Digital Commons Network^™

Sex Offender Law And The Geography Of Victimization, Amanda Y. Agan, J. J. Prescott

Articles

Sex offender laws that target recidivism (e.g., community notification and residency restriction regimes) are premised—at least in part—on the idea that sex offender proximity and victimization risk are positively correlated. We examine this relationship by combining past and current address information of registered sex offenders (RSOs) with crime data from Baltimore County, Maryland, to study how crime rates vary across neighborhoods with different concentrations of resident RSOs. Contrary to the assumptions of policymakers and the public, we find that, all else equal, reported sex offense victimization risk is generally (although not uniformly) lower in neighborhoods where more RSOs live. To …

The Voice Of Low-Income Adolescent Mothers On Infant Feeding, Mildred A. Horodynski, Kristen J. Mills

Journal of Extension

Adolescent mothers' feeding practices impact infant weight gain. Infant obesity, especially in low-income families, is rapidly increasing. The aim of the exploratory study reported here was to identify factors affecting low-income African American and non-Hispanic White adolescent mothers' infant feeding practices and useful learning modalities. Two focus groups were conducted by a trained facilitator using a semi-structured topic guide. Three themes emerged: (1) feeding decisions related to introduction of solid foods; (2) feeding information/advice provided by others; and (3) useful learning strategies. These themes can be used by Extension professionals in designing nutrition education programs for adolescent mothers.

4-H And Aquatic Robotics, Brian Mcneill, Patrick Jirik, Bradley Rugg

Journal of Extension

4-H is positioned to engage youth in the areas of environment and engineering. This article shares how Minnesota is engaging youth and adults to identify and solve community issues with the use of an aquatic remotely operated vehicle (ROV). After creating a new program design, the team has attracted new skilled volunteers and new youth to create youth-adult partnerships to take action in the community.

Going The Distance Part 2: Five Ways Of Teaching An Extension Course: Elive, Blackboard, Teleconference, Correspondence, And Face-To-Face, Heidi B. Rader, Virgene Hanna, Kent Spiers, Donovan Kienenberger

Journal of Extension

Remote and widely dispersed clientele in Alaska create a need for effective distance-delivery programs. Extension agents often travel via small airplane, snow machine, or boat to teach face-to-face classes in off-road communities. Effective and more cost-efficient delivery methods are needed. We taught a course for beginning farmers residing throughout Alaska using five delivery methods: Elluminate Live!, Blackboard, teleconference, correspondence, and face-to-face. We evaluated these delivery methods based on five areas: accessibility of delivery method, course completion, knowledge gain, plans to use skills, and student satisfaction. Our findings will help Extension professionals design distance-delivered programs suited to their target audience.

Face Time Is Still Critical To Effective Extension In Commercial Agriculture, Justin Waggoner, Chris Reinhardt

Journal of Extension

Even in the digital era, face-to-face meetings still have impact. Employees and managers must have a similar understanding of the challenges facing their industry. The meeting series described here was designed to allow workers and managers to learn side-by-side. A total of 622 workers and managers representing 75 companies (which have the combined annual capacity to feed approximately 1.8 million cattle, or 9% of the entire U.S. cattle feeding industry) attended seven meetings across western Kansas in which both overarching industry challenges and specific best management practices were communicated. Meeting face-to-face remains an effective way to communicate with commercial agricultural …

Marijuana Legalization & Extension: A Growing Dilemma, Kathryn E. Dodge

Journal of Extension

The legalization of marijuana is gaining momentum. Twenty-three states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, and two are considering it. Four states have legalized recreational marijuana, and another 11 are considering following their lead. Extension brands itself as extending research to help families and small farmers grow crops. However, because Extension receives federal funding, Extension has decreed that we not help patients, caregivers, growers, processors, or retailers raise and harvest this finicky crop. We seek to be relevant. Do we need to find a way to help our urban and rural clients deal with this complicated, current, and controversial issue?

