The Birds of a Feather Research Challenge

Neller presented a set of research challenges for undergraduates that allow an excellent formative experience of research, writing, peer review, and potential presentation and publication through a top-tier conference. The focus problem is the analysis of a newly-designed solitaire card game, Birds of a Feather, so potentials for discovery abound. Open access talk slides, research code, solvability data sets, research tutorial videos, and more are also available at http://cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/puzzles/boaf

AI Education: Birds of a Feather

Games are beautifully crafted microworlds that invite players to explore complex terrains that spring into existence from even simple rules. As AI educators, games can offer fun ways of teaching important concepts and techniques. Just as Martin Gardner employed games and puzzles to engage both amateurs and professionals in the pursuit of Mathematics, a well-chosen game or puzzle can provide a catalyst for AI learning and research. [excerpt

The Faculty Notebook, September 2011

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

The Faculty Notebook, September 2015

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

A commonsense language for reasoning about causation and rational action

AbstractCommonsense causal discourse requires a language with which to express varying degrees of causal connectedness. This paper presents a commonsense language for reasoning about action and causation whose semantics is expressed by way of counterfactuals. Causal relations are analyzed along several dimensions including notions of resource consumption, degree of responsibility, instrumentality, and degree of causal contribution. Grounding the semantics in a level of counterfactual reasoning is shown to play an important role in constraining the set of allowable event descriptions instantiating reports expressed by any of the relations in the language. These ideas are also applied to a causal analysis of rational action: by adopting an explanatory stance, one can characterize action through descriptions that refer to causal connections between mental states and actions. Such a causal analysis resolves some well-known difficulties in correctly ascribing agency and intentionality. Finally, an implementation is described—used to motivate and refine the theory—in which queries involving causal relations between the activities of agents engaged in purposeful behavior within a microworld can be posed

EFFECTS AND UNDERLYING MECHANISM OF 5-LIPOXYGENASE INHIBITOR (ZILEUTON) ON MICE DEPRESSIVE-LIKE BEHAVIOR

Objective: Treatment experiment was conducted to investigate the effectiveness and mechanism of the action of zileuton in corticosteroid-induced depressive mice model through neuroinflammation. Methods: The mice were randomly separated into four groups: (Veh+Veh), (Corticosteroid+Veh), (Corticosteroid+ZIL50), and (Corticosteroid+ZIL100). Intraperitoneal injection of corticosterone (CORT) (20 mg/kg for 6 weeks) was used in the mice to induce depression and neuroinflammation diverse from the Veh+Veh group, which was injected only physiological saline. The drug-treated groups (Corticosteroid+ZIL50 and Corticosteroid+ZIL100) were orally administered with the mentioned doses of zileuton. After confirming the effectiveness of zileuton through the behavioral tests, the mechanism of the action of the drug was explored through a set of biochemical assays. Results: Zileuton (50/100 mg/kg) administration improved the performance of the mice in the behavioral experiments (p<0.05 or 0.01). Immunohistochemistry detection of Iba1+ revealed over activation of microglial cells in the corticosteroid-treated mice which was suppressed by the zileuton (50 or 100 mg/kg [p<0.05 or 0.01]). Through Western blotting tests, it had been found that CORT (i.p.) administration led to the increment of the protein 5-Lipoxygenase in the mouse hippocampus associated with neuroinflammation, which was decreased significantly by zileuton (p<0.05 or 0.01). Level of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1 beta, nuclear factor kappa B p65 protein (for neuroinflammation), Bax, and cleaved caspase-3 and TUNEL assay increased, and Bcl-2 expression decreased in the CORT-induced depressive mice. These were significantly reversed by zileuton (50 or 100 mg/kg [p<0.05 or 0.01]). Conclusion: It can be concluded that selective 5-lipoxygenase inhibitor zileuton can efficiently inhibit the depressive-like behavior/activity in CORT-induced depressive mouse model. Moreover, the underlying mechanism may be the inhibition of hippocampal neuroinflammation and apoptosis

Smokejumper Magazine, January 2006

This issue of the National Smokejumper Association (NSA) Smokejumper Magazine contains the following articles: Walter Rumsey’s Statement on Mann Gulch, US Jumpers Tour Russian Bases, Tragedy at Moose Creek. Profile Danny On. Smokejumper Magazine continues Static Line, which was the original title of the NSA quarterly magazine.https://dc.ewu.edu/smokejumper_mag/1049/thumbnail.jp

Space Between Lines: Diagrammatic Architecture and 3D Printing

All forms of communication require a medium to translate abstract thoughts from the mind to an observable and measurable artifact. Whether it is through body movement, vocalization, drawing, making, or multimedia, all ideas rely on some form of medium to leap from the mind and into physical reality. 3D printing is an emerging technology being investigated and developed in many different areas such as medical, aeronautical, as well as in architectural fields. Using 3D printers, digital models can be physically fabricated quickly, giving the maker tactile feedback which can reinform the digital model for further iterations and variations. In this thesis, an extrusion-based 3D printer is utilized as a sketching tool for the mind. Just as a pen and paper allow the architect to explore conceptual and abstract architecture and space through representations, the 3D printer and its software are used as a medium between ideas and its material reification. Six interconnected exercises range from establishing an intuitive workflow with the 3D printer to exploring 3D printed diagrammatic architecture