Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Maoa And Stress Sensitivity On Crime And Delinquency: A Replication Study, Christa C. Christ, Joseph A. Schwartz, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Jonathan R. Brauer, Jukka Savolainen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Across several meta-analyses, MAOA-uVNTR genotype has been associated with an increased risk for antisocial behavior among males who experienced early life adversity. Subsequently, early life stress and genetic susceptibility may have long-term effects on stress sensitivity later in life. In support of this assumption, a recent study found evidence, in two independent samples, for a three-way interaction effect (cG × E × E) such that proximate stress was found to moderate the interactive effect of MAOA-uVNTR and distal stress on crime and delinquency among males. In light of recent developments in cG × E research, we attempted to …

How State-Level Dynamics Shape Individual-Level Welfare Payments, Jamy Rentschler

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines how welfare program implementation varies across states, and what those differences in implementation mean for welfare (TANF) recipients across the country. Specifically, I examine the extent to which state-level context related demographics and economics as well as political ideology, religious culture and race may contribute to contemporary disparate economic outcomes for low-income racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. This study relies on a sample of welfare recipients from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) during 1998-2013 to examine individual recipients’ average monthly TANF payments. Analyses combine SIPP data with state-level information drawn from …

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln Digitalcommons: Statistical Report, August 2018, Deeann Allison, Paul Royster, Sue Ann Gardner, Margaret Mering, Linnea Fredrickson

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

To: Deeann Allison, Director, Media & Repository Services, UNL Libraries

I am pleased to transmit the following statistics report on the UNL DigitalCommons, http://digitalcommons.unl.edu

The DigitalCommons is the “institutional repository” for UNL. It’s function is to gather the intellectual output of the university for online public access. It was established in 2005, and now holds 99,000 papers, making it the 3rd largest in the United States, trailing only the University of California system (190,000) and the University of Michigan (120,000). It recently surpassed 50 million downloads, and is the nation’s current leader in that category. Alexa.com reports that the repository …

Building Bigness: Reputation, Prominence, And Social Capital In Rural South India, Eleanor A. Power, Elspeth Ready

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Anthropologists have long been concerned with how reputations help people gain the support of others. Here, we study the support ties among adult residents of two Tamil villages, asking how reputational standing in each village mediates access to social support. We find that a reputation for influence has the weakest effect on support ties with others, while a reputation for generosity has the strongest. Further, a reputation for influence is not associated with greater connections to people of “high position” outside the village. Given the weak effects of a reputation for influence, we turn to a network measure of social …

What Happens During Language And Literacy Coaching? Coaches’ Reports Of Their Interactions With Educators, Rachel E. Schachter, Melissa M. Weber-Mayrer, Shayne B. Piasta, Ann A. O’Connell

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

Research Findings: This study investigated coaches’ interactions with educators in the context of a large-scale, state-implemented literacy professional development (PD). We examined log data and open-comment reports to understand what coaches found salient about their interactions with educators as well as how those reports aligned with the initial design of the PD. Coaches reported spending a large proportion of their interactions with educators completing administrative tasks. Our findings also indicate that coaches disproportionally targeted instructional content from the PD while also adding unrelated instructional content to their coaching. Although coaches reported focusing on relationship building, they reported using less efficacious …

Lba: An R Package For Latent Budget Analysis, Enio G. Jelihovschi, Ivan Bezerra Allaman

The R Journal

The latent budget model is a mixture model for compositional data sets in which the entries, a contingency table, may be either realizations from a product multinomial distribution or distribution free. Based on this model, the latent budget analysis considers the interactions of two variables; the explanatory (row) and the response (column) variables. The package lba uses expectation-maximization and active constraints method (ACM) to carry out, respectively, the maximum likelihood and the least squares estimation of the model parameters. It contains three main functions, lba which performs the analysis, goodnessfit for model selection and goodness of fit and the plotting …

Bayesian Testing, Variable Selection And Model Averaging In Linear Models Using R With Bayesvarsel, Gonzalo Garcia-Donato, Anabel Forte

The R Journal

In this paper, objective Bayesian methods for hypothesis testing and variable selection in linear models are considered. The focus is on BayesVarSel, an R package that computes posterior probabilities of hypotheses/models and provides a suite of tools to properly summarize the results. We introduce the usage of specific functions to compute several types of model averaging estimations and predictions weighted by posterior probabilities. BayesVarSel contains exact algorithms to perform fast computations in problems of small to moderate size and heuristic sampling methods to solve large problems. We illustrate the functionalities of the package with several data examples.

