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Research And Creative Activity, July 01, 2021-June 30, 2022: Major Sponsored Programs And Faculty Accomplishments In Research And Creative Activity, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Office Of Research And Economic Development, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Office of Research and Economic Development: Publications

Foreword by Bob Wilhelm, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development:

This booklet highlights successes in research, scholarship and creative activity by University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty during the fiscal year running July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

It lists investigators, project titles and funding sources on major grants and sponsored awards that were active during the year; fellowships and other recognitions and honors bestowed on our faculty; books, chapters and creative literature published by faculty; performances, exhibitions and other examples of creative activity; patents and licensing agreements; and conference presentations. In recognition of the important role faculty play in …

‘Read For Nutrition’ Programme Improves Preschool Children’S Liking And Consumption Of Target Vegetable, Maha Elrakaiby, Saima Hasnin, Virginia C. Stage, Dipti Dev

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

Objective: To determine whether the ‘Read for Nutrition’ programme would increase liking and consumption of broccoli (a target vegetable) in preschool children and test acceptability and practicality of the programme.

Design: Pilot pre-post intervention study, where childcare teachers received training and coaching followed by reading the book ‘Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli’ multiple times with the children during a three-week intervention.

Setting: Five classrooms of Educare, Lincoln, Nebraska in 2018.

Participants: Sixty-nine (11 to 16 children per classroom) preschool-aged children and sixteen teachers (minimum, three per classroom).

Results: Average total consumption of broccoli increased 35 % (0·14 ounces or 0·05th cup) …

Correlates Of Children’S Dietary Intake In Childcare Settings: A Systematic Review, Saima Hasnin, Jaclyn A. Saltzman, Dipti A. Dev

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

Context: Children consume up to two-thirds of their daily dietary requirements in full-time childcare, making the setting a critical vector for preventing childhood obesity. Objective: To summarize the ecological correlates of children’s dietary intake in childcare settings that were identified and categorized using the Six-Cs developmental ecological model of contributors to overweight and obesity in childhood. Data Sources: A literature search was conducted in 4 electronic databases. Study Selection: English-language, peer-reviewed publications that investigated at least 1 correlate of children’s (ages 2–6 years) dietary intake in childcare settings and measured children’s actual consumption of foods and beverages from food groups …

Toddler Play Preferences And The Teacher’S Role In The Outdoor Play Environment, Keting Chen, Erin E. Hamel

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

Direct experience with nature is a primary component of environmental education and especially beneficial for young children. The present study examined the outdoor play preferences of toddlers and investigated the role teachers play in the outdoor space. Toddlers’ outdoor play was video recorded by GoPro cameras and coded for preferred play locations and initiator of the play. Results showed that the three most preferred spaces for toddlers in the outdoor classroom were the sandbox, swing area, and play structures; least frequently visited were open areas close to the classrooms, the garden, and the tree area. In addition, toddlers initiated play …

Addressing Work-Related Traumatic Stress Nebraska - Theory Of Change, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Several workforce challenges were discussed as opportunities for intervention during the needs assessment process conducted partnership with the Nebraska Department of Children and Family Services’ (DCFS) to address child welfare workforce turnover. Through a series of steps and causal links, a theory of change provides a roadmap to address the root causes of an identified workforce problem and describes how and why changes are expected to lead to the desired outcomes. Ultimately, two theories of change were developed to step through the “if, then” logic:

1. building resiliency skills within child welfare workers and supervisors; and
2. implementing a debriefing protocol focused …

(Re)Turning To Freirean Philosophy In Preparing Content Teachers To Work With Multilingual Students, Kara Viesca, Peiwen Wang, Brandon Heinz, Alexa Yunes-Koch

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

In 2019, Bettina Love published a call for abolitionist teaching, an effort for educational freedom and racial justice. In her work, she centered the role of theory in teaching calling it a "North Star." She suggested that theory provides teachers a "steadfast tool" that explains the experiences of people minoritized due to racism, sexism, ableism, linguicism, etc., as well as provides language for and knowledge about intersectional issues of injustice. Love literally calls theory a "practical guide" as well as a "location for healing" (Love, 2019, p. 132).

