
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
There are 5 hydrological monitoring stations A, B, C, D, and E located in sequence along a winding river, with the distances between A and B, B and C, C and D, and D and E along the river being 3, 4, 4, and 3, respectively. Now, it is necessary to build an intelligence center on the riverbank, and lay communication cables from each monitoring station to the intelligence center along the riverbank. The minimum total length of the communication cables after appropriately choosing the location of the intelligence center is ___.

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
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