text:
George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly

George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly (1592 – March 1649), styled Earl of Enzie from 1599 to 1636, eldest son of George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly by Lady Henrietta Stewart, daughter of Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox, born at Huntly Castle, Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in Scotland was brought up in England as a Protestant, and later created Viscount Aboyne by Charles I.

Life
George, Lord Gordon was brought to royal court in Edinburgh February 1596 and in November 1596 at the time of the baptism of Princess Elizabeth as a pledge or hostage for his father's good behaviour, and to be brought up in the Protestant religion and taught by Robert Rollock. In July 1602 Anne of Denmark suggested he should marry a sister of the Earl of Moray, one of her ladies-in-waiting, possibly Margaret Stewart. A committee of arbitrators in the feud between Huntly and Moray, called the "4 Stewarts" advised he marry a daughter of the Earl of Argyll, which he later did.

Some of his earlier years, when he was still Lord Gordon, were spent in England at the court of James I, who took care to educate him in the Protestant faith and created him Earl of Enzie. In 1609 he received a commission of justiciary under the great seal against the members of a rebellious society in the north called the "Society of Boys". In 1613, he was employed by his father in connection with a dispute regarding his superiority over a portion of Lochaber, held by Lochiel and the Camerons. A treaty was at last signed between Lochiel and Enzie on 24 March 1618, by which Lochiel, on certain terms, agreed to renounce his rights to several estates under dispute, one of the stipulations being that he should obtain assistance against his old enemies the Mackintoshes.

Enzie had also a private ground of quarrel against Mackintosh on account of his failure to perform certain services for lands held of the earl and his father. Having on this account obtained a decree against him from the privy council, he besieged him in his castle of Culloden, and compelled him to flee southwards, first to Edinburgh and then to England. Enzie cited him to appear before the privy council, and on his failing to appear he was denounced as a rebel. Mackintosh, being at court, appealed to the king, but after Enzie went to London to give his version of the matter in dispute, Mackintosh was ordered to enter himself in ward in the castle of Edinburgh until he should give the earl satisfaction. In 1622 Enzie received a commission from the privy council to proceed against the Earl of Caithness, but before the commission was carried into effect it was superseded by another from the king to proceed on a mission to France. He remained in that country for some years in command of a company of gens d'armes. On 20 April 1632 he was created Viscount of Aboyne. On the death of his father in June 1636 he was still in France, but in October following returned to England along with his wife, his sister Lady Anne, and two sons, and on 23 June 1637 arrived in Strathbogie.

Covenanter movement
Notwithstanding his father's differences with the government, the second Marquess found himself in the enjoyment of the royal favour. He had been educated at court along with Prince Henry and Prince Charles; and as a Protestant episcopalian he was naturally relied on to render the utmost assistance to the government in their policy towards the covenanters. His supreme influence in the north served to balance that of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll in the west. In 1638 he caused the royal proclamation to be read at the New Aberdeen's mercat cross. At the beginning of the dispute with the king the covenanters sent to him Colonel Robert Munro as their ambassador, offering, if he would cast in his lot with them, not only to make him their leader, but to pay all his debts, which were said to amount to £100,000 sterling. But "to this proposition," says Gordon, "Huntly pave a short and resolute repartee, that his family had risen and stood by the kings of Scotland, and for his part, if the event proved the ruin of the king, he was resolved to lay his life, honours, and estate under the rubbish of the king his ruins". He therefore not only refused to subscribe the covenant, but in September, alone of the other noblemen appointed in the north, accepted the commission of the king to cause the people to subscribe the king's covenant and band.

In 1639, Huntly was secretly appointed the king's lieutenant in the north, and, information reaching him that a gathering of the covenanters was to be held at Turriff on 14 February, he resolved to disperse them, but when Montrose marched to their support with a body of eight hundred men Huntly contented himself with making a demonstration by marching past them in battle array with a force of two thousand men, without "ony kind of offence or inurious word", and immediately afterwards disbanded his troops. As a reason for this indecision, Huntly is stated to have affirmed that he had no warrant from the king to strike the first blow. This is confirmed by Burnet, but Burnet also attributes his indecisive action during the whole covenanting struggle to his astrological studies, by which he had become convinced that neither the king, nor the Hamiltons, nor Montrose (who afterwards opposed the covenanters) would prosper. On this account, though ‘naturally a gallant man,’ says Burnet, ‘he made a poor figure during the whole course of the wars’.

At the beginning it is, however, evident that he was insufficiently supported from the south, and though inclined to do what he could for the king, he was not disposed to run too great risks. He had been promised the assistance of five thousand men under Hamilton, but they failed to make their appearance, and the covenanters displayed such energy that Huntly on 15 March sent commissioners to treat with Montrose. The answer of Montrose was unsatisfactory, and Huntly, having caused his lieutenancy to be proclaimed at the cross of Aberdeen, began to collect his forces at Inverurie. Meanwhile, he again sent commissioners to Montrose, but before their return he had disbanded his followers and retired to Stathbogie. Aberdeen, having been thus wholly abandoned, was entered by Montrose without opposition on 30 March. On 1 April Montrose and Leslie set out for Inverurie with ‘resolution to discusse and find out Huntly’. There they remained ‘upon free quarter,’ allowing their men to rifle, or, according to a term now introduced by Leslie and his soldiers into the English language from the German, to ‘plunder’ the houses of those who had fled. Huntly, who had retired to the Bog of Gight, deeming further resistance to be meanwhile vain, sent commissioners to request an interview with Montrose. This took place at the village of Lewes in Fyvie on 5 April, when Huntly, though not subscribing the covenant, agreed to throw no hindrance in the way of his followers doing so, and engaged that those who had scruples in signing should enter into an obligation to maintain the laws and liberties of Scotland. He was then permitted to return to Strathbogie, Montrose retiring to Aberdeen. Soon afterwards a meeting of the covenanting leaders was held at Aberdeen for the settlement of the north. On being summoned to the meeting Huntly agreed to attend it on receiving a safe-condnct, guaranteeing that he should be at full liberty to return home after the conference was over. This was granted him by Montrose, probably in good faith, but, apparently overborne by the clamour of the Frasers, the Forbeses, the Crichtons, and other sworn enemies of Huntly, he contrived to find excuses for arresting him, notwithstanding his safe-conduct. On the evening of 11 April he invited Huntly and his sons to supper, and there hinted to him the advisability of his resigning the lieutenandry, and also writing favourably to the king of the covenanters as good and loyal subjects. Huntly readily agreed, but perhaps Montrose suspected that he was only temporising, for that evening guards were placed at his lodging to prevent his escape. On the morrow he had another interview with Montrose, who now solicited his aid in defraying the expenses of the expedition, and also required him to take steps to apprehend James Grant and others who had opposed the covenanters. Huntly declined to comply with either of these demands, and when he was further requested to take his hereditary enemy Crichton of Frendraught by the hand, he declared that this last he would do on no condition whatever. Montrose then ingenuously asked him if he had any objection to accompany him to Edinburgh, and on Huntly confessing that he would rather not, expressed the opinion that it would be well for him to do it. Huntly then demanded back the bond he had signed at Inverurie before he gave an answer, and on receiving it asked whether he wished him to go south as a captive or as a volunteer. ‘Make your choice,’ said Montrose. ‘Then,’ said Huntly, ‘I will not go as a captive, but as a volunteer’. Huntly, accordingly, with his two eldest sons accompanied Montrose to Edinburgh ‘under a guard, though not disarmed or a prisoner’. On his arrival in Edinburgh an attempt was made by the leaders of the covenanters to induce him to sign the covenant, ‘very honourable terms being offered him,’ but to their demand he gave a written refusal, dated 20 April, and afterwards published, which concluded with these words: ‘For my oune pairt, I am in your power, and resolved not to leave that foule title of traitor as ane inheritance upon my posteritye. Yow may tacke my heade from my shoulders, but not my heart from my soveraigne’.

