khalifa
Trump hosts Qatar's PM for private dinner, meets Bahrain crown prince
President Donald Trump has hosted Qatar's prime minister for a private dinner and met with Bahrain's crown prince at the White House as part of a United States effort to address regional issues, including securing a Gaza ceasefire, and promote diplomatic ties with the Gulf region. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister and a member of the country's ruling family, had a private dinner with Trump on Wednesday evening. Before this meal, Trump met with Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in the Oval Office. With little progress to share on the region's most pressing conflicts, including Israel's war on Gaza, Trump was more focused on Wednesday on promoting diplomatic ties as a vehicle for economic growth. Trump has lavished attention on the Gulf, a wealthy region where members of his family have extensive business relationships.
Deep Learning for Procedural Content Generation
Liu, Jialin, Snodgrass, Sam, Khalifa, Ahmed, Risi, Sebastian, Yannakakis, Georgios N., Togelius, Julian
Procedural content generation in video games has a long history. Existing procedural content generation methods, such as search-based, solver-based, rule-based and grammar-based methods have been applied to various content types such as levels, maps, character models, and textures. A research field centered on content generation in games has existed for more than a decade. More recently, deep learning has powered a remarkable range of inventions in content production, which are applicable to games. While some cutting-edge deep learning methods are applied on their own, others are applied in combination with more traditional methods, or in an interactive setting. This article surveys the various deep learning methods that have been applied to generate game content directly or indirectly, discusses deep learning methods that could be used for content generation purposes but are rarely used today, and envisages some limitations and potential future directions of deep learning for procedural content generation.
Using Machine Learning to Track COVID-19
"Working on a real-life project that will introduce students to how algorithms work in applications with crucial outcomes will provide them with the important skills that can transfer to other areas of computer and data science." As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine continues, Moataz Khalifa, assistant professor and director of Data Education at Washington and Lee University, is involved in an equally promising research project that focuses on a non-invasive, early detection system of the virus. In March, just as the numbers of cases were climbing around the world, Khalifa was invited by Wu Feng, Elizabeth & James Turner Fellow, professor of computer science at Virginia Tech and director of its SyNeRGy lab, to join his research lab to develop a deep-learning algorithm to enhance low-radiation CT scans of people's lungs. Feng's current research was already investigating similar applications in CT scans of brain tumors, and he received two National Science Foundation grants totaling $250,000 to expand his project to work on the COVID-19 early detection system. Currently, the genetic-based RT-PCR tests available to detect COVID-19 rely on swabbing the nasal cavity.
Automatic Critical Mechanic Discovery in Video Games
Green, Michael Cerny, Khalifa, Ahmed, Barros, Gabriella A. B., Machado, Tiago, Togelius, Julian
We present a system that automatically discovers critical mechanics in a variety of video games within the General Video Game Artificial Intelligence (GVG-AI) framework using a combination of game description parsing and playtrace information. Critical mechanics are defined as the mechanics most necessary to trigger in order to perform well in the game. In a user study, human-identified mechanics are compared against system-identified mechanics to verify alignment between humans and the system. The results of the study demonstrate that our method is able to match humans with high consistency. Our system is further validated by comparing MCTS agents augmented with critical mechanic information against baseline MCTS agents on 4 games in GVG-AI. The augmented agents show a significant performance improvement over their baseline counterparts for all 4 tested games, demonstrating that knowledge of system-identified mechanics are responsible for improved performance.