The work of Paulo Freire has long served as the kind of …

Towards Water Literacy: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Standards For Teaching And Learning About Humans And Water, Silvia‑Jessica Mostacedo‑Marasovic, Brooke Colleen Mott, Holly White, Cory T. Forbes

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Water is critical to sustain human existence. Water literacy involves understanding the interactions within and between natural and human dimensions of water systems to support informed decision-making, an important outcome for learners of all ages. It is therefore critical to foster water literacy in today’s global citizens, particularly through formal education. The purpose of this study, in tandem with a parallel study focusing on natural dimensions of water systems (Mostacedo-Marasovic et al., in press), is to examine water-related K-12 standards for teaching and learning about human dimensions of water systems to develop a comprehensive and transdisciplinary perspective on water education. …

Organizational Change Process Milwaukee - Theory Of Change, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Through a series of steps and causal links, a theory of change provides a roadmap to address the root causes of an identified workforce problem and describes how and why changes are expected to lead to the desired outcomes. In Milwaukee, the theory of change was driven by the results of the Organizational Social Context (OSC) Measure administered during the needs assessment process. More specifically, the OSC showed that there were several aspects of both culture and climate that were in need of improvement, including 1) a hierarchical and rigid decision-making structure, 2) high role conflict and change resistance within …

A Survey On The Use Of Plastic Versus Biodegradable Bottles For Drinking Water Packaging In The United Arab Emirates, Himadri Rajput, Munjed A. Maraqa, Fatima Zraydi, Lina A. Al Khatib, Noor Ameen, Rime Ben Elkaid, Safia S. Al Jaberi, Noura A. Alharbi, Reka Howard, Ashraf Aly Hassan

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Due to intensive utilization and extensive production, plastic waste is becoming a serious threat to the environment and human health. The situation is even worse in countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where single-use plastic water bottles add to the load of plastic pollution. The main objective of this survey was to assess the extent of bottled water utilization by the UAE residents and their awareness of the environmental concerns arising from single-use plastic bottles. The aim was also to evaluate their willingness to shift towards using biodegradable plastic bottles. This study involved the feedback of 2589 respondents …

Genome-Wide Association Study Of Disease Resilience Traits From A Natural Polymicrobial Disease Challenge Model In Pigs Identifies The Importance Of The Major Histocompatibility Complex Region, Jian Cheng, Rohan Fernando, Hao Cheng, Stephen D. Kachman, Kyusang Lim, John C.S. Harding, Michael K. Dyck, Frederic Fortin, Graham S. Plastow, Piggen Canada Research Consortium, Jack C.M. Dekkers

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Infectious diseases cause tremendous financial losses in the pork industry, emphasizing the importance of disease resilience, which is the ability of an animal to maintain performance under disease. Previously, a natural polymicrobial disease challenge model was established, in which pigs were challenged in the late nursery phase by multiple pathogens to maximize expression of genetic differences in disease resilience. Genetic analysis found that performance traits in this model, including growth rate, feed and water intake, and carcass traits, as well as clinical disease phenotypes, were heritable and could be selected for to increase disease resilience of pigs. The objectives of …

Kryging: Geostatistical Analysis Of Large-Scale Datasets Using Krylov Subspace Methods, Suman Majumder, Yawen Guan, Brian J. Reich, Arvind K. Saibaba

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Analyzing massive spatial datasets using a Gaussian process model poses computational challenges. This is a problem prevailing heavily in applications such as environmental modeling, ecology, forestry and environmental health. We present a novel approximate inference methodology that uses profile likelihood and Krylov subspace methods to estimate the spatial covariance parameters and makes spatial predictions with uncertainty quantification for point-referenced spatial data. The proposed method, Kryging, applies for both observations on regular grid and irregularly-spaced observations, and for any Gaussian process with a stationary isotropic (and certain geometrically anisotropic) covariance function, including the popular Matérn covariance family. We make use of …

2022 Annual Campus Security And Fire Safety Report, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, University Police, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University Police

2022 Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Safety and security information for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, including crime and fire statistics for the 2021 calendar year, and the information required by the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1989. All data are submitted to the United States Department of Education according to law.

