This study examines factors that influence the language use of preschool children in a child/parent education program. The Preschool for Child/Parent Education Project was initiated to address concerns for at risk children and their families in the community of Nipawin, Saskatchewan. The families invited to participate in the program were identified as having preschool children who were potentially at risk for school success.<p> The language experiences of four preschool children were observed as they participated in one nine-week child/parent education session. The parents, caregivers and preschool teacher were interviewed regarding their views about the language experiences of the children.<p> The factors that emerged as having an influence on the children's use of language in the preschool program were: play center activities, direct instruction, authentic experiences, parent/caregiver involvement and teacher efficacy. Results showed that the children in the Preschool for Child/Parent Education Project experienced a program that understood the language needs of young children and the powerful influence of a supportive family.<p> Implications are drawn concerning the benefits of providing opportunities for language development and use during the crucial preschool years in a child/parent education program. Recommendations for further research suggest recognition of the effects of early language intervention on young children with difficult life circumstances.

The term heritage language (HL), which only emerged in the context of language policy during the 1990’s, refers to immigrant, refugee, and indigenous languages whose target group of learners have either previously learned the language as a first language (L1) or home language, or have some form of heritage connection to the language (Cummins, 2005). The bilingual nature of these individuals is ambiguous, as variables related to literacy and oral proficiency in the first language are significantly influenced by geographical, cultural, academic, and sociolinguistic factors prevalent to the context in which the speaker is situated. The topic of HL is the subject of a growing number of studies in second language acquisition as well as bilingual education. Given that an increasing number of immigrants from around the world continue to make the United States their place of permanent residence, the country’s educational focus needs to take into account the needs of heritage language learners (HLL), especially as that focus shifts from the exclusive teaching of foreign languages to incorporating the maintenance and linguistic competence of our multilingual inhabitants. / text

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This thesis is about investment of a family business. It is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. The theoretical part describes aquisitions, investments, financial stability, strategy and growing rate. Practical part analizes small family business and its financial situation considering evaluation of investments based on net present value.

The main goal of the diploma thesis is the description and comparison of existing methods for calculating the customer lifetime value at a firm. Second, minor goal is based on the comparison to choose a suitable method of calculation for an application in a real business unit. The used methodology contains detailed research of available foreign academic literature. Building on that a comparison of the methods based on selected criteria is conducted. Results of a questionnaire survey are used in the last chapter to provide specific sugestions for the possible marketing applications of CLV approach and calculation in a specific business unit.

