bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intrinsic properties of bone as predictors
of differential survivorship
Authors:   , Golda Stephanie
   DuPont
Published: April 2021

Investigating intrinsic properties as determinants of bone survival
has major implications in forensic anthropology. It is useful in the incomplete recovery of
a skeleton to know if certain bones that are missing are those that are expected to be
missing. Assuming complete recovery, individual skeletal parts should have different
recovery probabilities. This research examines the differential survivorship of human
skeletal remains based on intrinsic properties (density, size, and shape) of bone. Fifty
skeletons from the William M. Bass Forensic Skeletal Collection at the University of
Tennessee-Knoxville were measured to determine bone length (cm) and shape (sphere, disc,
rod, or blade) for twenty skeletal elements. Density measures (HUs) of skeletal parts were
recorded for 11 skeletons from the Texas State University Donated Skeletal Collection.
These intrinsic variables were then compared to recovery frequencies from a forensic sample
of Arizona-Sonoran desert border crossers (n=380). This study found a correlation between
bone length and frequency (rho= 0.46) and significant differences in the mean recovery
frequencies for shapes (p less than 0.05). Though no correlation was found for skeletal
part density and frequency (rho= -0.21), structurally dense midshafts of long bones are
recovered with a greater frequency than their corresponding epiphyseal ends (p less than
0.001). Furthermore, structurally dense crania have the highest survivorship potential
(89%). This study substantiates differences in mean recovery frequencies for skeletal
elements according to anatomical location (p less than 0.05). Anatomical regions and recovery frequencies were used to produce a simple taphonomic model. Educating law enforcement on the value and appearance of high survivorship bones in the taphonomic model is a recommendation to improve policy and practice.
Evaluating the appropriateness of electronic information resources for learning in pre-clerkship medical education : an eye tracking study
Authors:   , Saparova Dinara
Published: April 2021

Current U.S. medical students have begun to rely on electronic information repositories -- such as UpToDate, Access Medicine, and Wikipedia -- for their pre-clerkship medical education. However, it is unclear whether these resources are appropriate for this level of learning due to factors involving information quality, level of evidence, and the requisite knowledge base. This study evaluated the appropriateness of electronic information resources from a novel perspective: the amount of mental effort learners invest in interactions with these resources and the effects of the experienced mental effort on learning. Eighteen first-year medical students read about three unstudied diseases in the three above-mentioned resources (a total of 54 observations). Their eye movement characteristics (i.e., fixation duration, fixation count, visit duration, and task-evoked pupillary response) were recorded and used as psychophysiological indicators of the experienced mental effort. Post reading, students' learning was assessed with a multiple-choice test. Eye metrics and test results constituted quantitative data that were analyzed according to the repeated Latin square design. Students' perceptions and observations of their interactions with the information resources constituted qualitative data that were also obtained. Participants' feedback from semi-structured interviews and recordings of students' information acquisition behaviors were reviewed, transcribed, and open coded for the emergent themes. Compared to Access Medicine and Wikipedia, UpToDate was associated with significantly higher values of eye metrics suggesting higher mental effort experienced by learners when using this resource. No statistically significant difference between the amount of mental effort and learning outcomes was found. More so, descriptive statistical analysis of the knowledge test scores suggested similar level of learning regardless of the information resource used. Students' feedback and observations of their behaviors were informative in understanding and interpreting the differences in quantitative findings. Judging by the learning outcomes, all three information resources were found appropriate for learning. UpToDate, however, when used alone, may be less appropriate for first-year medical students' learning as it does not fully address their information needs and is more demanding in terms of invested cognitive resources.
Land cover classification from satellite imagery, and its applications in cellular network planning
Authors:   , Huang Heng
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] To further increase the classification accuracies, radar image processing techniques were investigated to preprocess the Radarsat data before classification. Eight processing techniques were applied to Radarsat data at various windows from 3 x 3 to 25 x 25 pixels. For a single radar feature, the Entropy processing at window size 13 x 13 provides the best overall land cover classification accuracy improvement when fused with the Landsat imagery. For multiple radar features, a higher accuracy improvement was found when combining the features (i.e., 13 x 13 Entropy, 9 x 9 data range, 19 x 19 mean) with the Landsat data. This study introduces an approach of fusing Landsat data with multiple Radarsat features to the land cover classification practice. Post-classification techniques were studied for land cover classification maps. Several weighted kernels were developed for the majority filtering process. The method evaluates the correlation between neighbor pixels according to the distance and further improves the classification accuracy. For the St. Louis study area, the Gaussian weighted kernel increases the overall land classification accuracy compared to the Landsat images. Post-classification smoothing of the sensor fusion result (Landsat and radar feature combination) further increases the accuracy. A decadal change analysis was also conducted for the St. Louis, Missouri area using Landsat imagery and census population data. This study proposes a methodology to integrate remotely sensed and census data in urban change analysis. The assessment can provide information that can highlight priority urban growth regions. The analysis shows strong correlation between population and land cover changes, which indicates the potential of satellite imagery to generate the physical feature input for tele-traffic forecasting of a cellular network.
