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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1984)
Texas A&M last "eel nianjuam | ■menez, n 'l e s SOUlli I Battalion -1 tons o| I Serving the Gniversity community at a re- | VoL 80 ^°- 56 CJSPS 045360 18 P a 9 es a d discoi*. r College Station, Texas Thursday, November 15, 1984 • attorn i n •rkers lej •ttalion of. lai 'ge find. tlwi site, liscovetfi marijuana I * campesi.1 -• Mondai <>f matt, ^iliuahus, Sieved to " an esti-1 « actually '•^ profits | mug blasts rock cities n Chile United Press International I SANTIAGO, Chile — A powerful nr bomb exploded near the Min- itry of Defense Wednesday, hours Iter 16 nearly simultaneous blasts 3 Wxked major cities in the- first ter- ?*M)rist bombings since die military iiMwernment declared .1 state of siege |week ago. Ik ■ No injuries were reported. | ■The most powerful of the blasts I wusa taxi loaded with d\namite that ^ Wentoff350 yards from the- ministrs jBHildingin downtown Santiago shat- iMring windows of neat >v liuitdings iMinutes after a nightly curfew began at midnight. ■ Sixteen almost simultaneous blasts 'rocked the Chilean c apital and other i ( ,nal[:|.Jtie 5 two hours earliei inc hiding an -in AtiuBplosion that wrecked the- of f ices of \nne, ledj a | news P a l )er ‘ n t * lt ‘ < < > l>l>t' 1 ' mining miners« t0 " 11 Rancagua. ®Six dynamite charges e xploded at lire pit «fferent points in the Chilean c.ipi- j motonsatak damaging lamp posts to whie h ’ battle B e V were attat "f u ‘ ( l’ residents said ters. M;» n explosions went off in the red nr:iP II l lern industrial city ol Concep- e in Vf>M>n and the Pacific port of Valpa- ketertf • IS() ' authorities s;iid. alice frol President Augusto Pinochet de- :-p®red a state of siege last fnesday r bantj. F r first time since 1978 to coun- Mjni®B r widespread demonstrations and d fife^■o^ingterrorist violence that killed rr fnB g ^ civilians and six policemen in ■e two weeks bef ore the decree, fields ltiB^ e state °f siege broadened the- mtise (fwvefnment’s powers of arrest and to atB°wsauthorities to restrict the t ight ie tide.'® asscm ^y> censor the press and open letters. ^Despite the government crack down, Chile’s, main /apposition coali tions agreed to stage a mass protest Nov. 27-28. 1 Neither the bombings nor the op- losition’s call for new demonstra tions was reported by Chilean media Because of the government’s strict See CHILE, page J Spacewalking crew saves 2nd satellite Photo by WALTER SMITH Outdoor classes? Not really, but Jaque Angerstein does like to study in the quiet surroundings of the drill field bleachers. The junior bi ology major says she usually lies in the middle of the field, but couldn’t Tuesday because the grass was being mowed. United Press International CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Dis covery’s spacewalking salvage crew pulled a second satellite out of a use less orbit Wednesday in a spectac ular space triumph made easy by us ing Joseph Allen as a human skyhook 223 miles above Earth. Allen, perched on the end of the shuttle’s 50-foot robot arm, held the glittering, 1,098-pound Westar 6 spacecraft “steady like a rock” above the cargo bay for more than an hour and half while Dale Gardner pre pared to secure it. With Anna Fisher operating the arm and David Walker giving direc tions from inside the cabin, the two spacewalkers outside lowered Westar into a berth next to the Pal- apa satellite retrieved Monday. “We have two satellites latched in the bay,” commander Frederick Hauck reported jubilantly nearly four hours after the spacewalk be gan. “Roger, that gave us a big cheter down here,” Jerry Ross in mission control said. The astronauts are scheduled to bring their $70 million haul back to Earth Friday, landing at the Ken nedy Space Center landing strip five miles west of the launch pad they blasted away from Thursday, Dec. 8. “I think you’ll find that satellite is very clean,” Hauck said, after in specting Westar from his vantage point at a rear window of Discovery’s cabin. “We may have nicked it a cou ple of places but I can’t see anywhere we did.” A television camera scanned the cargo bay and Ronald McNair in Houston control said, “It looks like you’ve got a full truck load there.” “We sure do, and you’ve got one happy crew up here,” replied Fisher, two hours before the crew turned in for the night. Although an earlier shuttle crew retrieved a scientific satellite for re pairs in orbit, never before had men rescued satellites written off as lost by the insurance industry because of rocket failure. No other nation has that capability. “We’re absolutely delighted to be the beneficiaries of such a demon stration of skill and technical excel lence,” said Stephen Merrett, head of the British insurance syndicate that financed most of the historic sal-, vage mission. “All in all, there are literally hun dreds of insurers who will benefit from the successful completion of this mission,” he said, noting that the satellites will be overhauled and sold again to offset part of the insurance loss. “As much as anything, this flight is a confidence builder that we should not set our sights too low on what we can accomplish in space,” said Gerald Griffin, a former flight director and now head of the John son Space Center in Houston. “We found that without exotic equipment ... that the astronauts, through the use of the gloved hand, were able to handle some large hard ware and handle it precisely.” The 5!