Panjen: An R Package For Ranking Transformations In A Linear Regression, Cathrine Ulla Jensen, Toke Emil Panduro

The R Journal

PanJen is an R-package for ranking transformations in linear regressions. It provides users with the ability to explore the relationship between a dependent variable and its independent variables. The package offers an easy and data-driven way to choose a functional form in multiple linear regression models by comparing a range of parametric transformations. The parametric functional forms are benchmarked against each other and a non-parametric transformation. The package allows users to generate plots that show the relation between a covariate and the dependent variable. Furthermore, PanJen will enable users to specify specific functional transformations, driven by a priori and theory-based …

Small Area Disease Risk Estimation And Visualization Using R, Paula Moraga

The R Journal

Small area disease risk estimation is essential for disease prevention and control. In this paper, we demonstrate how R can be used to obtain disease risk estimates and quantify risk factors using areal data. We explain how to define disease risk models and how to perform Bayesian inference using the INLA package. We also show how to make interactive maps of estimates using the leaflet package to better understand the disease spatial patterns and communicate the results. We show an example of lung cancer risk in Pennsylvania, United States, in year 2002, and demonstrate that R represents an excellent tool …

Gray Space And Green Space Proximity Associated With Higher Anxiety In Youth With Autism, Lincoln R. Lawson, Brian Barger, Scott Ogletree, Julia C. Torquati, Steven Rosenberg, Cassandra Johnson Gaither, Jodie Marie Bartz, Andrew Gardner, Eric Moody, Anne R. Schutte

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

This study used ZIP code level data on children's health (National Survey of Children's Health, 2012) and land cover (National Land Cover Database, 2011) from across the United States to investigate connections between proximity to green space (tree canopy), gray space (impervious surfaces), and expression of a critical co-morbid condition, anxiety, in three groups of youth: children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n=1501), non-ASD children with special healthcare needs (CSHCN, n=15,776), and typically developing children (n=53,650). Both impervious surface coverage and tree canopy coverage increased the risk of severe anxiety in youth with autism, but not CSHCN or typical …

Law And Family Formation Among Lgbq-Parent Families, Emily Kazyak, Brandi Woodell, Kristin S. Scherrer, Emma Finken

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This article addresses how the law affects family formation among families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) parents in the United States. Our discussion draws on a socio-legal approach to law that focuses not only on the law on the books (what we refer to as “legal barriers”) but also on issues like how the law is practiced, how people experience the law in everyday life, and how the law serves as an interpretive framework through which people understand themselves and their families (what we refer to as “social barriers”). In our review, we highlight how attorneys can play …

A Probable Case Of Incipient Speciation In Schizocosa Wolf Spiders Driven By Allochrony, Habitat Use, And Female Mate Choice, R. Tucker Gilman, Kasey Fowler-Finn, Eileen A. Hebets

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

There is growing evidence that speciation can occur between populations that are not geographically isolated. The emergence of assortative mating is believed to be critical to this process, but how assortative mating arises in diverging populations is poorly understood. The wolf spider genus Schizocosa has become a model system for studying mechanisms of assortative mating. We conducted a series of experiments to identify the factors that control mate-pair formation in a Schizocosa population that includes both ornamented and nonornamented males. We show that the population also includes two previously unrecognized female phenotypes. One female phenotype mates mostly or exclusively with …

Tracking Drought Perspectives: A Rural Case Study Of Transformations Following An Invisible Hazard, Theresa Jedd, Deborah Bathke, Duane Gill, Bimal Paul, Nicole Wall, Tonya Bernadt, Jacob Peter, Anthony Mucia, Milan Wall

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Rural towns are especially susceptible to the effects of drought because their economies are dependent on natural resources. However, they are also resilient in many ways to natural hazards because they are rich in civic engagement and social capital. Because of the diverse nature of drought’s impacts, understanding its complex dynamics and its effects requires a multidisciplinary approach. To study these dynamics, this research combines appreciative inquiry, the Community Capitals Framework, and a range of climatological monitoring data to assess the 2012–14 Great Plains drought’s effect on McCook, Nebraska. Community coping measures, such as water-use reduction and public health programs, …

Injection Partners, Hcv, And Hiv Status Among Rural Persons Who Inject Drugs In Puerto Rico, Patrick Habecker, Roberto Abadie, Melissa L. Welch-Lazoritz, Juan Carlos Reyes, Bilal Khan, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background—The prevalence of hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV among persons who inject drugs (PWID) and the ability of these diseases to spread through injection networks are well documented in urban areas. However, less is known about injection behaviors in rural areas.

Objectives—This study focuses on the association between the number of self-reported injection partners with the PWID’s self-reported HCV and HIV status. Injection networks provide paths for infection and information to flow, and are important to consider when developing prevention and intervention strategies.