Eagle Adventure: School-Based Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Program Results In Improved Outcomes Related To Food And Physical Activity, Angelina Stovall-Amos, Stephany Parker, Sara Mata, Jill Fox, Teresa Jackson, Sarah Miracle, Janice Hermann

Journal of Extension

The Eagle Adventure program was designed as a semester-long, SNAP-Ed program to address food and physical activity choices important for prevention of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases. The program was developed for implementation in Grades 1-3. This article presents findings from two participating grade centers inclusive of Grades1-2. The elementary school-based program not only addresses health-related behaviors in a culturally relevant and responsive way, but also serves as a potential model for promoting diversity inclusion in Extension programming.

Creating Safe Spaces Within Extension Programs, Adrienne Duke

Journal of Extension

Extension agents, educators, and specialists are challenged to find effective ways to ensure that our participants learn in program contexts that are inclusive and respectful of all people. In order to make our programs inclusive environments, it is important for us to be brave enough to disrupt statements that are demeaning and marginalize others. This article gives practical ways to deal with statements made by participants that are grounded in prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and scapegoating.

Crowdsourcing Extension: Communities Of Practice Provide Rapid Response, Brian Raison, Julie M. Fox, Phil D’Adamo-Damery

Journal of Extension

This article provides an example of how you can use eXtension's Communities of Practice for crowdsourcing information rapidly and thoroughly. It contends that unlike traditional Google or Yahoo searches, asking colleagues within eXtension provides a depth of discovery with multiple layers of vetting already built in. In addition to that, it's free. The example herein stems from a recent inquiry to the Community, Local and Regional Food Systems (CLRFS) Community of Practice and provides excerpts from the responses.

Considering Why We Lost, Tami Davis Biddle

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Alcohol And Drug Use Amongst College Students In Relation To Sexual Abuse, Christyn Hollingsworth

Honors College Theses

The impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) and traumatic sexual experiences has been the subject of multiple studies in which harm was found. Among these harms are emotional distress, psychological issues, and substance abuse. This research analyzed and compared the responses to questions pertaining to substance use and attitudes regarding sexual interactions between college aged students with and without a history of sexual abuse. The participant’s answers were run through an ANOVA to determine statistical variance. Based on prior research, it was expected that victims consume alcohol and use drugs more frequently than non-victims in significant amounts. The findings in …

Culture In Solution-Focused Consultation: An Intercultural Approach*, Gale Miller

Journal of Solution Focused Practices

I develop an intercultural approach to Solution-Focused consultation in this pa­ per. The approach represents an anthropological-sociological interpretation and is written by an interested outsider to the Solution-Focused world. The analysis stresses how multicultural concerns permeate Solution-Focused consultations as practitioners and clients draw from other cultures in which they participate. Prac­titioner-client interactions are treated as negotiations that turn on participants' intercultural competencies, that is, their ability to navigate between their own cultural orientations and those of others involved in consultations. An explanation of how my intercultural perspective extends cultural themes in the Solution-Fo­cused literature is discussed and an illustration of …

Not All Who Wander Are Lost: Wandering And Wondering In The Solution-Focused World. An Interview With Frank N. Thomas, Frank Thomas, Michael Durrant

Journal of Solution Focused Practices

Dr. Frank Thomas is Professor of Counseling and Counselor Education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth (Texas, US). He is also official Archivist for the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association. Frank and i have been friends and colleagues for nearly 25 years, co-presented at international conferences and writ­ ten book chapters and professional articles together. I endorsed his latest book, Solution-Focused Supervision: A resource-oriented approach to developing clinical expertise Springer), describing it as "THE most significant Solution-Focused book of the past 10 years." Frank is also an Associate Editor of JSFBT.

Marin Beck Honors Portfolio, Marin Elisabeth Beck

Honors Capstone Portfolios

Marin Beck's honors portfolio captured in December 2014.

Katie Westermayer Honors Portfolio, Katie Lynn Westermayer

Honors Capstone Portfolios

Katie Westermayer's honors portfolio captured in December 2014.

Kristen Paulsen Honors Portfolio, Kristen Chastine Paulsen

Honors Capstone Portfolios

Kristen Paulsen's honors portfolio captured in December 2014.

