The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of Black males being raised in a mother-only household and their career aspirations. The absence of the father in a home stands at the forefront as the cause of family dysfunction, which subsequently leads to the destruction of many hopes and dreams of the Black male.Is a mother-only household a preconceived environment for failure for the Black male?

Thesis. 1978. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.S.

Esta dissertação de mestrado tem como objetivo estudar a relação entre as propriedades semântico-pragmáticas das clivadas e as do advérbio somente. Mais especificamente, procura, por meio do estudo de ocorrências de clivadas com e sem somente, delimitar tais propriedades, verificando se os chamados “efeitos de exaustividade” (Kiss, 1998) são propriedades inerentes a esse tipo de construção. De acordo com Teixeira e Menuzzi (2015), a impossibilidade do uso de clivadas com somente em certos contextos indica que ela não é exaustiva – propriedades independentes de somente, contudo, também podem ser responsáveis por essa inadequação. Em nosso estudo, exploramos as razões que levam a essa inadequação, a partir de duas hipóteses: (i) da pressuposição de unicidade e (ii) das implicações de somente: a prejacente e a de exclusão. De acordo com Szabolcsi (1994); Wedgwood et. al (2006), a primeira hipótese afirma que clivadas pressupõem que apenas um único indivíduo satisfaz a predicação expressa em sua oração, o que nos leva a concluir que não pode ser adequada com somente, já que seria redundante assertar exclusão. A segunda hipótese, contudo (cf. Horn 1969, 1981), afirma que clivadas pressupõem apenas existência – não sendo incompatível com a noção de exclusão, permitiria que fossem usadas com somente. A partir de análises de clivadas com e sem somente em diversos contextos, nossos julgamentos de aceitabilidade indicam que, embora clivadas possam pressupor unicidade, esse não é, de fato, um requisito necessário para o seu uso. E, no caso de somente, também verificamos que não basta que clivadas pressuponham apenas existência, as implicações de somente também precisar ser satisfeitas contextualmente. Em resumo, acreditamos que a pressuposição da clivada não precisa ser de unicidade, não implica necessariamente exclusão e é, portanto, mais fraca do que a literatura em geral supõe. Com objetivo de verificar nossos julgamentos de aceitabilidade, aplicamos testes Likert em um grupo diverso de falantes de língua portuguesa, para que julgassem textos contendo clivadas com e sem somente. Casos em que a clivada com somente pressupõe apenas existência parecem se correlacionar com os nossos julgamentos, mas casos de unicidade e de satisfação dos requisitos de somente mostram-se problemáticos – em especial quando somente envolve alguma noção de “contra-expectativa”. Esses casos, estudados em pormenor, indicam a necessidade de controlarmos mais fortemente variáveis que envolvam a leitura dos textos aplicados e de investigar outros tipos de inferências possivelmente levantados por somente. / This thesis studies the relationship between the semantic-pragmatic properties of cleft sentences and the adverb only. More specifically, it aims at investigating whether the so-called “exhaustive effects” (Kiss, 1998) are inherent to clefts, through the study of clefts with and without only. According to Teixeira & Menuzzi (2015), the impossibility of clefts with only in certain contexts indicates that they are not exhaustive; independent properties of only may also be responsible for such inadequacy, though – requiring the application of other expressions to verify it. In our study, we analyzed the (in)adequacy of clefts with only based on two hypotheses: (i) the presupposition of uniqueness and (ii) the two implications of only, the prejacent implication and the exclusive implication. According to Szabolcsi (1994); Wedgwood et. all (2006), the first hypothesis assumes that clefts presuppose uniqueness, i. e., they presuppose that only one individual satisfies the predication expressed by the cleft clause. In such cases, only, it seems, is not appropriate in clefts, since it would be redundant to assert exclusion. Horn (1969, 1981), however, states that clefts presuppose existence, therefore allowing only to assert exclusion. Based on analysis of our own acceptability judgements of clefts with and without only, we find that, although clefts can presuppose uniqueness, this is not a necessary condition, and, when it comes to only, it is not enough that clefts simply presuppose existence – the implications of only need also be satisfied, as Teixeira & Menuzzi (2015) have pointed out. In summary, we believe that the presupposition of clefts need not be of uniqueness, and need not imply exclusion: they are weaker than the literature generally suggests. In order to confirm our own judgments, Likert tests were applied on a range of Portuguese speakers to judge texts containing clefts with and without only. The results show that cases in which the cleft with only presupposes only existence seem to confirm our hypotheses, but cases of uniqueness and requirements of the implications of only seem to be problematic – especially when only involves some notion of “counter-expectation”. These cases, studied in detail, indicate the need to better control variables such as reading proficiency and to investigate other possible inferences of only.

