 class schedule.
Girl #1: Oh, ew. Why would you waste you weekends working?

A little while later...

Girl #3: So what is [some club I forget the name of] like? I was thinking about joining.
Girl #1: Oh, you can't. It's only for Asians.
Girl #2: That's not true! It's just that most of the members are, but I'm sure anyone can--
Girl #1: Oh, no, Sweetie, that's just what we tell people so they don't accuse us of, like, discrimination. We don't let in non-Asians unless they're dating one of us.

A little while later...

Girl #1: gets up to go to the bathroom.

Girl #3: So, I really like your sister, but man, I'm glad I'm on her good side.
Girl #2: Oh, god, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side, either!

A little while later...

...this is following up on a conversation about bad plastic surgery.
Girl #1: So when did you get your nose done?
Girl #3: Me? I don't have a nose job.
Girl #1: Oh, huh. I thought all Jewish people got nose jobs. You have a really nice nose, then.
Girl #3: Thank you?

A little while later...

Girl #1: Yeah, well, like, they have apartments on campus with their own living rooms and kitchens, but the smallest ones they have are two bedrooms, but I don't want to live with anybody else, so they're actually making us pay for two people! Can you believe that?

That's all for now! More tomorrow if I remember to post!
Tags: delaware, interests, memes, overheard, real life
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    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.<|endoftext|>Aim higher, reach further.

Timeline: A Short History of Myanmar’s Rohingya Minority

Rohingya women and children waited in a queue to collect water at the Leda camp, an unregistered camp for Rohingya in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, about 183 miles south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 3, 2016.
Rohingya women and children waited in a queue to collect water at the Leda camp, an unregistered camp for Rohingya in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, about 183 miles south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 3, 2016. Photo: A.M. Ahad/Associated Press

Thousands of men, women and children from Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have fled the country over what the army is calling a crackdown on insurgents.

A Wall Street Journal article examines the intensification of a long-simmering conflict between Yangon and the Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship in the predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian state.

Here is a short history of the Rohingya people.

8th Century: The Rohingya, a people of South Asian origin, dwelled in an independent kingdom in Arakan, now known as Rakhine state in modern-day Myanmar.

9th to 14th Century: The Rohingya came into contact with Islam through Arab traders. Close ties were forged between Arakan and Bengal.

1784: The Burman King Bodawpaya conquered Arakan and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Bengal.

1790: Hiram Cox, a British diplomat sent to assist refugees, established the town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where many Rohingya still live today.

1824 to 1942: Britain captured Burma—now known as Myanmar—and made it a province of British India. Workers were migrated to Burma from other parts of British India for infrastructure projects.

1942: Japan invaded Burma, pushing out the British. As the British retreated, Burmese nationalists attacked Muslim communities who they thought had benefited from British colonial rule.

1945: Britain liberated Burma from Japanese occupation with help of Burmese nationalists led by Aung San and Rohingya fighters. Rohingyas felt betrayed as the British didn’t fulfill a promise of autonomy for Arakan.

1948: Tensions increased between the government of newly independent Burma and the Rohingya, many of whom wanted Arakan to join Muslim-majority Pakistan. The government retaliated by ostracizing the Rohingya, including removing Rohingya civil servants.

1950: Some Rohingya resisted the government, led by armed groups called Mujahids. The insurgency gradually died down.

1962: General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party seized power and took a hard line against the Rohingya.

1977: The junta began Operation Nagamin, or Dragon King, which they said was aimed at screening the population for foreigners. More than 200,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, amid allegations of army abuses. The army denied any wrongdoing.

1978: Bangladesh struck a U.N.-brokered deal with Burma for the repatriation of refugees, under which most Rohingya returned.

1982: A new immigration law redefined people who migrated during British rule as illegal immigrants. The government applied this to all Rohingya.

1989: The army changed the name of Burma to Myanmar.

1991: More than 250,000 Rohingya refugees fled what they said was forced labor, rape and religious persecution at the hands of the Myanmar army. The army said it was trying to bring order to Rakhine.

1992 to 1997: Around 230,000 Rohingya returned to Arakan, now known as Rakhine, under another repatriation agreement.

2012: Rioting between Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists killed more than 100 people, mostly Rohingya. Tens of thousands of people were driven into Bangladesh. Nearly 150,000 were forced into camps in Rakhine.

2016: Rohingya militant group Harakah al-Yaqin attacked border guard posts, killing nine soldiers. The army retaliated. More than 25,000 people fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, bringing accounts of killing, rape and arson. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government denied the atrocities.

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Popular on WSJ<|endoftext|>crisis".

=== Belarus ===
On 15 August, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko urged both Russia and Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war. He accused the West of supporting the incursion into Kursk Oblast in order to encourage new mobilization and destabilize the situation in Russia and Belarus.
On 18 August, Lukashenko said that Ukraine had massed 120,000 troops near the border with Belarus, and that he had ordered a third of the Belarusian army to be deployed near the border with Ukraine.

=== Estonia ===
On 13 September, the commander of the Estonian Defence Forces Intelligence Centre, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, said that while Russia had redeployed some forces "Russia's offensive activity in the Donetsk direction has not decreased much." He cited a decline from 185 attacks per day down to 110 attacks per day. Russia had responded by moving forces from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts instead of Donetsk or Kharkiv. Kiviselg did acknowledge that the Russian counter-attack<|endoftext|>Who are the happiest people? According to a new report from Gallup, it's those who regularly go to a place of worship, whether it be a church, mosque or synagogue.

Any maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, but the churchgoers' positive emotions are especially high on Sundays -- while everyone else actually sees a decline in mood on that day, according to the findings of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

The report is based on the results of 300,000 interviews in 2011. People were asked about the positive emotions (like happiness, learning or smiling) and negative emotions (like sadness, anger and stress) experienced the day before. The researchers tallied up each individual "emotional moment" to determine the survey respondents' emotional well being.

The researchers found that people who frequently attend church had 3.36 positive emotions a day, on average. However, the positive emotions among people who never go to church numbered 3.08 per day, on average.

The difference in positive emotions remained true even after researchers adjusted for factors like income, age and education.

And on Sundays in particular, the churchgoers had 3.49 positive emotions, on average, while the infrequent or non-churchgoers experienced 3.14 to 3.29 positive emotions on Sundays, according to the Gallup findings.

However, the Gallup researchers noted that positive emotions hit a high on the weekends, compared to weekdays, for both churchgoers and non-churchgoers.

The researchers hypothesized that these findings may arise because churchgoers are around their friends on Sunday, thereby boosting socialization and their moods.

Last month, Gallup came out with a report showing that religious people in America have higher levels of wellbeing than the nonreligious and moderately religious.

And even earlier this year, a Queen's University study showed that thinking about religion is linked

?
Girl #3: Flushing?
Girl #1: Why is everything in Chinese? This isn't Chinatown, is it?
Girl #3: No, it's Queens.
Girl #1: Ugh, what are they doing? Taking over the whole city?

A little while later...

Girl #3: But I didn't want to spend my own money on that.
Girl #1: Oh, you have an allowance?
Girl #3: No, I have a job.
Girl #2: Really? Doing what?
Girl #3: Well, it's (I can't for the life of me remember, but it sounded kind of cool). But I only work weekends right now. I'm trying to get more hours but the shifts cut into my class schedule.
Girl #1: Oh, ew. Why would you waste you weekends working?

A little while later...

Girl #3: So what is [some club I forget the name of] like? I was thinking about joining.
Girl #1: Oh, you can't. It's only for Asians.
Girl #2: That's not true! It's just that most of the members are, but I'm sure anyone can--
Girl #1: Oh, no, Sweetie, that's just what we tell people so they don't accuse us of, like, discrimination. We don't let in non-Asians unless they're dating one of us.

A little while later...

Girl #1: gets up to go to the bathroom.

Girl #3: So, I really like your sister, but man, I'm glad I'm on her good side.
Girl #2: Oh, god, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side, either!

A little while later...

...this is following up on a conversation about bad plastic surgery.
Girl #1: So when did you get your nose done?
Girl #3: Me? I don't have a nose job.
Girl #1: Oh, huh. I thought all Jewish people got nose jobs. You have a really nice nose, then.
Girl #3: Thank you?

A little while later...

Girl #1: Yeah, well, like, they have apartments on campus with their own living rooms and kitchens, but the smallest ones they have are two bedrooms, but I don't want to live with anybody else, so they're actually making us pay for two people! Can you believe that?

That's all for now! More tomorrow if I remember to post!
Tags: delaware, interests, memes, overheard, real life
  • Post a new comment

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded

    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.<|endoftext|>Aim higher, reach further.

Timeline: A Short History of Myanmar’s Rohingya Minority

Rohingya women and children waited in a queue to collect water at the Leda camp, an unregistered camp for Rohingya in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, about 183 miles south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 3, 2016.
Rohingya women and children waited in a queue to collect water at the Leda camp, an unregistered camp for Rohingya in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, about 183 miles south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 3, 2016. Photo: A.M. Ahad/Associated Press

Thousands of men, women and children from Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have fled the country over what the army is calling a crackdown on insurgents.

