Abstract: Deep convolutional neural networks - the state-of-the-art technique in artificial intelligence for computer vision - achieve notable success rates at simple classification tasks, but are fundamentally lacking when it comes to representation.

These neural networks encode fuzzy textural patterns into vast matrices of numbers which lack the semantically structured nature of human representations (e.g. "a table is a flat horizontal surface supported by an arrangement of identical legs").

This paper takes multiple important steps towards filling in these gaps. I first propose a series of tractable milestone problems set in the abstract two dimensional ShapeWorld, thus isolating the challenge of object compositionality. Then I demonstrate the effectiveness of a new compositional representation approach based on identifying structure among the primitive elements comprising an image and representing this structure through an augmented primitive element tree and coincidence list. My approach outperforms state-of-the-art benchmark algorithms in speed and structural representation in my object representation milestone tasks, while yielding comparable classification accuracy. Finally, I present a mathematical framework for a probabilistic programming approach that can learn highly structured generative stochastic representations of compositional objects from just a handful of examples.

Keywords – Deep convolutional neural networks, state-of-the-art benchmark algorithms, two dimensional ShapeWorld, compositional objects

References

[1] A. Krizhevsky, I. Sutskever, and G. E. Hinton. Imagenet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. In F. Pereira, C. J. C. Burges, L. Bottou, and K. Q. Weinberger, editors, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages 1097–1105. Curran Associates, Inc., 2012.
[2] H. Wang, B. Gao, J. Bian, F. Tian, and T. Liu. Solving verbal comprehension questions in IQ test by knowledge-powered word embedding. CoRR, abs/1505.07909, 2015.
[3] J. Johnson, B. Hariharan, L. van der Maaten, L. Fei-Fei, C. L. Zitnick, and R. B. Girshick. CLEVR: A diagnostic dataset for compositional language and elementary visual reasoning. CoRR, abs/1612.06890, 2016.
[4] Y. Lecun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, and P. Haffner. Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition. Proceedings of the IEEE, 86(11), 1998.
[5] B. Lake, R. Salakhutdinov, J. Gross, and J. Tenenbaum. One shot learning of simple visual concepts. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 33, 2011.
[6] Image of a leopard-print sofa. https://rocknrollnerd.github.io/ml/2015/05/27/leopard-sofa.html.

Abstract: The Union for Reform Judaism’s North American Federation for Temple Youth (URJ NFTY) is a nonprofit organization serving North American Reform Jewish teens. The URJ and NFTY hold strong values tied to Jewish history that are utilized to discuss and advocate for political and social issues, and to mediate teens' relationships to Judaism. URJ NFTY offers teens year-round opportunities to convene, learn, and grow together while forging lasting relationships.
Over the past 10 years, NFTY and its related programming (particularly URJ owned
summer camps) have experienced a significant decrease in participation, causing a gradual decrease in revenue. As a result, the URJ made difficult decisions, including the closure of the URJ Kutz Camp, one of their oldest standing summer programs. Recent trend brought additional financial instability to the organization, causing employment terminations throughout the URJ and across all nineteen NFTY regions. With fewer leaders to guide teens and NFTY/camp alumni, it has become difficult for NFTY to recruit and train its next generation of leaders to advocate against injustice and to preserve the Jewish spirit.

Keywords: URJ, NFTY, URJ Kutz Camp, Judaism,  North American Federation

References:

