Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

I Know, It’S Only Rock’N’Roll (But They Don’T Like It)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This posting about the politics of pop concerts in Shanghai is mostly about an American duo (Jan and Dean), whose hits included “Surf City,” and the hard-to-categorize Icelandic songstress Bjork, who last week made headlines anddrew the ire of the Chinese state by saying the words “Tibet, Tibet” after performing a song called “Declare Independence” (on the heels of which, there wasapparent tinkering with Harry Connick Jr.’s song list at a recent performance). It still seemed right, though, to give the piece a title adapted from a song by a famous British band. Why? Because the Rolling Stones, like Bjork …

Hoye’S Directory Of Lincoln City For 1891., W. C. Hoye

Electronic Reference Materials

“Being a Complete and Accurate Index to the Residents of the Entire City, Their Names, Business and Location. Together with a Carefully Prepared Business Directory; An Elaborate Appendix of Indispensable Information Concerning Churches, Societies, Banks, City, County, State and Federal Records, Etc., Etc. To Which Is Added a Full and Complete Street and Avenue Directory, Corrected and Compared with the Latest Surveys, and Therefore Official. Also a Complete Directory of the Resident Tax-Payers of Lancaster County, Exclusive of the City of Lincoln.”

Commercial and residential directory for Lincoln, Nebraska, 1891, when the city was in the midst of a phenomenal …

23rd Women In Agricultural Conference, Megan Voss

Cornhusker Economics

Over 300 women from across the state participated in the 23rd Women In Agriculture Conference held February 21-22, 2008. For some, it was their first time attending the conference, and for others it was their 23rd. Participants spent time listening to keynote speakers, participating in topic specific workshops and socializing. The women also had the opportunity to learn about new things happening in the agricultural industry by visiting with booth attendants and talking with the sponsors of the conference. “I enjoyed the positive attitude that rubbed from one person to another – such fun!” said a participant from Gosper County. …

This Day: March 8, International Women’S Day, Kate Merkel-Hess

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the wake of World War I, a spirit of international cooperation emerged. Its manifestations, such as the founding of the League of Nations, confirmed the late-nineteenth century notion that participation in the global community required national identity (in place of the local identities that historians have shown were most important in empires; rarely did regular people identify themselves as imperial subjects but rather by village or region). Educated elites in China expressed devotion to this new internationalism by reiterating to their countrymen the importance of awareness of international events, as well as by domesticating international holidays such as Arbor …

Making (Up) History

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few weeks ago, Kate Merkel-Hess posted a list here at China Beat of her nominations for five Chinese historical events that should get more attention. In response, Charles Hayford has written a piece at Frog In a Well about five historical events that didn’t happen. Hayford’s piece not only proposes a few likely turns of history that didn’t happen, but also debunks a few popular historical assumptions that never were.

Democracy Or Bust: Why Our Knowledge About What The Chinese Lack Is Really No Knowledge At All

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

An NPR report yesterday on the opening of a new session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing began with a disparaging comment to the effect that China is still a long way from democracy. As a statement of fact, this is no doubt both true and lamentable. As an attempt to convey useful knowledge to American listeners about China’s current situation, however, it seems to me nearly useless. Like many such statements, it is based on an implicit comparison between the Chinese political system and Western-style democracy. And like many such implicit comparisons, it falls victim to a particularly …

The Outlook For Switchgrass As An Energy Crop, Richard K. Perrin, Brian Williams

Cornhusker Economics

Corn ethanol production has already had a big impact on Nebraska agriculture. What about switch-grass for ethanol? Will it become an important crop in the Great Plains, and if so, when? How much will it be worth?

These are important questions for Nebraska agriculture, and the future is murky. In this issue we summarize some of what is known at this point.

Tuesday Taelspin: From The Beijing Airport To The Palace Of Milk

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In preparation for the Olympics, Beijing last week unveiled the long-anticipated Terminal 3, the mammoth new edition to the Beijing Airport. The Telegraph’sRichard Spencer blogs on his recent flight, one of the first to use the new terminal.

