Engineering Commons^™

Magnetoelectric Memory Cells With Domain-Wall-Mediated Switching, Kirill Belashchenko, Oleg Tchernyshyov, Alexey Kovalev, Dmitri Nikonov

Kirill Belashchenko Publications

A magnetoelectric memory cell with domain - wall - mediated switching is implemented using a split gate architecture . The split gate architecture allows a domain wall to be trapped within a magnetoelectric antiferromagnetic ( MEAF ) active layer . An extension of this architecture applies to multiple gate linear arrays that can offer advantages in memory density , programmability , and logic functionality . Applying a small anisotropic in - plane shear strain to the MEAF can block domain wall precession to improve reliability and speed of switching

Detection, Occurrence And Fate Of Emerging Contaminants In Agricultural Environments, Daniel D. Snow, David A. Cassada, Saptashati Biswas, Mohammedreza Shafieifini, Xu Li, Matteo D'Alessio, Laura Carter, J. Brett Sallach

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

A total of 75 papers published in 2017 were reviewed ranging from detailed descriptions of analytical methods, to fate and occurrence studies, to ecological effects and sampling techniques for a wide variety of emerging contaminants likely to occur in agricultural environments. New methods and studies on veterinary pharmaceuticals, steroids, antibiotic resistance genes, and engineered nanoparticles agricultural environments continue to expand our knowledge base on the occurrence and potential impacts of these compounds. This review is divided into the following sections: Introduction, Analytical Methods, Fate and Occurrence, Pharmaceutical Metabolites, Anthelmintics, Antibiotic Resistance Genes, and Engineered Nanomaterials.

Girls Who Code 3rd-5th, Khristina Polivanov

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of the club is to encourage girls to be confident in themselves and their abilities while teaching them basic concepts used in computer science.

The Future Is Now Science Club, Shane Stan

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

The Future is Now! What will our planet look like in 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years? Where will we live, what will we eat, how will we travel? Believe it or not, in the coming decades, many ideas that were once science fiction will come through to realization. With this, many of the discoveries and technologies making all of this happen are being developed right now as we go about our daily lives.

In this club, appropriately titled, The Future Is Now Science Club, students will be inspired to think larger about the present world they live in. …

Shear Strength Characteristics And Failure Mechanism Of Slopes In Overconsolidated Soils Of Nebraska, Hossein Bahmyari

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

Geotechnical engineers deal with some challenging problems when encountering long-term slope stability in overconsolidated clays and clayey shales. One of these problems is determining a suitable method to estimate the reliable shear strength of overconsolidated clayey soils for long-term slope stability. According to Eversol (2013), one half of the counties in Nebraska have experienced slope failure in overconsolidated soils, especially in north and east Nebraska. In this research, shear strength characteristics of overconsolidated clayey soils of Nebraska is investigated in regard to long-term stability of slopes, and the failure mechanism in such soils is examined.

Undisturbed samples from boring logs …

Study Of The Femtosecond Laser Processed Surfaces, Imprinting, And Casting For Changing The Wettability Of Surfaces, Yingxiao Song

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

Femtosecond Laser Surface Processing (FLSP) is a technology to fabricate micro/nano surface structures. These patterned surface structures show great importance in many applications, especially in controlling the wettability of the surface. Imprinting is a typical method for manufacturing large volumes of surfaces. This study combines two processes (FLSP and stamping) together to produce a surface structure similar to the original FLSP surface. In the first step, micro/nano structured surface mounds were fabricated by femtosecond laser processing. Then, these FLSP surfaces served as molds for subsequent imprinting to replicated the “negative” surface on a blank material. Surface morphology and peak-to-valley roughness …

Minutes & Seconds: The Scientists, Patrick Aievoli

Zea E-Books Collection

Minutes & Seconds, is a captivating intelligible read for those who strive to understand where the “what if” moment has gone. Succeeding his other captivating books, Aievoli’s deep introspective lens dials his readers in to awaken the proverbial sleeping giant inside of our consciousness. He designs an insightful exciting romp through the surreal landscape of our society and illustrates how various pioneers have lead us to a crossroads. I’m truly impressed with Aievoli’s perspicacious comprehension of where digital has taken us through the hands of these select individuals. --Sequoyah Wharton

