2011 UMKC Dissertations - Freely Available Online
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This community contains the collections of dissertations submitted electronically to the School of Graduate Studies by doctoral degree candidates at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The items in this collection are dissertations that are available to the general public.
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Item MIGUEL MATEO DALLO Y LANA, MEXICAN BAROQUE COMPOSER: A FORGOTTEN TREASURE OF PUEBLA(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015-03-09) Mims, Jeremy; Dallo y Lana, Miguel Mateo. Domine ad adjubandum me festina; Dallo y Lana, Miguel Mateo. Beatus vir; Bode, Robert, advisorAs research into the Mexican Baroque continues to expand, forgotten composers and their works are garnering deserved attention. Miguel Mateo Dallo y Lana (c. 1650-1705), who served as maestro de capilla [chapel master] at the Puebla Cathedral from 1686 to 1705, belongs to the tradition of polychoral composition inherited from musicians of the Spanish Renaissance. His liturgical settings, specifically Domine ad adjubandum me festina/Dixit Dominus and Beatus Vir, contain traits indicative of the Baroque period as well. These works reveal the Dallo y Lana's compositional techniques, which include homophonic declamation of text intermingled with polyphonic episodic material, layered above basso continuo. He worked in a time just before Mexican composers fully embraced Italian models, placing him at the end of the mostly autonomous Mexican tradition.Item A quality metric to improve wrapper feature selection in multiclass subject invariant brain computer interfaces(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012-06-05) Sherwood, Jesse; Derakhshani, RezaBrain computer interface systems based on electroencephalograph (EEG) signals have limitations which challenge their application as a practical device for general use. The signal features generated by the brain states we wish to detect possess a high degree of inter-subject and intra-subject variation. Additionally, these features usually exhibit a low variation across each of the target states. Collection of EEG signals using low resolution, non-invasive scalp electrodes further degrades the spatial resolution of these signals. The majority of brain computer interface systems to date require extensive training prior to use by each individual user. The discovery of subject invariant features could reduce or even eliminate individual training requirements. To obtain suitable subject invariant features requires search through a high dimension feature space consisting of combinations of spatial, spectral and temporal features. Poorly separable features can prevent the search from converging to a usable solution as a result of degenerate classifiers. In such instances the system must detect and compensate for degenerate classifier behavior. This dissertation presents a method to accomplish this search using a wrapper architecture comprised of a sequential forward floating search algorithm coupled with a support vector machine classifier. This is successfully achieved by the introduction of a scalar Quality (Q)-factor metric, calculated from the ratio of sensitivity to specificity of the confusion matrix. This method is successfully applied to a multiclass subject independent BCI using 10 untrained subjects performing 4 motor tasks.Item The influence of media on implicit weight bias(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012-04-16) Spresser, Carrie Dianne; Lundgren, Jennifer D.The purpose of this dissertation is to determine if exposure to media that exhibits weight bias increases implicit anti-fat attitudes using an objective assessment of emotional response to obesity cues. Participants completed a baseline affect modulated startle paradigm during which they viewed photos of obese and non-obese people while startle responses were elicited. Participants were then randomly assigned to view one of two media clips taken from a popular television show. One clip stigmatized obesity; the other did not stigmatize obesity. After viewing the clips, participants completed a second affect modulated startle paradigm during which they viewed pictures of obese and non-obese people while startle responses were elicited. Fear of Fat was found to be associated with the impact of the clip on startle response while viewing photos. There were no other significant findings. Limitations of the study and areas for future research are discussed.Item Mutational and functional analyses of the dynein heavy chain indicate the existence of an apical-sistal transport cycle in cells(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012-03-02) Sivagurunathan, Senthilkumar; King, Stephen J. (Stephen James)The organization, survival, and function of eukaryotic cells depend on intracellular transport governed by the microtubule based molecular motors cytoplasmic dynein and kinesin. Dynein carries out the inward transport of cargos whereas kinesins are responsible for the outward movement. Although intracellular transport is necessary for the function of all cells, polarized cells in particular have specific transport needs due to their asymmetry and elongated shape. These extraordinary requirements necessitate efficient long range microtubule based transport mechanisms. The anterograde transport needs in these cells are satisfied by a variety of kinesins but only a single cytoplasmic dynein fulfills the retrograde transport requirements. Dynein is a megadalton, multiprotein motor complex composed of heavy chains, intermediate chains, light intermediate chains, and light chains. The heavy chains form the force producing motor entity of the dynein complex and the rest of the components are involved in linking dynein to cargoes. The heavy chain has the two functional domains; motor head and a tail. The motor head is responsible for the ATP hydrolysis as well as the microtubule interaction of the dynein complex. The tail domain is involved in the homodimerization of heavy chains as well as interaction with the other dynein subunits. The enormous size and complex mechanochemisty of dynein has complicated our understanding of the functions and regulation of dynein. The study presented here utilized the ascomycete fungus Neurospora crassa in a series of genetic, cell biological and complementing biochemical approaches to study dynein function and regulation. The study is divided into two sections of which the first section will focus on the effects of spontaneous dynein heavy chain mutations on dynein functions in the hyphae of Neurospora crassa along with biochemical analyses of purified dynein from wildtype and a representative mutant strain. The second section focuses on the effect of a mouse neurodegenerative dynein heavy chain mutation on N. crassa dynein function both in vivo and in vitro. The aim of this work is to understand the structure-function relationship and the regulation of dynein.Item Synthesis, morphologies and applications of polyoxometalate-containing diblock copolymers(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012-01-31) Chakraborty, Sanjiban; Peng, Zhonghua, Ph. D.Block copolymers by virtue of their ability to self assemble and microphaseseparation due to the contrast in chemical and physical properties of the covalently linked blocks constitute the essential building blocks towards various nano or micro sized architectures. Polyoxometalates (POM), on the other hand, being an interesting class of metal-oxygen nanometer-sized anionic clusters, are regarded highly due to their excellent electron accepting capability. Combining POM clusters with diblock copolymers can lead to a fascinating class of hybrid materials where the POM cluster not only affect the selfassembly process of various diblock copolymers but also brings its unique electronic properties into the hybrid system. Herein we report the detailed synthesis and characterizations of two hybrid coil-coil diblock copolymers along with two hybrid rodcoil diblock copolymers through polymerization-hybridization approach. The coil-coil diblocks were synthesized via atom transfer radial polymerization (ATRP) of styryl-type monomers and 4-vinylpyridine in sequence. For rod-coil diblock copolymers, the coil block was synthesized through ATRP, followed by the conversion of the terminal bromide to an azide. Ethynyl terminated poly (p-phenylenevinylene) (PPV) and poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) were prepared separately as the rod blocks. The rod block and the coil block were connected through click chemistry to yield rod-coil diblock copolymers. After removing the phthalimide protecting groups to regenerate aryl amines, POM clusters were finally linked to the coil block of all diblock copolymers to yield the targeted hybrid diblock copolymers. The covalent cluster attachment was confirmed by UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR and cyclovoltammetry measurements. The structures, solution and film optical properties, self-assembled morphologies and solar cell performances of these hybrids have been studied. It has been found that solar cell devices based on hybrid P3HT exhibited rather poor performances. Fluorescence dynamic studies indicate that the photoinduced electron transfer process from the rod block to pendant POMs is quite inefficient which may account for the poor device performance. Though the self-assembly process of these hybrid diblock copolymers and the preliminary morphologies has been demonstrated, detailed and systematic study of morphological control requires further extensive research.