At IBM's research lab in Yorktown Heights, New York, computer scientist Baruch Schieber is using linear programming to help an IBM client schedule hours for 250 workers at a call center.

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The final battle at Yorktown came about despite Washington's fixation with attacking New York.

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Because the toy retailer is a tenant at the Yorktown mall, it was able to provide KKR with insight into the area's household income and consumer-purchasing habits, he said.

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The first skirmishes in America's war of independence were at Concord and Lexington in 1775 and the decisive battle was fought at Yorktown in 1781, six years later (though the articles of peace were not signed until 1783).

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