text:
- Keynote Speakers
- Accepted Regular Papers
- Accepted Short Papers
- Workshops
- Tutorials
- Industry Papers
- Collocated Conferences
- Final Programs
Ian Witten
Professor of Computer Science at the University of Waikato in New Zealand where he directs the New Zealand Digital Library research project. His research interests include language learning, information retrieval, and machine learning.
Speech Title: Wikipedia and how to use it for semantic document representation
Abstract: Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as
a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks.
This talk focuses on the process of "wikification"; that is, automatically and judiciously augmenting a plain-text document with pertinent hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles as though the document were itself a Wikipedia article. I first describe how Wikipedia can be used to determine semantic relatedness between concepts. Then I explain how to wikify documents by exploiting Wikipedia's internal hyperlinks for relational information and their anchor texts as lexical information. Data mining techniques are used throughout to optimize the models involved.
I will discuss applications to knowledge-based information retrieval, topic indexing, document tagging, and document clustering. Some of these perform at human levels. For example, on CiteULike data, automatically extracted tags are competitive with tag sets assigned by the best human taggers, according to a measure of consistency with other human taggers. All this work uses English, but involves no syntactic parsing, so the techniques are language independent.
URL: www.nzdl.org/wikipedia-miner
Milind Tambe
Professor of Computer Science and Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California(USC). He received his Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He leads the TEAMCORE Research Group at USC, with research is focused on agent-based and multi-agent systems. He is a fellow of AAAI (Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) and recipient of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) SIGART Agents Research award. He is also the recipient of a special commendation given by the Los Angeles World Airports police from the city of Los Angeles, USC Viterbi School of Engineering use-inspired research award, Okawa foundation faculty research award, the RoboCup scientific challenge award, and the ACM recognition of service award. Prof. Tambe and his research group's papers have been selected as best papers or finalists for best papers at more than a dozen premier Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research Conferences and workshops, and their algorithms have been deployed for real-world use by several agencies including the LAX police, the Federal Air Marshals service and the Transportation security administration.
Speech Title: Game Theory for Security: Lessons learned from deployed applications
Abstract: Security at major locations of economic or political importance or
transportation or other infrastructure is a key concern around the world,
particularly given the threat of terrorism. Limited security resources prevent
full security coverage at all times; instead, these limited resources must be
deployed intelligently taking into account differences in priorities of
targets requiring security coverage, the responses of the adversaries to the
security posture and potential uncertainty over the types of adversaries
Game theory is well-suited to adversarial reasoning for security resource
allocation and scheduling problems because it suggests randomized policies that
mitigate a key vulnerability of human plans: predictability. Casting the
problem as a Bayesian Stackelberg game, we have developed new algorithms for
efficiently solving such games to provide randomized patrolling or inspection
strategies; our algorithms are now deployed in multiple applications. ARMOR
(Assistant for Randomized Monitoring over Routes), our first game theoretic
application, has been deployed at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
since August 2007 to randomizes checkpoints on the roadways entering the
airport and canine patrol routes within the airport terminals. IRIS, our second
application, is a game-theoretic scheduler for randomized deployment of the
Federal Air Marshals (FAMS) requiring significant scale-up in underlying
algorithms; IRIS was put into use to generate schedules in late 2009 with first
schedules created by IRIS flown by air marshals starting January 2010. Finally,
GUARDS has been deployed by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) at
the Pittsburgh and LAX airports starting October 2009 for pilot evaluation with
a goal of potential larger-scale deployments. These applications are leading to
real-world use-inspired research. This talk will outline our algorithms, key
research results and lessons learned from these applications.
Alan Smeaton
Since 1997 Alan Smeaton has been a Professor of Computing at Dublin City University where he is Deputy Director of CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies. His research interests are in the management of all kinds of heterogeneous, noisy, and errorsome data. Initially his research focused on searching through text archives and then moved to image search and on to video analysis, indexing and retrieval. Since 2001 Alan has been a founder and coordinator of TRECVid, an annual benchmarking activity with worldwide participation of approximately 400 researchers which measures the effectiveness of content-based operations on video archives. More recently Alan has focused his work on managing information from heterogeneous sensor networks, making sense of the flood of data that comes from sensor applications in fields as diverse as energy monitoring, sports participation, injury rehabilitation, digital lifelogging, and environmental monitoring.
Speech Title: The Sensor Web: Unpredictable, Noisy and Loaded with Errors
Abstract: Classical information retrieval is based around a user having an information need, formulated as a query, and a system which matches the query against 'documents', retrieving those most likely to be relevant. In some applications there are challenges because the 'documents' are not discrete objects but highly inter-connected, and IR research has for decades developed models of the processes, devised novel ranking algorithms, and developed very elaborate benchmarking techniques for performance. But what if the information we need or seek is not neatly divided into documents, either discrete or inter-connected, but needs to be taken from a constant stream of data values, namely data from sensors. These sensors cover the physical sensors around us (environment, place, physical activities like traffic, weather, people movement, crowd gatherings like concerts and sports events) as well as the online sensors we have access to (blogs, tweets, etc.). Often termed the *sensor web*, this information source is characterised as being noisy, errorsome, unpredictable and dynamic, exactly like the real and the virtual worlds in which we live, work and play. In this presentation I introduce several diverse sensor web applications to show the breadth and pervasive nature of the sensor web and I then show some of the techniques which we use to manage the information which forms part of the sensor web.
Pasi Gabriella
Professor at the Universit¨¤ Degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy, where she leads the Information Retrieval research Lab. Her research activity mainly concerns the modelling and design of flexible and personalized systems for the management and access to information. She is actually working on XML retrieval, Personalized Information Retrieval, Information Filtering, Document Clustering, Preference Modelling. She has co-edited seven books e several special issues of International Journals. She has published more than 170 papers on International Journals and Books, and on the Proceeding of International Conferences. She is a member of the Editorial Board of several international journals among which Fuzzy Sets and Systems (Elsevier), Web Intelligence and Agent Systems (IOS Press), and the Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems (IJCIS), Atlantis Press.