Methods—Respondent driven sampling was used to conduct 315 interviews with PWID in rural Puerto Rico during 2015. …

Sharing Identity: Indexing Cultural Perspectives Through Writing Responses To Graphic Novels, Alex Romagnoli

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Indexing identity through writing responses among ELL students in response to a graphic novel helps provide insight into how writing responses represent people and how graphic novels can aid in that process of self-discovery through their inherent multimodalities. This study takes looks at four students in an ELL class at an urban high school in southern Pennsylvania as they responded in writing to a portion of Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (2006). All of the participants took events from the portion of the graphic novel provided to them and indexed their urban, cultural perspectives through their …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Needs Assessment For Informing Extension Professional Development Trainings On Teaching Adult Learners, Nathan W. Conner, Dipti Dev, Katherine Krause

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

As society becomes more information saturated, Extension must evaluate its educational programming and delivery methods used to facilitate adult learning. Extension professionals must have a comprehensive understanding of how adults learn. Accordingly, we conducted a needs assessment as a basis for providing professional development trainings focused on teaching adults. Our objective was to identify Extension professionals' professional development needs related to designing and facilitating programming based on andragogy. We developed a survey instrument that addressed andragogy-related topics and administered it to Extension professionals. The results indicated that professional development centered on andragogy was needed by and relevant to the study …

Tier 1 Intervention: Animals In Schools, Sarah Kavan, Angela Prince, Mary Jo Anderson, Nicole Bricko, Natalie Hoff, Reece L. Peterson

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Conclusion

The use of animals in schools has become an increasingly important topic of discussion, as there are various reasons that animals might be an important component of the school day for our students. Purposes can range from service animals to therapy animals or even recreational or visitation animals. While there are benefits and considerations for all animals in schools, under the current legal mandates, there is only one category of animals that is required be allowed in schools: service animals. The Americans with Disabilities Act has set forth clear regulations stating that service animals must be allowed to accommodate …

Bringing About Community Change, Connie Loden, Sharon Gulick, Norm Walzer

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Community Change Initiative

• A Community Change Network was formed in 2010 to understand ways to help small communities bring about effective change. It incorporates past experiences of mainly university outreach programs with histories of successful outcomes plus a survey of thirty-five programs with documented outcomes.

• CCN held sessions in annual CDS and IACD Conferences in New Orleans, Louisiana, Boise, Idaho, Cincinnati, Ohio, Charleston, South Carolina, Dubuque, Iowa, and Glasgow, Scotland.

• Several special issues of Community Development, Journal of the Community Development Society and articles focused on innovative approaches to change and related topics. Edited volume in the …

Birds Of A Feather? Friendship Utilization By Sexual Minority Students During The Transition To College, Jessica Morrow

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Friendship is important for individuals at any point in their lives, but takes on a new role during emerging adulthood as individuals make the transition into adult roles and responsibilities (Arnett 2000, 2006). Potentially even more significant is the importance of friendship to sexual minority young adults who are also forming their identities at this stage (Brandon-Friedman and Kim 2016). Since the transition to college takes place during emerging adulthood, it is important to examine how sexual minority young adults utilize their friendships with other sexual minorities as well as heterosexual peers to navigate this transition. Drawing on in-depth interviews …

Shoes @ The Krasl: Photographs, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Krasl Art Center, in Saint Joseph, Michigan, is not only an energetic organization but also an ever evolving physical space replete with exciting sculptural experiments. My longtime Krasl favorite, Michael Dunbar’s dramatic Allegheny Drift, was the setting for the initial photograph (inset) in what became my visual explorations with the Blue Shoes (documented in The Year- Long Adventures of the Blue Shoes and Their Friends (Lincoln: Zea Books, 2016); available gratis as a PDF download from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/49/). Inspired by the recent transformations of the Krasl’s grounds, the eight plates in this portfolio …

Cognition And Context: Rural–Urban Differences In Cognitive Aging Among Older Mexican Adults, Joseph L. Saenz, Brian Downer, Marc A. Garcia, Rebeca Wong

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objective—To describe differences in cognitive functioning across rural and urban areas among older Mexican adults.

Method—We include respondents aged 50+ in the 2012 Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS). Cognitive functioning by domain is regressed as a function of community size. The role of educational attainment in explaining rural/urban differences in cognitive functioning is examined.

Results—Respondents residing in more rural areas performed worse across five cognitive domains. The majority, but not all, of the association between community size and cognitive functioning was explained by lower education in rural areas.

Discussion—Respondents residing in more rural areas were disadvantaged in terms of …

Representations Of Mainstream And Marginalized Subjects In The Work Of Diane Arbus, Grace Short

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis considers the photographs of the twentieth-century photographer, Diane Arbus. In America during the 1950s and 60s, Arbus photographed both marginalized and mainstream subjects including dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, debutants, socialites, and celebrities. At one point in her career, she expressed an interest in family portraiture and, indeed, a number of her images depict families.

