Digital Commons Network^™

Life In Metropolitan Nebraskan Communities: 2021 Nebraska Metro Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

By many different measures, metropolitan Nebraskans are positive about their community. Most metropolitan Nebraskans rate their community favorably on its social dimensions. Overall, respondents rate their communities as friendly, trusting and supportive. Most metropolitan Nebraskans say it would be difficult to leave their community.

Most metropolitan Nebraskans have a positive attachment to their community. Most metropolitan Nebraskans agree that they can get what they need in their community, the community helps them fulfill their needs, they feel like a member of their community, they belong in their community, they have a good bond with others in their community and feel …

Face Masking Violations, Policing, And Covid-19 Death Rates: A Spatial Analysis In New York City Zip Codes, Tse-Chuan Yang, Seulki Kim, Stephen A. Matthews

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The use of face masks during a pandemic and compliance with state and local mandates has been a divisive issue in the United States. We document variation in face masking violation rates involving police enforcement in New York City and examine the association between police-enforced face masking violations and COVID-19-related death rates. We assemble a Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) code–level data set from the New York City Open Data, Department of Health, and the American Community Survey (2014–2018). We use maps to demonstrate the spatial patterning of police-enforced face masking violation rates and COVID-19-related death rates. Using a Bayesian spatial …

Nebraska Rail Crossing Safety Research, Aemal Khattak, Yashu Kang, Huiyuan Liu

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The research objectives of this project were to update Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) 1999 Nebraska Accident Prediction Model for Highway-Rail Grade Crossings (HRGCs) and to develop guidelines using Lancaster County Nebraska HRGCs for improving safety at urban gated HRGCs that are not designated quiet zones but are in the vicinity of quiet zone crossings.

FRA crash and HRGC inventory data were utilized for estimation of the new model after inventory information on 742 HRGCs was updated. HRGC crashes for 2008-2018 period were used for model estimation while 2019 HRGC crashes were used for model prediction validation. After consideration of …

Condition Rating Prediction Using An Interactive Deterioration Model Development Package, Minwoo Chang, Mitchell S. Maguire

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

This paper presents an advanced method to determine explanatory variables required for developing deterioration models without the interference of human bias. Although a stationary set of explanatory variables is ideal for long-term monitoring and asset management, the penalty regression results vary annually due to the innate bias in the inspection data. In this study, weighting factors were introduced to consider the inspection data collected for several years, and the most stationary set was identified. To manage the substantial amount of inspection data effectively, we proposed a software package referred to as the Deterioration Model Development Package (DMDP). The objective of …

Economic Analyses Of Federal Scientific Collections: Methods For Documenting Costs And Benefits, David E. Schindel, Economic Study Group Of The Interagency Working Group On Scientific Collections

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Federal object-based scientific collections have been created to serve agency missions and, in a few cases, to comply with legislative and regulatory mandates. “Project collections” (those managed by the researchers who obtained them for restricted use) and their costs and benefits were considered too varied for standard methodologies that assess costs and benefits. In a few cases, departments and agencies are required by legislation or regulations to retain objects in long-term “institutional collections.” In most cases, decisions to retain objects are based on long-term costs relative to the perceived potential for benefits to taxpayers. Federal collections vary in their philosophies …

Toward The Standardization Of Mesoscale Meteorological Networks, Christopher Fiebrich, Kevin Brinson, Rezaul Mahmood, Stuart Foster, Megan Schargorodski, Nathan L. Edwards, Christopher A. Redmond, Jennie R. Atkins, Jeffrey Andresen, Xiaomao Lin

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Although they share many common qualities in design and operation, mesonetworks across the United States were established independently and organically over the last several decades. In numerous instances, the unique ways each network matured and developed new protocols has led to important lessons learned. These experiences have been shared in informal ways among various network operators over the years to promote reliable operation. As existing networks begin to introduce new sensors and technologies, and as new networks come online, there is a common need for guidance on best practices. This paper aims to formally provide recommendations to improve and harmonize …

Water Current, Volume 52, No. 3, Fall 2020

Water Current Newsletter

NWC Convenes August 3 Mini-Conference

Water and Public Safety

University Receives $5 million Gift to Create Program on Water, Climate and Health

Resilience In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Capacity To Overcome Disasters And Hardships, 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca Vogt, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, Brad Lubben, L.J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steve Schulz, Jason L. Weigle

