2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

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2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

This is your discussion thread for specific questions from the 2017 Division I ICT.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy »

Now that I look at it I probably should have been able to figure this out, but the third part of the stat mech bonus in round 2 might be clearer if you explicitly state that you want an answer in terms of Z and N. This is a minor complaint; I thought the science in general was very good, so thanks to all the writers!
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by adamsil »

Could I see the Rd. 2 tossup on clay tennis courts? I only started paying attention when I heard the name of an actual tennis tournament and am curious to see what the first sentence was going on about.

As an aside, I thought the Z^N/N! was a great hard part and the only part that was confusing about it was that I wasn't quite sure if the description outlined whether or not the particles were distinguishable. I think that was my favorite bonus part of the set. My favorite tossup was the one on "drug discovery", which was a great way of asking about some really important stuff, even though I imagine the answerline got a bit hairy.

Not really a surprise, but I thought this set's science was excellent--the easy parts were fair and the hard parts were totally reasonable if you were familiar with the subject. (I can't remember a single organic named reaction coming up as an answer...or even in a clue! This is a good thing!) Thanks to everybody involved with that, as well as in the other categories that I'm less keen on judging.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2017 DI ICT round 2 wrote:The use of this material is characteristic of all four events of the "Golden Swing." The Family Circle Cup uses a green form of this material sometimes called "rubico." Houston hosts a men's championship each spring that utilizes this material, which Gustavo Kuerten and Guillermo (*) Vilas were specialists at playing on. The surface at the Stade Roland Garros is composed of—for 10 points—what material, which has made the topspin-heavy shots of Rafael Nadal successful at the French Open?

answer: clay (accept clay court or equivalents; accept crushed brick or red clay before "green"; prompt on "brick" before "green")
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by vengefulsweatermensch »

Could I see the tossup on "auctions" in sitcoms? This was a terrific idea for a question, but I think I was mislead by the phrasing of one of the clues.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by setht »

DuPhos wrote:the third part of the stat mech bonus in round 2 might be clearer if you explicitly state that you want an answer in terms of Z and N.
adamsil wrote:As an aside, I thought the Z^N/N! was a great hard part and the only part that was confusing about it was that I wasn't quite sure if the description outlined whether or not the particles were distinguishable.
Here's the bonus part:
2017 DI ICT round 2 wrote:For a system consisting of N identical subsystems, each with an identical partition function Z, give the formula for the partition function of the whole system.

answer: _Z^N/N!_
I believe this doesn't need to specify whether the particles in the subsystems are distinguishable (within the subsystem) or not; as long as the subsystems are identical (i.e. indistinguishable from each other), the result holds.

I have gone ahead and tacked on an "in terms of N and Z" at the end of the part.

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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by The Stately Rhododendron »

Whoever wrote the TU on the left hand did a great job.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2017 DI ICT round 12 wrote:Following one of these events on an episode of Frasier, the title character found himself babysitting the daughter of a model named Kristina. On another sitcom, one of these events led to Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero. Andy interrupts a state senator and offers to adopt twelve dogs during an episode of The Office on which Dwight accidentally (*) spends $34,000 at one of these events. For 10 points—name these events, one of which was held on Arrested Development to "Save the Wetlands."

answer: auctions (accept charity auctions)
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Alejandro »

Could I see the tossup on lines?
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by vengefulsweatermensch »

Important Bird Area wrote:
2017 DI ICT round 12 wrote: On another sitcom, one of these events led to Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero.
Yeah, so I buzzed on this clue with "award shows," which is actually a correct answer given the way this is phrased. In the episode "Key Decisions," Lucille Austero gives Buster her phone number after he accidentally flirts with her at Los Premios Desi, an award show for Spanish-language daytime soap operas. The "Save the Wetlands" auction takes place two episodes later. So, I'd argue that Los Premios Desi "led to" Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero, just as much if not more so than the auction.

