Modeling and Visualization of Competing Escalation Dynamics: A Multilayer Multiagent Network Approach

Recent advances in military technology, such as hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound and descend quickly into the atmosphere, give world nuclear superpowers a new edge. These advances up the game for nuclear superpowers with an extremely rapid, intense burst of military striking capability to secure upfront gains before encountering potentially overwhelming military confrontation. However, this so-called fait accompli has not been systematically studied by the United States in the perspective of the escalation philosophies of nuclear power competitors, or the mathematical modeling and visualization of multi-modal escalation dynamics. This gap may hamper any further command and control for nuclear deployment and decision making for strategic planning in preparation of such scenarios. This thesis aims to bridge the gap by implementing a network approach to model the escalation dynamics among competing nuclear superpowers

Frost, TC

Please note: You can hear the audio for this interview by downloading Frost, TC Interview Audio at the top of this page. TC Frost is a 44 year old trans man who grew up in the small town of Bucksport, Maine. He uses the pronouns he/him/his, and identifies as queer or trans. From a young age, TC felt different with his gender identity. He attended the University of Maine Farmington in the late 1990’s, and was the only school he applied to because it was “where all the queers went”. Having been into music since the age of 14, he began playing in bands while in college. Him and his band would make the long drive from Farmington to Portland every week to play at local gigs at gay bars in the city. One of his favorite bars to go to, where he felt most at home was a place called Sisters in downtown Portland. Coming out as lesbian in 1998, then coming out as trans in 2003 and “de-transitioning” a couple times thereafter, TC struggled with his identity. TC moved around to places like Massachusetts, California, Oregon, and Maine. Living and working in Boston, MA is where he solidified his choice to be trans. Playing music in several different punk bands and performing covers of songs in local bars, the bar scene was a major influence throughout his queer upbringing. Having felt a calling to move back to Maine, he did just that. TC moved back to Maine right before COVID-19 hit. He says this impacted his ability to make new friends and explore the area and its people. TC worked for the Venture Out Project, a group who leads wilderness trips and activities for people in the LGBTQ community. Activities such as hiking and snowboarding are some of TC’s favorite activities, and something he does a lot in his free time. He also owns a company called T Bag Maine, where he makes small bags like fanny packs. Music, travel, nature, hiking, snowboarding, and the LGBTQ community have all been incredibly influential factors in TC’s life. You can see a recording of TC\u27s college band below. Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine, University of Southern Maine Libraries. For more information about the Querying the Past: Maine LGBTQ Oral History Project, please contact Dr. Wendy Chapkis.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/querying_ohproject/1078/thumbnail.jp

Few-Shot Bayesian Imitation Learning with Logical Program Policies

Humans can learn many novel tasks from a very small number (1--5) of demonstrations, in stark contrast to the data requirements of nearly tabula rasa deep learning methods. We propose an expressive class of policies, a strong but general prior, and a learning algorithm that, together, can learn interesting policies from very few examples. We represent policies as logical combinations of programs drawn from a domain-specific language (DSL), define a prior over policies with a probabilistic grammar, and derive an approximate Bayesian inference algorithm to learn policies from demonstrations. In experiments, we study five strategy games played on a 2D grid with one shared DSL. After a few demonstrations of each game, the inferred policies generalize to new game instances that differ substantially from the demonstrations. Our policy learning is 20--1,000x more data efficient than convolutional and fully convolutional policy learning and many orders of magnitude more computationally efficient than vanilla program induction. We argue that the proposed method is an apt choice for tasks that have scarce training data and feature significant, structured variation between task instances.Comment: AAAI 202

A1_5 Draining the Mediterranean

This paper investigates one possible method of draining the Mediterranean Sea via the use of a siphon system. We found with one pipe approximated to those used in the hoover dam it would take almost 10000 years, however when the dam is scaled up to cover the strait of Gibraltar the time is reduced to 35 years. Making it a feasible although unlikely engineering project

A1_4 Defenestration

This article investigates the frequent trope of space based fiction of getting rid of an enemy by ejecting them out the airlock or of a person being dragged out to space due to damage to the spacecraft’s hull. We find that the force exerted on the person isn't very large for a hole the size of a door, but it may be sufficient to eject the person if the hole was around 2m x 4m, and if the air is resupplied to the room at the rate that it is emitted

A1_1 Faster than a speeding bus

The film Speed portrays a bus making a large and seemingly unlikely jump between two sections of partially constructed freeway. This article investigates the feasibility of such a jump by determining what incline the road would need to be at for the bus to successfully make it across; finding that it would need to be at least 7.6 degrees, which is less than that shown in the film, however the energy of the impact would almost certainly damage the bus to the extent that it would no longer be capable of motion

A1_2 Breaking Bad Physics

In the TV series Breaking Bad the protagonist’s use an electromagnet in a truck causing the vehicle to tip over. This article investigates the likelihood of this occurring and finds that it's unlikely to happen

Edinger-Westphal Nucleus

This report contains a summary of expression patterns for genes that are enriched in the Edinger-Westphal nucleus (EW) of the midbrain. All data are derived from the Allen Brain Atlas (ABA) in situ hybridization mouse project. The structure's location and morphological characteristics in the mouse brain are described using the Nissl data found in the Allen Reference Atlas. Using an established algorithm, the expression values of the Edinger-Westphal nucleus were compared to the values of its larger parent structure, in this case the midbrain, for the purpose of extracting regionally selective gene expression data. The highest ranking genes were manually curated and verified. 50 genes were then selected and compiled for expression analysis. The experimental data for each gene may be accessed via the links provided; additional data in the sagittal plane may also be accessed using the ABA. Correlations between gene expression in the Edinger-Westphal nucleus and the rest of the brain, across all genes in the coronal dataset (~4300 genes), were derived computationally. A gene ontology table (derived from DAVID Bioinformatics Resources 2007) is also included, highlighting possible functions of the 50 genes selected for this report. 
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Lithic Technological and Functional Variability between Mesa and Riverine Environments in the Mid-Columbia River Basin

This study develops a theoretically informed method and technique to compare variability between pre-contact riverine and hinterland Mesa archaeological resources of the mid-Columbian River Basin in Central Washington. To test the developed model, the study follows suggestions made by Dr. William Smith (1977:82) to “develop a testable hypothesis” using Mesa sites and other site types across environments with a more “sophisticated system for the classification of both artifacts and features.” Three sites (Mesa 06, 12, and 36) are compared to a riverine site (45DO673) to determine how the frequency of technological and functional traits of lithic stone tools and debitage vary. Features of the three above mentioned Mesa site are discussed and detailed in Smith (1977:68-74) and not included in this study. Results are evaluated based on stone tool expectations derived from Plateau pre-contact land use models. Significant technological and functional differences are present within Mesa sites, between Mesa sites, and between the three hinterland and one riverine occupation site (45DO673). Functional differences were found between the Bottom and Top of Mesa 12 while technological differences were not. Specifically, Mesa 36 likely had a wider array of reduction activities than Mesa 12 and 36 based on flake completeness, stone tool frequencies, and iv stone tool evenness. Adjacent interbedded stone tool sources possibly led to differing selective conditions at Mesa 36 than Mesa 12 and Mesa 06. Based on stone tool data, selective conditions likely varied between the Top of Mesa 12 and Bottom. All three Mesa sites differed across technological and functional categories when compared to 45DO673. A portion of that variability appears driven by differences in tool stone raw material availability. The lithic expectations developed from the Sanpoil- Nespelem and Dunnell and Dancey (1983) models did not uniformly apply to relationships between the Mesa sites or between 45DO673 and the Mesa sites