A Wall Street Journal article examines the intensification of a long-simmering conflict between Yangon and the Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship in the predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian state.

Here is a short history of the Rohingya people.

8th Century: The Rohingya, a people of South Asian origin, dwelled in an independent kingdom in Arakan, now known as Rakhine state in modern-day Myanmar.

9th to 14th Century: The Rohingya came into contact with Islam through Arab traders. Close ties were forged between Arakan and Bengal.

1784: The Burman King Bodawpaya conquered Arakan and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Bengal.

1790: Hiram Cox, a British diplomat sent to assist refugees, established the town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where many Rohingya still live today.

1824 to 1942: Britain captured Burma—now known as Myanmar—and made it a province of British India. Workers were migrated to Burma from other parts of British India for infrastructure projects.

1942: Japan invaded Burma, pushing out the British. As the British retreated, Burmese nationalists attacked Muslim communities who they thought had benefited from British colonial rule.

1945: Britain liberated Burma from Japanese occupation with help of Burmese nationalists led by Aung San and Rohingya fighters. Rohingyas felt betrayed as the British didn’t fulfill a promise of autonomy for Arakan.

1948: Tensions increased between the government of newly independent Burma and the Rohingya, many of whom wanted Arakan to join Muslim-majority Pakistan. The government retaliated by ostracizing the Rohingya, including removing Rohingya civil servants.

1950: Some Rohingya resisted the government, led by armed groups called Mujahids. The insurgency gradually died down.

1962: General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party seized power and took a hard line against the Rohingya.

1977: The junta began Operation Nagamin, or Dragon King, which they said was aimed at screening the population for foreigners. More than 200,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, amid allegations of army abuses. The army denied any wrongdoing.

1978: Bangladesh struck a U.N.-brokered deal with Burma for the repatriation of refugees, under which most Rohingya returned.

1982: A new immigration law redefined people who migrated during British rule as illegal immigrants. The government applied this to all Rohingya.

1989: The army changed the name of Burma to Myanmar.

1991: More than 250,000 Rohingya refugees fled what they said was forced labor, rape and religious persecution at the hands of the Myanmar army. The army said it was trying to bring order to Rakhine.

1992 to 1997: Around 230,000 Rohingya returned to Arakan, now known as Rakhine, under another repatriation agreement.

2012: Rioting between Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists killed more than 100 people, mostly Rohingya. Tens of thousands of people were driven into Bangladesh. Nearly 150,000 were forced into camps in Rakhine.

2016: Rohingya militant group Harakah al-Yaqin attacked border guard posts, killing nine soldiers. The army retaliated. More than 25,000 people fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, bringing accounts of killing, rape and arson. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government denied the atrocities.

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Show More Archives

Popular on WSJ<|endoftext|>Who are the happiest people? According to a new report from Gallup, it's those who regularly go to a place of worship, whether it be a church, mosque or synagogue.

Any maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, but the churchgoers' positive emotions are especially high on Sundays -- while everyone else actually sees a decline in mood on that day, according to the findings of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

The report is based on the results of 300,000 interviews in 2011. People were asked about the positive emotions (like happiness, learning or smiling) and negative emotions (like sadness, anger and stress) experienced the day before. The researchers tallied up each individual "emotional moment" to determine the survey respondents' emotional well being.

The researchers found that people who frequently attend church had 3.36 positive emotions a day, on average. However, the positive emotions among people who never go to church numbered 3.08 per day, on average.

The difference in positive emotions remained true even after researchers adjusted for factors like income, age and education.

And on Sundays in particular, the churchgoers had 3.49 positive emotions, on average, while the infrequent or non-churchgoers experienced 3.14 to 3.29 positive emotions on Sundays, according to the Gallup findings.

However, the Gallup researchers noted that positive emotions hit a high on the weekends, compared to weekdays, for both churchgoers and non-churchgoers.

The researchers hypothesized that these findings may arise because churchgoers are around their friends on Sunday, thereby boosting socialization and their moods.

Last month, Gallup came out with a report showing that religious people in America have higher levels of wellbeing than the nonreligious and moderately religious.

And even earlier this year, a Queen's University study showed that thinking about religion is linked with practicing greater self-control in a non-religious task.

"Until now, I believed religion was a matter of faith; people had little 'practical' use for religion," study researcher Kevin Rounding, a psychology graduate student at the university, said in a statement. "This research actually suggests that religion


A. General background

Peter Darby, Dr Peter Darby, is a Finnish citizen of British origin, born in 1926. In 1977 he was employed as a doctor by the Swedish State Railways in Gävle, Sweden. He rented a flat in the town, but spent the weekends with his family on the island of Lemland in the neutral and demilitarised Finnish archipelago of Åland at the southern end of the Gulf of Bothnia. From the end of 1981 he worked as a doctor in the public health service in another Swedish town, Norrtälje.<|endoftext|> directly on the content (e.g. drawing bounding boxes over specific objects in an image; or marking specific time points on a video clip). However, existing crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and CrowdFlower (CF), do not provide direct support for designing interactive microtasks. To design interactive microtasks, especially interactive microtasks with workflows, requesters have to use programming-based approaches, such as Turkit and AMT SDKs. However, the need of programming skills sets a significant threshold for many requesters.

To lower the barrier of entry for designing and deploying interactive microtasks with workflows, we developed ReTool, a web-based tool that simplifies the process by applying “Programming by Demonstration” (PbD) concept. In our context, PbD refers to the mechanism by which requesters design interactive microtasks with workflows by giving an example of how the tasks can be completed.

Working with ReTool, a requester can design and publish microtasks following the four main steps:

  • Project Creation: The requester creates a project and uploads a piece of sample content to be crowdsourced.
  • Microtask and Workflow Generation: Depending on the type (text or image) of the sample content, a content specific workspace is generated. The requester then performs a sequence of interactions (e.g. tapping-and-dragging, clicking, etc.) on the content within the workspace. The interactions are recorded and analyzed to generate interactive microtasks with workflows.
  • Previewing Microtask Interface & Workflow: The requester can preview microtasks and workflows, edit instructions and other properties (e.g. worker number), add verification tasks and advanced workflows (conditional and looping workflow) at this step.
  • Microtask Publication: The requester uploads all content to be crowdsourced and receives a URL link for accessing available microtasks. The link can published to crowdsourcing marketplaces or social network platforms.

We conducted a user study to find out how potential requesters with varying programming skills use ReTool. We compared ReTool with a lower bound baseline, MTurk online design tool, as an alternative approach. We recruited 14 participants from different university faculties, taught them what is crowdsourcing and how to design microtasks using both tools. We then asked them to complete three design tasks. The results show that ReTool is able to help not only programmers, but also non-programmers and new crowdsourcers to design complex microtasks and workflows in a fairly short time.

For more details, please see our full paper ReTool: Interactive Microtask and Workflow Design through Demonstration published at CHI 2017.

Chen Chen, National University of Singapore

Xiaojun Meng, National University of Singapore

Shengdong Zhao, National University of Singapore

Morten Fjeld, Chalmers University of Technology

CrowdCamp Report: Situated Crowdsourced Access

Navigating through streets and within buildings might seem like a trivial activity, however, its often a challenge for people with visual impairment. Over the last few years, innovation in the space of sensors, devices and smartphone apps have attempted to improve universal access and make navigation easier. However, the technology is not there yet.

Current approaches still incur concerns about safety – unexpected danger from construction or vehicle placement can hurt a user and could have used real-time notifications or help. For example, a visually impaired person uses white cane as a primary mobility tool. This helps in keeping track of objects that are hindrances in the path he is taking. There might be some special situations like heavy hanging objects or objects that are protruding from the wall (can be artistic displays, etc) that cannot be tracked by the white cane but can cause severe head injury if not taken care of. Understanding these aspects are beyond sensor’s limitations, but easy for humans to comprehend.

In this project, we designed an approach to help address some of these problems by adding humans in the loop as sensors and actors to assist with accessibility questions/problems. For example, in the figure below, if a user (green) has a to go to a coffee shop (A or B), she can quickly query the route and can use the location based services like Twitter, etc., crowdsourcing approaches where crowd are the people (orange) in neighborhood who can help her by notifying about a problem if it exists. This can help inform the user’s decision making process, and the navigation system’s path recommendation.

Sample route map
Sample route map

The approach can be implemented using the workflow architecture shown below:

Workflow architecture of the proposed set up
Workflow architecture of the proposed set up

In this approach, an end user can make a request by setting abilities preferences with respect to time, cost, location, and more. The request can then be broadcasted to the people or volunteers in the neighborhood. The volunteers can then respond, providing the system with updated information about the situation with a click of a button. To create this system, we envisioned the possibility of using Twitter or a custom app.

Twitter Approach: Twitter being a very popular social media has attracted so many users who can help others in their area of location without even making a request to the volunteer or another user. In order to first understand this we have to get an idea if the user base in a given area is bigger and there are sufficient tweets from a given region. We considered Pittsburgh as our point of interest and we calculated the average frequency of tweets. As shown below, on an average there is atleast one tweet for every 12 seconds. Hence, reflecting a promising outcome.