Speech Title: Issues on preference-modelling and personalization in Information Retrieval
In recent years there has been a great deal of research about personalization in information access. The main issue is to improve the quality of search by producing user-tailored results related to specific user needs.
In this context two key research problems concerns how to model user preferences, and how to exploit them in effective personalisation processes. This talk will address the above problems, and will discuss some important issues related to their possible solutions. The talk will also point out some research directions worth to be explored.
Maria Gini
Biography: Distingushed Professor of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. She specializes in the design of multi-robot and multi-agent systems that are capable of making intelligent decisions. Such systems range from software agents to robots that move in unstructured and unknown environments and to autonomous vehicles that search a city to rescue people after a disaster. She is a Fellow of the AAAI and a Distinguished Scientist of the ACM. She is the chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence (SIGART), a member of the board of the Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems society, and a member of the CRA-W board co-chairing the Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program.
Speech Title: Why robots are more than just agents
Abstract: Robots are more than just agents because they have a physical body and interact with the real world through their sensors and actuators. They also have limited power supply and often limited communications capabilities. In the talk we will explore how this affects the design of robot systems and address open challenges in design, validation, and performance evaluation of robot systems using a variety of examples.
WI 2010 Accepted Regular Papers
How to Improve Your Google Ranking: Myths and Reality
Ao-Jan Su, Y. Charlie Hu, Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, and Cheng-kok Koh
WEST: Weighted-Edge based Similarity Measurement Tools for Word Semantics
Liang Dong, Pradip Srimani, and James Wang
Web Service Selection for Multiple Agents with Incomplete Preferences
Hongbing Wang, Jie Zhang, Cheng Wan, Shizhi Shao, Robin Cohen, Junjie Xu, and Peicheng Li
Effective Web Service Selection via Communities Formed by Super-Agents
Yao Wang, Jie Zhang, and Julita Vassileva
Exploiting Puzzle Diversity in Puzzle Selection for ESP-like GWAP Systems
Yu-Song Syu, Hsiao-Hsuan Yu, and Ling-Jyh Chen
Improving Diversity of Focused Summaries Through Negative Endorsements of Redundant Facts
Palakorn Achananuparp and Xiaohua Hu
Business Process Decomposition based on Service Relevance Mining
Zicheng Huang, Jinpeng Huai, Xudong Liu, and Jiangjun Zhu
Automatically Grouping Questions in Yahoo! Answers
Yajie Miao
Image Set Classification using Multi-Layer Multiple Instance Learning with Application to Cannabis Website Classification
Nianhua Xie, Haibin Ling, and Weiming Hu
Identifying Cohesive Subgroups and their Correspondences in Multiple Related Networks
Prakash Mandayam Comar, Pang-Ning Tan, and Anil Kumar Jain
Linked Open Social Signals
Pablo Mendes, Alexandre Passant, Pavan Kapanipathi, and Amit Sheth
Towards Fully Distributed and Privacy-preserving Recommendations via Expert Collaborative Filtering and RESTful Linked Data
Jae-wook Ahn and Xavier Amatriain
Chem2Bio2RDF: A Linked Open Data Portal for Chemical Biology
Bin Chen, Ying Ding, Huijun Wang, and David Wild
Niche Product Retrieval in Top-N Recommendation
Mi Zhang and Neil Hurley
Query Answering of Fuzzy Description Logics with Data Type Support
Jingwei Cheng, Z. M. Ma, and Yu Wang
Mining Fine Grained Opinions by Using Probabilistic Models and Domain Knowledge
Qingliang Miao, Qiudan Li, and Daniel Zeng
Coauthor Network Topic Models with Application to Expert Finding
Jia ZENG, William K. Cheung, C.H. Li, and Jiming Liu
Language Models & Topic Models for Personalizing Tag Recommendation
Ralf Krestel and Peter Fankhauser
Making the Most of a Search Session with Maximum Query and Query Cover
Matthias Hagen and Benno Stein
F-Logic#: Loosely Coupling F-Logic Rules and Ontologies
Stijn Heymans, Roman Korf, Michael Erdmann, Joerg Puehrer, and Thomas Eiter
Characteristics Estimation of Information Sources by Information Diffusion Analysis
Kazuhiro Kazama, Miyuki Imada, and Keiichiro Kashiwagi
Lightweight Clustering Methods for Webspam Demotion
Thomas Largillier and Sylvain Peyronnet
The Effects of Query Bursts on Web Search
Ilija Subasic and Carlos Castillo
Semi-automatic Mining of Semantic Descriptions of Processes in the Web
Julia Hoxha and Sudhir Agarwal
Predicting the Future With Social Media
Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman
An Approach to Model and Predict the Popularity of Online Contents with Explanatory Factors
Jong Gun Lee, Sue Moon, and Kave Salamatian
MapMarker: Extraction of Postal Addresses and Associated Information for General Web Pages
Chia-Hui Chang and Shu-Ying Lee
Bees Swarm Optimization based Approach for Web Information Retrieval
Habiba Drias and Hadia Mosteghanemi
Hierarchical Cost-sensitive Web Resource Acquisition for Record Matching
Yee Fan Tan and Min-Yen Kan
Discovering Research Communities by Clustering Bibliographical Data
Fabrice MUHLENBACH and St¨¦phane LALLICH
