2012 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 The Effects of Math Recovery on the Low-Performing Mathematics Student(2012) Rossiter, Robert F.; Barger, RitaThis study examined the effectiveness of the course, Math Recovery, on a group of ninth-grade students enrolled in the course Algebra/Geometry I measured by course grades and subsequent tenth-grade MAP scores. In addition, gender and race differences were investigated in this study to determine the impact, if any, on academic achievement. The students in this study attended one of three large high schools belonging to a large suburban school district. The students in the ninth-grade course, Algebra/Geometry I, were split into two groups, those enrolled in Math Recovery, the treatment group, and those not enrolled in Math Recovery. The student enrolled in the Algebra/Geometry I courses contained students from both the treatment and non-treatment groups. The participants of this study were a total of 152 students divided between a treatment group, students enrolled in Math Recovery, totaling 32 students and a non-treatment group, students not enrolled in Math Recovery, totaling 120 students. Because the students enrolled in Math Recovery were students deemed to be mathematically deficient, the students’ eighth-grade MAP scores were used as a covariate in order to remove the variance the academic scores have on the ninth-grade grades and tenth-grade MAP scores. The findings of this study showed there were no significant differences in the grades or tenth-grade MAP scores between students enrolled in Math Recovery and those students not enrolled in the course. In addition, the same results, no significant differences existed, when the groups were disaggregated by gender and race. Most importantly, students leaving the eight-grade, who were mathematically deficient, demonstrated through their grades that they had parity with students not in the Math Recovery course. The results of this study indicated that providing academically lacking mathematically students with the proper mathematically support kept these students even with those students who did not receive the support course.Item Quaerere Sententias I(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015-03-09) Johnson, Richard W., 1978-; Mobberley, JamesQuaerere Sententias (“search for meaning”) is a collection of pieces composed for soloists, digital audio, and video. The first set, Quaerere Sententias I, is comprised of three pieces: Introit, for trumpet; Hiram, for clarinet; and Musashi, for flute. Each piece in Quaerere Sententias is concerned with an historic example of an individual or culture’s pursuit of purpose and related ontological ideas. Through presenting these concepts literally and abstractly in the medium of electroacoustic music and video, the meaning of associated cultural symbols is also explored. Introit serves as a prologue to Quaerere Sententias I. Musical material is drawn from the melody of L’homme armé, just as composers of Renaissance masses employed the same to derive their material. The music evokes a sacred soundscape, as the video presents a sketched space based on Saint Gatien’s Cathedral in Tours. Tours served as the home to Burgundian composer Antoine Busnois, whose Missa L’homme armé was highly inspirational in the creation of Introit. Hiram takes its title from Hiram Bingham III, whose writings and photographs are featured in the video. Bingham’s search for Machu Picchu is the narrative focus behind the piece, as is the sense of purpose derived from the uncovering of an ancient civilization. Simultaneously, Hiram is concerned with the mysteries of Incan ontology, lost to time even as Quechua people populate the Andes today. The musical material of Hiram is influenced by Andean traditions such as the huanyo. Samples of Peruvian instruments, including zampoña, qena, and cajón, are featured in the fixed part. Musashi is inspired by Go Rin No Sho, a treatise on strategy by the legendary ronin swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. The musical material is inspired by Honshirabe, a staple of shakuhachi repertoire. Throughout the piece, the fixed part is derived from samples of taiko and shakuhachi, the metallic clash and scrape of swords, and a reading of the Fudō-myōō sutra, creating a soundscape to parallel Musashi’s blend of Zen spirituality with merciless violence. Elements of taiko performance are also influential— particularly oroshi, a gesture in which the interval between events is reduced over time.Item Child's Play:a Collection of Three Pieces for Instruments and Fixed Electronic Media(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015-03-09) Bolte, Jason Lee, 1985-; Mobberley, James"Child's Play" is a collection of three pieces for instruments and fixed electronic media inspired by the sounds of my daughter's toys. The first piece, "With My Eyes Shut" is for clarinet and fixed electronic media, the second piece, "Noises Everywhere" is for fixed electronic media, and the final piece, "Child's Play" is scored for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and fixed electronic media. "With My Eyes Shut" is an exploration of a single sound produced on a plastic recorder. All of the electronic material is derived from this single sound. The piece is centered on diatonic pitch relationships and incorporates the clarinet as a motivic vehicle to progress through the piece. "Noises Everywhere" is inspired by a snippet of text from the classic children's book "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown, a book my daughter and I love to read at bedtime. The foundation of the piece is a recording of a Fisher-Price "Happy Apple" toy. The toy has a unique resonance that provides the overall sonic timbre and pitch material of the piece. The final piece in the collection, "Child's Play," in contras to the other works in the collection, is a rhythmically driven work. The piece is inspired by rhythmic activity produced by a child's squeaky toy. This sound makes up all of the material in the fixed electronic medium. In the piece, the instruments and fixed electronic medium share the rhythmic responsibility, creating a regular, but often syncopated texture.Item Development of drug conjugates in cancer therapy and evaluation of dual siRNA silencing effect on breast cancer growth and invasion(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012) Tai, Wanyi; Cheng, Kun (Professor)The objective of this dissertation is to present various approaches for treatment cancer, which is the leading cause of death worldwide. Compared to other disease, cancer has many unique biological characteristics that can be exploited for its therapy. In chapter 1 and 2, its molecular characteristics and microenvironments, as well as the corresponding therapeutic strategies, are summarized. In chapter 3, we developed a peptide drug conjugate to specifically deliver TGX-221 to HER2 overexpressed prostate cancer cells. TGX-221 is a highly potent phosphoinositide 3- kinases β (PI3Kβ) inhibitor that holds great promise as a novel chemotherapy agent for prostate cancer. However, poor solubility and lack of targetability limit its therapeutic applications. The peptide drug conjugate was proven to be gradually cleaved by PSA to release TGX-D1 (TGX- 221 analogue). Both the peptide drug conjugate and its cleaved products demonstrate a comparable activity to the parent drug, TGX-D1. Moreover, cellular uptake of the peptide drug conjugate and its cleaved product SL-TGX were significantly higher in prostate cancer cells compared to the parent drug. The high cellular uptake of dipeptide drug conjugate SL-TGX might be mediated by peptide transporters in prostate cancer cells. However, the expression of peptide transporters in prostate cancer cell lines has not been reported before. Therefore, in Chapter 4, the expression profile and functional activity of peptide transporters were investigated in the prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP, PC-3 and DU145. Peptide transporter 1 (PEPT1) is found overexpressed in PC-3 cells, and peptide transporter 2 (PEPT2) is upregulated in LNCaP cells. We also developed another approach to enhance water solubility and targetability of hydrophobic drugs. In Chapter 5, we developed a polymer-rapamycin conjugate using a novel, linear and PEG based multiblock copolymer (Mw ~ 32 kDa). Rapamycin has demonstrated potent anti-tumor activity in preclinical and clinical studies. However, the clinical development of its formulations has been hampered due to its poor solubility and undesirable distribution in vivo. The polymer-rapamycin conjugate provided enhanced solubility in water compared with free rapamycin and shows a profound activity against a panel of human cancer cell lines. This polymer-rapamycin conjugate also presented high drug loading capacity (wt% ~ 28%) when GlyGlyGly was used as a linker. The uptake study further indicated that the lysosome is the major site of intracellular localization of polymer drug conjugate. Thus, these preclinical data suggested that polymer rapamycin conjugate is a novel anti-cancer agent that holds great promising for treatment of a wide variety of tumors. Macromolecules such as siRNA can also be used as anticancer drugs. In chapter 6, we designed nine HER2 siRNAs and ten VEGF siRNAs and identified potent siRNA that can silence the target gene up to 75-83%. The most potent HER2 and VEGF siRNAs were used to conduct functional studies in HER2 positive breast cancer cells. Combination of HER2 and VEGF siRNAs demonstrated synergistic silencing effect on VEGF. Both HER2 siRNA and VEGF siRNA showed significant inhibition on cell migration and proliferation. HER2 siRNA also demonstrated dramatic suppression of cell spreading and adhesion to ECM, as well as induction of apoptosis. Dual silencing of HER2 and VEGF led to significant cell morphology change and substantial suppression on migration, spreading, cell adhesion, and proliferation.Item Employment generation programs and long term development- the case of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2012) Dasgupta, Poulomi; Forstater, Mathew, 1961-The impact of neo-liberal policies on labor and employment opportunities in developing country like India has been less than satisfactory. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the role of government in employment generation and the impact of employment generation on long term development. In order to do so, the case of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has been taken as a case study. The study argues that employment generation programs by the government is not only important to create jobs, but is also necessary for long term development of the country. The study concludes the impact of an employment generation program is not limited to a narrowly understood concept of economic growth. Instead, by using an alternate understanding of development-namely the capability approach, it can be concluded that employment generation has long lasting impact on the development of rural communities. Field work in two states of India have been used as evidence to support this argument. To make the case for employment generation various approaches have been taken including Marxian, post colonial and heterodox economic approaches like Keynesian and Kaleckian economics.