Dissertations (UMKC)
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.
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Ocular motion classification for mobile device presentation attack detection
(2020)As a practical pursuit of quantified uniqueness, biometrics explores the parameters that make us who we are and provides the tools we need to secure the integrity of that identity. In our culture of constant connectivity, ... -
Automated End-to-End Management of the Deep Learning Lifecycle
(2020)Deep learning has improved the state-of-the-art results in an ever-growing number of domains. This success heavily relies on the development of deep learning models--an experimental, iterative process that produces tens ... -
Exploring school nurse workload through the lived experiences of school nurses caring for students kindergarten through fifth grade
(2020)School nurses support the needs of healthy students, those with chronic diseases, all from diverse racial and ethnic groups. Current nurse-to-student ratios, or caseloads, do not fully capture the extent of their work. The ... -
Comparing Multiple Measure Placement Models in Mathematics
(2020)Accurate placement into an initial college mathematics course is a key step toward the successful completion of college mathematics and, eventually, a college degree. Conversely, misplacement in mathematics may lead to a ... -
A randomized feasibility and acceptability study comparing modes of parenting education delivery for young fathers
(2020)Limited research and reliance on maternal reports of father involvement in caregiving provides an inadequate understanding of adolescent fatherhood. Despite improved outcomes for infants and adolescent mothers when adolescent ... -
Learning Efficient Deep Feature Extraction For Mobile Ocular Biometrics
(2020)Ocular biometrics uses physical traits from eye regions such as iris, conjunctival vasculature, and periocular for recognizing the person. Ocular biometrics has gained popularity amongst research and industry alike for its ... -
Telling Stories of Teacher-To-Teacher Trust in Culturally Relevant Teaching Professional Development
(2020)This study examined White female teachers’ storied experiences of teacher-to-teacher trust as they navigated culturally relevant teaching practices presented through professional learning, using the qualitative research ... -
Urban runoff simulation and prediction: How do land use and land cover change patterning and geospatial data quality impact model outcome?
(2020)With the increase in global urbanization, satellite imagery and other types of geospatial data have been extensively used in urban landscape change research, which includes environmental modeling in order to assess the ... -
Enriching Knowledge Graphs Using Machine Learning Techniques
(2020)A knowledge graph represents millions of facts and reliable information about people, places, and things. These knowledge graphs have proven their reliability and their usage for providing better search results; answering ... -
Ferroelectric System Dynamics and the Properties of Ferroelectric / Two-Dimensional Electron Gas Heterostructures: a Ginzburg–Landau Study
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2017)Understanding the electronic response of materials to applied electric fields is an outstanding goal in solid-state theory. One aspect of this goal is to accurately predict the electric polarization of certain materials ... -
The Effectiveness of Reading Folk Literature in Improving English Language Learners’ Reading Proficiency in Elementary Grades
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2018)This mixed-methods study investigates the effectiveness of reading folktales, fairy tales, and fables in improving English learners’ reading proficiency levels in elementary grades and explores students’ experiences with ... -
Development of Targeted siRNA Therapeutics for Triple Negative Breast Cancer and Liver Fibrosis
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2018)The objective of this dissertation is to develop various systems to deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and liver fibrosis. siRNAs targeting vascular endothelial ... -
Evaluation of the Anti-Fibrotic Activity of PCBP2 siRNA in Primary Hepatic Stellate Cells and Discovery of Anti-PD-L1 Peptide and Nanobody for Immunotherapy
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2018)There are two major research objectives in this dissertation. Our laboratory recently discovered a small interfering RNA (siRNA) that silences the poly (rC) binding protein 2 (PCBP2) gene. It is hypothesized that silencing ... -
Data-Driven Modeling of the Lake Chad Basin Hydrologic Systems
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)The 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 ... -
Identification of Cell Types that Define Embryonic Submandibular and Parotid Salivary Glands Using Single Cell RNA Sequencing
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)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 ... -
Establishing Metronidazole as a Novel Biomarker of CYP2A6 Activity
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2018)CYP2A6 is a polymorphically expressed enzyme with variation associated with smoking behavior, cessation success, lung cancer risk, and differential drug exposure to numerous medications including anti-infectious and ... -
Labor Market Outcomes and Employment Policy
(2020)The first chapter contains an empirical analysis of labor market outcomes. Using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages microdata, individual labor market experiences are tracked over time. Not only is the employment ... -
Nursing Faculty Perspectives Regarding the Effectiveness of Prelicensure Nursing Education
(2020)New graduate registered nurse unreadiness for professional practice is a growing, critical global issue that threatens public safety. While research has associated this academic under-preparation to preventable medical ... -
Income Inequality, Household Borrowing, and the Business Cycle
(2020)Over the thirty years preceding 2008, the United States has experienced increasing income inequality while transitioning to a consumption-led economy. This dissertation investigates the foundations of the 2008 recession ... -
Enabling Electronic Structure Calculations of High Z Element Containing Materials Using Dirac Relativistic DFT Methods
(2020)Novel properties may be induced in a host material by doping it with high Z elements to alter its underlying electronic states. Presently, no method exists that can accurately capture both large system sizes and the intricate ...