Finding Resources and Collaborators within Digital Collections
Darina Dicheva and Christo Dichev
A Hybrid Approach to Data Clustering Analysis with K-means and Enhanced Ant-based Template Mechanism
Wei Zhang, Carl K. Chang, Hen-I Yang, and Hsin-yi Jiang
An Adaptive Model for Probabilistic Sentiment Analysis
Xiaohui Yu, Yang Liu, and Aijun An
Expertise Matching via Constrained-based Optimization
Wenbin Tang, Jie Tang, and Chenhao Tan
MQuery: Fast Graph Query via Semantic Indexing for Mobile Context
Yuan Zhang, Ning Zhang, Jie Tang, Jinghai Rao, and Wenbin Tang
Approximate Causal Representations In The Medical Domain
Lawrence Mazlack
The Ethicality of Web Crawlers
Yang Sun, Isaac Councill, and Lee Giles
DSP: Robust Semi-Supervised Dimensionality Reduction using Dual Subspace Projections
Su Yan, Sofien Bouaziz, and Dongwon Lee
CentralMatch: A Fast and Accurate Method to Identify Blog-Duplicates
Heejin Park, Sang-Chul Lee, Soon-Haeng Lee, and Sang-Wook Kim
Ontology-based Specific and Exhaustive User Profiles for Constraint Information Fusion for Multi-Agents
Xiaohui Tao, Yuefeng Li, Raymond Lau, and Shlomo Geva
CollaborativeWeb Search Utilizing Experts? Experiences
Jingyu Sun and Xueli Yu
Impacts of Analysts? Cognitive Styles on the Analytic Process
Eugene Santos Jr., Hien Nguyen, Fei Yu, Deqing Li, and John Wilkinson
Modeling Ontology of Folksonomy with Tags Latent Semantics
ALI DAUD, Juanzi Li, Zhou Lizhu, Lei Zhang, and Ying Ding
Learning Task Specific Web Services Compositions with Loops and Conditional Branches from Example Executions
Harini Veeraraghavan, Roman Vaculin, and Manuela Veloso
Research Interests : Their Dynamics, Structures and Applications in Web Search Refinement
Yi Zeng, Erzhong Zhou, Yulin Qin, and Ning Zhong
Boosting Biomedical Entity Extraction by using Syntactic Patterns for Semantic Relation Discovery
Svitlana Volkova, Doina Caragea, William H. Hsu, John Drouhard, and Landon Fowles
Learning a Large Scale of Ontology from Japanese Wikipedia
Susumu Tamagawa, Shinya Sakurai, Takuya Tejima, Takeshi Morita, Noriaki Izumi, and Takahira Yamaguchi
Similarity-based Bayesian Learning from Semi-structured Log Files for Fault Diagnosis of Web Services
Xu Han, Zhongzhi Shi, Wenjia Niu, Kunrong Chen, and Xinghua Yang
Probabilistic Metrics for Soft-Clustering and Topic Model Validation
Eduardo Ramirez Rangel, Davide Magatti, Fabio Stella, and Ramon Brena Pinero
Non-negative Matrix Factorization for Multimodal Image Indexing
Juan C. Caicedo, Jaafar Benabdallah, Fabio A. Gonzalez, and Olfa Nasraoui
IAT 2010 Accepted Regular Papers
An Agent Model for Decision Making Based upon Experiences Applied in the Domain of Fighter Pilots
Mark Hoogendoorn, Robbert-Jan Merk, and Jan Treur
An Agent-Based Modeling Approach to Investigate Emergent Patterns in Ecological Systems
Jacintha Ellers, Mark Hoogendoorn, and David Wendt
External Coordination Media in Capacity-Constrained Multiagent Systems
Thomas Kemmerich and Hans Kleine Büning
Towards Efficient Equilibria of Combinations of Network-Formation and Interaction Strategies
Bjoern-Oliver Hartmann, Klemens Boehm, and Christian Huetter
The Impacts of Diffusion Kernels on Recognition-Primed Multi-Agent Decision Making
Xiaocong Fan and Meng Su
Distributed Advice-Seeking on an Evolving Social Network
Golriz Rezaei, Jens Pfau, and Michael Kirley
A Distributed and concurrent Framework for Facilitating Cooperation in Dynamic Environments
Toktam Ebadi, Maryam Purvis, and Martin Purvis
Characterization of Revenue Monotonicity in Combinatorial Auctions
Taiki Todo, Atsushi Iwasaki, and Makoto Yokoo
Design and Evaluation of Explainable BDI Agents
Maaike Harbers, Karel Van den Bosch, and John-Jules Meyer
Collaborative Learning of Ontology Fragments by Co-operating Agents
Heather S. Packer, Nick Gibbins, and Nicholas R. Jennings
Enhancing the Interoperability between Multiagent Systems and Service-Oriented Architectures through a Model-Driven Approach
Christian Hahn, Sven Jacobi, and David Raber
A Rich Communication Model in Opportunistic Decentralized Decision Making
Aurélie Beynier and Abdel-Illah Mouaddib
Nash Welfare Allocation Problems: Concrete Issues
Antoine Nongaillard, Philippe Mathieu, and Patricia Everaere
Reducing untruthful manipulation in Envy Free Pareto Optimal resource allocation
Roie Zivan, Miroslav Dudik, Steven Okamoto, and Katia Sycara
Multi-HDCS: Solving DisCSPs With Complex Local Problems Cooperatively
David Lee, Ines Arana, Hatem Ahriz, and Kit Hui
An algorithm for multi-robot planning: SGInfiniteVI
Mohamed Amine HAMILA, Emmanuelle GRISLIN-LE STRUGEON, Rene MANDIAU, and Abdel-Illah Mouaddib
Time-Critical Decision Making in Interactive Dynamic Influence Diagram
Yifeng Zeng and Yanping Xiang
Selecting Operator Queries Using Expected Myopic Gain
Robert Cohn, Michael Maxim, Edmund H. Durfee, and Satinder Singh
A Voting-Based Agent System for Course Selection in E-Learning
Ali Aseere, Enrico Gerding, and David Millard
Collaborative Function Approximation in Social Multiagent Systems
Dominik Dahlem and William Harrison
DLB-SDPOP: A Multiagent Pseudo-tree Repair Algorithm for Load Balancing in WLANs
Shanjun Cheng, Anita Raja, Jiang(Linda) Xie, and Ivan Howitt
Multiagent Meta-level Control for Predicting Meteorological Phenomena
Shanjun Cheng, Anita Raja, and Victor Lesser
Getting What You Pay For: Is Exploration in Distributed Hill Climbing Really Worth It?
