2019 UMKC Dissertations - Access Restricted to UMKC
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The items in this collection are dissertations that are available only to members of the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item From Pan to Plate: Cased Images of the California Gold Rush, 1849-1865(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019) Aspinwall, Jane Lee, 1967-; Dunbar, Burton L. (Burton Lewis)After President Polk’s announcement in December 1848 of the gold discovery in California, thousands flocked to the region. Lured by the ready market of potential customers, daguerreotypists also made their way. The daguerreotype quickly became an important component of the gold rush experience. Using a personal research database comprised of over 500 daguerreotypes and ambrotypes made in California from 1849 to 1865, this dissertation reveals previously unrecognized patterns in overall production. Informed by this wealth of data, the following chapters incorporate primary and secondary source materials that seek to identify or support patterns uncovered through the database analysis. The first chapter provides an overview of the earliest daguerreian projects completed in California by Robert H. Vance and J. Wesley Jones. The second chapter surveys the notable California daguerreotypist working outside the studio in the gold fields. The evolution of mining technology from individuals with a pickaxe, shovel, and pan; to groups of men with rockers, long toms, and sluices; to large companies engaged in river diversion and hydraulic mining is the subject of the third chapter. The fourth chapter explores the mining contributions of American Indian, Chinese, and black (enslaved and free) miners and considers reasons for the lack of pictorial representation. California gold towns, the subject of the fifth chapter, examines images of street views, housing, cemeteries, and distant views, and investigates the population of those towns, including women. Miner studio portraits with men in mining attire often holding a pickaxe, shovel, knife, or gold nugget are the topic of the final chapter. California gold rush daguerreotypes offer more than a simple documentation of a major cultural and historical event. These images provide an extraordinary glimpse into the transformation of the American West: a mass migration led to a complex mix of peoples and culture, gold towns arose almost overnight, and mining technology altered the landscape. While daguerreotypists found many ways to explore the reality of the gold rush, existing images do not fully convey the experience. This dissertation focuses on what is visually represented in California gold rush daguerreotypes, while addressing what tended to be ignoredItem Data-Driven Modeling of the Lake Chad Basin Hydrologic Systems(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019) Djimadoumngar, Kim-Ndor; Lee, JejungThe drying of the Lake, located in Central Africa, is one example of a water crisis, which requires more research and studies. The lake has been progressively shrinking since the 1960s due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. Consequently, the level of this vital lake has rapidly fallen due to abrupt aridification. The scarcity of topographical, geological, and hydrological data makes forecasting hydrologic systems in the basin difficult and hinders advanced research and studies of the basin. This research is intended to identify the main climate variables affecting river discharge, lake level, and groundwater level fluctuations and to create data-driven models to predict them by using remote sensing climate data. The climate variables employed for this study are air temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, soil temperature, and specific humidity. We collected precipitation data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). We downloaded the data for the other climate variables from the Global Land Data Assimilation (GLDAS) model. The river discharge data is monthly in-situ measurements collected at two stations in the Logone River Basin (i.e., Bongor, Logone Gana), from January 2001 through December 2007. Lake level data is monthly data from 1993 through 2012. The groundwater data is daily data from March 2015 through July 2018. For river discharge and lake level analysis, we adopted the correlation coefficient, cross-correlation analyses, and linear regression analyses using trigonometric regression models to examine their relationships with the climate variables. For groundwater, we adopted best subset selection, variable importance, sensitivity analysis, and neural network as techniques. According to the results, the strongest contributing variables for the prediction of river discharge were soil moisture and precipitation. The best predictors of lake level are soil temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture. The best four-variable model to predict groundwater has soil moisture, specific humidity, soil temperature, and runoff. Soil moisture is the most important input variable for groundwater. Neural network outperforms the linear model in predicting groundwater fluctuations in R², but not in MSE.Item Identification of Cell Types that Define Embryonic Submandibular and Parotid Salivary Glands Using Single Cell RNA Sequencing(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019) Sekiguchi, Rei; Gorski, Jeffrey P. (Jeffrey