Analysis and modeling of direct selective laser sintering of two-component metal powders
Authors:   , Chen Tiebing
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Direct Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is an emerging technology of Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) that 3-D parts are built from the metal-based powder bed with CAD data. A one-dimensional analytical model of melting in a two-component powder layer with finite thickness subjected to a constant heat flux heating and a two-dimensional numerical model of SLS of a two-component powder layer with a moving laser beam scanning were developed consecutively. Three-dimensional modeling of laser sintering of a two-component metal powder mixture under a moving Gaussian laser beam was investigated numerically at last. The effects of the moving heat source intensity, the scanning velocity, the thickness of the powder layer and the number of existing sintered layers underneath on the sintering depth, the configuration of the heat affected zone (HAZ) and the temperature distribution are discussed.
Discrete NaI(TI) crystal detector optimization for small animal SPECT molecular imaging
Authors:   , Daibes Figueroa Said
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Dual-modality imaging instrumentation has allowed the noninvasive analysis of preclinical models of human disease. A combined microSPECT/CT unit (Siemens) equipped with dual discrete crystal SPECT detectors was under performance evaluation in our laboratory for SPECT molecular imaging. The CT component consists of a CCD x-ray detector and a micro-focus x-ray source (40 [mu] m focal spot). MicroSPECT performance was assessed thru characteristics measurements and high resolution phantoms. Gamma camera SPECT properties investigated using Tc-99m included system photon sensitivity, detection efficiencies, detector uniformity, spectral energy resolution, spatial resolution (FWHM), count rate, and tomograhic pre-clinical performance employing a 3D-OSEM algorithm with geometrical misalignment corrections. Camera gamma-ray sensitivity was calculated to be 3.5, 37 and 73 cps/[mu] Ci for the 0.5, 2 and 3 mm pinhole apertures, respectively. Intrinsic uniformity for the central field of view was 1.42% differential and 2.99% integral. Energy spectral resolution (FWHM) at 140 keVwas 14.3% [plus or minus]1.5 %. Volumetric spatial resolution of 1.2 mm was achieved with a hot-rod Tc-99m SPECT micro-phantom. Camera count rate linearity was achieved up to 1 mCi. In-vivo osteoblastic bone lesions 0.6 mm in diameter measured by CT were also detectable with SPECT Tc-99m-HDP imaging. Spatial resolution (FWHM) results suggest that the microCAT IIÂ® SPECT unit is capable of sub-millimeter resolution, however, photon sensitivity improvements either by employing multi-pinhole collimation and/or larger crystal elements will significantly enhance the SPECT pre-clinical performance of the unit.
Functional characterization of the Arabidopsis disease resistance gene RPS4
Authors:   , Zhang Xue-Cheng
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The Arabidopsis disease resistance gene RPS4 activates defense responses to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000 expressing avrRps4 in a gene-for-gene specific manner. Like other plant TIRNBS-LRR resistance genes, RPS4 produces multiple transcripts via alternative splicing. Alternative RPS4 transcripts are predominantly generated by intron retention. First, the biological significance of these alternative transcripts in disease resistance was analyzed. It was shown that alternative RPS4 transcripts are required for complete function and that RPS4-mediated resistance requires the combined presence of multiple transcripts encoding both full-length and truncated open reading frames. Interestingly, the dominant alternative transcript is the only alternative transcript whose abundance relative to the regular transcript undergoes dramatic and dynamic changes during the resistance response. Furthermore, RPS4 expression is induced by AvrRps4 and an unrelated effector, HopPsyA, in an EDS1-dependent manner. These data suggest that rapid gene induction and changes in transcript ratios might be under coordinated regulation that are important to fine-tune RPS4-mediated resistance. Our previous data showed that removal of one intron abolished RPS4 function. However, no significant changes of transcript ratios in intron-deficient transgenic rps4-1 plants were observed compared to rps4-1 expressing a wild type genomic transgene, suggesting that the artificial removal of one intron has no effect on the splicing frequency of other introns. In consistent with our previous data, analyses on secondary RNA structures suggest that alternative RPS4 transcripts function at protein level. Of the three expected truncated RPS4 proteins, only one was detected and stable in vivo, indicating that RPS4 protein stability or activity is regulated. In summary, RPS4 function is regulated at multiple levels including gene expression, alternative splicing and protein stability or activity.