Tweets on average
Tweets on average

Custom Application: As a part of brainstorming and prototyping process, we also developed a homescreen app by extending the concept of Twitch Crowdsourcing. This lets users provide and answer just by unlocking their phone. One particular use-case of this app is shown below. If a visually impaired user (VU) has a question about the presence of curb ramp near-by or the number of steps, this request will be visible to the people in the location of VU’s interest where they can make a binary decision by simply checking their mobile phones. This makes the entire experience seamless with minimal cognitive load.

Screenshot of unlock screen application
Screenshot of unlock screen application

We believe that by using situated crowdsourcing, we can overcome the limitations of current sensor technology and real-world deployment, and better empower people with visual disabilities to navigate through buildings or cities more independently.

[1] Rajan Vaish, Keith Wyngarden, Jingshu Chen, Brandon Cheung, and Michael S. Bernstein. 2014. Twitch crowdsourcing: crowd contributions in short bursts of time. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3645-3654.

[2] Simo Hosio, Jorge Goncalves, Vili Lehdonvirta, Denzil Ferreira, and Vassilis Kostakos. 2014. Situated crowdsourcing using a market model. In Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 55-64.

Rajan Vaish, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Walter Lasecki, University of Rochester, USA
Lydia Manikonda, Arizona State University, USA

The Human Flesh Search: Large-Scale Crowdsourcing for a Decade and Beyond

Human Flesh Search (HFS, 人肉搜索 in Chinese), a Web-enabled large-scale crowdsourcing phenomenon (mostly based on voluntary crowd power without cash rewards), originated in China a decade ago. It is a new form of search and problem solving scheme that involves the collaboration among a potentially large number of voluntary Web users. The term “human flesh,” an unfortunately bad translation from its Chinese name, refers to the human empowerment (in fact, crowd-powered search is a more appropriate English name). HFS has seen tremendous growth since its inception in 2001 (Figure 1). Figure1_updatedFigure 1. (a) Types of HFS episodes, and (b) evolution of HFS episodes based on social desirability HFS has been a unique Web phenomenon for just over 10 years. HFS presents a valuable test-bed for scientists to validate existing and new theories in social computing, sociology, behavioral sciences, and so forth. Based on a comprehensive dataset of HFS episodes collected from participants’ discussion on the Internet, we performed a series of empirical studies, focusing on the scope of HFS activities, the patterns of HFS crowd collaboration process, and the unique characteristics and dynamics of HFS participant networks. More results of the analysis of HFS participant networks can be found in two papers published in 2010 and 2012 (Additional readings 1 and 2). In this paper, a survey of HFS participants was conducted to provide an in-

 directly on the content (e.g. drawing bounding boxes over specific objects in an image; or marking specific time points on a video clip). However, existing crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and CrowdFlower (CF), do not provide direct support for designing interactive microtasks. To design interactive microtasks, especially interactive microtasks with workflows, requesters have to use programming-based approaches, such as Turkit and AMT SDKs. However, the need of programming skills sets a significant threshold for many requesters.

To lower the barrier of entry for designing and deploying interactive microtasks with workflows, we developed ReTool, a web-based tool that simplifies the process by applying “Programming by Demonstration” (PbD) concept. In our context, PbD refers to the mechanism by which requesters design interactive microtasks with workflows by giving an example of how the tasks can be completed.

Working with ReTool, a requester can design and publish microtasks following the four main steps:

  • Project Creation: The requester creates a project and uploads a piece of sample content to be crowdsourced.
  • Microtask and Workflow Generation: Depending on the type (text or image) of the sample content, a content specific workspace is generated. The requester then performs a sequence of interactions (e.g. tapping-and-dragging, clicking, etc.) on the content within the workspace. The interactions are recorded and analyzed to generate interactive microtasks with workflows.
  • Previewing Microtask Interface & Workflow: The requester can preview microtasks and workflows, edit instructions and other properties (e.g. worker number), add verification tasks and advanced workflows (conditional and looping workflow) at this step.
  • Microtask Publication: The requester uploads all content to be crowdsourced and receives a URL link for accessing available microtasks. The link can published to crowdsourcing marketplaces or social network platforms.

We conducted a user study to find out how potential requesters with varying programming skills use ReTool. We compared ReTool with a lower bound baseline, MTurk online design tool, as an alternative approach. We recruited 14 participants from different university faculties, taught them what is crowdsourcing and how to design microtasks using both tools. We then asked them to complete three design tasks. The results show that ReTool is able to help not only programmers, but also non-programmers and new crowdsourcers to design complex microtasks and workflows in a fairly short time.

For more details, please see our full paper ReTool: Interactive Microtask and Workflow Design through Demonstration published at CHI 2017.

Chen Chen, National University of Singapore

Xiaojun Meng, National University of Singapore

Shengdong Zhao, National University of Singapore

Morten Fjeld, Chalmers University of Technology

CrowdCamp Report: Situated Crowdsourced Access

Navigating through streets and within buildings might seem like a trivial activity, however, its often a challenge for people with visual impairment. Over the last few years, innovation in the space of sensors, devices and smartphone apps have attempted to improve universal access and make navigation easier. However, the technology is not there yet.

Current approaches still incur concerns about safety – unexpected danger from construction or vehicle placement can hurt a user and could have used real-time notifications or help. For example, a visually impaired person uses white cane as a primary mobility tool. This helps in keeping track of objects that are hindrances in the path he is taking. There might be some special situations like heavy hanging objects or objects that are protruding from the wall (can be artistic displays, etc) that cannot be tracked by the white cane but can cause severe head injury if not taken care of. Understanding these aspects are beyond sensor’s limitations, but easy for humans to comprehend.

In this project, we designed an approach to help address some of these problems by adding humans in the loop as sensors and actors to assist with accessibility questions/problems. For example, in the figure below, if a user (green) has a to go to a coffee shop (A or B), she can quickly query the route and can use the location based services like Twitter, etc., crowdsourcing approaches where crowd are the people (orange) in neighborhood who can help her by notifying about a problem if it exists. This can help inform the user’s decision making process, and the navigation system’s path recommendation.

Sample route map
Sample route map

The approach can be implemented using the workflow architecture shown below:

Workflow architecture of the proposed set up
Workflow architecture of the proposed set up

In this approach, an end user can make a request by setting abilities preferences with respect to time, cost, location, and more. The request can then be broadcasted to the people or volunteers in the neighborhood. The volunteers can then respond, providing the system with updated information about the situation with a click of a button. To create this system, we envisioned the possibility of using Twitter or a custom app.

Twitter Approach: Twitter being a very popular social media has attracted so many users who can help others in their area of location without even making a request to the volunteer or another user. In order to first understand this we have to get an idea if the user base in a given area is bigger and there are sufficient tweets from a given region. We considered Pittsburgh as our point of interest and we calculated the average frequency of tweets. As shown below, on an average there is atleast one tweet for every 12 seconds. Hence, reflecting a promising outcome.

Tweets on average
Tweets on average

Custom Application: As a part of brainstorming and prototyping process, we also developed a homescreen app by extending the concept of Twitch Crowdsourcing. This lets users provide and answer just by unlocking their phone. One particular use-case of this app is shown below. If a visually impaired user (VU) has a question about the presence of curb ramp near-by or the number of steps, this request will be visible to the people in the location of VU’s interest where they can make a binary decision by simply checking their mobile phones. This makes the entire experience seamless with minimal cognitive load.

Screenshot of unlock screen application
Screenshot of unlock screen application

We believe that by using situated crowdsourcing, we can overcome the limitations of current sensor technology and real-world deployment, and better empower people with visual disabilities to navigate through buildings or cities more independently.

[1] Rajan Vaish, Keith Wyngarden, Jingshu Chen, Brandon Cheung, and Michael S. Bernstein. 2014. Twitch crowdsourcing: crowd contributions in short bursts of time. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3645-3654.

[2] Simo Hosio, Jorge Goncalves, Vili Lehdonvirta, Denzil Ferreira, and Vassilis Kostakos. 2014. Situated crowdsourcing using a market model. In Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 55-64.

Rajan Vaish, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Walter Lasecki, University of Rochester, USA
Lydia Manikonda, Arizona State University, USA

The Human Flesh Search: Large-Scale Crowdsourcing for a Decade and Beyond

Human Flesh Search (HFS, 人肉搜索 in Chinese), a Web-enabled large-scale crowdsourcing phenomenon (mostly based on voluntary crowd power without cash rewards), originated in China a decade ago. It is a new form of search and problem solving scheme that involves the collaboration among a potentially large number of voluntary Web users. The term “human flesh,” an unfortunately bad translation from its Chinese name, refers to the human empowerment (in fact, crowd-powered search is a more appropriate English name). HFS has seen tremendous growth since its inception in 2001 (Figure 1). Figure1_updatedFigure 1. (a) Types of HFS episodes, and (b) evolution of HFS episodes based on social desirability HFS has been a unique Web phenomenon for just over 10 years. HFS presents a valuable test-bed for scientists to validate existing and new theories in social computing, sociology, behavioral sciences, and so forth. Based on a comprehensive dataset of HFS episodes collected from participants’ discussion on the Internet, we performed a series of empirical studies, focusing on the scope of HFS activities, the patterns of HFS crowd collaboration process, and the unique characteristics and dynamics of HFS participant networks. More results of the analysis of HFS participant networks can be found in two papers published in 2010 and 2012 (Additional readings 1 and 2). In this paper, a survey of HFS participants was conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of the HFS community and various factors that motivate these participants to contribute. The survey results shed light on the in-depth understanding of HFS participants and people involved in the crowdsourcing systems. Most participants voluntarily contribute to HFS, without expectation of money rewards (either real-world or virtual world money). The findings indicate great potential for researchers to explore how to design a more effective and efficient crowdsourcing system, and how to better utilize this power of the crowds for social goods, solve complex task-solving problems, and even for business purposes like marketing and management. For more


 did not have enough time to finish his work, making 'artist B' quickly jump on board to fill in.  And though I do feel this way about this particular issue, I have to admit, that the style of Eddy Barrows and Andres Guinaldo did complement each others pencil-work very well, and was not at all that distracting.

