Procedural personas as critics for dungeon generation

This paper introduces a constrained optimization method which uses procedural personas to evaluate the playability and quality of evolved dungeon levels. Procedural personas represent archetypical player behaviors, and their controllers have been evolved to maximize a specific utility which drives their decisions. A “baseline” persona evaluates whether a level is playable by testing if it can survive in a worst-case scenario of the playthrough. On the other hand, a Monster Killer persona or a Treasure Collector persona evaluates playable levels based on how many monsters it can kill or how many treasures it can collect, respectively. Results show that the implemented two-population genetic algorithm discovers playable levels quickly and reliably, while the different personas affect the layout, difficulty level and tactical depth of the generated dungeons.The research was supported, in part, by the FP7 ICT project C2Learn (project no: 318480) and by the FP7 Marie Curie CIG project AutoGameDesign (project no: 630665).peer-reviewe

Characterization of the series 1000 camera system

The National Ignition Facility requires a compact network addressable scientific grade CCD camera for use in diagnostics ranging from streak cameras to gated x-ray imaging cameras. Due to the limited space inside the diagnostic, an analog and digital input/output option in the camera controller permits control of both the camera and the diagnostic by a single Ethernet link. The system consists of a Spectral Instruments Series 1000 camera, a PC104+ controller, and power supply. The 4k by 4k CCD camera has a dynamic range of 70 dB with less than 14 electron read noise at a 1MHz readout rate. The PC104+ controller includes 16 analog inputs, 4 analog outputs and 16 digital input/output lines for interfacing to diagnostic instrumentation. A description of the system and performance characterization is reported

Vocal Patterns in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Canonical Babbling Status and Vocalization Frequency

Canonical babbling is a critical milestone for speech development and is usually well in place by 10 months. The possibility that infants with ASD show late onset of canonical babbling has so far eluded evaluation. Rate of vocalization or “volubility” has also been suggested as possibly aberrant in infants with ASD. We conducted a retrospective video study examining vocalizations of 37 infants at 9–12 and 15–18 months. Twenty-three of the 37 infants were later diagnosed with ASD and indeed produced low rates of canonical babbling and low volubility by comparison with the 14 typically developing infants. The study thus supports suggestions that very early vocal patterns may prove to be a useful component of early screening and diagnosis of ASD

Single event and TREE latchup mitigation for a star tracker sensor: An innovative approach to system level latchup mitigation

Electronic packages designed for spacecraft should be fault-tolerant and operate without ground control intervention through extremes in the space radiation environment. If designed for military use, the electronics must survive and function in a nuclear radiation environment. This paper presents an innovative ``blink`` approach rather than the typical ``operate through`` approach to achieve system level latchup mitigation on a prototype star tracker camera. Included are circuit designs, flash x-ray test data, and heavy ion data demonstrating latchup mitigation protecting micro-electronics from current latchup and burnout due to Single Event Latchup (SEL) and Transient Radiation Effects on Electronics (TREE)

The Supply Side Determinants of Territory and Conflict

What determines the geographic extent of territory? We microfound and extend Boulding’s “Loss of Strength Gradient” to predict the extensive and intensive margins of conflict across space. We show how economies of scale in the production of violence and varying costs of projecting violence at a distance combine to affect the geographic distribution of conflict and territory. We test and probe the boundaries of this model in an experiment varying the fixed costs of conflict entry. As predicted, higher fixed costs increase the probability of exclusive territories; median behavior closely tracks equilibrium predictions in all treatments