This is still a really good idea for a tossup - possibly my favorite in the entire set - but the Arrested Development clue, as written, is too vague.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Aaron's Rod »

Important Bird Area wrote:
2017 DI ICT round 12 wrote:Following one of these events on an episode of Frasier, the title character found himself babysitting the daughter of a model named Kristina. On another sitcom, one of these events led to Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero. Andy interrupts a state senator and offers to adopt twelve dogs during an episode of The Office on which Dwight accidentally (*) spends $34,000 at one of these events. For 10 points—name these events, one of which was held on Arrested Development to "Save the Wetlands."

answer: auctions (accept charity auctions)
Is there any point at which "silent auction" should have been accepted? I don't believe I accepted it because it was very late in the question, and I figured that at least one of the previously mentioned auctions was probably not silent. Just a thought, given that it's a very common form of auction.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Banana Stand »

vengefulsweatermensch wrote:
Important Bird Area wrote:
2017 DI ICT round 12 wrote: On another sitcom, one of these events led to Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero.
Yeah, so I buzzed on this clue with "award shows," which is actually a correct answer given the way this is phrased. In the episode "Key Decisions," Lucille Austero gives Buster her phone number after he accidentally flirts with her at Los Premios Desi, an award show for Spanish-language daytime soap operas. The "Save the Wetlands" auction takes place two episodes later. So, I'd argue that Los Premios Desi "led to" Buster's relationship with Lucille Austero, just as much if not more so than the auction.

This is still a really good idea for a tossup - possibly my favorite in the entire set - but the Arrested Development clue, as written, is too vague.
Same here. Thought I was a lock to get it...
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Banana Stand »

Could I see the tossup on Maad City?
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

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2017 DI ICT round 9 wrote:This term represents its artist's "angry adolescence" and his avoidance of drugs after an experience with PCP. A song that proclaims "I am a sinner who's probably gonna sin again" appears on an album whose title features this term. This acronym titles a song on which Schoolboy (*) Q yells "YAWK YAWK YAWK" after opening with the line "If Pirus and Crips all got along." The song "Money Trees" is on an album titled after—for 10 points—what kind of "city," which Kendrick Lamar contrasted with a "good kid"?

answer: m.A.A.d. ["mad"] (accept Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City)
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Off To See The Lizard »

Can i see the glycerol tossup? I wanted to re-read the arachidonic acid clue because I mixed up stuff in my head.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by not quite »

2017 DI ICT round 9 wrote wrote:Cytokines such as IL-1 and TNF-alpha promote this process. Ibuprofen is an example of a "non-steroidal" drug that inhibits this process.
answer: inflammation
Wouldn't all of these clues also apply to "fever" or even "pain"? Although I do understand that the NSAIDs clue is trying to direct us towards "inflammation".
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Off To See The Lizard wrote:Can i see the glycerol tossup? I wanted to re-read the arachidonic acid clue because I mixed up stuff in my head.
2017 DI ICT round 13 wrote:A derivative of this compound can have its action mimicked by phorbol esters, which bind to the C1 domain of a certain enzyme. A derivative of this compound is converted to arachidonic acid in the biosynthesis of prostaglandins. Hydrolysis of PIP2 forms (*) IP3 and a derivative of this compound, which then activates protein kinase C. 50% solutions of this compound are used to make frozen bacterial stocks. For 10 points—name this triol that bonds to three fatty acids in a common class of lipids.

answer: glycerol (accept glycerine; accept diacylglycerols or DAG or monoglycerides or monoacylglycerols before "stocks")
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by Alejandro »

Can I see the traveling salesman bonus? I want to see if there were clues that distinguished that part from the Hamiltonian Cycle problem.
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

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2017 DI ICT round 9 wrote:For 10 points each—answer the following about graph theory problems in the complexity class APX, meaning they are approximately solvable in polynomial time:

A. For a metric graph, this problem that is normally NP-complete is in APX. It seeks the shortest path that visits each vertex of a graph.

answer: (metric) travelling salesman problem

B. This problem, which asks for the smallest set of vertices such that every edge in the graph is incident to at least one of the vertices, is also in APX.

answer: minimum vertex cover problem (or minimum node cover problem)

C. Finding the minimum one of these sets was shown to be APX-hard. This is a set of edges whose removal makes a directed graph become acyclic.

answer: (minimum) feedback arc set (or minimum feedback edge set)
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Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

Post by armitage »

not quite wrote:
2017 DI ICT round 9 wrote wrote:Cytokines such as IL-1 and TNF-alpha promote this process. Ibuprofen is an example of a "non-steroidal" drug that inhibits this process.
answer: inflammation
Wouldn't all of these clues also apply to "fever" or even "pain"? Although I do understand that the NSAIDs clue is trying to direct us towards "inflammation".
I think this was intended to probe your knowledge of what "NSAID" stands for, as you surmised. It's true that this could have been tightened up to exclude those other answers. Sorry if this tripped up you or anyone else.
That said, I have to think that it takes another mental step to get to an answer that isn't inflammation, especially since TNF, IL-1, 6, etc are often just called (pro)inflammatory cytokines, and so the part ought to be OK as it stands in terms of playability.
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