts in which such textiles are found and to illustrate in what manner they accentuated the status of those in power.

The period under discussion saw fundamental change in the transition from Late Antiquity to a number of Germanic successor states of the Roman Empire and in the firm establishment of Christianity north of the Alps. These sociopolitical transformations found their reflection in material …

Norwegian Natural Dyeing: Art, Craft, Gender And Innovation - Natural Dyes As A Tradition In Norway, Mette Biering

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As you may know, Norway is located far north in Europe. We have a cold climate with a short summer, during which nature almost explodes. The country is sparsely populated, and because only 2 per cent of the land is suited for farming, Norwegians never supported themselves exclusively from growing crops. Multi-tasking and trading have always been necessary to survive “on top of the globe.”

Despite the short summers, sources for all the rainbow colors can be found in nature. Plants, trees, bark, lichen, shrubs, mushrooms, seaweed and even purple snails (Nucella lapillus), are something the old Norsemen and women …

“I’Ve Got A Feeling We’Re Not In Kansas, Anymore:” Cross-Cultural Design In Peruvian Connection’S Textiles, Margarete Ordon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Peruvian Connection is a high-end clothing, mail-order catalog company that has built its reputation on clothes made from finely crafted textiles in luxury fibers. The company appropriates elements from various textile practices and fuses them with Western fashion. The company simultaneously stresses distance and connection, colonization and celebration. We cannot simply locate the company in the rural Kansas town in which the corporate headquarters are based. Rather, this company straddles multiple geographic, temporal, and cultural locations, while simultaneously trying to ground its products in Peru. But we’re not in Kansas anymore, and we’re not in Peru, either.

I have chosen …

The Quilt Index: Communicating Stories In The Stitches, Mary Worrall, Marsha Macdowell, Justine Richardson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the last third of the twentieth century, a revival of quiltmaking occurred throughout the world along with a concurrent emergence of quilts as a focus of documentation and study. The rise of the feminist art movement in the 1960s and a heightened national interest in American history spawned by the nation’s bicentennial celebration in 1976 paved the way for a burst of interest in historical and contemporary American traditions, women’s artistic contributions, crafts in general and quiltmaking in particular. Millions of individuals began making quilts, an art form that had languished after World War II. By 2006, there were …

Mending As Metaphor: Contemporary Fiber And Cultural Change, Mary Babcock

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

My vision in curating the exhibition of which I speak, “Tattered Cultures: Mended Histories” in conjunction with this 11^th Textile of America Symposium is to reveal “mending” as a potent metaphor for cultural enrichment and transformation. The work reminds us to honor textiles as living — not historical— research tools, and to invites us to continue to locate contemporary concerns with issues of marginalization, colonialism and social justice as an essential discourse within textile arts.

Wind Scour Of Navajo Sandstone At The Wave (Central Colorado Plateau, U.S.A.), David B. Loope, Winston M. Seiler, Joseph A. Mason, Marjorie A. Chan

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

At the Wave, a photogenic landform on the Utah–Arizona border, modern, southwesterly, sand-carrying winds abrade the Navajo Sandstone. Abundant trains of centimeter-scale, transverse, upwind-facing treads and risers cut sedimentary structures at a high angle. Central to the formation of these erosional steps are crusts produced by microbes lying just beneath exposed sandstone surfaces. Treads and risers are present on the walls of smoothly curved troughs at the Wave, on the walls of nearby circular scour pits, and on bedrock domes found at the center of scour pits. Because of their locations and orientations, the large-scale troughs and scour pits could …

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 40, Number 2, Winter 2008

Nebraska Transcript

2 Space and Telecom Law

7 Taking Shape: Construction Projects to Add Classrooms, Renovate Restrooms

13 What’s New in the CSO?

15 Assistant Dean Gloden Comes Back to the Good Life

17 Estop The Music

35 Giving and Receiving with Charitable Remainder Unitrusts

36 Hong First to Receive Outstanding International Alumnus Award

37 Fiala Finds That Preparation Pays In Classroom, Courtroom, Radio Booth

39 Hendry at Home in Classroom

Dean’s Message ; 9 Donor Recognition ; 10 Award of Merit ; 11 Law Library Tales & Tables ; 18 Faculty Notes ; 21 Faculty News ; 23 Graduation ; 26 …

Literary New England: Planning And Implementing Domestic Travel Study, Craig Cobane, Derick Strode

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Domestic travel courses provide honors programs/colleges a variety of educational opportunities to immerse students in a culture different from their own. This essay presents one example of an honors-sponsored domestic travel course and discusses its differences from and similarities to study abroad courses. Additionally, we discuss the various elements that go into conceiving, developing, and executing such an educational experience. The essay is structured to provide a roadmap for creating a domestic travel course.

