Digital Commons Network^™

Digital Humanities And Librarians: A Team-Based Approach To Learning, Casey D. Hoeve, Lis Pankl, Mark Crosby

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This chapter details the development and implementation of an Introduction to Digital Humanities course (ENGL 695) at Kansas State University (K-State). The course originated with a tenure-track professor with a research specialty in British Romantic-period Literature and the digital humanities. In conjunction with a host of librarians at K-State Libraries, a course was developed that drew on both library resources and librarian knowledges and skills. Over the course of the semester, the professor and the students worked closely with librarians in many areas of the library, including public services, technical services and special collections. The result was four innovative and …

Looks Matter: The Impact Of Visual And Inclusive Design On Usability, Accessibility, And Online Learning, Sigrid Anderson Cordell, Melissa Gomis

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The recent expansion of digital scholarship has largely failed to take into account issues of accessibility and inclusive design. Likewise, the connection between accessibility and visual design is often overlooked in creating online learning tools. This gap is most often caused by an emphasis on delivering content rather than designing sites to be both visually appealing and effective in teaching concepts to students of all abilities and learning styles. In this chapter, we will argue that an emphasis on visual design in the creation of online learning objects enhances both accessibility and pedagogy.

Learning From Failure: A Review Of Peter Schuck’S Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (Book Review), David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Peter Schuck catalogs an overwhelming list of US government failures. He points to both structural problems (culture and institutions) and incentives. Despairing of cultural change, Schuck focuses on incentives. He relies on Charles Wolf ’s theory of nonmarket failures in which “internalities” replace the heavily-studied market failure from externalities (Wolf 1979). Internalities are evidence of a discord between the public goals by which a program is defended and the private goals of its administrators. What might economists contribute? We suggest that economists have neglected internalities because they take group goals as exogenously determined and we defend an alternative tradition in …

A Rayleigh Quotient-Based Recursive Total-Least-Squares Online Maximum Capacity Estimation For Lithium-Ion Batteries, Taesic Kim, Yebin Wang, Zafer Sahinoglu, Toshihiro Wada, Satoshi Hara, Wei Qiao

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

The maximum capacity, the amount of maximal electric charge that a battery can store, not only indicates the state of health, but also is required in numerous methods for state-of-charge estimation. This paper proposes an alternative approach to perform online estimation of the maximum capacity by solving the recursive total-least-squares (RTLS) problem.Different from prior art, the proposed approach poses and solves the RTLS as a Rayleigh quotient optimization problem. The Rayleigh quotient-based approach can be readily generalized to other parameter estimation problems including impedance estimation. Compared with other capacity estimation methods, the proposed algorithm enjoys the advantages of existing RTLS-based …

Development Of Listeriabase And Comparative Analysis Of Listeria Monocytogenes, Mui Fern Tan, Cheuk Chuen Siow, Avirup Dutta, Naresh Vr Mutha, Wei Yee Wee, Hamed Heydari, Shi Yang Tan, Mia Yang Ang, Guat Jah Wong, Siew Woh Choo

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Background: Listeria consists of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic species. Reports of similarities between the genomic content between some pathogenic and non-pathogenic species necessitates the investigation of these species at the genomic level to understand the evolution of virulence-associated genes. With Listeria genome data growing exponentially, comparative genomic analysis may give better insights into evolution, genetics and phylogeny of Listeria spp., leading to better management of the diseases caused by them.

Description: With this motivation, we have developed ListeriaBase, a web Listeria genomic resource and analysis platform to facilitate comparative analysis of Listeria spp. ListeriaBase currently houses 850,402 protein-coding genes, 18,113 …

Optimization And Control Of Cyber-Physical Vehicle Systems, Justin M. Bradley, Ella M. Atkins

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is composed of tightly-integrated computation, communication and physical elements. Medical devices, buildings, mobile devices, robots, transportation and energy systems can benefit from CPS co-design and optimization techniques. Cyber-physical vehicle systems (CPVSs) are rapidly advancing due to progress in real-time computing, control and artificial intelligence. Multidisciplinary or multi-objective design optimization maximizes CPS efficiency, capability and safety, while online regulation enables the vehicle to be responsive to disturbances, modeling errors and uncertainties. CPVS optimization occurs at design-time and at run-time. This paper surveys the run-time cooperative optimization or co-optimization of cyber and physical systems, which have historically been …

Integral Equation Analysis Of Em Scattering From Multilayered Metallic Photonic Crystal Accelerated With Adaptive Cross Approximation, Jianxun Su, Zengrui Li, Xujin Yuan, Yaoqing Yang, Junhong Wang