If you do find yourself passing through an airport in the PRC mind your in-flight reading material, as journalist Tim Johnson of China Rises found out when the customs agents at the Lhasa airport took issue with one of his recent purchasesfrom a Kathmandu bookstore.

Controlling books at an airport is one thing, managing a famously eccentric pop star is another. Songstress …

Most Popular Downloads -- February 2008

Institutional Repository Information

This month’s most popular article, “RODENTS AS A FOOD SOURCE,” (from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Vertebrate Pest Conference 1990) was referenced by food blogger Jesse Sharrad at http://corduroyorange.com/?p=273 and experienced 50 to 100 hits daily for several weeks afterwards. Interesting article, but lately I’ve been eyeing the campus squirrels and thinking “Brunswick stew”.

Other newcomers to the top of the list include Roscoe Pound’s classic essay “Justice according to Law” (from The Mid-West Quarterly 1914), which has a link from the Wikipedia article on Pound.

Theodore Parker’s “Strauss’s Life of Jesus,” an 1840 review from the Christian Examiner of …

Trauma And Memory – 228 In Taiwan Today

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This past Thursday, Taiwan commemorated the 61st anniversary of the February 28 Incident (hereafter referred to as 228), an uprising against KMT authoritarian rule initially sparked by the beating of a female vendor in Taipei for selling untaxed cigarettes. During the ensuing military crackdown, tens of thousands of Taiwan’s elite were arrested, tortured, and murdered, with the violence lasting into the spring of 1947 and helping usher in the era known as the White Terror (白色恐怖).

The untold suffering of 228 has led to decades of division in Taiwan society, because while the conflict’s victims included both Taiwanese and Mainlanders, …

Branding Your Community, Milan Wall

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Connections: Using a Brand Creation Approach to Community Identity

Origins of the Branding Concept

Even far back in the middle ages when artists and artisans began to form guilds or associations together, many hallmarks or identifying symbols were used as a signatures by artisans to lay claim to the result of his or her work. Another important, and American reference, comes from the days before fences divided up the frontier and cattle owners found a way to mark and identify their own cattle by branding them with a personalized symbol. Even today, many purebred horses are carefully inspected and only …

Branding Your Community, Milan Wall

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Branding Your Community

Table of Contents:

Connections: Using a Brand Creation Approach to Community Identity

Case Study: Superior, Nebraska

Mapping Community Assets: An Overview

SOAR Analysis

About Appreciative Inquiry

The Marketing Process: Attention, Attraction and Action

Marketing Your Community

Back Home Ideas

Tips for Creating Community Brands

Workshop Evaluation

The Rothermel Fire-Spread Model: Still Running Like A Champ, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

In 1972, aeronautical engineer Richard C. Rothermel, of the USDA Fire Sciences Lab at Missoula, Montana, developed a method for modeling the spread of wildfire. The model became widely used, and although the ensuing years have brought many technological innovations, it is still the engine of the predictive tools used by fire behavior officers today. The Joint Science Fire Program (JFSP) is pleased to offer Dick Rothermel’s story as a tribute to a significant accomplishment, and also to showcase some of the current work at the Fire Sciences Lab.

A Pilot Study Into The Effects Of X-Ray And Computed Tomography Exposure On The Amplification Of Dna From Bone, Britta M. Grieshaber, Daniel L. Osborne, Alison F. Doubleday, Frederika A. Kaestle

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This research investigates the intersection of radiography and aDNA, two commonly used methods in bioarchaeology. The goal of this project was to investigate the effects of radiation on the ability to amplify DNA from bone. Bones (n = 124) from domestic pig (Sus scrofa) feet were randomly sorted into a control group and four treatment groups: (1) single exposure X-ray; (2) single exposure CT; (3) multiple exposures X-ray; and (4) multiple exposures CT. Number of PCR cycles required to amplify DNA in 100 bp, 200 bp and 400 bp segments were used as a proxy for the …

Parental Divorce, Marital Conflict And Children’S Behavior Problems: A Comparison Of Adopted And Biological Children, Paul R. Amato, Jacob Cheadle

