If we consider a process in which the outcome of one stage is known before passage to the next, then the principle of optimality shows that the policy in subsequent stages should be optimal with respect to the outcome of the first.

In a famous passage that is often considered the first specimen of alternative history, Livy speculates on what would have been the outcome of a military showdown between Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic.

These are bets that may not be settled on the first roll and may need any number of subsequent rolls before an outcome is determined.

Malaria Foundation International states, " The outcome of the treaty is arguably better than the status quo going into the negotiations ... For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before.

Though at first seen as a data collection and outcome reporting tool, the use of computer technology in the classrooms, meeting areas, and homes continued to unfold.

Although the aether is almost stationary according to Fresnel, his theory predicts a positive outcome of aether drift experiments only to second order in, because Fresnel's dragging coefficient would cause a negative outcome of all optical experiments capable of measuring effects to first order in.

The first Conclave of 1555, following the death of Julius III ( 1550 – 55 ), involved a struggle between French interests in Italy ( which had been favored by Julius III ) and Imperial interests, which were intent on Church reform through a Church council, but with the Emperor controlling the outcome.

In 1996, when the first such election took place, the outcome was a surprise win for Benjamin Netanyahu after election polls predicted that Peres was the winner.

However, one meta-analysis looking at the outcome of pregnancies involving Quinolone use in the first trimester found no increased risk of malformations.

When the winning strategy is for the first player, it is said that the outcome of the position is a " win ", and when the winning strategy is for the second player, it is said that the outcome of the position is a " loss " ( because it is a loss from the point of view of the first player ).

In people with a first episode of psychosis a good long-term outcome occurs in 42 %, an intermediate outcome in 35 % and a poor outcome in 27 %.

The first Roman expedition to Iberia was unable to bring the Carthaginian troops in the hinterland of Massalia to a pitched battle, so it continued on its way to northern Iberia under Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, a move which proved decisive for the outcome of the war.

Beginning at the first section, the reader chooses a non-sequential option ( e. g. Section 1 to Section 180 ) which in turn provides an outcome for the decision and advances the story.

In all three events, the start order after the first run is determined by the outcome of the previous run, with the last-place slider sliding first, the next-to-last place slider sliding second, and so forth, with the leader of the previous run sliding last.

On 24 July 2006, Ahtisaari brought the parties together in Vienna for the first high-level talks on the status outcome itself.

If the outcome is the element of the elementary event of two pips on the first die and five on the second, then both of the events of " 7 pips " and " odd number of pips " have also happened.

The first approach interprets the probability distribution as a function of the outcome, given a fixed parameter value, while the second interprets it as a function of the parameter, given a fixed outcome.

`` Bastards '', he would say, `` all I did was put a beat to that Vivaldi stuff, and the first chair clobbered me ''!!

When I mentioned that for my first long voyage I did not even have the money for the return fare, but had trusted to luck that I would earn a sufficient amount, the young people looked at me doubtingly.

And for the first time a representative of the highest office in the land would have been liable to the charge that he had attempted to make it a successorship by inheritance.

if so, he would not be the first or last commanding officer who has succumbed to bad information and dubious estimates of the future.

Perhaps Mrs. Meynell would do me the undeserved kindness to keep my own copy of the first edition of my first book, with all its mementos of her and the dear ones.

As a proud man, his prestige would suffer if he let Pike dictate to him through the governor's office, but to lower his prices would be tantamount to an admission that they had been too high in the first place.

The doctor agreed, but explained that it would be necessary first to check Fred's blood to ascertain whether or not it was of the same type as Papa's.

But all the reports of this first embassy show that the two Savoyards were the heads of it, for they were the only ones who were empowered to swear for the king that he would abide by the pope's decision and who were allowed to appoint deputies in the event that one was unavoidably absent.

Of Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe the philosopher Whitehead said the Earth's first visitors to Mars should be persons likely to make a good impression, and when he was asked, `` Whom would you send ''??

He replied, `` My first choice would be Mark Howe ''.

But the real beginnings of this development in him go back to the opposing of grammar school, and probably if it had not been this occasion and these Latin lines it would have been some others, such as the first prolusion, that set off this streak in him of unbridled and scathing verbal attack on an enemy.