In accordance with the first article of the treaty of Berwick, on 20 June of the same year he received his liberty, and immediately with his son proceeded southwards to the king's camp, where he remained till the king's departure for London on 29 July. Returning to Edinburgh, Huntly remained for some time with his three daughters in a lodging in the Canongate, and at the ensuing parliament he signed the covenant; but after the festivities connected with the marriage of two of his daughters were over, he gave up his house in the Canongate and joined the king in England. While Huntly was confined in the castle of Edinburgh, the Gordons, encouraged by the rumours of the king's advance towards Scotland, began to plunder the covenanters, and, having convened all the inhabitants of Turriff, compelled them to sign the king's covenant; but shortly afterwards the minister of Turriff convened the inhabitants, and, after causing them to crave public pardon for their breach of the covenant, absolved them from their oath and subscription of the covenant of the king. After Huntly had gone to England, his second son, James Gordon, second Viscount Aboyne, endeavoured to uphold the cause of the king in his father's territories, but was routed by Montrose at the Battle of the Brig of Dee, 19 June 1639, after a fiercely fought two-day battle. In 1640, Huntly's lands were plundered, and his castle of Strathbogie taken by General Monro, who placed a garrison in it.

Charles I
In 1641 Huntly accompanied Charles I to Scotland, and in the procession to the parliament rode after the lord high commissioner, but as he refused to subscribe the covenant he was debarred from taking part in the deliberations. He was nominated one of the king's privy councillors, but his name was subsequently deleted by the estates. On the king's departure for London he attended him to Berwick. On 1 January 1642 he arrived at Aberdeen on his way to Strathbogie, having been absent from his own territory since April 1639. He now found his affairs in so ruinous a condition that on the advice of his friends he renounced the estate to his son Lord Gordon, for the payment of his debts and provision of his children, reserving to himself the sum of 10,000 merks of yearly rent, with his castle of Strathbogie and his house in Old Aberdeen. In August 1643, he was summoned to appear before a convention of the estates at Edinburgh, and failing to do so he was denounced and registered at the horn. He therefore wrote, sending apologies for his non-appearance, but they were rejected, and when he offered to retire to France, a license was refused him. On 20 December 1643 he was visited in the Bog of Gight by a deputation of ministers sent to require him to subscribe the covenant, but this he declined. In the following January the sheriff principal of Aberdeen was directed to secure his apprehension, but declined to do so on the plea that the Bog of Gight was outside his jurisdiction. The duty was then transferred to the sheriff of Banff, but on his appearing at the Bog of Gight Huntly refused to recognise his commission.

Hiding
Huntly was apparently inclined to peace, but the action of the government drove him to assume hostilities in self-defence. On 19 March 1643-4 a band of his followers ‘came galloping through the Old Town to New Aberdeen,’ and taking the provost and other magistrates prisoners, brought them to Strathbogie. On 16 March Huntly had published a declaration protesting that any acts of hostility he might commit were in self-defence, and on the 20th explained that his reason for seizing the provost and other magistrates was that they ‘were well known to have been scandalous fomenters of a dangerous distraction’. On the 24th he entered the city at the head of 240 horse, and on the 28th plundered the town of its arms and ammunition. Before leaving the city he drew up a band disclaiming the covenant, and binding all who signed it to the service of the king against the covenanters. A party of his followers afterwards made an attack on the town of Montrose, but retreated northwards to Aberdeen on the approach of the forces of the covenanters under Argyll. Huntly, notwithstanding the resolute words of his own band, did not await Argyll's appearance, but, though urged by his followers to give battle, left the city on the last day of April, ‘contrary to the expectation of many’.

On Sunday 12 May 1644 his excommunication was read from the pulpit of Old Aberdeen. Argyll then advanced into his territories, but already Huntly had disbanded his followers, and shut himself up in Auchindown. Learning Argyll's approach he went to the Bog of Gight, and, having taken a supply of gold and silver and other necessaries, crossed over to Sutherlandshire in a boat. He then rode to Caithness, and went by sea to Strathnaver, where he remained till 5 October 1645. During his absence Argyll marched to Strathbogie and spoiled his lands. Huntly's sudden collapse and flight was not altogether occasioned by the advance of Argyll, but by disinclination to co-operate with his old enemy Montrose, who had now joined the king's party, and had been appointed lieutenant-general of the forces in Scotland. "The Marquis of Huntly," said Gordon, "could never be got to join cordially" with Montrose, "or swallow that indignity", and Guthry affirms that Huntly "did his utmost to spoil the business in Montrose's hands".

But Huntly's conduct was entirely passive. On the appearance of Montrose in Strathbogie the Gordons withdrew before him, and as all his efforts to open up communication with Huntly himself were vain, it was impossible to induce them to join the standard of the king. After the defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh (13 September 1645), Huntly, who had some time previously returned to his territories, raised a force of sixteen hundred foot and six hundred horse, with which he stormed Aberdeen; but with his usual indecision he soon returned again to Strathbogie. In December of the same year Charles sent Robert Leslie, brother of General David Leslie, to Huntly, informing him of his desire to escape from the Scots army to the north, and asking him to levy a force to maintain his cause. This Huntly proceeded to do, but his preparations were to no purpose, as the king remained a prisoner in England. Huntly was excepted from the general pardon of 12 March 1647, and a reward of £1,000 was offered for his apprehension. General David Leslie was despatched against him, and on his approach Huntly fled to the Lochaber mountains.

Capture
After evading pursuit for several months by constantly changing his hiding-place, he was at last, in December, captured by Lieutenant-colonel Menzies at midnight, as he was retiring to bed, at Delnabo in Strathavon. The capture was effected after a severe struggle with the ten gentlemen and servants who were in attendance on him, six of whom were slain in their efforts to defend him. On the news of his capture becoming known, about five hundred men under Grant of Carron assembled to effect his rescue, but Menzies, for greater security, carried him to the castle of Blairfindie in Glenlivet. Huntly, on learning their intentions, also sent them a message, dissuading them from the enterprise. When news of his capture reached the committee of estates, it was debated whether he should be immediately executed or reprieved till the meeting of parliament, and the latter motion was carried by one vote. After remaining two days at Leith, he was delivered up to the magistrates of Edinburgh, and sent to the Tolbooth. There he remained till 22 March 1649, when by order of the Scots parliament he was beheaded on the block at the Market Cross of Edinburgh on the Royal Mile.

On being asked by one of the presbyterian ministers who attended him whether he wished to be absolved from the sentence of excommunication that had been passed against him, he answered "that as he was not accustomed to give ear to false prophets, he did not wish to be troubled by him." Although he refused to admit that he had acted contrary to the laws, or had done anything to deserve death, he declared that he freely forgave those who had voted for his death. His body was brought to Seton, and was interred in the burial-place of that family.

