2017 UMKC Theses - Access Restricted to UMKC
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The items in this collection are theses 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 Poisons of war(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2017) Veroczi, Sabrina; Hodgen, Christie, 1974-My father, a Vietnam veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, took his life in November 1976, when I was only a year old. The nature of his death kept the details of his life, his illness, and his suicide hidden in grief and shame for many years. My mother’s secondary PTSD kept her from being able to tell me about who my father was or about the battles she fought with the Veterans Administration to connect his death with the trauma of war. For years, I have gathered evidence. I read over three-hundred letters, written by my parents and converted them into a narrative. I went through hundreds of photographs and slides. I found articles that my father had written. I interviewed a doctor who evaluated my father for PTSD and later helped my mother with her claim for benefits. I interviewed a journalist my father worked with in Vietnam. I listened to twenty hours of audio tapes that were made by my father after he returned from the war. I read dozens of books about fathers who died, fathers who committed suicide, and fathers who went to war. I worked with veterans and the children of veterans. I researched Vietnam, the war in Vietnam, post-traumatic stress disorder, and secondary and transgenerational post-traumatic stress disorder. I received a grant from the UMKC Women’s Council and went to Vietnam to visit the places my father was stationed during the war. Through this process, I believe I found the truth about who my father was and why he was unable to recover from the things that happened to him in Vietnam. I hope that I have been able to capture and communicate something important about the cost of war.Item Behind the Mask(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2017) Whelan, Marie Louise; Driever, Steven L.This book explores the struggles of one woman living in London during an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Charles, as she has named herself, has to not only maintain her masculine guise, but also has to fight to cure the plague, deal with betrayal, and grapple the loneliness that surrounds her life as a woman in a man’s world.Item Sticky(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2017) Wexler, Michael Lewis; Terrell, WhitneyNo matter how you slice it, our current understanding of the human brain is decidedly limited. “Will we ever understand the human brain?” asks Jonathan Gornall of the World Economic Forum. “Today, I can't tell you – nor can anyone else – how the brain functions.” (Kevin Loria, Business Insider). “Like a computer’s hard drive, memories are physically recorded. But we have no idea how our brains do this…” (George Dvorsky, io9.com) Despite this enigma, each of us can verify through our own personal experience that we do remember some things. And the things that we remember may not be what we’d expect. We might forget our Sweet Sixteen but remember the film Sixteen Candles. We might forget our uncle’s 80ᵗʰ but remember Around the World in Eighty Days. For reasons beyond our comprehension, certain memories emerge as standout, not so fleeting, capable of leaving a permanent footprint. If we wanted to give such memories a name, we might call them “sticky.” These are a handful of my own.Item Assessment Of Overcurrent Relay Coordination In A Microgrid With High PV Penetration Deployment(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2017) Alshmoos, Ameer; Goli, PreethamThe existing distribution system is experiencing radical changes with the rapid proliferation of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)[1]. Microgrids have been proposed as a way of integrating large numbers of distributed renewable energy sources with distribution systems. One of the potential advantages of a microgrid is that it could provide more reliable supply to customers by islanding from the system in the event of a major disturbance. Despite the several advantages, large-scale implementation of microgrids presents several technical challenges and barriers which have to be addressed. Deployment of microgrids powered by inverter based distributed generators such as grid-tied photovoltaics poses a threat to maintaining the security and dependability of the distribution network. Protective device coordination is considered as a critical challenge for a microgrid with high deployment of PV power. This is mainly due to the dynamically changing configuration of the microgrid, addition of fault current due to presence of DERs, bidirectional power flow, islanding and grid connected operation of the microgrid. The bidirectional power flows imposed by DERs together with continual fault-level variation caused by different operating modes (i.e., grid connected or islanded) would jeopardize the current-based protection schemes. In view of the above issues related to microgrid protection, this thesis discusses the inadequacy of the conventional protection schemes, fault behavior of inverter interfaced distributed sources and impact on the coordination of relays. The impact of different levels of photovoltaic (PV) penetration on the protective device coordination in a microgrid has been studied in detail. A medium voltage distribution network is modelled and simulated using ETAP and several case studies have been implemented by varying the penetration levels of PV at various locations. Some of the identified impacts due to the high deployment of PV power are false tripping of feeders, nuisance tripping’s, blinding of protection, and unwanted islanding. Based on the findings from the case studies potential solutions have been investigated. Most of the issues were mitigated by resetting the relays, using directional protection and current differential protection schemes. Finally, the thesis also proposes an adaptive protection algorithm to be applied with extensive communication between microgrid Central Protection Unit and the protective relays.Item Ozark Superstitions: A Collection(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2017) Marsden, Mariah E.; Hodgen, Christie, 1974-This collection of linked short stories explores the storytelling traditions of a family that continues to deal with the results of a past trauma in their day-to-day lives. The three members of the Taile family struggle to maintain their small farm in the rural Missouri Ozarks at the turn of the twenty-first century. The collection follows the narratives of two sisters, Corrie and Jenny Taile, whose mother died shortly after birth of the youngest daughter. The dueling narrative is interrupted in key places by their father’s stories that extend beyond the traumatic event and provide links to the past. A motherless girl buys tampons from the local feed store, where she becomes trapped in conversation with a ranting local. A young woman goes noodling for catfish by the riverside with her friends while sharing secrets and barbequed meat. A boy comes home from school one day to find his mother covered in dog blood. Ultimately, this collection depicts storytelling is an act of power, a matter of inheritance, and a negotiation of belief.