Faculty Books and Monographs

Books and monographs written or edited in whole or in part by University of Nebraska Omaha faculty are collected here.

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The Famous Thing About Death

Lisa K. Sandlin

"These are wonderful stories—passionate, fierce, reckless, and scrupulously written... Sandlin's characters are flawed and broken people, but their stories are not a lament. They're about the power to create beauty and healing from loneliness and pain."—Rick DeMarinis
Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, vol. 1

Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund

Co-authored and co-edited by Rami Arav, UNO faculty member.

The Bethsaida Excavations Project is uncovering one of the most important New Testament sites, lost to the world since the first century.
Proceedings of the First Annual Nebraska Aviation Education Association Conference

James E. Crehan and UNO Aviation Institute

UNOAI Report 94-5
Interactive and Animated Cartography

Michael P. Peterson

This text provides an accessible, detailed introduction to recent advances in computer-aided map-making technology the New Cartography in which maps narrate, cartographic symbols move, and displays reveal relevant information when the viewer clicks on them in selected places. It explains timely new ideas, offers experience-tested insights about why maps work, highlights ways of using the computer to communicate information with maps, and shows how to design them.
Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary

John J. Rousseau and Rami Arav

Co-authored by Rami Arav, UNO faculty member.

Designed for teachers, students, and general readers, this book offers reliable and up-to-date information about important sites, persons, customs, and other facts of life that are important for understanding Jesus and his cultural setting. The 108 entries are arranged alphabetically for easy reference. Also includes tables, charts, glossary, bibliography, indexes, and more.
From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food

Alessandro Bonanno, Lawrence Busch, William Friedland, Lourdes Gouveia, and Enzo Mingione

Co-edited by Lourdes Gouvela, UNO faculty member.

Chapter 6: Global Strategies and Local Linkages: The Case of the U.S. Meatpacking Industry, authored by Lourdes Gouvela.

This examination of the role of agriculture and food in the new international division of labor argues that the globalized economy creates new winners and losers.
Interactive Learning: The Casewriting Method as an Entire Semester Course for Higher Education Teacher's Manual

Brent D. Bowen, Rebecca K. Lutte, and UNO Aviation Institute

UNOAI Report 94-2

This guide explains the reasons for employing the case method as a tool in the academic discipline of aviation. It promotes the use of case writing as a unique opportunity to derive even further benefits from case analysis. The benefits to students of using case writing as a learning strategy include a focus on the strategy of a real situation; development of an ownership interest; and development of reasoning, decision making, judgment, group dynamics, formal written and oral communication ability, and organizational skills. This is a teacher's guide that includes the course syllabus, schedule and practical tips on introducing the concept of case study, assigning groups, selecting a topic, and assigning roles. Other topics covered are case writing guidelines, case components, timeline for case writing of individual and group projects, case development, case presentations, case evaluations peer evaluations, group self-evaluations, examples of case writing, and a breakdown of those sample cases.
Interactive Learning: The Casewriting Method as an Entire Semester Course for Higher Education

Brent D. Bowen and UNO Aviation Institute

UNOAI Report 94-1

This guide explains for reasons for employing the case method as a tool in the academic discipline of aviation. It promotes the use of case writing as a unique opportunity to derive even further benefits from case analysis. The benefits to students of using case writing as a learning strategy include a focus on the strategy of a real situation; development of an ownership interest; and development of reasoning, decision making, judgement, group dynamic, formal written and oral communication ability, and organizational skills. Issues related to computerization, research, and internalization are also addressed. Among the topics covered are case writing guidelines, case components, time line for case writing presentations, case evaluations, peer evaluations, group self-evaluations, examples of case writing, and a breakdown of those sample cases.
The Drownt Boy: An Ozark Tale

Art Homer

It had been many years since Art Homer had spent time in the region where he grew up as the child of subsistence farmers. In this beautifully written true tale, Homer returns to the Missouri Ozarks with his stepson, Reese, for a three-day canoe trip down the recently flooded Current River. As rain threatens to erupt again and the two prepare for their uncertain trip down the swollen river, a man in a straw hat pulls up to them on the gravel bar. "Did they find that drownt boy yet?" he calls. So begins an extraordinary trip down a dangerous river, toward unforeseen adventures and into the swirling recesses of memory.

As they float past dense, dark woods, Homer recalls the magic of nature in his childhood. Against a backdrop of rural poverty, Homer shows the richness of the land in the inner life of a child, from frosty blue-bellied lizards and doodlebugs to the timeless lure of gurgling streams. He recalls as well the people from his past-a snake handler, his English grandfather, an NAACP preacher-and marvels at how time seems to have passed the Ozarks by, leaving touches of Old English in the language and leaving the lives of the people, in many ways, unchanged.