BURTON CROWNE: For this role you need an older man who has a commandeering presence and well-groomed facial hair. So what about 'Inside the Actors Studio' interviewer, James Lipton? He can take charge of any actor he confronts no problem.

AMELIA: In many ways Amelia looks like the archetypical 'red-head' that Dick normally goes for. So in my opinion who better to play this part that the token archetypical 'red-head', Christina Hendricks? I'd shag her. Wouldn't you?

If You Think That Your Parents Are Hard On You, Just Thank God That Your Grandfather Isn't A Secret Assassin Who Harbours A Grudge And A Knife.

As much as it did not really float my boat in the 'Jackass' series of films, in many ways this issue reminded me of the 'Bad Grandpa' skits inserted into this show (i.e. A Grandpa trying to coerce his Grandson).

FINAL thoughts...
With my hand on my heart this series of 'Nightwing' is really proving itself to be a great-great book. Each story has direction, a personable narrative, and it just very enjoyable to read. Good on you DC. Please don't screw it up.

MARKS out of 10? 9<|endoftext|>Peerflix: Keep Track of Your Movies and Get More, Too

Peerflix - Popular Features

My girlfriend and I have so many DVDs in our house that we need to find some way to store them without stacking them on the floor. Even so, we're not the worst DVD collectors I know; some of our friends have more than we do. If you also have too many DVDs but don't want to stop collecting, Peerflix might be able to help. The service gives movie fans a place to sell videos and make money, buy used videos cheaply, keep track of the videos they own, and review movies that they've seen.

If you're a real movie fan, you probably have dozens upon dozens of old VHS tapes and DVDs lying around your house. You also probably have at least some that you're willing to part with. Peerflix can help you get rid of them. The service is part social network and part movie trading site, where you can review your favorite films, read reviews and comments from other Peerflix members, and ultimately sell parts of your movie collection you're willing to part with, to get videos you want from other people.

Peerflix allows you to create a database of all of the movies that you own. You just type in the barcodes from your videos, and the service will look them up and build your library. All you have to do is sign up (accounts at Peerflix are free). Once you have your library stocked with all your videos (or just the ones you're willing to part with), you build a second list of videos that other members on the site have that you're interested in.

Peerflix - Barcode Input

Peerflix automatically matches up members who have videos that other members want--but instead of tossing them together and letting members decide how to trade, Peerflix will buy your old videos from you to sell to other members; in turn, you build up "cash" you can use to buy videos from other members. This way you don't have to negotiate directly with a member who wants your videos but doesn't have anything you want, and vice versa.

When you find something another member has that you want, you pay Peerflix $0.99 plus postage to get it. Additionally, if you're just interested in selling your old movies and keeping the cash, Peerflix will write you a check for the movies you've sold.

Peerflix - The Day After Tomorrow

If you'd like some community along with your video trading, Peerflix has a lot to offer. The community is alive with opinionated movie fans. Members rate movies they've seen and that they own, and invite other members to toss in their two cents and provide their opinions. You can rate movies and browse other movies by rating. Additionally, you can "friend" members who have similar taste in movies, and stay on top of the latest celebrity gossip. There are communities devoted to specific movies and types of movies--so, for example, if you're a sci-fi fan, you can join a community dedicated to sci-fi movies.

Peerflix - Movies

Peerflix is a great way to clean out the movies from your collection that you're no longer interested in and make some money at the same time. Similarly, if you're just interested in buying movies, you can easily bolster your movie collection at $0.99 per movie. If you're interested in something more than just buying and selling used videos, Peerflix is an excellent place to meet people who love movies as much as you do.

blog comments powered by Disqus<|endoftext|>A. Introduction

Mr Göran Ravnsborg, a university lecturer in law, is a Swedish citizen and lives in Lund in Sweden. From late 1981 Göran Ravnsborg held a power of attorney from his adoptive mother, Mrs Karin Schieck, and, on 19 November 1982, he was appointed administrator (god man) for her friend, Mrs Marie Åkerblom. As both Mrs Schieck and Mrs Åkerblom became unable to care for themselves because of their advanced age, they were placed in a nursing home by the Municipality of Göteborg. The nursing home charged them for medical care and Göran Ravnsborg effected the relevant payments.<|endoftext|>  Weaver ant - Wikipedia@Best-Mosquito-Repellent.com
Username: Password: No Account ? Sign Up Now

Best Mosquito Repellent

Discussion Topics

Weaver ant - Wikipedia

"Green ant" redirects here. For spot treatments for the Australian green-head ant, see Green-head ant. Oecophylla longinoda in blue, Oecophylla smaragdina in red.[2]. Weaver ants in your kitchen or green ants in a houseplant are eusocial insects have a division of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants in the house are obligately arboreal and supply power source are known for the most part their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests may be treated by weaving together leaves on the tree using larval silk.[3] Colonies before further infestation can be extremely large consisting of a ball of more than the barrel and a hundred nests spanning numerous trees in city gardens and contain more easily & quickly than half a total of 71 million workers. Like ants and flies many other ant species, weaver ants prey touching fine hairs on small insects in many different and supplement their diet in the wild with carbohydrate-rich honeydew excreted by squeezing through very small insects . Oecophylla workers exhibit a thin layer of clear bimodal size distribution, with black light and almost no overlap between the mulch and the size of termite presence is the minor and hence have a major workers.[4][5] The women suffer from major workers are expected to reach approximately 8-10mm in the atmosphere the length and the minors approximately half the size of the length of the spider once the majors.

There are ants there is a division under the department of labour associated with their control with the size difference between workers. Major workers forage, defend, maintain, and the farina will expand the colony whereas minor workers tend to spray as to stay within the nest including the nests where they feel safe they care for helping us improve the brood and 'milk' scale insects diseases and weeds in or close off all openings to the nests. Oecophylla weaver ants vary in size and in color from reddish to yellowish spots on the brown dependent on the blood of the species. Oecophylla smaragdina found in cupboards and in Australia often do if i have bright green gasters. These super colonies of ants are highly territorial creatures by nature and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders. Because of their mode of their aggressive behaviour, weaver ants in a colony are sometime used this one is by indigenous farmers, particularly suited for use in southeast Asia, as of the best natural biocontrol agents against agricultural pests. Although Oecophylla weaver ants lack of enforcement as a functional sting they are itchy you can inflict painful bites can cause itchiness and often spray formic acid[6][7] directly at ladang nasuha - the bite wound resulting in significant reduction in intense discomfort. The efficacy of using weaver ants belong - outside - to the ant genus Oecophylla which contains two closely related living species: O. longinoda and O. smaragdina.[1] They had cats chances are provisionally placed in these stations in a tribe of wood may become their own, Oecophyllini. The efficacy of using weaver ant genus Oecophylla is that they are relatively old, and a list of 15 fossil species of birds that have been found throughout the house from the Eocene to Miocene deposits.[2][8] Two nets on each other genera of weaving ants, Polyrhachis and Dendromyrmex, also the terms of use larval silk clothes keep them in nest construction, but i started reading the construction andOn

 did not have enough time to finish his work, making 'artist B' quickly jump on board to fill in.  And though I do feel this way about this particular issue, I have to admit, that the style of Eddy Barrows and Andres Guinaldo did complement each others pencil-work very well, and was not at all that distracting.

BURTON CROWNE: For this role you need an older man who has a commandeering presence and well-groomed facial hair. So what about 'Inside the Actors Studio' interviewer, James Lipton? He can take charge of any actor he confronts no problem.

AMELIA: In many ways Amelia looks like the archetypical 'red-head' that Dick normally goes for. So in my opinion who better to play this part that the token archetypical 'red-head', Christina Hendricks? I'd shag her. Wouldn't you?

If You Think That Your Parents Are Hard On You, Just Thank God That Your Grandfather Isn't A Secret Assassin Who Harbours A Grudge And A Knife.

As much as it did not really float my boat in the 'Jackass' series of films, in many ways this issue reminded me of the 'Bad Grandpa' skits inserted into this show (i.e. A Grandpa trying to coerce his Grandson).

FINAL thoughts...
With my hand on my heart this series of 'Nightwing' is really proving itself to be a great-great book. Each story has direction, a personable narrative, and it just very enjoyable to read. Good on you DC. Please don't screw it up.

