Topics in geometric analysis and harmonic analysis on spaces of homogeneous type

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Ryan Alvarado

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The present dissertation consists of three main parts. One theme underscoring the work carried out in this dissertation concerns the relationship between analysis and geometry. As a first illustration of the interplay between these two branches of mathematics we develop a sharp theory of Hardy spaces in the setting of spaces of homogeneous type. The presented work is in collaboration with M. Mitrea. In the second part, we prove that a function defined on a subset of a geometrically doubling quasi-metric space which satisfies a Holder-type condition may be extended to the entire space with preservation of regularity. The proof proceeds along the lines of the original work of Whitney in 1934 and yields a linear extension operator. A similar extension result is also proved in the absence of the geometrically doubling hypothesis, albeit the resulting extension procedure is nonlinear in this case. This work is done in collaboration I. Mitrea and M. Mitrea. In the final part of the dissertation we prove that an open, proper, nonempty subset of Rn is a locally Lyapunov domain if and only if it satisfies a uniform hour-glass condition. Additionally, we prove a sharp generalization of the Hopf-Oleinik boundary point principle for domains satisfying a one-sided, interior pseudo-ball condition, for semi-elliptic operators with singular drift. These results have been obtained in collaboration with D. Brigham, V. Maz'ya, M. Mitrea, and E. Ziade.

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Reza Houston

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This study is an examination of the relationship between political connections and the undertaking of major firm events. In our first essay, presented in Chapter 3, we examine the impact politically connected appointments have on firm acquisition behavior. Using proxy statements, we create a unique database of politically connected bidders and merger targets. We find that bidders who hire connected individuals to the board or management team are more likely to avoid merger litigation. Connected bidders make more bids after the appointment. These firms also bid on larger targets. We determine there is a positive relation between the control premium and the relative of the target's connections. Connected acquirers have superior post-merger accounting performance, particularly when they acquire a connected target firm. In the second essay, presented in Chapter 4, we examine the relationship between political connections of private firms and the initial public offering process. Using registration statement information, we create a unique database of politically connected IPO firms. We find that political connections are substitutes to high-quality underwriters and big four auditors. Politically connected firms manage earnings more highly upward than non-connected firms prior to the public offering. Politically connected firms also exhibit less underpricing than non-connected firms. Politically connected IPO firms also have superior post-IPO returns relative to non-connected IPO firms.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulkarim Shwani ◽  
Pamela R. F. Adkins ◽  
Nnamdi S. Ekesi ◽  
Adnan Alrubaye ◽  
Michael J. Calcutt ◽  
...  

AbstractS. agnetis has been previously associated with subclinical or clinically mild cases of mastitis in dairy cattle and is one of several Staphylococcal species that have been isolated from the bone and blood of lame broilers. We were the first to report that S. agnetis could be obtained frequently from bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO) lesions of lame broilers. Further, we showed that a particular isolate of S. agnetis, chicken isolate 908, can induce lameness in over 50% of exposed chickens, far exceeding normal BCO incidences in broiler operations. We have previously reported the assembly and annotation of the genome of isolate 908. To better understand the relationship between dairy cattle and broiler isolates, we assembled 11 additional genomes for S. agnetis isolates, including an additional chicken BCO strain, and ten isolates from milk, mammary gland secretions or udder skin, from the collection at the University of Missouri. To trace phylogenetic relationships, we constructed phylogenetic trees based on multi-locus sequence typing, and Genome-to-Genome Distance Comparisons. Chicken isolate 908 clustered with two of the cattle isolates along with three isolates from chickens in Denmark and an isolate of S. agnetis we isolated from a BCO lesion on a commercial broiler farm in Arkansas. We used a number of BLAST tools to compare the chicken isolates to those from cattle and identified 98 coding sequences distinguishing isolate 908 from the cattle isolates. None of the identified genes explain the differences in host or tissue tropism. These analyses are critical to understanding how Staphylococci colonize and infect different hosts and potentially how they can transition to alternative niches (bone vs dermis).ImportanceStaphylococcus agnetis has been recently recognized as associated with disease in dairy cattle and meat type chickens. The infections appear to be limited in cattle and systemic in broilers. This report details the molecular relationships between cattle and chicken isolates in order to understand how this recently recognized species infects different hosts with different disease manifestations. The data show the chicken and cattle isolates are very closely related but the chicken isolates all cluster together suggesting a single jump from cattle to chickens.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Erik Ladomersky

