TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given a question, along with three passages, 1, 2, and 3. Your job is to determine which passage can be used to answer the question by searching for further information using terms from the passage. Indicate your choice as 1, 2, or 3.
PROBLEM: Question: When was the Aroostook War? Passage 1:The area was at the centre of the Aroostook War, a skirmish over boundary lines between the U.S.A. and what was then British North America. Originally confined to a disagreement between the State of Maine and the Colony of New Brunswick, the dispute eventually spread to involve the Government of the United States in Washington, D.C. and the British Colonial Administration in Quebec City, seat of the Governor General of Canada, who had supreme authority over all of British North America, including New Brunswick. In the wake of this international conflict, a small fortification (Fortin du Petit-Sault) was built in anticipation of a possible attack by the Americans, to complement the much larger fortification located at Fort Ingall (now Cabano) in nearby Canada (now Quebec). One of the central figures at the origin of the conflict was American-born industrialist "Colonel" John Baker, who had established sawmills and other lumber-related industries on the eastern shores of the Saint John river, an area claimed by the British that Baker wanted to be declared part of Maine as he was a fiercely nationalist American.
 Passage 2:The sculptor is unknown, although Paul MacKendrick suggests that Pythokritos of Lindos is responsible. When first discovered on the island of Samothrace (then part of the Ottoman Empire and called Semadirek) and published in 1863, it was suggested that the Victory was erected by the Macedonian general Demetrius Poliorcetes after his naval victory at Cyprus, between 295 and 289 BC. The Archaeological Museum of Samothrace continues to follow these originally established provenance and dates. Ceramic evidence discovered in recent excavations has revealed that the pedestal was set up about 200 BC, though some scholars still date it as early as 250 BC or as late as 180. Certainly, the parallels with figures and drapery from the Pergamon Altar (dated about 170 BC) seem strong. The evidence for a Rhodian commission of the statue has been questioned, however, and the closest artistic parallel to the Nike of Samothrace are figures depicted on Macedonian coins. Samothrace was an important sanctuary for the Hellenistic Macedonian kings. The most likely battle commemorated by this monument is, perhaps, the Battle of Cos in 255 BC, in which Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia won over the fleet of Ptolemy II of Egypt.
 Passage 3:Ari Brynjolfsson was born in Akureyri, Iceland, one of the seven children of Brynjólfur Sigtryggsson and Guðrún Rósinkarsdóttir from Hörgárdalur. He lived in Krossanes, Eyjafjörður and graduated from Menntaskólinn á Akureyri in 1948, then studied nuclear physics at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, from 1948 to 1954, gaining his PhD, with a thesis which dealt with a device he had constructed for accurately measuring magnetism in rocks. Following this he became a special research fellow of the University of Iceland from 1954 to 1955, then an Alexander von Humboldt fellow of the University of Göttingen, Germany, from 1955 to 1957. While at Göttingen he contributed important work in magnetic moments, using a self-devised instrument with which he and others provided the strongest evidence to that date for magnetic field reversals.


SOLUTION: 1

PROBLEM: Question: Of the two offices of Stewards, which was formed first? Passage 1:Amaseia was captured by the Roman Lucullus in 70 BC from Armenia and was quickly made a free city and administrative center of his new province of Bithynia and Pontus by Pompey. By this time, Amaseia was a thriving city, the home of thinkers, writers and poets, and one of them, Strabo, left a full description of Amaseia as it was between 60 BC and 19 AD. Around 2 or 3 BC, it was incorporated into the Roman province of Galatia, in the district of Pontus Galaticus. Around the year 112, the emperor Trajan designated it a part of the province of Cappadocia. Later in the 2nd century it gained the titles 'metropolis' and 'first city'. After the division of the Roman Empire by emperor Diocletian the city became part of the East Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire). At this time it had a predominantly Greek-speaking population.
 Passage 2:The first known appointment to the position was that of Denzil Onslow in 1686 or 1694. He was deprived of his office in 1711 when the Junto Whigs were crushed. In 1715, the office was granted to Denzil's great-nephew Hon. Thomas Onslow. While it provided an emolument for him, the principal purpose of the appointment was to force Thomas to vacate his seat as Member of Parliament for Guildford, under the terms of the Place Act 1707. By removing him from the House of Commons, he could now stand in the by-election for Surrey, which had been vacated when his father Richard was made a Teller of the Exchequer. (Richard was about to be made a peer, hence his failure to stand in the by-election himself.) Two years later, when Thomas succeeded to his father's barony, Denzil Onslow again received the office for the same reason, vacating his seat at Guildford to successfully contest Surrey. This presaged the use of other offices of profit under the Crown as a means of resignation from the British House of Commons, which became formalised in the offices of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds and Steward of Northstead.
 Passage 3:Vallow then went on to Sony to produce their first primetime series, Dilbert, with Larry Charles, which ran on UPN for two seasons. She then took over as producer for season three of Family Guy before its brief cancellation. In 2004, Vallow created and produced the animation sequences in the critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary In the Realms of the Unreal directed by Jessica Yu. She produced the MTV series 3 South, the pilot for Comedy Central’s Drawn Together and the presentations for Fox’s American Dad! and an untitled Phil Hendrie pilot, before Fox made the decision to bring back Family Guy for an unprecedented 35 episode order. In order to accommodate producing both Family Guy and American Dad! simultaneously, she built a standalone animation studio for 20th Television and assembled a 200+ person team. She also produced the Fox presentations Two Dreadful Children and Bordertown. Nominated for five Emmys, Vallow was at one time responsible for three half-hours of programming on Sunday nights: Family Guy, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show.


SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Question: Was Finucane born in Northen Ireland? Passage 1:The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also referred to as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), and was part of the Pleiku Campaign conducted early in the Vietnam War. It comprised two main engagements, centered on two previously scouted helicopter landing zones (LZs), known as LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany. The first involved the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment and supporting units under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, and took place November 14–16, 1965 at LZ X-Ray, located at the eastern foot of the Chu Pong Massif in the central highlands of Vietnam. The second engagement involved the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment plus supporting units under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade, and took place on November 17 at LZ Albany, farther north in the Ia Drang Valley. It is notable for being the first large scale helicopter air assault and also the first use of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in a tactical support role. Surrounded and under heavy fire from a numerically superior force, the American forces at LZ X-ray were able to hold off and drive back the North Vietnamese forces over three days of battle, largely through the support of both air power and heavy artillery bombardment, which the North Vietnamese lacked. LZ X-ray was considered an American tactical victory, as the Americans were able to exact an almost 10:1 kill ratio. At LZ Albany, the American forces were ambushed in close quarters. They were unable to use air and artillery support due to the close engagement of the North Vietnamese, the American forces were badly defeated, suffering an over-50% casualty rate before being extricated from the battle. Both sides, therefore, were able to claim victory in the battle.
 Passage 2:Behavioral neuroscience applies the principles of neurobiology, to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior. Cognitive inhibition is caused by several different interacting biological factors. The first is the existence of inhibitory neurotransmitters, or chemicals emitted by brain cells to both communicate and inhibit communication between each other. "GABA, an inhibitory transmitter substance that has been implicated in certain simple behavioral measures of inhibition and the control of aggressive behavior, was discovered in the cerebral cortex in substantial quantities". Given the cerebral cortex's importance in many brain functions such as memory and thought, the presence of the inhibitory substance GABA supports the cognitive inhibition processes that go on in this area of the brain. Serotonin and dopamine, which can play inhibitory roles as well, are present in the brain in large quantities. All three of these neurotransmitters are capable of "blocking" the transmissions between neurons, which can ultimately result in cognitive inhibition. In addition, the presence of inhibitory connections in the central nervous system has been firmly demonstrated (Eccles, 1969). A process known as lateral inhibition, which involves the capacity of an excited neuron to reduce the activity of its neighbors, is integral in the biology of cognitive inhibition. It provides much of the neural background behind it and explains what exactly is going on at the cellular level.
 Passage 3:Finucane was born into a prominent republican family on the Falls Road, Belfast. He was the eldest child, with six brothers and one sister. At the start of the Troubles, his family was forced out of their home. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1973. One of his brothers, John, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, was killed in a car crash in the Falls Road in 1972. Another brother, Dermot, successfully contested attempts to extradite him to Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland for his part in the killing of a prison officer; he was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the Maze in 1983. A third brother Seamus was the fiancé of Mairead Farrell, one of the IRA trio shot dead by the Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar in March 1988. Seamus was the leader of an IRA unit in west Belfast before his arrest in 1976 with Bobby Sands and seven other IRA men, during an attempt to destroy Balmoral's furniture store in south Belfast. He was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. Finucane's wife, Geraldine, whom he met at Trinity College, is the daughter of middle-class Protestants; together they had three children. His son John is a Sinn Féin politician who was elected as Lord Mayor of Belfast in May 2019.


SOLUTION:
3