Anticipation

Anticipation, or being enthusiastic, is an emotion involving pleasure, excitement, and sometimes anxiety in considering some expected or longed-for good event.

As a defence mechanism

Robin Skynner considered anticipation as one of "the mature ways of dealing with real stress... You reduce the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how you are going to deal with it". There is evidence that "the use of mature defenses (sublimation, anticipation) tended to increase with age".

Desire

"Anticipation is the central ingredient in sexual desire." As "sex has a major cognitive component — the most important element for desire is positive anticipation": indeed, one name for pleasurable anticipation is excitement.

More generally, anticipation is a central motivating force in everyday life — "the normal process of imaginative anticipation of, or speculation about, the future". To enjoy one's life, "one needs a belief in Time as a promising medium to do things in; one needs to be able to suffer the pains and pleasures of anticipation and deferral".

Anticipation (artificial intelligence)

In artificial intelligence (AI), anticipation is the concept of an agent making decisions based on predictions, expectations, or beliefs about the future. It is widely considered that anticipation is a vital component of complex natural cognitive systems. As a branch of AI, anticipatory systems is a specialization still echoing the debates from the 1980s about the necessity for AI for an internal model.

Reaction, proaction and anticipation

Elementary forms of artificial intelligence can be constructed using a policy based on simple if-then rules. An example of such a system would be an agent following the rules

A system such as the one defined above might be viewed as inherently reactive because the decision making is based on the current state of the environment with no explicit regard to the future. An agent employing anticipation would try to predict the future state of the environment (weather in this case) and make use of the predictions in the decision making. For example

Anticipation (video game)

Anticipation is a video board game developed by Rare and released by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1988. It is playable as a single player with computer-controlled opponents or multiplayer with the support for up to four players using the NES Four Score.

Gameplay

Anticipation combines gameplay elements from Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit board games. The player is represented by one of four game pieces: a pair of pink high-heeled shoes, a horn, an ice cream cone, and a teddy bear. As the game slowly draws a picture, the first person to buzz in and guess the correct answer moves forward on the game board. The number of spaces the player moves depends upon the number on a dice, which counts down from 6 as the picture is drawn. Once a player correctly identifies a drawing for each of the four categories on a level, that player rises to the next-higher game board level. The first player to complete every level wins the game.

There are three levels on the Easy and Medium difficulty settings, and four on the Hard and Very Hard settings. From the third level on, the board includes gray "Feature Squares." Landing on one of these causes the player's token to fly around the board until a button is pressed; a puzzle is then played in the color that was hit. The fourth level has the same layout as the third, but with several gaps where spaces have been removed. Landing on a gap causes the player to fall back down to the corresponding position on the third level, but he/she retains credit for any solved fourth-level puzzles and must answer the remaining categories to climb back up.

Man (Middle-earth)

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books, such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the terms Man and Men refer to humankind – in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other humanoid races – and does not denote gender.

The Elves call the race of Men Atani in Quenya, literally meaning "Second People" (the Elves being the First), but also Hildor (Followers), Apanónar (After-born), and Fírimar or Firyar (Mortals). Less charitably they were called Engwar (The Sickly), owing to their susceptibility to disease and old age, and their generally unlovely appearance in the Elves' eyes. The name Atani becomes Edain in Sindarin, but this term is later applied only to those tribes of Men who are friendly to the Elves. Other names appear in Sindarin as Aphadrim, Eboennin, and Firebrim or Firiath.

Origins

The race of Men is the second race of beings created by the One God, Ilúvatar. Because they awoke at the start of the Years of the Sun, while the Elves awoke at the start of the First Age during the Years of the Trees, they are called the Afterborn by the Elves.

Manú (footballer)

Emanuel Jesus Bonfim Evaristo (born 28 August 1982), known as Manú, is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays mainly as a right winger.

Club career

Born in Setúbal, Manú started his professional career in the 2001–02 season playing for F.C. Alverca, before signing for S.L. Benfica in 2004 on a four-year contract. He was immediately loaned after arriving, serving stints in Italian sides Modena F.C. and A.C. Carpenedolo to gain experience, and returned to Portugal in the 2005–06 campaign for another temporary spell with C.F. Estrela da Amadora, where he played in 31 league games and scored seven goals, contributing to the preservation of the side's first division status.

In June 2006 Manú was given a new four-year deal and made his official debut for the Eagles by playing in both legs of the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round win against FK Austria Wien, also making a substitute appearance for Benfica in the group stages against F.C. Copenhagen, on 13 September 2006 (0–0 away draw).

Mandø

Mandø is one of the Danish Wadden Sea islands off the southwest coast of Jutland, Denmark in the Wadden Sea, part of the North Sea. The island covers an area of 7.63 km² and has 62 inhabitants. The island is situated approximately 12 kilometers southwest of the ancient town of Ribe.

Mandø is barely accessible at high tide over an unpaved surface level causeway of about four kilometers in length that connects the island to the mainland. Extensive mudflats and tidal marshes encircle the island and provide breeding areas to multitudes of birds and other organisms. In the past centuries a large earthen dike has been constructed around the perimeter of the island, although substantially set back from the shoreline. This artifice has allowed conventional farming in the form of grain growing and sheep grazing. Mandø is technically a hallig, although it is far from the ten German islands commonly described by that term. The name was formerly often spelled Manø.

Logistics of access

Conventional motor vehicles can access Mandø Island via a causeway unpaved roadway, although this route is compromised in storms at high tide. The nearest village on the mainland which is the gateway to Mandø Island is Vester Vedsted. This simple causeway road is no more than copious gravel laid down on an immense mudflat, with required frequent periodic maintenance of added gravels. Alternatively many visitors reach the island by way of a specially designed tractor pulled bus with greatly oversized tires. This vehicle is capable of traversing some of the firmer mudflats, but only at the lowest tides. In any case private vehicles or the "Mandø bus" leave the mainland at the point of the Wadden Sea Centre, which offers nature information and boasts a small museum devoted to the natural history of Mandø. Mandø is located midway between the two larger islands Fanø and Rømø which are connected to the mainland by a ferry and a road running across a causeway, respectively.