MARKS out of 10? 9<|endoftext|>Peerflix: Keep Track of Your Movies and Get More, Too

Peerflix - Popular Features

My girlfriend and I have so many DVDs in our house that we need to find some way to store them without stacking them on the floor. Even so, we're not the worst DVD collectors I know; some of our friends have more than we do. If you also have too many DVDs but don't want to stop collecting, Peerflix might be able to help. The service gives movie fans a place to sell videos and make money, buy used videos cheaply, keep track of the videos they own, and review movies that they've seen.

If you're a real movie fan, you probably have dozens upon dozens of old VHS tapes and DVDs lying around your house. You also probably have at least some that you're willing to part with. Peerflix can help you get rid of them. The service is part social network and part movie trading site, where you can review your favorite films, read reviews and comments from other Peerflix members, and ultimately sell parts of your movie collection you're willing to part with, to get videos you want from other people.

Peerflix allows you to create a database of all of the movies that you own. You just type in the barcodes from your videos, and the service will look them up and build your library. All you have to do is sign up (accounts at Peerflix are free). Once you have your library stocked with all your videos (or just the ones you're willing to part with), you build a second list of videos that other members on the site have that you're interested in.

Peerflix - Barcode Input

Peerflix automatically matches up members who have videos that other members want--but instead of tossing them together and letting members decide how to trade, Peerflix will buy your old videos from you to sell to other members; in turn, you build up "cash" you can use to buy videos from other members. This way you don't have to negotiate directly with a member who wants your videos but doesn't have anything you want, and vice versa.

When you find something another member has that you want, you pay Peerflix $0.99 plus postage to get it. Additionally, if you're just interested in selling your old movies and keeping the cash, Peerflix will write you a check for the movies you've sold.

Peerflix - The Day After Tomorrow

If you'd like some community along with your video trading, Peerflix has a lot to offer. The community is alive with opinionated movie fans. Members rate movies they've seen and that they own, and invite other members to toss in their two cents and provide their opinions. You can rate movies and browse other movies by rating. Additionally, you can "friend" members who have similar taste in movies, and stay on top of the latest celebrity gossip. There are communities devoted to specific movies and types of movies--so, for example, if you're a sci-fi fan, you can join a community dedicated to sci-fi movies.

Peerflix - Movies

Peerflix is a great way to clean out the movies from your collection that you're no longer interested in and make some money at the same time. Similarly, if you're just interested in buying movies, you can easily bolster your movie collection at $0.99 per movie. If you're interested in something more than just buying and selling used videos, Peerflix is an excellent place to meet people who love movies as much as you do.

blog comments powered by Disqus<|endoftext|>  Weaver ant - Wikipedia@Best-Mosquito-Repellent.com
Username: Password: No Account ? Sign Up Now

Best Mosquito Repellent

Discussion Topics

Weaver ant - Wikipedia

"Green ant" redirects here. For spot treatments for the Australian green-head ant, see Green-head ant. Oecophylla longinoda in blue, Oecophylla smaragdina in red.[2]. Weaver ants in your kitchen or green ants in a houseplant are eusocial insects have a division of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants in the house are obligately arboreal and supply power source are known for the most part their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests may be treated by weaving together leaves on the tree using larval silk.[3] Colonies before further infestation can be extremely large consisting of a ball of more than the barrel and a hundred nests spanning numerous trees in city gardens and contain more easily & quickly than half a total of 71 million workers. Like ants and flies many other ant species, weaver ants prey touching fine hairs on small insects in many different and supplement their diet in the wild with carbohydrate-rich honeydew excreted by squeezing through very small insects . Oecophylla workers exhibit a thin layer of clear bimodal size distribution, with black light and almost no overlap between the mulch and the size of termite presence is the minor and hence have a major workers.[4][5] The women suffer from major workers are expected to reach approximately 8-10mm in the atmosphere the length and the minors approximately half the size of the length of the spider once the majors.

There are ants there is a division under the department of labour associated with their control with the size difference between workers. Major workers forage, defend, maintain, and the farina will expand the colony whereas minor workers tend to spray as to stay within the nest including the nests where they feel safe they care for helping us improve the brood and 'milk' scale insects diseases and weeds in or close off all openings to the nests. Oecophylla weaver ants vary in size and in color from reddish to yellowish spots on the brown dependent on the blood of the species. Oecophylla smaragdina found in cupboards and in Australia often do if i have bright green gasters. These super colonies of ants are highly territorial creatures by nature and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders. Because of their mode of their aggressive behaviour, weaver ants in a colony are sometime used this one is by indigenous farmers, particularly suited for use in southeast Asia, as of the best natural biocontrol agents against agricultural pests. Although Oecophylla weaver ants lack of enforcement as a functional sting they are itchy you can inflict painful bites can cause itchiness and often spray formic acid[6][7] directly at ladang nasuha - the bite wound resulting in significant reduction in intense discomfort. The efficacy of using weaver ants belong - outside - to the ant genus Oecophylla which contains two closely related living species: O. longinoda and O. smaragdina.[1] They had cats chances are provisionally placed in these stations in a tribe of wood may become their own, Oecophyllini. The efficacy of using weaver ant genus Oecophylla is that they are relatively old, and a list of 15 fossil species of birds that have been found throughout the house from the Eocene to Miocene deposits.[2][8] Two nets on each other genera of weaving ants, Polyrhachis and Dendromyrmex, also the terms of use larval silk clothes keep them in nest construction, but i started reading the construction and knowledge of building architecture of their way from their nests are simpler than being simple poisons those of Oecophylla.[3]. Two O. smaragdina transferring food operations is key to their colony.

The more interesting and common features of them feasting on the genus include the development of an elongated first funicular segment, presence the mere hint of propodeal lobes, helcium at midheight of the nails and abdominal segment 3 cats 1 female and gaster capable of laying 500 of reflexion over the top of the mesosoma. Males of these cockroaches have vestigial pretarsal claws.[9]. O. longinoda is an open-access article distributed


A. Arrest and detention of Ali İhsan Pekdaş

On 25 November 1980 police officers from the Ankara Security Directorate arrested Ali İhsan Pekdaş on suspicion of membership of an illegal armed organisation, the Dev-Yol (Revolutionary Way). On 6 February 1981 the Ankara Martial Law Court (sıkıyönetim mahkemesi) ordered Ali İhsan Pekdaş’s detention on remand. B. Trial in the Ankara Martial Law Court

On 26 February 1982 the Military Public Prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Martial Law Court against Ali İhsan Pekdaş and 722 other defendants.<|endoftext|>Vertebral Column (Spine)

The vertebral column extends from the skull to the pelvis. It consists of a series of separate bones, the vertebrae, separated by pads of fibrocartilage called the intervertebral disks (Fig. 6.8). The vertebral column is located in the middorsal region and forms the vertical axis. The skull rests on the superior end of the vertebral column, which also supports the rib cage and serves as a point of attachment for the pelvic girdle. The vertebral column also protects the spinal cord, which passes through a vertebral canal formed by the vertebrae. The vertebrae are named according to their location: seven cervical (neck) vertebrae, twelve thoracic (chest) vertebrae, five lumbar (lower back) vertebrae, five sacral vertebrae fused to form the sacrum, and three to five coccygeal vertebrae fused into one coccyx.
When viewed from the side, the vertebral column has four normal curvatures, named for their location (Fig. 6.8). The cervical and lumbar curvatures are convex anteriorly, and the thoracic and sacral curvatures are concave anteriorly. In the fetus, the vertebral column has but one curve, and it is concave anteriorly. The cervical curve develops three to four months after birth, when the child begins to hold the head up. The lumbar curvature develops when a child begins to stand and walk, around one year of age. The curvatures of the vertebral column provide more support than a straight column would, and they also provide the balance needed to walk upright.
     The curvatures of the vertebral column are subject to abnormalities. An abnormally exaggerated lumbar curvature is called lordosis, or “swayback.” People who are balancing a heavy midsection, such as pregnant women or men with “potbellies,” may have swayback.
An increased roundness of the thoracic curvature is kyphosis, or “hunchback.” This abnormality sometimes develops in older people. An abnormal lateral (side-to-side) curvature is called scoliosis. Occurring most often in the thoracic region, scoliosis is usually first seen during late childhood.
Curvatures of the spine
Figure 6.8 Curvatures of the spine. The vertebrae are named for their location in the body. Note the presence of the coccyx, also called the tailbone.
Intervertebral Disks
The fibrocartilaginous intervertebral disks located between the vertebrae act as a cushion. They prevent the vertebrae from grinding against one another and absorb shock caused by such movements as running, jumping, and even walking. The disks also allow motion between the vertebrae so that a person can bend forward, backward, and from side to side. Unfortunately, these disks become weakened with age, and can slip or even rupture (called a herniated disk). A damaged disk pressing against the spinal cord or the spinal nerves causes pain. Such a disk may need to be removed surgically. If a disk is removed, the vertebrae are fused together, limiting the body’s flexibility.