Self-authorship developing within the Sinclair School of Nursing students
Authors:   , Breske Shannon M. B.
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] There has been increasing interest in transforming education to ensure that graduates are appropriately trained to meet the complex health care needs of the 21st century (Sandars and Jackson, 2015). Faculty and administrators have sought ways to improve their educational programs to better prepare health care professionals (Blue, Mitcham, Smith, Raymond, and Greenberg, 2010; Gillett, 2010; Johnson, 2013). The theoretical framework used throughout this study was Baxter Magolda's (2008) self-authorship theory, which was used to examine the experiences and key influencers of students in the Sinclair School of Nursing. The current research sought to understand the students' experiences and if students have gone through the selfauthorship stages while attending the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri. Six student participants and two faculty participants were recruited through purposeful sampling and participated in a semi-structured interview (Merriam, 2009). Through the students' experiences, self-authorship development did occur and five themes emerged. These themes were preceptor, learning, expectations, friendship, and outside activities.
Three essays on the adoption of environmental management innovations in residential areas
Authors:   , Shin Dong Won
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.]
Campus crime : an examination of its relationship to student, instituional and community characteristics
Authors:   , Kalatozi Nino
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] U.S. higher education institutions are facing growing pressure with regard to campus crime. Furthermore, there is a rising public concern about campus safety and security. Hence, institutions are seeking ways to promote safer environments on college campuses so that they can continue to offer quality education, carry out cutting edge research, and provide an outstanding service to humanity within the current fiscal and political milieu. This study provided information to colleges and universities as well as their employees about the factors that influence campus crime. At the same time, the current study offered information to scholars studying crime and violence within higher education, other disciplines, and in the society.
Iron-platinum nanoparticles as multifunctional vehicles in imaging and drug delivery
Authors:   , Mason Christian Alan
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] In the United States alone, approximately 1.6 million people are diagnosed with cancer and over 500,000 people die of cancer each year. According to the American Cancer Society the probability that a male and female will die of cancer are roughly one in four and one in six, respectively. Though current research and development has reduced the mortality rate, the effectiveness of treatment options are severely limited. There has been a rising interest in the literature focused on developing materials with the ability to selectively treat and diagnose a disease or illness. Iron-platinum nanoparticles have great potential as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) agents. These superparamagnetic materials have been studied as they may offer a better alternative to current materials. Several different mechanisms for their formation have been described, and multiple parameters have been used to control the size and shape of these nanoparticles. Variables such as the amounts of surfactant, heating rates, and concentration of metal precursors were explored. The synthesis produced nanoparticles with a disordered face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, subsequent annealing could be performed to produce the face-centered tetragonal crystal structure. The nanoparticles size and shape were analyzed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) along with ImageJ software. The results of these syntheses show that the amount of surfactant used during the synthesis has a significant effect on the size and shape of the nanoparticles. The cubic and spheroid shaped nanoparticles were analyzed for variations in unit cell structure, composition, or magnetic properties. The composition of the nanoparticles was analyzed with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Unit cell structure was analyzed using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). Magnetic measurements were obtained using a 7T MRI instrument. These analyses have shown that the unit cell structure, composition, and magnetic characteristics are different for the cubic and spheroid shaped nanoparticles. The iron-platinum nanoparticles have been coated by a silicon-dioxide network using a silanization reaction developed from the Stober process. Magnetic characteristics and compositional analysis of the coated iron-platinum nanoparticles were performed again using both MRI and ICP-MS. The surface of the silicon-dioxide coated ironplatinum nanoparticles was functionalized using 3-chloropropyltrimethoxy silane. The chlorine functional groups were then replaced with an azide followed by a click reaction to produce beta-cyclodextrin functionalized silica coated iron-platinum nanoparticle. An inclusion study was performed to analyze the beta-cyclodextrin functionalization reactions. These nanoparticles systems have great potential as cancer therapeutic and diagnostic agents.
