Digital Commons Network^™

Sustainable Revitalization Of Asphalt Pavements: An In-Depth Analysis Of Enhancing The Performance Of Asphalt Binder Through The Application Of Rheological And Molecular Dynamics Simulation Techniques, Muhammad Ahmad

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

Vegetable-based oils such as corn and soybean oil have triglycerides and fatty acids that allow them to be considered sustainable and effective recycling agents (RAs) for aged asphalt binder. However, there are concerns about their effect on the recycled asphalt binder's long-term performance, moisture damage resistance, and self-healing characteristics restoration. In this study, crude corn oil (CO) and crude soybean oil (SO) were used as RAs to restore the performance of a reclaimed asphalt binder (RAB) extracted from reclaimed asphalt pavement. The binder extracted from RAB was modified with a neat binder PG64-28 and RAs to restore the high-end performance …

How To Do Quantcrit: A Reflexive Account Of Applying Critical Quantitative Methods To A Study Of Black Women In Stem, Elizabeth Collins

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

There has been extensive research into the underrepresentation of minoritized students in STEM disciplines since the 1990s with limited success in improving the representation of Black women in math-intensive STEM fields. This dissertation aims to address how the guiding tenets of critical quantitative (QuantCrit) methods work when used with publicly available datasets and commonly used statistical approaches. Additionally, this dissertation provides a framework for how to apply reflexivity as a method while utilizing a QuantCrit approach. The publicly available HSLS:09 dataset is used as part of a reflexive study to demonstrate how the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) map …

Plasticity Of Sorghum Biomass And Inflorescence Traits In Response To Nitrogen Application, Kyle M. Linders

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

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient required for growth and development in plants. Insufficient nitrogen availability can reduce vegetative growth and grain yield. However, nitrogen is a costly input for farmers, is energy intensive to manufacture, and runoff of excess nitrogen fertilizer impacts water quality. Compared to its close relative, maize, sorghum has much greater resilience to nitrogen and water deficit, and heat stress, allowing sorghum to be grown with fewer inputs and on marginal land. Variation in total biomass accumulation and grain yield between sorghum accessions, as well as between nitrogen conditions, can be largely explained by differences in vegetative …

Gene Expression Changes Linked To Phenylpropanoid-Based Resistance To Fusarium Head Blight Of Wheat, Shiv Singla

Department of Plant Pathology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Fusarium graminearum is a devastating pathogen of wheat that causes Fusarium head blight (FHB) and contaminates the grain with the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON). Resistance to FHB is quantitative and it is important to identify additional genes conferring resistance against it. The goal of this thesis was to examine if the constitutive expression of two sorghum phenylpropanoid pathway genes, SbCCoAOMT (encoding caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase) and SbC3’H (encoding p-coumarate 3-hydroxylase), in the moderately-susceptible spring wheat CB037 can provide Type-I and Type-II resistance to F. graminearum and determine the underlying mechanisms of the enhanced resistance. The constitutive expression lines (CCoAOMT413, CCoAOMT421, C3H112, …

Innovation For The Air: A Brief History Of Worldwide Aviation, Lauren Plumley

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The purpose of this report is to present a brief but comprehensive overview of the variety of innovations related to aviation, and to discuss their impact on scientific progress over the course of human history. Relevant discoveries from the fields of physics and aerodynamics, and the numerous technologies built based upon these discoveries, are discussed over a period ranging from ancient times to the twenty-first century. The scope of this report is an overview of the development of powered and unpowered aircraft, including lighter-than-air, heavier-than-air, and aerospace technologies. Aviation developments were generally not limited to one specific country or person, …

Nvidia Corporation: Pc Gaming Industry Strategic Audit, Charlie Peng

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Nvidia is a semiconductor company focusing on high-performance computer graphics technology. The company designs graphics processing units (GPUs), which are used in a variety of fields such as data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), and gaming. This paper seeks to examine Nvidia’s position within the PC gaming industry. First, PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces analyses are used to detail the overall PC gaming industry. The next section examines how Nvidia competes through its strategy, resources, and competitive advantages. Finally, future challenges and recommendations to position the company are explored.