In creating Minutes & Seconds, Aievoli has assembled an interesting …

Strong And Tough Continuous Nanofibers, Yuris Dzenis

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Amethod of fabricating a continuous nanofiber is described . The method includes preparing a solution of one or more polymers and one or more solvents and electrospinning the solution by discharging the solution through one or more liquid jets into an electric field to yield one or more continuous nanofibers . The electrospinning process ( i ) highly orients one or more polymer chains in the one or more continuous nanofibers along a fiber axis of the one or more continuous nanofibers , and ( ii ) suppresses polymer crystallization in the one or more continuous nanofibers . The one …

Report Of Community Conversations About Gender Roles In Livestock, Mamusha Lemma, Wole Kinati, Annet Mulema, Zekarias Bassa, Abiro Tigabe, Hiwot Desta, Mesfin Mekonnen, Tadious Asfaw

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) gender and animal health teams facilitated community conversations (CCs) about gender roles in livestock husbandry in three districts in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and Amhara region from 30 May–07 June 2018. These dictricts were: Doyogena (Hawora Arara and Ancha Sadicha kebeles) of SNNPR from 30 and 31 May; and Menz Gera district (Sine Amba kebele) and Menz Mama district (Key Afer kebele) of Amhara from June 6–7. In Doyogena, the team held the conversations in farmer training centres (FTCs) …

Individual And Community Quality Of Life In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Nebraska Rural Poll Research Report 18-3, Rebecca Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph Cantrell, Brad Lubben, Larry J. Mcelravy Jr., Timothy Meyer

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Introduction

Trends in Community Ratings (1996–2018)

Community Change, 1996–2018

Expected Community Change Ten Years from Now: 2011–2018

Expected Destination of Those Planning to Move: 1998–2018

Proportions of Respondents Very or Somewhat Satisfied with Each Service, 1997–2018

The Community and Its Attributes in 2018

Perceptions of Community Change by Region

Expected Community Change in Ten Years by Community Size

Feelings of Community Powerlessness by Region

Satisfaction with Retail Shopping by Region

Satisfaction with Cost of Housing by Community Size

Satisfaction with Cellular Phone Service by Community Size

Opinions About Community

Change in Community Political Discussions during …

Higher-Level Consistencies: Where, When, And How Much, Robert J. Woodward

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Determining whether or not a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) has a solution is NP-complete. CSPs are solved by inference (i.e., enforcing consistency), conditioning (i.e., doing search), or, more commonly, by interleaving the two mechanisms. The most common consistency property enforced during search is Generalized Arc Consistency (GAC). In recent years, new algorithms that enforce consistency properties stronger than GAC have been proposed and shown to be necessary to solve difficult problem instances.

We frame the question of balancing the cost and the pruning effectiveness of consistency algorithms as the question of determining where, when, and how much of a higher-level …

Assessing The Relationship Between Groundwater Nitrate Concentrations And Environmental Variables Through Repeat Sampling And Statistical Machine Learning: Dutch Flats, Nebraska, Martin Wells

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

Nitrate-contaminated aquifers are common in landscapes dominated by agricultural land use. Health concerns related to consuming nitrate-contaminated groundwater are well documented and continued research aimed at decreasing concentrations is critical. A 1990s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study focused on groundwater characteristics in the Dutch Flats area of western Nebraska. Agricultural-related practices were determined to largely influence groundwater recharge and nitrate concentrations ([NO₃^-]). Since the conclusion of the USGS study, a transition to more efficient irrigation technology has been observed in this region. The emphasis of this 2016 study was to resample several well nests examined in 1998 …

Acuta Enews June 2009, Vol 38, No. 6

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

From the President........Harvey "Buck" Buchanan, Florida State Univ., ACUTA President

Tech Talk: How Safe Do You Feet?................Kevin Tanzilto, Dux PR

"Financial Crisis Activity in Washington" Newsletter

ACUTA Web Seminar: Designing & Deploying 802.11n on a College Campus

Board Report...................... George Denbow, Univ. of Texas-Austin, ACUTA Secretary/Treasurer

DC Update Dave Ostrom, Washington State Univ. (retired)

lnfo Links ............. Randy Hayes, univ. of Northern lowa

Renewed Your Membership?