As helicopters purr above and rangers probe deep pools from motorboats, father and stepson pursue the ghost of the drownt boy down the stream. Along the way they visit caves and springs, talk with the locals about their lives, and witness the spectacular beauty of kingfishers and great blue herons, eels and trout flashing in the sun. But they must also confront the temperament of a river threatening to burst from its banks as they maneuver through an obstacle course of downed trees, rushing rapids, and upturned roots ready to impale a swimmer.

Winding through the surging waters of an Ozark river and through a flood of memories of an Ozark childhood, The Drownt Boy is a lyrical depiction of one man's journey home.
Encyclopedia of Microcomputers

Allen Kent, James G. Williams, Richard S. Barr, and Betty Love

Editors: Allen Kent and James G. Williams

Chapter, Reporting on Parallel Software, co-authored by Betty Love, UNO faculty member

The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers serves as the ideal companion reference to the popular Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology. Now in its 10th year of publication, this timely reference work details the broad spectrum of microcomputer technology, including microcomputer history; explains and illustrates the use of microcomputers throughout academe, business, government, and society in general; and assesses the future impact of this rapidly changing technology.
Consumer Politics: Protecting Public Interests on Capitol Hill

Ardith Maney and Loree G. Bykerk

This volume analyses the interaction of business lobbyists, consumer critics, and government officials for the first time in 20 years. It offers important new insights and revisionist views about the impact of consumer issue networks in the making of public policy in Congress during the 1980s and 1990s. It shows how consumer groups lobby Congressional committees and their leaders and staffers to reform legislation in areas of critical concern.

This text for undergraduate and graduate courses in American politics, business and government, lobbying and interest group behavior, and political sociology covers the expanding range and activities of consumer lobbyists in recent years and gives a short history of their role in Congressional decisionmaking from the Progressive and New Deal eras to the present. The study details their activities in terms of civic outcomes (campaign finance, intervenor funding, freedom of information); consumer protection (impure food, unsafe drugs, autos, toys, and household appliances); economic regulation and deregulation (airlines, financing services, trucking, and telecommunications); and highly politicized pocketbook issues (health care, tax, energy, income, and trade policies). Journalists, activists, and students of politics, business administration, and sociology will find the conclusions about consumers, businesses, and Congressional decisionmaking and the arguments for government and citizen activism arresting.
Problem Finding, Problem Solving, and Creativity

Mark A. Runco and Roni Reiter-Palmon

Chapter: Problem construction and cognition: Applying problem representations in ill-defined domains, co-authored by Roni Reiter-Palmon, UNO faculty member.

Many individuals studying problem solving consider creativity a special type of problem solving. On the other hand, many individuals studying creativity view problem solving as a special type of creative performance. What is truly the role of creativity in problem solving? What is the role of problem solving in creativity? And how are problem solving and creativity related to problem finding? This book addresses these questions, and fills an obvious need for an overview of the research on problem finding.
Biodata Handbook: Theory, Research, and Use of Biographical Information in Selection and Performance Prediction

Garnett S. Stokes, Michael D. Mumford, William A. Owens, and Roni Reiter-Palmon

Chapter: Background data and development: Structural issues in the application of life history measures, co-authored by Roni Reiter-Palmon, UNO faculty member.

Chapter: Personality and background data: Life history and self concepts in an ecological system, co-authored by Roni Reiter-Palmon, UNO faculty member.
Welfare System Reform: Coordinating Federal, State, and Local Public Assistance Programs

Edward T. Jennings Jr. and Neal S. Zank

Chapter 9, State Government Coordination of the JOBS Program, co-authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

Chapter 10, State Efforts to Influence Federal Policy, authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

Chapter 15, Community-Level Coordination of the JOBS Program, co-authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

The nation's $200 billion public assistance system is a fragmented array of policies, programs, and organizations that often serves its clients poorly. In this book, experts from universities and think tanks and practitioners from all levels of government analyze serious coordination problems in the system. Cutting through the plethora of agency programs and regulations, these authorities offer practical reforms to make the system more effective, accountable, and efficient. They provide widely sought recommendations that will be useful to managers, students, scholars, experts, policymakers, and activists concerned with welfare reform and the future of public assistance programs.

