2010 UMKC Dissertations - Freely Available Online

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https://hdl.handle.net/10355/8989

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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The Work of Contemplation Then and Now: The Cloud of Unknowing and Present-Day Christian Mystical Practice
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011-01-20) Young, Glenn; Ebersole, Gary L., 1950-
The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous fourteenth-century Middle English mystical text that discusses what its author calls the “work” of contemplation. In the late twentieth century, the Cloud became an important resource for two Christian contemplative movements that go by the names of “Centering Prayer” and “Christian Meditation.” This dissertation addresses a number of issues related to the appropriation of the medieval Cloud by persons who wish to engage in a present-day form of Christian mystical practice. These issues are (1) the medieval context and audience of the Cloud; (2) the reading of the Cloud and the conceptualization of contemplation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; (3) the description of contemplative practice in the Cloud and in Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation; (4) the effects of contemplation for the practitioner's understanding and sense of self as this is discussed in the Cloud and in Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation; and (5) the implications which this consideration of the Cloud and these present-day movements has for the interpretation of mysticism. These issues are addressed through a comparative reading of the Cloud, related early Christian and medieval mystical texts, and the literature of the Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation movements. This dissertation aims to contribute to knowledge of The Cloud of Unknowing, and Christian mysticism more generally, by relating this text to a present-day conception of contemplation. The Christian contemplative movements discussed here read the Cloud as a text which offers instruction in a mystical practice that can be performed by persons in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This emphasis upon practice in the appropriation of the Cloud can serve as an interpretive lens with which to consider the meaning of the category of mysticism in the discipline of Religious Studies.
Semantic Frameworks for Document and Ontology Clustering
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011-01-20) Tong, Tuanjie; Lee, Yugyung, 1960-
The Internet has made it possible, in principle, for scientists to quickly find research papers of interest. In practice, the overwhelming volume of publications makes this a time consuming task. It is, therefore, important to develop efficient ways to identify related publications. Clustering, a technique used in many fields, is one way to facilitate this. Ontologies can also help in addressing the problem of finding related entities, including research publications. However, the development of new methods of clustering has focused mainly on the algorithm per se, with relatively less emphasis on feature selection and similarity measures. The latter can significantly impact the accuracy of clustering, as well as the runtime of clustering. Also, to fully realize the high resolution searches that ontologies can make possible, an important first step is to find automatic ways to cluster related ontologies. The major contribution of this dissertation is an innovative semantic framework for document clustering, called Citonomy, a dynamic approach that (1) exploits citation semantics of scientific documents, (2) deals with evolving datasets of documents, and (3) addresses the interplay between algorithms, feature selections, and similarity measures in an integrated manner. This improves accuracy and runtime performance over existing clustering algorithms. As the first step in Citonomy, we propose a new approach to extract and build a model for citation semantics. Both subjective and objective evaluations prove the effectiveness of this model in extracting citation semantics. For the clustering stage, the Citonomy framework offers two approaches: (1) CS-VS: Combining Citation Semantics and VSM (Vector Space Model) Measures and (2) CS2CS: From Citation Semantics to Cluster Semantics. CS2CS is a document clustering algorithm with a 3-level feature selection process. It is an improvement over CS-VS in several aspects: i) deleting the requirement of a training step, ii) introducing an advanced feature selection mechanism, and iii) dynamic and adaptive clustering of new datasets. Compared to traditional document clustering, CS-VS and CS2CS significantly improve the accuracy of clustering by 5-15% (on average) in terms of the F-Measure. CS2CS is a linear clustering algorithm that is faster than the common document clustering algorithms K-Means and K-Medoids. In addition, it overcomes a major drawback of K-Means/Medoids algorithms in that the number of clusters can be dynamically determined by splitting and merging clusters. Fuzzy clustering with this approach has also been investigated. The related problem of ontology clustering is also addressed in this dissertation. Another semantics framework, InterOBO, has been designed for ontology clustering. A prototype to demonstrate the potential use of this framework, has been developed. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBOs) are used as a case study to illustrate the clustering technique used to identify common concepts and links. Detailed experimental results on different data sets are given to show the merits of the proposed clustering algorithms.
The herpes simplex virus virion host shutoff protein is targeted to mRNA cleavage sites through interactions with components of the host translational apparatus
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011-01-20) Shiflett, Lora Ann; Read, George Sullivan, 1948-