Testing A Risky Sex Behavior Intervention Pilot Website For Adolescents, Randall Starling, Don Helme, Jessica A. Nodulman, Angela D. Bryan, David B. Buller, Robert Lewis Donohew, W. Gill Woodall

Communication Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Each year, teenagers account for about one-fifth of all unintended pregnancies in the United States. As such, delivering sexual risk reduction educational materials to teens in a timely fashion is of critical importance. Web-based delivery of these materials shows promise for reaching and persuading teens away from risky sexual and substance abuse behaviors. The purpose of this study was to pilot test a web-based program aimed at reducing risky sexual behavior and related outcomes among adolescents in a high school setting.

METHODS: A beta-test of the website was conducted in three public schools in New Mexico, USA …

Encryption And Incrimination: The Evolving States Of Encrypted Drives, Shannon M. Oltmann

Information Science Faculty Publications

Individuals use encryption to safeguard many valid and legal applications but also to hide illegal activity. Several legal cases have drawn the limits of self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment regarding providing passwords to access illegal information content,such as child pornography. The cases illustrate that certain knowledge of evidence amounts to a compelling need for access and that a subpoena for hard drive contents is more likely to succeed than requiring a witness to provide a password. Since known documents are not legally protected and biometric data can be compelled as evidence, there is no reason that known digital documents, biometric …

Deliberative Democracy And The American Civil Jury, Valerie P. Hans, John Gastil, Traci Feller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Civil jury service should be a potent form of deliberative democracy, creating greater civic engagement. However, a 2010 seven-state study of jury service and voting records found no overall boost in civic engagement following service on civil juries, whereas jurors who served on criminal cases did show increased civic engagement following their jury service. This article reports a project that augments the civil jury data set with information about jury decision rule, jury size, defendant identity, and case type and examines whether specific types of civil jury service influence postservice voting. Taking into account preservice voting records, jurors who serve …

Book Review: Global Studies Reader, 2nd Ed., Brett L. Whitaker

eJournal of Public Affairs

No abstract provided.

Student Mindset Compared To Performance On The Nebraska State Accountability Test, Ann E. Dvorak

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Carol Dweck’s research on fixed vs. growth mindset has led to many opportunities for educational research. According to Dweck, a person with a fixed mindset believes that his or her qualities related to a certain task are unchangeable while an individual with a growth mindset believes that his or her qualities related to a certain task can be changed and improved (Dweck, 2006). A correlative study was conducted to identify relationships that exist between student mindset and scores from the Nebraska State Accountability Test (NeSA). For this study, students in the 7^th, 8^th, and 11^{th …}

Combating The Motivational Interference Potential Of Technological Distractions During Academic Tasks: The Role Of Academic Delay Of Gratification, Abraham E. Flanigan

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The presence of technological distractions during homework and study diminishes students’ ability to self-regulate effectively, a phenomenon known as motivational interference. To date, no studies have explored the relationship between college students’ delay of gratification tendencies and motivational interference. Do students with greater delay of gratification tendencies experience less motivational interference from a potential distraction? The present study explored this question by comparing students’ academic delay of gratification tendencies with their experiences of motivational interference. Participants self-reported their delay of gratification tendencies then completed an academic task while confronted with a computer distractor. Afterward, participants self-reported their motivational interference scores. …

Fostering Metacognition In The Middle School Classroom: An Exploration Of Teachers' Practices, Markeya S. Peteranetz

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis investigated how middle school teachers foster metacognition through instruction. Metacognition is the knowledge and awareness of one’s thinking as well as monitoring and control of thought processes. Metacognition is related to student achievement and can be increased through both implicit and explicit instruction. Explicit instruction takes place when the teacher points out, explains, or discusses the benefits of metacognition. Implicit instruction occurs when the teacher models or prompts the use of metacognition without expressly acknowledging or discussing it. This thesis used both quantitative and qualitative methods to determine the extent that metacognition is fostered in middle school classrooms …

The Effect Of Agricultural Practices On Sugar Beet Root Aphid (Pemphigus Betae Doane) And Beneficial Epigeal Arthropods, Rudolph J. Pretorius