Employees' perspective of characteristics of small business leadership : a mixed methods study
Authors:   , Putra Eka Diraksa
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This study explored characteristics of small independent restaurant business leaders using an exploratory sequential design of mixed methods research through employees' perspectives. The findings from the qualitative study (phase 1) were later used to develop a leadership measure for small independent restaurants and test it quantitatively (phase 2) for generalization. An exploratory sequential design in which qualitative research was conducted first was employed because of (a) the unique operations of small independent restaurant businesses that affect their owners' management style and (b) the lack of leadership studies on small hospitality businesses. In addition, no measure of leadership approach specifically for small independent restaurant businesses is found in the literature. Furthermore, most leadership constructs have been developed by using leaders or managers of businesses outside the hospitality industry and neglected employees' perceptions. Qualitative data were collected through three focus groups and one dyadic interview with 11 participants. The results of the qualitative data analysis revealed nine themes (respectful, compassionate, communication, experienced, delegation, recognition, sociable, emotional control, organized). A construct was developed using Hinkin, Tracey, and Enz's (1997) guidelines for scale development and analysis specific to the hospitality industry field research setting. For phase 2, the developed questionnaires were distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk with a survey link created by University of Missouri Qualtric Survey Software. A total of 457 data items were collected and 366 were used for analysis. The quantitative results showed that the leadership characteristics of respectful, recognized, organized, and experienced were significantly related to employee intention to leave. In addition, leader-member exchange did not play a mediating role in the relationship between characteristics of small restaurant leadership and employee intention to leave, while employee work engagement only had a mediating role on two factors in the relationship between two characteristics (respectful and organized) of small restaurant leadership and employee intention to leave.
Calderon-Zygmund theory for singular integral operators associated with second-order elliptic partial differential systems on rough subdomains of Riemannian manifolds
Authors:   , Schmutzler Brock Allen
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation is a treatise on the theory of Calderon-Zygmund type singular integral operators capable of handling boundary layer potentials arising naturally in the treatment of elliptic boundary value problems on rough subdomains of Riemannian manifolds, where the nature of the underlying domain is very general, and is best described in the language of geometric measure theory. The resulting theory is a blend of harmonic analysis, differential geometry, and geometric measure theory which includes results pertaining to nontangential boundedness and pointwise traces (jump formulas), square-function and Carleson measure estimates, as well as compactness criteria on Lebesgue and Sobolev spaces.
Information, incentives, markets and policy
Authors:   , Yang Fan
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Chapter One: How low might be the resource costliness of making signals credible? Using a job market as an example, I build a signaling model to determine the extent to which a transfer from an applicant might replace a resource cost as an equilibrium method of achieving signal credibility. As long as a firm's claim to be hiring for an open position is credible, and profitability of the hiring process per se is limited to an application fee, the firm has an incentive to use the properly calibrated fee to implement a separating equilibrium. Applicant risk aversion does not necessarily discourage a monopsonist potential employer from using an application fee, but a firm hiring in a competitive labor market with risk-averse applicants may prefer a pooling equilibrium, hiring all applicants at their average productivity. Partial extension to a model with third-party assistance (a headhunter or a job board) is possible. Chapter Two: How costly is it to keep civilians from danger in a war? Issues previously unrelated are exposed by a new model. A government in a possibly protracted war provides health insurance to conscripts and civilians, possibly different plans. Incentives to engage in healthy behaviors before knowing whether one will be conscripted, as a conscript, and as an unconscripted civilian, are analyzed in relation to aspects of the government's conduct of the war. Surprisingly, killing random civilians can be welfareimproving relative to policies that limit likely lethal actions to cases when civilians face no danger. This may demonstrate reasonable arguments against strategic bombing, which rather than forcing an enemy out of a war, may lead to them battling longer. Chapter Three: Software producers, and possibly a broader range of firms possessing intellectual property, may have an option to rely on a community of volunteers to produce products and variants of products that utilizing the firm's intellectual property, rather than pay employees to do so. A model focusing on the computer gaming industry illustrates this new range of distribution options. In the base model, a company with a developed "game 1" may [a] sell game 1 and allow mods (i.e., a community of volunteer gamers/programmers will develop game 2 based on game 1), [b] develop game 2 itself and sell 2 separately, or [c] develop game 2 itself and sell it as a DLC to game 1 (a special case of mixed bundling). Conditions for each to be the preferred option are explored. An extension to endogenize level of modularity, by considering both a game 2 and a game 3 as mods, is considered.