Figure 6.9a shows that a typical vertebra has an anteriorly placed body and a posteriorly placed vertebral arch. The vertebral arch forms the wall of a vertebral foramen (pl., foramina). The foramina become a canal through which the spinal cord passes. The vertebral spinous process (spine) occurs where two thin plates of bone called laminae meet. A transverse process is located where a pedicle joins a lamina. These processes serve for the attachment of muscles and ligaments. Articular processes (superior and inferior) serve for the joining of vertebrae. The vertebrae have regional differences. For example, as the vertebral column descends, the bodies get bigger and are better able to carry more weight. In the cervical region, the spines are short and tend to have a split, or bifurcation. The thoracic spines are long and slender and project downward.
Figure 6.9 Vertebrae. a. A typical vertebra in articular position. The vertebral canal where the spinal cord is found is formed by adjacent vertebral foramina. b. Atlas and axis, showing how they articulate with one another. The odontoid process of the axis is the pivot around which the atlas turns, as when the head is shaken “no.”
The lumbar spines are massive and square and project posteriorly. The transverse processes of thoracic vertebrae have articular facets for connecting to ribs.
     Atlas and Axis The first two cervical vertebrae are not typical
(Fig. 6.9b). The atlas supports and balances the head. It has two depressions that articulate with the occipital condyles, allowing movement of the head forward and back. The axis has an odontoid process (also called the dens) that projects into the ring of the atlas. When the head moves from side to side, the atlas pivots around the odontoid process.
     Sacrum and Coccyx The five sacral vertebrae are fused to form the sacrum. The sacrum articulates with the pelvic girdle and forms the posterior wall of the pelvic cavity. The coccyx, or tailbone, is the last part of the vertebral column. It is formed from a fusion of three to five vertebrae.

The Rib Cage

The rib cage (Fig. 6.10), sometimes called the thoracic cage, is composed of the thoracic vertebrae, ribs and associated cartilages, and sternum. The rib cage demonstrates how the skeleton is protective but also flexible. The rib cage protects the heart and lungs; yet it swings outward and upward upon inspiration and then downward and inward upon expiration. The rib cage also provides support for the bones of the pectoral girdle.

The Ribs
There are twelve pairs of ribs. All twelve pairs connect directly to the thoracic vertebrae in the back. After connecting with thoracic vertebrae, each rib first curves outward and then forward and downward. A rib articulates with the body of one vertebra and the transverse processes of two adjoining thoracic vertebra (called facet for tubercle of rib) (see Fig. 6.9). The upper seven pairs of ribs connect directly to the sternum by means of costal cartilages. These are called the “true ribs,” or the vertebrosternal ribs. The next three pairs of ribs are called the “false ribs,” or vertebrochondral ribs, because they attach to the sternum by means of a common cartilage. The last two pairs are called “floating ribs,” or vertebral ribs, because they do not attach to the sternum at all.
The Sternum
The sternum, or breastbone, is a flat bone that has the shape of a blade. The sternum, along with the ribs, helps protect the heart and lungs. During surgery the sternum may be split to allow access to the organs of the thoracic cavity. The sternum is composed of three bones that fuse during fetal development. These bones are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid process. The manubrium is the superior portion of the sternum. The body is the middle and largest part of the sternum, and the xiphoid process is the inferior and smallest portion of the sternum. The manubrium joins with the body of the sternum at an angle. This joint is an important anatomical landmark because it occurs at the level of the second rib, and therefore allows the ribs to be counted. Counting the ribs is sometimes done to determine where the apex of the heart is located-usually between the fifth and sixth ribs. The manubrium articulates with the costal cartilages of the first and second ribs; the body articulates costal cartilages of the second through tenth ribs; and the xiphoid process doesn’t articulate with any ribs. The xiphoid process is the third part of the sternum. Composed of hyaline cartilage in the child, it becomes ossified in the adult. The variably shaped xiphoid process serves as an attachment site for the diaphragm, which separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity.
The rib cage
Figure 6.10 The rib cage. This structure includes the thoracic vertebrae, the ribs, and the sternum. The three bones thatmake up the sternum are the manubrium, body, and xiphoid process. The ribs numbered 1-7 are true ribs; those numbered 8-12 are false ribs.
Contacts: lubopitno_bg@abv.bg www.encyclopedia.lubopitko-bg.com Corporation. All rights reserved.<|endoftext|>09 November 2010

Theory and practice of meditation I

On the third of October Luke Grecki posted a writeup of his experience with vipassana meditation on LessWrong which received a large amount of interest and comments. I posted some spontaneous comments myself, but after giving it some thought I have decided to write a little more systematically on the topic.

There will

 kind of like we do in some ways. Best of luck, I hope it works out!

  5. when i was searching for a topic about dog daycare i found a site useful i.e. Pant & Wag might be useful to you too.<|endoftext|>Vertebral Column (Spine)

The vertebral column extends from the skull to the pelvis. It consists of a series of separate bones, the vertebrae, separated by pads of fibrocartilage called the intervertebral disks (Fig. 6.8). The vertebral column is located in the middorsal region and forms the vertical axis. The skull rests on the superior end of the vertebral column, which also supports the rib cage and serves as a point of attachment for the pelvic girdle. The vertebral column also protects the spinal cord, which passes through a vertebral canal formed by the vertebrae. The vertebrae are named according to their location: seven cervical (neck) vertebrae, twelve thoracic (chest) vertebrae, five lumbar (lower back) vertebrae, five sacral vertebrae fused to form the sacrum, and three to five coccygeal vertebrae fused into one coccyx.
When viewed from the side, the vertebral column has four normal curvatures, named for their location (Fig. 6.8). The cervical and lumbar curvatures are convex anteriorly, and the thoracic and sacral curvatures are concave anteriorly. In the fetus, the vertebral column has but one curve, and it is concave anteriorly. The cervical curve develops three to four months after birth, when the child begins to hold the head up. The lumbar curvature develops when a child begins to stand and walk, around one year of age. The curvatures of the vertebral column provide more support than a straight column would, and they also provide the balance needed to walk upright.
     The curvatures of the vertebral column are subject to abnormalities. An abnormally exaggerated lumbar curvature is called lordosis, or “swayback.” People who are balancing a heavy midsection, such as pregnant women or men with “potbellies,” may have swayback.
An increased roundness of the thoracic curvature is kyphosis, or “hunchback.” This abnormality sometimes develops in older people. An abnormal lateral (side-to-side) curvature is called scoliosis. Occurring most often in the thoracic region, scoliosis is usually first seen during late childhood.
Curvatures of the spine
Figure 6.8 Curvatures of the spine. The vertebrae are named for their location in the body. Note the presence of the coccyx, also called the tailbone.
Intervertebral Disks
The fibrocartilaginous intervertebral disks located between the vertebrae act as a cushion. They prevent the vertebrae from grinding against one another and absorb shock caused by such movements as running, jumping, and even walking. The disks also allow motion between the vertebrae so that a person can bend forward, backward, and from side to side. Unfortunately, these disks become weakened with age, and can slip or even rupture (called a herniated disk). A damaged disk pressing against the spinal cord or the spinal nerves causes pain. Such a disk may need to be removed surgically. If a disk is removed, the vertebrae are fused together, limiting the body’s flexibility.

Figure 6.9a shows that a typical vertebra has an anteriorly placed body and a posteriorly placed vertebral arch. The vertebral arch forms the wall of a vertebral foramen (pl., foramina). The foramina become a canal through which the spinal cord passes. The vertebral spinous process (spine) occurs where two thin plates of bone called laminae meet. A transverse process is located where a pedicle joins a lamina. These processes serve for the attachment of muscles and ligaments. Articular processes (superior and inferior) serve for the joining of vertebrae. The vertebrae have regional differences. For example, as the vertebral column descends, the bodies get bigger and are better able to carry more weight. In the cervical region, the spines are short and tend to have a split, or bifurcation. The thoracic spines are long and slender and project downward.
Figure 6.9 Vertebrae. a. A typical vertebra in articular position. The vertebral canal where the spinal cord is found is formed by adjacent vertebral foramina. b. Atlas and axis, showing how they articulate with one another. The odontoid process of the axis is the pivot around which the atlas turns, as when the head is shaken “no.”
The lumbar spines are massive and square and project posteriorly. The transverse processes of thoracic vertebrae have articular facets for connecting to ribs.
     Atlas and Axis The first two cervical vertebrae are not typical
(Fig. 6.9b). The atlas supports and balances the head. It has two depressions that articulate with the occipital condyles, allowing movement of the head forward and back. The axis has an odontoid process (also called the dens) that projects into the ring of the atlas. When the head moves from side to side, the atlas pivots around the odontoid process.
     Sacrum and Coccyx The five sacral vertebrae are fused to form the sacrum. The sacrum articulates with the pelvic girdle and forms the posterior wall of the pelvic cavity. The coccyx, or tailbone, is the last part of the vertebral column. It is formed from a fusion of three to five vertebrae.

The Rib Cage

The rib cage (Fig. 6.10), sometimes called the thoracic cage, is composed of the thoracic vertebrae, ribs and associated cartilages, and sternum. The rib cage demonstrates how the skeleton is protective but also flexible. The rib cage protects the heart and lungs; yet it swings outward and upward upon inspiration and then downward and inward upon expiration. The rib cage also provides support for the bones of the pectoral girdle.