Honors In Practice, Volume 4 (Complete Issue)

Honors in Practice Online Archive

CONTENTS
Editorial Policy
Submission Guidelines
Dedication to Elizabeth C. Beck
Editor’s Introduction Ada Long

2007 CONFERENCE PLENARY ADDRESSES
Determining the Significance of Honors Katherine E. Bruce
Portable Widgets and Techie Tattoos: Honors of the Future Rosalie C. Otero
Honors in 2025: Becoming What You Emulate Craig T. Cobane
Honors 2025: The Future of the Honors College Richard Ira Scott and Philip L. Frana

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Majoring in the Minor: A Closer Look at Experiential Learning Bernice Braid
Cultural Studies as the Foundation for an Honors Program: Documenting Students’ Academic and Personal Growth Sara E. Quay and Amy M. Damico

INNOVATIVE …

Recent Editions, Linnéa Caproni

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

This semiannual bibliography of documentary editions recently published in the fields of American and British history, literature, and culture is generally restricted to scholarly first editions of English language works. In addition to the bibliographical references, Internet addresses are provided for the editorial project or the publisher.

To Beef Or Not To Beef: Defining Food Security And Insecurity In Tucumán Argentina, Ariela Zycherman

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology (University of Georgia)

Anthropologists have had a long and rich history of drawing out the cultural importance of diet and the beliefs and rituals that are associated with it. Many anthropologists combine this knowledge with biological data to create a more comprehensive understanding of the diet. This skill becomes particularly important in understanding the difficulties of defining terms like food security and food insecurity among vulnerable populations. Popular working definitions focus primarily on the diet as being a nutritious entity that leads to a healthy and active lifestyle. While these definitions weigh heavily on the biological importance of diet, they deal with the …

The Pageant Of Paha Sapa An Origin Myth Of White Settlement In The American West, Linea Sundstrom

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As a literary work initiated and directed by a committee of women, The Pageant of Paha Sapa captures the zeitgeist of the post Arontier era through the eyes of the influential women of one small town. Like all origin myths, this script presented the current populace as the rightful heirs of the place and its resources, having won them through persistence, struggle, and divinely ordained destiny. The pageant's message was that "civilizing" influences had transformed the former Indian paradise and frontier hell-on-wheels into a respectable modern community. This theme of social evolution was typical of the larger pageant movement; however, …

The Teaching Resource Portfolio: A Tool Kit For Future Professoriate And A Resource Guide For Current Teachers, Dieter J. Schönwetter

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Extensive annotated bibliographies have guided academic researchers over several years and in various disciplines, providing key resources to assist in the development of new ideas. However, less common are published annotated bibliographies on effective teaching resources, both general to teaching across various disciplines as well as specific to each discipline, that guide the academic in the teaching enterprise. This chapter focuses on a tool, the teaching resource portfolio, that helps the graduate student preparing for an academic career including teaching, the new faculty member desiring additional teaching resources, the academic wishing to have resources that support discipline-specific scholarship of teaching …

Bibliography, Volume 26 (2008)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 26 (2008) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Portable Widgets And Techie Tattoos: Honors Of The Future, Rosalie Ortero

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Just twenty-five years ago, in 1982, Gray Austin from Ohio State was the NCHC President. William Daniel from Winthrop College was the program chair for the NCHC conference that was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conference fee was $46 and a room at the Hilton cost $37 a night. Writing Across the Curriculum was big news, and interdisciplinary seminars centered on the Great Books concept were a major component of honors programs. Today, there are honors programs and colleges at large and small universities, colleges, and community colleges. Service Learning is big news as is Outcomes Assessment. Honors curricula …

Book Review: Managing Biodiversity In Agricultural Ecosystems Edited By D.I. Jarvis, C. Padoch, And H.D. Cooper, Richard K. Baydack

