Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Speech Intelligibility Decline In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Based On The Deterioration Of Individual Speech Subsystems, Panying Rong, Yana Yunusova, Jun Wang, Lorne Zinman, Gary Pattee, James D. Berry, Bridget Perry, Jordan R. Green

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose To determine the mechanisms of speech intelligibility impairment due to neurologic impairments, intelligibility decline was modeled as a function of co-occurring changes in the articulatory, resonatory, phonatory, and respiratory subsystems.

Method Sixty-six individuals diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) were studied longitudinally. The disease-related changes in articulatory, resonatory, phonatory, and respiratory subsystems were quantified using multiple instrumental measures, which were subjected to a principal component analysis and mixed effects models to derive a set of speech subsystem predictors. A stepwise approach was used to select the best set of subsystem predictors to model the overall decline in intelligibility.

Results …

How Often Are Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Said To “Evolve” In The News?, Nina Singh, Matthew T. Sit, Deanna M. Chung, Ana A. Lopez, Ranil Weerackoon, Pamela J. Yeh

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Media plays an important role in informing the general public about scientific ideas.We examine whether the word “evolve,” sometimes considered controversial by the general public, is frequently used in the popular press. Specifically, we ask how often articles discussing antibiotic resistance use the word “evolve” (or its lexemes) as opposed to alternative terms such as “emerge” or “develop.” We chose the topic of antibiotic resistance because it is a medically important issue; bacterial evolution is a central player in human morbidity and mortality. We focused on the most widely-distributed newspapers written in English in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, …

Inspiring And Advancing The Many-Disciplined Study Of Institutional Trust, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Brian H. Bornstein, Ellie Shockley, Tess M.S. Neal

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

The purpose of this volume is to consider how trust research, particularly trust in institutions, might benefit from increased inter- or transdisciplinarity. In this introductory chapter, we first give some background on prior disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary work relating to trust. Next, we describe how this manydisciplined volume on institutional trust emerged from the joint activities of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation and a National Science Foundation-funded Workshop on institutional trust. This chapter describes some of the themes that emerged, while also providing an overview of the rest of the volume, which includes chapters that discuss conceptualizations, definitions, and measurement …

Agency Theory: Toward A Framework For Research In The Public’S Support For And Understanding Of Science, Peter Muhlberger, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

Public understanding of science and public engagement around science policy issues takes place within a complex system involving public opinion, values, identities, social groups, media, and social, economic, and political structures and influences. This paper offers a theory of agency that bridges the psychological and sociological and thereby offers a theoretical framework for understanding the system underlying public understanding of science, support for science, and the implications of public engagement. Agency theory integrates elements of well-established social science theories into an understanding of human agency. Strategies for improved public engagement are discussed.

Neural Processing Of Emotional Musical And Nonmusical Stimuli In Depression, Rebecca J. Lepping, Ruth Ann Atchley, Evangelia Chrysikou, Laura E. Martin, Alicia A. Clair, Rick E. Ingram, W. Kyle Simmons, Cary R. Savage

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

Background Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum are part of the emotional neural circuitry implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). Music is often used for emotion regulation, and pleasurable music listening activates the dopaminergic system in the brain, including the ACC. The present study uses functional MRI (fMRI) and an emotional nonmusical and musical stimuli paradigm to examine how neural processing of emotionally provocative auditory stimuli is altered within the ACC and striatum in depression.

Method Nineteen MDD and 20 never-depressed (ND) control participants listened to standardized positive and negative emotional musical and nonmusical stimuli during fMRI scanning and gave …

Bicultural Competence And The Latino 2.5 Generation: The Acculturative Advantages And Challenges Of Having One Foreign-Born And One U.S.-Born Parent, Jessica M. Dennis, Ana Laura Fonseca, Guadalupe Gutierrez Ramirez, Jillian Shen, Sibella Salazar

