2008 MU dissertations - Access restricted to MU
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Item El proyecto de nación en la narrativa de Juana Manuela Gorriti: diferencias y similitudes con las propuestas de echeverría, sarmiento y mármol(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Saenz-Roby, María Cecilia; Olsen, Margaret M., 1966-[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Esta disertación analiza el proyecto nacional propuesto en la obra de la escritora argentina Juana Manuela Gorriti en el siglo XIX. Dicha propuesta es comparada con la narrativa de los autores que forman el canon antirrosista: Esteban Echeverría, José Mármol y Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. El análisis detalla las diferencias y similitudes en la representación de la mujer, así como el papel que se le asigna en la nueva nación. A su vez, muestra la identidad nacional propuesta por dichos autores en sus respectivas obras. Al examinar la obra de Gorriti y al compararla con Facundo de Sarmiento, Amalia de Mármol y El matadero de Echeverría se hace a base de un acercamiento teórico que combina teorías sobre nación, exilio y subalternidad, así como crítica feminista. El estudio se realiza considerando el marco histórico y sociológico de la época. El análisis detalla cómo la mujer es representada de diversas maneras por Gorriti y por sus colegas varones.Item Pricing the residential housing of Shanghai and Shenzhen(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Chen, Jie, 1980-; Ni, Shawn, 1962-[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The price of a real estate depends on its location. In China, an urban high-rise typically includes multiple dwellings, which share the same characteristics such as the age of the estate, the neighborhood amenities, and the surrounding environments, etc. First, with price series of Shanghai's residential housing market during the period 2003 - 2005, we develop three hedonic pricing models by incorporating district dummies, proxy variables like the distance to CBD and the teacher student ratios, and estate fixed effect respectively to control for location (and neighborhood) fixed effect. We find that estate dummy variables provide us with small enough location classification and allow us to better examine the differentiation across properties. Second, in China an urban complex of high-rise buildings (estates) typically includes rental apartment units and owner-occupied units of similar quality. We use the rent data for inference of estate-specific fixed effect, which in turn helps to estimate the unobserved rent of a unit sold in the same real estate property. With data of two major cities in China, Shanghai and Shenzhen, we develop a Bayesian approach to conduct joint finite-sample inference of price and rent, and analyze the factors that determine the price-to-rent ratios of the units sold. A crucial feature of our rent-based pricing model lies in its heterogeneity across properties. We detect that the estate-fixed effect is the dominating factor of the cross-estate mean of the price-to-rent ratio and an important source of the cross-unit variations in the ratio.Item Biodistribution of lead, arsenic, and gold nanoparticles following respiratory, oral and IV exposure of rats and swine(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Fent, Genevieve M., 1975-; Casteel, Stan W.[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The presence of arsenic and lead in the environment above the naturally occurring levels can have detrimental health effects on people living in these environments, especially children. The majority of this research focuses on gathering biokinetic information that will improve the risk assessment and remediation processes for these environments. The remainder of the work focuses on gathering preliminary biodistribution data for novel gold nanoparticle constructs being investigated for their potential uses in targeted cancer detection and treatment. The arsenic and lead experiments show that Pb is well absorbed following intratracheal instillation of Pb-contaminated soil and provide site-specific relative bioavailability data for the tested As-contaminated soils. This information will aid in the risk assessment/remediation decision making process for each material tested. The gold nanoparticle experiments show tissue distribution patterns for these nanoparticle constructs can be altered by changing the compound used to stabilize/coat the nanoparticles. This data will guide the future development of these potential targeted cancer imaging and treatment agents.Item Role of non-hypophototropic hypocotyl[3] (NPH[3]) in regulation of phototropism in Arabidopsis(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Pedmale, Vincent, 1977-; Liscum, Emmanuel[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Light is arguably one of the most important environmental factor that not only provides the plant with its energy needs but also cues to modulate its growth and development. Plants being immobile have developed various adaptive responses to interpret and utilize light directionality, quantity and quality. One such adaptive response is phototropism where the plant organs bend towards a directional light source.Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model plant system, two photoreceptors: phot1 and phot2 has been identified that mediates phototropism. NPH3 is a phot1 interacting protein that is absolutely required for phototropism. NPH3 contains BTB and coiled-coil sequence conserved domains and no NPH3-like proteins have been identified so far in other non-plant organisms. Given the unique properties of this critical protein mediating phototropism, yet little is known about how phot1 signals through NPH3. In this dissertation research work, I have demonstrated that NPH3 exists as a phosphorylated protein and that BL stimulates its dephosphorylation in phot1 dependent manner. Moreover, data presented in this dissertation has demonstrated that NPH3 likely functions as a substrate specific adapter for CUL3-based E3 ubiquitin ligase. Moreover, a putative substrate of NPH3-CUL3 E3 ligase has been identified which is likey monubiquitinated in planta in a blue light dependent manner. Interestingly phot1 is degraded in high light intensities dependent on NPH3. Altogether, these results indicate that NPH3 has a novel dual function in modulating phot1-dependent phototropism based on light intensities. At low light intensities, NPH3 likely promotes phototropism whereas at higher light intensities, NPH3 likely targets phot1 for degradation to modulate global phot1 responsiveness. The phosphorylation state of NPH3 likely determines the functional status of such an E3 ligase and that differential regulation of this E3 is required for normal phototropic responsiveness.--From public.pdfItem Essays on applied econometrics : applications of the futures markets and the international tourism demand(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Jei, Sang Young, 1972-; Parcell, Joseph L.[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] My dissertation applies econometric methods to analyze the optimal hedge ratios, basis variability, and dynamic tourism demand. In the first essay, using daily data of the spot and futures returns of corn and soybeans, I find asymmetric and flexible density specifications help increase the goodness-of-fit of the estimated models, but do not guarantee higher hedging performance. I also find that there is a close link between the variance of hedge ratios and hedging effectiveness. In the second essay, I specify and estimate time-varying spatial models which describe significant factors affecting corn and soybean basis for the period January 1996 to December 2006. Understanding factors affecting crop basis patterns helps agribusiness persons and producers make better strategies. Based on the spatial analysis, I find an increase in lagged basis, futures liquidity, differenced cash prices and seasonality strengthen the grain basis, while an increase transportation costs weaken the grain basis. Moreover, as the grain basis theoretically varies based on spatial competition between other market points, I find there exist significant spatial effects. I find that accounting for spatial serial correlation between market locations explains a majority of the basis variation. In the third essay, I extend the existing literature on dynamic international tourism demand by segregating trip purposes and by introducing a new measurement of travel costs and their determinants for the U.S. Based on the panel OLS and the GMM-IV estimates of the dynamic tourism demand model, I find that the new measurement of travel costs has improved model accuracy. Second, I find tourism demand elasticities that are different across trip purpose. The later finding is even though the large shift in the coefficient for the lagged dependent variables in the GMM-IV estimator indicates the potential bias in the OLS estimator due to the country-specific fixed effects, the result of the GMM-IV estimator as well as the OLS estimator clearly showed that the results strongly support the typical assumption that business travelers have more inelastic demand than pleasure travelers.