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems is a series of 18 edited contributions that investigate a vast body of material relating to the broad category of "agricultural biodiversity." This subject is of increasing importance across the Great Plains of North America as we strive to ensure that our planet is able to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the abilities of future generations to meet theirs. As such, the editors have sequenced and categorized the contributions so as to ensure that treatment of a wide range of topics- crop genetic resources; livestock genetic resources; aquatic biodiversity; pollinator diversity; …

Six Centuries Of Fire History At Devils Tower National Monument With Comments On Regionwide Temperature Influence, Michael C. Stambaugh, Richard P. Guyette, Erin R. Mcmurry, Joseph M. Marschall, Gary Willson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This study documents over six centuries of historic fire events at Devils Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming, USA. The 691-year tree-ring chronology is based on 37 ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson) trees collected at the monument. The period of tree-ring record ranged in calendar years from 1312 to 2002 and fire scar dates (n = 129) ranged from 1330 to 1995. The mean fire interval (MFI) for the entire record was 24.6 years, and intervals for individual trees ranged from 4 to 119 years. A period of increased fire frequency (MFI = 5.7 years) occurred from about …

Using Schools To Map The Frontier Of Settlement On The Canadian Prairies, John C. Lehr, Brian Mcgregor

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Most attempts to map the frontier of agricultural settlement in western Canada have used land alienation data or population density calculated from census returns. Both methods are fraught with difficulties. Population density data are only available at five-year intervals at the 36-square-mile township level. Land alienation does not always reflect settlement. In Manitoba, entire townships were alienated years before they were occupied. The organization and building of schools is a better indicator of actual settlement and the emergence of community-based institutions. To test this hypothesis, school formation and land alienation in 35 townships in southeastern Manitoba were plotted. This showed …

Review Of The Geography Of American Poverty: Is There A Need For Place-Based Policies? By Mark D. Partridge And Dan S. Rickman., David J. Peters

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This book is a comprehensive examination of poverty in the United States from 1969 to 1999. Its three main objectives are to document the uneven distribution of poverty, to explore its underlying demographic and economic determinants, and to offer policy prescriptions for its amelioration. The analysis of rural poverty is likely to be of most interest to readers of Great Plains Research.

The Geography of American Poverty authoritatively documents the trends and determinants of American poverty across both space and time. Its strength is in its quantitative analysis, but what interests poverty researchers may be tedious for nontechnical audiences. Its …

Great Plains Reasearch: A Journal Of Natural And Social Sciences Volume 18, Number 1, Spring 2008: Table Of Contents

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

NATURAL SCIENCES

Engineer Cantonment, Missouri Territory, 1819-1820: America's First Biodiversity Inventory (Hugh H. Genoways and Brett C. Ratcliffe)

Testing Multigenerational Colonization of Carrion by Blow Flies in the Great Plains (Timothy E. Huntington, David O. Carter, and Leon G. Higley)

Mapping Agricultural Land Cover for Hydrologic Modeling in the Platte River Watershed of Nebraska (Patti R. Dappen, Ian C. Ratcliffe, Cullen R. Robbins, and James W. Merchant)

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Using Schools to Map the Frontier of Settlement on the Canadian Prairies (John C. Lehr and Brian McGregor)

Mapping the Dispossession: Scandinavian Homesteading at Fort Totten, 1900-1930 (Karen V. Hansen and …

References For Time In Archaeology: Time Perspectivism Revisited, Simon J. Holdaway, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

22 pages of reference bibliography for the 2008 anthology of articles on archeology, methodology, and time.

Archeological Survey Within The Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Murray County, Oklahoma, Alan J. Osborn, Ralph J. Hartley

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Introduction

The Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC), National Park Service in Lincoln, Nebraska was contacted by the staff of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Sulphur, Oklahoma to request assistance in the completion of an archeological survey of areas that would be impacted by future renovations, rehabilitations, and upgrades of facilities within Chickasaw NRA. These projects include: 1) installation and/or replacement of twenty-two 18’ steel culverts along back country roads; 2) the installation of thirteen vault toilets; 3) rehabilitation of the comfort station near Buffalo Springs; 4) installation of a electrical conduit and solar panel at Antelope Springs; 5) upgrade of …