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

A space-domain integral equation method accelerated with adaptive cross approximation (ACA) is presented for the fast and accurate analysis of electromagnetic (EM) scattering from multilayered metallic photonic crystal (MPC). The method directly solves for the electric field in order to easily enable the periodic boundary condition (PBC) in the spatial domain. The ACA is a purely algebraic method allowing the compression of fully populated matrices; hence, its formulation and implementation are independent of integral equation kernel (Green’s function).Therefore, the ACA is very well suited for accelerating integral equation analysis of periodic structure with the integral kernel of the periodic Green’s …

Factors Affecting Scalability Of Multithreaded Java Applications On Manycore Systems, Junjie Qian, Du Li, Witawas Srisaan, Hong Jiang, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Modern Java applications employ multithreading to improve performance by harnessing execution parallelism available in today’s multicore processors. However, as the numbers of threads and processing cores are scaled up, many applications do not achieve the desired level of performance improvement. In this paper, we explore two factors, lock contention and garbage collection performance that can affect scalability of Java applications. Our initial result reveals two new observations. First, applications that are highly scalable may experience more instances of lock contention than those experienced by applications that are less scalable. Second, efficient multithreading can make garbage collection less effective, and therefore, …

Using Simulated Virtual Interactivity In Construction Education, Saeed Rokooei, James D. Goedert

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Faculty Publications

This paper briefly illustrates the design procedure, implementation and findings of a three year research project. Virtual Interactive Construction Education (VICE) is a project-based pedagogical model that uses a simulated environment to alter traditional subject-based lectures into virtual project-based interactive learning methods in construction education. For this purpose, the context of construction engineering and management curricula were aggregated into six construction project prototypes. VICE-Bridge is the first of these six prototypes that exposes players to experiential problem solving activities toward achieving a goal situation (construct the bridge) from an initial situation (start of construction). It was designed for students with …

Hydrophobic Organic Contaminant Transport Property Heterogeneity In The Borden Aquifer, Richelle M. Allen-King, Indra Kalinovich, David F. Dominic, Guohui Wang, Reid Polmanteer, Dana Divine

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

We determined that the spatial heterogeneity in aquifer properties governing the reactive transport of volatile organic contaminants is defined by the arrangement of lithofacies. We measured permeability (k) and perchloroethene sorption distribution coefficient (K_d) for lithofacies that we delineated for samples from the Canadian Forces Base Borden Aquifer. We compiled existing data and collected 57 new cores to characterize a 30 m section of the aquifer near the test location of Mackay et al. (1986). The k and K_d were measured for samples taken at six elevations from all cores to create a data …

International Knowledge Flows And Technological Advance: The Role Of Migration, Kacey N. Douglas

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper investigates whether knowledge flows from host to source country as a result of migration, alleviating the negative effects associated with outward migration. Using a fixed effects Poisson regression, patent citations are used as a proxy for knowledge flows and regressed on immigration and other control variables; the effect of immigration on patent citations is found to be positive and statistically significant. Additionally, the coefficient on immigration is found to be robust to different parameter changes in the model. These results suggest that reverse knowledge flows from outward migration help mitigate negative effects of outward migration on source countries.

Identity, History, And Education In Rwanda: Reflections On The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, David Moshman

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

On December 10, 2014, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo, Norway, to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education” (Nobel Media AB, 2014). Satyarthi, who lives in New Delhi, India, has a long record as an international activist for the rights of children and youth. Yousafzai was already known to the world as Malala, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her support of education for girls (Yousafzai, 2013).

Then, life went on. Within …

Mitigation Of Prion Infectivity And Conversion Capacity By A Simulated Natural Process—Repeated Cycles Of Drying And Wetting, Qi Yuan, Thomas Eckland, Glenn Telling, Jason C. Bartz, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Prions enter the environment from infected hosts, bind to a wide range of soil and soil minerals, and remain highly infectious. Environmental sources of prions almost certainly contribute to the transmission of chronic wasting disease in cervids and scrapie in sheep and goats. While much is known about the introduction of prions into the environment and their interaction with soil, relatively little is known about prion degradation and inactivation by natural environmental processes. In this study, we examined the effect of repeated cycles of drying and wetting on prion fitness and determined that 10 cycles of repeated drying and wetting …

An Investigation Into Bacterial Contamination In An Urban Nebraska Stream Using Microbial Source Tracking, Allison R. Speicher

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

High levels of fecal bacteria in surface waters are a public health concern due to the enteric illnesses caused by primary contact with these waters. Shortcomings in the current fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) monitoring approach and the ubiquity of pathogen-impaired water bodies has led to the development of microbial source tracking (MST), a molecular tool that can identify potential fecal contamination sources. In this study we use a bacterial community based approach examining the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to elucidate sources of fecal bacteria in Antelope Creek, an urban creek in Lincoln Nebraska.