Mckinsey & Company: People And Organizational Performance Strategic Analysis, Sadie Richards

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

McKinsey & Company is an international management consulting firm for businesses, governments, and institutions. It is one of the five largest consulting services in the United States and one of the “Big Three” management consulting firms of the United States. This report focuses on McKinsey & Company’s People and Organizational Performance sector and provides an internal and external analysis to understand how it has gained and maintained a sustainable competitive advantage in its industry. Specifically, this report uses Porter’s Five Forces and a PESTEL Analysis as tools to analyze the macro environment and competition within the industry. Recommendations are given …

A Review Of How Bioinformatics And Genome Sequencing Are Affecting Precision Medicine, Taylor S. Hickey

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Advancement in genomic sequencing and bioinformatics methods have been affecting biomedical research through precision medicine, especially in the area of cancer. Vaccine therapies can be developed using neoantigens that target specific mutations in tumors. The goals of this research are to identify mutations that lead to cancer and then define subpopulations in which patients can easily be identified. The future goal is to have targeted vaccines that are specific to each subpopulation ready to be used in treatment of their cancer. Limitations to reaching these goals have been due to tumor heterogeneity, cancer location, and difficulty in creating neoantigens for …

Marriott International: A Managerial Strategic Audit, Brooke Eschenbrenner, Alex Zlatic, Madison Bechtel, Brandon Collins, Charlotte Straley, Grant Gubbels

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

A strategic management audit of the public firm, Marriott International, was conducted to identify various factors and managerial strategies that affect Marriott and the global hotels and tourism industry. At the industry level, we conducted a PESTEL and Five Forces analysis, researched the competitive landscape, and assessed the total value potential. We found that the industry experienced a major decline during the COVID-19 pandemic but saw recovery as international travel opened up again. On the company level, we conducted an internal analysis, identified Marriott’s management structure, and identified the firm’s structure and strategies through a SWOT analysis and other relevant …

Making Mistakes: Children’S Errors As Opportunities For Emergent Literacy Learning In Early Childhood, Clariebelle Gabas, Laura Cutler, Rachel E. Schachter

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

Errors are a natural part of children’s knowledge building and learning experiences in early childhood (EC). Importantly, errors can be a powerful tool for tailoring instruction to children’s specific needs and supporting learning processes (Seifried & Wuttke, 2010). The leveraging of errors to support children’s emergent literacy learning became apparent to us when we examined data from a recent observational study of teachers’ practices in EC classrooms with children 3–5 years old. In our study of 400 classrooms, we identified the 30 classrooms in which children demonstrated the highest language gains and the 30 classrooms in which children demonstrated the …

The Effect Of The Environmental Protection Agency’S Exhaust Emissions Standards On Diesel Tractor Fuel Efficiency, Jerin Tekolste

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Since its inception the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been tasked with the assessment, research, and education, of the nation’s environment while also maintaining and enforcing national standards. A characteristic display of this agency’s work is the Exhaust Emission Standards for Nonroad Compression-Ignition Engines that began in 1995. Since the introduction of exhaust emissions standards in 1995, no study has fully examined the subsequent impact on fuel efficiencies.

In this paper we analyze the resulting fuel efficiency caused by the EPA’s exhaust emission standards. We identify the impact of the emissions standards on tractor fuel efficiency through a statistical …

Irrigation-As-A-Service For Smallholder Farmers, Ishani Lal

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Irrigation is a crucial management practice that can help increase food security among smallholders globally while mitigating climate change impacts. High-efficiency irrigation technologies such as drip kits and sprinkler systems are relatively expensive and smallholder farmers cannot afford them to buffer crop yields against low precipitation. In many developing countries, farmers participate in robust informal markets for renting and sharing of irrigation equipment. Such services may be operated by farmers or via a third party such as irrigation start-ups, water user associations, non-governmental organizations, or even government agencies. These services are referred to collectively as Irrigation-as-a-Service (IaaS).

The objective of …

Undergraduate And Graduate Student Wellness At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln: Current Trends And Future Directions, Emma Farson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This study examined the impact of time and personal demographics on student well-being at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. This was exploratory research looking to identify any disparities in wellness among different demographics of individuals, if there were certain times within a semester that wellness was impacted, and if there were certain dimensions of well-being that are significantly impacted by being a student. A large sample of 3,837 surveys were used to evaluate these questions. None of the 10 dimensions of Wellness (Career, Creative, Cultural, Emotional, Environmental, Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Social, and Spiritual) were significantly impacted by different times in the …

Summer Bridge Programs In National And Local Context, Osvaldo Palma Vargas

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Research suggests that summer bridge programs (SBPs) meet their intended goal, which is to improve first-generation students’ academic outcomes as defined by first-year retention and GPA. However, we know little about whether, and if so, how SBPs optimize the implementation of known best practices and how they are perceived by participating students. This thesis compares evidence regarding key practices of SBPs at a selection of Land Grant institutions, to identify commonalities and differences. In addition, this thesis compares the key practices of these peer institutions with a local SBP in place at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, known as the Nebraska …

Engineering Of Microparticle Encapsulated Antioxidant To Mitigate Oxidative Stress In Vitro And In Vivo, Kayla Ney

