By Jason Levkulich, News & Information
Checking one's guns with the local sheriff worked for many a town in the Old West. While not popular with the people of that era, it is quite the opposite at UNL.
Today, that method is still a working solution for the prevention of firearm theft and gun-related incidents. Armed with an idea of using lockers to store student-owned guns, the UNL police department has found the service very popular among the students.
University policy prohibits the possession of firearms, ammunition or other dangerous weapons on campus or in student housing. Since many students own a gun, a system was worked out last semester where those same students have access to their weapons 24 hours a day. However, to do so requires checking the weapon in and out of a unit that resembles a safety deposit box at the police station.
On the inside of each box door is an I.D. of the student. An identical I.D. is required to be shown by the student at the time of check-in or check-out. The individual and the on-duty UNLPD supervisor use their keys to open the locker. Ken Cauble, UNL police chief, is the only officer who has access to both sets of keys for each lock.
These procedures add to the security of the system, he said.
"It isn't to see who has guns," Cauble said. "We're concerned with people breaking into dorm rooms and taking the weapons. Security is the main factor."
The police station has 54 lockers which house more than 80 firearms.
"Originally, we had only one set of lockers, but there was such a demand that we purchased more," Cauble said. "We even have students showing their friends and then they bring their weapons in," he said. "They feel this is the safest place to keep their guns."
With more students wishing to use the lockers, more units are to be ordered to fill the need.
"We really didn't think the system would work out this well," Cauble
said.
David Beukelman, professor of special education and communication disorders at UNL and director of speech pathology at the UNMC Meyer Rehabilitation Institute, and David Sellmyer, professor of physics and astronomy at UNL, will receive this year's ORCA awards.
The University of Nebraska Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity is the highest accolade the university bestows in recognition of a faculty member's scholarship, research and artistic achievements. Each award carries a $3,500 stipend.
Beukelman holds the Edna Barkley Professorship at UNL's Barkley Memorial Center. He is author or co-author of more than 100 books, computer software programs and journal publications. His research has made notable contributions in three major areas: intervention frameworks for use in identifying the needs of people who are unable to speak because of physical or cognitive disorders; sufficient methods for sending messages using augmentative and alternative communication systems; and assessment tools for motor speech disorders.
Beukelman and his colleague, Pat Mirenda, introduced the "Participation Model" of intervention now used internationally for people with developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy and severe multiple disabilities.
Originally reported in a 1987 journal article, their work was published in the book Augmentative Communication: Management of Children and Adults with Severe Communication Disorders. It is now the most widely used textbook in the field.
Beukelman and his students have done primary research in the field of augmentative and alternative communication systems used by people unable to speak due to physical or cognitive impairments. To enhance the speed and ease of communication for these people, words, phrases and sentences are programmed into the software of these computerized systems. Five of the systems have been published and are in use nationally.
Motor speech disorders can result from traumatic brain injury, stroke and degenerative neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Three of Beukelman's assessment tools for use with these disorders have been published and a fourth is under commercial development. In addition, Beukelman is co-author, with Kathryn Yorkston and Kathleen Bell, of the primary textbook in the motor speech disorders field, Clinical Management of Dysarthric Speakers.
For the past seven summers, Beukelman has presented a two-week seminar for practicing speech-language pathologists and special educators.
David Sellmyer is the George Holmes Distinguished Professor of Physics. He is a worldwide leader in the field of electronic structure of solids and magnetism and has made pioneering contributions in several areas of condensed matter physics.
As the quantum mechanical description of solids emerged and evolved in the mid-20th century, one phenomenon observed was the collective behavior of electrons on the "Fermi surface." The concept was revolutionary because it forced abandonment of the classical picture of electrons moving through solids independent of one another. The effects of Fermi surfaces were first observed in pure conducting materials such as copper.
If, for example, such materials are cooled rapidly from a liquid state, they can be frozen into a solid state which is liquid-like, with virtually no atomic order. Sellmyer found that such glass formation could be enhanced by the addition of small amounts of boron before the rapid cooling process. This contributed to the discovery of a new rare earth iron-boron permanent magnet.
