Digital Commons Network^™

Rfia: An R Package For Estimation Of Forest Attributes With The Us Forest Inventory And Analysis Database, Hunter Stanke, Andrew O. Finley, Aaron S. Weed, Brian F. Walters, Grant M. Domke

United States National Park Service: Publications

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) is a US Department of Agriculture Forest Service program that aims to monitor changes in forests across the US. FIA hosts one of the largest ecological datasets in the world, though its complexity limits access for many potential users. rFIA is an R package designed to simplify the estimation of forest attributes using data collected by the FIA Program. Specifically, rFIA improves access to the spatiotemporal estimation capacity of the FIA Database via space–time indexed summaries of forest variables within user-defined population boundaries (e.g., geographic, temporal, biophysical). The package implements multiple design-based estimators, and has …

Job Involvement, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is job involvement?

Job involvement refers to an individual’s psychological identification with their job (Kanungo, 1982). The preferred measure is the 10-item Job Involvement Questionnaire, which includes questions such as, “Most of my interests are centered around my job,” “I consider my job to be very central to my existence,” and “Most of my personal life goals are job oriented” (Kanungo, 1982).

Why is job involvement important?

Job involvement is important because it is associated with several important work outcomes. Specifically, it is strongly related to job satisfaction (Brown, 1996), organizational commitment, and career commitment (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005). …

Biomedcentral (Bmc) 2019 – 2020, Anqi Shi, Heather Morrison

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Key points

• Open access commercial publishing pioneer BMC is now wholly owned by a private company with a portfolio including lines of business that derive revenue from journal subscriptions, book sales, and textbook sales and rentals
• Two former BMC fully OA journals, listed in DOAJ from 2014 – 2018 as having CC-BY licenses, are now hybrid and listed on the Springer website and have disappeared from the BMC website
• 67% of BMC journals with APCs in 2019 and 2020 increased in price and 11% decreased in price.
• Journals with price increases had a higher average APC in 2019, i.e. more …

Multistate Mumps Outbreak Originating From Asymptomatic Transmission At A Nebraska Wedding — Six States, August–October 2019, Matthew Donahue, Blake Hendrickson, Derek Julian, Nicholas Hill, Julie Rother, Samir Koirala, Joshua L. Clayton, Thomas Safranek, Bryan Buss

United States Public Health Resources

In August 2019, 30 attendees at a Nebraska wedding developed mumps after being exposed to one asymptomatic index patient who was fully vaccinated according to Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations (1), resulting in a multistate outbreak. A public health investigation and response revealed epidemiologic links that extended from the index patient through secondary, tertiary, and quaternary patients and culminated in a measles-mumpsrubella (MMR) booster vaccination campaign in the local community where approximately half of the patients resided.

Variability In The Analysis Of A Single Neuroimaging Dataset By Many Teams, Rotem Botvinik-Nezer, Tom Schonberg, Russell A. Poldrack, Zachary J. Cole, Matthew R. Johnson, Phui Cheng Lim, Evan N. Linz, Douglas H. Schultz, Joshua E. Zosky, Narps Management Team, Jean M. Vettel, More Than 100 Other Co-Authors

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Data analysis workflows in many scientific domains have become increasingly complex and flexible. To assess the impact of this flexibility on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results, the same dataset was independently analyzed by 70 teams, testing nine ex-ante hypotheses. The flexibility of analytic approaches is exemplified by the fact that no two teams chose identical workflows to analyze the data. This flexibility resulted in sizeable variation in hypothesis test results, even for teams whose statistical maps were highly correlated at intermediate stages of their analysis pipeline. Variation in reported results was related to several aspects of analysis methodology. Importantly, …

Improving Microbiological Safety Of Low Moisture Food Products Using Radio Frequency And Ethylene Oxide, Long Chen

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recent foodborne illness outbreaks in US associated with consumption of low-moisture foods (LMF) have heightened concerns of their microbial safety. Salmonella is a pathogen of major concern in LMF due to its ability to persist in low water activity (a_w) environments. The disadvantages of existing decontamination technologies for LMF call for novel and efficient intervention technologies. Radio frequency (RF) and ethylene oxide (EtO) were evaluated in this dissertation for improving microbial food safety and quality of LMF. Cumin seeds and inshell hazelnuts were selected as model foods.