Network Science: Fish Supply, Worlds Of Connections Sepa

Worlds of Connections Resources

Objective The student will understand how being a part of a network (e.g. different roles) influences an individual’s decision-making in addition to understanding positions of power within a fish supply network. The student will be able to identify fish transfer (and money) in a fish supply chain network while seeing how each participant’s goals compete with one another and are balanced by the network. The student will engage with NGSS Crosscutting Concept 4. Systems/System Models.

The Fishing Industry has been around for a very long time. Many jobs are tied to the industry, including people who actually catch the fish, …

Network Science: Ecology, Worlds Of Connections Sepa

Worlds of Connections Resources

Building a network using wooden blocks demonstrates that some pieces in a network are more important than others. Removing pieces of a network will change the structure, but removing the pieces that are most connected or more foundational to the network will have more significant impacts on the network. In an ecosystem network, the more connected the network, the more robust it is. Think about ecosystems and food webs as networks with varying degrees of robustness depending upon how many connections and kinds of connections they contain (e.g. if there are “hubs” or “key links” in the chain). In an …

Network Science: Play Dough Liaisons, Worlds Of Connections Sepa

Worlds of Connections Resources

Brokers play an important role in the access of information and transactions. What makes a person a broker is the fact that the parties the broker is connected to have no way of communicating with each other without the broker. This gives a broker power in what they choose to do with the information they have received. For more information, see the brokerage role sheet (Handout 2). According to the brokerage role sheet, there are five different types of brokers. The brokerage roles can all be depicted as having directed or undirected lines, except for the gatekeeper and the representative. …

Hands-On With Ne Stem 4u: For Budding Stemers In Grades 4-8, Ne Stem 4u Program

Worlds of Connections Resources

Character Biographies 5

Chemistry: The Crystal Tree 10

Biology: Fruitful DNA 15 • Honey Purity Test 22 • Human DNA Extraction 26 • Model Cell 32 • Stethoscopes and Heart Rate 36

Engineering: Build a Catapult 41 • Building Bridges 47

Physics: Battling Balloons 51 • Balloon Popping 57 • Divin' Challenge 60 • Life Jackets and Buoyancy 65 • Simple Circuits 69 • Newton's Tower 75

Geology: Aquifers and Artesian Wells 80 • The Center of the Earth 84 • Mapping and Location Intelligence 88 • Seismology and Earthquakes 92 • Volcanoes 98

Mathematics: Hexaflexagons 102 • Stick Puzzle …

Measuring The Social And Ecological Performance Of Agricultural Innovations On Rangelands: Progress And Plans For An Indicator Framework In The Ltar Network, S. Spiegal, N. P. Webb, E. H. Boughton, R. K. Boughton, A. Bentley Brymer, P. E. Clark, C. D. Holifield Collins, D. L. Hoover Et. Al

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Network Science: Genealogy, Worlds Of Connections Sepa

Worlds of Connections Resources

Remember that family trees are a type of network. The network we create helps us understand which traits were passed down and who they came from. While humans can inherit traits like hair color and eye shape, sometimes they can inherit genetic diseases or be more likely to develop health issues because of their genetics. In most cases, inherited traits are based on probability, so tracing family networks can tell us how likely people are to have these types of diseases. When tracing the genealogical flow of relatedness from one generation to the next one or two generations, it is …

Research At Nebraska, 2021-2022 Report, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Office of Research and Economic Development: Publications

This publication is a snapshot of the fiscal year’s activities. To read more stories about research and creativity at Nebraska, visit the online edition at https://research.unl.edu/annualreport/2022. Additional multimedia are available for many stories.