Paul)Branching organs including the kidney, mammary, and salivary glands arise as epithelial buds that are morphologically very similar. However, the mesenchyme is known to guide epithelial morphogenesis and to help govern cell fate and eventual organ specificity. We performed single cell transcriptome analyses of 14,441 cells from embryonic day 12 submandibular and parotid salivary glands to identify the molecular identities of the cells of submandibular versus parotid salivary glands during bud initiation. The gene expression of patterns of mesenchymal cells were considerably more heterogeneous by clustering analysis than the epithelial cells. Nonetheless, distinct clusters were evident among even the epithelial cells, where unique molecular markers separated presumptive bud and duct cells. Mesenchymal cells formed well defined clusters according to the gland. Neuronal and muscle cells of the two glands expressed distinct markers and localization patterns. A muscle cluster was more prominent in the parotid, which was not myoepithelial or vascular smooth muscle. Instead, the muscle cluster expressed genes that are associated with skeletal muscle differentiation and function. Striated muscle was indeed found later in development surrounding the parotid gland. Distinct spatial localization patterns of neuronal and muscle cells in embryonic stages appear to foreshadow later differences in adult organ function. These findings demonstrate the establishment of transcriptional identities that emerge early, primarily in the mesenchyme of developing salivary glands. We present the first transcriptome data of the largely understudied embryonic parotid gland in relation to the submandibular gland, which has been the predominant salivary gland research model. Our study also provides the first comprehensive description of molecular signatures that define specific cellular landmarks for the bud initiation stage of these early branching organs.Item The Political Economy of Agriculture and the Social Economy of Local Sustainable Agriculture in Kansas City(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019) Cardwell, Laura Denise; Forstater, Mathew, 1961-This dissertation contributes to heterodox economics by presenting a unique heterodox economics approach, utilizing aspects of heterodox surplus approach, Post Keynesian, Institutional, feminist, and ecological economics. As an interdisciplinary project, ecology and history are incorporated into analysis. The analytical approach lends itself to the analysis of the sustainability of various economic activities. The focus of this dissertation is on the impact of technology and policy driving agriculture toward large scale, chemically intensive agricultural production. The evolution of agriculture in the United States throughout the 20th century is examined with an emphasis on the role of policy and technology. An alternative approach is examined in the case study of local sustainable agriculture activity in Kansas City with the social economy model and the community supported agriculture model. The dissertation concludes with policy recommendations to support a social economy of local sustainable agriculture. The thesis of the dissertation asserts that agriculture production in the United States has come under the ecologically and socially detrimental structures of production built upon pecuniary gain, and therefore, the social economy model serves as an alternative structure for local sustainable agricultural production. This dissertation aims to discover explanations for and find alternatives to the current unsustainable process of agricultural production and make a contribution to the integration of various heterodox economics that may be applied to sustainability of economic activity.Item Sites of trauma, bodies of recovery: the work of contemporary South African artist Jane Alexander(2019) Mickelson, Amy Nygaard; Connelly, Frances S.; Mitchell, Linda ElizabethSites of Trauma, Bodies of Recovery: The Work of Contemporary South African Artist Jane Alexander explores the interconnections between the aesthetics of trauma in post-apartheid culture, history, and politics through the provocative work of Jane Alexander (b. 1959). Her work, particularly her earlier works from the late 1980s and early 1990s, find a welcoming home within the context of South Africa’s violent struggle to end apartheid. Her figures have hybrid features. However, their hybridity is continually undercut by a perpetual slippage into the monstrous and abject. Using Alexander’s work as a case study, I argue that the visualization and recognition of violence and brutality serves as an essential instrument for remembrance and even catharsis during the transitional period (1970s-1990s) of South African political rule. Through the recognition and acknowledgement of past traumas, viewers gain entry into a complex negotiation of discomfort, remembrance, and catharsis. Themes of state violence, domination, and surveillance force viewers to contemplate the sources of violence and their implicated roles in these systems. To acknowledge the truly violent nature of humankind is to implicate one’s self in a relationship to such atrocities. It is easier to dehumanize violence than it is to see humanity in violence, and this transitional state of being between man and monster is where Alexander’s artworks reside.
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