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

The definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Synonyms include toughness, perseverance and grit. Last spring’s severe weather events and this year’s ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are likely testing the resilience of rural Nebraskans. Given that, how do rural Nebraskans rate their communities on dimensions that measure their resiliency? How confident are they that the federal government or local emergency management authorities can contain infectious disease outbreaks? How do they rate their ability to help their community handle adversities? How prepared are rural Nebraskans to deal with financial emergencies? This paper provides a detailed analysis of these …

Severe Weather In Nebraska: Impacts On Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans. 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steve Schulz, Jason L. Weigle

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

In March 2019, a bomb cyclone produced a historic blizzard as well as flooding that impacted many counties in Nebraska. Given that, did rural Nebraskans experience extreme weather events or natural disasters in 2019? To what extent were they harmed by these weather events? What personal impacts did they experience? How concerned are they about weather events? This paper provides a detailed analysis of these questions. This report details 1,979 responses to the 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll, the 25th annual effort to understand rural Nebraskans’ perceptions. Respondents were asked a series of questions about weather events. Comparisons are made among …

Influences Of The Timing Of Extreme Precipitation On Floods In Poyang Lake, China, Xianghu Li, Qi Hu, Rong Wang, Dan Zhang, Qi Zhang

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Changes in the timing of extreme precipitation have important ramifications for public safety and storm water management, but it has not received much attention in relation to flooding. This study analyzed the changes in the timing of extreme precipitation in the Poyang Lake basin and projected its future changes for the period 2020–2099. The study also quantified the influences of changes in the timing of peak flows on lake floods based on a hydrodynamic model. The results showed that peak rainfall in the Poyang Lake basin had occurred on later dates during the period 1960–2012, and it is this change …

Research On School Zone Safety, Aemal Khattak, Yashu Kang

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

This research investigated different aspects of school zone safety including the effects of speed differentials on drivers’ speeds in active school zones, the effects of school and surrounding characteristics on drivers’ speeds in active school zones, and the safety benefits and costs associated with active school zones. The research team identified 18 schools in Nebraska for data collection that consisted of drivers’ speed data, school and surrounding characteristics, and 2014-2018 reported crash data. The 18 schools were categorized by the school zone speed limit differentials: 35 to 25 mph, 40 to 25 mph, 30 to 25 mph, and 35 to …

Going The Distance: A Case Study Of One Community College's Journey Across The Digital Divide, Michael Robert Jolley

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Rural communities throughout the nation continue to lag their urban and suburban peers in access to high-speed internet service. This digital divide affects rural populations in a myriad of ways, but access to higher educational opportunities may be most problematic. While the promise of technology to level the field for rural students continues to offer hope, the scarcity of broadband service lingers. This qualitative instrumental case study explores how one exceptional rural community college in the Great Plains developed the capacity to deliver distance education programming. The study relies upon Rogers's theory of diffusion of innovations to validate the extent …

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 53, Number 1, Spring 2020

Nebraska Transcript

2 Dean's Message

4 Faculty Notes

10 Civil Procedure, State Con Law scholar, Jonathan Marshfield, joins Nebraska Law

11 Remembering Steve Kalish

14 Remembering Marty Gardner: Long time faculty member, Gardner loved teaching, prioritized students. Professor Marty Gardner passed away late November 2019. His longtime friend and colleague, Professor Robert Denicola, remembers his kindness and love of teaching.

17 University hosts FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

18 Nebraska Law Hosts 12th Annual Nebraska Space Law Conference

20 Women’s Leadership Initiative features former ACLU president Nadine Strossen

29 Football agent Mulugheta maintains, ‘For success, be all in, but find balance' David Mulugheta, …

Development And Implementation Of A Moving Nondestructive Evaluation Platform For Bridge Deck Inspection, Sepehr Pashoutani, Jinying Zhu, Chungwook Sim, Brian Mazzeo, Spencer Guthrie

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Degradation in concrete bridge decks is typically manifested as rebar corrosion, concrete delamination, and surface cracks. Nondestructive evaluation and testing (NDE/NDT) technologies have been increasingly used in concrete bridge deck evaluation to identify, localize, and quantify deterioration in bridge decks. Each NDE method has its advantages and limitations on the type of defect that can be detected. Therefore, combining multiple NDE technologies is needed in order to give comprehensive and reliable information about the bridge deck condition. For effective application of multiple NDE tests, we need to use automated positioning for each NDE to facilitate post-processing and data fusion of …

Public Opinions Of Unmanned Aerial Technologies In 2014 To 2019: A Technical And Descriptive Report, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Janell C. Walther, Carrick Detweiler, Sebastian Elbaum, Adam Houston