1. Arquilevich, Ruben. “With Joy, Gratitude & Love, an Update on Summer 2021.” Union for Reform Judaism, 4 Feb. 2021, urj.org/blog/joy-gratitude-love-update-summer-2021.
2. CampaignWire. “Rising Stars: 18 Members of America's Next Political Generation.”
Medium, The Campaigner, 23 Feb. 2016, medium.com/campaigner-2016/rising-stars-18-members-of-america-s-next-political-gene
3. ration-de18ab114afa#.raebue8kl. No. 14: Jeremy Cronig
4. Jacobs, Rick. “Beyond 2020: Upcoming Changes at the URJ.” Union for Reform Judaism, 1 Oct. 2020, urj.org/blog/beyond-2020-upcoming-changes-urj.
5. Jacobs, Rick. “Financials: 2019 URJ Annual Report.” URJ Annual Report, www.2019annualreport.urj.org/financials.
6. Jacobs, Rick. “Financials: URJ 2015 Annual Report.” Flipbook, media.urj.org/flipbook/index.html?page=24.
7. Jacobs, Rick. “Financials: URJ 2017 Annual Report.” Flipbook, media.urj.org/flipbook2017/index.html?page=39.
8. Jacobs, Rick. “Financials: URJ 2018 Annual Report.” URJ Annual Report, www.2018annualreport.urj.org/financials.
9. Jacobs, Rick. “Reform Jewish Movement Leadership Statement: ‘We Must All Expect
More from the President of the United States.’” Union for Reform Judaism, 3 Sept. 2019 urj.org/press-room/reform-jewish-movement-leadership-statement-we-must-all-expect-
more-president-united.

10. “Joe Biden's Plan to End Gun Violence: Joe Biden for President.” Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website, 12 Oct. 2020, joebiden.com/gunsafety/.
11. Levy, Maya. “Reimagining the Future of NFTY.” NFTY, 11 June 2020, nfty.org/future/
 

Abstract: Renewable, green energy is an important field of research amidst the 21st century energy crisis. Many of the researches around the world had been consistently looking for new energy sources, but not as much as on the efficient storage of energy produced from these eco-friendly sources. This research considers how to increase the capacitance through inserting various types of dielectrics to use them as a substantial tool for sustainable development. 

The research focuses on calculating the capacitances of batteries with diverse dielectrics, differing the combinations and geometrical structure of capacitors in order to figure out the capacitances of batteries that can store more energy with better efficiency. Mathematical, physical and computational analysis were employed to figure out the capacitances and stored energy. MATLAB computer programming was used to calculate potential charge distribution within capacitors, the change in the capacitance and electric field of plate capacitors. 

Using mathematical calculations, general expressions for computing the relationship between capacitance and insulation material characteristics, such as dielectric constant, plate dimensions, for n-number of plate capacitors were found. Also the relationship between capacitance, dielectric constant, capacitor dimensions for a thin-walled hollow cylinder was studied. In this work, we showed the influence of the multi-plate capacitor system taking into account the geometrical and types of combinations of the conducting plates.

Keywords: Green energy, capacitance, dielectric constant, conducting plates

References:

1. William D. Greason (1992). Electrostatic discharge in electronics. Research Studies Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-86380-136-5. Retrieved 4 December 2011.

2. Tipler, Paul; Mosca, Gene (2004). Physics for Scientists and Engineers (5th ed.). Macmillan. p. 752. ISBN 978-0-7167-0810-0

3. Massarini, A.; Kazimierczuk, M.K. (1997). "Self capacitance of inductors". IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. 12 (4): 671–676. Bibcode:1997ITPE...12..671M. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.205.7356. doi:10.1109/63.602562: example of the use of the term 'self capacitance'.

4. Jackson, John David (1999). Classical Electrodynamic (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-471-30932-1.

5. Maxwell, James (1873). "3". A treatise on electricity and magnetism. 1. Clarendon Press. p. 88ff.

6. "Capacitance : Charge as a Function of Voltage". Av8n.com. Retrieved 20 September 2010.

7. Fundamentals of Electronics. Volume 1b — Basic Electricity — Alternating Current. Bureau of Naval Personnel. 1965. p. 197.

8. Binns; Lawrenson (1973). Analysis and computation of electric and magnetic field problems. Pergamon Press. ISBN 978-0-08-016638-4.

9. Rawlins, A. D. (1985). "Note on the Capacitance of Two Closely Separated Spheres". IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics. 34 (1): 119–120. doi:10.1093/imamat/34.1.119.

10. Vainshtein, L. A. (1962). "Static boundary problems for a hollow cylinder of finite length. III Approximate formulas". Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 32: 1165–1173. 