Melanie Smith and Roger Mailler
Effect of human biases on human-agent teams
Praveen Paruchuri, Pradeep Varakantham, Katia Sycara, and Paul Scerri
Epsilon-Subjective Equivalence of Models for Interactive Dynamic Influence Diagrams
Prashant Doshi, Muthukumaran Chandrasekaran, and Yifeng Zeng
Learning Personal Agents with Adaptive Player Modeling in Virtual World
Yilin Kang and Ah-Hwee Tan
Local Search Methods for Finding a Nash Equilibrium in Two-Player Games
Sofia Ceppi, Nicola Gatti, Giorgio Patrini, and Marco Rocco
An Approach to Scalable Multi-issue Negotiation: Decomposing the Contract Space based on Issue Interdependencies
Katsuhide Fujita, Takayuki Ito, and Mark Klein
An Agent Model for Analysis of Human Performance Quality
Michel Klein, Rianne van Lambalgen, and Jan Treur
How Fast can a BDI Agent Respond?
Huiliang Zhang, Chunyan Miao, Shell Ying Huang, Zhiqi Shen, and Xudong Luo
Behavior Design of Game Character's Agent
Tony Dujardin and Routier Jean-Christophe
Efficient Value Function Approximation with Unsupervised Hierarchical Categorization for a Reinforcement Learning Agent
Yongjia Wang and John Laird
Coalition Formation Strategies for Self-Interested Agents in Task Oriented Domains
Thomas Génin and Samir Aknine
Using a Social Orientation Model for the Evolution of Cooperative Societies
Kan-Leung Cheng, Inon Zuckerman, Ugur Kuter, and Dana Nau
Coordination of Temporal Plans for the Reactive and Proactive Goals
Muhammad Adnan Hashmi and Amal Elfallah Seghrouchni
Modular JADE Agents Design and Implementation using ASEME
Nikolaos Spanoudakis and Pavlos Moraitis
WI 2010 Accepted Short Papers
Improving Privacy-Preserving NBC-based Recommendations by Preprocessing
Alper Bilge and Huseyin Polat
Towards a Self Regulating Process of Pairwise Comparison in AHP
Arash Niknafs, Nasrollah Moghaddam Charkari, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini Nasab, and Ali Akbar Niknafs
Semantic Graph Based Document-Indexing for MEDLINE
James Wang and William Taylor II
Intelligent agents system for evacuation processes modeling
Robert A. Kosiński and Andrzej Grabowski
Using Web-Intelligence for Excavating the Emerging Meaning of Target-Concepts
Yair Neuman, Yohai Cohen, Gabi Kedma, and Ophir Nave
Communicated Structure Discovery via Information Asymmetry in an Organizational Communication Network
Cheng-Te Li
Tag Allocation Model: Model Noisy Social Annotations by Reason Finding
Xiance Si and Maosong Sun
Ranking Approaches for Microblog Search
Rinkesh Nagmoti, Ankur Teredesai, and Martine De Cock
Text Clustering via Term Semantic Units
LIPING JING, JIALI YUN, JIAN YU, and HOUKUAN HUANG
Visualizing blog archives to explore content- and context-related interdependencies
Justus Bross, Patrick Schilf, and Christoph Meinel
Mapping Features to Context Information: Supporting Context Variability for Context-aware Pervasive Applications
Zakwan Jaroucheh, Xiaodong Liu, and Sally Smith
Group-level Analysis by Extracting Semantic Relations from Query Graph
Bin Wu, Tian Zhu, Weiduo Wang, Qi Ye, and Bai Wang
Learning in Presence Of Ontology Mapping Errors
Neeraj Koul and Vasant Honavar
Asset-mapping Approaches to Web-based Collaborative Innovation
Donald Cowan, Paulo Alencar, Fred McGarry, Carlos Lucena, and Ingrid Nunes
TOK: A meta-model and ontology for heterogenous terminological, linguistic and ontological knowledge resources
Nizar Ghoula, Gilles Falquet, and Jacques Guyot
Investigating Homophily in Online Social Networks
Halil Bisgin, Nitin Agarwal, and Xiaowei Xu
Improving Web Service Survivability via Gracefully Degraded Substitution
Yong Yang, Marlon Dumas, and Liang Zhang
Predicting Web Search Hit Counts
Tian Tian, James Geller, and Soon Ae Chun
On Using Query Logs for Static Index Pruning
HOANG THANH LAM and Raffaele Perego
Ant-Based Simulation of Opinion Spreading in Online Social Networks
Carolin Kaiser, Johannes Kr?ckel, and Freimut Bodendorf
Probabilistic Modeling of User-Generated Reviews
Richong Zhang and Thomas Tran
SemPIF: A Semantic Meta-Policy Interchange Format for Multiple Web Policies
Yuh-Jong Hu
Let's Trust Users - It Is Their Search
Pavel Kalinov, Bela Stantic, and Abdul Sattar
web information retrieval towards personalization
Namita Mittal, Richi Nayak, MC Govil, and KC Jain
User-centered Evaluational Model for Ontology Selection
Sunju Oh and Heon Yeom
Empirical analysis and Multiple Level Views in Massive Social Networks
Qi Ye, Bin Wu, Gao YUan, and Bai Wang
Domain-Specific Backlinking Services in the Web of Data
Manuel Salvadores, Gianluca Correndo, Martin Szomszor, Yang Yang, Nick Gibbins, Ian Millard, Hugh Glaser, and Nigel Shadbolt
Visual Content Structures for Wrapper Induction in Building MetaSearch Systems
Tsay Jyh-Jong, Chin-Wen Tsay, and Wang Xin-Jie
Relations Expansion: Extracting and Ranking Relationship Instances on the Web
Haibo Li, Yutaka Matsuo, and Mitsuru Ishizuka
A Computational Cognitive Model for Heuristics Retrieving on Human Problem Solving
Rifeng Wang, Lijuan Wang, Haiyan Zhou, Jie Xiang, Yulin Qin, and Ning Zhong
Organization of Information for the Web using Hierarchical Fuzzy Clustering Algorithm based on Co-Occurrence Networks
