Assessing learning and memory in the juvenile life stage of the California two-spotted octopus, Octopus bimaculoides

Cephalopods and vertebrates have convergently evolved diverse adaptations such as large brains, problem-solving skills, tool use, and learning and memory abilities. These traits have been observed in cephalopods (e.g., octopus), in which they are able to solve mazes and navigate complex environments. Although there is evidence that all orders within Cephalopoda have an evolved capacity for learning and long and/or short-term memory, some appear to have less advanced cognitive abilities (e.g., nautilus) than others (e.g., octopus). The purpose of this project to determine whether the California two-spotted octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) is an example of a cephalopod with higher cognitive function, which may have evolved in response to selective pressures related to finding food and avoiding predators. This species’ cognitive ability was assessed in ~4 month old octopus using a food preference test and a learning test (ability to recognize a habitat created from 3D printed rocks and navigate to its hidden food source). Methods for determining associative learning for this species were also developed. Due to possible disinterest in the food sources and premature mortality, neither study yielded substantial insights to cognition or memory in the focal species. The octopus were observed interacting sporadically with experiment objects or hiding, a sharp contrast from the everyday interactions during husbandry where they ate once or twice a day every other day. Histology of octopus’ brains from early life stages (i.e., hatchlings and juveniles) from ages three weeks to thirteen weeks did show increased development of the optic, pedal and vertical lobes of the brain, and general overall growth and development of the brain. These results revealed full brain development as young as 11 weeks, suggesting capability for higher learning and memory. Consequently, potential enhancements to future O. bimaculoides husbandry and study design are discussed along with the possible outcomes and significance of studies into cephalopod memory and cognition

Geographic and Ontogenetic Variation in the Trophic Ecology of Lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) Along the U.S. West Coast

Dietary studies of fishes provide an understanding of predator-prey interactions and may be used to inform resource managers about food web dynamics. Along the West Coast of North America, Lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) are top marine predators in rocky-reef habitats and support an economically important fishery. In this study, gut content and stable isotope analyses were used to evaluate differences in the diets of Lingcod collected in U.S. waters from Alaska to Southern California during 2016 and 2017. Overall, Lingcod consumed a wide variety of prey and exhibited both generalist and opportunist feeding strategies. Significant variability in Lingcod diets was driven by factors such as depth, region, sex, and total length. Male Lingcod caught in shallow depths consumed more lower trophic level prey items (e.g. cephalopods) and had more diverse diets. Female Lingcod caught in deep depths consumed more higher trophic level prey items (e.g. groundfishes) and had less diverse diets. Geographic variation in trophic level was associated with environmental conditions of sea surface temperature and primary productivity (i.e., chlorophyll a). Southern Lingcod fed more on cephalopods while northern Lingcod fed more on various fish groups. This study fills in data gaps in the trophic ecology of a top marine predator and can inform food web models and fisheries management

Wastiary: A Bestiary of Waste

Wastiary, or Bestiary of Waste, is a creative exercise that occupies letters, numbers, and symbols of Western academic language to compose a list of 35 short entries on the uncomfortable but pressing topic of waste in the contemporary world. The collection is richly illustrated with artwork, photography, collage and mixed media. The book is a heterodox compendium of ‘beasts of waste’, playfully re-imagining the medieval treatise on various kinds of animal. It conveys the message that various forms of waste and pollution have achieved a beast-like or untameable quality, at times pungently transferring to considerations of ‘the human’, or humans treated as waste

Generating and Evaluating Tests for K-12 Students with Language Model Simulations: A Case Study on Sentence Reading Efficiency

Developing an educational test can be expensive and time-consuming, as each item must be written by experts and then evaluated by collecting hundreds of student responses. Moreover, many tests require multiple distinct sets of questions administered throughout the school year to closely monitor students' progress, known as parallel tests. In this study, we focus on tests of silent sentence reading efficiency, used to assess students' reading ability over time. To generate high-quality parallel tests, we propose to fine-tune large language models (LLMs) to simulate how previous students would have responded to unseen items. With these simulated responses, we can estimate each item's difficulty and ambiguity. We first use GPT-4 to generate new test items following a list of expert-developed rules and then apply a fine-tuned LLM to filter the items based on criteria from psychological measurements. We also propose an optimal-transport-inspired technique for generating parallel tests and show the generated tests closely correspond to the original test's difficulty and reliability based on crowdworker responses. Our evaluation of a generated test with 234 students from grades 2 to 8 produces test scores highly correlated (r=0.93) to those of a standard test form written by human experts and evaluated across thousands of K-12 students.Comment: Accepted to EMNLP 2023 (Main

When I'm Sixty-Four: Beatles Rock Band and the Commodification of Nostalgia

In 2009, only a few months after the game’s release, the popular trade magazine Advertising Age declared Beatles Rock Band one of America’s hottest brands ("America's hottest brands", 2009). This is quite a feat for a lowly video game, and begs that we consider the reasons for the game’s success as well a the potential social consequences for similar popular games. There are two major elements at work in the creation of Beatles Rock Band as a successful brand, and this paper conducts an analysis of the game in order to identify both of them. First of all, it explores the Beatles as a brand that continues to provide emotional and spiritual value for consumers, and how the feelings associated with this brand have developed intertextually since the band first gained international popularity in 1962. Secondly, this paper will show how Beatles Rock Band works almost like a documentary game, and in doing so rewrites history in order to capitalize on a white-washed and romanticized ideal of 1960s culture. As such, it will show the ways that the Beatles Rock Band draws on previous commercial texts associated with the Beatles brand to create an hyperreal fiction based on historic people and events. This paper is divided up into four sections. The first section will provide a theoretical overview of convergence, remediation, and the business of culture, and then will conduct a brief review of the methodology of digital game studies. The second section will look at the specifics of the game, and some of ways that the game has been marketed to the public at large. The third section will provide a description and overview of the Beatles as a brand, and the ways the brand continues to adapt and change over time in order to appeal to a broad and changing audience. Finally, the fourth section will discuss the commoditfication of nostalgia generally, and the specific ways that this game rewrites history to reproduce it as a commodity

Glimmerglass Volume 51 Number 06 (1991)

Official Student Newspaper Issue is 8 pages long