Expanding Graduate Education And Career Placement Through Cer, Julia Mcquillan, Patricia Wonch Hill, Meghan Leadabrand

Worlds of Connections Resources

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is an R1 (doctoral granting and high research activity) institution with decades of experience with community-engaged research (CER). The UNL Sociology Department has long emphasized research methods, particularly survey methodology and social network analyses, in academic and practice settings. The department offers many opportunities to conduct CER, as well as general applied sociology, and encourages faculty to publish with students out of those opportunities. In part through insights gained through ASA efforts (e.g., leadership development about careers in practice settings), and in part learning from graduate students who perceived discouragement from considering jobs in applied …

Ferrihydrite Enrichment In The Rhizosphere Of Unsaturated Soil Improves Nutrient Retention While Limiting Arsenic And Uranium Plant Uptake, Arindam Malakar, Daniel D. Snow, Michael Kaiser, Jordan Shields, Bijesh Maharjan, Harkamal Walia, Daran Rudnick, Chittaranjan Ray

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Improvement of nutrient use efficiency and limiting trace elements such as arsenic and uranium bioavailability is critical for sustainable agriculture and food safety. Arsenic and uranium possess different properties and mobility in soils, which complicates the effort to reduce their uptake by plants. Here, we postulate that unsaturated soil amended with ferrihydrite nanominerals leads to improved nutrient retention and helps reduce uptake of these geogenic contaminants. Unsaturated soil is primarily oxic and can provide a stable environment for ferrihydrite nanominerals. To demonstrate the utility of ferrihydrite soil amendment, maize was grown in an unsaturated agricultural soil that is known to …

Availability Heuristic In Construction Workforce Decision-Making Amid Covid-19 Pandemic: Empirical Evidence And Mitigation Strategy, Yunping Liang, Anil Baral, Mohsen Shahandashti, Baabak Ashuri

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

The decision-making situations of the construction workforce have been drastically altered since the outbreak of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The new situation, where decision-makers strive to promptly respond to the unprecedented crisis to sustain essential construction operations without compromising the safety and health of workers, implies the presence of an availability heuristic. An availability heuristic has the potential to bring unconscious, systematic errors to the decision-making process. This study creates a decision-making experiment to empirically examine the presence of an availability heuristic and the effectiveness of a corresponding mitigation strategy in construction workforce decision-making under COVID-19 uncertainties. The experiment …

Testing The Drosophila Maternal Haploid Gene For Functional Divergence And A Role In Hybrid Incompatibility, Dean M. Castillo, Benjamin Mccormick, Connor M. Kean, Sahana Natesan, Daniel A. Barbash

Nebraska Cooperative Extension: Faculty and Staff Publications

Crosses between Drosophila simulans females and Drosophila melanogaster males produce viable F1 sons and poorly viable F1 daughters. Unlike most hybrid incompatibilities, this hybrid incompatibility violates Haldane’s rule, the observation that incompatibilities preferentially affect the heterogametic sex. Furthermore, it has a different genetic basis than hybrid lethality in the reciprocal cross, with the causal allele in Drosophila melanogaster being a large species-specific block of complex satellite DNA on its X chromosome known as the 359-bp satellite, rather than a protein-coding locus. The causal allele(s) in Drosophila simulans are unknown but likely involve maternally expressed genes or factors since the F1 …

Nebraska Invasive Species Council Annual Report 2022

Nebraska Invasive Species Program

Nebraska Invasive Species Council Annual Report 2022

Creole Sketches, Lafcadio Hearn, Charles Woodward Hutson

Zea E-Books Collection

New Orleans in 1878 was the most exotic and cosmopolitan city in North America. An international port, with more than 200,000 inhabitants, it was open to French, Spanish, Mexican, South American, and West Indian cultural influences, and home to a thriving population descended from free African Americans. It was also a battleground in the fight against yellow fever (malaria) and in the political upheavals that followed the end of Reconstruction. The continued influx of Anglo-Americans and the renewed ascendancy of white supremacists threatened to overwhelm the local blend of languages, races, and cultures that enlivened the unique Creole character of …

Progression Through Return-To-Sport And Return-To-Academics Guidelines For Concussion Management And Recovery In Collegiate Student Athletes: Findings From The Ivy League–Big Ten Epidemiology Of Concussion Study, Douglas J. Wiebe, Abigail C. Bretzin, Bernadette A. D'Alonzo, Ivy League–Big Ten Epidemiology Of Concussion Study Investigators, Arthur C. Maerlender

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

Objective To examine the progression of collegiate student athletes through five stages of a return-to- activity protocol following sport-related concussion (SRC).

