Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Grazing Vs. Resting On Soil Chemistry And Plant Community Dynamics For The Central Coast Of California In 2012, Jessica Combs

Animal Science

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Social And Environmental Enrichments On Leg Strength And Welfare Of Tom Turkeys, Patricia A. Weber

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Two trials (T1, T2) were conducted to determine the effects of enrichment: A) broiler chick addition on early mortality and B) providing environmental enrichments on leg strength and welfare of tom turkeys. Trial 1A utilized 248 1d poults and 8 3d broiler chicks. Four pens of 32 poults were placed for the control. Four pens of 30 poults and two 3d broiler chicks were placed for the trt group. Trial 2A utilized 296 1d poults and 24 3d broiler chicks. Four trts were randomly divided among 16 pens (20 birds/pen). Trt 1 brooders were placed with assistance finding resources. Trt …

Grazing Cover Crops As An Alternative To Fallow And The Interaction Between Corn Processing Method And Condensed Distillers Solubles, Alex H. Titlow

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recently, producers in dryland wheat farming regions have made a shift from the typical winter wheat fallow rotation to a no-till system paired with cover crops. Cover crops have been shown to minimize these problems associated with the conventional fallow and possibly provide a source of forage. A 2-year grazing study was conducted to evaluate forage quality and utilization of cover crops (CC) planted to replace fallow in no-till wheat systems compared to crested wheatgrass pastures (CWP). Hand clipped and diet samples were greater in digestibility and CP for CC compared to CWP. The NDF and ADF content of the …

Growing Home: Sacred Space And Contemporary Ecotopia, Andrew Goering Gingerich

Architecture and Planning ETDs

This thesis investigates the concept of ecocentrism and how an emerging ecocentric worldview might uniquely shape the built environment. This thesis is particularly interested in the role of sacred space in urban development, and how the notion of sacredness, unique to an ecocentric worldview, might affect various aspects of the built environment. These issues are explored in two basic parts. First, three basic worldviews are discussed\u2014the pre-modern worldview, the modern worldview, and the emerging ecocentric worldview--specifically on the topics of nature, space, and the city. Second, a qualitative research study of three ecotopian' communities is presented--Village Homes in Davis, CA; …

Fault-Tolerant Wireless Sensor Networks Using Evolutionary Games, Ricardo Villalon

Computer Science ETDs

This dissertation proposes an approach to creating robust communication systems in wireless sensor networks, inspired by biological and ecological systems, particularly by evolutionary game theory. In this approach, a virtual community of agents live inside the network nodes and carry out network functions. The agents use different strategies to execute their functions, and these strategies are tested and selected by playing evolutionary games. Over time, agents with the best strategies survive, while others die. The strategies and the game rules provide the network with an adaptive behavior that allows it to react to changes in environmental conditions by adapting and …

Structure-Function Analysis Of A Protein Encoded By The Bhv-1 Latency Related Gene, Devis Sinani

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV-1) is a significant viral pathogen in cattle that induces a myriad of clinical symptoms. These symptoms include: conjunctivitis, upper respiratory tract infections, genital disorders, and abortions. BHV-1 infection can also lead to transient immune-suppression, which predisposes cattle to secondary bacterial infection leading to life-threatening pneumonia referred to as bovine respiratory disease (BRD). Following acute infection, BHV-1 establishes latency in sensory neurons within trigeminal ganglia. Reactivation of the virus can occur periodically, resulting in virus transmission. The latency-related (LR) RNA is the only abundantly expressed transcript in latently infected sensory neurons and it encodes several proteins, …

Assessing Risk Of Violence In Caucasian And African-American Male Forensic Patients, Brandy Lynn Herriott

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Cloning And Characterization Of Hypothetical Exported Proteins From Community Associated Staphylococcus Aureus, Haninder Kaur

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Rebound Effect: The Use Of Short-Term Mating Strategies After The Dissolution Of A Significant, Loving Relationship, Sarah L. Pierce

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Development Of Attentional Skill In A Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Task: Effects Of Extended Practice On The ‘Attentional Blink’, Greg Simmons

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Models Of Experimental Competitive Intensities Predict Home And Away Differences In Invasive Impact And The Effects Of An Endophytic Mutualist, Sa Xiao, Ragan M. Callaway, George Newcombe, Erik T. Aschehoug

