37903 research outputs found
Sort by
“We Love You in America”: Spiro Agnew, the Media, and the Building of an Emotional Community
Get PDFSpiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s often-mocked Vice President, played a critical role in building the right-wing, populist base of white working- and middle-class supporters for the Republican party. Early in his vice presidency, Agnew used his access to media to cultivate mistrust of the same media, focusing especially on television political analysis, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. In speech after speech he used the same criticisms of the media to attack other parts of American society the administration viewed as the opposition. Rather than persuading these voters on policy positions, Agnew went straight for the heart. Much to everyone’s surprise, a large bloc of fervent Agnew supporters emerged. Thousands wrote letters that expressed feelings of anger and resentment of the media and the left generally, and that also spoke of their love, loyalty, and admiration for this largely forgotten figure. In interpreting the powerful outpouring of feelings for such an unlikely figure, and the role played by the media in this development, the research here takes a different approach than the usual focus on political history or the history of journalism. Rather, it follows Barbara Rosenwein’s lead in studying what she calls “emotional communities.” The relevance of examining the formation and durability of emotional communities seems all too clear today
Being Human in the Writing Center
No full textWhen I pitch our Writing Center’s services to students on campus, I am conscious of our high-tech competition. I see the appeal ChatGPT may have to busy students. What is the benefit to booking a half-hour consultation with a peer tutor when one can prompt AI to “make my essay more concise” in a matter of seconds? Peer tutors set themselves apart, simply by cultivating the qualities that make them distinctly human
Mark-recapture methods in eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) monitoring
Get PDFEastern diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus adamanteus; EDB) are an imperiled species native to the Southeastern United States longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem. Several markrecapture methods have been used range-wide in hopes of increasing knowledge on their population numbers. I explored the efficacy of two mark-recapture methods (scale cauterization and dorsal head photography) using the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, SC EDB population in this multi-part study. The first method I evaluated was ventral scale branding, which has been widely implemented without knowledge of brand permanence. I classified misidentification errors at capture status (new versus recapture) and individual (cautery identification number) levels, confirming snake identity based on the presence of a passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag. I used logistic regressions to examine covariate effects on the probability of surveyors committing Type I (uncauterized snakes incorrectly identified as recaptures) and Type II (cauterized snakes incorrectly identified as new captures) capture status misidentification errors. I quantified individual-level misidentification errors when surveyors incorrectly interpreted the unique cautery identification numbers given to a snake. Surveyors were more likely to commit Type II errors than Type I errors, and the probability of misidentifying capture status averaged 17.5% when snakes were previously cauterized, as compared to 3.1% when snakes were uncauterized. Ecdysis cycle was the most important predictor of individual-level misidentification errors, and snakes that were in ecdysis at the time they were evaluated were more likely to be misidentified. High misidentification rates do not negate the use of scale cauterization in snake monitoring programs. Rather, knowledge of misidentification errors improves the utility of snake mark-recapture data by enabling researchers to select appropriate demographic models that include considerations for misidentification errors. In Chapter 2, I investigated the use of dorsal head photographs of EDBs to evaluate the suitability of unique head scale patterns for identifying individuals through photographic mark-recapture (PMR). This method has been used with other snake taxa, with unique scale patterns, but no published studies have evaluated this method in EDBs. Head scale patterns were assessed and matched by creating a database of 480 photos that were taken in either a controlled environment using smartphones or captured in adapted-Hunt drift fence technique (AHDriFT) camera trap arrays. I used two computer-assisted pattern recognition software programs (Wild-ID and HotSpotter) to match samples photos (recapture photos of individuals) to reference photos (preexisting photos in the database). Using a logistic regression analysis, I examined covariate effects of misidentification errors when the software programs failed to correctly rank a photo or photos of the same individual as the top match or matches. HotSpotter (12% error rate) outperformed Wild-ID (14.3% error rate). Ecdysis cycle was the only significant predictor of misidentification errors, indicating that photos taken of snakes in ecdysis were more likely to be incorrectly matched to a photo of a different individual. The use of natural head pattern markings is a reliable method of identifying individual EDBs but has limited utility for estimating population demographics due its inability to provide data such as sex or mass. Therefore, unique head patterns are likely best suited for supplementing traditional mark-recapture methods as a backup approach
Functionalism, Algorithms and the Pursuit of a Theory of Mind for Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFAbstract.
The advancement of computing technology has given rise to an interesting thesis: the human brain can be studied and understood as operating on the principles of a digital computer. The claim later became a more substantial thesis: the Mind is a computer since the Mind is actualized in the brain. The recent success of large language models (LLMs) such as Bard (produced by Google), GPT3, ChatGPT (also known as GPT3.5, produced by OpenAI-Microsoft), and LLaMA (produced byMeta) has brought greater attention and focus to the discussion of human versus machine intelligence. The result has been a pursuit of a plausible theory of Mind. Functionalism is touted as the foundation of a theory of Mind where to have a mind is not to possess any intrinsic quality; instead, it is the capacity to fulfil or to realise specific tasks or functions. Such a realization is achieved by having representational structures operated by computational procedures. These procedures are rules or recipes known as algorithms that create statistical relations in data to produce inference. This essay discusses the theory of functionalism, showing how it forms the grounding for algorithms that run AI technologies. By analyzing the success of large language models, the paper demonstrates the functionalist framework that underlie advances in AI though significant work remain in achieving general AI
Modernist Transitions: Cultural Encounters between British and Bangla Modernist Fiction from 1910s to 1950s
Get PDFA Review of Modernist Transitions: Cultural Encounters between British and Bangla Modernist Fiction from 1910s to 1950