Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Megaloads And Mobilization: The Rural People Of Idaho Stand Against Big Oil, Corrie Grosse

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

From 2011 to 2014 fossil fuel corporations trucked tar sands processing machinery along rural Idaho highways. The machinery was bound for the world's largest deposits of tar or oil sands, a heavy crude oil substance called bitumen, located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. These loads of machinery, what became known as megaloads, encountered much resistance. Throughout Idaho and the surrounding region, a network organized opposition. Neighbors, grassroots organizations, nonprofits, and the Nez Perce and other tribes all collaborated. They held information sessions, protested, waged legal battles, monitored the loads, and blockaded highways. What oil companies hoped would be …

An Analysis Of Operant Conditioning And Its Relationship With Video Game Addiction, Daniel Vu

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

A report published by the Entertainment Software Association revealed that in 2015, 155 million Americans play video games with an average of two gamers in each game-playing household (Entertainment Software Association, “Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry”). With this massive popularity that has sprung alongside video games, the question must be asked: how are video games affecting today's people? With the current way some video games are structured, the video game rewards players for achieving certain accomplishments. For example, competitive video games reward players who achieve victories by giving them a higher ranking or other games display …

Random Numbers And Gaming, Sinjin Baglin

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

In Counter Strike: Global Offensive spray pattern control becomes a muscle memory to a player after long periods of playing. It’s a design choice that makes the gunplay between players more about instant crosshair placement with the faster player usually winning. This is very different from the gunplay of the current popular shooter Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Player Unknown’s Battleground’s spray pattern for the guns are random. So how does this affect the player experience? Well as opposed to Counter Strike: Global Offensive, the design choice makes gunplay between two players more about how a person can adapt faster …

Exploring Oculus Rift: A Historical Analysis Of The ‘Virtual Reality’ Paradigm, Chastin Gammage

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

This paper will first provide background information about Virtual Reality in order to better analyze its development throughout history and into the future. Next, this essay begins an in-depth historical analysis of how virtual reality has developed prior to 1970, a pivotal year in Virtual Reality history, followed by an exploration of how this development paradigm shifted between the 1970's and the turn of the century. The historical analysis of virtual reality is concluded by covering the modern period from 2000-present. Finally, this paper examines the layout of the virtual reality field in respect to he history and innovations presented.

Fighting Game Difficulty, Andrew Hon

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Lowering difficulty in games has become a recent trend amongst gaming companies. The goal of this tactic is to provide a more welcoming platform for players that are new to the franchise. However, this trend has been met with criticism amongst more experienced veterans of their respective games. This essay will touch upon different games within the fighting game genre that have lowered their overall difficulty, and the positive/negative effects of it.

Tangled Up: Women’S Experiences In Mathematics, Lori Loftin

Honors College

This thesis is a bridge between two disciplines: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Mathematics. The first portion of the work synthesizes both theory and previously done studies to describe the state of women in mathematics as a whole, as well as historicizing the role of women in mathematics. Obstacles to the full and equal participation of women in mathematics are examined through a feminist lens. The second part of the thesis is a feminist biography crafted from an interview with a professor of mathematics, Dr. Erica Flapan. This provides information about her personal experiences as a woman in mathematics …

On Improvised Music, Computational Creativity And Human-Becoming, Arto Artinian, Adam James Wilson

Publications and Research

Music improvisation is an act of human-becoming: of self-expression—an articulation of histories and memories that have molded its participants—and of exploration—a search for unimagined structures that break with the stale norms of majoritarian culture. Given that the former objective may inhibit the latter, we propose an integration of human musical improvisers and deliberately flawed creative software agents that are designed to catalyze the development of human-ratified minoritarian musical structures.

De Paepe, Duane - Collector (Mss 625), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 625. The Duane De Paepe Kentucky Cave Saltpetre History Research Collection, a collection of historical research, field notes, cave surveys, photographs, maps, reports, and scholarly writing on saltpetre mining in Kentucky, especially at Mammoth Cave. The collection was created under a research program sponsored by the Cave Research Foundation and the National Geographic Society in Kentucky, 1976-1980, and directed by De Paepe.

In Place: November 27, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• Spotlight On: "What's the Big Idea"
• Upcoming Events
• PLACE in the News

Examining The Relationships Between Gender Role Congruity, Identity, And The Choice To Persist For Women In Undergraduate Physics Majors, Bronwen Bares Pelaez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Persistent gender disparity limits the available contributors to advancing some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. While higher education can be an influential time-point for ensuring adequate participation, many physics programs across the U.S. have few women in classroom or lab settings. Prior research indicates that these women face considerable barriers. For university students, faculty, and administration to appropriately address these issues, it is important to understand the experiences of women as they navigate male-dominated STEM fields.