/2-hour spacewalk went much more smoothly than Monday’s retrieval when an obstruction on the satellite prevented the astronauts from using the arm to hold the satel lite while it was prepared for mount ing. ft was to avoid such a problem Wednesday that Allen used the arm perch. Hauck maneuvered Discovery to within 35 feet below Westar 6 while the astronauts wafted at the ready, gazing up at their gently spinning quarry. “Oh, wow, look at that satellite,” said Allen. As soon as the sun appeared over the horizon, Gardner took off with his 24-jet backpack and soared to ward Westar, approaching the 9- foot-long cylinder with the blue- white globe in the background, pro ducing some of the most spectacular space television ever seen. Like the capture operation Allen performed Monday, Gardner in serted a lance-like grapple into a spent rocket in Westar, tightened some toggle bolts and secured him self to the satellite. A few bursts from his jetpack stopped the rota tion. Allen then locked his booted feet to the end of the arm and Fisher slowly raised him toward the satel lite. With one hand he grabbed a tu bular antenna and got a grip on a piece of spacecraft structure with the other. Gardner then backed away, leav ing Westar in Allen’s hands. “Establish a comfortable position and just kind of stay there,” Walker told Allen. “I’m just going to relax,” he re plied. While Allen held Westar, Gardner worked under it in the payload bay, first attaching a plastic cover over the craft’s dirty rocket nozzle and then bolting on a mounting ring. At one point, Gardner lost a wrench. Walker spotted it floating against a bulkhead and Gardner — attached to a safety line — dove after the wrench and retrieved it. With the mount attached, Allen lowered the satellite gently into ’ three open latches. Hauck gave an update to Ross to be relayed to mission controllers: “You can tell them the airlock is depressurized and all is well with the world.” “Roger that, give ’em a good handshake and a slap on the back,” Ross replied. “They did super jobs.” } obel Laureate: computers yield data on people By SARAH OATES eL Staff Writer L “Artificial intelligence is simply the performance by a computer of ■uman tasks requiring human intel ligence,” Nobel Laureate Dr. Her bert Simon told an audience ot about 300 Wednesday. Simon, a professor of psychology ? and computer science at Carnegie Blellon University, spoke about cur rent research in teaching computers | to think like hurnans, also known as [.artificial intelligence. This research I began in 1955, he said, when com- [ paters were taught to solve logical theorems. He said computer programs for intelligence are based on a “physical symbol system,” which mimics hu man intellect. To do this computers must take in symbols and analyze them, which the 68-year-old Simon said is compara ble to a human’s ability to hear, see and read. It also must be able to re trieve information from its memory bank and compare or combine it with other information, he said. “Like a human, the computer does something different depending on what symbols it receives,” Simon said. Artificial intelligence computer programs include tasks such as solv ing math problems, developing chess strategies and making medical diagnoses. These tasks test the com- puter’s ability to read and analyze different symbols Some computer companies are now developing “expert systems” de signed to analyze symbols relating to a particular field, Simon said. These computers are tailored to a custom er’s specific needs. For example, a business may order a computer sys tem specifically designed to handle payroll accounts. Simon said that artificial intelli gence research has yielded new in formation about human intellect. The research has shown humans must spend 10 years studying and working to become an expert in a particular field, he said. During that 10 years the person becomes famil iar with about 50,000 units or “chunks” of knowledge pertaining only to that field. “English experts would know about 50,000 chunks in the form of words,” he said. “This is perceptual learning, the ability to recognize and retrieve information from memory. It is not memorization. A large part of expert skill resides in these chunks.” Computer intelligence research also has shown that humans mostly use intuition to reason through problems. Simon said that research ers are programming computers to be intuitive. “The ‘inference engines’ of an ex pert computer system allows it to re ason,” he said. “It allows it to think ‘The goal is there and I’m here. How do I get to there?’ It then can go to memory and see how it has dealt with a similar situation in the past.” Computers taught to “learn” this way have been able to look at exam ples of problems, pick out relevant points and apply them to solving an entire class of similar problems, something Simon said humans nor mally do not do. However, researchers have run successful experiments applying this technique to human learning, he said. Simon is part of the three-man re search team that developed “BA CON,” a computer program capable of inductive reasoning, or reaching an answer after analyzing a set of data. The program is named for re naissance philosopher Francis Ba con. “We gave BACON Kepler’s data for the planetary motion and within See NOBEL, page 5 Dr. Herbert Simon Alzheimer’s disease irreversible, unpreventable Editor’s note: This is the Hi st in a two-purt series on Al/heimci's dis- ease. By DAINAH BULLARD Staff Writer It’s rated as the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, it's