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On Province And Empire In My Ántonia And One Of Ours: Cather’S 1922 The Waste Land, Paul A. Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Willa Cather profoundly alters her attitude towards the American experiment, World War I, and the prospect of cultural pluralism in America between her 1918 My Antonia and her 1922 One of Ours. In doing so, she addresses the issue of what kind of culture America should have: a monistic one such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson advocated or a pluralistic one. In My Antonia, set during the period of Great Plains settlement but extending up into World War I, she presents an intact American cultural pluralism: non-English speaking European cultures continuing their positive practices absent the monarchic repression …

Water Current, Volume 56, No. 3, Fall 2024

Water Current Newsletter

No abstract provided.

United States Department Of Homeland Security Scientific Integrity Policy

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

United States Department of Homeland Security Scientific Integrity Policy

The Impact Of Health And Environmental Messaging With And Without Product Filtering In Complex Retail Markets: The Case Of Pulses, Christopher R. Gustafson, Henriette Gitungwa, Sushil C. Sapkota, Devin J. Rose

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Multiple barriers exist to healthy and environmentally sustainable food choices. Limited consumer understanding of the health and environmental implications of food choices complicates their abilities to make choices that lead to desired outcomes. The complexity of the retail environment itself may crowd out less immediate motivations to address health or environment. Even if consumers understand general impacts of food choices on health and environmental outcomes, there may be non-negligible time and search costs to identifying the products that meet consumers’ needs. In many food categories, the foods containing attributes that help achieve health and sustainability outcomes may represent …

United States Department Of Health And Human Services Scientific Integrity Policy (September 16, 2024)

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

United States Department of Health and Human Services Scientific Integrity Policy (September 16, 2024)

Antitrust Class Action To Challenge Collusion Among The World’S Six Largest For-Profit Publishers Of Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Journals, Lucina Uddin, Dean M. Harvey, Jallé H. Dafa, Benjamin A. Trouvais, Emily N. Harwell, Benjamin D. Elga, Janet Herold

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Scholar and scientist Dr. Lucina Uddin (the “Scholar Plaintiff”) brings this antitrust class action to challenge collusion among the world’s six largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals: (1) Elsevier B.V.; (2) Wolters Kluwer N.V.; (3) John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; (4) Sage Publications, Inc.; (5) Taylor and Francis Group, Ltd.; and (6) Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA (collectively, the “Publisher Defendants”). In violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the Publisher Defendants conspired to unlawfully appropriate billions of dollars that would have otherwise funded scientific research (the “Scheme”).

The Publisher Defendants’ Scheme has three primary components. First, …

High-Mast Tower Foundation – Phase Ii, Ammar Al Maabreh, Abdelrahman Awawdeh, Marc Maguire, Jay Puckett, Brandon Kreiling

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Challenge: High-mast luminaire supports used in the US transportation sector are typically steel poles that are attached to a baseplate via a butt or socket weld. Many have failed primarily due to fatigue cracking at the weld toe. Significant research in the US improved the fatigue performance of these structures; however, failures still occur due to high-cycle cracking at the weld toes, or at other fatigue-prone details. Additionally, poles are failing in moderate winds that create galloping. Galloping is an aerodynamic phenomenon where the wind excitation frequency matches the pole’s natural frequency creating resonance. The top amplitudes are many times …

Challenges In Assessing Repellency Via The Behavioral Response By The Global Pest Tribolium Castaneum To Protect Stored Grains, Leslie Catherine Rault, William R. Morrison Iii, Alison R. Gerken, Georgina Bingham

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Background: Food security is an increasingly pressing global issue, and by 2050, food production will not be sufficient to feed the growing population. Part of global food insecurity can be attributed to post-harvest losses, including quantity and quality losses caused by stored-product pests like insects. It is thus timely to find management strategies to mitigate these losses and counteract food insecurity. The red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), a global stored-product pest with a wide range of food sources, was used in this study to assess repellency to a selection of essential oils. Methods: Multiple behaviorally relevant methods …

Development Of A Multidimensional Measure Of Wellbeing For Emerging Adults Utilizing A Convergent Parallel Mixed Method Design, Kelley Marie Wick