Web Page Lists Free Audio & Web Seminars from Vendors

ACUTA Corporate Liaison Committee Provides Website

Are You Linked ln? Do You Tweet?

The Value of Unified Communications .............Gary Audin, Delphi, …

From E-911 To Ng-911: Overview And Challenges In Ecuador, Danilo Corral-De-Witt, Enrique V. Carrera, Jose A. Matamoros-Vargas, Sergio Munoz-Romero, Jose Luis Rojo-Alvarez, Kemal Tepe

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

For years, emergency attendance institutions in Ecuador worked separately and not all of them had a 24/7 service, resulting in duplicated efforts, a waste of the scarce resources, and an absence of generalized technology. In 2012, Ecuador created an Integrated Security Service, called ECU 911, to address the need of an emergency service articulating all the first response institutions. The ECU 911 relies on the Enhanced 911 technology, having a countrywide presence. Since then, Ecuador has implemented 16 public-safety answering points and 11 decentralized operative rooms, covering all Ecuadorian territory and serving to a population of about 17 million people. …

Development Of Boron Calibration Via Hybrid Comparator Method In Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis, E. J. Artnak, S. R. Biegalski, S. Landsberger, Natale Lanno, Dennis Alexander, M. F. Byers

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) facility at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin was utilized to quantify boron concentrations in boron carbide semiconductor films deposited on silicon substrates. Calibration was complicated by the unique and varying sample geometries analyzed. In addition, there was a dearth of solid materials available with quantified boron concentrations having comparable or readily modifiable dimensions to exploit for calibration purposes. Therefore, a novel hybrid comparator method was developed for the quantification of boron utilizing aluminum as an inexpensive and easily machinable reference material. Aluminum samples were manufactured with high …

Combined Use Of Oscillating Means And Ellipsometry To Determine Uncorrelated Effective Thickness And Optical Constants Of Material Deposited At Or Etched From A Working Electrode That Preferrably Comprises Non - Normal Oriented Nanofibers, Mathias M. Schubert, Tino Hofmann, John A. Woollam, Rebecca Y. Lai

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Disclosed are systems and methods that enable determination of uncorrelated thickness of a working electrode and surface region optical constants in settings involving electrochemical processing at a working electrodes in a Piezo electric Balance system , by simultaneous application of an Ellipsometer system , the working electrode optionally having a multiplicity of nanofibers that are oriented non normally to a surface of said working electrode . Further disclosed is , simultaneous with said determinations , the monitoring of electrochemical processes at a piezoelectric balance working electrode driven by electrical energy applied between said working electrode and counter electrode .

Measuring Landscape Performance: Case Study Investigation, Hannah Michelle Lopresto, Brandon Zambrano, Catherine De Almeida

UCARE: Research Products

Participating in the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2018 Case Study Investigation has been an incredibly informative experience for our research team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We are eager to shine a spotlight on the landscape performance of two Great Plains projects: P Street Corridor, a revitalized downtown streetscape in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, a waterfront redevelopment in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Working on the post-occupancy study of both projects has been extremely beneficial in understanding how reclaiming underutilized sites can create high-performing landscapes. Both are public projects in urban settings with primary goals of transforming formerly unpleasant, …

Social Issues In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Perceptions Of Social Stigma And Drug And Alcohol Abuse: 2018 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

Conclusion

Many rural Nebraskans think it brings shame upon a person to do the following: file personal bankruptcy, apply for food stamps and apply for income assistance. Most rural Nebraskans disagree that the following items bring shame to a person: go to Alcoholics Anonymous or other alcohol treatment, seek mental health care, and go to drug treatment. In general, rural Nebraskans say that residents of their community are more likely than they personally are to think doing the items brings shame upon a person.