Studying pupillary light reflex in young children with autism spectrum disorders
Authors:   , Dinalankara Dinalankara M. R.
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Pupillary light reflex (PLR) is a phenomenon wherein the pupil size changes according to retina illumination. PLR of adults and children has been investigated in various studies. However, its significance in the medical care of young children and infants has been limited due to the lack of reliable instrumentation. Traditional PLR devices need to restrain subject or have to be worn on the head, which is not suitable for young children. A remote PLR measuring device was developed which allows the subject to sit far from the device during the PLR test. The device can capture high resolution images at a high sample rate similar to what can be found in a desktop system, but without the need for a restraint. The device follows the subject by tracking their eye movements during the PLR test. The device has been used to test PLR in typical developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), who were between ages of two to six years old. It was found that PLR latency in children with ASDs was longer than in typical developing children. The PLR constriction of the ASD subjects was slightly smaller than the TD subjects, but that difference was not statistically significant in our test. Moreover, the base pupil radius increased and latency decreased with age in the TD children but not in the ASD group. We found that PLR parameters are associated with autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction. TD children with abnormal sweating issues showed a larger PLR constriction and smaller base pupil radius. We found that children with ASD did not show such differences. However, constriction time is negatively correlated with the normalized high frequency component of heart rate variability power spectrum in the ASD group, but not in the TD group. Nine TD children and eight ASD children were tested again 1-1.5 years from their first test date. The PLR parameter differences between the first and second tests were calculated, and we found that latency difference was negatively correlated to base pupil radius difference. Moreover, constriction difference was found to be positively correlated to the base pupil radius difference in TD children, but not in the ASD group. Remote PLR device camera setup was changed to capture the test subject's motion by a one camera while the other camera captures a high resolution pupil image. Because the two cameras are off axis, 3D location of the eye position is directly calculated using stereo vision base method, which helped to remove the need of physical measurement. The entire space occupied by the new rPLR device is about 50% of the previous device.
Ribozymes and aptamers in the RNA world, and in synthetic biology
Authors:   , Poudyal Raghav Raj
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The RNA world hypothesis postulates that Ribonucleic Acids (RNA) may have provided functions of catalysis and genetic information storage during the origin of life on earth. An RNA based life is hypothesized to have undergone Darwinian evolution to ultimately lead into extant biology, where DNA is used as the repository for genetic information and proteins are used as biological catalysts. The discovery of functional RNAs such as catalytic RNAs, regulatory RNAs, and ligand-binding RNA aptamers further strengthen this hypothesis. These functional RNAs are also used as tools for synthetic biology and therapeutics. This work highlights strategies used by RNA enzymes (Ribozymes) for catalysis of chemical reactions, and explores new chemistries catalyzed by ribozymes. We also engineered an in vitro evolved ribozyme to control activities of other functional RNA molecules. Finally, this work explores innovative approaches to discover new RNA enzymes that catalyze biologically relevant reactions. Findings from these studies have revealed potential roles of RNA enzymes during the primordial earth, and also opened doors to build RNA-based tools that regulate biological processes.
Large-scale analysis, management, and retrieval of biological and medical images
Authors:   , Han Jing
Published: April 2021

Biomedical image data have been growing quickly in volume, speed, and complexity, and there is an increasing reliance on the analysis of these data. Biomedical scientists are in need of efficient and accurate analyses of large-scale imaging data, as well as innovative retrieval methods for visually similar imagery across a large-scale data collection to assist complex study in biological and medical applications. Moreover, biomedical images rely on increased resolution to capture subtle phenotypes of diseases, but this poses a challenge for clinicians to sift through haystacks of visual cues to make informative diagnoses. To tackle these challenges, we developed computational methods for large-scale analysis of biological and medical imaging data using simulated annealing to improve the quality of image feature extraction. Furthermore, we designed a Big Data infrastructure for the large-scale image analysis and retrieval of digital pathology images and conducted a longitudinal study of clinician's usage patterns of an image database management system (MDID) to shed light on the potential adoption of new informatics tools. This research also resulted in image analysis, management, and retrieval applications relevant to dermatology, radiology, pathology, life sciences, and palynology disciplines. These tools provide the potential to answer research questions that would not be answerable without our novel innovations that take advantage of Big Data technologies.