Scholars who have written about Arbus, such as Susan Sontag, Carol Armstrong, Anthony W. Lee, and John Pultz, have formulated theories about Arbus’s motivations, although their findings focus on individual features of her work. Sontag argued that Arbus exploited her unorthodox sitters whereas Armstrong …

Examining Retrospective Measurement Of Ambivalence About First Births And Psychological Well-Being Using A Hybrid Cross-Survey Multiple Imputation Approach, Stacy Tiemeyer

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation follows a 3 article format. First, I implement strategies for combining the three surveys and evaluating the individual unique measures of fertility intentions status to a combined survey latent class analysis. I found that the best fitting solution, based upon theories, qualitative research, and prior research with each survey alone, included four latent classes of first birth intentions: intended, unintended, and two categories of ambivalent: okay either way and conflicted. Second, using fertility intentions classes identified in the second chapter, I use three theories (Theory of Planned Behavior, Traits-Desires-Intentions-Behaviors and Theory of Conjunctural Action) to extend research …

Aging And Biases In Spatial Memory: A Dynamic Field Approach, Gregory J. Degirolamo

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Spatial cognition encompasses a wide variety of abilities and requires the interaction of several regions of the brain, including the hippocampus, striatum, and pre-frontal cortex (PFC). (Packard & McGaugh, 1996; Reuter-Lorenz et al., 2000). Given that these areas atrophy in later adulthood (Golomb et al., 1993; Raz et al., 2003; Aizenstein et al., 2006), it raises the question of how spatial cognition changes with age. It has been found that increased task complexity leads to an age-related decline in performance (Nagel et al., 2009). Other factors that lead to a decline in memory performance in older adults include whether the …

Ptsd And Dysfunctional Parenting: Emotional And Biological Mechanisms, Molly Franz

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Women are disproportionately at risk for developing PTSD following exposure to trauma. Among its many harmful effects, PTSD is associated with a range of negative family outcomes, including impairments in parenting behaviors. Despite the prevalence of PTSD and its impact on parenting, little is known about the mechanisms responsible for this association. The present project addressed this gap by examining the impact of PTSD on dysfunctional parenting behaviors in a lab setting. Based on prior theory and empirical evidence, I expected that a diagnosis of PTSD would be associated with more dysfunctional parenting (i.e., harsh/overreactive and lax/permissive behaviors) during routine …

Conceal And Carry: Communicating About Trauma, Triggers, And Second Assaults In The Classroom, Amy Arellano

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Challenging the predominance of rape culture within academia, this dissertation focuses on the intersection of academic conversations regarding the inclusion of trigger warnings. This project examines the academic trigger warning debate from its inception in January 2014 through its peak in May 2015. I argue that the implementation of trigger warnings serves as a visible adaptation within pedagogy to respond to the role trauma from sexual assaults may influence the classroom. To achieve this, I offer a careful examination of the trigger warning debate informed by an approach that puts Kenneth Burke’s indexing in conversation with Michael McGee’s ideographic analysis. …

Disentangling The Roles Of Modernization And Secularization On Fertility: The Case Of Turkey, Dogan Hatun

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theory argues very low fertility results from the simultaneous processes of modernization and secularization. However, this theory has primarily only been examined in the Christian countries of Northern and Western Europe. The assumption that modernization and secularization are co-occurring processes may not apply in other non-European, non-Christian contexts. Notably absent are studies of Muslim-majority nations, where modernization has occurred separate from secularization because the primary interpretation of Islam views the pursuit of secular knowledge is as important as the pursuit of religious knowledge. Therefore, there is a critical need to examine the applicability of the SDT …

A Comparison Of India And The United States: A Look At Innovative Child Welfare Service Practices, Kaitlin Roselius

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Child abuse and neglect are human rights issues on a global level. Violence is not cookie cutter; it comes in many different shapes and sizes. Many countries have started the uncomfortable, but critical, discussion on how best to address this problem which has reached epidemic proportions. Numerous service providers are creating innovative practices to combat the cycle of violence. This paper looks to identify what specific providers are currently doing to mitigate risk for children and families by analyzing the similarities and differences between India and the United States. Data for this research was collected through a variety of sources …

Gendered Responses To Stress: Differences Across Type Of Stressor And Mental Health Outcomes, Erin Voichoski

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

It is well known in mental health literature that men and women tend to manifest distinct mental health outcomes. Specifically, women tend to report higher levels of internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, whereas men tend to report higher levels of externalizing symptoms, such as alcohol abuse and antisocial behavior. This research will further explore the relationship between stress and mental health, as well as the moderating effect of gender. Drawing from the differential vulnerability hypothesis and self-salience theory, I take a novel approach to examining a variety of stressors and mental health outcomes. I assess whether stressors that …