We hypothesized that sediment …

The Application Of Advanced Materials On The Water Or Wastewater Treatment, Yalei Zhang, Asit Mazumder, Tian C. Zhang, Chaomeng Dai

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Water scarcity is being recognized as a present and future threat to human activity, and, as a consequence, water purification technologies are gaining major worldwide attention. Advanced materials have many properties, such as strong adsorption, enhanced redox, and photocatalytic properties, providing unprecedented opportunities to treat surface water, groundwater, and industrial wastewater that are contaminated with toxic metals, organic and inorganic compounds, bacteria, and viruses. Currently, tremendous progress has been made in development of advanced materials for their environmental applications, and knowledge has been accumulated of the effects of these advanced materials on and their applications in the environment security, recycling, …

Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Crash Cushion Systems, Kevin D. Schrum, Francisco D. B. De Albuquerque, Dean L. Sicking, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Ronald K. Faller, John D. Reid

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Crash cushions vary in geometry and cost. In this study, crash cushions were categorized in three different categories: redirecting with repair costs greater than $1,000 (RGM), redirecting with repair costs less than $1,000 (RLM), and nonredirecting sacrificial (NRS). Typically, RGM systems are less expensive initially, but life-cycle costs are high. RLM systems typically reciprocate this trend. NRS crash cushions (e.g., sand barrels) are generally less expensive but require total replacement after a crash has occurred, which may be impractical at high-traffic volume locations. Due to limited funding, there is often a need to identify the most cost-effective crash cushion category …

Lidar Scanning With Supplementary Uav Captured Images For Structural Inspections, Richard L. Wood, Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Structural assessment using remote sensing technologies can be performed efficiently and effectively using such technologies as LiDAR (light detection and ranging). LiDAR can be employed for various structural assessments, such as as-built conditions for a newly constructed facility, routine inspection during its service life, or structural collapse evaluation after a natural hazard or extreme event. However, the main disadvantage of LiDAR is that it is a line-of-sight technology that can result in significant occlusions. Architectural or structural components can be partially or fully occluded by another object with respect to the location of the laser scanner. Supplemental photogrammetry techniques, such …

North-Central Nebraska Geology: Niobrara River Valley In Brown, Cherry, And Keya Paha Counties, R. M. Joeckel, L. M. Howard, S T. Tucker

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Parental Rna Interference Of Genes Involved In Embryonic Development Of The Western Corn Rootworm, Diabrotica Virgifera Virgifera Leconte, Chitvan Khajuria, Ana María Vélez, Murugesan Rangasamy, Haichuan Wang, Elane Fishilevich, Meghan L.F. Frey, Newton Portilho Carneiro, Premchand Gandra, Kenneth E. Narva, Blair D. Siegfried

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

RNA interference (RNAi) is being developed as a potential tool for insect pest management and one of the most likely target pest species for transgenic plants that express double stranded RNA (dsRNA) is the western corn rootworm. Thus far, most genes proposed as targets for RNAi in rootworm cause lethality in the larval stage. In this study, we describe RNAi mediated knockdown of two developmental genes, hunchback (hb) and brahma (brm), in the western corn rootworm delivered via dsRNA fed to adult females. dsRNA feeding caused a significant decrease in hb and brm transcripts in the adult females. Although …

Hedge Fund Replication With A Genetic Algorithm: Breeding A Usable Mousetrap, Brian C. Payne, Jiri Tresl

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

This study tests the performance of 14 hedge fund index clones created using parsimonious outof- sample replication portfolios consisting solely of easily accessible assets. We employ a genetic algorithm to integrate two traditional hedge fund replication methods, the factor-based and payoff distribution replication methods, and evaluate over 4500 commonly held stocks, bonds and mutual funds as replicating portfolio components. In-sample performance indicates that hedge funds have return series similar to portfolios of commonly held assets, and out-of-sample results provide evidence that the in-sample relationships can hold with infrequent rebalancing. This hedge fund replication attempt rates well relatively to prior efforts …

Analysis Of Attitudes, Gender, And Beliefs Of Adolescent Students Concerning Interactive Technology, Courtney L. Teague

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide insight about the perceptions of middle school students attending a Title I school about technology use and careers. Using a mixed methods approach, the researcher explored the beliefs and circumstances that affect attitudes and behaviors in technology usage by eighth-grade boys and girls. The research questions for this study included: 1) female Title I middle school students' perceptions of interactive technology, 2) male Title I middle school students' perceptions of interactive technology, and 3) gender differences towards interactive technology. Data were collected from six focus group participants and 226 students who completed a …

Trolley Monitoring System, Joshua Adadevoh, Emeka Umeh, Stephanie Richard-Obire

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

The project involves building a software system to send mobile alerts to users when the Florida Tech Trolley is nearing their signed-up location. The users will be able to sign up for alerts and notifications for a particular trolley stop and for different time intervals. When the trolley is nearing the location, the user will receive an alert with the estimated time of arrival, so they can be at the stop on time.

