2008 MU theses - Access restricted to UM
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Item Feed intake component of fescue toxicosis during short-term exposure to thermoneutral and heat stress conditions(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Bommala, Prakash Babu; Spiers, Donald E.[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Fescue toxicosis is results from intake of tall fescue grass containing a fungal endophyte. It affects most of herbivore species, including rodents. The estimated annual loss due to decreased production and performance is more than $600 million. A large portion of this loss is due to reduced feed intake. The current study used the rat to determine if reduced feed intake contributed to many of the symptoms associated with fescue toxicosis. Animals were tested in both heat stress and non-heat stress environments. Feed intake decreased in rats fed the diet containing endophyte in both environments, with a greater reduction during heat stress. Core body temperature actually decreased slightly in the non-heat stress environment for rats on the endophyte diet. Reduced feed intake alone actually produced a greater reduction in body temperature. During heat stress, the rats fed the endophyte diet shifted its body temperature rhythm to a higher level. This did not occur for rats fed the reduced diet. Serum prolactin level was reduced for all rats fed the endophyte diet below the level for controls and those fed the reduced diet. The present study determined which symptoms associated with fescue toxicosis could be explained by reduced feed intake and which could not be explained using this approach.Item Interviews with founders of twenty-four-hour local cable news channels: why and how they started the business(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Wiser, Elliott H.; Warner, Charles, 1932-[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The early history of twenty-four-hour local cable news channels is explored through research and interviews with the men who launched the first seven channels. Those channels include News 12 Long Island, Newswatch 15, Orange County Newschannel, New York 1, New England Cable News, and ChicagoLand TV. Twenty-four- hour local cable news channels were one of the first attempts to repurpose a local news product on another medium-cable. Media companies are employing the lessons learned from launching these channels as they create websites and digital channels. Twenty-four-hour local cable news channels also ushered in an era of convergence that is being widely employed today. In two instances, ChicagoLand TV and Orange County Newschannel, the cable channels were located inside the newspaper's newsroom. The local cable news channels have developed a national reputation for hyper-local news coverage, political reporting, morning news programming, extended breaking news coverage, and the use of video journalists.Item The route to persuasion: gaining/maintaining local support for the hometown Air Force mission(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Hague, Mary Catherine; Duffy, Margaret E., 1950-[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Each Air Force Base throughout the world has a Public Affairs team dedicated to communicating information about a base's specific mission and, ultimately, gaining/maintaining local interest and support. This study specifically looks at the local Air Force mission in Denver/Colorado Springs, Colo. - our nation's mission in Space. By employing qualitative methods based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, this thesis attempts to explain how perceptions and attitudes about the Air Force are formed, and then applies this theory to determine how Public Affairs people, through effective communication, can best persuade target audiences to support their hometown Air Force mission through the model's two routes to persuasion - central and peripheral. Information attained from this study suggests that the central route (message-based) should be chosen for Air Force messages, while the peripheral route (cue-based) should be chosen for Space-specific messages - a combination of routes is ideal. The study could benefit mass communication scholars and professionals through its exploration of the overarching concepts of persuasion and attitude formation. It also expands the density of qualitative research in regards to the Elaboration Likelihood Model because this theory is usually the backbone for quantitative exploration.Item Building the future: newspaper culture and innovation(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Flitton, Matthew; Duffy, Margaret E., 1950-[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] As the business environment erodes for newspapers and the need for change becomes ever more pressing, it is important to look at how the organizational culture of newspapers affects the business' ability to innovate. This study examines the culture of one newsroom through ethnographic observation. As part of this study, the Web site of the subject newspaper, as well as those of other newspapers that distribute in the same area, was conducted. Each site was analyzed to determine how innovative it is. A definition of an innovative newspaper is given, based on the work of Thorson and Duffy (2006). The newsroom's culture was diagnosed using the Organizational Culture Inventory[superscript 1][registered trademark sign]. A comparison of an earlier study of 90 newsrooms using the same study found that this culture differs in degree but not in type.Item On the relationship between generalized covariance union and the minimal enclosing ellipsoid problem(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008) Calhoun, Ryan J.; Uhlmann, Jeffrey K.[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Examination of the behavior of Generalized Covariance Union (GCU) reveals a previously unsuspected superficial relationship to the problem of finding a minimal enclosing ellipsoid of ellipsoids, also called a Löwner ellipsoid. By interpreting any mean and covariance pair of some estimate or measurement as the 1- contour ellipsoid of its associated Gaussian probability density function, the results of GCU appear to form a Lowner 1-[sigma] ellipsoid about the 1-[sigma] ellipsoids of its n inputs. This thesis presents a means to analyze and test this behavior numerically, detailing the one- and two-dimensional cases, using mathematics easily extensible into higher dimensions. The current hypothesis, supported by experimental evidence, is that the relationship between GCU and the minimal enclosing ellipsoid problem is one of equivalence. Subsequent to this finding, pending a formal proof, it will be possible to apply tools from computational geometry to solve data fusion problems.