Clues About Bluffing in Clue: Is Conventional Wisdom Wise?

We have used the board game Clue as a pedagogical tool in our course on Artificial Intelligence to teach formal logic through the development of logic-based computational game-playing agents. The development of game-playing agents allows us to experimentally test many game-play strategies and we have encountered some surprising results that refine “conventional wisdom” for playing Clue. In this paper we consider the effect of the oft-used strategy wherein a player uses their own cards when making suggestions (i.e., “bluffing”) early in the game to mislead other players or to focus on acquiring a particular kind of knowledge. We begin with an intuitive argument against this strategy together with a quantitative probabilistic analysis of this strategy’s cost to a player that both suggest “bluffing” should be detrimental to winning the game. We then present our counter-intuitive simulation results from playing computational agents that “bluff” against those that do not that show “bluffing” to be beneficial. We conclude with a nuanced assessment of the cost and benefit of “bluffing” in Clue that shows the strategy, when used correctly, to be beneficial and, when used incorrectly, to be detrimental

Electronic particle-parameter analyzing system for an electrostatic hypervelocity projector

Description of automatic particle parameter analyzing system for electrostatic hypervelocity accelerato

Kinetics of Open Circuit Processes in Undischarged Li/SOC12 Cells

The kinetics of the heat producing processes in undischarged Li/SOCl2 cells under open circuit conditions were measured by heat-conduction microcalorimetry. The cells studied, Honeywell type G2666 reserve cells, were activated as needed and the rate of open circuit heat output determined as a function of time since activation and temperature. The results at each temperature can be described by an equation of the form q = Bktx where q is the rate of heat output, B is the heat produced per unit of reaction, k and x are empirical constants, and t is the time since activation. Both x and k are found to be functions of temperature; therefore, accelerated testing at elevated temperatures is probably not valid for these cells until the processes involved are better understood

Solid state high voltage pulser

Solid state transistor circuit development for production of hypervelocity high vacuum puls

The Track Record on Takings Legislation: Lessons from Democracy\u27s Laboratories

This report by the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute, entitled The Track Record on Takings Legislation: Lessons from Democracy\u27s Laboratories, examines the experiences of Florida, Oregon, and several other states with legislation implementing the property rights agenda. The report is the first comprehensive effort to systematically identify and evaluate the on-the-ground consequences of so-called takings compensation laws. The major findings of the report are that the takings agenda has undermined community protections by forcing a roll back of existing legal rules and/or by exerting a chilling effect on new legislative activity, special interests such as developers and timber companies have been the primary beneficiaries of takings legislation, the takings laws have fomented and exacerbated neighbor-neighbor conflicts over land use issues, the takings agenda has conferred large windfalls on certain owners either in the form of taxpayer-funded awards or special exemptions from the rules that apply to the rest of the community, and the property rights agenda has undermined the democratic process. Contrary to a common argument made by proponents of this type of legislation, requiring the government to pay to regulate does not lead government officials to make a more nuanced appraisal of the costs and benefits of regulations, apparently because the salience of fiscal costs to government officials far outweighs the relatively more diffuse political benefits of community and homeowner protection

Particle parameter analyzing system

An X-Y plotter circuit apparatus is described which displays an input pulse representing particle parameter information, that would ordinarily appear on the screen of an oscilloscope as a rectangular pulse, as a single dot positioned on the screen where the upper right hand corner of the input pulse would have appeared. If another event occurs, and it is desired to display this event, the apparatus is provided to replace the dot with a short horizontal line