Abstract: In the modern age of politics, political candidates use Twitter to express their ideas and connect with voters. In 2018, Twitter was used by nearly every candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives throughout their political campaign. To analyze the language used on Twitter, we used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to analyze a text file (for each candidate) of all tweets from July 1, 2018 to November 6, 2018 to produce a descriptive output of language use in the months preceding the midterm elections. Consistent with past studies, it was predicted that candidates would use words characterized by negative affect on Twitter in order to connect with voters on an emotional level and to gain votes. In-depth analysis relating linguistic variables to vote count provided insight into how politicians used language on Twitter to improve their popularity. As theorized, candidates who used more words consisting of negative emotion obtained a greater number of votes than that of their counterparts. These findings provided support for the hypothesis that words of negative affect are deemed more impactful than neutral or positive words in politics, and that such language is highly correlated, regardless of party affiliation, with vote count. These findings provide a greater understanding of linguistics in the modern age of politics and provide insight into how increasingly prevalent social media platforms are factoring into politics.

Keywords: Political candidates, natural language, vote count, midterm election

References:

[1] Burgess, Jean, and Cornelius Puschmann. Twitter and Society. Edited by Katrin Weller, Axel Bruns, and Merja Mahrt. New York: Peter Lang, 2014.

[2] Kahn, J. H., Tobin, R. M., Massey, A. E., & Anderson, J. A. (2007). Measuring Emotional Expression with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The American Journal of Psychology,120(2), 263. doi:10.2307/20445398

[3] Larsson, A. O., & Moe, H. (2012). Studying Political Microblogging: Twitter Users in the 2010 Swedish Election Campaign. SAGE Journals,14(5), 729-747. doi:10.1177/1461444811422894

[4] Lau, R. R. (1982). Negativity in Political Perception. Political Behavior, 4(4), 353–377. doi: 10.1007/bf00986969

[5] Marres, N., & Weltevrede, E. (2013). Scraping The Social? Issues in real-time social research. Journal of Cultural Economy,6(3), 313-335. doi:10.1080/17530350.2013.772070

Abstract: Oxidation of the cells in the human organ causes tumor but information on the subcellular localization of oxidative molecules has not been known in detail. It is highly desirable to find the properties of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and oxidative reactions in biomembranes in human cells on a nano-scaled level for the proper mechanism of carcinogenesis.
In this project, hydrated Fullerenes(C60/C40-HyFn) and  functionalized Carbon Nanotubes(CNTs) molecules were thermodynamically studied. Fullerenes and CNTs are considered as potential targeted nano-scaled compounds in the treatment of tumor cells to determine whether the molecules stabilize or destabilize the molecules.  The Auto Optimize Tool in the computational software was used for each Carbon Nanotubes(CNTs) and hydrated Fullerene derivatives modeled in this project to determine its optimization energy. The Universal Force Field (UFF) option was selected for all the molecules modeled.

Keywords – Nanotubes(CNTs), Hydrated Fullerenes(C60/C40-HyFn), Auto Optimize Tool, Carcinogenesis

References

[1] http://www.chem.ucalgary.ca/courses/350/Carey5th/Ch07/ch7-0.html
[2] http://research.cm.utexas.edu/nbauld/teach/stereo.html
[3] Hider, R. C., Roy, S., Ma, Y. M., Kong, X. L., & Preston, J. (2011). The potential application of iron chelators for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Metallomics, 3(3), 239–249. doi: 10.1039/c0mt00087f
[4] Dusek, P., Schneider, S. A., & Aaseth, J. (2016). Iron chelation in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, 38, 81–92. doi: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2016.03.010
[5] http://www.nanotechproject.org/cpi/products/radical-sponge-r-fullerene/
[6] http://www.nanomedjournal.com/article/S1549-9634(10)00300-X/fulltext
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z8Q0aUKuUU
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jCJXhusI2M
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3nL_LoWJs
[10] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3542060/
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hom11_tbQ-Q
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEtS5qLOHs
[13] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2011/jm/c0jm02020f#!divAbstract

Abstract: This project applies a new theory in the field of intergroup conflict known as "Gateway group theory," which posits that to decrease conflict between two groups, a third group with specific characteristics that appeal to both sides needs to be identified, enabling them to act as a medium. This group is known as a "Gateway group." With the background of the bitter digital divide and echo chambers plaguing the United States’ current political discourse, this paper sought to find the Gateway group between polar Democrats and Republicans on Twitter. 