Methods In a multisite prospective cohort study, we identified the frequency of initial 24–48 hours physical and cognitive rest, and the sequence of (1) symptom resolution and return to (2) exertion activity, (3) limited sport, (4) full sport and (5) full academics. In resulting profiles we estimated the likelihood of return to full sport ≤14 days or prolonged >28 days and tested for variability based on timing of the stages.

Results Among 1715 athletes with SRC (31.6% females), 67.9% …

Head Impact Exposure In Youth And Collegiate American Football, Grace B. Choi, Eric P. Smith, Stefan M. Duma, Steven Rowson, Eamon Campolettano, Mireille E. Kelley, Derek A. Jones, Joel D. Stitzel, Jillian E. Urban, Amaris Genemaras, Jonathan G. Beckwith, Richard M. Greenwald, Arthur C. Maerlender, Joseph J. Crisco

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

The relationship between head impact and subsequent brain injury for American football players is not well defined, especially for youth. The objective of this study is to quantify and assess Head Impact Exposure (HIE) metrics among youth and collegiate football players. This multiseason study enrolled 639 unique athletes (354 collegiate; 285 youth, ages 9–14), recording 476,209 head impacts (367,337 collegiate; 108,872 youth) over 971 sessions (480 collegiate; 491 youth). Youth players experienced 43 and 65% fewer impacts per competition and practice, respectively, and lower impact magnitudes compared to collegiate players (95th percentile peak linear acceleration (PLA, g) competition: 45.6 vs …

Constructing Neural Network Models From Brain Data Reveals Representational Transformations Linked To Adaptive Behavior, Takuya Ito, Guangyu Robert Yang, Patryk Laurent, Douglas H. Schultz, Michael W. Cole

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

The human ability to adaptively implement a wide variety of tasks is thought to emerge from the dynamic transformation of cognitive information. We hypothesized that these transformations are implemented via conjunctive activations in “conjunction hubs”—brain regions that selectively integrate sensory, cognitive, and motor activations. We used recent advances in using functional connectivity to map the flow of activity between brain regions to construct a task-performing neural network model from fMRI data during a cognitive control task. We verified the importance of conjunction hubs in cognitive computations by simulating neural activity flow over this empirically-estimated functional connectivity model. These empiricallyspecified simulations …

Affective Flexibility As A Developmental Building Block Of Cognitive Reappraisal: An Fmri Study, Jordan E. Pierce, Eisha Haque, Maital Neta

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

Cognitive reappraisal is a form of emotion regulation that involves reinterpreting the meaning of a stimulus, often to downregulate one’s negative affect. Reappraisal typically recruits distributed regions of prefrontal and parietal cortex to generate new appraisals and downregulate the emotional response in the amygdala. In the current study, we compared reappraisal ability in an fMRI task with affective flexibility in a sample of children and adolescents (ages 6–17, N = 76). Affective flexibility was defined as variability in valence interpretations of ambiguous (surprised) facial expressions from a second behavioral task. Results demonstrated that age and affective flexibility predicted reappraisal ability, …

Differential Impact Of Biological And Behavioral Traits On Postexercise Energy Intake In Men Andwomen, Christoph Höchsmann, Safiya E. Beckford, Jeffery A. French, Julie B. Boron, Jared Stevens, Karsten Koehler

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The energy intake response to exercise is highly variable and energy (over-) compensation via increased post-exercise energy intake occurs in some individuals but not others. In explorative analyses, we aimed to identify biological and behavioral predictors of post-exercise ad libitum energy intake and whether these predictors differ from ad libitum energy intake after rest.

Conclusions:Post-exercise energy intake is associatedwithdifferent factors than energy intake after rest and behavioral and biological traits differentially affect post-exercise energy intake in men and women. In women, habitual exercise behavior seems to predict postexercise energy intake, protecting against compensatory eating. Inmen, appetite-regulating hormones play a role …