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

The 2.5 generation refers to individuals who have one parent born in the United States and one born in another country. The presence of both native-born and foreign-born parents has the potential to enhance bicultural adaptation. Across two studies with Latino young adults, we examine the extent to which the 2.5 generation is distinct from members of other generations with regard to cultural orientation, acculturative stress, and parent ethnic socialization. Results suggest that the 2.5-generation individuals report greater native cultural orientation, ethnic identity, and parental socialization compared with third-generation individuals, along with greater American orientation than first-generation individuals. The 2.5 …

Romantic Relationship Experiences From Late Adolescence To Young Adulthood: The Role Of Older Siblings In Mexican-Origin Families, Lorey A. Wheeler, Sarah E. Killoren, Shawn D. Whiteman, Kimberly A. Updegraff, Susan M. Mchale, Adriana J. Umana-Taylor

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

Youth's experiences with romantic relationships during adolescence and young adulthood have far reaching implications for future relationships, health, and well-being; yet, although scholars have examined potential peer and parent influences, we know little about the role of siblings in youth's romantic relationships. Accordingly, this study examined the prospective longitudinal links between Mexican-origin older and younger siblings' romantic relationship experiences and variation by sibling structural and relationship characteristics (i.e., sibling age and gender similarity, younger siblings' modeling) and cultural values (i.e., younger siblings' familism values). Data from 246 Mexican-origin families with older (M = 20.65 years; SD = 1.57; 50% …

Local Knowledge, Global Stage, Regna Darnell, Frederic W. Gleach

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

The Histories of Anthropology Annual presents localized perspectives on the discipline’s history within a global context, with a goal of increasing awareness and use of historical approaches in teaching, learning, and conducting anthropology.

This tenth volume of the series, Local Knowledge, Global Stage, examines worldwide historical trends of anthropology ranging from the assertion that all British anthropology is a study of the Old Testament to the discovery of the untranslated shorthand notes of pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas. Other topics include archival research into the study of Vancouver Island’s indigenous languages, explorations of the Christian notion of virgin births in …

Rebuilding Shattered Worlds, Andrea L. Smith, Anna Eisenstein

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Rebuilding Shattered Worlds explores the ways a demolished neighborhood in Easton, Pennsylvania, still resonates in the imaginations of displaced residents. Drawing on six years of ethnographic research, the authors highlight the intersecting languages of blight, race, and place as elderly interlocutors attempt to make sense of the world they lost when urban renewal initiatives razed “Syrian Town”—a densely packed neighborhood of Lebanese American, Italian American, and African American residents.

This ethnography of remembering shows how former residents engage collective memory-making through their shared place, language, and class position within the larger cityscape. Demonstrating the creative power of linguistic resources, material …

Imagining Kashmir, Patrick Colm Hogan

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

During the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent, Kashmir—a Muslim-majority area ruled by a Hindu maharaja—became a hotly disputed territory. Divided between India and Pakistan, the region has been the focus of international wars and the theater of political and military struggles for self-determination. The result has been great human suffering within the state, with political implications extending globally.

Imagining Kashmir examines cinematic and literary imaginings of the Kashmir region’s conflicts and diverse citizenship, analyzing a wide range of narratives from writers and directors such as Salman Rushdie, Bharat Wakhlu, Mani Ratnam, and Mirza Waheed in conjunction with research in …

Thinking About The Torah, Kenneth Seeskin

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

The Bible is an enduring source of inspiration for the human heart and mind, and readers of Thinking about the Torah will be rewarded with an enhanced understanding of this great work’s deeper meanings. Drawing on Western philosophy and particularly Jewish philosophy, Kenneth Seeskin delves into ten core biblical verses and the powerful ideas that emerge from them. He speaks to readers on every page and invites conversation about topics central to human existence: how finite beings can relate to the infinite, what love is, the role of ethics in religion, and the meaning of holiness.

Seeskin raises questions we …

Haters, Bailey Poland

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Cybersexism is rampant and can exact an astonishingly high cost. In some cases, the final result is suicide.

Bullying, stalking, and trolling are just the beginning. Extreme examples such as GamerGate get publicized, but otherwise the online abuse of women is largely underreported. Haters combines a history of online sexism with suggestions for solutions.