It took < 2 min of stationary RF heating to achieve > 5 log reductions of Salmonella in cumin seeds without …

Psychological Capital, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is psychological capital?

Psychological capital (PsyCap) is a composite of four positive psychological resources—efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience. More specifically, PsyCap is an individual’s positive psychological state of development characterized by: (1) having confidence (efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success (Luthans, Youssef, …

Learning Together: Strategies Used By Child Welfare Supervisors To Manage A Virtual Workforce, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

In April 2020, the QIC-WD and National Child Welfare Workforce Institute co-hosted a webinar, Supporting the Virtual Workforce: Virtual Supervision, to provide guidance on virtual supervision and provide opportunities for participants to exchange information about their experiences. More than 1,500 child welfare supervisors, workers, and managers from across the U.S. participated in this event. They shared examples of what they’re doing to care for each other, care for themselves, stay safe, and stay connected. This summary highlights the common challenges and opportunities identified during the webinar and presents a variety of strategies to cope and supervise in a virtual work …

Participation In The Cacfp Ensures Availability But Not Intake Of Nutritious Foods At Lunch In Preschool Children In Child-Care Centers, Saima Hasnin, Dipti Dev, Alison Tovar

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

Background — The US Department of Agriculture Child and Adult Care Food program (CACFP) recently (October 2017) updated requirements for meal reimbursement and best practice recommendations for serving nutritious meals and beverages, and minimum age-specific serving sizes for five food groups. It is not known whether CACFPfunded child-care centers are meeting the updated meal pattern requirements and best practice recommendations, and whether children are meeting nutrition recommendations based on the current 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). Objective This study assessed whether the recruited CACFP-funded child-care centers in this study were meeting the updated (2017) CACFP requirements regarding foods served …

Ari: The Automated R Instructor, Sean Kross, Jeffrey T. Leek, John Muschelli

The R Journal

We present the ari package for automatically generating technology-focused educational videos. The goal of the package is to create reproducible videos, with the ability to change and update video content seamlessly. We present several examples of generating videos including using R Markdown slide decks, PowerPoint slides, or simple images as source material. We also discuss how ari can help instructors reach new audiences through programmatically translating materials into other languages.

Nebline, June/July 2020

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Top 5 Ag Topics From 5 Years

7 Tips for Successfully Baking as a Family

Recipe of the Month

Timing Your Fruit Harvesting Apples, Pears & Plums

Paper Wasps and Yellow Jackets

Severe Weather Preparedness and COVID-19

Time to Look for Bagworms

Garden Guide: What to Do This Month

5 Tips for Working Remotely from Home and Caring for Children During COVID-19

HEART OF 4-H VOLUNTEER AWARD: Grace Kim

HEART OF 4-H VOLUNTEER AWARD: Greater Lincoln Obedience Club

4-H/FFA Livestock Booster Club Scholarships Due July 6

Video Companion Animal (and Cat and Pet Rabbit) Showmanship Entries Due Aug. 10

Horse …

Responding To Trauma In Our Educational Practice, Shawnda Navarro Floyd

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

COVID-19 thrust most higher education institutions into 100% online learning during the Spring of 2020 with a ready or not approach. Despite the many obstacles faculty and students faced, the end result was a valiant effort that afforded students the opportunity to continue to access education in the face of many uncertainties. With the initial rush to move coursework online behind them, academic administrators turned toward planning for the future. What should learning look like long term while working through COVID-19? How do we adequately support full and part-time faculty and staff? Should learning be kept online indefinitely? If there …

Prototype System For Implementing The Ultrasonic Guided Wave Method On The Field, Ece Erdogmus, Eric Garcia, Michael Schuller, Ahmad Shoaib Amiri