Attenuation of rapid onset vasodilation with advanced age : roles of adrenergic and endothelial signaling
Authors:   , Sinkler Shenghua Yuan
Published: April 2021

Rapid onset vasodilation (ROV) occurs immediately in response to skeletal muscle contraction and initiates a prompt increase in blood flow and oxygen delivery that facilitate the transition to exercise. Muscle blood flow is attenuated during aging which limits physical activity. Understanding the mechanisms that attenuate ROV requires invasive measurements that cannot be performed in human subjects. Published studies indicate that the effects of aging on muscle blood flow are similar in mice and in humans. Using our established mouse model to study the actual blood vessels that control blood flow in living skeletal muscle, the focus of my research is to understand where and how aging affects ROV in light of enhanced sympathetic nerve activity and endothelium dysfunction. A mouse was anesthetized and a skeletal muscle was prepared for studying individual microvessels using a microscope. The muscle was stimulated to contract with the amount and speed of vessel opening (vasodilation) recorded. I used selective interventions to modulate sympathetic or endothelial function and compared ROV for each vessel branch between Young (4 months) and Old (24 months) mice to resolve the effects of aging. I found that sympathetic activation attenuates ROV and that endothelium is integral to ROV. Thus, enhanced sympathetic nerve activity and endothelium dysfunction with aging attenuates ROV. These effects are greater effects in larger upstream vessels, which can restrict blood flow into active muscles. My research provides new insight for improving muscle blood flow, thereby promoting physical activity to improve the quality of life for aging individuals.
Essays on arts entrepreneurship : exploring creative entrepreneurial processes
Authors:   , Soares Traquina Alves Elias Sara Rosa
Published: April 2021

Entrepreneurship is fundamental to both the success of artistic careers and economic development and growth. However, scholars have paid little attention, thus far, to the entrepreneurial efforts involved in the creation of artistic work and aesthetic value. In an attempt to call scholarly attention to arts entrepreneurship, this three-paper dissertation (1) challenges the dominant perspective in organizational entrepreneurship that entrepreneurs' primary goal is to maximize economic profit, (2) suggests that three major dimensions -- embodied imagination, contemplation, and consensus -- are involved in the process by which entrepreneurs and customers collaborate in the co-creation of unique ideas, and (3) proposes that entrepreneurs may go through five elements -- experiencing, early creating, reaching an impasse and gestating, (re)creating and evaluating imagined futures, and choosing and enterprising -- as they imagine, create, and act on unique ideas. Overall, this dissertation provides insight into processes that are essential to entrepreneurship while calling scholars' attention to the notion that individuals may become entrepreneurial in the pursuit of entrepreneurial dreams, creative freedom, artistic passion, and social change.
The development and validation of the citizen disaster communication assessment
Authors:   , Spialek Matthew L.
Published: April 2021

Disasters pose a significant public health threat. Current federal disaster management perspectives encourage an approach where citizens become partners in their local communities' efforts to prevent or mitigate the negative consequences of disasters. This dissertation project developed and validated the Citizen Disaster Communication Assessment (CDCA), which is a comprehensive survey instrument measuring individuals' disaster communication before, during, and after the event. The development and validation processes occurred across three studies. Study One consisted of item generation and an expert review. Study Two sought to determine the dimensionality of citizen disaster communication. Study Three surveyed three communities representing different disaster phases in order to examine the relationship among citizen disaster communication, coping, and civic outcomes. Results a) demonstrate evidence of a robust, reliable, and empirically derived citizen disaster communication measure, (b) distinguish citizen disaster communication from other forms of coping, and (c) inform current understanding of how citizens' communication can aid in communities' disaster planning, response, and recovery.
Effects of beta-adrenergic antagonism in autism spectrum disorder
Authors:   , Zamzow Rachel M.
Published: April 2021

Effective treatments for individuals with autism spectrum disorder are lacking, especially when it comes to pharmacological intervention, which can be an important addition to behavioral therapy. Currently available agents target co-occurring symptoms, such as aggression and irritability, and many cause considerable off-target effects. Few agents have been shown to reliably and effectively reduce the impact of other aspects of this disorder, particularly core symptomatology. In the present studies, the noradrenergic system was explored as a target for autism pharmacotherapy, given evidence suggesting elevated anxiety and autonomic dysregulation in individuals with autism. The effects of the beta-adrenergic antagonist propranolol on facial scanning, verbal problem solving, and a measure of social functioning were examined in adults and adolescents with autism via single-dose psychopharmacological challenges. Improvements associated with propranolol administration were observed for each of these domains, and some evidence supports a role of anxiety and autonomic activity in predicting response to treatment. Additionally, the assessment of an ongoing pilot trial investigating the combined effects of propranolol and early intensive behavioral intervention in young children with autism suggests that serial-dose studies with this agent are feasible. This line of work proposes beta-adrenergic antagonism as a potential therapeutic option for individuals with autism that merits further investigation in the form of large, randomized controlled clinical trials.