faraz zaidi and guy melan?on
Enabling Self-organising Service Level Management with Automated Negotiation
Lei Liu and Hartmut Schmeck
Using Web Technologies for Integrative Drug Discovery
Qian Zhu, Sashikiran Challa, Prajakta Purohit, Michael Lajiness, David Wild, and Ying Ding
Incorporating Seasonality into Search Suggestions Derived from Intranet Query Logs
Stephen Dignum, Udo Kruschwitz, Maria Fasli, Yunhyong Kim, Dawei Song, Ulises Cervino, and Anne De Roeck
Modeling Users? Information Goal Transitions and Satisfaction Judgment: Understanding The Full Search Process
Shandian Zhe
An Efficient Method for Tagging a Query with Category Labels using Wikipedia towards Enhancing Search Engine Results
Milad Alemzadeh and Fakhri Karray
Towards Understanding How Personality, Motivation and Events Trigger Web User Activity
Konstantinos N. Vavliakis, Andreas L. Symeonidis, and Pericles Mitkas
Towards Axiomatizing the Semantics of UML Activity Diagrams: A Situation-Calculus Perspective
Xing Tan and Michael Gruninger
Web Intelligence in Tourism
Bruno Coelho, Constantino Martins, and Ana Almeida
Improving AbraQ: an Automatic Query Expansion Algorithm
Glen Robertson and Xiaoying Gao
Generating a Context-Aware Sentiment Lexicon for Aspect-Based Product Review Mining
Juergen Bross and Heiko Ehrig
Feedback Dynamic Algorithms for Preemptable Job Scheduling in Cloud System
Jiayin Li and Meikang Qiu
A Scalable Indexing Mechanism for Ontology-Based Information Integration
Yingjie Li, Abir Qasem, and Jeff Heflin
Improving Collaborative Filtering in Social Tagging Systems for the Recommendation of Scientific Articles
Denis Parra and Peter Brusilovsky
Ranking Ontologies Using Verified Entities to Facilitate Federated Queries
Neda Alipanah, Piyush Srivastava, Pallabi Parveen, and Bhavani Thurasingham
Using Relational Similarity between Word Pairs for Latent Relational Search on the Web
Tuan Duc Nguyen, Danushka Bollegala, and Mitsuru Ishizuka
A User-centered Approach Recommender Engine
leyla zhuhadar and Olfa Nasraoui
Topic Detection for Discussion Threads with Domain Knowledge
Mingliang Zhu, Weiming Hu, and Ou Wu
Stochastic Simulation of Web Users
Pablo Roman and Juan Velasquez
Stakeholder Mining and Its Application to News Comparison
Tatsuya Ogawa, Qiang Ma, and Masatoshi Yoshikawa
Efficient and Correct Trust Propagation Using CloseLook
Adam Wierzbicki and Grzegorz Wierzowiecki
A Strong Authentication Protocol based on Portable One?Time Dynamic URLs
Eduardo Galan, Julio Cesar Hernandez, Almudena Alcaide, and Arturo Ribagorda
The KGRAM Abstract Machine for Knowledge Graph Querying
Olivier Corby and Catherine Faron Zucker
Agent-based Online Quality Measurement Approach in Cloud Computing Environment
Zhenyu Liu, Tiejiang liu, Lizhi Cai, and Genxing Yang
Reducing the Cold-Start Problem in Content Recommendation Through Opinion Classification
Damien Poirier, Fran?oise Fessant, and Isabelle Tellier
Parsing Publication Lists on the Web
Kai-Hsiang Yang
Impact of One-Timer/N-Timer Object Classification on the Performance of Web Cache Replacement Algorithms
Saloua Messaoud and Habib Youssef
ACO based Approaches and Integrating Information Retrieval Technologies in Selecting Bitmap Join Indexes
Habiba Drias and Ibtissem Frihi
Exploring Special Items in Multimedia News Based on a Stakeholder Model
Ling Xu, Qiang Ma, and Masatoshi Yoshikawa
Knowledge-Based Explanations for Recommender Systems
Markus Zanker and Daniel Ninaus
Reachability Analysis in Privacy-Preserving Perturbed Graphs
Xiaoyun He, Jaideep Vaidya, Basit Shafiq, Nabil Adam, and Xiaodong Lin
A Categorized Sentiment Analysis of Chinese Reviews by Mining Dependency in Product Features and Opinions from Blogs
Hung-Yu Kao and Zi-Yu Lin
Integrating Provenance Information in Reservoir Engineering
Jing Zhao, Na Chen, Karthik Gomadam, and Viktor Prasanna
A Framework for Co-Classification of Articles and Users in Wikipedia
Lei Liu and Pang-Ning Tan
Estimating News Coverage of Web Search Results
Adam Jatowt, Yukiko Kawai, and Katsumi Tanaka
Product Feature Mining with Nominal Semantic Structure
Tian-jie Zhan and Chun-hung Li
IAT 2010 Accepted Short Papers
Selecting Behavior on Repeated Local Effect Functions
Igoshi Kazuho and Takao Miura
Concept Learning Games: The Game of Query and Response
Nima Mirbakhsh, Arman Didandeh, and Mohsen Afsharchi
Using Negotiation to Reduce Redundant Autonomous Mobile Program Movements
Natalia Chechina, Peter King, and Phil Trinder
Particle Swarm Optimization Based Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering
Shafiq Alam, Gillian Dobbie, Patricia Riddle, and Asif Naeem
Continuous Double Auction in Grid Computing: An Agent Based Approach to Maximize Profit for Providers
S. M. Aminul Haque, Saadat M Alhashmi, and Rajendran Parthiban
Enhancing Cultural Learning under Environmental Variability Using Layered Heterogeneous Sociometry-Based Networks
Mostafa Ali, Robert Reynolds, and Rose Ali
Artifacting the Organizational Mechanisms: Adding functionality in MAS environments
Sergio Esparcia, Roberto Centeno, Ramón Hermoso, and Estefanía Argente
An Agent-Based Model for the Interplay of Information and Emotion in Social Diffusion