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Attempting to conceptualize wellbeing is difficult, and the current research literature does not offer a standard definition that encapsulates the complexity of this construct, nor has there been a thorough consideration the impact of culture and societal standards of behavior on wellbeing. Additionally, the emergence of a new developmental period between adolescence and true adulthood (emerging adulthood) offers an additional layer of nuance, as many of the traditional scales currently used to measure wellbeing are inappropriate for emerging adults. A major gap in the current research literature is the reluctance in developing measures with the help of the target population. …

Immunological Feedback Loops Generate Parasite Persistence Thresholds That Explain Variation In Infection Duration, Clayton E. Cressler, Daniel C.G. Metz, David A. Chang Van Oordt, Andrea L. Graham

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Infection duration affects individual host fitness and between-host transmission. Whether an infection is cleared or becomes chronic depends on the complex interaction between host immune responses and parasite growth. Empirical and theoretical studies have suggested that there are critical thresholds of parasite dose that can determine clearance versus chronicity, driven by the ability of the parasite to manipulate host immunity. However, the mammalian immune response is characterized by strong positive and negative feedback loops that could generate duration thresholds even in the absence of direct immunomodulation. Here, we derive and analyse a simple model for the interaction between T-cell subpopulations …

Equal Protection Of Life, Liberty, And Labor: Habeas Corpus & The 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, Madison Mendiola

Digital Legal Research Lab

Presents and synthesizes three cases demonstrating the use of habeas corpus in the contect of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution between 1901 and 1904.

Research poster titled Equal Protection of Life, Liberty, and Labor Habeas Corpus & the 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

Dancing With Identity: How Women In It Navigate Leadership Construction, Amy Barry

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

Women are underrepresented in the information technology sector and experience pervasive gender bias in the typically male-dominated organizations. Barry explores how women navigate and shape their leadership identities within such an environment.

Evaluation Of Unreinforced And Geosynthetic-Reinforced Subgrade Material Performance With Large-Scale Tracking Wheel Tests And Dynamic Cone Penetrometer Tests, Kenaz Owusu

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Subgrade has a significant impact on the performance of a pavement as it serves as the foundation layer on which traffic loads are transferred. Many pavement failures can be attributed to weak subgrade strength. The integration of geosynthetics in road pavements has been identified as an effective solution for enhancing subgrade performance to withstand imposed traffic. This study evaluated the performance of unreinforced and geosynthetic-reinforced subgrades in Nebraska to quantify the contribution of geosynthetics to unpaved layer systems.

The strength and stiffness of different soil subgrades were assessed through unconfined compressive strength tests and repeated load triaxial (RLT) tests, which …

Assessing Even Flat-Fan Nozzles For Spot Spray Herbicide Applications, Thiago H. Vitti

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Herbicide efficiency in row-crop agriculture can be improved using precision technologies for controlling weeds and minimize agronomic, economic, and environmental impacts. Site-specific weed management technologies, such as spot-sprayers, allow herbicides to be sprayed only where weeds are present in the field. Understanding application parameters and their influence on weed control for site-specific spot-spray applications is essential. This research involved laboratory and greenhouse studies to investigate the coverage and coefficient of variation (CV) of even flat-fan spray nozzles under different spot-spray application scenarios, as well as the effect of weed size and application method on the control of various weed species …

Development Of Feature Extraction Models To Improve Image Analysis Applications In Cancer, Yu Shi

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Cancer poses a significant global health challenge. With an estimated 20 million new cases diagnosed worldwide in 2022 and 9.7 million fatalities attributable to the disease, the economic burden of cancer is immense. It impacts healthcare systems and imposes substantial costs for its care on patients and their families. Despite advancements in early detection, prevention, and treatment that have reduced overall cancer mortality rates, the growing prevalence of cancer, particularly among younger individuals, remains a pressing issue.

Recent advancements in medical imaging technology have progressed significantly with the help of emerging computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Despite these …

Semigroup Well-Posedness And Finite Element Analysis Of A Biot-Stokes Interactive System, Sara Mcknight

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The coupling of a porous medium modeled by the Biot equations and a fluid has many biological applications. There are numerous ways by which to model the fluid and to couple the porous medium with the fluid. This particular model couples the Biot equations to Stokes flow along the boundary, through the Beavers-Joseph-Saffman conditions. We address semigroup well-posedness of the system via an inf-sup approach, which along the way requires consideration of a related but uncoupled static Biot system. We also present the results of finite element analysis on both the uncoupled Biot system and the coupled system.