Family
By his wife, Lady Anna Campbell, eldest daughter of Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll, he had five sons and five daughters, including: These three older sons all distinguished themselves in the defence of the royal cause.
 * Lord George Gordon, killed at the battle of Alford in 1645.
 * James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne (d. 1649).
 * Lewis Gordon, 3rd Marquess of Huntly, who succeeded as third Marquess, and was the father of George, fourth Marquess,
 * Charles Gordon, was in 1660 created Earl of Aboyne by Charles II
 * Henry Gordon, who distinguished himself in the service of Poland.
 * Anne Gordon was married to the third Earl of Perth.
 * Henrietta Gordon, first to George, Lord Seton, secondly to John, second Earl of Traquair.
 * Alexander Gordon, (b.1642) married to Jane Robinson
 * Jean Gordon, married to Thomas Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Haddington.
 * Mary Gordon, married to Alexander Irvine of Drum.
 * Catherine Gordon became a lady-in-waiting to Marie Louise Gonzaga, Queen of Poland, consort of both brothers Kings Władysław IV Vasa and John II Casimir Vasa.; married to Jan Andrzej Morsztyn with whom she had descendants including their great-grandson Stanisław II Augustus of Poland

title: George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly


text:
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (in case citations, 8th Cir.) is a United States federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts:
 * Eastern District of Arkansas
 * Western District of Arkansas
 * Northern District of Iowa
 * Southern District of Iowa
 * District of Minnesota
 * Eastern District of Missouri
 * Western District of Missouri
 * District of Nebraska
 * District of North Dakota
 * District of South Dakota

The court is composed of eleven active judges and is based primarily at the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri, and secondarily at the Warren E. Burger United States Courthouse in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is one of thirteen United States courts of appeals. In 1929 Congress passed a statute dividing the Eighth Circuit that placed Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas in the Eighth Circuit and created a Tenth Circuit that included Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Neil Sloane

Neil James Alexander Sloane FLSW (born October 10, 1939) is a British-American mathematician. His major contributions are in the fields of combinatorics, error-correcting codes, and sphere packing. Sloane is best known for being the creator and maintainer of the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS).

Biography
Sloane was born in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales, in 1939, moving to Cowes, Isle of Wight, England in 1946. The family emigrated to Australia, arriving at the start of 1949. Sloane then moved from Melbourne to the United States in 1961.

He studied at Cornell University under Nick DeClaris, Frank Rosenblatt, Frederick Jelinek and Wolfgang Heinrich Johannes Fuchs, receiving his Ph.D. in 1967. His doctoral dissertation was titled Lengths of Cycle Times in Random Neural Networks. Sloane joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1968 and retired from AT&T Labs in 2012. He became an AT&T Fellow in 1998. He is also a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, an IEEE Fellow, a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

He is a winner of a Lester R. Ford Award in 1978 and the Chauvenet Prize in 1979. In 1998 he was an Invited Speaker of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin. In 2005 Sloane received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. In 2008 he received the Mathematical Association of America David P. Robbins Prize, and in 2013 the George Pólya Award.

In 2014, to celebrate his 75th birthday, Sloane shared some of his favorite integer sequences. Besides mathematics, he loves rock climbing and has authored two rock-climbing guides to New Jersey.

He regularly appears in videos for Brady Haran's YouTube channel Numberphile.

Selected publications

 * Neil James Alexander Sloane, A Handbook of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, NY, 1973.
 * Florence Jessie MacWilliams and Neil James Alexander Sloane, The Theory of Error-Correcting Codes, Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1977.
 * M. Harwit and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Hadamard Transform Optics, Academic Press, San Diego CA, 1979.
 * Neil James Alexander Sloane and A. D. Wyner, editors, Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers, IEEE Press, NY, 1993.
 * Neil James Alexander Sloane and S. Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995.
 * J. H. Conway and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1st edn., 1988; 2nd edn., 1993; 3rd ed., 1998.
 * A. S. Hedayat, Neil James Alexander Sloane and J. Stufken, Orthogonal Arrays: Theory and Applications, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1999.
 * G. Nebe, E. M. Rains and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Self-Dual Codes and Invariant Theory, Springer-Verlag, 2006.

title: Neil Sloane


text:
Sloane

Sloane may refer to:

Names

 * Sloane (given name)
 * Sloane (surname)
 * Sloane Crosley, American writer and publicist
 * Sloane Stephens, American professional tennis player

Places

 * Sloane, New South Wales
 * Sloane Square, a location in London, named after Hans Sloane:
 * Sloane Street, which terminates at Sloane Square
 * Sloane Square tube station, a London Underground station near Sloane Square

Popular culture

 * Sloane Ranger, shortened to Sloane, is a slang term for young, upper-middle-class West Londoners
 * Entertaining Mr Sloane, a 1964 play by Joe Orton
 * Entertaining Mr Sloane, the 1970 film version of the play by Joe Orton
 * Sloane (film), a 1984 action movie starring Robert Resnik
 * Mr. Sloane, a 2014 British television series
 * Miss Sloane, a 2016 American political thriller starring Jessica Chastain
 * Arvin Sloane, a character in the American TV series Alias
 * Lily Sloane, a character in Star Trek
 * Lone Sloane, a character in the sci-fi comics of Druillet
 * Sloane Peterson, Ferris Bueller's girlfriend in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off

title: Sloane


text:
Hardcover

A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as casebound ) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk.

Overview
Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cover design directly onto the board binding.

Marketing
If brisk sales are anticipated, a hardcover edition of a book is typically released first, followed by a "trade" paperback edition (same format as hardcover) the next year. Some publishers publish paperback originals if slow hardback sales are anticipated. For very popular books these sales cycles may be extended, and followed by a mass market paperback edition typeset in a more compact size and printed on thinner, less hardy paper. This is intended to, in part, prolong the life of the immediate buying boom that occurs for some best sellers: After the attention to the book has subsided, a lower-cost version in the paperback, is released to sell further copies. In the past the release of a paperback edition was one year after the hardback, but by the early 21st century paperbacks were released six months after the hardback by some publishers. It is very unusual for a book that was first published in paperback to be followed by a hardback. One example is the novel The Judgment of Paris by Gore Vidal, which had its revised edition of 1961 first published in paperback, and later in hardcover.

Prices
Hardcover books are usually sold at higher prices than comparable paperbacks. Books for the general public are usually printed in hardback only for authors who are expected to be successful, or as a precursor to the paperback to predict sale levels; however, many academic books are often only published in hardcover editions.

Usual structure
Hardcovers usually consist of a page block, two boards, and a cloth or heavy paper covering. The pages are sewn together and glued onto a flexible spine between the boards, and it too is covered by the cloth. A paper wrapper, or dust jacket, is usually put over the binding, folding over each horizontal end of the boards. Dust jackets serve to protect the underlying cover from wear. On the folded part, or flap, over the front cover is generally a blurb, or a summary of the book. The back flap is where the biography of the author can be found. Reviews are often placed on the back of the jacket. Many modern bestselling hardcover books use a partial cloth cover, with a cloth-covered board on the spine only, and only boards covering the rest of the book.

title: Hardcover


text:
Khost

Khōst (خوست) is the capital of Khost Province in Afghanistan. It is the largest city in the southeastern part of the country, and also the largest in the region of Loya Paktia. To the south and east of Khost lie Waziristan and Kurram in Pakistan. Khost is the home of Shaikh Zayed University. The Khost Airport is located in the eastern area of the city.