O objetivo central deste trabalho foi desenvolver um modelo empírico que mostrasse a existência, ou não, de diferentes probabilidades de consumo do álcool nas regiões abrangidas pela Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares (POF). Isto permite analisar se políticas energéticas para o setor de combustíveis devem ser diferenciadas por região. Em um segundo momento, esses resultados foram usados para a realização de simulações, por meio de modificações nas variáveis explicativas, da probabilidade de consumo do álcool. O intuito foi verificar as modificações esperadas, desses resultados, na demanda da gasolina e do álcool combustível e fazer comparação, por meio de ilustração, entre os resultados reais e os simulados em relação à emissão de CO2 resultante do consumo estimado para esses combustíveis. Os dados exibem baixa preferência pelo álcool no Brasil, abaixo de 10% do total da amostra. Em relação às probabilidades reais estimadas, a região Sudeste apresenta efeitos superiores aos alcançados para Brasil, aproximadamente 1,3 vezes maior. Os resultados encontrados em relação a acréscimos no preço do álcool combustível mostram, de maneira similar à verificada para Brasil, maior sensibilidade da redução da probabilidade para acréscimos entre os intervalos de variação de 05 e 20%. Variações no preço da gasolina de forma a aumentar o preço desse combustível causam maior diferença entre a probabilidade real e a simulada, aumento, do que reduções no preço do álcool. Para a região Sudeste, o impacto na probabilidade em virtude de aumentos no preço da gasolina é cerca de três vezes maiores do que os verificados em conseqüência de reduções no preço do álcool. Os resultados encontrados para as simulações que consideram reduções no preço da gasolina para a região Sudeste mostram que em torno de 40% de aumento nesse preço a probabilidade estimada aproxima-se de zero. Para Brasil, essa condição corresponderia a valores próximos a 35% de redução no preço desse combustível. De modo geral, para os intervalos de variações considerados, aumentos no preço da gasolina implicam aumentos em torno de três vezes maiores na probabilidade de consumo do álcool em relação a reduções no preço do álcool. As estimativas encontradas para a demanda total de combustíveis, gasolina e álcool, em litros, e a emissão de carbono, em toneladas por litro, esperados para um período de cinco anos e impactos na probabilidade para variação nos preços de 5% mostram que a demanda total e, consequentemente, a emissão de carbono verificada para Brasil é cerca de 2,5 vezes maior que à da região Sudeste. Examinando a diferença entre as estimativas de emissão de carbono esperadas para um comportamento futuro que exibisse a probabilidade real estimada de consumo atual e as probabilidades de consumo estimadas para alterações desse comportamento, via preço, tem-se que para as situações que implicam aumento da probabilidade de consumo do álcool combustível, ou seja, redução do preço desse combustível e aumento do preço da gasolina, reduções em torno 0,15% para o primeiro caso, e 0,37%, para o segundo, para Brasil. Para a região Sudeste, redução do preço do álcool originaria redução de cerca de 955,16 toneladas ano-1, e 2.519,13 toneladas ano-1 para semelhante percentual de aumento no preço da gasolina, o que corresponderia a reduções de 0,165 e 0,43% . Nota-se que alterações no preço da gasolina originam impactos em torno de 2,6 e 2,4 vezes maiores na redução de emissão para região Sudeste e Brasil, respectivamente. Aumento do preço do álcool implica em aumentar o nível de emissão de carbono em cerca de 1.969,81 toneladas ano-1 para Brasil, e 855,60 toneladas ano-1 na região Sudeste. Isto implica em aumentar o nível de emissões em 0,13% para Brasil e 0,15% para a região Sudeste. Para redução no preço da gasolina esse aumento no nível de emissões será de cerca de 0,28%, para Brasil, e 0,35%, Sudeste. Como previsto, mudanças no preço da gasolina provocam maiores alterações na demanda e emissão. Assim, os resultados do modelo base e os simulados mostram que programas políticos que promovam maior eficiência, autonomia, da gasolina possuem maior probabilidade de reduzir seu consumo do que no caso de programas que incentivem o consumo de combustíveis alternativos, como células de hidrogênio, biodiesel, gás natural e eletricidade. / The main objective of this work is developing an empirical model that can show the existence, or not, of different probabilities for the consumption of alcohol fuel in the regions covered by the Research of Family Budget (POF). It allows us to analyze if the energetic policies to the sector of fuels should be considered differently per region. On a second moment, these results were used to make simulations, by modifying the explicative variables of the probability for the consumption of alcohol. The intention was to verify the modifications expected in the demand for gasoline and alcohol, and make a comparison, through illustration, between the real results and the simulated ones, considering the emission of CO2, as a result of the estimated consumption for those kinds of fuel. The data show us a low preference for alcohol in Brazil, less than 10% of the total amount. Regarding the real probabilities estimated, the Southeast region presents effects that are higher to the Brazilian average, approximately 1.3 times higher. The results obtained in relation to increases in the price of alcohol demonstrate, similarly to what happens in the rest of Brazil, a more sensitive reduction of the probability for increases, between 5% and 20%. Variations in the price of gasoline, when it rises, results in a bigger difference between the real probability and the simulated one, more than a reduction in the price of alcohol. To the Southeast region, the impacts provoked by it, if we consider an increase in the price of gasoline, are three times higher than the impacts resulted from reductions in the price of alcohol. The results gotten through the simulations, where there is a decrease in the price of gasoline for the Southeast region, show that when we have an increase of 40% in that price, the estimated probability is around zero. In terms of Brazil, it would correspond to numbers close to 35% of reduction in the price of this kind of fuel. On the whole, considering the intervals of variations, rises in the price of gasoline result in an increase of around three times in the probability for the consumption of alcohol, in relation to decreases in the price of alcohol. The estimates found for the total demand for fuels, gasoline and alcohol, in liters, and the emission of carbon, in tons per liter, expected for a period of five years, and impacts in the probability of a variation of 5% in prices, show that the total demand and, consequently, the emission of carbon verified in Brazil is around 2.5 times higher than the one in the Southeast region. If we consider the difference among the estimates for the emission of carbon expected for a future behavior, which could show the real probability estimated for the current consumption and the probabilities of consumption estimated for alterations in this behavior, via price, we can see that for the situations that cause an increase in the possibility of consumption of alcohol, that is, decrease in the price of this kind of fuel, there is a decrease of around 0.15% for the first situation and 0.37% for the second one, in terms of Brazil. For the Southeast region, a decrease in the price of alcohol would be responsible for a reduction of 955.16 tons per year, and 2,519.13 tons per year for a similar percentage of increase in the price of gasoline, what would correspond to reductions of 0.165 and 0.43%. We can notice that alterations in the price of gasoline cause impacts of around 2.6 and 2.4 times higher in the reduction of emission to the Southeast region and Brazil, respectively. An increase in the price of alcohol involves an increase in the level of emission of carbon of around 1,969.81 tons per year, in terms of Brazil, and 855.60 tons per year, in terms of Southeast region. That means an increase in the level of emissions of 0.13% for Brazil and 0.15% for the Southeast region. If there is a decrease in the price of gasoline, the increase in the level of emissions will be of 0.28% for Brazil and 0.35% for the Southeast. As we had expected, changes in the price of gasoline cause bigger changes in demand and emission. So, the results gotten from the model and the simulated ones show us that political programs that promote more gasoline efficiency, autonomy, have a bigger chance of reducing its consumption than the programs that encourage the consumption of alternative fuels, such as hydrogen cells, biodiesel, natural gas and electricity.

Automatic paraphrase discovery is an important task in natural language processing. Many systems use paraphrases for improve performance e.g. systems for question answering, information retrieval or document summarization. In this thesis, we explain basic concepts e.g. paraphrase or paraphrase pattern. Next we propose some methods for paraphrase discovery from various resources. Subsequently we propose an unsupervised method for discovering paraphrase from large plain text based on context and keywords between NE pairs. In the end we explain evaluation metods in paraphrase discovery area and then we evaluate our system and compare it with similar systems.

Using MATLAB and a National Instruments data acquisition card, a signal processing program meant to monitor the behavior of rotordynamic systems in real-time was developed and tested. By using traditional analysis methods in this field of engineering, commonly desired data representations such as bode, polar, orbit, full spectrum plots were able to be produced to a very high accuracy. Additional capabilities offered by this application are slow roll compensation, synchronous and sub-synchronous filtering, and true three dimensional plotting. The verification of this program was done by comparing the results to the ones acquired with Bently Nevada’s “Automated Diagnostics for Rotating Equipment” (ADRE) system. In addition to a data acquisition program, theoretical models of the two-disk rotor were created to estimate the unknown physical parameters of the system. By simulating the rotor with and without gyroscopic effects included, estimates for the stiffness, damping, eccentricity, initial phase, and initial skew values present in the system were determined.

Excerpt: This collection of recent generative, mainly minimalist, studies on the acquisition of functional categories in French focuses on data from first language (L1), second language (L2), and bilingual acquisition and from specific language impairment (SLI).

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