Grasslands would extend, unfenced, unplowed, unbroken by silo or barn -- as the first settlers saw them.

Mr. Truman has only to recall the `` hopeless '' campaign of 1948 to remember what a loyal partisan he was and the first experience of Mr. Kennedy with Congress would have been sadder than it was had not Mr. Sam been there.

But those who would revitalize so complex an organization must, first of all, overcome the resistance of layers of officials wedded to traditional procedures, suspicious of innovation and fearful of mistakes.

Failing this, he would pull alongside at the first opportunity and shake his fist threateningly.

The first choice, abandoning tests entirely, would not only be unpopular domestically, but would surely be exploited by the Russians.

If there was a fire or a flood he would save Mama first and Violet next.

How, for example, could a Voltaire understand the strange predicament in which a Rousseau would find himself when, soon after the furor of his first Discourse, he acquired still another title to fame??

But I said I would first have to get the author's permission.

When they first married he had been working in the fields all day, and she would get in the car and drive to wherever he was working, to take him a fresh hot meal.

It would be the first time I had ever been completely alone with a girl I loved.

What would the first projects be??

It looked as Gavin had first seen it years ago, on those nights when he slept alone by his campfire and waked suddenly to the hoot of an owl or the rustle of a blade of grass in the moon's wind -- a savage land, untenanted and brooding, too strong to be broken by the will of men.

The herd was watered and then thrown onto a broad grass flat which was to be the first night's bedground.

Out of compulsion to say something cheery, Ben Prime blurted, `` Well, we were lucky to be on soft ground when the first floodheads hit.

Officers who participate in the continual practice drills assured me that the President's decision could be made and announced on the gold circuit within minutes after the first flash from Aj.

Unless all gadgets are properly operated -- and the wires and seals from the handles removed first -- no damage can be done.

It resembles, too, pictures such as Durer and Bruegel did, in which all that looks at first to be solely pictorial proves on inspection to be also literary, the representation of a proverb, for example, or a deadly sin.

At first glance, this hero seems to be more rather than less of an individualist than any of his predecessors.

He did not think himself to be firing the first shot of an intellectual revolution.

If `` Jack the Courtier '' is really to be taken as Swift, the following remark is obviously Steele's comment on Swift's change of parties and its effect on their friendship: `` I assure you, dear Jack, when I first found out such an Allay in you, as makes you of so malleable a Constitution, that you may be worked into any Form an Artificer pleases, I foresaw I should not enjoy your Favour much longer ''.

At this point a working definition of idea is in order, although our first definition will have to be qualified somewhat as we proceed.

Although this kind of wholesale objection came at first from some men who were not technically Puritans, still, once the Puritans gained power, they climaxed the affair by passing the infamous ordinance of 1642 which decreed that all `` public stage-plays shall cease and be forborne ''.

It might be well to consider the literary evidence first because it can provide us with an answer to one important question ; ;

Asked by the townsmen to cease his suit, Greville had answered that `` hytt shulde coste hym 500 first & sayed it must be tried ether before my Lorde Anderson in the countrey or his uncle Ffortescue in the exchequer with whom he colde more prevaile then we ''.

Both Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace had written him enthusiastic praise of Elmer Gantry ( any changes could be made in proof, which was already coming from the printer ) and they had ordered 140,000 copies -- the largest first printing of any book in history.

But, in departing, Lewis begged Breasted that there be no liquor in the apartment at the Grosvenor on his return, and he took with him the first thirty galleys of Elmer Gantry.

And to do this requires first of all the kind of information about people which is provided by the scientists in industrial anthropology and consumer research, who, for example, tell Courtenay that three days is the `` optimum priming period for a closed social circuit to be triggered with a catalytic cue-phrase '' -- which means that an effective propaganda technique is to send an idea into circulation and then three days later reinforce or undermine it.

Even to be `` from hope and fear set free '' is at least better than to have lost the first without having got rid of the second.

But as he remarks in his preface to The Walnut Trees, `` a novel can hardly ever be rewritten '', and `` when this one appears in its final form, the form of the first part will no doubt be radically changed ''.