Mark Hoogendoorn, Jan Treur, Chantal Natalie van der Wal, and Arlette van Wissen
An Organizational Design for Adaptive Sensor Networks
Walamitien Oyenan, Scott DeLoach, and Gurdip Singh
Intelligent Agents in Mobile Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks: Leveraging Trust Modeling Based on Direct Experience with Incentives for Honesty
Umar Minhas, Jie Zhang, Thomas Tran, and Robin Cohen
A Multi-Heuristic Cooperative Ant Colony System for Optimizing Elimination ordering of Bayesian Networks
Xuchu Dong, Dantong Ouyang, Yuxin Ye, Haihong Yu, and Yonggang Zhang
Decentralized Resource Allocation and Scheduling via Walrasian Auctions with Negotiable Agents
HuaXing CHEN and Hoong Chuin Lau
A Biologically-Inspired Cognitive Agent Model Integrating Declarative Knowledge and Reinforcement Learning
Ah-Hwee Tan and Gee-Wah Ng
An Interaction-Oriented Model of Customer Behavior for the Simulation of Supermarkets
Philippe Mathieu, Sebastien PICAULT, and Yoann KUBERA
Understanding the Behaviour of Swarm Robots by Analysing their Trajectories
Swagat Kumar and Einoshin Suzuki
Motivated Learning for Goal Selection in Goal Nets
Huiliang Zhang, Zhiqi Shen, Chunyan Miao, and Xudong Luo
Exploration and Exploitation in Adaptive Trust-Based Decision Making in Dynamic Environments
Mark Hoogendoorn, S. Waqar Jaffry, and Jan Treur
Knowledge oriented Network Fault Resolution Method based on Active Information Resource
Yusuke Takahashi, Daisuke MIsugi, Akira Sakatoku, Akihiro Satoh, Akiko Takahashi, Kazuto Sasai, Gen Kitagata, Toru Abe, and Tetsuo Kinoshita
A Distributed Asynchronous Constraint Optimization Algorithm based on Dynamic Reduction of Constraint Graph
Jian Cao
Incentivising cooperation between agents for content sharing
Stuart Allen, Martin Chorley, Gualtiero Colombo, and Roger Whitaker
Round Tripping in Component Based Software Development
Yves Wautelet, Sodany Kiv, Vi Tran, and Manuel Kolp
Metrics for the evaluation of DisCSP : some experiments on situated agents
Pierre Monier, Arnaud Doniec, Sylvain Piechowiak, and Rene MANDIAU
Distributed Route Planning and Scheduling via Hybrid Conflict Resolution
Ramesh Thangarajoo and Hoong Chuin Lau
Monitoring Agent Communication in Soft Real-time Environments
Andreas Symeonidis and Pericles Mitkas
Knowledge Discovery for Deterministic Finite Automata in Epilepsy
Rory Lewis, Doron Shmueli, and Andrew White
The Agent-Based Hedge Fund
Rui Pedro Barbosa and Orlando Belo
Virtual Agent Perception in Multi-Agent Based Simulation Systems
Travis Steel, Dane Kuiper, and Rym Wenkstern
Predictive Analytics Using a Blackboard-based Reasoning Agent
Jia Yue, Anita Raja, and William Ribarsky
Social Reinforcement Learning for Changing Environments
Juan A. Garcia-Pardo, Jose Soler, and Carlos Carrascosa
An Intelligent Agent-based Model for Future Personal Information Markets
Abdulsalam Yassine, Shervin Shirmohammadi, Thomas T.Tran, and Ali Asghar Nazari Shirehjini
Modeling Dynamic Groups for Agent-based Pedestrian Crowd Simulations
Fasheng Qiu and Xiaolin Hu
Trustworthiness Tendency Incremental Extraction Using Information Gain
Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, and Eugénio Oliveira
Event Study Method for Validating Agent-based Trading Simulations
Shih-Fen Cheng
DIRACT: Agent-based Interactive Storytelling
Yundong Cai, Zhiqi Shen, Chunyan Miao, and Ah-Hwee Tan
Ordered Multi-Variable Multi-Constrained Distributed Constraint Optimization Framework
Christopher Portway and Edmund H. Durfee
Modeling empathy and placebo for autonomous virtual humans
Julien SAUNIER, Hazaël JONES, and Domitile LOURDEAUX
An Agent-Based Framework for Developing Distributed Applications
Michel Oey, Sander van Splunter, Elth Ogston, Martijn Warnier, and Frances Brazier
Prediction of humans?activity for learning the behaviors of electrical appliances in an intelligent ambiant environment
Javier Gil-Quijano and Nicolas Sabouret
Imprecise Context Reasoning Using Improved Dempster-Shafer Theory
Zhong Yuan Li and Hee Yong Youn
Designing a New Approach in Pattern Recognition Inspired by the Visual Cortex in Human Brain
Maryam Esmaeili
The Third WI-IAT Doctoral Workshop (IAT: WI-IAT DW)
Marcin Szcuka
First International Workshop on the Adaption of Web Services (IAT: AWS)
Walid Chainbi
Second International Workshop on Collaborative Agents - Research and development (IAT: CARE)
Christian Guttmann
Human Aspects in Ambient Intelligence: Agent Technology, Human-Oriented Knowledge, and Applications (IAT: HAI)
Tibor Bosse
Service Intelligence and Engineering (IAT: SIE)
Chi-hung Chi
Service-Oriented Computing for Collective Intelligence (IAT: SOC4CI)
Claudia-Melania Chituc
Third Workshop on Logics for Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (IAT: WLIAMAS)
Mehmet Orgun
3rd Workshop on Collective Intelligence in Semantic Web and Social Networks (WI: CISWSN)
Tudor Groza
4th International Workshop on Intelligent E-government and Emergency Management (WI: IEEM)
Xin Ye
International Workshop on Computational Social Networks (WI: IWCSN)
Vaclav Snasel
International Workshop on Intelligent Web Interaction (WI: IWI)
Tsuyoshi Murata