Geography
Khost is located about 150 kilometres south of Kabul. Khost lies on a plateau not below 1000 m in elevation that extends to the east for about 40 km until the Pakistan border. Thirty kilometres, to the north the peaks rise up to 2500 to 3000 m while farther south 20 km away from the border, the average is around 1,800 m.

Climate
Khost has a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk though very close to qualifying as BSh). Khost is located in the "Khost Bowl", a valley with lower elevation than the surrounding highlands. The geography afforded more moderate weather conditions. With a January average of 4.8 C, Khost has noticeably milder winters, compared to the much harsher and snowy winters of the surrounding higher towns to the north, west, and south (listed anticlockwise): Parachinar, Tari Mangal, Aryob, Tsamkani, Khandkhel, Gardez, Zurmat, Sharana, Zerok, Urgun, Angur Ada, Kaniguram, and Razmak. Nonetheless, frosts are still frequent in the early mornings.

Most unusually for Afghanistan, Khost receives a substantial proportion of its annual rainfall of 475 mm from the South Asian monsoon. The valley being open to the southeast (towards the lower elevation Miranshah), the moisture-laden winds bring much welcomed rain during the summer. The remaining portion of the year Khost remains hot and dry. Sporadic droughts occur when the summer monsoon fails to bring the needed precipitation.

Land use
Khost is the provincial administrative seat in eastern Afghanistan. Being close to the border with Pakistan, Khost straddles an important transport corridor. The eastern districts (1–3) are dotted with forests and residential settlements while the western districts (4–5) are more barren and lightly populated. Water courses account for 5% of total land surface.

19th and 20th centuries
During the Second Anglo-Afghan War, British forces led by Lord Roberts entered Khost during the second British invasion of Afghanistan during the conflict. Approximately 8,000 raiders from the Mangal tribe, which had a long tradition of resisting outside control, launched several attacks on weakly protected British supply convoys in Khost. In reprisal, Lord Roberts ordered his forces to attack eleven Mangal villages which had launched raids that murdered several camp followers, resulting in them being sacked and burnt. Once news of the reprisals became known in Britain, his political opponents in the British Parliament criticized Lord Roberts' actions. At the end of the conflict, British forces withdrew from Khost.

Khost rebellions
Between 1856 and 1925, Khost was the site of three rebellions, lasting from 1856 to 1857, 1912, and 1924–1925 respectively.

During the Soviet–Afghan War, Khost was the object of a siege that lasted for more than eight years. Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, Afghan guerillas took control of the only land route between Khost and Gardez, effectively putting a stop to the Soviet advance.

During the assault on the Zhawar Kili Cave complex, the Soviets used the Khost Airfield as an initial staging ground to insert troops into the combat zone, using Mil Mi-8 armed helicopter transport ships.

As of April 1995, Khost was under the control of the Taliban.

21st century
During the war in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the United States built Forward Operating Base Chapman near Khost. Due to its location in southeastern Afghanistan, it was a hotbed for insurgent activity attempting to dislodge the American forces there. Like most other provinces, Khost is home to maneuver forces and a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Maneuver forces wage war against insurgents and assist the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police in operations, while the PRT handles the reconstruction aspects.

In early 2007, Lieutenant Colonel Scottie Custer of the 82nd Airborne Division saw that the best way to limit insurgent activity in Khost was to forward-deploy some 187 paratroopers under his command to Force Protection Facilities in Khost's various district centers around sub-governors' mansions, to directly protect these, maintain a visible presence in population centers, and help mentor Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police units operating across Khost.

The FPFs brought a broader sense of security and prosperity to surrounding areas. Bazaars, shops, and gas stations have improved the quality of life for local residents. The Mandozai Force Protection Facilities in Khost include a medical clinic attached to further assist Afghans in need of basic medical assistance. The offices of Khost's various sub-governors had experienced an increased activity as Afghans went there to settle disputes and voice concerns instead of going through traditional tribal channels and bribes, cutting down on sectarian suspicion and strife.

Throughout 2007 and 2008, roads had been improved, businesses were springing up and schools were being built, at least 50 in 2007 alone with another 25 planned for 2008. A new airport was under construction as the Khost Airfield was used by the US Military, creating new opportunities and jobs. The Provincial Reconstruction Team, led by CDR David Adams was instrumental in connecting the people to the government in Khost City, by ensuring the PRT was able to execute over $2.5 million under the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP).

On 12 May 2009, several teams of armed militants stormed Khost, prompting a heavy 6-hour battle with US and Afghan National Army forces. Reportedly the attack involved 10 suicide bombers, of whom seven were able to detonate and three were shot by security forces. Coalition Forces, aided by the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, took the lead in repelling the attack.

On 20 November 2009 a bomb killed 3 civilians and wounded 3 others as a car hit a roadside bomb in Khost City. According to the chief of criminal investigation the act was perpetrated by the Taliban.

On 24 November 2009, according to the Afghan Ministry of Interior, 6 people, including 5 children were killed when a remote control bomb attacked a water station in Khost which had been built by the Rural Rehabilitation Ministry to distribute water to the locals.

On 30 December 2009, a suicide bomber attacked Forward Operating Base Chapman, a major CIA base in Khost, and killed seven CIA officers, including the chief of the base.

On 18 February 2011, a suicide car bomber targeted a police checkpoint and killed 11 people.

On 14 July 2011, according to a spokesman for the provincial government, NATO ground troops killed six civilians in a night raid of the village of Toora Worai, in an area known as Matoon, about seven kilometres from the Khost provincial capital of Khost city.

On 15 August 2021, Khost was seized by Taliban fighters, becoming the twenty-eighth provincial capital to be captured by the Taliban as part of the wider 2021 Taliban offensive.

At least 29 people died in Khost during the June 2022 Afghanistan earthquake.

Demographics
The urban population of the city of Khost is 106,083 (in 2015), mostly Pashtun (mainly from the tribes of Zadran, Mangal, Zazi, Tani, Gurbuz, Muqbal, Sabari, Banusi and Wazir), living in 11,787 dwellings, arranged in six municipal districts.

Khost has a population of 511,600 people in 2008. In the province, there are 87,199 households, with an average of eight individuals per home. Rural districts are home to 98 percent of the population. Pashtuns are the province's most populous ethnic group. Zadran, Mangal, Mandozi, Ismaiel Khil, Tani, Gubuz, Matoon, Lakan, Jaji, Sabari, Alishir Terizi, and Babakker Khil are among the prominent tribes. There is a small population of Pamiris as well. Kuchis (nomads) live in Khost province, and their numbers fluctuate depending on the season. 75 percent of the 104,965 Kuchis living in Khost are long-distance migratory, while 25% are settled. Over half of the colony of long-distance migratory Kuchis migrates from a winter to a summer location. In the winter, an estimated 74,179 people cross the border, bringing Khost's Kuchi population to 179,144, making it the country's second-largest Kuchi province (after Nangarhar).

Sports
The three most popular sports in Khost, Afghanistan are cricket (86%), basketball (19%) and football (11%).