Advisor: Sara …

The Value Of Knowledge And Its Problems, Kevin Patton

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation answers the three value problems in epistemology. These three problems require an answer as to how knowledge is more valuable 1) than mere true belief, 2) any of the proper subsets of knowledge, and 3) in kind than that which falls short of knowledge. The methodology used to provide an answer to these problems relies on the arguments put forth in a rarely discussed paper from Ward Jones. In short, the Jonesian approach can be summed up as the view that epistemic axiology and analysis ought to be kept separate. The Jonesian framework instead looks outside of the …

Teacher-Child Interaction Quality In Free Choice And Associations With Child Peer-Related Social Competence, Yuenjung Joo

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Children’s peer-related social skills in early childhood set the stage for school readiness, social competence, and lifelong well-being. Preschoolers spend most of their classroom time in free choice, offering substantial opportunities for learning experiences that facilitate peer interactions that support social development. Yet, little is known about how early childhood teachers can best optimize children’s social learning without disrupting the benefits of play during this time. The purpose of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers’ social support behaviors during free choice align with children’s social needs (i.e., fit of teacher-child social interaction) and the association between the fit …

Three Essentials Of Private Property In Kant, Lauren Michelle Kashi

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

There are three principles of public right describing a civil condition and a citizenry that Kant offers: freedom, equality, and independence. I argue that these three principles offer further justification for both protection of property rights and enforcement of redistributive taxation than Kant’s Universal Law of Right and principles of property acquisition alone can. In a civil condition with legitimized laws protecting private property, citizens enjoy maximal freedom from interference, dependence, and inequality. Indeed, the purpose of the civil condition for Kant is to create such freedoms, which are made manifest by laws enforcing private ownership as well as redistribution …

Applying Circuit Theory To Describe Changes In Structural Landscape Connectivity In Response To Wildfire, Christian Ross Nielsen

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding and conserving ecological connectivity is critical to the preservation of vulnerable landscapes. Circuit theory, in which landscapes are imagined as circuit boards with varying resistances to the flow of current, is being increasingly used to model spatially explicit connectivity of landscapes and to inform land management and conservation decision-making. Utilizing continuous, quantitative estimates of percent cover by five land cover functional groups to create a conductance surface, this study expanded upon an established application of circuit theory that used the open-source software Circuitscape to model species-agnostic, omnidirectional connectivity. This model was automated using Python to create time-series connectivity maps …

Applications Of Artificial Intelligence On Drought Impact Monitoring And Assessment, Beichen Zhang

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Drought, a prevalent and consequential natural disaster, poses widespread, indirect challenges across environmental and societal dimensions. Despite considerable focus on monitoring meteorological and hydrological drought and studying their characteristics, there is a gap in assessing its multifaceted impacts, especially on societal sectors. The dissertation comprises three research essays utilizing artificial intelligence to quantitatively study multi-dimensional drought impacts. The first essay leveraged deep learning and natural language processing to predict multi-dimensional drought impacts from textual datasets, including social media, news media, and citizen scientist reports. The findings demonstrate superior performance over traditional methods and unveil the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of …

The Value Of Knowledge And Its Problems, Kevin Patton

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation answers the three value problems in epistemology. These three problems require an answer as to how knowledge is more valuable 1) than mere true belief, 2) any of the proper subsets of knowledge, and 3) in kind than that which falls short of knowledge. The methodology used to provide an answer to these problems relies on the arguments put forth in a rarely discussed paper from Ward Jones. In short, the Jonesian approach can be summed up as the view that epistemic axiology and analysis ought to be kept separate. The Jonesian framework instead looks outside of the …

Integration Of Matlab And Machine Learning To Accelerate Evaluation Of Biological Activity In Agricultural Soils And Promote Soil Health Improvement Goals, Andrew Stiven Ortiz Balsero

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

Traditionally, assessments of soil biological activity have been confined to laboratory settings, creating a disconnect with practical in-field methods. To bridge this gap, cotton fabric degradation has been used to illustrate soil microbial activity under different management practices. While effective, these demonstrations are subjective and labor-intensive.