responsible for about 120,000 deaths each year in this count! \ , and know affects 2 to 4 million Ameri cans, but few people are familiar with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is a progressive, de generative disease that causes men tal deterioration in its victims. Alz heimer’s usually affects people over the age of 50. It is unpreventable, uncontrollable and irreversible. ] Loss of memory — the prevalent symptom associated with Alzheim er’s — eventually becomes so exten sive that victims forget how to per form basic acts, such as eating and walking. Memories of family and friends slip away as the patient grad ually becomes unable to care for ; himself and finally enters a vegeta tive state. | Disorientation, confusion and lack of judgment are other symptoms which accompany Alzheimer’s dis ease. Though it is listed as the fourth leading cause of death, Alzheimer’s does not directly cause death. How ever, Alzheimer’s is indirectly re sponsible for the deaths. “The disease does not cause death in the sense that the lungs stop breathing or the heart stops beat ing,” said Dr. Robert T. Matthews, an assistant professor of anatomy at Texas A&M. The results of Alz heimer’s, such as being bedridden or confined to a nursing home in the advanced stages, provide an ideal setting for diseases such as pneumo nia, which actually cause cleath, he said. “Older people are more suscepti ble (to diseases) in general,” Mat thews said. “But people who have Alzheimer’s, as compared to an identical age group, show a higher rate of diseases.” While research on cancer and heart disease is supported by well known organizations, the Alzheim er’s Disease and Related Disorders Association Inc. is not a household name. The organization, like the dis ease, is not well known because it is new compared to the other organi zations. “Alzheimer’s is a subgroup of the larger group of senility,” Matthews said. “About 50 percent to 60 per cent of the patients showing signs of dementia have Alzheimer’s.” Matthews said research on Alz heimer’s began about five years ago Neurologist: Alzheimer's best treated with caring By KARI FLUEGEL Staff Writer At the second meeting of the Brazos Valley Alzheimer’s Dis ease Family Support Group at the Brazos Genter Wednesday, Dr. Randall Light, a local neurologist, discussed Alzheimer’s disease. The meeting corresponds with the observance of November as Alzheimer’s Awareness month. Alzheimer’s disease, which is a type of dementia (loss of cogni tive abilities), decreases memory capacity, alters judgement and decreases attention span. It usually occurs in older adults, but it is not considered a normal part of aging, Laght said. About 5 percent of the popula tion over 65 has c. severe form of dementia and about another 10 percent has a mild to moderate form of the disease, Light said. Diagnosis is made by making a profile about the patient from ac counts of the his activities by friends and family members. But this diagnosis cannot be con firmed until death when the vic tim’s brain can be put underneath a magnifying glass, he said. The cause remains unknown, but Light said it could be linked to a reaction to medication, expo sure to toxins, the presence of a blood clot or multiple small strokes. . There have been a variety of treatments used, Light said. Most of those treatments have at tempted to build up the resis tance of the neurotransmitters in the brain. “Much of the treatment, though, is what is termed sensi tive caring (by the family),” he said. “I think this community is very fortunate to have a support group such as yourselves,” Light told the group. “Know that you’re not alone and that there are a lot of people who want to help and support you.” after pathologists proved that the Cholinergic neurons in some people (Alzheimer’s victims) were unusual. The Cholinergic neurons are located in the substantia innominata part of the brain. “These are cells which you nor mally loose while you age,” Mat thews said. “An Alzheimer’s patient looses them much more quickly.” Though scientists are not cerutin of the exact function of the Choli nergic neurons, they do know that the neurons send messages asso ciated with memory, Matthews said. Unlike Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease, which have symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s, there is no test to positively confirm Alzheimer’s in living patients, Mat-. thews said. A diagnosis of Alzheim er’s disease is made when the possi- bility of similar diseases is eliminated, he said. Positive diagno sis can be made by examining the brain after death. “It’s kind of a strange diagnosis,” he said. “You can diagnose a patient as having dementia. But Alzheimer’s is defined narrowly in that after death, the brain has very distinct plaques ... which are not present in other people. They think this is the remains of dying neurons.” Both clinical research, which in cludes developing diagnostic tools and therapy, and basic research, concerning the function of neurons and why they die, are accelerating, Matthews said. Dr. Randall Light, a Bryan neu rologist, agreed that there is no spe cific test used to diagnose Alzheim er’s. The disease can be confirmed during the patient’s life if tests are performed on certain brain cells, he said. However, this test is seldom performed because it will make no difference in the treatment afforded the patient. Light was the guest speaker at the Brazos Valley Alzheimer’s Disease Family Support Group meeting Wednesday evening.