Cricket is growing in popularity in Khost, with the sport being introduced by newly returned refugees from Pakistan. Afghanistan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman, and batsman Noor Ali, as well as Nawroz Mangal, the former captain of Afghanistan Cricket Team hail from Khost. Dawlat Zadran, the Afghan Cricket paceman who grabbed two crucial wickets against Pakistan (in 1st International One Day against Full Member), is also from Khost.

In football, Khost and the surrounding region is represented by De Abasin Sape F.C, in the Afghan Premier League.

 * Professional sports teams from Khost

Stadiums

 * Khost Cricket Stadium, constructed with financial support from Germany. The inauguration of the stadium also included an exhibitory match which witnessed a record crowd for any sport played in Afghanistan.
 * Khost City Ground, a multi-purpose stadium in Khost for football and other sports.

Economy
Khost serves as one of Afghanistan's trading centers with neighboring Pakistan. The Ghulam Khan border crossing between the two countries is located about 20 mi to the south. Pine nuts are among the noteworthy export products of the province.

Notable Sport Players

 * Nawroz Mangal
 * Noor Ali Zadran
 * Mujeeb Zadran
 * Rahmanullah Gurbaz
 * Fazal Niazai
 * Ibrahim Zadran
 * Dawlat Zadran
 * Noor Ahmad

title: Khost


text:
Tennōji-ku, Osaka

Tennōji (天王寺区) is one of 24 wards of Osaka, Japan. It is named after the Shitennō-ji, the temple of the Four Heavenly Kings, which is located in the ward.

General information
Tennōji Station is the city's main southeastern rail terminal with Osaka Municipal Subway's Tennōji Station Midōsuji Line and Tanimachi Line, JR Tennōji as the terminus of the JR Hanwa Line (and a major stop on the Kyoto Line, Osaka Loop Line, Yamatoji Line and Kansai Airport Line) and the Kintetsu Abenobashi Station, directly across the street from Tennōji station is the terminus of the Minami Osaka Line. As a result of its being a major railway hub, it has become a major built up area in southern Osaka. The buildings around the station include, the Kintetsu department store, Mio, Station Plaza, and Hoop shopping malls, Apollo Movie Theater and Lucias shopping mall, as well as the more recent Q's Mall. In addition, there are several shopping streets in the area including Abenobashisuji. The Kintetsu Abeno Harukas building, which houses the Kintetsu department store, was fully opened in the spring of 2014 and is currently the tallest building in Japan at 300 meters (984 ft.) in height.

Economy
Aigan, the eyeglasses (spectacles) chain, is headquartered in Tennōji-ku. Descente, a sportswear company, also has its headquarters in the ward.

Attractions

 * Shitennō-ji, the first Buddhist temple in Japan – is a historical site only a ten-minute walk from Tennōji Station
 * Ikukunitama Shrine, Shinto shrine
 * Isshin-ji is a major Buddhist temple located between Tennoji Park and Shitennō-ji
 * Tennōji Park includes the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art and Tennōji Zoo

Entertainment
Tennōji ward is home to the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Tennōji Zoo, the Keitaku-en Japanese garden (built by the Sumitomo Corporation) and the Tennōji Botanical Garden.

There are four major shopping centers near Tennōji Station: Mio, a fashionable, upscale mall; Kintetsu Department Store; Hoop, and Q's Mall- targeted primarily at younger shoppers, but also home to a large number of restaurants and eateries.

The nearby Shinsekai entertainment district was established in the early part of the last century and still teems with scores of eateries. It is overlooked by the Tsutenkaku tower, one of Osaka's most famous symbols.

Education
Public schools: Private schools:
 * Shimizudani High School
 * Shitennoji Junior and Senior High School

Train stations

 * West Japan Railway Company (JR West)
 * Osaka Loop Line: Tennōji Station – Teradachō Station – Momodani Station – Tsuruhashi Station – Tamatsukuri Station
 * Hanwa Line, Kansai Main Line (Yamatoji Line): Tennōji Station
 * Kintetsu Railway
 * Osaka Line: Osaka Uehommachi Station – Tsuruhashi Station
 * Osaka Abenobashi Station on the Minami Osaka Line in Abeno-ku is close to Tennōji Station in Tennōji-ku.
 * Hankai Tramway
 * Hankai Uemachi Line: Tennōji-eki-mae Station (Located in Abeno-ku, but close to Tennōji Station in Tennōji-ku.)
 * Osaka Metro
 * Tanimachi Line: Tanimachi Kyuchome Station – Shitennoji-mae Yuhigaoka Station – Tennōji Station
 * Tennōji Station on the Midōsuji Line is located in Abeno-ku, but close to Tennōji-ku.
 * Sennichimae Line: Tanimachi Kyuchome Station – Tsuruhashi Station
 * Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line: Tamatsukuri Station

Notable people

 * Mr. Hito, Japanese professional wrestler
 * Ryosuke Irie, Japanese competitive swimmer
 * Sana Minatozaki, singer, member of South Korean girl group Twice
 * Takeshi Kaikō, prominent post-World War II Japanese novelist, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, and television documentary screenwriter
 * Kitamura Kazuki, Japanese actor
 * Aiko Nakamura, former professional tennis player
 * Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Japanese manga artist
 * Akiko Wada, singer and businesswoman
 * Daiki Yoshikawa, Japanese professional baseball player

