Slither.io Deep Learning Bot

Recent advances in deep learning and computer vision techniques and algorithms have inspired me to create a model application. The game environment used is Slither.io. The system has no previous understanding of the game and is able to learn its surroundings through feature detection and deep learning. Contrary to other agents, my bot is able to dynamically learn and react to its environment. It operates extremely well in early game, with little enemy encounters. It has difficulty transitioning to middle and late game due to limited training time. I will continue to develop this algorithm

Leading toward solutions to America’s overcrowding and underfunding environmental preservation issues

This research aims to better comprehend how the environmental preservation issues of underfunding and overcrowding of America’s parks, recreation areas, and environmental surroundings are solved through quality leadership. These environmental issues are national, state, and community problems. Currently, there exists a wealth of literature on the environmental problems caused by overcrowding and underfunding. Unfortunately, the successful problem-solving ideas identified throughout these works often do not connect with an element of leadership. This research helps fill this identified gap in the currently available environmental preservation resources. This mixed methods study explored the perceptions, ideas, and successful solutions exhibited by environmental preservation leaders from national parks, state parks, and localized environmental groups. Surveys were constructed to gather responses in the areas of securing the necessary resources to solve underfunding and overcrowding issues, whom their agendas were promoted toward, and what strategies increased community involvement for their cause. The findings of this study are informative and provide methods for environmental preservation groups and leaders to attack the intertwined issues of lackadaisical funding and overcrowding. In addition, any community member who wishes to help stabilize America’s wonderful natural surroundings may find this study inspiring and act as a catalyst for their involvement in environmental preservation. This dissertation advances the understanding of identifying problems, the importance of building a coalition to solve the problems, and working hard until results are achieved

ENHANCED SURFACE INTEGRITY WITH THERMALLY STABLE RESIDUAL STRESS FIELDS AND NANOSTRUCTURES IN CRYOGENIC PROCESSING OF TITANIUM ALLOY TI-6AL-4V

Burnishing is a chipless finishing process used to improve surface integrity by severe plastic deformation (SPD) of surface asperities. As surface integrity in large measure defines the functional performance and fatigue life of aerospace alloys, burnishing is thus a means of increasing the fatigue life of critical components, such as turbine and compressor blades in gas turbine engines. Therefore, the primary objective of this dissertation is to characterize the burnishing-induced surface integrity of Ti-6Al-4V alloy in terms of the implemented processing parameters. As the impact of cooling mechanisms on surface integrity from SPD processing is largely unexplored, a particular emphasis was placed upon evaluating the influence of cryogenic cooling with liquid nitrogen in comparison to more conventional methodologies. Analysis of numerical and experimental results reveals that burnishing facilitates grain refinement via continuous dynamic recrystallization. Application of LN2 during SPD processing of Ti-6Al-4V alloy suppresses the growth of new grains, leading to the formation of near-surface nanostructures which exhibit increased microhardness and compressive residual stress fields. This is particularly true in cryogenic multipass burnishing, where successive tool passes utilizing lower working pressures generate thermally stable work hardened surface layers, uniform nano-level surface finishes, and significantly deeper layers of compressive residual stresses

One-room schools and their role in the development of the Appalachian hills of West Virginia: 1863--1940s

One-room schools provided the educational settings for the majority of West Virginians until well into the twentieth century. The distribution of the population throughout the rural, rolling, and mountainous terrain resulted in the location of schools within walking distance for most students. The school population consisted of students of various ages and different grades contained in one room. Teachers required diverse skills, in order to perform as academic instructor, nurse, custodian, and entertainment leader at recess. The rural schools gave students in these communities an opportunity to achieve an education, offering both academics and life lessons. The thesis will examine three stages in the history of West Virginia\u27s one-room schools. First, what was the role of one-room schools in the development of human growth and opportunity for the population of a predominately-rural state? Second, West Virginia experienced an industrial development beginning in the 1880s, but one that relied principally on resource extraction in rural areas. How did one-room schools adapt to the state\u27s industrial transformation and the attendant demographic and social changes? Lastly, one-room schools were a fixture in many of West Virginia\u27s communities. Whether up the head of a hollow, near a creek, or in the grassy bottom of a mountain valley, these facilities existed and became important community institutions and social centers. When the state moved toward rural school consolidation in the twentieth century, what was the loss to the community by the closing of one-room schools in West Virginia? The investigation of these questions will allow for a better understanding of the role of the one-room school in West Virginia\u27s educational past

7th Century Byzantine Leadership: Reevaluating Recent Scholarship on Heraclius

This thesis examines the Roman emperor Heraclius, who rules Byzantine Rome from 610 -641CE. It will look at the military, political, and religious decisions that Heraclius made during his civil war with the usurper Phokas that lasted from 603-610, his continuing of the war with Persia that was in response to Phokas’ coup of Maurice from 610 to 628, and finally his war with Arab forces as the early followers of Mohammad spread through Levantine Rome and Persia from 622 to the death of Heraclius in 641.We will examine the changes that occurred in Rome that came about through Heraclius’ decision making as he navigating this series of events that were a major threat to Rome during his rule, and explore how these decisions may still be affecting the world today

Sensitivity Comparison of Searches for Binary Black Hole Coalescences with Ground-based Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Searches for gravitational-wave transients from binary black hole coalescences typically rely on one of two approaches: matched filtering with templates and morphology-independent excess power searches. Multiple algorithmic implementations in the analysis of data from the first generation of ground-based gravitational wave interferometers have used different strategies for the suppression of non-Gaussian noise transients, and targeted different regions of the binary black hole parameter space. In this paper we compare the sensitivity of three such algorithms: matched filtering with full coalescence templates, matched filtering with ringdown templates and a morphology-independent excess power search. The comparison is performed at a fixed false alarm rate and relies on Monte-carlo simulations of binary black hole coalescences for spinning, non-precessing systems with total mass 25-350 solar mass, which covers the parameter space of stellar mass and intermediate mass black hole binaries. We find that in the mass range of 25 -100 solar mass the sensitive distance of the search, marginalized over source parameters, is best with matched filtering to full waveform templates, to within 10 percent at a false alarm rate of 3 events per year. In the mass range of 100-350 solar mass, the same comparison favors the morphology-independent excess power search to within 20 percent. The dependence on mass and spin is also explored.Comment: 11 pages, 2 tables, 25 figure