Wednesday, November 27, 2019

A Separate Peace The Dying Legacy essays

A Separate Peace The Dying Legacy essays By early 1918 in Russia, the Bolsheviks controlled only the north-western area of the Russian Empire (Petrograd and Moscow) together with the areas between and around them. Various opposition groups were formed against the Bolsheviks, under the new Provisional Government. The provisional government had proposed elections for a new assembly in late 1917; Lenin had seen that the Bolsheviks must act before this democratically elected government convened, but once in power, he allowed the elections to proceed. In the November 1917 polls, Bolshevik candidates won just under 25 per cent of the vote, while the moderate socialists polled over 40 per cent. Lenin sent his loyal troops to close down the constituent assembly the day after it convened. Russia was about to enter a bloody civil war, which was a culmination of the efforts of varied opposition groups to defeat the Bolsheviks, from which it would emerge into Leninist and Stalinist tyranny. The causes of the civil war are diverse. A confusion of governments and opponents existed, some based on minorities and nationalities. From these, the Lithuanians, Moldavians, and Ukrainians declared independence. There was a Polish dispute over rights of sovereignty which raised tensions between Poland and her communist neighbor that would lead to war. Moreover, leaders of anti-Bolsheviks known as the Whites went to rebellion with the aim of establishing a power base and advancing from it to the Bolshevik stronghold (Years of Change, 402). With the ideal of Russia one and indivisible (Alexeyev), the White forces consisted of three main groups: revolutionary groups hostile toward the Bolsheviks, former officers of the Imperial army resentful of betrayal at Brest Litvosk (T A Morris) and national groups seeking independence for their particular minority. Lastly, according to T A Morris, the revolt Czechoslovak Legion was the greatest catalyst of civil confl...

Saturday, November 23, 2019

King Surname Meaning and Origin

King Surname Meaning and Origin King generally comes from the Old English cyning, originally meaning tribal leader. This nickname was commonly bestowed on a man who carried himself like royalty, or who played the part of the king in a medieval pageant. Occasionally, the King surname was used by a man who served in a royal household. King is the 35th most popular surname in the United States and the 36th most common surname in England. Surname Origin: English Alternate Surname Spellings: KINGE Famous People with the KING Surname: Dr. Martin Luther King - American civil rights leaderStephen King - popular American author, best known for his horror booksB.B. King - American blues guitar legend Genealogy Resources for the Surname KING: 100 Most Common U.S. Surnames Their MeaningsSmith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census? King Genealogy of Colonial VirginiaA Web site dedicated to using DNA to prove/disprove that the parents of Thomas King (1714-1798) of Louisa County, Va. were William Alfred King (1685-1779) and Sophia Burgess of Stafford County, Va. King Family Genealogy ForumSearch this popular genealogy forum for the King surname to find others who might be researching your ancestors, or post your own King query. FamilySearch - KING GenealogyFind records, queries, and lineage-linked family trees posted for the King surname and its variations. KING Surname Family Mailing ListsRootsWeb hosts several free mailing lists for researchers of the King surname. Cousin Connect - KING Genealogy QueriesRead or post genealogy queries for the surname King, and sign up for free notification when new King queries are added. DistantCousin.com - KING Genealogy Family HistoryFree databases and genealogy links for the last name King. - References: Surname Meanings Origins Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Menk, Lars. A Dictionary of German Jewish Surnames. Avotaynu, 2005. Beider, Alexander. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia. Avotaynu, 2004. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Thought Experiment in the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence Research Paper

The Thought Experiment in the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence - Research Paper Example However, this is limited to a text only channel such as a keyboard and display screen to display the results. The test involves an interrogator, a machine and a person. The interrogator should be in a room separated from both the machine and the other person. All participants are in fact completely separated from each other, whereby both the machine and the person are designated labels X and Y. This means that he does not know which one is the machine and which one is the person at the beginning of the game. The interrogator’s objective is to distinguish between the two using a series of questions on the machine and the other person as well. The questions could be of the form â€Å"Will X please tell me whether X plays chess?† (Oppy Graham, Dowe David, 2011, The Turing Test, para. 7). Both must answer the question. The machine’s objective is to try and convince the interrogator that it’s indeed the other person, while the person tries to help him identify correctly which one is the machine. If the interrogator fails to reliably tell the machine from the human, then the machine is said to have passed the test. The test does not check the ability to give the correct answer; however it checks how closely the answer resembles that of a typical human answer. ... The technology available now is far from achieving a credible human-like conversation for five minutes as Turing believed it would. The dynamics of human conversation are far too complex as factors like arrangement of words come into play. This can be well observed in the Loebner Prize Competition; an annual event in which computer programs are submitted to the Turing Test. Such competitions have catalysed the growth of AI technology substantially over the years, whereby programs like ELIZA came up. In 1997, one exceptional program called CONVERSE, developed by David Levi and his team, including a well-known researcher in computational linguistics, Yorick Wilks, won the Loebner Prize competition (William J. Rapaport, 2005, The Turing Test). Turing’s experiments focuses mainly on an AI machine’s ability to understand natural language. However this test has undergone some objections over time whereby some people suggest that it is chauvinistic i.e. it only recognizes inte lligence in things that have the capacity to sustain a conversation with humans. Others thought that the Turing Test is not sufficiently demanding. Turing (1950) however considered possible objections to his claim that machines can â€Å"think†. He went ahead and labelled them such as; The Theological objection, the â€Å"Heads in the sand† objection, The Argument from Consciousness, Arguments from Various Disabilities, Lady Lovelace's Objection, Argument from Continuity of the Nervous System, The Argument from Informality of Behaviour and finally, The Argument from Extra-Sensory Perception (Oppy & Dowe, 2011, Turing (1950) and Responses to Objections, para.1). A rather simplified