Discovery of such compounds has revolutionized the permanent magnet field. Rare earth magnets produce the strongest known magnetic field, and they are used in such emerging technologies as magnetic resonance imaging, ultra-light motors for automobile and aircraft applications, and as storage media in computer disc drives.
Sellmyer and his colleagues are now using a multiple-source sputtering system to produce artificially-constructed multilayers involving complex geometries. They have produced a variety of composite materials in which grains, particles and layers are the building blocks. By changing the size and shape of individual building blocks, and controlling interactions among them, new applications can be achieved. For example, it appears likely data storage could be increased some 50 times over the capacity of current storage systems.
Mildred S. Dresselhaus, Institute Professor of Electrical Engineering
and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes: "David
Sellmyer has been a pioneer in the exploration of the magnetic properties
of multilayers. His work has particularly focused on multilayers
consisting of rare earth and transition metal constituents. This work is
at the cutting edge worldwide. Our work here at MIT on short-period
superlattices of alternating magnetic rare earth and non-magnetic
semiconductor constituents has been influenced by the scholarly and
systematic work done by Sellmyer at the University of Nebraska."
UNL soon will begin a search for a new dean of the College of Business Administration, Joan Leitzel, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, has announced in a letter to CBA faculty.
John Goebel, who was appointed to a two-year term as dean in January 1995, will continue as dean until a new dean is in place, probably sometime in 1997, Leitzel said.
Leitzel gathered CBA faculty input and found support for beginning the search as originally planned.
"The question was when to begin the search, not if a search would take place," she said. "I hear the faculty who would prefer to delay because, frankly, change is disruptive. However, I believe the college is well-positioned to undertake the search now."
In her letter, she commended Goebel for the college's accomplishments since he left the post of vice chancellor for business and finance to become dean.
"Over the past 15 months, the college has given considerable attention to its academic and budget priorities and to organizational issues," she wrote. "Under Dean Goebel's leadership, there has been impressive progress in these areas. This has been a critical period for the college, and I want to recognize the progress that has been made and the outstanding leadership that Dean Goebel has provided. With the accreditation report now in hand, the college has a clear agenda for the work of the next several months. I believe the college is well-positioned to undertake the search for its next dean, and I believe we should undertake that search now."
Leitzel said the first step in the process will be the formation of a search committee. "I will ask the search committee to move the search ahead as quickly as practical, but there will not be a set deadline for the conclusion of the search," she wrote.
In her letter, Leitzel also addressed budgetary concerns regarding the
new dean's salary. She said Chancellor James Moeser has committed to
providing the first three years of that salary from his office.
When it rains, it pours. That's often the case when it rains in Nebraska -- the steady downpour of water can build up on highways and create hazards for drivers.
In an effort to find a better way to get that water off the road, Rollin Hotchkiss, civil engineer at UNL, has been helping the Nebraska Department of Roads test the design of highway drainage facilities.
Thanks to the assistance of Hotchkiss and a rare laboratory setup, the department learned that it had designed a curb inlet that is 20 percent more efficient than a typical model.
"These tests answer practical questions and save taxpayers' money," Hotchkiss said.
Road departments across the nation install drainage facilities to remove water off the roadway. The design of such drainage facilities depends on many factors, including climate, traffic flow, water quality concerns and pedestrian traffic.
Kevin Donahoo, hydraulics engineer for the Roadway Design Division in the Department of Roads, said it is difficult to choose from the variety of models because data that compares the designs' efficiency is not available.
Highway departments shop for facilities in catalogs. Often, however, these catalogs give incomplete descriptions of the effectiveness of the facilities, and they cannot provide information on customized designs.
"To pick the best facility, you have to know how much water will leave the road," Hotchkiss said.
The goal is not necessarily to remove all water. A little bit of water is no more than a nuisance to most drivers, and removing all of the water would be very expensive. In addition to efficiency, appearance is a factor. Drainage facilities themselves could be hazardous to drivers.
"When drivers see something unusual in the road, they tend to slow down and maybe swerve, which is hazardous, too," Hotchkiss said.