The purposes of this study were to 1) explore student attitudes toward the English-only environment in an intensive English program, and 2) find factors that either promote or inhibit students' desire to use English in their communication with compatriots in school. Qualitative research methods employed were a) a student questionnaire (with a total of 158 participants), b) semi-structured interviews with students (total 6 participants), and c) four student focus groups (with a total of 62 participants). The study was conducted at the English Language Center (ELC) at Brigham Young University. The participants were students of four native language groups (Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese) and varied levels of proficiency. The findings indicate that the majority of the students acknowledged the helpfulness of the English-only environment at the ELC, but recognized some factors that prevented them from speaking only English in the school building. These factors were grouped into five categories: sociocultural, linguistic, individual, psychological, and institutional. The sociocultural factors included peer pressure, fear of negative evaluation by compatriots, cultural communication patterns, maintaining friendship with compatriots, and need for cultural bonding. The linguistic factors included low language proficiency, difficulty in understanding teachers' assignments, translating habits, and linguistic differences between English and students' L1. The category of the individual factors consisted of the intensity of motivation and personality type. Lack of confidence, stress from speaking English, and fear of having a different personality when speaking English were categorized as psychological factors. Finally, the institutional category included physical factors (number of students of the same L1 in school/class, distance from the university campus), teacher factors (teachers' ability to motivate students, other teachers' characteristics [being sensitive to students' cultures, understanding students' individual circumstances, the ability to establish a rapport with students]), and curricular and administrative factors (poor enforcement of the English-only rule, weaknesses of speaking classes, lack of activities that promote interaction with students from other countries). This study provides a deep understanding of the reasons why many students speak their native language once they leave the English classroom. Based on these findings, recommendations regarding the development and modification of curricula in order to improve the language-learning environment at English institutions are offered to classroom teachers and program administrators.

Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) is critical to Earth communications, weather monitoring, and national defense. Orbit estimation of GEO objects is difficult due to physical constraints placed on ground-based tracking devices such as weather, object range, and tracking frequency restrictions. These constraints are commonly mitigated through the use of two-way signaling devices for cooperative GEO satellites. However, determining the position and velocity of uncooperative GEO satellites and/or objects is more challenging. The objective of this dissertation is to quantify the increased orbital accuracy of objects in the GEO catalog when the Air Force Space Command Space Surveillance Network (AFSPC SSN) is augmented with space-based angles-only measurements from a sensor in a unique near-GEO orbit. Linear covariance theory and analysis provides an efficient method to determine the covariance of the position and velocity of an uncooperative GEO object, while incorporating uncertainties in the dynamics and sensor errors. Once this covariance is determined, an error budget analysis is performed to determine the major sources of uncertainty contributing to position errors of objects in the GEO catalog. As a result, it is shown through linear covariance analysis that incorporating measurements from a space-based sensor in a near-GEO orbit increases the orbital accuracy of GEO objects when compared to the orbital accuracy achieved with AFSPC SSN measurements alone.