Rotating Led Display, Mohammad Shamsah, Kassim Alhamed, Abdulrazzaq Meer, Mohammad Al Loughani

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

The Rotating LED Display is a group of LEDs that are connected as a straight line. The LEDs blink so fast that when they are rotated, they create an image that the human eye can see. This concept is called Persistence of Vision (POV). The LEDs display a digital clock and temperature while rotating using a motor. In addition, the temperature data is being sent via Bluetooth Module that is connected to the temperature sensor.

Ied Disposal Robot, Brooks Maxwell, Donal Martin, Nick Kerkorian

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

“You can not put a price on human life, so why not replace it with something that can be measured monetarily?” This statement was the inspiration for the development of a low cost un-manned ground vehicle (UGV). Current bomb disposal robots are limited in functionality, high cost, and ease of user operation. The team devised a cost effective solution that utilized human-like robotic hands that mimic operator gestures. The objectives of the project are outlined as follows: • Fully Functional UGV • Mimic Human Gestures • Lightweight and Rugged • First Person Camera Feed • Simple User Interface

Time Capsule To Mars: Systems Engineering And Launch Operations, Cassidy Chan, Juliette Bido, Isaac Spence, Justin Anderson, Robert Curtin, Brianna Tillman

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) is a national level project based on 3 fundamental pillars, Education, Technology, and Cultural. We aim to be the first private mission to Mars and the first student led mission.

C.R.I.T.R. - Communication Remote Information Transmitter, Evelyn Maddox, David Fink, Scott Jarrell, Stayton Shaw

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

Establish an optical communication link and successfully transmit information back to a base station.

Optical Seismometer, Jack Cornelis, Matthew Kemmerer, Taylor Schluter

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

Seismometers are a critical part of the global infrastructure for monitoring seismic activity for a variety of applications. A cost-effective solution for seismic activity detection that will overcome conventional electro-mech seismometer limitations through design of a sensor utilizing an extrinsic fabry-perot interferometric sensing element, thereby reducing electrical noise, improving environmental hardening, and enabling future light based sensitivity enhancements.

Gps Sun Tracking Solar Panel, Ahmed Alyammahi, Abdullah Alsaif, Hussam Alfi, Abdulaziz Alqahtani

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Student Publications

The concept of our project is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) controlled Sun Tracking System and the name of our model is GPS CONTROLLED SUN TRACKING SYSTEM. The solar panel will directed towards sun in order to maximize the tracking of solar energy. The tracking of solar energy from the sun will be guided by Global Positioning system. The GPS will regulate the orientation of solar panel to capture the maximum solar energy from the sun. The installed GPS will be equipped with longitude and latitude that correlated with time, therefore in such case the solar panel will …

Estimation Of Daily Air Temperature Based On Modis Land Surface Temperature Products Over The Corn Belt In The Us, Linglin Zeng, Brian D. Wardlow, Tsegaye Tadesse, Jie Shan, Michael Hayes, Deren Li, Daxiang Xiang

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Air temperature (Ta) is a key input in a wide range of agroclimatic applications. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Ts (Land Surface Temperature (LST)) products are widely used to estimate daily Ta. However, only daytime LST (Ts-day) or nighttime LST (Ts-night) data have been used to estimate Tmax/Tmin (daily maximum or minimum air temperature), respectively. The relationship between Tmax and Ts-night, and the one between Tmin and Ts-day has not been studied. In this study, both the ability of Ts-night data to estimate Tmax and the ability of Ts-day data to estimate Tmin were tested and studied in the Corn …

Search For Dark Photons From Neutral Meson Decays In P+P And D+ Au Collisions At √Snn =200 Gev, Andrew Marshall Adare, Gyöngyi Baksay, László A. Baksay, Marcus Hohlmann, S. Rembeczki, Phenix Collaboration

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

The standard model (SM) of particle physics is spectacularly successful, yet the measured value of the muon anomalous magnetic moment (g-2)μ deviates from SM calculations by 3.6σ. Several theoretical models attribute this to the existence of a "dark photon," an additional U(1) gauge boson, which is weakly coupled to ordinary photons. The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has searched for a dark photon, U, in π0,η→γe+e- decays and obtained upper limits of O(2×10‐⁶) U-γ mixing at 90% C.L. for the mass range 30< mᵤ < 90 MeV/c². Combined with other experimental limits, the remaining region in the U-γ mixing parameter space that can explain the (g-2)ᵤ deviation from its SM value is nearly completely excluded at the 90% confidence level, with only a small region of 29