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding the role of competition in the organization of communities is limited in part by the difficulty of extrapolating the outcomes of small-scale experiments to how such outcomes might affect the distribution and abundance of species. We modeled the community-level outcomes of competition, using experimentally derived competitive effects and responses between an exotic invasive plant, Centaurea stoebe, and species from both its native and nonnative ranges and using changes in these effects and responses elicited by experimentally establishing symbioses between C. stoebe and fungal endophytes. Using relative interaction intensities (RIIs) and holding other life-history factors constant, individual-based and spatially explicit …

Positive Relationships Between Association Strength And Phenotypic Similarity Characterize The Assembly Of Mixed-Species Bird Flocks Worldwide, Hari Sridhar, Umesh Srinivasan, Robert A. Askins, Julio Cesar Canales Delgadillo, Chao-Chieh Chen, David N. Ewert, George A. Gale, Eben Goodale, Wendy K. Gram, Patrick J. Hart, Keith A. Hobson, Richard L. Hutto, Sarath W. Kotagama, Jessie Knowlton, Tien Ming Lee, Charles A. Munn, Somchai Nimnuan, B. Z. Nizam, Gillaume Péron, V. V. Robin, Amanda D. Rodewald, Paul G. Rodewald, Robert L. Thomson, Pranav Trivedi, Steven L. Van Wilgenburg, Kartik Shanker

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Competition theory predicts that local communities should consist of species that are more dissimilar than expected by chance. We find a strikingly different pattern in a multicontinent data set (55 presence-absence matrices from 24 locations) on the composition of mixed-species bird flocks, which are important sub-units of local bird communities the world over. By using null models and randomization tests followed by meta-analysis, we find the association strengths of species in flocks to be strongly related to similarity in body size and foraging behavior and higher for congeneric compared with noncongeneric species pairs. Given the local spatial scales of our …

Development Of Core Body Temperature (Cbt) And Heart Rate Wearable Device, Brenna Carbone, Madison Castellanos, Jonathan Chen, Jenna Wagner

Intersections Fall 2020

Hyperthermia is a condition when the body's heat-regulation system is overwhelmed and a person's core body temperature (CBT) is above 100.4°F (38°C). This is a major risk among athletes and occupational workers in the military, construction, manufacturing, and emergency response who engage in intense physical activity. Currently the gold standard to measure CBT is through a rectal thermometer. While rectal thermometers are accurate, they are quite invasive and do not provide a way for continuous monitoring. Other skin and oral thermometers which are considered noninvasive are not accurate because they only measure surface temperature and are easily influenced by other …

The Role Of Centromeric Chromatin And Kinetochore-Associated Factors In Chromosome Segregation, Wesley Williamson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous work in our lab has identified a point mutation in HTA1, one of the genes encoding histone H2A, which causes an increase-in-ploidy phenotype in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This histone mutant strain was used to carry out a transposon insertion screen to identify suppressors of the increase-in-ploidy phenotype. This screen identified all three subunits of the Hda histone deacetylase complex, HDA1, HDA2, and HDA3. This study aims to elucidate the function of the Hda complex in chromosome segregation by exploring interactions among the members of the complex, as well as interactions between Hda complex and kinetochore components. …

"Apps"—An Innovative Way To Share Extension Knowledge, Joseph S. Dvorak, Tanya C. Franke-Dvorak, Randy R. Price

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Extension professionals across the country are continuously seeking innovative ways to reach clientele and to disseminate timely, educational information. A new avenue to reach clientele includes the use of smartphone "apps." The "Machinery Sizing" app, which was developed to ease the estimation of tractor horsepower to implement sizing for Extension clientele anytime, anywhere, is explained as a key example for Extension professionals to utilize apps in disseminating information to clientele. There are many benefits to using apps, including information availability wherever Internet service is available on the smartphone, ease of computations of equations, and automatic updates being sent to users.

Regulation Of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Phenotype., Joshua Kuimeta Salabei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Vascular injury and chronic arterial diseases such as atherosclerosis and restenosis result in exposure of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to increased concentrations of growth factors triggering a change from a contractile to a synthetic phenotype. The mechanisms by which growth factors trigger VSMC phenotype transitions remain unclear. Because phenotype switching involves the removal of contractile proteins, we hypothesized that autophagy is an essential modulator of VSMC phenotype. Also, the conversion to the synthetic phenotype is accompanied by cellular changes that trigger metabolic changes to meet the increasing demands for cellular energy. Little is known however about the contributions of …