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

The primary purpose of this report is to provide a descriptive and technical summary of the results from similar surveys administered in fall 2014 (n = 576), 2015 (n = 301), 2016 (ns = 1946 and 2089), and 2018 (n = 1050) and summer 2019 (n = 1300). In order to explore a variety of factors that may impact public perceptions of unmanned aerial technologies (UATs), we conducted survey experiments over time. These experiments randomly varied the terminology (drone, aerial robot, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), unmanned aerial system (UAS)) used to describe the technology, the purposes of the technology (for …

A Mathematical Model Of Speeding, Jared Ott, Xavier Pérez Giménez

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Crime is often regarded as nonsensical, impulsive, and irrational. These conjectures are pointed, though conversation about the pros and cons of crime does not happen often. People point to harsh fines, jail times, and life restrictions as their reason for judgement, stating that the trade-offs are far too unbalanced to participate in illicit activity. Yet, everyday people commit small crimes, sometimes based on hedonistic desires, other times based on a rational thought process.

Speeding seems to be one of those that almost all people commit at least once during their life. Our work hopes to make an incremental improvement on …

An Examination Of Nebraska’S Law Setting The Age Of Majority At Nineteen, Lauren Mcneal

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

My proposed research covers the actions of the Nebraska legislature surrounding the age of majority. During the summer of 2019, I interned with Senator Adam Morfeld to draft a bill lowering the age of majority in Nebraska from nineteen to eighteen for healthcare services. Many eighteen-year-olds, especially students, face complications when they seek healthcare services but need parental consent. This is because young adults tend to move away from their homes at this age but are still not considered independent from their parents under Nebraska state law. In this thesis, I use the information I gathered from my interim research …

Effects Of Culling White-Tailed Deer On Tree Regeneration And Microstegium Vimineum, An Invasive Grass, John Paul Schmit, Elizabeth R. Matthews, Andrejs Brolis

United States National Park Service: Publications

Reduction of forest regeneration due to overbrowsing by white-tailed deer is a growing concern for land managers. Abundant deer can impede forest regeneration through direct predation on tree seedlings. Additionally high deer density can facilitate the establishment of a dense understory of browse tolerant plant species that shades seedlings and persists even in the absence of deer. In response to these challenges, land managers have sought to reduce deer herds to restore tree regeneration, but few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of this management. Our study took place in Catoctin Mountain Park, a US National Park Service unit with a …

Perceived Neighborhood: Preferences Versus Actualities, Saeed Moradi, Ali Nejat, Da Hu, Souparno Ghosh

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Housing recovery plays a key role in the overall restoration of a community. A multitude of factors affect housing recovery, many of which are associated with interactions of residents with their perceived neighborhoods. Targeting perceived neighborhoods rather than administratively defined measures of land helps with devising recovery plans that could better address social preferences of the residents. However, such measures are commonly subject to collection of information via expensive and time-consuming surveys. The current research aims to contribute to the domain by exploring the relationship between perception of households of their neighborhood anchors (perceived anchors) and the anchors that exist …

2020 Annual Campus Security And Fire Safety Report, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, University Police, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University Police

2020 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 2019 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.

Perceptions Of Production And Animal Agriculture In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz, Jason L. Weigle

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans have farming or ranching history in their family. In fact, one-half of rural Nebraskans are one generation or less removed from the farm or ranch. Rural Nebraskans’ connection to agriculture has not changed much in the last ten years.

Most rural Nebraskans view their economic well-being as being dependent on both production agriculture in general and animal agriculture in particular. Furthermore, most rural Nebraskans say the economic well-being of their community or county is very much dependent on the economic success of both production agriculture and animal agriculture.

Most rural Nebraskans are supportive of new livestock development …

Justice-Free Zones: U.S. Immigration Detention Under The Trump Administration, Eunice Hyunhye Cho, Tara Tidwell Cullen, Clara Long

United States Department of Homeland Security

In the last three years, the Trump administration has grown the immigration detention system in the United States to an unprecedented size, at times holding more than 56,000 people per day. Since 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has anchored this growth in places where immigrants are most likely to be isolated from legal counsel, remain in detention without real opportunity for release, and are more likely to lose their cases. These new detention centers also exhibit patterns of mistreatment and abuse, including medical and mental health care neglect, that have been present since the inception of ICE’s detention system …

Well-Being In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: 25 Years Of Trends, 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz, Jason L. Weigle

Nebraska Rural Poll

By many different measures, rural Nebraskans are positive about their community. Many rural Nebraskans rate their community favorably on its social dimensions. Most rural Nebraskans say it would be difficult to leave their community and have a positive attachment to their community. Most rural Nebraskans disagree that their community is powerless to control its future.