At least one-third of rural Nebraskans think the following are a very serious problem or a …

Development Of Iowa Dot Combination Bridge Separation Barrier With Bicycle Railing, Chaz M. Ginger

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Iowa Department of Transportation typically builds separation barriers between vehicle and pedestrian/bicycle facilities when sidewalks or trails are present on vehicular bridges. Currently, Iowa DOT employs a combination bridge rail that utilizes a concrete parapet that previously had been successfully evaluated to National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350 Test Level 4 (TL-4) criteria for these situations. While the parapet had been successfully evaluated, the combination bridge rail system as a whole had not been evaluated to any crash test standards. Iowa DOT desired that researchers at Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MwRSF) design and test a combination bridge …

Cover Crops Have Negligible Impact On Soil Water In Nebraska Maize–Soybean Rotation, J. Burdette Barker, Derek M. Heeren, Katja Koehler-Cole, Charles Shapiro, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Roger W. Elmore, Christopher A. Proctor, Suat Irmak, Charles A. Francis, Tim M. Shaver, Ali T. Mohammed

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

One perceived cost of integrating winter cover cropping in maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation systems is the potential negative impact on soil water storage available for primary crop production. The objective of this 3-year study was to evaluate the effects of winter cover crops on soil water storage and cover crop biomass production following no-till maize and soybean rotations. Locations were near Brule (west-central), Clay Center (south-central), Concord (northeast), and Mead (east-central), Nebraska, United States. Treatments included crop residue only (no cover crop) and a multi-species cover crop mix, both broadcast-seeded before …

Micron/Nano Structure Creation Through Dual Pulse Femtosecond Laser Surface Processing, Nicholas Roth

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A new technique has been developed for creating multiscale micro/nanoscale surfaces on metals. This technique is based on past work in femtosecond laser surface processing (FLSP) and dual pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Using a femtosecond laser, pulse pairs were created with varying pulse separations between 0 ps to 500 ps. The creation of surface structures with dual pulse FLSP was studied on Ag, Cu, Ti, Al, Ni, and 304 stainless steel in relation to pulse separation.

Using dual pulse FLSP micro/nano structures have been created for the first time on silver. The silver structures are multiscale in nature …

Scaling Up An Infrastructure For Controlled Experimentation With Testing Techniques, Wayne D. Motycka

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Software testing research often involves reproducing previous experimental results. Previous work created a repository infrastructure for containment and dissemination of testable research subjects using a private centralized storage mechanism for hosting these test subject archives. While this is a good way to store these subjects it can be inefficient when the size of subjects increases or the number of versions of the subject’s source code is large. The delivery of these large subjects from a centralized repository can be quite large and on occasion may not succeed requiring the user to repeat the download request. Coupled with the limited resources …

Uncoupling Fermentative Synthesis Of Molecular Hydrogen From Biomass Formation In Thermotoga Maritima, Raghuveer Singh, Derrick White, Yaşar Demirel, Robert Kelley, Kenneth Noll, Paul H. Blum

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Faculty Publications

When carbohydrates are fermented by the hyperthermophilic anaerobe Thermotoga maritima, molecular hydrogen (H₂) is formed in strict proportion to substrate availability. Excretion of the organic acids acetate and lactate provide an additional sink for removal of excess reductant. However, mechanisms controlling energy management of these metabolic pathways are largely unexplored. To investigate this topic, transient gene inactivation was used to block lactate production as a strategy to produce spontaneous mutant cell lines that overproduced H₂ through mutation of unpredicted genetic targets. Single-crossover homologous chromosomal recombination was used to disrupt lactate dehydrogenase (encoded by ldh) with …

Evaluation And Development Of Cpt Based Pile Design In Nebraska Soils, Alex Silvey

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

Cone penetration testing (CPT) is a well established geotechnical subsurface investigation technique commonly used for site characterization and soil classification. The CPT gives real time end resistance, side friction, and pore pressure readings. Axially loaded piles also share these two resistance mechanisms, suggesting the cone can be considered similar to a miniature pile. This study focused on evaluating eight CPT methods prediction of pile bearing capacity. The Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) conducts dynamic load tests (PDA) of driven pile to verify pile capacity for bridge foundations. 91 comparisons of CPT logs and PDA data were evaluated. CPT prediction methods …