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

Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is one of the leading causes of years lived with disability in the United States. Current treatments for cLBP have variable results across the patient population, and many patients struggle to find consistent relief. Most current treatments focus on the symptom of pain, not the root cause. In painful degenerated discs, oxidative stress and inflammation function in a vicious cycle and perpetuate degeneration, damage, and pain. Therefore, oxidative stress and inflammation are important targets in addressing the source of pain. This work characterizes an antioxidant, BuOE, encapsulated in a chondroitin sulfate microparticle as a novel …

Studying Developer Eye Movements To Measure Cognitive Workload And Visual Effort For Expertise Assessment, Salwa D. Aljehane, Bonita Sharif, Jonathan I. Maletic

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Eye movement data provides valuable insights that help test hypotheses about a software developer’s comprehension process. The pupillary response is successfully used to assess mental processing effort and attentional focus. Relatively little is known about the impact of expertise level in cognitive effort during programming tasks. This paper presents a quantitative analysis that compares the eye movements of 207 experts and novices collected while solving program comprehension tasks. The goal is to examine changes of developers’ eye movement metrics in accordance with their expertise. The results indicate significant increase in pupil size with the novice group compared to the experts, …

John Deere Construction Equipment - Strategic Audit, Michael Pallesen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

John Deere construction equipment is an operating segment of the equipment manufacturing giant John Deere Corporation. The company is considered the second largest construction equipment manufacturer in the world. This report seeks to understand the operating environment of John Deere’s construction equipment manufacturing segment, its resources, its competitive advantages, and its future challenges. This analysis uses both PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces analyses to evaluate the external environment. Additionally, strategic recommendations and explanations are offered into how John Deere can effectively navigate the challenges facing the construction equipment manufacturing industry in the near future.

Tesla Energy Division Strategic Audit, Kaleb Strawhecker

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Tesla’s electric vehicle manufacturing operation is the major revenue source for the company. Tesla has established itself as a significant player amongst other automotive manufacturers, specifically in the electric vehicle sector. Many trends are favoring Tesla’s expansion. This audit takes a look at trends and changes through a PESTEL analysis along with Porter’s Five Forces. Both provide an in-depth look into what the environment around Tesla is like. Then, these are used to evaluate Tesla’s major strategies, competitive advantages, and resources it has at its disposal. Finally, the audit will address how the factors allow Tesla to take advantage of …

Lululemon Athletica Strategic Audit, Nolan T. Rinn

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (Lululemon) is principally a designer, distributor, and retailer of technical athletic apparel, footwear, and accessories with a vision to create transformative products and experiences that build meaningful connections, unlocking greater possibility and wellbeing for all (Lululemon). This paper will examine Lululemon to understand its market position and competitiveness within the athletic apparel industry. The analysis uses PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces analyses to evaluate the changing external environment and industry Lululemon operates in.

Defining And Transferring Digital Literacies: What Does This Mean For High School And College Educators?, Jocelyn Spoor

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis aims to create a digital literacies transfer framework through a discussion regarding current conversations on transfer and digital literacies in the English field, including synthesizing the two ideas to think about the transfer of digital literacies as a concept. This digital literacies framework is made up of five components: the functional skills, critical skills, and rhetorical skills found in digital literacies scholarship and the genre awareness and meta-cognitive ideas found in transfer literature. This digital literacies transfer framework is then used to analyze information gleaned from four college and five high school English educators. The key findings from …

Correlation Between Fire And Preservation In The Pacific Northwest And Most Cost-Efficient Mitigation Tactics, Liam Doherty-Herwitz

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This study was conducted entirely online with occasional help from advisors and editors on zoom meetings. I completed the research in Lincoln, Nebraska. A meta analysis of online data has been conducted to form the answers to my hypotheses and research questions. I used specific keywords and phrases in research databases, and search engines such as google scholar to point me towards the answers I was looking for. The keywords and phrases were split up into four different categories which are mitigation techniques, ecosystems, fire severity: PNW, and fire season: PNW. The reason the topics land preservation and fire science …

Identifying A Consumer–Producer Agricultural Knowledge Gap, Aspen Rittgarn

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The purpose of this paper and online survey was to see if an agricultural knowledge gap between consumers and producers be found. Low agricultural literacy rates can lead to misconceptions of the agriculture industry, unhealthy food choices, environmentally unfriendly product choices, food waste, etc. The hypothesis for this thesis is that those born in the mid1960s to early 1980s (Generation X) will be the start of an increased knowledge gap. The survey was compiled of both qualitative and quantitative questions and questions were inspired by American Farm Bureau’s AITC Benchmarks. Responses were analyzed and the results revealed that my participants …

Design Of A Miniature Robotic Surgery Technology Demonstration Payload For Orbital Spaceflight, Rachael A. Wagner

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis describes the design of a technology demonstration payload that will test robotic surgery while aboard a 2024 expedition of the International Space Station (ISS). The payload utilizes a new miniature surgical robot to complete simulated surgical tasks on orbit, both autonomously and while remotely controlled by an Earth-based user. The experiment investigates the effects of microgravity and latency on robotic surgery, with the following goals:

1. Demonstrate the use of a miniature robotic surgical system in microgravity through performing simulated surgical tasks.