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

We used adopted and biological children from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households to study the links between parents’ marital conflict, divorce and children’s behavior problems. The standard family environment model assumes that marital conflict and divorce increase the risk of children’s behavior problems. The passive genetic model assumes that parents’ and children’s behavior are linked because of genetic transmission from parents to children. The child effects model assumes that parents’ marital distress is the result of (rather than the cause of) children’s behavior. Our analysis shows that the associations between parents’ divorce and …

Review Of When Sex Became Gender, By Shira Tarrant., Mary Jo Deegan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Shira Tarrant’s book, When Sex Became Gender, analyzes the intellectual work of five women between the first and second waves of feminism (i.e., between 1920 and 1965). Tarrant specifically “confronts the bonds of ideology” surrounding feminist theory that were created in the cold war years in the United States, Britain, and France. She does so in an in-depth examination of five women who wrote about women’s social location: Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who studied sex roles and socialization; Mirra Komarovsky, the functionalist sociologist who interrogated sex roles, paid labor, and marriage; Viola Klein, the sociologist and sociology of knowledge theorist …

Amphiod Densities And Indices Of Wetland Quality Across The Upper-Midwest, Usa, Michael J. Anteau, Alan D. Afton

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Nutritional, behavioral, and diet data for lesser scaup (Aythya affinis [Eyton, 1838]) indicates that there has been a decrease in amphipod (Gammarus lacustris [G. O. Sars, 1863] and Hyalella azteca [Saussure, 1858]) density and wetland quality throughout the upper-Midwest, USA. Accordingly, we estimated densities of Gammarus and Hyalella in six eco-physiographic regions of Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota; 356 randomly selected semi-permanent and permanent wetlands were sampled during springs 2004 and 2005. We also examined indices of wetland quality (e.g., turbidity, fish communities, aquatic vegetation) among regions in a random subset of these wetlands (n = 267). Gammarus …

Change Happens: Deal With It, Carla Kimbrough

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Some journalists have been around long enough to witness the evolution of media: from newspapers and typewriters to radio and television to computers and web sites. The basic way we work is changing. Work has changed from that leisurely coffee break to craft that perfect lede and nutgraph to the quick trip to a coffeehouse with Wi-Fi to send over the latest update. Today's journalists also are coping with other typesof changes that hit other industries long ago. Downsizing. Early retirement. Job elimination. Job restructuring. Corporate takeovers. Change, in other words, is getting personal. Change forces you to come to …

The Global Impact Of Quotas: On The Fast Track To Increased Female Legislative Representation, Aili Mari Tripp, Alice J. Kang

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Quotas have become an important mechanism through which women today are entering legislatures worldwide. This study shows that the introduction of quotas has helped overcome constraints on women’s representation posed by economic underdevelopment, cultural influences, and even electoral systems. This study also demonstrates that the introduction of quotas offers the most explanatory power for women’s representation today, together with electoral systems that allow for greater candidate turnover (i.e., party-list proportional representation systems). The majority of studies explaining women’s legislative representation prior to 2000 focused on electoral systems, cultural considerations, and the strength of leftist political parties. Since the mid-1990s, however, …

Benjamin Read On Homeowners’ Protests In Shanghai

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A lot has been written about a rise in the number of protests in China – particularly mass demonstrations and those by farmers and villagers who face government land seizures. (Historian Charles Hayford wrote an interesting essayabout the terminology journalists use to describe different classes of people in China.)

But protests from the middle class in China are also garnering increased attention from the American press. The latest protest, a January “stroll” by homeowners in Shanghai who disagreed with an extension of the city’s famous Maglev train, have been described as “the strongest sign yet of rising resentment among China’s …

Farm Lease Termination, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Rising crop prices have led many landlords to seek renegotiation of lease terms, particularly cash rents. Most Nebraska leases are unwritten, which means that notice of termination must be given six months in advance, usually by August 31. If the landlord cannot terminate the lease, the landlord cannot require the tenant to renegotiate the lease in order to avoid lease termination. However, smart tenants would renegotiate the lease with the landlord in order to keep the lease longer. If a tenant refuses to renegotiate, the tenant could lose the lease after the current crop year.