The effectiveness of an interactive theatre intervention on improving patient adherence to self-management regimens for breast cancer-related lymphedema
Authors:   , Ostby Pamela L.
Published: April 2021

Breast cancer survivors are at lifetime risk for the development of breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL), a chronic, potentially-debilitating, and -disfiguring condition that requires life-long symptom management. Adherence to BCRL self-management is critical to preventing BCRL progression and complications; however, barriers to effective self-management, including complexities of treatment, can negatively affect adherence. Preliminary work for this study has identified physiological, psychological, and psychosocial barriers to successful BCRL self-management. One of the main barriers identified was lack of BCRL education and support for both patients and health care providers, suggesting a need for alternative methods of providing education and support. Currently, printed information is commonly used for patient education and support. This randomized study compared printed information about BCRL to printed information about BCRL and attendance at an Interactive Theatre (IT) performance (n = 36 participants; 19/17). Circumferential and perometric measures were taken at baseline to document BCRL status and valid, reliable questionnaires relevant to symptom management, self-efficacy, and self-regulation were administered pre- and post-intervention. An interactive approach to BCRL education and support with self-management has potential to improve patient outcomes of adherence and coping with BCRL.
Brazen creature
Authors:   , Barngrover Anne
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Brazen Creature spans a young woman's awakening. The poems' concerns are twofold: violence against women and girls that has become rooted in the land, and verdant female desire in the face of entrenched oppression. In the poems' Midwestern towns and farmlands, patriarchy is a ghost that haunts the cottonwoods, soybean fields, and creek beds. The speaker is in limbo between fear and yearning, vulnerability and transgression, drought and flood, saving a life and needing to be saved. Poems from the manuscript have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, and Blackbird, and one of these poems received a 2014 AWP Intro Award for Poetry. I am currently submitting the manuscript to publishers for consideration. The critical component of my dissertation, an essay entitled "The Poetics of Responsibility, Witness, and Empathy in Muriel Rukeyser's The Book of the Dead and Tarfia Faizullah's Seam," is implicitly connected to my creative work since it shares interests in trauma, oppression, and survival. I apply Carolyn Forche's theory of the poetics of witness, as both Rukeyser and Faizullah bore witness to the aftermath of widespread cultural trauma. By close reading selected poems and connecting them to other works that bear witness to trauma, I compare the books' technical approaches and argue that Rukeyser and Faizullah push the poetics of historical sensibility into the poetics of historical responsibility while writing toward a radical empathy to express what cannot be intellectualized.
Our family walks
Authors:   , Robinson Nick R.
Published: April 2021

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Our Family Walks is a coming-of-age narrative that explores what it means to be an African American/multiracial boy growing into manhood during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in a city that is the seat of America's political power, Washington D.C. In the tradition of Tobias Woolf's This Boy's Life and Ta-Nahisi Coates's Between the World and Me, the memoir examines familial and institutional relationships as well as the relationship between the individual and society at moments of great sociocultural and political shifts. Two-thirds through, at Chapter 7, the narrative morphs from being about a boy surviving his hardscrabble childhood and life at the orphanage, to a story of victim turned victimizer, and an author considering what this turn meant then, and what it means today. The story comes full circle by concluding in Obama's America amidst a 21st century resurgence of the Civil Rights Movement.
Sector-specific surprise and news shocks
Authors:   , Baek Ingul
Published: April 2021

I estimate the decomposition of total factor productivity (TFP) shocks by two sectors: (a) investment and (b) consumption. I also identify sectoral shocks by the timing of shocks realization, surprise shocks (unanticipated) and news shocks (anticipated), to investigate negative correlations among TFP in investment sector and macro variables. I find that surprise shocks to investment sector drive recession in short run. In contrast, positive comovements in response to TFP news shocks to investment sector immediately trigger economic boom. A two-sector DSGE (Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium) model confirms that price rigidity of investment goods is a key factor to generate the responses to the sector-specific TFP surprise shocks and news shocks as the empirical response: high rigidity for the surprise shocks and low rigidity for the new shocks. This result suggests that the model should adjust with the degree of the price rigidity depending on the surprise shocks or the news shocks.
