Varieties of clausal complementation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-141).This thesis argues that clausal arguments of mental-state predicates divide into two main types: those that express the content, or "subject matter" of the mental state, and those that express the cause of the mental state. My central theoretical claim is that this dichotomy corresponds to a difference in syntactic structure. I propose that these different structures derive from an operation of promotion to subject position that is constrained by two factors. First, it is constrained by syntactic category: DPs, but crucially not CPs, are eligible for promotion, and I argue that clauses in subject position are in fact DPs. Second, it constrained by locality: even among DPs, only the highest DP is eligible for promotion. I explore a range of cases where this locality constraint is not met-i.e., cases of "argument intervention" in a variety of constructions. Finally, I discuss how these constraints interact to derive the realization of clausal arguments and the syntactic properties of the predicates that select them.by Jeremy Fine Hartman.Ph.D

Social Media and Its Impact on Travelers to Montana

News, real or not, travels faster than ever with the rise of social media platforms. Nearly everyone, everywhere, is capable of generating and disseminating information to large volumes of potential consumers. This information is often out of the direct control of the destination, business, or other entity for whom the news relates; it is unowned media. When a destination receives a flurry of attention from these various sources, either good or bad, several important questions arise in attempting to understand their impacts: (1) how long do these impressions last in potential visitor’s minds? And, (2) do these events/images influence travel planning? The overall purpose of this study is to build a better understanding of the degree to which unowned media, particularly social media, influences traveler behavior and perceptions of Montana, whether positive or negative. A secondary purpose is to provide specificity to the level and type of social media use that some visitors to Montana engage in (i.e., what platforms are they on, how does this vary by age, how often do they use specific platforms, etc.)

Projected Impact of Visitor Limitations in Glacier National Park

With consistently increasing visitor numbers in Glacier National Park (GNP), park managers are working to come up with management solutions for transportation, visitation, visitor use, trails, and access within the Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) corridor during peak season. The GTSR Corridor Management Plan Environmental Assessment was developed in September, 2019. The preferred alternative included in the assessment is an adaptive management approach to address visitation levels, which includes strategies such as expanding the shuttle system, adding hiking and biking trails, and some changes to parking availability in various areas. The objective of this study is to provide a review of various reservation systems used in other protected areas to address visitation levels, and gain an understanding of what the impact may be to areas around the park if a visitation cap or restricted access is enacted by GNP management

SNAP judgments: A small N acceptability paradigm (SNAP) for linguistic acceptability judgments

While published linguistic judgments sometimes differ from the judgments found in large-scale formal experiments with naive participants, there is not a consensus as to how often these errors occur nor as to how often formal experiments should be used in syntax and semantics research. In this article, we first present the results of a large-scale replication of the Sprouse et al. 2013 study on 100 English contrasts randomly sampled from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010 and tested in both a forced-choice experiment and an acceptability rating experiment. Like Sprouse, Schütze, and Almeida, we find that the effect sizes of published linguistic acceptability judgments are not uniformly large or consistent but rather form a continuum from very large effects to small or nonexistent effects. We then use this data as a prior in a Bayesian framework to propose a small n acceptability paradigm for linguistic acceptability judgments (SNAP Judgments). This proposal makes it easier and cheaper to obtain meaningful quantitative data in syntax and semantics research. Specifically, for a contrast of linguistic interest for which a researcher is confident that sentence A is better than sentence B, we recommend that the researcher should obtain judgments from at least five unique participants, using at least five unique sentences of each type. If all participants in the sample agree that sentence A is better than sentence B, then the researcher can be confident that the result of a full forced-choice experiment would likely be 75% or more agreement in favor of sentence A (with a mean of 93%). We test this proposal by sampling from the existing data and find that it gives reliable performance.*American Society for Engineering Education. National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowshi

Young Adults Performance of Unipedal Dynamic Balance with Various Footwear Conditions

International Journal of Exercise Science 13(4): 206-215, 2020. Wearing barefoot-style (minimalist) shoes is suggested as a transition between wearing shoes and barefoot running. Some sources equate wearing Vibram FiveFingers™(VFFs), a brand of barefoot shoes, with running/walking barefoot. Static and dynamic balance exercises are recommended. Little information is available on the effects barefoot shoes may have on dynamic balance. This study’s purpose was to examine dynamic balance when participants wore VFFs, athletic shoes, or went barefoot (BF). To test dynamic balance, participants used a modified version of the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), in which the reaching leg followed only three spokes of the test: the anterior, posteromedial and posterolateral. For the timed test, participants touched down as quickly as possible in both directions using all 8 spokes. Thirty participants (ages 24.1+/-3.71 years) without lower extremity injury or experience wearing minimalist shoes were tested using the modified SEBT and a timed test wearing VFFs™, athletic shoes, or BF. Three trials for each footwear were completed for three reaching positions: anterior, posterolateral, posteromedial. The timed test measured (seconds) one counterclockwise and one clockwise direction of the 8-spoke figure. A repeated measures analysis of variance determined if any differences existed between footwear type and studied variables. Anterior reach was significantly greater when wearing shoes than with VFF or BF. Posteromedial reach was greater with shoes than BF. Time trials were not significantly different. Because no difference was found in any measured variables between VFF and BF, the results suggest wearing VFFS™ provided similar dynamic balance as going barefoot

The State of Short-Term Rentals in Montana

Little is known about short term rentals (STRs) as an accommodation choice for pleasure or business in Montana. The goal of this study was to assess the impacts of STRs on hosts and communities in Montana, as well as to better understand the characteristics and motivations of visitors who use STRs. Two independent studies; interviews with city and county officials in Montana, as well as an online travel behavior survey regarding accommodation choices and changes in travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic were conducted. Results suggest that positive STR impacts include increased financial well-being for hosts and more vacation rental opportunities for the guests. In some locations, however, STRs appear to limit housing availability and contribute to increased rent and housing costs