This project data mined and examined the shared “likes” of these two populations using originally developed code and definitional parameters. Then, the study analyzed the profiles of the authors of these liked Tweets to compile an aggregated Gateway group profile that can be used to find Gateway group individuals on Twitter who have the ability to decrease conflict between Democrats and Republicans. The study found that Gateway group members exist. They are a group of Moderate Democrats. Every post that was liked by both a Democrat and Republican was also tagged and analyzed for similarities in content. It was found that 55% of all posts referenced “Trump” and 92% of those votes had a negative sentiment. Additional similarities in content were found, for example a keen interest in elections and certain Democratic candidates. This project develops an effective methodology that can be applied to any conflict on Twitter to find the Gateway group for that conflict to decrease polarity between polar groups.

Keywords: Gateway group theory, Democrat and Republican, political discourse, Twitter

References:

Bessi, A. (2016). Personality traits and echo chambers on facebook. Computers in Human Behavior,65, 319-324. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.08.016
Demszky, D., Garg, N., Voigt, R., Zou, J., Shapiro, J., Gentzkow, M., & Jurafsky, D. (2019).

Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2012). The Common Ingroup Identity Model. Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology,2, 439-457.  ttp://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446249222.n48

Gaertner, S. S., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. (1993). The Common Ingroup Identity Model: Recategorization and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias.

European Review of Social Psychology,4(1), 1-26. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000004. Goyal, S. (2005). Strong and Weak Links. Journal of the European Economic Association,
3(2/3), 608-616. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40005003.

Hornsey, M. J., & Hogg, M. A. (2000). Subgroup Relations: A Comparison of Mutual Intergroup Differentiation and Common Ingroup Identity Models of Prejudice Reduction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,26(2), 242-256. doi:10.1177/0146167200264010

Pettigrew, T. F., Tropp, L. R., Wagner, U., & Christ, O. (2011). Recent advances in intergroup contact theory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,(35), 271-280.

Zollo, F., Novak, P. K., Vicario, M. D., Bessi, A., Mozetič, I., Scala, A., . . . Quattrociocchi, W. (2015). Emotional Dynamics in the Age of Misinformation. Plos One,10(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0138740

Abstract: Gifted children are people who are capable of high performance in cognitive, educational, scientific, creative and artistic fields compared to their peers. But there are also gifted children who have problems with cognitive, educational, social, emotional and behavioral development. They are called twice-exceptional children. Regarding these children, who have high talents and abilities while at the same time having disabilities, is an important issue for education professionals. The present study mainly aims to compare the executive functions profile of twice exceptional children with gifted ones.To this end, 30 twice-exceptional gifted children and 30 gifted children were selected from among elementary school students in district 3 of Isfahan, Iran. Then, the two groups administered The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC®-IV) for assessment of the Tower Test (NEPSY) to evaluate executive functions. The research results showed that the profile and average executive function of the twice-exceptional children were lower than those of gifted children in the Tower test (NEPSY). Therefore, it is suggested to consider executive functions (planning, organization, time management, problem solving, etc.) in identifying and educating these children.

Keywords: Gifted children, twice-exceptional children, executive function

References:

[1] Dawson,P & Guara,R .(2018). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents Third Edition: A practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention.

[2] Guilford Press Major, J. (2017). A Change Plan for Underachieving Gifted Children (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://digital commons.nl.edu/diss/252. Pfeiffer, S. I. (2015).

[3] Gifted students with a coexisting disability: The twice exceptional. Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas), 32 (4), 717-727.

[4] Sterenberg,R.J & Javin,L & Grigorenko,E.L. (2011) Exploration in Giftedness . Cambridge University Press