Using current events and the latest available research into cybersexism, Bailey Poland questions the motivations behind cybersexist activities and explores methods to reduce footprints of Internet misogyny, drawing parallels between online and offline abuse. By exploring the cases of Alyssa Funke, Rehtaeh Parsons, Audrie Pott, Zoe …

George Sword's Warrior Narratives, Delphine Red Shirt

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

The general focus in Lakota oral literary research has been in the study of content rather than process in oral traditions. In a new disclosure of the characteristics of Lakota oral style, Delphine Red Shirt shows how its composition and structure are reflected in the work of George Sword, who composed 245 pages of text in the Lakota language using the English alphabet. What emerges in Sword’s Lakota narratives are the formulaic patterns inherent in the Lakota language that are used to tell the narratives, as well as recurring themes and story patterns. Red Shirt’s primary conclusion is that this …

A Listening Wind, Marcia Haag

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

A Listening Wind, a collection of translated original texts and commentary edited by Marcia Haag, highlights the large array of Indigenous linguistic and cultural groups of the U.S. Southeast. A whole range of genres and selected texts represent language groups of the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Yuchi, Cherokee, Koasati, Houma, Catawba, and Atakapa.

The traditional and modern Native literature genres showcased in A Listening Wind include stories that speakers perceive to be in the past (or “fixed”), genres that have developed alongside these stories, and modern story types that have sometimes supplanted traditional tales and are now enjoying trajectories of …

Intersectionality, Anna Carastathis

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Intersectionality intervenes in the field of intersectionality studies: the integrative examination of the effects of racial, gendered, and class power on people’s lives. While “intersectionality” circulates as a buzzword, Anna Carastathis joins other critical voices to urge a more careful reading. Challenging the narratives of arrival that surround it, Carastathis argues that intersectionality is a horizon, illuminating ways of thinking that have yet to be realized; consequently, calls to “go beyond” intersectionality are premature. A provisional interpretation of intersectionality can disorient habits of essentialism, categorial purity, and prototypicality and overcome dynamics of segregation and subordination in political movements.


Through a …

Converting Heterogeneous Statistical Tables On The Web To Searchable Databases, David W. Embley, Mukkai Krishnamoorthy, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Much of the world’s quantitative data resides in scattered web tables. For a meaningful role in Big Data analytics, the facts reported in these tables must be brought into a uniform framework. Based on a formalization of header-indexed tables, we proffer an algorithmic solution to end-to-end table processing for a large class of human-readable tables. The proposed algorithms transform header-indexed tables to a category table format that maps easily to a variety of industry-standard data stores for query processing. The algorithms segment table regions based on the unique indexing of the data region by header paths, classify table cells, and …

Sacred Currency: The Value Of Textile In Colonial Andean Painting, Gaby Greenlee

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this 18th century colonial Andean image painted in the former Inka capital of Cuzco, Peru, a wreath of flowers encircles a small female figure sitting upon a richly textured seat (Figure 1). She wears clothing that connotes distinction; her features and gestures are as delicate as her garments yet her eyes are fixed and discerning. Our eyes are drawn to her eyes. What does she see? What is her role? We also turn these questions on ourselves: what do we know about this figure that gives the painting meaning? We tend to interpret the work through her identity.

However, …

Mexican Ikat And Transatlantic Trade, Alejandro B. De Avila

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The earliest text known so far in the Americas was engraved on a potsherd found in Chiapa de Corzo in southern Mexico that has been dated to around 300 years before our era. The script appears to represent a language in the Mixe-Zoquean family (which developed historically along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec), and it has been proposed that the inscription on the clay reads as follows: “The pleated cloth got dyed. The thing that is made of pleated cloth has been cut.”1 If this interpretation holds true, the text must refer to a textile that was patterned by means of …

Transnational Influences On Louisiana Samplers: Traditions, Teachers, Techniques, And Text, Lynne Anderson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Louisiana’s early history is colored with multinational interests and domination by a succession of nations speaking diverse languages. Although “discovered” by the Spanish in the 1600s, the French were the first to colonize the area, founding New Orleans in 1718 with financial support (and administrative control) from the Company of the Indies. New Orleans became Louisiana’s colonial capital in 1721. Most of the earliest immigrants to Louisiana were either French military personnel or French Canadian adventurers and traders. Their number was augmented by the forced immigration of criminals, prostitutes, and those incarcerated in French workhouses. By all accounts this made …

Abstracts & Author Biographies For Textile Society Of America, 15th Biennial Symposium (2016): Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, And The Port

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Dr. Heather J Abdelnur, Ph.D.