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study explored undergraduate female physics majors’ experiences with their male-dominated academic and research spaces in the U.S. …

The Birds Of A Feather Research Challenge, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Neller presented a set of research challenges for undergraduates that allow an excellent formative experience of research, writing, peer review, and potential presentation and publication through a top-tier conference. The focus problem is the analysis of a newly-designed solitaire card game, Birds of a Feather, so potentials for discovery abound. Open access talk slides, research code, solvability data sets, research tutorial videos, and more are also available at http://cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/puzzles/boaf .

In Place: November 6, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• Spotlight On: PLACE Sponsored Events
• Upcoming Events
• PLACE in the News

Faust, Burton Sherwood, 1898-1967 (Mss 620), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 620. Correspondence, research notes, drafts, photographs, reference works and bibliographic material of Burton S. Faust relating to his studies of the chemical, historical and cultural aspects of saltpetre and of spelean saltpetre mining in the United States.

Separating Markup From Text, Ronald I. Greenberg, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

As more and more online versions of Humanities texts are created, it is becoming commonplace to embed elaborate formatting, for example, through the use of HTML. But this can interfere with computerized analyses of the original text. While it may seem, at first, straightforward to simply strip markup from text, this is not the reality. Many digital texts add things that appear to be legitimate content according to the markup syntax, for example, line numbers, and even apart from this issue, existing tools for stripping markup produce inconsistent results. Apart from adopting and enforcing strict conventions for adding markup to …

Amazons, Penguins, And Amazon Penguins, Todd W. Neller

Computer Science Faculty Publications

This talk discussed a family of games based on Amazons (1988), a distant relative of Go (area control) and Chess (queen-like movement), innovated with the introduction of move obstacles. Hey! That’s My Fish! (2003) restricted the addition of obstacles and added varying points for position visits. Introducing original related game designs (e.g. Amazon Penguins (2009) and Paper Pen-guins (2009)), we demonstrated how game mechanics are like genes that mutate, crossover, and invite evolution of new games.

How Useful Is Gsv As An Environmental Observation Tool? An Analysis Of The Evidence So Far., Katherine Nesse, Leah Airt

SPU Works

Researchers in many disciplines have turned to Google Street View to replace pedestrian- or carbased in-person observation of streetscapes. It is most prevalent within the research literature on the relationship between neighborhood environments and public health but has been used as diverse as disaster recovery, ecology and wildlife habitat, and urban design. Evaluations of the tool have found that the results of GSV-based observation are similar to the results from in-person observation although the similarity depends on the type of characteristic being observed. Larger, permanent and discrete features showed more consistency between the two methods and smaller, transient and judgmental …

How The Coconino Sandstone Of The Grand Canyon Supports Young-Earth Creation And A Global Flood, John H. Whitmore

Science and Mathematics Faculty Presentations

The Coconino Sandstone is a well-known and recognizable rock layer near the top of the Grand Canyon. Most interpret it as the fossilized remnants of desert sand dunes that formed about 275 million years ago. It is often used as a “silver bullet” of how Scripture is wrong when it comes to a literal interpretation of Noah’s Flood (by Christians and non-Christians alike). In this talk, Whitmore will summarize some easy to understand research that he and others have published which refutes old earth views of the Coconino and instead supports a view that the Coconino was formed underwater. His …

In Place: October 11, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• A Message to Faculty
• Spotlight On: Jonathan Rauch & Cheryl Harris
• Upcoming Events
• PLACE in the News
• Last Week in PLACE

Russia's Northern Rook: Nord Stream 2 On The European Energy Chessboard, David E. Wilson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline proposes to connect Germany to the world’s largest natural gas reserves in Russia, allowing the state-owned Russian energy behemoth Gazprom to double its export capacity through the ‘Northern Corridor’ transit route to Europe. This project has been the subject of sharp disapproval from Central and Eastern European countries, as well as the United States, which fear the prospect of increasing dependence on gas imports from a Russia perceived as politically aggressive and unreliable. This paper will identify the geopolitical and geoeconomic implications involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 by adopting a geostrategic worldview …

Formalizing The Panarchy Adaptive Cycle With The Cusp Catastrophe, Martin Zwick, Joshua Hughes

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The panarchy adaptive cycle, a general model for change in natural and human systems, can be formalized by the cusp catastrophe of René Thom's topological theory. Both the adaptive cycle and the cusp catastrophe have been used to model ecological, economic, and social systems in which slow and small continuous changes in two control variables produce fast and large discontinuous changes in system behavior. The panarchy adaptive cycle, the more recent of the two models, has been used so far only for qualitative descriptions of typical dynamics of such systems. The cusp catastrophe, while also often employed qualitatively, is a …