2. Quantify the effects of microgravity on robotic surgical techniques including forces, torques, and kinematic accuracy. …

Point Heat Source Correlation To Microstructural Evolution In Advanced Manufacturing, Mark Anderson

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Although there are different ways that advanced manufacturing can be performed, the use of single-point heat sources has become the standard to control a final product’s properties. It is imperative to understand how the heat source used in the different advanced manufacturing processes affect the microstructure of interest. The intimate relationship between the heat source and microstructure allows for controlling and tailoring a part’s properties. Utilizing different microstructural analysis, the cross-correlation of various point heat sources to developed microstructure was conducted in this dissertation.

Laser powder bed fusion allows for unique print-to-part protocols, but the dynamics of the process makes …

Blood Flow Regulates Atherosclerosis Progression And Regression, Morgan A. Schake

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Atherosclerosis is the most prevalent pathology of cardiovascular disease with no known cure. Despite the many systemic risk factors for atherosclerosis, plaques do not form randomly in the vasculature. Instead, they form around bifurcations and the inner curvature of highly curving arterial segments that contain so-called disturbed blood flow that is low in magnitude and multidirectional over the cardiac cycle. Conversely, straight, non-bifurcated arterial segments that contain moderate-to-high and unidirectional (i.e., normal) blood flow are protected from plaque development. Thus, blood flow is a key regulator of atherosclerosis that may be able to be leveraged to develop new therapeutics. Towards …

Listening For Common Ground In High School And Early Collegiate Mathematics, Gail Burrill, Henry Cohn, Yvonne Lai, Dev P. Sinha, Ji Y. Son, Katherine F. Stevenson

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

Solutions to pressing and complex social challenges require that we reach for common ground. Only through cooperation among people with a broad range of backgrounds and expertise can progress be made on issues as challenging as improving student success in mathematics. In this spirit, the AMS Committee on Education held a forum in May 2022 entitled The Evolving Curriculum in High School and Early Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences Education.¹ This article is a report on that forum by the authors listed above, who were among the organizers and presenters.

Leveraging Aruco Fiducial Marker System For Bridge Displacement Estimation Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Mohamed Aly

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in construction sites has been widely growing for surveying and inspection purposes. Their mobility and agility have enabled engineers to use UAVs in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications to overcome the limitations of traditional approaches that require labor-intensive installation, extended time, and long-term maintenance. One of the critical applications of SHM is measuring bridge deflections during the bridge operation period. Due to the complex remote sites of bridges, remote sensing techniques, such as camera-equipped drones, can facilitate measuring bridge deflections. This work takes a step to build a pipeline using the state-of-the-art computer …

Assessing The Performance Of High-Rap Mixtures Incorporating Crude Vegetable Oils And An Antioxidant From Mechanical, Environmental, And Economic Perspectives, Nitish R. Bastola

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

Utilization of mixtures with high amounts of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in the pavement industry is limited because of the adverse effects of aged materials in recycled asphalt materials. To date, numerous approaches have been used to reduce the adversity of RAP in mixtures. One such approach is the use of recycling agents (RAs) from various sources, such as petroleum and bio-oil. However, the current need is to maximize the use of RAP by adopting a sustainable source of RAs. Therefore, this study uses two RAs based on vegetable oils (crude soybean oil and crude corn oil) with high-RAP mixtures …

Assessment Of Bridge Pier Response To Fire, Vehicle Impact, And Air Blast, Chen Fang, Qusai Alomari, Daniel G. Linzell

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

Highway bridges exposed to intentional or unintentional fire followed by combined vehicle impact and air blast are at risk of significant damage and, possibly, collapse. Limited studies examining the complex effects of these extreme demands on bridge support elements and parametrizing their response and damage are found in the open literature. Research that is presented is part of an ongoing numerical investigation examining round, multi-column, reinforced concrete (RC), bridge pier behavior subject to multi-hazard scenarios involving fire, vehicle impact, and air blast. Detailed nonlinear finite element analysis models of single columns and multi-column piers supported by a pile foundation system …

United States National Aeronautics And Space Agency Response To The Office Of Science And Technology Policy Memo, 2022: Public Access (May 2023)

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

NASA response to OSTP memo, 2022: Public Access (May 2023)