Good, Not Safe : Structure vs. Chaos in Narnia and the Writing Workshop

Considers Lewis as a member of a writing group, and its effect on his narrative techniques. Examines Lewis’s self-imposition of tight structure when writing for children, and the moments when his story escapes his own rules. Discusses using Lewis in the creative writing classroom

Novelty Search for Deep Reinforcement Learning Policy Network Weights by Action Sequence Edit Metric Distance

Reinforcement learning (RL) problems often feature deceptive local optima, and learning methods that optimize purely for reward signal often fail to learn strategies for overcoming them. Deep neuroevolution and novelty search have been proposed as effective alternatives to gradient-based methods for learning RL policies directly from pixels. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate the use of novelty search over agent action sequences by string edit metric distance as a means for promoting innovation. We also introduce a method for stagnation detection and population resampling inspired by recent developments in the RL community that uses the same mechanisms as novelty search to promote and develop innovative policies. Our methods extend a state-of-the-art method for deep neuroevolution using a simple-yet-effective genetic algorithm (GA) designed to efficiently learn deep RL policy network weights. Experiments using four games from the Atari 2600 benchmark were conducted. Results provide further evidence that GAs are competitive with gradient-based algorithms for deep RL. Results also demonstrate that novelty search over action sequences is an effective source of selection pressure that can be integrated into existing evolutionary algorithms for deep RL.Comment: Submitted to GECCO 201

History and Current Status of the Inca Dove (Columbina inca) in Arkansas

Formerly a bird of Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States, the Inca Dove (Columbina inca) has been expanding northward across North America in the past few decades. It first appeared in Arkansas on October 26, 1968 in Saratoga, Howard County. Since then, the statewide range has grown to include at least 36 of 75 counties and is expanding. With the use of Christmas Bird Counts, Breeding Bird Surveys, and two citizen science sources, eBird and AR-Birds, we compiled 368 records of the species in the state. Inca Doves were observed year-round in Arkansas and are expanding its range in the state at an average rate of about one new county every 7 years and 1 new annual encounter about every year. An overview of its overall range in North America indicates that there is enough data to warrant a redrawing of the range map for the species to include most of Arkansas

My Method of Diagrams, or, How to Recognize Birdsongs

When I began taking pictures, the problem I encounterd most often was one of organization and articulation. I found myself seeing an organized image in the world before the camera, and trying to understand how to use the camera to apprehend that organization. The difficulty of arresting my ideal of interested vision, using the dumb instrument of the camera, flowed through my every endeavor and was of greater importance than any of the whims that generated the particular content of my images. I think that as my skill and familiarity with the problem increased, I became able to use the medium actively as a way of organizing my understanding of the world visually . It strikes me that the camera, as it becomes a useful tool, also becomes a handicap. Perhaps I mean that I am able to see certain ideas much more clearly by participating in the language of the photographc image, but the same language limits my horizon of understanding, or the kind of things I am able to understand. Does the adoption of a complex and specialized grammar offer advantages that outweigh its laibilities? I think the question should rather be how do I cooperate with the chosen language to overcome limits to my thoughts and understanding; for I am unable and unwilling to use any other form. In making the work for My Method of Diagrams, I feel that I have just begun to master some methods and ideas which open up the process of imagining to some kind of scrutiny. It has been my intention to articulate the imaginary in terms of my own experience, my emotions, my history. This has necessarily meant configuring images, objects, and ideas from entirely disparate realms in a reflection of the nature of the imagination in an individual. Having completed this work it is now obsolete, and I only look forward to making new work using what I have learned here. I have just barely begun to suggest to myself the depth of work which I am interested in making. &nbsp;</p

L-Fuzzy Relations in Coq

Heyting categories, a variant of Dedekind categories, and Arrow categories provide a convenient framework for expressing and reasoning about fuzzy relations and programs based on those methods. In this thesis we present an implementation of Heyting and arrow categories suitable for reasoning and program execution using Coq, an interactive theorem prover based on Higher-Order Logic (HOL) with dependent types. This implementation can be used to specify and develop correct software based on L-fuzzy relations such as fuzzy controllers. We give an overview of lattices, L-fuzzy relations, category theory and dependent type theory before describing our implementation. In addition, we provide examples of program executions based on our framework

Algebraic Neural Architecture Representation, Evolutionary Neural Architecture Search, and Novelty Search in Deep Reinforcement Learning

Evolutionary algorithms have recently re-emerged as powerful tools for machine learning and artificial intelligence, especially when combined with advances in deep learning developed over the last decade. In contrast to the use of fixed architectures and rigid learning algorithms, we leveraged the open-endedness of evolutionary algorithms to make both theoretical and methodological contributions to deep reinforcement learning. This thesis explores and develops two major areas at the intersection of evolutionary algorithms and deep reinforcement learning: generative network architectures and behaviour-based optimization. Over three distinct contributions, both theoretical and experimental methods were applied to deliver a novel mathematical framework and experimental method for generative, modular neural network architecture search for reinforcement learning, and a generalized formulation of a behaviour- based optimization framework for reinforcement learning called novelty search. Experimental results indicate that both alternative, behaviour-based optimization and neural architecture search can each be used to improve learning in the popular Atari 2600 benchmark compared to DQN — a popular gradient-based method. These results are in-line with related work demonstrating that strictly gradient-free methods are competitive with gradient-based reinforcement learning. These contributions, together with other successful combinations of evolutionary algorithms and deep learning, demonstrate that alternative architectures and learning algorithms to those conventionally used in deep learning should be seriously investigated in an effort to drive progress in artificial intelligence

Prosthetic Foot Shell, QL+

This final design review includes an overview of our project and the steps we have taken to create our final product. We discuss the background research conducted, including various products like the foot shell we are trying to design and its related patents, along with similar past senior projects. As our product is considered a medical device, there are also certain standards that we must comply with. After determining our problem statement, we established what we believe to be the wants and needs of our user. These wants and needs were converted into specifications for our design, with durability as a main goal. These specifications were used to brainstorm initial design ideas through concept modeling. There are various images and diagrams of these models that we use to support our reasonings. A preliminary design solution was chosen after an analysis was performed on our concept models. We conclude the report with an overview of the steps we took to complete our project and design and manufacture a durable prosthetic foot shell as well as future plans for testing and manufacturing a full-size foot shell prototype. A summary of our conclusions and recommendations for next steps wrap up the project