Girls Can Play: Analysis of Racial and Economic Barriers of Entry for Women of Color in Sport

In order to understand the racial division of modern sport, it is essential to investigate the barriers to entry that occur for black youth at an institutional level. Inner-city and low-income youth are denied opportunities presented to predominately white middle and upper-class youth, who are awarded the opportunities to advance in the dimension of sport. Low-income children are being pushed out of sports, falling into a track that provides marginal community programming, while the economically advantaged are funneled into the other track of competitive private clubs. Race, economics, and social status become drivers for this segmentation in youth sport. Although barriers that impede the entry and success affect both black girls and boys in sports, the reality is that there is a disparate impact between genders. Therefore, this research aims to assess the conditions faced by black girls, which hinder their entrance into and continued success in sports programs. Although significant legislation has increased the amount of female participation in sports, further consideration must be given to the intersection of race and sex in order to make necessary advancements

An evaluation of the effectiveness of three types of study guides in producing immediate and delayed recall.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

High-resolution simulations of the final assembly of Earth-like planets 2: water delivery and planetary habitability

The water content and habitability of terrestrial planets are determined during their final assembly, from perhaps a hundred 1000-km "planetary embryos" and a swarm of billions of 1-10 km "planetesimals." During this process, we assume that water-rich material is accreted by terrestrial planets via impacts of water-rich bodies that originate in the outer asteroid region. We present analysis of water delivery and planetary habitability in five high-resolution simulations containing about ten times more particles than in previous simulations (Raymond et al 2006a, Icarus, 183, 265-282). These simulations formed 15 terrestrial planets from 0.4 to 2.6 Earth masses, including five planets in the habitable zone. Every planet from each simulation accreted at least the Earth's current water budget; most accreted several times that amount (assuming no impact depletion). Each planet accreted at least five water-rich embryos and planetesimals from past 2.5 AU; most accreted 10-20 water-rich bodies. We present a new model for water delivery to terrestrial planets in dynamically calm systems, with low-eccentricity or low-mass giant planets -- such systems may be very common in the Galaxy. We suggest that water is accreted in comparable amounts from a few planetary embryos in a "hit or miss" way and from millions of planetesimals in a statistically robust process. Variations in water content are likely to be caused by fluctuations in the number of water-rich embryos accreted, as well as from systematic effects such as planetary mass and location, and giant planet properties.Comment: Astrobiology, in pres

Perceptions of Transactional and Transformational Leaders According to Gender

The lack of females occupying leadership positions in the modern workplace has prompted the research of this study. In order to better understand the perceptions that exist regarding successful leadership, this study was conducted with the intention of understanding individual leadership style through the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, which measures transactional and transformational leadership styles (Bass and Avolio, 1993). 64 male and female participants, made up of 36 students and 28 individuals in the workforce ages 18-61 with an average age of 31 answered 21 questions to assess their leadership style and 1 to measure who they perceived as a successful leader, with responses coded by gender of responder and response. This study aimed to assess whether males identified more with transactional leadership and females with transformational leadership style, which would confirm current research conducted in the field. The Chi Squared statistical analysis test results showed that 72.4% of males displayed transformational leadership styles, along with 82.9% of females displaying this same style, which showed a lack of significance between gender and difference in leadership style. However, in response to the question asking to identify a successful leader, results showed that most individuals of both gender wrote down a male leader

Family relationships of nine psychotic unmarried mothers.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Simulations of shell galaxies with GADGET-2: Multi-generation shell systems

As the missing complement to existing studies of shell galaxies, we carried out a set of self-consistent N-body simulations of a minor merger forming a stellar shell system within a giant elliptical galaxy. We discuss the effect of a phenomenon possibly associated with the galaxy merger simulations --- a presence of multiple generations of shells.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of JENAM 2010, Symposium 2: "Environment and the formation of galaxies: 30 years later

The right stuff ‘v’ the right (safe) thing

This is not the 1950’s where test pilots needed the ‘right stuff’ and certainly not the beginning of aviation where the Wright brother’s early designs needed pilots with more than the right stuff. In those formative years of aviation and jet development, designers and pilots did not have the same design understanding and knowledge that we have today. In addition, they did not have the same understanding and knowledge of Systems Safety engineering and Human Factors expertise that we have today. Manned suborbital flights of today should be undertaken in vehicles that have been designed effectively with appropriately derived safety requirements including fault-tolerance, safe life and design-for-minimum risk approaches – and all to an acceptable level of safety. Therefore, although initial suborbital pilots will originate from flight test schools and still possess similar traits to their earlier test pilot brethren, they should be protected by the right (safe) thing by design and analysis rather than rely on the right stuff due to ineffective design and operating procedures. The paper presents a review of the SpaceShip2 accident as a case study to highlight the right (safe) things that should be considered in the design, analysis and operations for suborbital operators. The authors of this paper contend that suborbital piloted vehicles should be designed with the knowledge and understanding and lessons learned from those early X-plane flights, lessons learned from general space safety, lessons learned from pilot Human Factors/Crew Resource Management training and by understanding that safety management and safety engineering are essential disciplines that should be integrated with the design team from the concept phase

Evolutionary Robotics: a new scientific tool for studying cognition

We survey developments in Artificial Neural Networks, in Behaviour-based Robotics and Evolutionary Algorithms that set the stage for Evolutionary Robotics in the 1990s. We examine the motivations for using ER as a scientific tool for studying minimal models of cognition, with the advantage of being capable of generating integrated sensorimotor systems with minimal (or controllable) prejudices. These systems must act as a whole in close coupling with their environments which is an essential aspect of real cognition that is often either bypassed or modelled poorly in other disciplines. We demonstrate with three example studies: homeostasis under visual inversion; the origins of learning; and the ontogenetic acquisition of entrainment