Exploring Rwanda's Continuing Education Capacity For Information Communications Technology (Ict) Skills, Li Keen Lim

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As Rwanda strives to become the ICT hub of the region, it will need to develop its greatest asset: its people, in ICT skills. This exploratory study used 30 semi-structured interviews, observation and secondary data from different sources, schools, students and NGOs, to answer a simple question: how does an everyday, working adult Rwandan learn new computers skills for a new computer age? This study found that a wide variety of suppliers fulfil different niches that give prospective students a range of prices, content, schedules, certification, practices, etc., and that demand is increasing for a host of different reasons. It …

Ethical Business Practice, Accountability, And Quality Assurance: Primary Drivers For Sustainable Tourism Development In Iceland, Abigail Harrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The tourism industry in Iceland has grown exponentially in the last decade, causing changes to the natural landscape and drastically shifting revenue streams in the economy. This rapid growth coupled with the recent development of Iceland’s tourism industry makes it the perfect case study for how to effectively mitigate tourism influxes. This unprecedented rate of growth impels the creation of sustainability measures within this industry in order to ensure a lasting vision of Icelandic tourism in the future. Both the government and private sector have already begun to institute sustainability measures in society and in business. The primary aim of …

The Role Of Young Environmental Activists In Iceland And Furthering Youth Engagement With Environmental Issues, Story Schwantes

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper looks at the role of youth environmental activism in Iceland and how these actors view their work in a country which has long held a reputation as one of the greenest in the world. Much of the credit for that distinction goes not to careful choices, sacrifice, or excellent stewardship but rather to its ideal geography providing massive geothermal energy which Iceland turns into electricity, a clean renewable source. So are there young environmental activists in Iceland, and if so what do they do? Short answer: yes, and they study and talk. The long answer is more complex. …

Shift In Icelandic Plant Populations Due To Climate Change: Through The Lens Of Natural Dyes, Molly Pluenneke

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Northern residing plant species are at the highest risk for extinction due to temperature rise related to climate change (Schöb, Manuel, Choler & Veit, 2009). Climate change has also led to a northern shift in the geographic distribution of plant species (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). This could lead to a necessary alteration in the way natural resources are utilized in arctic countries like Iceland (Lim-Camacho et al, 2017). The purpose of this study is to analyze the way in which Icelandic plant species used in natural dye practices may shift in distribution due to climate change and the potential impact …

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …

A Critical Examination Of The Climate Change Vulnerability And Adaptation Literature In Nunavut, Canada, Sarah Prentice

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper attempts to study the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature in Nunavut, a province in the Canadian Arctic. The paper begins with a review of literature produced by Inuit organizations on colonization in the Canadian Arctic and Nunavut specifically, then systematically reviews the literature on climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Using a post-colonial analysis, this study found that while the climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature attempts to attend to colonial histories and legacies, it often falls short. Climate change vulnerability and adaptation literature had minimal representation of colonization, residential schooling, sanatoria, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. This may perpetuate …

Climate Change And Migration: The Intersection Of Climate Change, Migration, And Gender Through Policy, Bridget E. Mccallum

Student Publications

This article explores the intersectional nature of the issue of climate change, especially as it relates to migration. Both migration and climate change are issues of global significance, with benefits and burdens distributed unevenly across gender, racial, and class lines. This intersectional approach takes note of the unequal power structures at play when attempting to combat these issues with policy.

Reactions To Imagery Generated Using Computational Aesthetic Measures, Prasad Gade, Mary Galvin, James O'Sullivan, Paul Walsh, Órla Murphy

Department of Computer Science Publications

This article examines whether textural generation system imagery evolved with computational aesthetic support can be judged as having aesthetic attributes, both when knowing and not knowing its true origin. Such a generation, depicting a digital landscape, is offered to two groups of participants to appraise. It is hypothesized that there will be no statistically significant difference between the groups on their appraisal of the image. Results from statistical analysis prove to be consistent with this hypothesis. A minority of participants, however, do exhibit significant differences in their perception of the image based on its means of production. This article explores …

In Place: September 24, 2017, Place

PLACE Historical Documents

In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:

• PLACE: What's In It for Faculty?
• PLACE: What's In It for Students?
• PLACE in the News
• Last Week in PLACE

Computer Science And Cultural History: A Dialogue, David B. Dennis, George K. Thiruvathukal

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.