Reena Aggarwal

Patricia Alvarez

Cecilia Anderson

Emily Anderson

Lynne Anderson

Jaiya A Anka

Adebowale Biodun Areo and Margaret Olugbemisola Areo

Margaret Olugbemisola Areo and Adebowale Biodun Areo

David Arrellanes

Jenny Balfour-Paul

Suzi Ballenger

Ruth Barnes

Jody Benjamin

Carole F. Bennett

Julie Berman

Noga Bernstein

Medha Bhatt

Amy Bogansky

Elaine Bourque

Laurie A Brewer

Carrie Brezine

Donna Brown

Sarah S. Broomfield

Susan Brown

Heather R Buechler

Shelby A Burchett

Tara R Bursey

Bonnie S. Carter

Nynne J Christoffersen

Laura Cochrane

Lia Cook

Françoise Cousin

Jamie Credle

Maria Curtis

Pamela I Cyril-Egware

Sonja K Dahl

Mary Lou …

Representations Of Power: A Critical Multimodal Analysis Of U.S. Ceos, The Italian Mafia And Government In The Media, Theresa Catalano, Linda R. Waugh

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

In September 2008, the collapse of the bank Lehman Brothers led to a financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, threatening the entire global financial system. Some of the effects of the crisis included evictions, foreclosures and high and prolonged unemployment. Despite the fact that bankers and corporate executives are widely known to bear much of the blame for the crisis (“The origins of the financial crisis,” 2013), very few have actually been convicted of any crime. In addition, recent investigations of the relationship between the New York Federal Reserve and banks such as …

Being The “First”: A Narrative Inquiry Into The Funds Of Knowledge Of First Generation College Students In Teacher Education, Jeong-Hee Kim, Amanda Morales, Rusty Earl, Sandra Avalos

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

This study documents the life stories of eight First Generation College (FGC) students and alumni in education. Using narrative inquiry as our methodology, we the researchers sought to better understand the lived experiences, struggles and triumphs shared through stories of three postgraduates and five current students in teacher education. With this approach, we aimed to explore what it means to be a FGC student in teacher education. FGC student narratives serve as windows of understanding into their lives—bringing to the surface evidence of their funds of knowledge and what makes them successful teacher candidates and in-service teachers. The compelling stories …

Representing Teachers As Criminals In The News: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Atlanta Schools’ “Cheating Scandal”, Theresa Catalano, Lauren Gatti

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

On April 1, 2015, 11 Atlanta teachers accused of changing answers on their students’ standardized tests were convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 5–20 years in prison. Despite ample news coverage, few sources investigated teachers’ motivations for altering students’ responses or explored what the consequences would have been if student scores had not been changed to passing. Moreover, the fact that the teachers’ actions resulted from systemic problems associated with working within a high-stakes testing environment is glossed over and all but lost in the reporting of the “Cheating Scandal” events. The authors conduct a critical multimodal analysis of how …

Science Teachers’ Professional Growth And The Communication In Science Inquiry Project, Elizabeth Lewis, Dale Baker, Nievita Bueno Watts, Katrien Van Der Hoeven Kraft

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

The Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) a National Science Foundation-funded, standards-based model of a scientific classroom discourse community (SCDC) was designed to meet the need for highly-qualified teachers and science education reform. The model included: (a) inquiry; (b) oral discourse; (c) written discourse; (d) academic language development, and (e) learning principles. Research and evaluation feedback were mechanisms by which CISIP become self-regulating, promoting instructional change and incorporating more aspects of inquiry-based learning with academic language development strategies. The program underwent a philosophical shift from teachers-as-consumers to teachers-as-producers based on classroom observations using a professional development-aligned classroom observation instrument that …