A Model Of Resilience In Children At Risk For The Development Of Anxiety., Matthew David Hartman Schrock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety is a common and debilitating disorder in children. Until recently, research in the field of child anxiety has focused on the identification of specific risk factors in the development of child anxiety. More recent studies have begun to explore more complex models of the etiology of child anxiety, but most still focus on the interplay of risk factors. Studies examining the development of child anxiety should focus on the confluence of vulnerability, risk, and protective factors to provide a more complete picture of the development of child anxiety. The current study reviews current conceptual and empirical research to propose …

Biochemical Characterization Of Binding Partners Of Two Hsp70 Co-Chaperones In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Jacob Verghese

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Cells are exposed to a variety of environmental and physiological changes including temperature, pH and nutrient availability. These changes cause stress to cells, which results in protein misfolding and altered cellular protein homeostasis. How proteins fold into their three-dimensional functional structure is a fundamental biological process with important relevance to human health. Misfolded and aggregated proteins are linked to multiple neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular disease and cystic fibrosis. To combat proteotoxic stress, cells deploy an array of molecular chaperones that assist in the repair or removal of misfolded proteins.

Hsp70, an evolutionarily conserved molecular chaperone, promotes protein folding and helps maintain …

A Study On The Function Of 14-3-3sigma In Regulating Cancer Energy Metabolism, Liem M. Phan, Liem M. Phan

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Metabolic reprogramming has been shown to be a major cancer hallmark providing tumor cells with significant advantages for survival, proliferation, growth, metastasis and resistance against anti-cancer therapies. Glycolysis, glutaminolysis and mitochondrial biogenesis are among the most essential cancer metabolic alterations because these pathways provide cancer cells with not only energy but also crucial metabolites to support large-scale biosynthesis, rapid proliferation and tumorigenesis. In this study, we find that 14-3-3σ suppresses all these three metabolic processes by promoting the degradation of their main driver, c-Myc. In fact, 14-3-3s significantly enhances c-Myc poly-ubiquitination and subsequent degradation, reduces c-Myc transcriptional activity, and down-regulates …

A Review Of Cover Crops For Eastern Nebraska, Tyler Williams

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

The focus of this project is two fold, first to provide a short literature review of cover crops (CC) and then discuss the results from a field experiment that was designed to evaluate the nitrogen contribution from cover crop mixes to the subsequent corn crop. The literature review will focus on the aspects of CC that are related to the field of study. Cover crops, as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are crops that are agronomically sound and grown for the purpose of erosion control or other objectives related to conservation or soil improvement. Cover crops …

Safe: Simulation Automation Framework For Experiments, Luiz Felipe Perrone, Bryan C. Ward, Christopher S. Main

Faculty Journal Articles

The workflow of a network simulation study requires adherence to best practices in methodology so that results are credible and reproducible by third parties. The opportunities for one to introduce errors start at model description and permeate the process through to the reporting of results. The literature indicates that even publications in respected venues include inadvertent mistakes and poor application of methodology. When experts are liable to fail, it is unreasonable to expect that students would fare any better. This paper presents a system designed to provide guidance for inexperienced users of the popular ns-3 network simulator. SAFE automates the …

A Mechanistic Model Of Early Fcεri Signaling: Lipid Rafts And The Question Of Protection From Dephosphorylation, Dipak Barua, Byron Goldstein

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a model of the early events in mast cell signaling mediated by FcεRI where the plasma membrane is composed of many small ordered lipid domains (rafts), surrounded by a non-order region of lipids consisting of the remaining plasma membrane. The model treats the rafts as transient structures that constantly form and breakup, but that maintain a fixed average number per cell. The rafts have a high propensity for harboring Lyn kinase, aggregated, but not unaggregated receptors, and the linker for the activation of T cells (LAT). Phosphatase activity in the rafts is substantially reduced compared to the nonraft …

Methods For Speculatively Bootstrapping Better Intrusion Detection System Performance, Sunny Fugate

Computer Science ETDs

During the last three decades, the designers of computer IDSs have been continuously challenged with performance bottlenecks and scalability issues. The number of threats is enormous. The performance of ID systems depends primarily on the quantity of input data and complexity of detected patterns. During noisy attacks, system load tends to increase proportional to increasing data rates, making ID systems vulnerable to flooding and denial-of-service attacks. Unfortunately, the number, type, and sophistication of threats is quickly increasing, outpacing our ability to detect them. The more we try to detect, the more computing and economic resources must be reserved solely for …

Multivalent Random Walkers:A Computational Model Of Superdiffusive Transport At The Nanoscale, Mark Joseph Olah