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Copper is an essential nutrient. It plays an important role in development, pigmentation, neurological function, and immune defense. Copper deficiency is known to make host's more susceptible to infection. In this work we show that two copper proteins, ATP7A and ceruloplasmin, are important for host defense against bacterial infection. Studies have shown ATP7A is responsible for increasing copper concentrations inside the phagosome. Our study sheds light on the role of Atp7a and copper in adaptive immunity, and provide a biochemical model for understanding the relationship between copper malnutrition and susceptibility to infection. Iron, another essential nutrient, is linked with copper through the actions of copper-dependent proteins which play a role in maintaining normal iron levels in the blood. One of these proteins is ceruloplasmin, a protein that is also upregulated during infection. Our study sheds light onto why this protein is necessary for host defense against Salmonella infection.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Kevin Brewster

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Trace and extension theory lay the foundation for solving a plethora of boundary value problems. In developing this theory, one typically needs well-behaved extension operators from a specified domain to the entire Euclidean space. Historically, three extension operators have developed much of the theory in the setting of Lipschitz domains (and rougher domains); those due to A.P. Calderon, E.M. Stein, and P.W. Jones. In this dissertation, we generalize Stein's extension operator to weighted Sobolev spaces and Jones' extension operator to domains with partially vanishing traces. We then develop a rich trace/extension theory as a tool in solving a Poisson boundary value problem with Dirichlet boundary condition where the differential operator in question is of second order in divergence form with bounded coefficients satisfying the Legendre-Hadamard ellipticity condition.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Jacob Warren Wright

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation argues for a virtue account of science in which foundational scientific goals are achieved by scientists' employment of virtuous tools and practices. Chapter 1 discusses contemporary literature on the nature and success of biology, especially the realism/antirealism debate within biology. This chapter also provides background into the debate surrounding explanation and understanding. Chapter 2 challenges the idea that successful biology requires appeals to laws of nature by arguing that some foundational scientific goals best realized by unlawful tools and practices. This result provides a criterion for determining whether a discipline is more scientific than another another; disciplines are more or less scientific to the extent that they are able to achieve foundational scientific goals. Chapter 3 examines a test case for the result in Chapter 2 by analyzing McShea and Brandon's [2010] Zero Force Evolutionary Law (ZFEL). I show that the ZFEL's failure as a law does not impact its usefulness to scientists, who are able to use the ZFEL to achieve a number of important, foundational goals. Chapter 4 provides a strategy for determining foundational scientific goals by examining the debate surrounding the relationship between understanding and explanation. By analyzing Khalifa's [2013a] Explanatory Knowledge Model of Understanding, I demonstrate that understanding is not a species of explanation and is thus a foundational scientific goal. It is a goal that scientists aim at, has intrinsic benefit, and is not reducible to other scientific goals. Finally, Chapter 5 presents an outline of the virtue account. On this account, science is successful to the extent it regularly achieves foundational scientific goals. Science does so by employing virtuous tools and practices--those tools and practices that regularly allow for the achievement of foundational goals. The chapter concludes by examining several benefits of this view and considering future avenues for research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley D. Stoner ◽  
Deborah L. Nichols

AbstractWe explore the relationship between long-distance pottery trade and the formation of Early and Middle Formative style horizons in Mesoamerica. A sample of 1,154 ceramics mostly from Early and Middle Formative contexts in the central Mexican highlands was irradiated at the University of Missouri Research Reactor with a subsample (n = 313) for petrographic analysis. We conclude that: (1) most sites and regions display more than one process for making pottery; (2) there is a small amount of intraregional exchange among central Mexican sites, with the southeastern Basin of Mexico making the largest portion of pottery intended for trade within the region; and (3) interregional imports found at several sites likely come from the metamorphic region of southwestern Puebla with smaller numbers imported from the southern Gulf Coast, Morelos, and possibly Oaxaca. The trend over time from Early Formative to the end of the Middle Formative is one of decreasing intensity of long-distance interaction and decreasing geographic range of trade. These two trends contribute to the regional divergence of ceramic styles that peaks by the Late Formative in Mesoamerica.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Joy M. Jenkins

