Other work has shown that adaptive learning can be highly successful in developing programs which are able to play games at a level similar to human players and, in some cases, exceed the ability of a vast majority of human players. This study uses poker to investigate how adaptation can be used in games of imperfect information. An internal learning value is manipulated which allows a poker pl...

Players of complex board games like backgammon, chess and go, were always wondering what the best opening moves for their favourite game are. In the last decade, computer analysis has offered more insight to many opening variations. This is especially true for backgammon, where computer rollouts have radically changed the way human experts play the opening. In this paper we use Palamedes, the w...

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A critical feature of the distant future is currently unresolvable uncertainty about what will then be the appropriate rate of return on capital to use for discounting. This paper shows that there is a well-defined sense in which the ‘‘lowest possible’’ interest rate should be used for discounting the far-distant future part of any investment project. Some implications are discussed for evaluat...

Within the process of plot development, authors create a complete story universe and develop the traits of its inhabitants. The inherit complexity of the story universe only adumbrates in the storyline, but it is crucial for its attractiveness and emotional impact. Interactive storytelling systems exploit the power of the author’s imagination by generating a variety of plots from a rich story u...

As a foundation for the definition of bidirectional protocol mappings between the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), this document specifies the architectural assumptions underlying such mappings as well as the mapping of addresses and error conditions.

Contaminated sediment management is complex and multivariate, involving a careful balance of science, politics and economics. As is true for most such complex issues, there is not a single correct way to address a problem, but rather the approach should be driven by the ecological, political and economic goals of all interested parties. However, because the choices made have far-reaching implic...

Six species of Gastrocopta have been identified from the Pilbara region, Western Australia, by means of comparative analyses of shell and mtDNA variation. Three of these species, Gastrocopta hedleyi, Gastrocopta larapinta and Gastrocopta servilis, have been recorded in the Pilbara for the first time. Gastrocopta sp. CW1 is probably new to science and might be endemic to the region. By contrast,...