<p>In angle-only target tracking the aim is to estimate the state of a target with use of measurement of elevation and azimuth. The state consists of relative position and velocity between the target and the platform. The platform is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and the tracking system is meant to be a part of the platform’s anti-collision system. In the case where both the target and the platform travel with constant velocity the angle measurements do not provide any information of the range between the target and the platform. The platform has to maneuver to be able to estimate the range to the target.</p><p>Two filters are implemented and tested on simulated data. The first filter is based on a Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and is designed for tracking nonmaneuvering targets. Different platform maneuvers are studied and the influence of initial errors and the geometry of the simulation scenario is investigated. The filter is able to estimate the position of the target if the platform maneuvers and the target travels with constant velocity. Maneuvering targets on the other hand can not be tracked by the filter.</p><p>The second filter is an interacting multiple model (IMM) filter, designed for tracking maneuvering targets. The filter performance is highly dependent of the geometry of the scenario. The filter has been tuned for a scenario where the target approaches the platform from the front. In this scenario the filter is able to track both maneuvering and non-maneuvering targets. If the target approaches the platform from the side on the other hand, the filter has problems with distinguish target maneuvers from measurement noise.</p>

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancy are significant public health concerns. Abstinence-only until marriage (AOUM) and abstinence pledge programs have received a significant amount of government funding in an attempt to address these problems. Despite receiving over two billion dollars in funding, the programs have not been shown to be effective in achieving their stated goals. In addition, there are significant concerns about the content of AOUM curriculums, including medical inaccuracy and use of outdated gender stereotypes.

This master thesis investigates the performance of a car navigation system using lateral accelerometers, yaw rate and bearings relative three known radio beacons. Accelerometer, gyroscope and position data has been collected by an IMU combined with a GPS receiver, where the IMU was installed in the approximate motion center of a car. The bearing measurements are simulated using GPS data and the measurement noise model is derived from an experiment where the direction of arrival to one transmitter was estimated by an antenna array and the signal processing algorithm MUSIC. The measurements are fused in a multi-rate extended Kalman filter which assumes that all measurement noise is Gaussian distributed. This is not the case for the bearing measurement noise which contains outliers and therefore is modelled as a Gaussian uniform noise mixture. Different methods to deal with this have been investigated where the main focus is on the principle to use the Kalman filter’s innovation for each bearing measurement as an indication of its quality and discarding measurements with a quality above a certain threshold.

In angle-only target tracking the aim is to estimate the state of a target with use of measurement of elevation and azimuth. The state consists of relative position and velocity between the target and the platform. The platform is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and the tracking system is meant to be a part of the platform’s anti-collision system. In the case where both the target and the platform travel with constant velocity the angle measurements do not provide any information of the range between the target and the platform. The platform has to maneuver to be able to estimate the range to the target. Two filters are implemented and tested on simulated data. The first filter is based on a Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and is designed for tracking nonmaneuvering targets. Different platform maneuvers are studied and the influence of initial errors and the geometry of the simulation scenario is investigated. The filter is able to estimate the position of the target if the platform maneuvers and the target travels with constant velocity. Maneuvering targets on the other hand can not be tracked by the filter. The second filter is an interacting multiple model (IMM) filter, designed for tracking maneuvering targets. The filter performance is highly dependent of the geometry of the scenario. The filter has been tuned for a scenario where the target approaches the platform from the front. In this scenario the filter is able to track both maneuvering and non-maneuvering targets. If the target approaches the platform from the side on the other hand, the filter has problems with distinguish target maneuvers from measurement noise.

The existence of informal male networks, sometimes referred to as "old boys' networks", tends to exclude women from top jobs. More and more women have come to realize that they need professional contacts for a successful career and that they also needed each other’s support. Therfore many women are joining women-only networks or trying to create there own informal networks. The purpose is to establish useful contacts, learn new things, and be able to share their concerns with other women in the same situation. For some it gives an opportunity to find a mentor who can guide them. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to study if women’s lacking access to male networks is an obstacle for career advancement and to give an insight into women-only networks and their effectiveness to support women leaders and managers and increase women's representation in senior positions. The empirical findigs were conducted in Växjö, Sweden; in the networks “Fröken” and “Rotary”, and one women-only network in Linz, Austria; the BPW, “Business &amp; Professional Women”.