Project Summary: An essay examining an often unexamined aspect of artificial intelligence operation: subjectivity.

“Dozens and dozens of criteria have been proposed for what conditions must be met to accept that a created ‘life form’ should actually be considered life. Different criteria typically reflect different approaches to life: for example, some are concerned with the structure of life, while others address the end-effects of intelligence. For a moment, let us approach a different criteria for acceptance as life: societal acceptance; and for simplicity, let us restrict our analysis to computational life (that is, computerized ‘civilizations’ existing in and between computers).”

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Project Summary: An essay examining the ability of computers to simulate human randomness, and whether human randomness exists at all.

“In the quest to perfectly simulate human behavior, certain fundamental discrepancies between
computer hardware and human “hardware” could prevent the ultimate goal from ever being achieved.
The example of this type of discrepancy that will be dealt with below is the issue of randomness. Do
humans exhibit randomness, and if so, could a computer ever model it?”

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Project Summary: A proposal for an experiment analyzing the potential positive ramifications of visual distraction during auditorily-presented lessons.

Abstract: “This proposal suggests a study be performed analyzing the impact of visual, non-verbal, non-auditory distraction on the absorption of an auditory lesson. The primary prediction is that engaging in such a distraction during lectures the listener does not find to be particularly interesting results in better accumulation of the lecture material than listening alone. The study will involve testing numerous participants under the different lecture activities (listening or engaging in a distraction) and with varying degrees of interest in the lecture material. If true, our hypotheses will suggest a drastic shift in the way multitasking and distraction should be categorized and may have broad implications for changes to be made to classroom environments and policies.”

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Project Summary: A case study on what aspects of different individuals’ personalities interact and the impact those interactions have on the development of relationships.

Abstract: “This case study addresses a narrow question: what causes some people to better describe one another’s personalities? This study considers multiple theories: that certain personalities understand everyone better; that certain personalities understand specific other personalities better; that certain types of relationships lead to better understanding; that sheer amount of time spent together leads to better understanding; and that certain personality combinations actually enhance and highlight different aspects of other personalities. To address these ideas, a narrow case study is undertaken, involving a single individual completing a Big Five inventory personality test, as well as having three of the subject’s close friends completing the survey about him. These three subjects are of different personalities themselves, and also have different relationships with the main subject (one social relationship, one work relationship, one religious relationship). The responses are then analyzed for patterns where the subject’s friends disagree with the subject’s analysis of his own personality. What is found is that the clearest difference that affects the friends’ opinion of the subject’s personality is the type of relationship and the environments that the relationship typically exists in.”

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Project Summary: An essay examining the benefits and likelihood for implementing a consumption-based tax in the United States. Note that while the essay does reference the FairTax, its intention is to talk more generally about consumption-based tax systems as a whole.

“In recent years, the debate over the tax base in the United States has reached a boiling point: the current Federal system (based on taxing individuals’ income) is now facing an uncertain future as an alternate plan – the taxing of consumption, most commonly referred to as sales tax – is gaining steam among powerful politicians and popular media personalities. In order to fully understand the discussion, it is important to understand the historical origin of the income tax, as well as what issues are now pushing the debate to the forefront. Once this background is established, the modern support and opposition can be adequately observed. With all applicable issues detailed, it is the conclusion of the following analysis that a consumption-based tax system (either sales tax or value added tax) would be far more beneficial to the market and the general welfare than the current plan; and that methods exist to facilitate an adequate transition between the two systems without causing extreme financial trauma to the market or any large group of citizens.”

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Project Summary: An essay examining the role that social networking sites - most notably Facebook - played in the 2006 midterm elections and 2008 Presidential primaries. A key part of this analysis involves comparing the similar online presences of Barack Obama and Ron Paul with the very dissimilar primary results between the two.

Abstract: “The 2008 Presidential primaries represented the greatest example of the American electoral process utilizing the newly emergent Web 2.0 technologies of social networking sites and viral networking. But what impact did these emergent technologies have on the 2008 primaries? After establishing a fundamental basis for analysis with the 2006 midterm elections - featuring statistical proof that there is a correlation between online success and actual success - a comprehensive analysis of the 2008 election is conducted. While the overall objective of the analysis is to specify how much impact online campaigning had on the election, the chief candidates that are considered are Barack Obama and Ron Paul’s campaigns. Both campaigns featured excessively large online support bases, but while one succeeded in mounting a viable bid (Obama), the other failed (Paul). The comprehensive analysis of the primaries establishes that the success of Obama and failure of Paul is not in any way connected to their online popularity. Rather, their online popularity instead results from differing causes; Obama’s leads also to real success, but Paul’s does not.”

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Project Summary: An essay examining the potential for an electoral system based not around geographically-defined constituencies, but on inherently-defined or ideologically-defined ones.

“This analysis will examine the origins of geographically-based constituencies, and present the case for why non-geographically-defined constituencies have not yet been implemented to a large degree. Additionally, it will examine many of the questions and issues that would face a system relying on non-geographically-defined constituencies, as well as the benefits that would be garnered from such a system. It should be noted that it is not the intention of this analysis to actually propose an alternate system, but rather simply to examine the benefits that could be garnered by such a system and the challenges to one’s implementation.”

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Project Summary: A thorough analysis of the financial viability of public membership-based gymnasium oriented around the idea of transferring patrons’ exercise activity into usable electricity.

“In order to ensure that our electricity-producing gymnasium project is only pursued if it will be profitable, a marketing and financial research study was pursued analyzing what market will be available for our product and what research costs can be handled while still producing a profitable entity. The broad purpose of this study was to minimize the chance of financial loss.

Initially, this study carried two purposes. The first purpose was to ensure that there was, in fact, a market for our product. It must be ensured that there is a market for a new gymnasium chain in the already-large industry. It must also be confirmed that the electricity-production aspect of our specific product will not deter consumers from utilizing our chain.”

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Project Summary: A simple implementation of a Voronoi diagram, using either random colors or colors drawn from an external file.

This mini-project demonstrates a simple way to implement a Voronoi diagram, using cones and flat shading in OpenGL. A Voronoi diagram is an image with random points, with the area around each point colored a specific color stretching across all points that are closer to that given point.

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