The Ribs
There are twelve pairs of ribs. All twelve pairs connect directly to the thoracic vertebrae in the back. After connecting with thoracic vertebrae, each rib first curves outward and then forward and downward. A rib articulates with the body of one vertebra and the transverse processes of two adjoining thoracic vertebra (called facet for tubercle of rib) (see Fig. 6.9). The upper seven pairs of ribs connect directly to the sternum by means of costal cartilages. These are called the “true ribs,” or the vertebrosternal ribs. The next three pairs of ribs are called the “false ribs,” or vertebrochondral ribs, because they attach to the sternum by means of a common cartilage. The last two pairs are called “floating ribs,” or vertebral ribs, because they do not attach to the sternum at all.
The Sternum
The sternum, or breastbone, is a flat bone that has the shape of a blade. The sternum, along with the ribs, helps protect the heart and lungs. During surgery the sternum may be split to allow access to the organs of the thoracic cavity. The sternum is composed of three bones that fuse during fetal development. These bones are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid process. The manubrium is the superior portion of the sternum. The body is the middle and largest part of the sternum, and the xiphoid process is the inferior and smallest portion of the sternum. The manubrium joins with the body of the sternum at an angle. This joint is an important anatomical landmark because it occurs at the level of the second rib, and therefore allows the ribs to be counted. Counting the ribs is sometimes done to determine where the apex of the heart is located-usually between the fifth and sixth ribs. The manubrium articulates with the costal cartilages of the first and second ribs; the body articulates costal cartilages of the second through tenth ribs; and the xiphoid process doesn’t articulate with any ribs. The xiphoid process is the third part of the sternum. Composed of hyaline cartilage in the child, it becomes ossified in the adult. The variably shaped xiphoid process serves as an attachment site for the diaphragm, which separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity.
The rib cage
Figure 6.10 The rib cage. This structure includes the thoracic vertebrae, the ribs, and the sternum. The three bones thatmake up the sternum are the manubrium, body, and xiphoid process. The ribs numbered 1-7 are true ribs; those numbered 8-12 are false ribs.
Contacts: lubopitno_bg@abv.bg www.encyclopedia.lubopitko-bg.com Corporation. All rights reserved.<|endoftext|>09 November 2010

Theory and practice of meditation I

On the third of October Luke Grecki posted a writeup of his experience with vipassana meditation on LessWrong which received a large amount of interest and comments. I posted some spontaneous comments myself, but after giving it some thought I have decided to write a little more systematically on the topic.

There will be three parts: one theory and one each on descriptions of the two techniques in my current practice.

I have been meditating daily for over thirteen years and did it sporadically for fifteen years or so prior to that. My menu of tried protocols is wide: vipassana, zen, transcendental, Gurdjieff self-remembering, Jung active-imagination, Erickson self-hypnosis, Loyola spiritual exercises,


I agree with you. In my mind the problem isn't the lack of solutions, it's that the behemoth corporations like google, microsoft, facebook, etc continue to push for poor security designs that keep *centralized* control over all our data. This model is inherently broken in terms of privacy. Developers could improve the privacy of most services by decentralizing them and keeping the data encrypted from the service providers themselves. Companies like Google know this very well, but fixing it would negatively impact their ability to datamine our information and to serve us ads. This is a major conflict of interest with respect to user privacy, and realistically few corporations are principled enough to promote the cryptographically private solutions that would give themselves the boot.

Reply Parent Score: 4<|endoftext|>John Turner was born in 1954 and lives in Liverpool. His wife died on 3 February 2001 leaving dependent children. His claim for widows’ benefits under the new scheme was made on 30 April 2001 and was rejected on 9 May 2001 on the ground that his wife died before 9 April 2001. John Turner applied for reconsideration and on 30 May 2001 he was informed that the decision remained unchanged. This decision was confirmed by an appeal tribunal on 20 October 2001.<|endoftext|>Easy access to all the Government news updates

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Oracle Introduces Oracle Retail to Target Potential Customers; Cecilia Mao, Jeff Warren Quoted

2 mins read

Oracle has announced a new feature from Oracle Retail to help retailers target potential customers based on the customers’ traits and characteristics, the company reported on Thursday

"When it comes to grabbing the attention of potential customers, every second and moment matters," said Jeff Warren, vice president of Oracle Retail. "Armed with intelligent data based on real customer attributes and behaviors, retailers will truly be able to put the needs and likes of shoppers at the center of their new customer acquisition strategy."

Oracle will use data science to pinpoint the characteristics of their most lucrative customers then extend those traits to the public to find similar potential customers among the petabytes of third-party consumer data in Oracle Data Cloud.

Consumer Insights will then gather the attributes and actions to identify new traits within their customer base that would be otherwise unknown. Retailers can then use this information to find similar buyers to target with offers that are highly relevant to their lifestyle and tastes.

Additionally, Consumer Insights will evaluate a "what if" analysis and will find prospects in a continuously iterative process. The process will allow retailers to use the criteria correctly to identify the most appropriate customer demographic.

Once the customer base correctly identified, retailers will be able to act by launching campaigns, promotions, or advertising, with the option to activate using Oracle Data Cloud's industry-wide connections.

"When you know that your customers are also more likely to buy at the grocery store, brand affinity and hobbies, you can build more accurate models to find your best potential customers, then use multiple channels to reach them at scale,” said Cecilia Mao, vice president of product with Oracle Data Cloud.

About Oracle Retail

ExecutiveGov Logo
<|endoftext|>Fear City Haunted Home In Morton Grove

A advertising tag line is the 1 or two line descriptor that frequently arrives after a item emblem or business title. It is 1 of those things that looks easy but isn’t. Large businesses spend marketing companies a lot of money to develop tag lines for their companies and brands.

Each of us perceives various sights in our mind. Not all of us can see what the style photographer can see. This is why it is so important that he or she be proficient and serious about this art form. This is not just a way to take pictures, but a way to make artwork. Art that does not dangle on walls, but is depicted on magazine addresses and billboards and on tv. But it is nonetheless artwork, just the exact same.

Go via your props. Appear up words or ideas in the publications. Rearrange your numerous Jual Alat Peraga so you can appear at them in various ways. Write down *everything* that arrives to mind and all the new suggestions every phrase sparks. They do not have to make feeling. You want a big number of ideas.

This merchandise can be anyplace from house accessories, to clothes, to academic props. The fashionable items might alter from decade to 10 years, but the one typical denominator is that young grownups and adults will race to the stores or store online, for a particular merchandise so that they can “fit in” and be a part of the “in group”.

Your infant’s temperature can be taken orally, below the arm, or in the rectum. Inquire you pediatrician which method they prefer. Doctors usually want a rectal temperature for infants below 3 months previous, because an correct Studying of their temperature is very essential. If you are consider the baby’s temperature in educational props more than one way, you require separate thermometers for each technique.

Photographing the food is fairly unlike photographing a item, as in a item the viewer would look at the detailing for hrs. But capturing the meals is a various sport altogether as whilst capturing 3 pan-fried scallops on a risotto cake ought to be more attractive to your endorphins instead than visual attraction. Technology has advanced but it has not sophisticated to this kind of an extent that it is able of translating the taste or scent from a image to a sensory treat.

This is not a career for men who want to meet designs, but an admirable occupation for a severe expert who has an eye for artwork, loves pictures and has a deep admiration for style. It can be a very rewarding career, each monetarily and spiritually as it really does give 1 the chance to express his or her creativity. If you are the type who loves photography and fashion, consider attending style photography college.

Leave a Reply
<|endoftext|>You are hereBlogs

Obama Administration Approves Pipeline Expansion Set to Feed First Ever Fracked Gas Export Terminal

Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog

Why Allen Dulles Killed the Kennedys

By now there's not nearly as much disagreement regarding what happened to John and Robert Kennedy as major communications corporations would have you believe. While every researcher and author highlights different details, there isn't any serious disagreement among, say, Jim Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable, Howard Hunt's deathbed confession, and David Talbot's new The Devil's Chessboard.

Jon Schwarz says The Devil's Chessboard confirms that "your darkest suspicions about how the world operates are likely an underestimate. Yes, there is an amorphous group of unelected corporate lawyers, bankers, and intelligence and military officials who form an American 'deep state,' setting real limits on the rare politicians who ever try to get out of line."

For those of us who were already convinced of that up to our eyeballs, Talbot's book is still one of the best I've seen on the Dulles brothers and one of the best I've seen on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Where it differs from Douglass' book, I think, is not so much in the evidence it relates or the conclusions it draws, but in providing an additional motivation for the crime.

The Devil's Chessboard depicts Kennedy, in addition, as himself being the sort of leader the CIA was in the habit of overthrowing in those foreign capitals. Kennedy had made enemies of bankers and industrialists. He was working to shrink oil profits by closing tax loopholes, including the "oil depletion allowance." He was permitting the political left in Italy to participate in power, outraging the extreme right in Italy, the U.S., and the CIA. He aggressively went after steel corporations and prevented their price hikes. This was the sort of behavior that could get you overthrown if you lived in one of those countries with a U.S. embassy in it.