Instability in a palladium hydride system due to a fast electrical perturbation caused by a pulsed power system
Authors:   , Baker Julian
Published: April 2021

Nanoporous palladium with a specific surface area of 29.12 m2g-1 was created using highly loaded palladium hydride wires subjected to a fast electrical pulse of energy. The delivered energy of approximately 0.5 J was insufficient to melt unloaded palladium wires, but in contrast, caused highly loaded palladium hydride wires to disintegrate. An element such as palladium, which was studied in these experiments, has the capacity to store hydrogen and deuterium to extremely high concentrations. Additionally, electrical explosion experiments of palladium hydride wires were performed on single samples at the loading ratios ranging from 0.5 up to 0.96, approaching the highest experimentally achieved loading ratio of 1. It was found that nanoporous palladium was created by the pulsing of palladium hydride wires at loading ratios higher than the threshold of 0.6. Each additional increase in the hydrogen loading ratio caused an accompanying increase in the surface area. In contrast, when the hydrogen loading ratio was below 0.6 the wire remained intact and there was no nanoporosity produced. Finally, a novel calorimetry technique was used to determine the relative amount of energy released from a wire during a fast, low energy pulse. Statistical analysis using Dunnett's T3 test with a significance level of 0.05 was performed on the experimental data, and showed a statistical difference between the means of the control (i.e. unloaded palladium wires) when compared to PdH0.72 and PdH0.9, and a statistical difference when comparing the control mean to PdD0.5 and PdD0.87.
Near infrared fluorescent sensors and their use in vivo
Authors:   , Cooley Nicholas P.
Published: April 2021

In an effort to design near-infrared (NIR), water soluble glucose sensors, several pH sensitive NIR cyanine derivates were designed and synthesized to provide insight into the viability of the cyanine platform as the fluorophore core for performing minimally invasive long term glucose monitoring in vivo. Many previous efforts to build effective fluorescent sensors for glucose have provided guidance towards the architecture of binding groups and fluorescent response required to achieve this goal, but have not provided appropriate solubility, or excitation and emission characteristics for in vivo sensing. In an effort to address the aqueous solubility of the highly rigid cyanine platform, a tetra sulfonated core was chosen for this work. Though fully water soluble, pH sensitive derivates still showed some aggregation characteristics. Simple sugarbinding boronic acid derivatives showed appropriate fluorescent responses, but poor binding. Efforts to improve binding through synthesis of bis-boronic acid compounds proved elusive.
Synthesis design and nuclear medicine applications for radiometal, beta and gamma emission, chelated complexes
Authors:   , Dame Ashley N.
Published: April 2021

Nuclear medicine covers a wide variety of radionuclides to meet demands of disease. In the current study, first we have looked at the application of mono-amine mono-amide ligands for Re(V), 99mTc(V), and 186Re(V) with respect to bombesin for receptor targeting in the pancreas. While procedures for synthesizing 99mTc complexes is similar to other reported procedures, rhenium complexes were synthesized using [ReO(citrate)2] as the starting material, simplifying purification and isolation. Further studies for the 222-MAMA-BBN complex set included biodistribution studies, which determined that the 99mTc-BBN complex binds to GRP receptors in the pancreas, [about]3 percent ID/g. The 323-MAMA complex and derivatives were investigated to determine if the 222- or the 323-MAMA backbone provide: an easier preparation, a better framework for chelating given metals, and better transport as a targeting receptor. It is found that, in comparative studies, the 222-MAMA derivates are more preferred in chelation. However, in either case, once the metal is chelated, there is no conversion of products upon the addition of a more preferred ligand system. Another avenue of target therapy being pursued is the study of 105Rh. We are specifically looking at the study of chelation with tetrathioether complexes, to rhodium(III) to translate to the radiotracer scale. Three product isomers are formed in the reaction of rhodium, using SnCl2, with 222-S4-diAcOH. The carboxylate arm can either be free dangling, one bound to the metal, or both (removing bound chlorides respectively); all of these isomers can be easily separated using HPLC. These three species will be avoided when translated to the ligand bombesin analog. Future research in this area will be done with the 105Rh radiotracer for biological applications.