title: Tennōji-ku, Osaka


text:
Talk:Kundalini

Recent cleanup
thanks for helping. A few sources were restored by the bot because they still had references. One thing I noticed is also removal of personal experience testimony which may well have been undue. However, since this is really a topic about mystical subjective experiences, probably that some is due. For instance, even if I consider all related pseudoscience fringe and outdated, this doesn't exclude occasional personal mystical experiences I had during Siddha meditation practice (i.e. temporary ego death with subjective experience of union with/being the universe; Samadhi with an explosion of light+joy filling the whole body, sometimes intense enough for laughter to interrupt the session)... Apart from those very subjective experiences (which I consider to be of natural neurological origin, but are perceived/felt as spiritual), the rest is of course tradition and philosophy, pseudoscience, beliefs, related cults and proselytism, etc...  It seems to me that tradition and personal experience, with mention of pseudoscience and probably of notable cults, could be the focus. I'd also have to search for relevant sources, but as in a previous comment I made above, it's also common in cults to ascribe everything to Kundalini (or steps on the path) to manipulate... — Paleo Neonate  – 20:42, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think we'd need secondary sources describing how people experience these things, to establish weight. Surely there are some? Alexbrn (talk) 03:17, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It is important before one starts deleting content with references or to delete because you don't believe it, to bring your thoughts to the talk page first. We need to give editors time to correct a problem before you delete. Calling something "woo" just says to me that you are not familiar with Kundalini which is not excuse for deleting. Please reinstate what you deleted stating what needs to be fixed. Red Rose 13 (talk) 06:34, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, my comment was also in case you intended to keep working on the article (an idea of the scope). I'm not currently working on it (although it's on my watchlist) and didn't seriously read about this in the last 20 years or so, I'd have to eventually search for relevant modern sources myself.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Deletion is the fix for unreliable/undue content. In particular, health information sourced to unreliable sources is against the WP:PAGs. If it's desired to include material, find usable sources. Alexbrn (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. We must not make health claims in Wikipedia's voice; and extensive quotation from fringe groups is at best unwise. However, the fact that incorrect health claims have been made is reportable, requiring as you imply independent sources. We ought here to distinguish clearly between medieval beliefs, all magical, and fringe modern beliefs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:39, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * You deleted so many things without consulting other editors. Either reinstate what you deleted or explain thoroughly here each deletion here for our discussion.Red Rose 13 (talk) 15:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not necessary to "consult other editors" before making edits, and insisting on it is a kind of WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. Note that WP:BOLD is part of the WP:PAGs. In essence I removed bio/medical content sourced to unreliable sources and some undue primary material. If you have any specific objections please say so. Alexbrn (talk) 15:32, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I just reverted your last edit - the source was excellent from PubMed which is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval. Slow down and discuss what you are thinking. Red Rose 13 (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * PUBMED is just a search engine, and is chock full of unreliable sources (such as this old primary source) per WP:MEDRS. Even more seriously, the text in our article fails WP:V (and WP:RELTIME). Please don't add original research to Wikipedia sourced to poor sources. Alexbrn (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Here is the actual study, tell me how this is unreliable? Tell me how the US National Library of Medicine under the Dept US Dept of Health & Human Services is not a reliable resource?  Stop deleting content until you know what you are doing.Red Rose 13 (talk) 22:10, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I will wait until you put it back and if over 24 hours you don't, then I will.Red Rose 13 (talk) 23:27, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's old primary research published in the journal Neuroreport in 2000. Primary research is unreliable for health information per WP:MEDRS, or undue if no secondary exists to establish weight. More particularly the source (which I have read carefully) makes no mention of what "the medical community" is "recently" doing. This has been invented by an editor. Edit-warring content into Wikipedia that misrepresents an unreliable source, would be bad. Alexbrn (talk) 05:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter on wikipedia how old the research has been done on Wikipedia. What matters is: "Ideal sources for biomedical assertions include general or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published sources, such as reputable medical journals, widely recognised standard textbooks written by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from nationally or internationally reputable expert bodies. It is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." WP:RS/MC As a wikipedia editor we need to improve articles.  If you think this needs an updated research that is published in a medical journal, then you should research that and add it to enhance the article and wikipedia OR alert other editors what he is needed but leave the information in the article giving time for editors to help improve the article. I am challenging the way you are editing in this article. How experienced editors avoid becoming involved in edit wars WP:AVOIDEDITWAR Red Rose 13 (talk) 12:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The source is not a primary source . It is research conducted by 5 researchers that is published in a medical journal. But to compromise with you, I will post more medical research. Red Rose 13 (talk) 12:20, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That is a primary source. We want secondary sources (e.g. reviews, systematic reviews or meta-analyses) for biomedical content. WP:WHYMEDRS explains some of this. Alexbrn (talk) 12:32, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

grammar
The grammar in this article needs much improvement, but it's too much for me to work on right now. Kundalini is the name of a goddess/devi so capitalized at top then throughout the article is mixed uppercase and lowercase... regardless that Kundalini is also an energy some yogis (maybe especially Western) focus on without reference to the goddess, so might use lowercase in those instances, the capitalization should be consistent throughout (probably uppercase) except if different within quotations from sources. I also saw several non-proper-noun Yoga terms capitalized, and even the word 'psychosis' capitalized, when they shouldn't be, and it's possible other proper nouns (Shakti, some uses of Devi, other goddesses or Hindu/Yoga/Tantra terms) are lowercase but shouldn't be. There are semicolons used (even after a colon which probably shouldn't be done, rather than vice versa being okay) where possibly just commas would work. The whole article needs a major grammar clean-up by someone basically perfect in the subject.--dchmelik☀🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 02:50, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Fixed the punctuation and trimmed the ridiculously long quotations. On the capitalization, it should be K for the goddess and k for the principle; ordinary nouns like psychosis shouldn't be capitalized at all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Good, though I have no problem with long quotations.--dchmelik☀🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 03:57, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Yeah but everybody else does! Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:05, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kundalini


text:
Talk:Sarah T. Hughes

Untitled
Stub and photo on Sarah T. Hughes was moved here from Sarah Hughes page. Page history reproduced here:

04:33, 14 Dec 2003. . Alex756 (moving info about Sarah T. Hughes to appropriate page) M 08:47, 27 Sep 2003. . Skybunny (Included picture of Sarah Hughes (judge), link fix) 20:04, 27 May 2003. . Kingturtle (U.S. Federal District judge)

Bot-created subpage
A temporary subpage at User:Polbot/fjc/Sarah Tilghman Hughes was automatically created by a perl script, based on this article at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges. The subpage should either be merged into this article, or moved and disambiguated. Polbot (talk) 00:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Done.--TommyBoy (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Another source
On Google Books there is this biography of her, which is fairly detailed, and is available in full, so it's easy to cite. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:13, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing and plagiarism problem
This flyer appears to be plagiarized in part from an earlier version of this article. How can -- or should -- we source these statements? Bearian (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Sarah T. Hughes. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071013041145/http://www.aals.org/profdev/women/clark.pdf to http://www.aals.org/profdev/women/clark.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090131063335/http://redbud.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/kennedy/Oath%20of%20Office/oathphotos.htm to http://redbud.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/kennedy/Oath%20of%20Office/oathphotos.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sarah T. Hughes


text:
Maven (Scrabble)

Maven is an artificial intelligence Scrabble player, created by Brian Sheppard. It has been used in official licensed Hasbro Scrabble games.

Game phases
Maven's gameplay is sub-divided into three phases: The "mid-game" phase, the "pre-endgame" phase, and the "endgame" phase.

The "mid-game" phase lasts from the beginning of the game up until there are nine or fewer tiles left in the bag. The program uses a rapid algorithm to find all possible plays from the given rack, and then part of the program called the "kibitzer" uses simple heuristics to sort them into rough order of quality. The most promising moves are then evaluated by "simming", in which the program simulates the random drawing of tiles, plays forward a set number of plays, and compares the points spread of the moves' outcomes. By simulating thousands of random drawings, the program can give a very accurate quantitative evaluation of the different plays. (While a Monte Carlo search, Maven does not use Monte Carlo tree search because it evaluates game trees only 2-ply deep, rather than playing out to the end of the game, and does not reallocate rollouts to more promising branches for deeper exploration; in reinforcement learning terminology, the Maven search strategy might be considered "truncated Monte Carlo simulation". A true MCTS strategy is unnecessary because the endgame can be solved. The shallow search is because the Maven author argues that, due to the fast turnover of letters in one's bag, it is typically not useful to look more than 2-ply deep, because if one instead looked deeper, e.g. 4-ply, the variance of rewards will be larger and the simulations will take several times longer, while only helping in a few exotic situations: "We maintain that if it requires an extreme situation like CACIQUE to see the value of a four-ply simulation then they are not worth doing." As the board value can be evaluated with very high accuracy in Scrabble, unlike games such as Go, deeper simulations are unlikely to change the initial evaluation.)

The "pre-endgame" phase works in almost the same way as the "mid-game" phase, except that it is designed to attempt to yield a good end-game situation.

The "endgame" phase takes over as soon as there are no tiles left in the bag. In two-player games, this means that the players can now deduce from the initial letter distribution the exact tiles on each other's racks. Maven uses the B-star search algorithm to analyze the game tree during the endgame phase.

Move generation
Maven has used several algorithms for move generation, but the one that has stuck is the DAWG algorithm. The GADDAG algorithm is faster, but a DAWG for North American English is only 0.5 MB, compared to about 2.5 MB for a GADDAG. That makes a significant difference for download games, whereas the speed advantage is not important. (Note that unimportant does not mean that the difference is small, merely that users cannot tell the difference. The GADDAG is perhaps twice as fast, but both algorithms are fast enough.)