The virion host shutoff protein (Vhs) is a herpes simplex virus (HSV) protein involved in early shutoff of the host cell. It is a component of the infecting virion, located in the tegument region, that works by rapidly degrading both viral and cellular messenger RNA (mRNA). in vivo and within infected cells, Vhs is selective for degrading messenger RNA opposed to non-messenger RNA. This dissertation sought to examine Vhs cleavage of an mRNA that utilizes the cap-dependent scanning mechanism for translation initiation and to see if cleavage was connected to early events of translation initiation. mRNA encoding HSV-1 thymidine kinase (pBK2) was used for the majority of the experiments, and studies were designed to map the cut sites produced by Vhs in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate (RRL) system. Additional experiments investigated whether Vhs was selective for degrading certain types of mRNAs over others, particularly IRES-containing mRNAs. Studies revealed that Vhs specifically cleaves pBK2 mRNA within the first 300 bases from the 5' cap, and these cut sites are close to and slightly upstream from the first three AUG codons of the sequence. The proximity of the cutting to the AUG codons led to speculations that early events of translation initiation might be involved in Vhs degradation of mRNA. This was found to be true, where data revealed that blocking early stages such as (1) recruitment of translation initiation factors to the 5' cap and/or (2) ATP hydrolysis RNA helicase activity important for unwinding RNA secondary structure and the scanning process hinder Vhs cleavage. However, blocking later stages of translation initiation only had a modest effect on RNase activity. Results also found that a 5' cap analog inhibits Vhs site-specific cleavage of mRNA at regions near the 5' cap. Interestingly, a cap appears to be required for Vhs production of specific cleavage sites within the first 300 bases of the transcript. Work went on to study whether there was a difference between Vhs cleavage of circularized RNA that normally experiences cap-dependent scanning and circularized RNA that initiates translation in a cap-independent manner. Results indicated that Vhs requires a free 5' end for specific cleavage of mRNA that undergoes cap-dependent scanning. However, Vhs does not require a free 5' end to specifically cleave a circular RNA that utilizes cap-independent methods for translation initiation. Mutational work, with pBK2 mutants which contained mutations in or surrounding the AUG codon, further supported a mechanism for Vhs cleavage that involved Vhs association with the scanning complex to reach some of its preferred cut sites. Mutating the first AUG to a non-AUG inhibited Vhs specific cleavage of pBK2 mRNA at a region just upstream from the AUG codon. Additionally, mutating bases surrounding the AUG codon to put it in an optimal context enhanced cleavage at regions near the start codon. Inserting a stable hairpin near the 5' cap to block scanning also reduced Vhs cleavage at prominent sites within the first 300 bases of the transcript. To conclude, this work provides several indications that Vhs associates with components of the translational apparatus to access at least some of its cut sites.
The Role of Catholic Social Theory in Economic Policy
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011-01-20) O'Connor, Jeremy J. (Jeremy Joseph), 1977-; Sturgeon, James I.
This dissertation examines Catholic Social Theory (CST) in the context of its relationship to and impact on economic policy. CST emerged formally in the latter part of the nineteenth century in response to social changes and movements that were dividing the world, particularly in Western Europe and the United States. These movements included the emergence of both capitalism and socialism. To address the conflict that inevitably developed in this changing world, economic policies were instituted. These policies were intended, at least the argument goes to serve the common good and were based on theoretical concepts and perceptions. One question, from the perspective of CST is: are the policies in agreement with CST? The purpose of this study is to establish what relationship there is, if any, between selected U.S. economic policies and CST. Perhaps nowhere can this question be more fully addressed than in an examination of two important economic policy movements of the last century, New Deal economic policies and recent health care reform proposals in the U.S. Thus, this dissertation will examine the relationship between CST and these two areas of socio-economic policy. In particular, this dissertation examines the question: are the economic policies in question consistent with CST? If so, in what ways do they agree? If not, in what ways do they differ? The answers to these questions have importance not only iv from an economic theory and policy perspective, but from a social and religious perspective as well. There are nearly 70 million Catholics in the United States and approximately 1 billion worldwide. Thus, whether or not public policy is in agreement with CST is of consequence to a significantly large community of people.
Comparison of Standardized Test Scores from Traditional Classrooms and those using Problem-Based Learning
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2010) Needham, Martha Elaine, 1947-; Adler, Susan A.
This research compares differences between standardized test scores in problem-based learning (PBL) classrooms and a traditional classroom for 6th grade students using a mixed-method, quasi-experimental and qualitative design. The most significant finding from this study is that the use of problem-based learning can increase standardized test scores at least as much as traditional teaching methods. This is true for initially low-scoring students and disadvantaged groups and when increasing higher-thinking skills is a classroom goal. The mixed-method research design demonstrated differences in scores both between the experimental groups as an aggregate and within the groups on the pre- and posttests. The aggregate test score improvement over traditional teaching methods for the PBL group was very low. Improvement is so small it can be dismissed as unimportant. However, an additional regression analysis of test question levels of difficulty, defined by CTB (2002), provides more important results. When incorrect answers and corrected answers are compared, this analysis shows more students chose correct answers at higher levels of difficulty for the PBL classrooms while the control classroom chose more correct answers at the lower levels of difficulty. Overall, the research increases the body of knowledge about PBL because it compared PBL and traditional teaching relationships to achievement scores on standardized tests. Previous PBL research was also supported. The earlier research focused on qualitative studies that examine teacher classroom observations, opinions, and emphasize non-standardized assessments. The test score focus provides a unique and needed starting point for new research.

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