For example, slots across the lane would work well for drainage purposes, but drivers might respond to them in hazardous ways.
Several years ago, the Department of Roads approached UNL to see if the university could help test its customized design.
"We wanted to compare the curb inlet with other installations and to verify its performance," Donahoo said. "To do that, you have to have a hydraulic lab and an expert in the field. UNL has such a lab, and Rollin is a nationally recognized expert."
Hotchkiss and several graduate students built a full-scale roadway contained within a modeling basin. The roadway measures 80 feet long by 12 feet wide.
"It was built so it could be moved all at once," Hotchkiss said. "We wanted to test the facilities at different combinations of slope."
The entire roadway can be rotated up and down and sideways. It is constructed out of plywood rather than concrete, and to simulate an actual roadway's surface roughness, it is covered with sand-impregnated paint.
"We found that the curb inlet designed by the Department of Roads is extremely efficient and does an excellent job at removing water when compared to the standard curb inlet," Hotchkiss said.
The Nebraska design differs from typical design in that the gutter is lowered slightly upstream from the culvert and the roadway surface is aimed downward toward the opening.
"The Nebraska design has about 20 percent higher efficiency," Hotchkiss said.
Although slightly more difficult to install, the Nebraska design saves money because fewer inlets are needed to remove the same amount of water.
"This is the first time we've ever had the chance to directly compare
our design with others and to verify its efficiency. With so many models
to choose from, this and the other tests Rollin has conducted really do
help," Donahoo said.
By Tom Simons, News & Information
When President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law Feb. 8, he put the finishing strokes on the most comprehensive telecommunications legislation since the Federal Communications Act of 1934 created the Federal Communications Commission.
The signing culminated years of effort in Congress, in government agencies, in industry and among consumer groups -- including a significant contribution from Ruth Michalecki, long-time director of the UNL Telecommunications Center.
For the last four years, Michalecki has chaired the 10-member Telecommunication Public Policy Committee of the International Communications Association, a Dallas-based association of large public and private users of information systems, products and services.
Michalecki was the only university representative on the committee, which included representatives from large corporations such as Ford Motor Co., American Express, Marriott and Boeing Aircraft. In that role, she traveled to Washington five or six times a year to testify before Congressional staff charged with drawing up the legislation. She said she will be "very active" in the FCC implementation of the act.
"In our opinion, this is probably the most far-reaching telecommunications act since the 1934 regulations," she said. "It will probably impact the consumer and business people far greater than the AT&T breakup into the Bell operating companies.
"What it primarily did was remove barriers to entry to local telephone market places. Since 1934, the local dial tone has been a tightly controlled monopoly. Companies had franchises for a certain territory and no other company could enter and challenge that business," she said. "The new law makes mandatory that the local operating company provide interconnection and access requirements to competitors -- not for free, of course -- and it's going to revise the universal service provision of the telephone act."
Over time, she said, competition should give consumers more choices in local telephone service, but in the short term she said residential consumers can expect to pay more for local service.
Under the universal service provision of the 1934 act, telephone companies charged a higher rate for business phones than residential phones and, in effect, businesses subsidized low rates for residential phones. That changes with the new law, but Michalecki said Nebraska consumers might pay less for in-state long-distance calls as those rates have been "artificially high" in the past.
Michalecki credited Sen. Bob Kerrey with forcing an open Senate hearing on the bill and said, "it was in that open hearing that we really got an opportunity to see what was in that bill for the first time." As a result, she said, consumers gained some extra protection.
"We're going to have some protection for the consumer in the fact that the Bell operating companies wanted total flexibility in their pricing mechanisms," she said. "They didn't want the FCC to have any oversight so they could charge what they wanted to and base their return on investment on figures they wanted to use. We got that struck out. They still have the FCC oversight and overview of what they're doing, so they don't have the total pricing flexibility that they wanted.
"These are exciting times. I've been on this public policy committee
for over 10 years and probably the most exciting part of those 10 years
has been the last three years, watching this legislative bill get its ups
and downs, watching all the lobbying. Incredible."
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