10th International Workshop on Meta-synthesis and Complex Systems (WI: MCS)
Xijin Tang
Natural Language Processing and Ontology Engineering (WI: NLPOE)
Yao Liu
First International Workshop on Opinion Mining for Business Intelligence (WI: OMBI)
Xiaohui Yu
2nd Workshop on Soft Approaches to Information Access on the Web (WI: SAIAW)
Jose Angel Olivas
Trust and Recommender Systems for Social Search and Web Logs Analysis (WI: TReSSS)
Luca Longo
International Workshop on Web-scale Knowledge Representation, Retrieval, and Reasoning (WI: Web-KR3)
Zhisheng Huang
3rd International Workshop on Web Information Retrieval Support Systems (WI: WIRSS)
Orland Hoeber
Web Personalization and Recommender Systems (WI: WebPRES)
Daniel Tao
Optimization-based Data Mining and Web Intelligence (WI: ODMWI)
Yong Shi
Yingjie Tian
The 2010 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence (WI10) and Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT10)
takes place on August 31 - Sept 3, 2010, at Toronto, Canada.The IEEE/WIC/ACM 2010 joint conferences are organized by York
University, Canada, and sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Intelligent Informatics (TCII), Web
Intelligence Consortium (WIC), and ACM-SIGART.
WI 2010 and IAT 2010 will include tutorials providing in-depth background on subjects that are of broad interest to both
the Web intelligence community and the intelligent agent community. The goal of the Tutorial Program is to offer conference
attendees and local participants a stimulating and informative selection of tutorials reflecting current topics in Web
intelligence and intelligent agent. These tutorials will be presented by subject matter experts and will reflect the high
academic and research standards of the WI-IAT 2010 conference. We encourage submissions of proposals on topics that have a
direct relevance to the topics of the conference.
Proposals will be considered for short (2 hrs) and long (half-day) tutorials. A list of recent tutorials collocated with
WI-IATs can be found at WI-IAT 2009 and WI-IAT 2008 websites.
A tutorial proposal should include the following:
* Title of the tutorial
* Instructor(s) and their credentials (CV)
* Aims/Learning objectives
* Description of topics
* Scope of the tutorial
* Tutorial history (previous offerings of tutorial, if any)
* Format of tutorial (1/2 day, 2 hrs)
* 300-word abstract (1-2 paragraphs suitable for inclusion in conference registration materials)
* Keywords
* Full description (1-2 pages to be used for evaluation)
* Target audience information
* Prerequisite knowledge of audience
* Relevant references that would support proposal evaluation
Please send your proposal in PDF format to the tutorial co-chairs, Sourav S Bhowmick (email@example.com) and Mounia
Lalmas (email@example.com) with subject: WI-IAT Tutorial Proposal.
Important Dates
* Tutorial submissions: March 26, 2010
* Acceptance notices: April 26, 2010
* Camera-ready copy of tutorial handouts: July 31, 2010
WI 2010 Industry Track Regular Papers
SONAR: Towards User-Centric Social Network Analysis and Visualization
Klemens Boehm, Bjoern-Oliver Hartmann, Till Heistermann, Christian Huetter, Kevin-Simon Kohlmeyer, Reno Reckling, Martin Reiche, and David Soria Parra
IAT 2010 Industry Track Regular Papers
Agent Technologies for Space Applications: The DAFA Experience
Francesco Amigoni, Rick Blake, Andrea Brambilla, Sonia de la Rosa Steinz, Michèle Lavagna, Ian le Duc, Jonathan Page, Oliver Page, Robin Steel, and Quirien Wijnands
IAT 2010 Industry Track Short Papers
Integration of Multiagent Systems and Service Oriented Architectures in the Steel Industry
Sven Jacobi, Christian Hahn, and David Raber
The 2010 International Conference on Active Media Technology (AMT 2010)
will be held jointly with IEEE/WIC/ACM WI-IAT 2010 at York Univeristy from August 28-30.
Click http://www.yorku.ca/amtbi10/amtbi.php?conf=amt for more information
The 2010 International Conference on Brain Informatics (BI 2010)
will be held jointly with IEEE/WIC/ACM WI-IAT 2010 at York Univeristy from August 28-30
Click http://www.yorku.ca/amtbi10/amtbi.php?conf=bi for more information


text:
Camera shake is the thief of sharpness. The tremble of your hand as you hold the camera, the slight jarring when you press the shutter release – even a tiny movement during the exposure can result in blurring in the image.
Much of the time, you won't notice the effects of camera shake. If you're shooting with a fast shutter speed or a wide-angle lens, the blurring may not be significant enough for you to register it – but it will still be there, and it might become noticeable if you make a dramatic crop or a large print of the image.
The obvious way to eliminate movement of the camera during the exposure is to fix it to something that will not move, such as a tripod, and to take precautions against jarring it, such as using a remote shutter release. However, a tripod is effective only if it is sturdy, which usually means heavy, so you can't always carry one with you. There are also many situations where a tripod is just not practical, and several where the use of a tripod is not permitted.