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This report presents the latest improvements in a recently developed nondestructive testing (NDT) technique for early detection of various flaws such as corrosion, delamination, and concrete cracking in reinforced concrete (RC) bridge decks. The method, named Ultrasonic Guided Wave Leakage (UGWL) method by the developing authors, involves use of internal steel reinforcement (rebar) as a wave guide for transmitting ultrasonic waves through the system and the measurement of leaked energy at the surface of the concrete. This report builds upon the progress made in the previously published phases of the project (M029 and M066), and aims to further explore the …

Role Of The Hyaluronan Receptor, Stabilin-2/Hare, In Health And Disease, Edward N. Harris, Erika Baker

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Stabilin-2/HARE is the primary clearance receptor for circulating hyaluronan (HA), a polysaccharide found in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of metazoans. HA has many biological functions including joint lubrication, ocular turgor pressure, skin elasticity and hydration, cell motility, and intercellular signaling, among many others. The regulatory system for HA content in the tissues, lymphatics, and circulatory systems is due, in part, to Stabilin-2/HARE. The activity of this receptor was discovered about 40 years ago (early 1980s), cloned in the mid-1990s, and has been characterized since then. Here, we discuss the overall domain organization of this receptor and how it correlates to …

Index To E-Jasl: Electronic Journal Of Academic And Special Librarianship, Issn: 1704-8532, Sue Ann Gardner

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Following is an index of all of the articles published in E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship. The journal was published from 1999 through 2009. With Paul Haschak’s permission as overseer of the compilation, its articles have been archived at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ejasljournal/. As of June 15, 2020, they were also still available at http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/index.html.

The masthead that appeared on the southernlibrarian site as of June 15, 2020 is reproduced here:

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (ISSN: 1704-8532) is an independent, professional, refereed electronic journal dedicated first and foremost to advancing knowledge and research …

Window Strike Bird Mortality On The University Of Nebraska – Lincoln City Campus, Thomas E. Labedz

Nebraska Bird Review

On May 25, 1915, in Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska, a Gray-cheeked Thrush was “killed by flying against the library building on city campus” and was found by Robert H. Wolcott and prepared as a scientific study skin by Leroy M. Gates. This thrush is now ZM-6674 in the University of Nebraska State Museum (UNSM) Zoology collections. Birds are typically killed at low level buildings by flying into windows. This thrush is the first documented window strike death for what is now the University of Nebraska – Lincoln city campus. Based upon the UNSM bird collections I report on the last …

Mapping Smoothed Spatial Effect Estimates From Individual-Level Data: Mapgam, Lu Bai, Daniel L. Gillen, Scott M. Bartell, Verónica M. Vieira

The R Journal

We introduce and illustrate the utility of MapGAM, a user-friendly R package that provides a unified framework for estimating, predicting and drawing inference on covariate-adjusted spatial effects using individual-level data. The package also facilitates visualization of spatial effects via automated mapping procedures. MapGAM estimates covariate-adjusted spatial associations with a univariate or survival outcome using generalized additive models that include a non-parametric bivariate smooth term of geolocation parameters. Estimation and mapping methods are implemented for continuous, discrete, and right-censored survival data. In the current manuscript, we summarize the methodology implemented in MapGAM and illustrate the package using two example simulated …

Coxphlb: An R Package For Analyzing Length Biased Data Under Cox Model, Chi Hyun Lee, Heng Zhou, Jing Ning, Diane D. Liu, Yu Shen

The R Journal

Data subject to length-biased sampling are frequently encountered in various applications including prevalent cohort studies and are considered as a special case of left-truncated data under the stationarity assumption. Many semiparametric regression methods have been proposed for length biased data to model the association between covariates and the survival outcome of interest. In this paper, we present a brief review of the statistical methodologies established for the analysis of length-biased data under the Cox model, which is the most commonly adopted semiparametric model, and introduce an R package CoxPhLb that implements these methods. Specifically, the package includes features such as …

Individual-Level Modelling Of Infectious Disease Data: Epiilm, Vineetha Warriyar, Waleed Almutiry, Rob Deardon

The R Journal

In this article we introduce the R package EpiILM, which provides tools for simulation from, and inference for, discrete-time individual-level models of infectious disease transmission proposed by Deardon et al. (2010). The inference is set in a Bayesian framework and is carried out via Metropolis Hastings Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). For its fast implementation, key functions are coded in Fortran. Both spatial and contact network models are implemented in the package and can be set in either susceptible-infected (SI) or susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) compartmental frameworks. Use of the package is demonstrated through examples involving both simulated and real data.