Many farm leases, especially those …

In Case You Missed It: Vermeer’S Hat, David Porter

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Have you ever suspected that all this recent talk about China and globalization might be just a little belated? China historian Timothy Brook, author of the award-winning Confusions of Pleasure, reminds us in a new book that global commercial and cultural exchanges were already profoundly shaping the lives and world views of Europeans 350 years ago.

Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (Bloomsbury, 2007) offers an eye-opening and eminently readable account of how the ever-expanding circulation of goods and people from several continents began flattening the world several centuries before NAFTA and Wal-mart.

The …

China On My Mind: Ian Hacking On The 1989 Demonstrations

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In their coverage of the 1989 student demonstrations, foreign and domestic media focused almost exclusively on the demonstrations in Beijing. However, sympathetic students and workers protested and marched across China in May and June 1989, and there has been little coverage or scholarship written about the shape and scope of those events. In the spring and early summer of 1989, professor and philosopher Ian Hacking was teaching in Wuhan and Lanzhou. In this installation of the audio feature, “China on My Mind,” China Beat contributor Tom Mullaney chats with Hacking about what he saw during this critical moment in Chinese …

Prejudice Made Plausible? Foreign Criticism And Chinese Sensitivity

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Living in Beijing as I do, it’s not uncommon to be asked about my feelings on the Olympics. Chinese friends, family, colleagues, and even complete and total strangers (for reasons passing understanding) seem interested in hearing my opinion.

But I’ve learned the hard way that my perspective per se is not what is actually being sought, but rather confirmation of what The People’s Daily and CCTV assure all Chinese is the only possible correct answer: Yes, the Olympics are going to be a huge success and will demonstrate to the world that China is becoming a modern, developed nation. Deviations …

In Case You Missed It: Nixon And Mao, Kate Merkel-Hess

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This week marks the 36th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s visit to China, so it was serendipitous that on meandering through the public library’s history section I happened on Margaret MacMillan’s Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. Largely a play-by-play examination of the week’s events (and its larger-than-life stars in Nixon, Mao, Kissinger, and Zhou Enlai), the book is littered with fascinating anecdotes about the China Nixon and his entourage encountered: for instance, Beijingers were ordered to studiously ignore the welcoming motorcade and Chinese pilots who took over Kissinger’s plane for the Shanghai-to-Beijing leg during his 1971 prepatory …

A Coming Distraction–Rana Mitter’S Modern China: A Very Short Introduction

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If I rode the subway to and from work, I’d be seriously addicted by now to the Oxford University Press “Very Short Introductions” series in which Rana Mitter’s next book is about to appear (it’s due out late in February in Britain, soon after that in the U.S.). This is because these slim volumes seem custom-made to be read over the course of a day-or-two’s worth of hour-there and hour-back train rides.

The best way to sum up the series is that it’s made up of little books on big topics. They are all short (100 to 150 pages of …

Dnr Study Narrows Republican Water Options, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

On December 19, 2007 the state of Kansas informed the state of Nebraska that we are out of compliance with the Republican River Compact settlement. Kansas wants us to immediately cut back Republican Basin water consumption by 27 percent. A June 2007 study by the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) indicates that our supply from the Republican River will significantly decline over time. These two developments mean it is time to implement a permanent state/local funded irrigation rollback (i.e. reduction) in the Republican Basin.

February 2008 - Staff Meeting Minutes

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Shahzadah's Visit To Great Britain, 1895 (1895)

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

News coverage of the Afghan prince, Shahzada Nasrullah's visit to Great Britain by the British publications. Photocopies articles accompanied by commentary in Persian, bound in one volume.

China Annals: Interview With Catherine Sampson

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This week, The China Beat interviews Catherine Sampson, former BBC journalist and The Times correspondent, as well as the author of four mystery novels (see below). You can learn a lot more about her on her website, which also includes an exciting blog.

NB: What was the most intriguing, amusing, inspiring, or eye-opening story that you covered in China?

CS: I worked as a journalist in Beijing for The Times of London between 1988 and 1993. Both the most inspiring and then the most awful was 1989. The student demonstrations went on for 6 weeks and drew in all sorts …