Rack evaluation
The first (1986) version of Maven used a set of about 100 patterns to value racks. Every single tile had a value (27 patterns). Each duplicate had a value (22 patterns). There were patterns for triplicates and quads for letters that have enough representation in the bag. Finally, the QU combination was a pattern.

Soon after the first version, Maven acquired rack evaluation terms for vowel/consonant balance and Q/U distribution. Vowel/consonant balance was a table lookup based on the count of vowels and consonants left in the rack. Q/U distribution varied the values of Q and U using a table lookup indexed by how many of each remained in the bag.

Shortly thereafter, Maven acquired a tile duplication evaluator. The idea was to vary a rack depending on the chance of drawing duplicates. For example, A is generally better than I as a tile, but if there are 7 A's and only 2 I's left in the bag, then maybe we should prefer to keep the I.

Parameter fitting was accomplished by tuning the values to predict the total of future scores. Nowadays this would be called Temporal Difference Learning.

This rack evaluation design was original to Maven. It was very successful in competing with the human champions of the day.

The design was later extended by other researchers. Mark Watkins championed what he called "tile synergy patterns." These are combination like ADES which form the basis of many high-scoring words. This is a natural extension of the design, which does significantly improve play. Maven's pattern set gradually expanded from the base set of 100 to well over 400.

Maven has since switched to a completely different architecture, proposed by John O'Laughlin and implemented in Quackle. This is the "exhaustive" architecture, where the program has a different rack evaluation parameter for each of the 3 million possible combinations of 0 to 7 tiles. With the advances in computer power over the last decade, it has become possible to tune such large parameter sets.

The downside of using an exhaustive approach is that Maven lost the ability to vary evaluations as a function of the tiles that remained in the bag. The point is that the exhaustive rack evaluator does not have terms that relate a rack's value to the possible draws from the bag.

Maven's version of exhaustive rack evaluation has added that ability. In Maven, each rack has its own liner evaluator, where the value of that rack varies as a function of the chance of drawing a duplicate, the chance of drawing a vowel, and the chance of drawing Q and U. This system has 5 parameters per rack, for about 15 million parameters in all.

Simulation
The great human champion Ron Tiekert had studied Scrabble by playing out individual positions dozens of times, and tabulating results. He suggested that with Maven's speed, it should be possible to automate that process in overnight runs. Brian Sheppard named this process "simulation", though it goes by the name "rollout" in backgammon, and "playout" in Go.

The process was to select N candidate moves using the score+rack heuristic. Then play out those moves hundreds or thousands of times to see which candidate performs best. You can vary the depth of the playout to suit your purpose; play two or four moves ahead to get a good idea about point differential, or play to the end of the game to measure winning chances.

By the mid-1990s, computers had become fast enough that Maven used simulation to choose moves in competitive games under tournament time controls. Algorithmic improvements were important to scaling simulation for this purpose. The most important innovation was to vary the number of trials given to candidates so that more successful candidates receive more effort. It was also helpful to control the racks so that all candidate moves were sampled against the same, unbiased distribution.

Analysis of games played by Maven's simulation engine suggest that Maven has surpassed the skill level of human champions.

Endgame
Strong play in Scrabble endgames is much harder than it looks. In theory, endgames are a game of perfect information, so the Alpha-beta pruning algorithm should work. But in practice Alpha Beta works badly on Scrabble.

The problem with Alpha Beta is that some Scrabble endgames require 14 moves to play out, and it is not possible to search that deeply. This is not merely a theoretical possibility. When one player is "stuck" with a tile, then playing out all remaining tiles is impossible. In that situation the optimal strategy for both sides is usually to play one tile on each turn.

Maven uses a different approach. The B* search algorithm is a selective-depth, progressive-widening algorithm that guarantees to find optimal solutions to two-player games when one can compute upper and lower bounds on the values of each position.

It turns out that it is possible to estimate upper and lower bounds on endgame positions. These bounds are correct (that is, the true value lies within the interval) for the overwhelming majority of positions. Since B* is reasonably robust in the presence of a small percentage of error in the bounds, Maven can solve endgames that other approaches cannot.

A further refinement makes Maven's endgame solutions asymptotically optimal even in the presence of errors. When the B* search terminates with a proof that one move is best, and there is still time remaining, then Maven widens its estimates by 1 point and searches again. These re-searches are usually very quick, because the tree from the previous search is still largely valid. Repeated use of this policy will progressively identify errors, starting with the smallest (and presumably most likely) errors.

Exhaustive pre-endgame
When only 1 or 2 tiles remain in the bag ("PEG-1" or "PEG-2"), it is possible to perform exhaustive searches of the state space.

The case of a PEG-1 is important, because almost half of all games pass through that state. Maven can play out such states exhaustively in almost all cases. That is, for all legal moves Maven can play out the resulting endgames (up to 8 for each legal move), and calculate which side will win the game in each case. Because there are some situations (e.g., two blanks, stuck-with-Q) that require extra effort, the calculation is performed progressively. That is, Maven expands its analysis first where the decision is close and relevant.

In a PEG-2 it is normally not possible to exhaustively examine all move sequences, so Maven goes as far as it can in the time available.

One feature of these low-tile situations is that it is very hard to safely prune the list of legal moves. For example, the optimal play is ranked behind more than 50 other moves by the score+rack heuristic more than 1% of the time.

This policy does not produce play that is theoretically perfect, because it is impossible to know what the true initial distribution of unseen tiles should be. Assuming a uniform distribution does well, and it is possible to calculate inferences about unseen tiles that marginally improves on that assumption.

Another limitation is that Maven is not addressing the "hidden information" aspect of such situations. That is, in theory there are situations where players maximize expectation by randomly choosing moves according to a probability distribution. Maven is choosing pure strategies at each node.

title: Maven (Scrabble)


text:
Maxine Klibingaitis

Maxine Koran Klibingaitis (17 May 1964 – 17 April 2023) was an Australian actress, notable for her roles in TV soap operas and serials.

Personal life
Klibingaitis was born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia on 17 May 1964. In 1987, Klibingaitis married Australian director Andrew Friedman. They have one son, Zane Friedman.

Career
Klibingaitis is most notable for her role in the cult drama soap opera, Prisoner (known internationally as Prisoner: Cell Block H), from 1983 to 1985, as rebellious teen punk, Bobbie Mitchell. During her stint on the series, Klibingaitis' character was involved in several dramatic story arcs, including shoplifting, escaping custody, kidnapping, prostitution, miscarriage and a suicide attempt, before being eventually paroled and becoming engaged to be married. She returned in a guest appearance for a wedding storyline. Klibingaitis attended a 40th anniversary reunion event for Prisoner in February 2019 and a special event hosted by Ken Mulholland and Matt Batten of the website Talking Prisoner, in August 2022.

She was cast in the regular role of Terry Inglis on Melbourne-based soap opera, Neighbours during 1985, in which the character, an apprentice plumber, married Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis), before committing murder, then attempting to kill Paul by shooting him, leading to her incarceration and demise by committing suicide. Terry's death, which happened off-screen, attracted controversy, as the subject of suicide was not a common topic covered in an early evening program, and was the only character on the show to die in this way.