Researchers have explored using image processing software like ImageJ and Adobe Photoshop to streamline this process. Although these tools accurately quantified fabric degradation under varying soil conditions, the methods remained labor-intensive and complex. Consequently, these methods were still not ideal for on-farm use by agricultural practitioners.

To further address labor and complexity limitations, the …

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

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

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Gevrey Class Estimates Towards Null Controllability Of A Fluid Structure Interaction System, Dylan Mcknight

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Fluid-Structure Interaction concerns the interaction of parabolic fluids and hyperbolic elastic structures via numerous mechanisms such as boundary coupling and pressure. These models find application in blood flow, fluid flow in the eye, and air flow over plane wings. Parabolic equations are well known for “infinite speed of propagation,” which manifests itself via a uniform bound on the resolvent of the infinitesimal generator of the associated strongly continuous semigroup. Qualitatively, a solution of a parabolic pde with rough initial data is immediately smooth for any positive time. A priori, it is not clear whether a fluid structure interaction inherits any …

Search For Physics Beyond The Standard Model In Top Quark Production With Additional Leptons In The Context Of Effective Field Theory, Furong Yan

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The dissertation presents a search for new physics impacting top quark productions within the framework of effective field theory (EFT). Potential new physics effects are parameterized in terms of 26 dimension-six EFT operators into the event yields of six distinct top production processes in the detector level. The analysis targets multilepton final states consisting of two leptons of the same charge, three leptons and four leptons. The events are further categorized and binned in terms of kinematic distributions in order to gain sensitivity to the new physics effects. A likelihood function is formulated based on the predicted distribution in each …

Praying To Tiktok, Seeking The Self: How Rhetoric Reveals And Conceals The World’S Most Powerful Guru Of The Postindustrial Age, Samantha L. Gillespie-Hoffman

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Imagine a world where the most powerful leader is a wellness guru that runs an elaborate church with millions of followers. The guru is so powerful that everyone believes they can read minds and make ordinary people rich and famous. The guru controls forms of communication, media channels, consumer tastes, and what people eat, drink, say, and even think. What if this guru was not human but actually an algorithm? Does this sound like the plot of a science fiction novel? I argue that this scenario is closer to reality than most will admit. In this project, readers encounter a …

Phylogenetic And Biogeographic Patterns Of Devonian Proetid Trilobites, Katherine Jane Jordan

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Ecological disruption events such as mass extinctions can result in the permanent alteration in clades and ecosystems. A pivotal time of change during the history of life on Earth can be seen in the Devonian Period. During this time, major transitions in marine and terrestrial system resulted in a different world at the end of the period in comparison to the beginning. One such group most heavily impacted were trilobites. Trilobites were reduced to one order by the end of the Devonian: Proetida. My dissertation focuses on phylogenetic, biogeographic, and paleocommunity patterns of this group, known as the last of …

Nanoparticle-Based Approaches To Brain Injury And Studies For Improved Detectability Toward Better Delivery Characterization, Hunter A. Miller

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The clinical translation of nanoparticle (NP) therapeutics for brain injury has been slow despite preclinical promise. The causes of disconnect between preclinical and clinical outcomes is multifactorial, but insufficient delivery is noteworthy. Preclinical delivery characterization often lacks, obscuring mechanisms of failure, slowing development. Multimodal imaging is a promising strategy to improve delivery characterization, combining the strengths of various modalities. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and luminescence imaging are a suitable combination for multimodal imaging, expanding the spatial and temporal resolution of either alone, but further material development is needed to enhance detectability. One problem is the interference of cellular autofluorescence in …

Enhancing Water Sustainability In North Africa: Literature Review And Synthesis Of Current Knowledge Gaps In Sudan, Osman M. A. Adam, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Derek M. Heeren, Troy E. Gilmore

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Presentations and White Papers

This study delves into the critical role of groundwater in addressing global water challenges, with a focus on the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) in North Africa. Groundwater constitutes a source of potable water, irrigation, and industrial use, especially in arid regions where surface water is limited. We analyzed the status of water quantity, withdrawals, recharge, and geological characteristics in the NSAS, specifically in Sudan, Egypt, Libya, and Chad. Though the NSAS is largely an untapped resource, we evaluated various scenarios to determine the quantity of cropland that can be sustainably irrigated. The NSAS is located in an arid region, …