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation uses an ethnographic case study to examine the perspectives and representational practices of local journalists through a case study of an award-winning city magazine, D Magazine in Dallas, Texas. The study assessed how staff members discursively constructed their journalistic identity within a geographically focused media organization. The study also considered the relationship between journalistic identity and organizational identity by addressing how the staff members described their surrounding community and their organization's function within it as well as how those understandings shaped D and its members. Lastly, the study used field theory to address how external and internal influences on newswork informed staff members' ideologies, routines, and perceptions of D's local function. The findings suggest that staff members operated within a networked hierarchy through which they collaborated both within individual publications and across departments while also fulfilling corporate needs for entrepreneurship and innovation. Within this environment, staff members balanced journalistic- and audience-oriented editorial emphases through reinforcing a city-magazine mentality that dictated and legitimized topic selection and content approaches. Lastly, the study recognized how D attracted and engaged various forms of capital while also shifting its focus to amassing civic capital as a means of manifesting its local agenda in tangible ways.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Sarah F. May

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] A growing body of literature documents recent trends in Latina/o immigrant settlement in non-traditional communities throughout the South and Midwest. These areas present unique strengths and barriers for immigrant settlement. Drawing on Berry's (1974; 1997; 2001; 2003; 2013) model of acculturation and research on well-being outcomes associated with discrimination, the current study tested a model of immigrant well-being with a sample of 122 Latina/o immigrant participants living in the rural Midwest. Specifically, this study explored hypotheses that (1) the relationship between acculturation/enculturation and well-being (i.e. life satisfaction and psychological distress) may be mediated by discrimination experienced in settlement communities, and (2) discrimination experiences may lead to increased psychological distress, which will, in turn, result in decreased life satisfaction. Results indicated good model fit, but only partial support of hypotheses. Specifically, the model supports the hypothesized pathway between discrimination experiences and global judgments about life satisfaction, mediated by increased psychological distress. However, associations between acculturation/enculturation and perceived discrimination were non-significant. These findings echo existing research which establishes that experiences of discrimination have deleterious effects on the physical and mental health of members of oppressed groups (APA, 2006; Pascoe and Richman, 2009). Results further suggest current measures of acculturation may be insufficient to explain immigrants' complex settlement experiences. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Amanda Nell Edgar

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This project examines the racial and gendered meanings of vocal sound, focusing specifically on the ways voices and their cultural associations are circulated through media. I employ methods and theoretical assumptions drawn from cultural studies, rhetoric, and feminist and critical race theory to examine mediated voices. The traditional textual analysis methods and more innovative approaches specific to vocal communication studies I outline here are designed to map the relationship between two tenets of vocal ideology: vocal identity and vocal intimacy. Through this project, then, I extend previous literature on vocal sound's ability to construct and communicate aspects of racial and gendered identities. Additionally, this study theorizes the way these identities work with media's structures and the broader cultural context to encourage a sense of intimacy for consumers. The theoretical tenets of what I call "critical cultural vocalics" are concretized through analyses of Morgan Freeman's acting career, political impersonations on Saturday Night Live, and Whitevoice impressions by stand-up comedians of color. By examining these two intersecting and co-constitutive processes in the context of three case studies, I propose and demonstrate a critical cultural vocalics designed to foreground the ways vocal identity and vocal intimacy work together to idealize particular performances of race and gender through media's voices.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
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Amanada Veasman

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The purpose of this research is to understand the emotional and physical impacts a mother's incarceration has on her children and to closely examine a program designed to help alleviate such burdens. We will study familial relationships within the confines of a prison system while exploring the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program, which aims to strengthen the relationship between incarcerated mothers and their daughters. It is through this unique program that incarcerated women are afforded the rare opportunity to reclaim their mothering role. Given this, we will investigate the various mothering strategies employed by these women to successfully mother beyond bars. The primary ambition of most separated families is to reunite after incarceration. "Positive reunion is often the result of opportunities for continued contact between mothers and their children during a mother's incarceration" (Henriques, 1996). Prison visitation has also proven to be effective in reducing recidivism, decreasing prison violence, and thwarting the intergenerational cycle of imprisonment. However, 63% of women in state prisons are placed 100 miles or more from their families, making regularly visitation extremely cumbersome (Mosteller, 2019). The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program breaks through this constraint by offering its troop members transportation to and from the correctional centers at no cost to these families.


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