Liz

Liz is a women's name of Hebrew origin, meaning "God's Promise".

The name may refer to:

A* search algorithm

In computer science, A* (pronounced as "A star" ( listen)) is a computer algorithm that is widely used in pathfinding and graph traversal, the process of plotting an efficiently traversable path between multiple points, called nodes. Noted for its performance and accuracy, it enjoys widespread use. However, in practical travel-routing systems, it is generally outperformed by algorithms which can pre-process the graph to attain better performance, although other work has found A* to be superior to other approaches.

Peter Hart, Nils Nilsson and Bertram Raphael of Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) first described the algorithm in 1968. It is an extension of Edsger Dijkstra's 1959 algorithm. A* achieves better performance by using heuristics to guide its search.

History

In 1968, AI researcher Nils Nilsson was trying to improve the path planning done by Shakey the Robot, a prototype robot that could navigate through a room containing obstacles. This path-finding algorithm, that Nilsson called A1, was a faster version of the then best known method, Dijkstra's algorithm, for finding shortest paths in graphs. Bertram Raphael suggested some significant improvements upon this algorithm, calling the revised version A2. Then Peter E. Hart introduced an argument that established A2, with only minor changes, to be the best possible algorithm for finding shortest paths. Hart, Nilsson and Raphael then jointly developed a proof that the revised A2 algorithm was optimal for finding shortest paths under certain well-defined conditions.

Goto

Goto (goto, GOTO, GO TO or other case combinations, depending on the programming language) is a statement found in many computer programming languages. It performs a one-way transfer of control to another line of code; in contrast a function call normally returns control. The jumped-to locations are usually identified using labels, though some languages use line numbers. At the machine code level, a goto is a form of branch or jump statement. Many languages support the goto statement, and many do not (see language support).

The structured program theorem proved that the goto statement is not necessary to write programs; some combination of the three programming constructs of sequence, selection/choice, and repetition/iteration are sufficient for any computation that can be performed by a Turing machine, with the caveat that code duplication and additional variables may need to be introduced. At machine code level, goto is used to implement the structured programming constructs.

In the past there was considerable debate in academia and industry on the merits of the use of goto statements. Use of goto was formerly common, but since the advent of structured programming in the 1960s and 1970s its use has declined significantly. The primary criticism is that code that uses goto statements is harder to understand than alternative constructions. Goto remains in use in certain common usage patterns, but alternatives are generally used if available. Debates over its (more limited) uses continue in academia and software industry circles.

ZZ Top

ZZ Top /ˈziːziːtɒp/ is an American rock band that formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. The band comprises guitarist and lead vocalist Billy Gibbons (the band's leader, main lyricist, and musical arranger), bassist and co-lead vocalist Dusty Hill, and drummer Frank Beard. One of the few major label recording groups to have held the same lineup for more than 40 years, ZZ Top has been praised by critics and fellow musicians alike for their technical mastery. Of the group, music writer Cub Koda said, "As genuine roots musicians, they have few peers; Gibbons is one of America's finest blues guitarists working in the arena rock idiom [...] while Hill and Beard provide the ultimate rhythm section support."

Since the release of the band's debut album in January 1971, ZZ Top has become known for its strong blues roots and humorous lyrical motifs, relying heavily on double entendres and innuendo. ZZ Top's musical style has changed over the years, beginning with blues-inspired rock on their early albums, then incorporating new wave, punk rock, and dance-rock, with heavy use of synthesizers. The band has had global album sales in excess of 50 million as of 2014.

Star

A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.

For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Once the hydrogen in the core of a star is nearly exhausted, almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the star's lifetime and, for some stars, by supernova nucleosynthesis when it explodes. Near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity (chemical composition), and many other properties of a star by observing its motion through space, luminosity, and spectrum respectively. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant of its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the star's environment affects its rotation and movement. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.