The essays in the book address the coordination problem for all types of public assistance programs for all age groups and types of problems. The book provides specific analyses of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program under the Family Support Act, job training and employment programs under the Job Training Partnership Act, programs for youth-at-risk, and particular efforts to integrate the delivery of services to public assistance recipients. The authors provide essential information about institutions, processes, and policies at the federal, state, and local levels. They define critical issues and formulate policy and administrative recommendations to improve such critical features as executive leadership, Congressional decision-making, agency management, state government planning and policy development, and local service delivery operations.
The Courtyard of Dreams

Anna Monardo

This culturally rich first novel by Anna Monardo tells the story of seventeen-year-old Giulia Di Cuore, a first-generation Italian-American growing up in the 1960s. The young protagonist struggles with the old-world values of her father, who insists that she travel to Italy to visit her extended family. To her own surprise, Giula discovers there her place in the world as a daughter, as a woman and as an American."A novel of great beauty and perception."-Pat Conroy"An important novel which examines the metaphor of ocean crossings."-Professor Teresa Picarazzi, University of Arizona
Computer Science and Operations Research: New Developments in Their Interfaces

Osman Balci, Ramesh Sharda, Stavros A. Zenios, José H. Dulá, Richard V. Helgason, Betty Love, and Richard S. Barr

Editors: Osman Balci, Ramesh Sharda, and Stavros A. Zenios

Chapter, Preprocessing Schemes and a Solution Method for the Convex Hull Problem in a Multidimensional Space, co-authored by Betty Love, UNO faculty member.

Chapter, On Reporting the Speedup of Parallel Algorithms: A Survey of Issues and Experts, co-authored by Betty Love, UNO faculty member.

The interface of Operation Research and Computer Science - although elusive to a precise definition - has been a fertile area of both methodological and applied research. The papers in this book, written by experts in their respective fields, convey the current state-of-the-art in this interface across a broad spectrum of research domains which include optimization techniques, linear programming, interior point algorithms, networks, computer graphics in operations research, parallel algorithms and implementations, planning and scheduling, genetic algorithms, heuristic search techniques and data retrieval.
Parallel Processing Research in the Former Soviet Union

J. J. Dongarra, L. Snyder, and Peter Wolcott

Co-authored by Peter Wolcott, UNO faculty member.

The technical assessment report examines strengths and weaknesses of parallel processing research and development in the Soviet Union during the 1980s (through the first half of 1991). The assessment was carried out by a panel of US scientists who are experts on parallel processing hardware, software, algorithms, and applications, and on Soviet computing.
Mississippi Government and Politics: Modernizers versus Traditionalists

Dale Krane and Stephen D. Shaffer

Co-authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

The authors of Mississippi Government and Politics go beyond the stereotyped view of the Magnolia State to consider the dramatic social, economic, and political changes taking place there in recent years. Yet the past is inextricably bound up with the present, as Dale Krane and Stephen D. Shaffer make clear in developing their central theme: the ongoing clash in Mississippi between traditionalists intent on preserving the status quo and progressives who have grown up with the civil rights movement. Based in part on public opinion polls measuring the attitudes of Mississippians over a decade, Mississippi Government and Politics presents a vivid social history and analysis of the state's executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Krane and Shaffer have contributed chapters on the culture of Mississippi, the origins and evolution of its ruling class, and efforts to modernize the economy and to bring more blacks and poor whites into the power structure. Krane writes about the struggle over public policy, or "who gets what, " and the highly ambivalent attitude of Mississippians toward the federal government. Shaffer addresses the shifting allegiances of political parties in the state and the role of interest groups in effecting change. The contributors include leading political scientists and public administrators. Tip H. Allen, Jr., looks at the century-old, much-amended constitution, and Douglas G. Feig considers the dominance of the legislature and the winds of change blowing through it. Thomas H. Handy describes the traditionally weak governorship. Diane E. Wall threads her way through the antiquated judicial system. Edward J. Clynch sizes up tax Policy, and Gerald Gabris delves intothe dynamics of local government. The result is the most comprehensive and authoritative book on Mississippi political culture in many years.
The Physical Basis of Predication

Andrew Newman

This is a book about some of the basic concepts of metaphysics: universals, particulars, causality, and possibility. Its aim is to give an account of the real constituents of the world.

The author defends a realistic view of universals, characterizing the notion of universal by considering language and logic, possibility, hierarchies of universals, and causation. On the other hand, he argues that logic and language are not reliable guides to the nature of reality. All assertions and predications about the natural world are ultimately founded on "basic universals," which are the fundamental type of universal and central to causation. A distinction is drawn between unified particulars (which have a natural principle of unity) and arbitrary particulars (which lack such a principle); unified particulars are the terms of causal relations and thus real constituents of the world. Arbitrary particulars such as events, states of affairs, and sets have no ontological significance.
European Review of Social Psychology - Volume 2

Wolfgang Stroebe, Miles Hewstone, and Carey S. Ryan

Chapter: Social categorization and the representation of variability information, co-authored by Carey S. Ryan, UNO faculty member.