Copulacenr: Copula Based Regression Models For Bivariate Censored Data In R, Tao Sun, Ying Ding

The R Journal

Bivariate time-to-event data frequently arise in research areas such as clinical trials and epidemiological studies, where the occurrence of two events are correlated. In many cases, the exact event times are unknown due to censoring. The copula model is a popular approach for modeling correlated bivariate censored data, in which the two marginal distributions and the between margin dependence are modeled separately. This article presents the R package CopulaCenR, which is designed for modeling and testing bivariate data under right or (general) interval censoring in a regression setting. It provides a variety of Archimedean copula functions including a flexible two-parameter …

Sortedeffects: Sorted Causal Effects In R, Schuowen Chen, Victor Chernozhukov, Iván Fernández-Val, Ye Luo

The R Journal

Chernozhukov et al. (2018) proposed the sorted effect method for nonlinear regression models. This method consists of reporting percentiles of the partial effects, the sorted effects, in addition to the average effect commonly used to summarize the heterogeneity in the partial effects. They also propose to use the sorted effects to carry out classification analysis where the observational units are classified as most and least affected if their partial effect are above or below some tail sorted effects. The R package SortedEffects implements the estimation and inference methods therein and provides tools to visualize the results. This vignette serves as …

Iowa’S “First Lady”: Principal, Superintendent, Professor, And Ista President, Veronika Cummings

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

In 1874 Phebe was unanimously chosen as the city superintendent of schools by the Davenport board of education (Barnhart, 1947, p.25). The board offered her a salary considerably less than that of her male predecessor; and, she rejected the offer until they agreed to a pay increase (Phebe Sudlow, n.d.). She purportedly told the board members, “If it was lower because of my qualifications, I will understand. If it is because I am a woman, however, I cannot accept it” (Christian, 1989, p.6). Phebe served as superintendent for Davenport Public Schools from 1874-1878. The rise of Phebe Sudlow from first …

Grains, Grasses, And Tubers: Staple Carbohydrates In The Diets Of Middle School Children Of Southern Zambia And Ethiopia, Brianna Juma

NUTR/GLST 498b: Global Research Experiences in Nutrition and Health

Purpose: Survey staple carbohydrate availability in local markets, complete anthropometric assessment, and interview primary school children about carbohydrate consumption in Southern Zambia and Ethiopia

Methods: Market inventories, anthropometric assessments, and interviews of 6th and 7th grade students

Results: Ethiopians have a greater diversity of available carbohydrates, have better overall anthropometric values compared to Zambian children, and consume more nutritious and varied carbohydrate types.

Conclusions: Diversity in carbohydrate availability and consumption, as well as more nutritious options, are associated with healthier growth rates among primary school children in Southern regions of Zambia and Ethiopia.

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders: A Musical Adaptation, Krista Connelly

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is an original song cycle for soprano and baritone voices with Pierrot ensemble (flute/piccolo, B-flat clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion), utilizing poetry taken from Autumn Slaughter’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders-Poetry. Of Slaughter’s poetic interpretation of 35 of the diagnoses within the psychiatric manual (the DSM-5), eleven poems/diagnoses are used for this musical work. This document is an analysis of the theoretical constructs of each movement and the musical representation of the poem and diagnosis.