Rural Nebraskans’ views about the change in their community have generally been positive. The proportion believing their community has changed for the better during the past year has usually been greater than the proportion believing it has changed for the worse, especially during the past …

Executive Control In Early Childhood As An Antecedent Of Adolescent Problem Behaviors: A Longitudinal Study With Performance-Based Measures Of Early Childhood Cognitive Processes, Charles B. Fleming, Amy L. Stevens, Marla Vivero, Irina Patwardhan, Timothy D. Nelson, Jennifer Mize Nelson, Tiffany D. James, Kimberly Andrews Espy, W. Alex Mason

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Identifying childhood cognitive processes that predict adolescent problem behaviors can help guide understanding and prevention of these behaviors. In a community sample of 313 youth recruited in a small Midwestern city between 2006 and 2012 (49% male, 64% European American), executive control and foundational cognitive abilities were assessed at age 5 in a lab setting with performance-based measures. In adolescence, youth provided self-report of problem behaviors in surveys administered annually between ages 14 and 16. Executive control was negatively associated with externalizing behavior problems and adolescents getting in trouble at school, accounting for foundational cognitive abilities and family background covariates. …

Control Or Eradication: Problems In The Management Of Invasive Birds, Michael L. Avery, Chris J. Feare

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Humans have captured, transported and intentionally released wild birds for centuries (Blackburn et al., 2009). Motivations for such purposeful introductions include food (West and Zhou, 2007), religion (Agoramoorthy and Hsu, 2007), sport (McDowall, 1994), biocontrol (Bennett and Hughes, 1959; Kurdila, 1995) and aesthetics (Ryan, 1906; Thomson, 1922). Many purposeful bird introductions were the work of acclimatization societies, particularly in North America, New Zealand and Australia. These societies were formed in the 19th century by European settlers to transport bird species from their homelands in efforts to establish them in the newly settled regions (Thomson, 1922; Dunlap, 1997). As a result …

Immigration, Fatima Jaramillo

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Immigrants want nothing but the best, not only for themselves, but for their families. Immigrants are those who choose to take the greatest risks and put their sweat and tears into everything they do because they keep reaching for the happy ending, instead of worrying about the obstacles that come with immigrating.

In the United States the true definition that government gives an immigrant is: “An alien who has been granted the right by United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) to reside permanently in the United States and to work without restrictions in the United States.”

Immigrants struggle with …

Exit Here: Strategies For Dealing With Aging Dams And Reservoirs, Henry H. Hansen, Emily Forzono, Alisha Grams, Lindsay Ohlman, Christine Ruskamp, Mark A. Pegg, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aging infrastructure is prevalent throughout the world, but water control management structures, specifically dams, are of growing concern. Dams and their corresponding reservoirs have inherent, but separate, lifespans. The proportion of dams around the world that continue operation beyond their intended lifespans is growing at an alarming rate. Society will not only have to navigate the tradeoffs associated with the deterioration of services provided by reservoirs and dams, but also impending structural failures. Society is nearing a critical pinch point where we will have to decide how to deal with dams and reservoirs at scales that range from a single …

Chapter 21: Modeling Interviewer Effects In The National Health Interview Survey. Appendix 21, James Dahlhamer, Aaron Maitland, Benjamin Zablotsky, Carla Zelaya

Interviewer Workshop, 2019: Interviewers and Their Effects from a Total Survey Error Perspective

Supplemental Table A21.1 Questions, Question Characteristics, and Intra-Interviewer Correlations (IIC)

Table A21.2 Descriptive Statistics for Respondent and Case Characteristics Included in Multi-Level Models

Table A21.3 Descriptive Statistics for County Measures Included in Multi-Level Models

Table A21.4 Descriptive Statistics for Interviewer Characteristics Included in Multi-Level Models

Table A21.5 Mock Dataset Structure Depicting Questions, Interviewer Groups, and IICs

2020 Annual Report, Nebraska Game And Parks

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: Publications

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Variability Of Project Cost And Schedule Performance In The Design-Build Environment, Yunping Liang, Baabak Ashuri, Wei Sun

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Design-build (DB) projects are getting more implementations in the United States. Several studies indicate that the DB project delivery system has advantages in project cost and schedule performance. Despite having comparative advantages, DB projects are found to be far from immune from cost overruns and schedule delay in those studies. It is critical to understand the effects of various factors underpinning the cost and schedule performance of DB projects. The overall objective of this research is to utilize cluster analysis and statistical analysis to identify factors with significant potentials to describe the variability of project cost and schedule performance in …