The European Review of Social Psychology is an annual series that reflects the dynamism of social psychology in Europe and the attention now paid to European ideas and research. Although open to authors from all nations, one of its major purposes is to further the international exchange of ideas by providing an outlet for substantial accounts of theoretical and empirical work that has not been previously published in English. With the help of an editorial board consisting of senior scholars from various European countries and the United States, the editors will invite outstanding researchers to contribute to these volumes. The emphasis of these contributions will be on critical assessment of major areas of research, and substantial individual programmes of research as well as on topics and initiatives of contemporary interest and originality. The authors of this second volume are drawn from Europe and the United States. They represent the international scope and quality which the editors intend should become the hallmarks of this series.
Benchmark Ohio, 1991

William J. Shkurti and John R. Bartle

Co-edited by John Bartle, UNO faculty member.

Benchmark Ohio is the reference book about Ohio, compiling information from more than fifty separate sources to provide a handy, up-to-date reference for quickly locating facts about the state and its people.
International Handbook of Transportation Policy

Tsuneo Akaha and Dale Krane

Editor: Tsuneo Akaha

Chapter 1, Brazil, authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

This is a valuable, well-written book on the development and current state of intercity passenger and freight transportation in 12 countries (Brazil, China, East Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the USSR, the UK, the US, West Germany, and Zaire). Locations studied represent a good mix of advanced and developing countries with market and centrally planned economies. Choice

This volume surveys the public transportation systems and policies of twelve countries. It is concerned with the selected countries' experiences with the development, maintenance, and use of publicly provided transportation infrastructure for both public (commercial) and private (individual) purposes. The diversity of the countries surveyed, both in terms of the type of economic system and the level of economic development, provides rich and varied national experiences from which lessons can be learned. The volume allows the reader to compare and contrast different needs and policy responses in the public transportation sector of the countries selected.

All modes of transportation are covered and both passenger and freight/cargo transportation are included. Narrative descriptions of transportation modes are accompanied by quantitative indicators of the volume of transportation and other related data. Each country chapter provides the following information: historical and geographical factors influencing the development and maintenance of the country's public transportation system and policy; the impact of socioeconomic changes and political and ideological factors on a country's public transportation system and policies; recent trends and future prospects in public transportation; and transportation policy organization and process. The survey covers the post-World War II period through 1987-88. The country chapters are followed by a bibliographical essay that introduces a selective collection of English-language materials on public transportation systems and policies in the twelve countries surveyed, as well as additional, general works on public transportation. This unique work will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in a cross-cultural perspective on transportation policy.
Ethics at Work

J B. Cederblom and Charles J. Dougherty

This book makes ethics accessible to business studies students. The chapters on ethical theory are clearly written, using non-technical language and many examples. This theory is then applied to twenty-seven cases, covering a wide range of problems people encounter in their work.
Strategies for Managing Intergovernmental Policies and Networks

Robert W. Gage, Myrna Mandell, and Dale Krane

Editors: Robert W Gage and Myrna P Mandell

Chapter 5, Devolution As An Intergovernmental Reform Strategy, authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member.

This contributed volume explores the management of intergovernmental relations--policies and networks. The book is a response to the growing need for concrete information on the development and use of different strategies for managing in the intergovernmental system. Such strategies became increasingly important during the Reagan years, especially with that administration's penchant for public-private partnerships. This study assembles some of the most respected experts in the field who outline the strategies and management skills needed to build and maintain intergovernmental networks essential to the implementation of complex public programs.

This contributed volume explores the management of intergovernmental relations--policies and networks. The book is a response to the growing need for concrete information on the development and use of different strategies for managing in the intergovernmental system. Such strategies became increasingly important during the Reagan years, especially with that administration's penchant for public-private partnerships. This study assembles some of the most respected experts in the field, who outline the strategies and management skills needed to build and maintain intergovernmental networks essential to the implementation of complex public programs. From a theoretical vantage point, it introduces several innovative concepts and models that will enhance the reader's ability to understand strategic behavior and management in intergovernmental settings. Public, health, and hospital administrators, public sector management professionals, as well as students and scholars of urban studies, business, and nonprofit studies will find invaluable insight in this detailed study.

Four major themes run through the book, reflecting a new step in the development of the literature relating to strategies and networking: a shift in emphasis from intergovernmental relations to intergovernmental management; the view of networks as a separate and distinct level of analysis requiring revised terminology, concepts, and emphasis; a revised view of strategic management for use in the public sector that moves away from a rational-logical approach; an emphasis on the individual and the importance of behavioral processes. Included here are the ideas of the importance of leadership as a facilitator, and the role of the strategic vision of the leader.
Benchmark Ohio, 1989

William J. Shkurti and John R. Bartle

Co-edited by John Bartle, UNO faculty member.