Advisor: Tyler G. White

The Role Of Rural School Leaders In A School-Community Partnership, Sarah J. Zuckerman

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Rural schools play central roles in their communities, and rural education scholars advocate for rural school-community partnerships to support school and community renewal. Across the United States, including in rural areas, formal models for school-community partnerships have been scaled up. The literature on rural principals highlights their roles in developing school-community partnerships, yet questions remain as to how school leaders engage in such partnerships. Using boundary-spanning leadership as a theoretical lens, this descriptive study examines the role of district and school leaders in a regional school-community partnership, including as founding members, champions of collaboration, cheerleaders for the partnership, and amplifiers …

An Iot Framework For Modeling And Controlling Thermal Comfort In Buildings, Fadi Alsaleem, Mehari K. Tesfay, Mostafa Rafaie, Kevin Sinkar, Dhaman Besarla, Parthiban Arunasalam

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Humans spend more than 90% of their day in buildings, where their health and productivity are demonstrably linked to thermal comfort. Building thermal comfort systems account for the largest share of U.S energy consumption. Despite this high-energy cost, due to building design complexity and the variety of building occupant needs, addressing thermal comfort in buildings remains a difficult problem. To overcome this challenge, this paper presents an Internet of Things (IoT) approach to efficiently model and control comfort in buildings. In the model phase, a method to access and exploit wearable device data to build a personal thermal comfort model …

Preparing To Cocreate: Using Learning Circles To Readyextension Professionals For Meaningful Stakeholderengagement, Bob Bertsch, Jill Heemstra, Doug Golick

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Extension professionals are being asked to address complex public issues. Doing so requires cocreativeapproaches that engage, in a significant way, the people affected by these issues. Successful engagement,however, requires specific skills and a cocreative mind-set. Extension professionals in two states participatedin learning circles to improve their engagement skills. Using a survey and interviews, we studied the impact ofthe learning circle experience on participants. We found that learning circles helped participants practicecolearning, build relationships, and change their mind-sets in ways that could move their work toward morecocreative efforts.

Effect Of Two Bacillus Thuringiensis1 Proteins On Development Of The Fall Armyworm2 After Seven-Day Exposure Efecto En El Desarrollo Del Gusano Cogollero2 Después De Ser Expuesto Por Siete Días A Dos Proteínas De Bacillus Thuringiensis1, Maribel Portilla, Carlos A. Blanco, Reneé Arias, Yu Cheng Zhu

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

Field-evolved resistance of fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), to the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has been reported worldwide as one of the most serious threats to the sustainability of Bt maize crop. Therefore, it is important to assess the magnitude of adult survival and the possibility of cross-resistance of fall armyworm neonates exposed to Bt proteins. In this study, bioassays were used to examine susceptibility of two field-collected Cry1Fa-resistant strains of fall armyworm from Puerto Rico (456RR, 512RR) and their crosses with a susceptible strain (Monsanto SS) (456SR-RS, 512SR-RS). LC50 values varied in both Cry1Fa-resistant strains and …

Conference Report: Why R? 2019, Michał Burdukiewicz, Filip Pietluch, Jarosław Chilimoniuk, Katarzyna Sidorczuk, Dominik Rafacz, Leon Eyrich Jessen, Stefan Rödiger, Marcin Kosiński, Piotr Wójcik

The R Journal

WhyR?conferences have been the hallmark of the Why R? Foundation (whyr.pl). Our goal has been to establish a series of international R-related events in Poland. After three years, weare happy to announce that our main event, the Why R? conference, has become one of the largest annual R conferences in Central Europe.

Tools For Analyzing R Code The Tidy Way, Lucy D'Agostino Mcgowan, Sean Kross, Jeffrey Leek

The R Journal

With the current emphasis on reproducibility and replicability, there is an increasing need to examine how data analyses are conducted. In order to analyze the between researcher variability in data analysis choices as well as the aspects within the data analysis pipeline that contribute to the variability in results, we have created two R packages: matahari and tidycode. These packages build on methods created for natural language processing; rather than allowing for the processing of natural language, we focus on R code as the substrate of interest. The matahari package facilitates the logging of everything that is typed in the …