1,480,574 research outputs found
James A Watson Scrapbook
No full textScrapbook containing memorabilia from James A Watson\u27s life and times at Lehigh Universit
Doctor Watson Architects: AIR Grid Transnational
No full textAt a place called Saint Paul-lez-Durance in Southern France there is an enormous construction site where scientists and engineers are building a Tokamak (The word is an abbreviation for toroidal chamber with magnetic coils, it is a device that uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. Tokamaks were invented in the 1950s by soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov). The project at Saint Paul-lez-Durance (otherwise known as ITER) is an International adventure tracing its roots back to the 1985 Superpower Summit held in Geneva, where the American President Ronald Regan agreed to the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachov’s suggestion of working collectively towards the development of fusion energy for peaceful purposes. Once the ITER Tokamak is assembled it will be used to progress the scientific research, necessary if the idea of fusion energy is ever to become a reality.
Doctor Watson Architects take the circumstances of ITER as an opportunity for conducting an architectural thought experiment. We propose an additional programmatic element be added to the ITER research activities that will out last its current, strictly scientific role. To this end we propose the idea of an enduring and evolving Museum of the Radiant Future (MORF), whose major function is the redirection of attitudes away from the widespread incomprehension of science, technology and art towards understanding as a source of optimism for a heterogenous human and non-human world, rich in possibilities and active knowledge. To this end we are currently devising and constructing a psychophysical model of the ITER complex that aims to communicate its revised mode of functioning
Four unidentified men gathered around a table, Oregon, approximately 1890
No full textCaption on mount: Watson. 225 First Street. Portland, Oregon.
PH Coll 334 Watson.2The photographer is possibily Joseph E. Watson who owned a studio on First Street in Portland, Oregon between 1890-1892. There was also a studio called Watson and Woodruff in Portland that operated in 1916 which may be the photographer as well.To order a reproduction, inquire about permissions, or for information about prices see:
http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/services/reproduction/reproduction
Please cite the Order Numbe
Compositional Evolution: The impact of Sex, Symbiosis and Modularity on the Gradualist Framework of Evolution
No full textNo biological concept has had greater impact on the way we view ourselves and the world around us than the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin's masterful contribution was to provide an algorithmic model (a formal step-by-step procedure) of how adaptation may take place in biological systems. However, the simple process of linear incremental improvement that he described is only one algorithmic possibility, and certain biological phenomena provide the possibility of implementing alternative processes. In Compositional Evolution, Richard Watson uses the tools of computer science and computational biology to show that certain mechanisms of genetic variation (such as sex, gene transfer, and symbiosis) allowing the combination of preadapted genetic material enable an evolutionary process, compositional evolution, that is algorithmically distinct from the Darwinian gradualist framework. After reviewing the gradualist framework of evolution and outlining the analogous principles at work in evolutionary computation, Watson describes the compositional mechanisms of evolutionary biology and provides computational models that illustrate his argument. He uses models such as the genetic algorithm as well as novel models to explore different evolutionary scenarios, comparing evolution based on spontaneous point mutation, sexual recombination, and symbiotic encapsulation. He shows that the models of sex and symbiosis are algorithmically distinct from simpler stochastic optimization methods based on gradual processes. Finally, Watson discusses the impact of compositional evolution on our understanding of natural evolution and, similarly, the utility of evolutionary computation methods for problem solving and design
A simple two-module problem to exemplify building-block assembly under crossover
No full textTheoretically and empirically it is clear that a genetic algorithm with crossover will outperform a genetic algorithm without crossover in some fitness landscapes, and vice versa in other landscapes. Despite an extensive literature on the subject, and recent proofs of a principled distinction in the abilities of crossover and non-crossover algorithms for a particular theoretical landscape, building general intuitions about when and why crossover performs well when it does is a different matter. In particular, the proposal that crossover might enable the assembly of good building-blocks has been difficult to verify despite many attempts at idealized building-block landscapes. Here we show the first example of a two-module problem that shows a principled advantage for cross-over. This allows us to understand building-block assembly under crossover quite straightforwardly and build intuition about more general landscape classes favoring crossover or disfavoring it
Nancy Dingham Watson Correspondence
No full textEntries include a typed letter of correspondence from children\u27s author Nancy Dingham Watson on Aldren A. Watson, Illustration & Design, Putney, Vermont, stationery with a red-inked print image of a train, in reply to the Maine State Library concerning her recent book When is Tomorrow? dedicated to her father and illustrated by her husband, and visits to Vinalhaven, Maine, prompted (in part) by a seasonal allergy to ragweed, with typed correspondence from Aldren Watson discussing his father-in-law\u27s delight on reading the book, a typographical error, notice of new farm book What Does A Begin With?, and a typed letter from the Maine State Library on receipt of her book gift for the Maine Author Collection
Charles A. Watson Letter, MSS.1677
No full textAbstract: A letter from Charles A. Watson to John E. Boos, describing his experiences at the Battle of Gettysburg, April 20, 1928.Scope and Content Note: This collection consists of one letter from Watson to John E. Boos, describing his experiences at the Battle of Gettysburg, where Watson fought as a member of the 13th Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and where he had two comrades fatally wounded at his side.Biographical/Historical Note: Union Civil War soldier from Vermont
A Simple Modularity Measure for Search Spaces based on Information Theory
No full textWithin the context of Artificial Life the question about the role of modularity has turned out to be crucial, especially with regard to the problem of evolvability. In order to be able to observe the development of modular structure, appropriate modularity measures are important. We introduce a continuous measure based on information theory which can characterize the coupling among subsystems in a search problem. In order to illustrate the concepts developed, they are applied to a very simple and intuitive set of combinatorial problems similar to scenarios used in the seminal work by Simon (1969). It is shown that this measure is closely related to the classification of search problems in terms of Separability, Non-Decomposability and Modular Interdependency as introduced in (Watson and Pollack, 2005)
ppF: sensation of a person in space/Chry&Co
No full textThe painter print is a new visual art form that captures the reality of the digital world. It was invented by Doctor Watson Architects in 2020 as part of their on-going project of Incomplete Works
On the Unit of Selection in Sexual Populations
No full textEvolution by natural selection is a process of variation and selection acting on replicating units. These units are often assumed to be individuals, but in a sexual population, the largest reliably-replicated unit on which selection can act is a small section of chromosome – hence, the ‘selfish gene’ model. However, the scale of unit at which variation by spontaneous mutation occurs is different from the scale of unit at which variation by recombination occurs. I suggest that the action of recombinative variation and mutational variation together can enable local optimization to occur at two different scales simultaneously. I adapt a recent model illustrating a benefit of sexual recombination to illustrate conditions for two scales of optimization in natural populations, and show that the operation of natural selection in this scenario cannot be understood by considering either scale alone
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