Automating question generation from educational text

The use of question-based activities (QBAs) is wide-spread in education, traditionally forming an integral part of the learning and assessment process. In this paper, we design and evaluate an automated question generation tool for formative and summative assessment in schools. We present an expert survey of one hundred and four teachers, demonstrating the need for automated generation of QBAs, as a tool that can significantly reduce the workload of teachers and facilitate personalized learning experiences. Leveraging the recent advancements in generative AI, we then present a modular framework employing transformer based language models for automatic generation of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) from textual content. The presented solution, with distinct modules for question generation, correct answer prediction, and distractor formulation, enables us to evaluate different language models and generation techniques. Finally, we perform an extensive quantitative and qualitative evaluation, demonstrating trade-offs in the use of different techniques and models.Comment: Accepted to AI-2023 (Forty-third SGAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence) as a long paper, link: http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai202

Making Record-efficiency SnS Solar Cells by Thermal Evaporation and Atomic Layer Deposition

Tin sulfide (SnS) is a candidate absorber material for Earth-abundant, non-toxic solar cells. SnS offers easy phase control and rapid growth by congruent thermal evaporation, and it absorbs visible light strongly. However, for a long time the record power conversion efficiency of SnS solar cells remained below 2%. Recently we demonstrated new certified record efficiencies of 4.36% using SnS deposited by atomic layer deposition, and 3.88% using thermal evaporation. Here the fabrication procedure for these record solar cells is described, and the statistical distribution of the fabrication process is reported. The standard deviation of efficiency measured on a single substrate is typically over 0.5%. All steps including substrate selection and cleaning, Mo sputtering for the rear contact (cathode), SnS deposition, annealing, surface passivation, Zn(O,S) buffer layer selection and deposition, transparent conductor (anode) deposition, and metallization are described. On each substrate we fabricate 11 individual devices, each with active area 0.25 cm[superscript 2]. Further, a system for high throughput measurements of current-voltage curves under simulated solar light, and external quantum efficiency measurement with variable light bias is described. With this system we are able to measure full data sets on all 11 devices in an automated manner and in minimal time. These results illustrate the value of studying large sample sets, rather than focusing narrowly on the highest performing devices. Large data sets help us to distinguish and remedy individual loss mechanisms affecting our devices.United States. Dept. of Energy (SunShot Initiative Contract DE-EE0005329)Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch Energy Research Network Grant 02.20.MC11)Alexander von Humboldt-StiftungUnited States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (Postdoctoral Research Award)Intel Corporation (PhD Fellowship

Projected Demand and Potential Impacts to the National Airspace System of Autonomous, Electric, On-Demand Small Aircraft

Electric propulsion and autonomy are technology frontiers that offer tremendous potential to achieve low operating costs for small-aircraft. Such technologies enable simple and safe to operate vehicles that could dramatically improve regional transportation accessibility and speed through point-to-point operations. This analysis develops an understanding of the potential traffic volume and National Airspace System (NAS) capacity for small on-demand aircraft operations. Future demand projections use the Transportation Systems Analysis Model (TSAM), a tool suite developed by NASA and the Transportation Laboratory of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Demand projections from TSAM contain the mode of travel, number of trips and geographic distribution of trips. For this study, the mode of travel can be commercial aircraft, automobile and on-demand aircraft. NASA's Airspace Concept Evaluation System (ACES) is used to assess NAS impact. This simulation takes a schedule that includes all flights: commercial passenger and cargo; conventional General Aviation and on-demand small aircraft, and operates them in the simulated NAS. The results of this analysis projects very large trip numbers for an on-demand air transportation system competitive with automobiles in cost per passenger mile. The significance is this type of air transportation can enhance mobility for communities that currently lack access to commercial air transportation. Another significant finding is that the large numbers of operations can have an impact on the current NAS infrastructure used by commercial airlines and cargo operators, even if on-demand traffic does not use the 28 airports in the Continental U.S. designated as large hubs by the FAA. Some smaller airports will experience greater demand than their current capacity allows and will require upgrading. In addition, in future years as demand grows and vehicle performance improves other non-conventional facilities such as short runways incorporated into shopping mall or transportation hub parking areas could provide additional capacity and convenience

Cytokinesis in bloodstream stage Trypanosoma brucei requires a family of katanins and spastin

Microtubule severing enzymes regulate microtubule dynamics in a wide range of organisms and are implicated in important cell cycle processes such as mitotic spindle assembly and disassembly, chromosome movement and cytokinesis. Here we explore the function of several microtubule severing enzyme homologues, the katanins (KAT80, KAT60a, KAT60b and KAT60c), spastin (SPA) and fidgetin (FID) in the bloodstream stage of the African trypanosome parasite, Trypanosoma brucei. The trypanosome cytoskeleton is microtubule based and remains assembled throughout the cell cycle, necessitating its remodelling during cytokinesis. Using RNA interference to deplete individual proteins, we show that the trypanosome katanin and spastin homologues are non-redundant and essential for bloodstream form proliferation. Further, cell cycle analysis revealed that these proteins play essential but discrete roles in cytokinesis. The KAT60 proteins each appear to be important during the early stages of cytokinesis, while downregulation of KAT80 specifically inhibited furrow ingression and SPA depletion prevented completion of abscission. In contrast, RNA interference of FID did not result in any discernible effects. We propose that the stable microtubule cytoskeleton of T. brucei necessitates the coordinated action of a family of katanins and spastin to bring about the cytoskeletal remodelling necessary to complete cell divisio