A Survey of Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods

Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is a recently proposed search method that combines the precision of tree search with the generality of random sampling. It has received considerable interest due to its spectacular success in the difficult problem of computer Go, but has also proved beneficial in a range of other domains. This paper is a survey of the literature to date, intended to provide a snapshot of the state of the art after the first five years of MCTS research. We outline the core algorithm's derivation, impart some structure on the many variations and enhancements that have been proposed, and summarize the results from the key game and nongame domains to which MCTS methods have been applied. A number of open research questions indicate that the field is ripe for future work

ASSIMILATING THE OTHER: FAMILIAR SARACENS AND THE COLONIAL MEDIEVALISM OF ARIOSTO’S ORLANDO FURIOSO

Employing theoretical perspectives from Edward Said’s Orientalism and postcolonial theory, this dissertation analyzes the depiction of Saracens in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and its function within what Gabrielle Michele Spiegel calls “the social logic of the text”, revealing the Renaissance epic masterpiece as permeated by a colonial attitude hitherto neglected by Ariosto criticism. The first chapter discusses the social, political, and emotional pressures that substantiate and shape the text, and Ariosto’s unconventional choice to portray sixteenth-century issues by means of a Carolingian plotline. The second and third chapters analyze the depiction of Saracens and the Muslim religion by highlighting a general process of familiarization which, on one hand, proposes the Saracens as the embodiment of an internal enemy, and, on the other, facilitates the assimilation of the invading enemy. In these chapters, specific attention is devoted to Angelica – Saracen princess who invades the West and the heart of the Christian knights – and Gano – forefather of a family historically perceived as an internal enemy of France and Christianity. By analyzing specific Saracen characters defined as ‘cross-border’ – characters who straddle the border (bad Christians and good Saracens) and characters who cross the border (good Saracens who convert) – the fourth chapter uncovers a colonial mindset permeating the text and a political strategy proposed by it: the assimilation of the invading enemy through marriage. This chapter focuses on Rodomonte – the strongest Saracen invader – and Ruggiero – the Saracen invader who falls in love with, converts and marries the Christian Bradamante, interpreting a gender reversal unique in the chivalric epic tradition. The fifth and last chapter analyzes Bradamante – the Christian woman warrior founder of d’Este dynasty (Ariosto’s patrons) – and her marriage-by-duel with Ruggiero. It unveils a specific colonial strategy suggested by the poem – a defensive colonialism implemented through the cultural and political assimilation of the invading enemy – and a particular role assigned to Bradamante – active protagonist of a diplomatic act which ties the mythical origin of the d’Este family with colonial conquest

The Counsel Group: Rhetorical and Political Contexts of Court Counsel in The Canterbury Tales .

The Counsel Group: Rhetorical and Political Contexts of Court Counsel in The Canterbury Tales argues that counsel-taking is one of the most important themes in Chaucer\u27s masterwork. Court counsel--which includes giving the ruler or lord political advice, making laws and treaties, and passing judicial sentence--was a major form of medieval discourse that recurs throughout Ricardian poetry. Indeed, the modern principle of consultative government has its roots in the medieval discourse of counsel and consent. As a diplomat in the service of Richard II, member of parliament, and acquaintance of several leading members of the king\u27s council, Chaucer was well positioned to appreciate the political importance of court counsel. As a poet and translator, he was trained to evaluate the deep rhetorical structure of political speech. Richard II was deposed in 1399, and one of the main charges made against him in the articles of his deposition was that he refused to take the counsel of his subjects. However, the conciliar crisis that led to his deposition was complex and turned on the political factionalism between the royal and baronial parties. Both groups fought for control of the king\u27s standing council and parliament, which held the keys to political power. The counsel group explores the rhetorical understructure of this struggle by thematizing the historical problems that corrupted counsel at the Ricardian court. The Melibee explores the problem of the ruler\u27s youth, the Man of Law\u27s Tale that of treason, and the Clerk\u27s Tale that of tyranny. The counsel group also presents Chaucer\u27s ideal counsellor-king, the Athenian ruler Theseus, in the Knight\u27s Tale, and satirizes court counsel in the subversive Merchant\u27s Tale. The factionalist nature of counsel-taking in the Tales is related to the popular Chaucerian issues of gender and class. Chaucer uses marriage as a metaphor for the conciliar relationship between a ruler and his people. Moreover, the Merchant\u27s Tale extends the issue of political advice from an aristocratic court setting to the bourgeois court of a merchant-knight

Multitudinous seas: representations of the ocean in early modern English drama

This dissertation argues that early modern English writers represent the sea and tides as offering multiple, often contradictory spaces of risk and possibility. On page and stage, the ocean appears threatening and protective, liberating and confining, barren and fecund. Merchant vessels set sail to return with precious cargo, or to sink; royal children cast adrift either perish, or return unlooked-for; pirate crews elect a captain who may lead them to freedom, or to the gibbet; sea-storms divide families for the rest of their lives, or until a miraculous reunion; coastlines fortify island nations, or leave them vulnerable to attacking fleets. The sea furnishes an objective correlative for tempestuous grief, bottomless love, utter confusion, and myriad other states. As plot element and metaphorical vehicle, the literary sea opens multiple possibilities. The first chapter argues that in history plays by Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Greene, the trope of England as an island fortified by the sea emphasizes not threatened British insularity, but rather hospitality, fortunate invasions, and continuity between Britain’s tidal rivers and its surrounding seas. The second chapter traces the security and vulnerability of maritime travelers from classical and medieval texts by Ovid, Virgil, Petrarch, Gower, and Chaucer to early modern romances by Greene, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Sidney through three key images: the storm-tossed ship, the rudderless boat, and the symmetrical shipwreck. The third chapter considers pirates in plays by Heywood and Rowley, Dekker, Daborne, and Shakespeare as representations of oceanic risk and contradiction. The fourth chapter analyzes gendered depictions of mythical sea creatures and deities in works by Shakespeare, Spenser, Dekker, Marlowe, and Lyly, arguing that while these authors use sea imagery to complicate traditional representations of gender, when they ascribe gendered qualities to the embodied sea, it is within the bounds of traditional gender roles. The final chapter discusses riches from the sea in texts by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Munday, and Spenser, demonstrating that before maritime wealth can be circulated economically or socially, it must undergo a land-change—a process of re-integration that frequently demands reversing the effects of sea-change

Byzantium and France: the Twelfth Century Renaissance and the Birth of the Medieval Romance

This work hopes to fill the need for a complete treatment of the question of possible influence of the Hellenistic and Byzantine romance on the Old French romance of the twelfth century. Adopting a traditional historical approach, along with a consideration of symbols and motifs, it hopes to trace the coherent development of a genre from the Hellenistic world of the beginning of our era to the religious milieu of early Christianity and ultimately to the translation centers of monasteries and ports and the courts of Western Europe at the time of the Crusades. We conclude that, far from composing their works in a vacuum, inspired only by half-forgotten, obscure Celtic tales, the twelfth-century authors were part of a tradition whose presence helps to account for some puzzling motifs in their works