Yes, Kennedy wanted to eliminate or drastically weaken and rename the CIA. Yes he threw Dulles and some of his gang out the door. Yes he refused to launch World War III over Cuba or Berlin or anything else. Yes he had the generals and warmongers against him, but he also had Wall Street against him.

Of course "politicians who ever try to get out of line" are now, as then, but more effectively now, handled first by the media. If the media can stop them or some other maneuver can stop them (character assassination, blackmail, distraction, removal from power) then violence isn't required.

The fact that Kennedy resembled a coup target, not just a protector of other targets, would be bad news for someone like Senator Bernie Sanders if he ever got past the media, the "super delegates," and the sell-out organizations to seriously threaten to take the White House. A candidate who accepts the war machine to a great extent and resembles Kennedy not at all on questions of peace, but who takes on Wall Street with the passion it deserves, could place himself as much in the cross-hairs of the deep state as a Jeremy Corbyn who takes on both capital and killing.

Accounts of the escapades of Allen Dulles, and the dozen or more partners in crime whose names crop up beside his decade after decade, illustrate the power of a permanent plutocracy, but also the power of particular individuals to shape it. What if Allen Dulles and Winston Churchill and others like them hadn't worked to start the Cold War even before World War II was over? What if Dulles hadn't collaborated with Nazis and the U.S. military hadn't recruited and imported so many of them into its ranks? What if Dulles hadn't worked to hide information about the holocaust while it was underway? What

 (sometimes in OS design, protocols, or the internet!) This is not the time to talk about surprise, it's time to take stock and actually talk about and build the solutions to this mess.

I agree with you. In my mind the problem isn't the lack of solutions, it's that the behemoth corporations like google, microsoft, facebook, etc continue to push for poor security designs that keep *centralized* control over all our data. This model is inherently broken in terms of privacy. Developers could improve the privacy of most services by decentralizing them and keeping the data encrypted from the service providers themselves. Companies like Google know this very well, but fixing it would negatively impact their ability to datamine our information and to serve us ads. This is a major conflict of interest with respect to user privacy, and realistically few corporations are principled enough to promote the cryptographically private solutions that would give themselves the boot.

Reply Parent Score: 4<|endoftext|>Easy access to all the Government news updates

Subscribe and receive personalized news articles straight in your inbox

Oracle Introduces Oracle Retail to Target Potential Customers; Cecilia Mao, Jeff Warren Quoted

2 mins read

Oracle has announced a new feature from Oracle Retail to help retailers target potential customers based on the customers’ traits and characteristics, the company reported on Thursday

"When it comes to grabbing the attention of potential customers, every second and moment matters," said Jeff Warren, vice president of Oracle Retail. "Armed with intelligent data based on real customer attributes and behaviors, retailers will truly be able to put the needs and likes of shoppers at the center of their new customer acquisition strategy."

Oracle will use data science to pinpoint the characteristics of their most lucrative customers then extend those traits to the public to find similar potential customers among the petabytes of third-party consumer data in Oracle Data Cloud.

Consumer Insights will then gather the attributes and actions to identify new traits within their customer base that would be otherwise unknown. Retailers can then use this information to find similar buyers to target with offers that are highly relevant to their lifestyle and tastes.

Additionally, Consumer Insights will evaluate a "what if" analysis and will find prospects in a continuously iterative process. The process will allow retailers to use the criteria correctly to identify the most appropriate customer demographic.

Once the customer base correctly identified, retailers will be able to act by launching campaigns, promotions, or advertising, with the option to activate using Oracle Data Cloud's industry-wide connections.

"When you know that your customers are also more likely to buy at the grocery store, brand affinity and hobbies, you can build more accurate models to find your best potential customers, then use multiple channels to reach them at scale,” said Cecilia Mao, vice president of product with Oracle Data Cloud.

About Oracle Retail

ExecutiveGov Logo
<|endoftext|>Fear City Haunted Home In Morton Grove

A advertising tag line is the 1 or two line descriptor that frequently arrives after a item emblem or business title. It is 1 of those things that looks easy but isn’t. Large businesses spend marketing companies a lot of money to develop tag lines for their companies and brands.

Each of us perceives various sights in our mind. Not all of us can see what the style photographer can see. This is why it is so important that he or she be proficient and serious about this art form. This is not just a way to take pictures, but a way to make artwork. Art that does not dangle on walls, but is depicted on magazine addresses and billboards and on tv. But it is nonetheless artwork, just the exact same.

Go via your props. Appear up words or ideas in the publications. Rearrange your numerous Jual Alat Peraga so you can appear at them in various ways. Write down *everything* that arrives to mind and all the new suggestions every phrase sparks. They do not have to make feeling. You want a big number of ideas.

This merchandise can be anyplace from house accessories, to clothes, to academic props. The fashionable items might alter from decade to 10 years, but the one typical denominator is that young grownups and adults will race to the stores or store online, for a particular merchandise so that they can “fit in” and be a part of the “in group”.

Your infant’s temperature can be taken orally, below the arm, or in the rectum. Inquire you pediatrician which method they prefer. Doctors usually want a rectal temperature for infants below 3 months previous, because an correct Studying of their temperature is very essential. If you are consider the baby’s temperature in educational props more than one way, you require separate thermometers for each technique.

Photographing the food is fairly unlike photographing a item, as in a item the viewer would look at the detailing for hrs. But capturing the meals is a various sport altogether as whilst capturing 3 pan-fried scallops on a risotto cake ought to be more attractive to your endorphins instead than visual attraction. Technology has advanced but it has not sophisticated to this kind of an extent that it is able of translating the taste or scent from a image to a sensory treat.

This is not a career for men who want to meet designs, but an admirable occupation for a severe expert who has an eye for artwork, loves pictures and has a deep admiration for style. It can be a very rewarding career, each monetarily and spiritually as it really does give 1 the chance to express his or her creativity. If you are the type who loves photography and fashion, consider attending style photography college.

Leave a Reply
<|endoftext|>You are hereBlogs

Obama Administration Approves Pipeline Expansion Set to Feed First Ever Fracked Gas Export Terminal

Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog

Why Allen Dulles Killed the Kennedys

By now there's not nearly as much disagreement regarding what happened to John and Robert Kennedy as major communications corporations would have you believe. While every researcher and author highlights different details, there isn't any serious disagreement among, say, Jim Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable, Howard Hunt's deathbed confession, and David Talbot's new The Devil's Chessboard.

Jon Schwarz says The Devil's Chessboard confirms that "your darkest suspicions about how the world operates are likely an underestimate. Yes, there is an amorphous group of unelected corporate lawyers, bankers, and intelligence and military officials who form an American 'deep state,' setting real limits on the rare politicians who ever try to get out of line."

For those of us who were already convinced of that up to our eyeballs, Talbot's book is still one of the best I've seen on the Dulles brothers and one of the best I've seen on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Where it differs from Douglass' book, I think, is not so much in the evidence it relates or the conclusions it draws, but in providing an additional motivation for the crime.

The Devil's Chessboard depicts Kennedy, in addition, as himself being the sort of leader the CIA was in the habit of overthrowing in those foreign capitals. Kennedy had made enemies of bankers and industrialists. He was working to shrink oil profits by closing tax loopholes, including the "oil depletion allowance." He was permitting the political left in Italy to participate in power, outraging the extreme right in Italy, the U.S., and the CIA. He aggressively went after steel corporations and prevented their price hikes. This was the sort of behavior that could get you overthrown if you lived in one of those countries with a U.S. embassy in it.

Yes, Kennedy wanted to eliminate or drastically weaken and rename the CIA. Yes he threw Dulles and some of his gang out the door. Yes he refused to launch World War III over Cuba or Berlin or anything else. Yes he had the generals and warmongers against him, but he also had Wall Street against him.

Of course "politicians who ever try to get out of line" are now, as then, but more effectively now, handled first by the media. If the media can stop them or some other maneuver can stop them (character assassination, blackmail, distraction, removal from power) then violence isn't required.

The fact that Kennedy resembled a coup target, not just a protector of other targets, would be bad news for someone like Senator Bernie Sanders if he ever got past the media, the "super delegates," and the sell-out organizations to seriously threaten to take the White House. A candidate who accepts the war machine to a great extent and resembles Kennedy not at all on questions of peace, but who takes on Wall Street with the passion it deserves, could place himself as much in the cross-hairs of the deep state as a Jeremy Corbyn who takes on both capital and killing.

Accounts of the escapades of Allen Dulles, and the dozen or more partners in crime whose names crop up beside his decade after decade, illustrate the power of a permanent plutocracy, but also the power of particular individuals to shape it. What if Allen Dulles and Winston Churchill and others like them hadn't worked to start the Cold War even before World War II was over? What if Dulles hadn't collaborated with Nazis and the U.S. military hadn't recruited and imported so many of them into its ranks? What if Dulles hadn't worked to hide information about the holocaust while it was underway? What if Dulles hadn't betrayed Roosevelt and Russia to make a separate U.S. peace with Germany in Italy?  What if Dulles hadn't begun sabotaging democracy in Europe immediately and empowering former Nazis in Germany? What if Dulles hadn