Klibingaitis' only other leading role in a television series, was that of Sophie Verstak in the short-lived comedy, Hampton Court in 1991, a spin-off from the popular sitcom, Hey Dad..!. Her additional TV credits include, Special Squad, Fields of Fire, The Flying Doctor, Home and Away, Blue Heelers and Round the Twist.

She made her film debut in 1989, appearing in James Ricketson's Candy Regentag, before going onto roles as a regular in Timothy Spanos films and short form series including Prisoner Queen: Mindless Music & Mirrorballs, Mondo Maniacs, which earned her a MUFF Award for Best Supporting Female Actor at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Boronia Boys and the spin off, Boronia Backpackers.

In May 2022, Klibingaitis appeared in an episode of the podcast Yarn About You.

Death
Klibingaitis died suddenly and unexpectedly in Melbourne, Australia on 17 April 2023 at the age of 58. No cause was specified.

title: Maxine Klibingaitis


text:
Alice

Alice may refer to:
 * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname

Literature

 * Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
 * Alice series, children's and teen books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
 * Alice (Hermann book), a 2009 short story collection by Judith Hermann

Computers

 * Alice (computer chip), a graphics engine chip in the Amiga computer in 1992
 * Alice (programming language), a functional programming language designed by the Programming Systems Lab at Saarland University
 * Alice (software), an object-oriented programming language and IDE developed at Carnegie Mellon
 * Alice (Microsoft), an AI project at Microsoft for improving decision-making in economics
 * Alice mobile robot
 * Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity, an open-source chatterbot
 * Matra Alice, a home micro-computer marketed in France
 * Alice, a brand name used by Telecom Italia for internet and telephone services

Video games

 * Alice: An Interactive Museum, a 1991 adventure game
 * American McGee's Alice, a 2000 computer game
 * Alice: Madness Returns, 2011 sequel to the above
 * Through the Looking Glass (video game) or Alice, a 1984 Macintosh computer game

Films

 * Alice (1982 film), a musical-fantasy film co-produced by Belgian and Polish film companies
 * Alice (1988 film), a Czech fantasy film that loosely adapts Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
 * Alice (1990 film), an American romantic comedy film by Woody Allen
 * Alice (2002 film), a French-language LGBT-related film
 * Alice (2005 film), a Portuguese drama film
 * Alice (2022 film), an American crime film starring Keke Palmer
 * A.LI.CE, a 2000 Japanese anime film
 * Alice: Ignorance Is Bliss, a short documentary
 * Alice, Sweet Alice, a 1976 American slasher film
 * The Alice (film), a 2004 Australian film

Television

 * Alice (American TV series), a 1976–1985 American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS
 * Alice (Brazilian TV series), a 2008 Brazilian television drama series from HBO
 * Alice (South Korean TV series), a 2020 South Korean television drama series from SBS
 * Alice (miniseries), a 2009 American television miniseries that aired on Syfy
 * "Alice" (Star Trek: Voyager), a 1999 episode of Star Trek: Voyager
 * The Alice (TV series), 2005–2006 Australian drama TV series, a spin-off from the film of the same name

Albums

 * Alice (Per Elisa), a 1981 album by Alice
 * Alice (1984 album), a compilation album by Alice
 * Alice (1986 album), a compilation album by Alice
 * Alice (Tom Waits album) (2002)
 * Alice (Alice Caymmi album) (2018)
 * Alice (EP), a 1983 EP by The Sisters of Mercy

Artists and bands

 * Alice (band), a Japanese band formerly led by Shinji Tanimura
 * Alice (singer) (born 1954), San Remo winner and Eurovision participant
 * Alice (South Korean group)
 * Alice, a band fronted by Dan Bárta
 * Baby Alice, a Swedish Eurodance group
 * Wolf Alice, English alternative rock band
 * Alice Glass, Canadian singer songwriter, popular for electronic music group Crystal Castles
 * Alisa (Russian band), a. k. a. Alice

Songs

 * "Alice" (Tom Waits song) (2002)
 * "Alice" (Moby song) (2008)
 * "Alice" (Pogo song) (2007)
 * "Alice" (Avril Lavigne song) (2010)
 * "Alice" (Lady Gaga song), (2020)
 * "Alice", a song by Stevie Nicks from The Other Side of the Mirror
 * "Alice", a song by the Noir Désir from Tostaky
 * "Alice", a song by Raven-Symoné from This Is My Time
 * "Alice", a song by Cocteau Twins
 * "Alice" (Mylène Farmer song), a 1995 song by Mylène Farmer from Anamorphosée
 * "Alice", a 1982 single by The Sisters of Mercy
 * "Alice" from the Nana Kitade album titled 18: Eighteen

Places

 * Alice Springs, Australia, also known as "the Alice"
 * Alice, São Tomé and Príncipe
 * Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa
 * Alice, Colorado, US
 * Alice, Missouri, US
 * Alice, North Dakota, US
 * Alice, Texas, US
 * Alice, West Virginia, US

Radio stations

 * Radio Alice, an Italian pirate radio station
 * Alice 96.1 (WQKS-FM), a radio station in Montgomery, Alabama
 * Alice 107.7 (KLAL), a radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas
 * Alice 97.3 (KLLC), a radio station in San Francisco, California
 * Alice 105.9 (KALC), a radio station in Denver, Colorado
 * Alice 97.7, the former branding of WLCE (now WQLZ), a radio station in Springfield, Illinois
 * Alice 106.7 (WLLC), a former radio station in Detroit, Michigan
 * Alice 95.5 (KTOZ-FM), a radio station in Springfield, Missouri
 * Alice 104.5, the former branding of WLCE (now WRFF), a former radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ships

 * USS Alice (1864), a screw tug
 * USS Alice (SP-367)
 * Alice (steam tug 1897), a steam tug built in Tacoma, Washington

Other uses

 * 291 Alice, a Main-Belt asteroid
 * Advanced Logistic & Inconsequence Cognizing Equipment, a fictional artificial intelligence in Gundam Sentinel
 * Alice (spacecraft instrument), a UV imaging spectrograph on the New Horizons space probe and Rosetta spacecraft
 * ALICE: A Large Ion Collider Experiment, a high-energy physics experiment
 * ALICE (accelerator), a prototype accelerator
 * Alice and Bob, archetypal characters in fields such as cryptography and physics
 * Alice (beetle), a genus of beetle in tribe Desmiphorini
 * Alice Chess, a variant of chess
 * ALICE (company), a hospitality management company
 * Alice (DC Comics), a character in DC Comics
 * Alice (Dilbert), a character in the Dilbert comic strip
 * Alice (locomotive), a Hunslet 0-4-0 ST, used at Llanberis in North Wales
 * Alice (mango), a mango cultivar that originated in south Florida
 * ALICE (propellant), a rocket propellant
 * All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment, a load-bearing system adopted as United States Army Standard A
 * Alice (spacecraft instrument), an imaging spectrometer design aboard New Horizons and Rosetta uncrewed space probes
 * Eviation Alice, an electric aircraft
 * A.L.I.C.E or Artificial Labile Intelligent Cybernated Existence in the Japanese light novel series, Sword Art Online
 * ALICE, an acronym for "Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate" offered by Navigate 360 which is related to active shooter training

title: Alice


text:
User talk:Ritcheyrp

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 16:45, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ritcheyrp