Computer Science ETDs

We present a stochastic model and numerical simulation framework for a synthetic nanoscale walker that can be used to transport materials and information at superdiffusive rates in artificial molecular systems. Our \emph{multivalent random walker} model describes the motion of a walker with a rigid, inert body and flexible, enzymatic legs. A leg can bind to and irreversibly modify surface-bound chemical substrate sites arranged as nanoscale tracks. As the legs attach to, modify, and detach from the sites, the walker moves along these tracks. Walkers are symmetrical and the tracks they walk on are unoriented, yet we show that under appropriate …

Investigations On Rangeland Grasshoppers: Ecoregion Level Distribution, Identification, Feeding Performance, And Vegetation Clipping, Muhammad Ullah

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Short-horned grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae) were studied in the field as well as in laboratory for their distribution, identification, preferred food plants and feeding damage. These grasshoppers are important potential pests of rangelands where they compete for forage with cattle. Examination of the 20 most common grasshoppers by levels 3 and 4 of Nebraska ecoregions revealed specific habitat use and may be helpful in predicting hotspots. The relative abundance of all species analyzed showed at least some significant differences at ecoregion level 4 and two species showed single ecoregion that differed from all others at level 3.

Grasshoppers belonging to subfamilies …

Processing Facial Emotions: An Eeg Study Of The Differences Between Conservatives And Liberals And Across Political Participation, Karl Evan Giuseffi

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Behavioral differences have been reported between conservatives and liberals when categorizing facial expressions, yet no study explores potential differences in the manner in which the two groups process facial expressions, let alone how partisanship contributes or how political engagement may vary with brain processing of facial expressions. In this context, processing refers to brain patterns following exposure to a facial expression and participants’ subsequent attention to the presented facial expressions. This thesis addresses the question of whether political temperament is associated with differences in neural processing. Research subjects participated in an emotion discrimination task while event-related potentials (ERP) were captured …

Morphometric, Biochemical, And Raman Spctral Analyses Of Muscle Damage In Patients With Peripheral Arterial Disease: Provising Objective Criteria For Diagnosis And Treatment Monitoring, Kim Cluff

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

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which affects approximately 10 million Americans, is characterized by atherosclerosis of the non-coronary arteries. PAD produces a progressive accumulation of ischemic injury to the limbs that is reflected in a gradual worsening in the myofiber morphology and oxidative damage in the gastrocnemius muscle. In this study, we evaluated the hypothesis that quantitative morphological and biochemical parameters of gastrocnemius myofibers change in a consistent manner during the progression of PAD, provide an objective grading of muscle degeneration in the ischemic limb, and correlate to clinical stage of PAD. Myofiber morphometrics were determined precisely with mathematical equations that …

Interactions Of Zoo Plankton And Phytoplankton With Cyanobacteria, Rebecca J. Alexander

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

Cyanobacteria are a major concern in Nebraska reservoirs and are capable of producing toxins that can cause skin irritations and gastrointestinal problems, as well as affect the nervous system. It is important to determine the mechanisms that can cause cyanobacteria blooms due to the effect they can have on human health. The interaction of zooplankton and other phytoplankton groups with cyanobacteria is important because there is a biological component in surface waters that should be taken into consideration along with the physical and chemical parameters that have been noted to promote cyanobacteria. For example, zooplankton have the ability to alter …

The Use Of Tree Rings To Study The Impacts Of Stream Flow And Climate Variability On Native And Invasive Woody Species Along A Semi-Arid Riparian Ecosystem In The Great Plains, Usa, Kristen M. Skolaut

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

Forested riparian areas of the Northern Great Plains have historically been dominated by the native Populus deltoides L. vegetation type. Changes in climate, stream flow, groundwater, and management practices in the past few decades have promoted the expansion of the upland native woody species Juniperus virginiana L. and the invasion of the non-native Elaeagnus angustifolia L. into these riparian ecosystems. This study aims at using dendrochronology, or the study of tree rings, to assess the impacts of intra- and inter- annual climatic variability and stream flow over the past decades, on the annual tree ring growth, oxygen and carbon isotopic …

Interactions Of Zooplankton And Phytoplankton With Cyanobacteria, Rebecca Alexander

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

Cyanobacteria are a major concern in Nebraska reservoirs and are capable of producing toxins that can cause skin irritations and gastrointestinal problems, as well as affect the nervous system. It is important to determine the mechanisms that can cause cyanobacteria blooms due to the effect they can have on human health. The interaction of zooplankton and other phytoplankton groups with cyanobacteria is important because there is a biological component in surface waters that should be taken into consideration along with the physical and chemical parameters that have been noted to promote cyanobacteria. For example, zooplankton have the ability to alter …