Three Reading-Intervention Teachers’ Identity Positioning And Practices To Motivate And Engage Emergent Bilinguals In An Urban Middle School, Jung-In Kim, Kara Mitchell Viesca

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

This study investigated three urban middle-school teachers’ practices with respect to motivating and engaging emergent bilinguals in reading-intervention classrooms by exploring the teachers’ identity positioning. The three teachers’ sociocultural and sociopolitical positioning of their students (e.g. students as individuals, as monolithic learners, or as problems) was found to be related to their practices for motivating and engaging the students (e.g. hybrid, calibrated, or imposed practices). The teachers’ historical and current resources partially shaped how they positioned their students. The findings support that teachers should not only learn motivational practices but also reflect critically on positioning processes in the classroom.

Multilingual Pedagogies And Pre-Service Teachers: Implementing “Language As A Resource” Orientations In Teacher Education Programs, Theresa Catalano, Edmund T. Hamann

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

While Ruiz’s (1984) influential work on language orientations has substantively influenced how we study and talk about language planning, few teacher education programs today actually embed his framework in the praxis of preparing pre-service and practicing teachers. Hence, the primary purpose of this article is to demonstrate new understandings and expansions of Ruiz’s language-as-resource (LAR) approach and ways in which teacher education programs can model this orientation in their own classes, including those programs, like ours, that prepare mostly monolingual preservice and in-service teachers to work with bi/multilingual students. The authors pursue this by laying out the theoretical framework for …

Personal Agency Inspired By Hardship: Bilingual Latinas As Liberatory Educators, Amanda Morales, Gail Shroyer

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

This qualitative multiple case study focused on eleven non-traditional, bilingual, Latinas within a teacher education program. The study explored various factors that influenced participants’ desire to pursue and ability to persist as pre-service teachers. The overarching theme identified among participant discourse was personal agency inspired by hardship. Findings indicated that, as a result of their cultural and experiential understandings, participants enacted culturally responsive teaching with their Latino/a students. Furthermore, participants demonstrated a strong sense of personal agency to improve the educational outcomes of culturally and linguistically diverse students and a desire to advocate specifically on behalf of English learner Latino/a …

Being “In A Limbo”: Perceptions Of Immigration, Identity And Adaptation Of Immigrant Students In South Africa And The United States, Theresa Catalano, Jill Fox, Saloshna Vandeyar

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

Much research is available that details student experiences of immigration and adaptation to receiving countries and schools, but few studies analyze the metaphors used by immigrant students (IS) when talking about the immigration experience, or offer a comparative lens through which to view identity negotiation in two very different contexts. The present paper aims to address these gaps by conducting a comparative linguistic analysis of 20 interviews conducted with IS at universities in South Africa and the United States in order to gain a greater understanding of immigration and the types of identity negotiation processes learners undergo in these very …

Garden Variety Experiential Education: The “Material Turn” And Environmental Ethics, Allison B. Wallace

Honors in Practice Online Archive

“Productive play in the dirt” may be the hook that gets honors students at the University of Central Arkansas to take my junior seminar called Philosophy, Principles, and Practices of Organic Horticulture. They often express considerable enthusiasm for a class that gets them outside and working with their hands for much of the term, but this is not my primary reason for offering the course. With this seminar, I hope students will begin to learn, literally first-hand, the ecological reasons for an ethical relationship to nature. Organic gardening is one of the best courses for conveying such a message, largely …

Phytopharmaceuticals In Mongolia: Past, Present, And Future, Disan Gunbilig, Ulziinyam Rentsendorj

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Over the last two decades, the consumption of medicinal plants has increased in Mongolia. Once banned by the post-revolutionary government, it is now valued by the practitioners of orthodox medicine, government as well as by the society. Yet the scientific community has to give this major and crucial component of traditional Mongolian medicine the attention it deserves, scientific knowledge about biologically active principles within medicinal plants remain poorly unknown. At the same time, due to over exploitation of plants many species are becoming extinct together with invaluable traditional knowledge being lost. For these reasons, there is a certain urgency to …