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study investigated the effect of several agricultural practices on the sugar beet root aphid (Pemphigus betae Doane) and beneficial epigeal natural enemies in western Nebraska sugar beet agroecosystems. Eight glyphosate-tolerant sugar beet varieties were evaluated under field conditions for their resistance to root aphids. High levels of aphid resistance were detected for some varieties. In conjunction to this, pitfall sampling was conducted to determine the beneficial epigeal natural enemy complex in the area, which could contribute to the management of both root aphids and glyphosate-resistant weeds. Ground beetles comprised an important and abundant component of this fauna, with …

Influences On Student Attitudes About U.S. Involvement In Nation-Building, Tobin C. Beck

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

How do college students form opinions about a complex foreign policy issue such as U.S. involvement in nation-building? My study shows that in 2012, students identifying as conservative tended to support nation-building in proportion to their perception of the strength of their own and their parents' conservatism. The association between perception of conservatism and support for nation-building was statistically significant in 2012, although there was no statistically significant overall association between student political ideology and support for U.S. involvement in nation-building. However, a relationship between conservative student perception of ideology and support for nation-building was not detected in 2011 data. …

From Burma To Berlin: The Development Of U.S. Air Transport 1938–1949, Benjamin J. Johnson

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This work examines the development of U.S. military airlift from unproven curiosity to a transformative system of technologies, tactics and logistical support which enabled the United States to engage diplomatic and military scenarios around the world. Through an examination of contemporary reports, technological advances and statistical analyses of airlift practices it is shown that the period of 1938-1949 witnessed a great leap in tactical and technological innovation within the U.S. air transport community. The capabilities utilized during air supply missions to China during World War II and the Berlin Airlift foreshadowed a transformative capability providing military and diplomatic solutions when …

Decision Support Tools To Address Climate Change: Climate Model–Land Surface Models, Zea Mays L. (Corn) Phenology And Evapotranspiration–Yield Sensitivity Models For Nebraska, Usa, Jane A. Okalebo

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

Nebraska's climate is highly variable and is expected to change in the future with anthropogenic global warming (AGW), resulting in warmer spring and summer temperatures coupled with more erratic rainfall events. This has strong implications for agriculture in the region, yet it is not clear that current modeling and decision-support tools are adequate to address these looming changes and provide planning, mitigation and adaptation strategies. To address climate change and its implications to agriculture in Nebraska, a set of robust decision support tools are very crucial. This study herein are divided into three chapters, with each chapter addressing a specific …

Contextualizing Couples: Three Essays On Inequality, Stress, And Dyadic Functioning As A Longitudinal And Reciprocal Process, Deadric T. Williams

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this dissertation, I use an integrated theoretical and conceptual model that consists of several theoretical frameworks to examine the following questions: (1) is there a longitudinal and reciprocal association between parental stress/distress and dyadic functioning? (2) does the association change over time? (3) does the association vary across social contexts (e.g., marital status, race/ethnicity, and poverty)? In order to explore these questions, I use longitudinal and dyadic data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, which follows a cohort of children and their parents from birth to five years of age. Through three separate analytic studies, the results …

Cloud Impacts On Pavement Temperature And Shortwave Radiation, Curtis L. Walker

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Forecast systems provide decision support for end-users ranging from the solar energy industry to municipalities concerned with road safety. Pavement temperature is an important variable when considering vehicle response to various weather conditions. A complex, yet direct relationship exists between tire and pavement temperatures. Literature has shown that as tire temperature increases, friction decreases which affects vehicle performance. Many forecast systems suffer from inaccurate radiation forecasts resulting in part from the inability to model different types of clouds and their influence on radiation. This research focuses on forecast improvement by determining how cloud type impacts pavement temperature and the amount …

Carbohydrate Metabolism And The Trehalose Biosynthetic Pathway In Maize Kernels Grown In Vitro Under Sucrose Starvation Stress, Samuel W. Bledsoe

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

Drought is an increasing issue that many farmers encounter especially in hot arid climates with little rainfall. High temperatures and inadequate rainfall at certain stages in crop development can have disastrous consequences to yield. In maize, drought occurring near or during the flowering stage often causes significant kernel abortion that greatly impacts potential yield. The trehalose biosynthetic pathway has recently been found to be important in plant metabolism in response to stress in higher order plants. Trehalose is currently known throughout the plant and animal kingdoms as an osmoprotectant, high energy fuel source, structural component, and involved in pathogen response. …