Design Of Parallel Robot For Dental Articulation And Its Optimization, Abulimiti Delimulati

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

A dental articulator is a mechanical device used to simulate the relative position and motion between the upper and lower jaw when constructing and testing dental prostheses. Typically, it can be adjusted to approximate patient-specific jaw kinematics in order to analogue the static relationship and specific motions of a patient’s mandible to maxilla. However, the use of dental articulators is essentially a trial-and-error method in order to fine-tune fit and function of a dental prosthesis. Some of the most advanced current dental articulators can reproduce the position and the motion passively; furthermore, dentists need special training for measuring patients’ maxillofacial …

Cmos Radioactive Isotope Identification With Multichannel Analyzer And Embedded Neural Network, Samuel Murray

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A radiation detection and identification system is designed and implemented to perform gamma ray spectroscopy on radioactive sources and identify which isotopes are present in the sources. A multichannel analyzer is implemented on an ASIC to process the signal produced from gamma rays detected by a scintillator and photomultiplier tube and to quantize the gamma ray energies to build a histogram. A fast, low memory embedded neural network is implemented on a microcontroller ASIC to identify the isotopes present in the gamma ray histogram produced by the multichannel analyzer in real time.

Advisors: Sina Balkir and Michael W. Hoffman

Plant Community Composition, Floristic Quality, And Establishment Of Roadside Revegetation In Nebraska, Usa, Jonathan M. Soper

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

Roadside revegetation poses a challenge and opportunity for biodiversity conservation, as the land area occupied by roadsides is not expected to decline in the future. In the context of roadside revegetation activities in rural regions dominated by agricultural land uses, revegetation efforts can establish plant communities that offer unique species that would otherwise be absent on the landscape. To determine the efficacy of roadside revegetation efforts in 1) providing plant communities of high biodiversity value and 2) meeting the expectations of roadside revegetation managers for establishment, we quantified botanical composition, floristic quality, and success in seeding efforts to meet manager …

Irrigation Management, Environment, And Profits: Who Wins?, Emily O'Donnell

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

The impact of irrigation technology on farmers’ management strategies and resulting environmental benefits depends upon agronomic properties and market forces. We evaluate the role of deficit irrigation using soil moisture probe technology on corn yield and evapotranspiration, which is a measure of water use efficiency. Evapotranspiration represents the water that transits through the plant during planting to harvest (transpiration) and the evaporation from the soil into the environment, or the displaced water in the production process. We develop yield and evapotranspiration response functions to inform a constrained profit maximization model used to identify the optimal irrigation level across a variety …

Including Farmer Irrigation Behavior In A Sociohydrological Modeling Framework With Application In North India, Jimmy O’Keeffe, Simon Moulds, Emma Bergin, Nick Brozovic, Ana Mijic, Wouter Buytaert

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Understanding water user behavior and its potential outcomes is important for the development of suitable water resource management options. Computational models are commonly used to assist water resource management decision making; however, while natural processes are increasingly well modeled, the inclusion of human behavior has lagged behind. Improved representation of irrigation water user behavior within models can provide more accurate and relevant information for irrigation management in the agricultural sector. This paper outlines a model that conceptualizes and proceduralizes observed farmer irrigation practices, highlighting impacts and interactions between the environment and behavior. It is developed using a bottom-up approach, informed …

Data-Driven Development Of A Roadside Safety Marketing Campaign For Tree Removal – Phase I, Cody S. Stolle, Thomas Ammon, Chris M. Vargas, Ronald K. Faller, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Erin L. Urbank

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Since the 1970s, tree crashes have been one of the most common and deadly fixed-object fatal crash types, resulting in more than 3,000 fatal crashes and 3,500 fatalities each year. While fatal tree crashes could be prevented by removing trees adjacent to the roadway, an extensive national tree removal project would be unnecessary, cost-prohibitive, and would experience significant political resistance.

The Midwest Pooled Fund Program jointly funded a research study to develop marketing methods and approaches which would focus on tree removal, replacement, or relocation in the most critical areas. Researchers conducted an extensive background investigation into tree crashes, other …