Fortunately, Canon offers another method of reducing, if not eliminating, the effects of camera shake: Image Stabilisation (IS).
There are various kinds of IS. Let's start with lens-based ("optical") IS.The first lens with Image Stabilisation was introduced in 1995. It approached the problem of camera shake laterally. Rather than trying to stop the camera moving, a stabilised lens introduces a compensating movement within it, with the aim of keeping the image static on the camera's sensor.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Jane and Justin's Backyard Before & After
Name: Jane and Justin
Location: Oakland, California – Oakmore Neighborhood
When we bought our house in 2006, it wasn't because of the back garden. Picture a mess of tangled weeds, a steep hill upwards, broken red concrete patio chunks everywhere, and fence holes so big our 90 lb. dog sailed right through them.
We were no strangers to DIY garden remodels and took the project on enthusiastically, but this — this was nothing we'd seen before. We found soil so thick with clay and poorly drained that it was a wonder anything could grow in it. But surprisingly, the top five most hated invasive non-native weeds in the area (Algerian Ivy, blackberry brambles, oxalis, wild onion) were growing profusely.
We mistakenly dug into rat nests and quickly discovered (the hard way) that we were a major junction point for the Skunk Superhighway. We rented a jackhammer and cracked out the remaining concrete patio, only to recall that we live up two flights of stairs. Getting all the broken concrete down the stairs and out of our lives took creative thinking and lots of Freecycle-ing.
Since we couldn't buy concrete pavers locally in the dimensions we wanted, we hand-mixed and poured each paver individually, which when you consider that we only had four molds and needed something like 50 pavers, took a really long time since each paver needed to set up in the molds for three days. In a fit of foolish self-reliance, we also created and hand-poured the concrete gas firepit ourselves. It cracked the first time we lit it up. Leave that job to the pros…
Oh and doing french drains yourself is also not advised.
But that's not all — mid-project, we discovered I was pregnant (surprise!) and I spent the next nine months wondering if mixing concrete by hand and going "hammer time" with a jackhammer would somehow affect my unborn child (surprisingly, no studies had been done on this). He's fine, by the way.
So, with me out of commission, we were down 50% of our labor force and we were still knee deep in broken concrete. We brought in a carpenter friend from the east coast who helped us build our deck and pergola, and the rest of the plants went in after our son arrived.
The whole project took about a year and a half to do. But of course, as with any garden, the work is never truly done. We've had a hard time getting plants to grow in the clay soil and have been planting species with tough, burrowing roots to try to break up the dirt. Then we pull them out and replace with compost that we make ourselves. It's been marginally successful — a work in progress.
It's been a little over three years since we finished the big work and we are thrilled to say we use this "room" all year long. We live in a 1950's mid-century style home and even with our open(ish) floor plan, the yard is definitely the largest, most welcoming "room" in the house.
Every party we throw ends up in the backyard. We get creative with the pavers and make a little tee ball diamond out of them with our son, we now have a raised bed for vegetables and herbs, and our geriatric dog spends hours warming herself in the sun out there.
Jury's out if we'd do it all over again, but having a peaceful garden is something we now know that we wouldn't want to live without.
Thanks, Jane and Justin! Beautiful job.
Originally published June 6, 2012
(Images: readers Jan and Justin)


text:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Chocolate Baroque challenge blog. We would like to say hello to our new followers this week, and thank you to everyone who has entered our challenge so far.
If this is your first visit to the blog, then please take a look round and familiarise yourself with the pages by clicking on the tabs at the top of the home page. Our current challenge can be found here and you can enter the challenge by clicking on the Inlinkz link. Our inspirational photo for Challenge 1 is a piece of artwork created by Glenda Waterworth, the owner of Chocolate Baroque:
We have more inspiration from our Design Team using the colours from the colour swatch. Our first project is from Lesley:
Our second project is from Judith
Our final project is from Claire
We hope that our projects have given you a bit of inspiration to grab your crafty stash and to create your own artwork to enter the challenge. We
will be back next week with something a little bit different for you. In the meantime, don't forget if you have any questions, and you can't
find the answers on here, please send us a private message using the
contact form located at the very end of this blog post; you will see it
after the comments section.


text:
What is a payday loan?
payday ready are generally short-term unsecured loans characterized by high interest rates that generally do not require a credit check.
Although there is no exact and universal definition of the term, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau indicates that this type of loan is usually $500 or less and is usually due on the borrower's next payday. States have different laws governing these types of fast loans, but they may be available to Americans through in-store payday lenders or in line, depending on location. The due date on payday loans is generally two to four weeks from the date of issuance, and lenders generally do not consider borrowers' credit scores or their ability to meet other financial obligations when approving the loan.
To secure a payday loan, payday lenders often require a personal check from the borrower for the loan amount, plus interest and fees, for a future deposit. They often require direct access to the borrower's bank account.
Payday lenders hold the personal check until the borrower receives their next paycheck, direct deposit or social Security Payment. Depending on the terms of the loan and the laws of the state in question, some payday lenders offer long-term repayment plans that allow them to make multiple electronic withdrawals from the borrower's bank account.
The average term for payday loans is about two weeks, and loans typically range between $50 and $1,000. In exchange for quick loans that don't require a credit check, payday borrowers typically pay exorbitant interest rates and fees on their loans. Payday lenders often charge annual percentage ratesor APR, of 400% or more on their loans, plus finance charges of between $10 and $30 for every $100 borrowed.
The only requirements to qualify for most payday loans are an opening Bank account relatively good standing, a regular income and a source of identification.
Because little consideration is given to the financial condition or creditworthiness of borrowers, the CFPB has found that payday loans have a high default rate of around 20%. Additionally, approximately 80% of payday borrowers renew or re-borrow their loans within 30 days of their initial loan.
Qualified state borrowers can apply for a payday loan online from companies such as MoneyMutual, CashUSA.com, and BillsHappen. Many payday lenders also have thousands of physical stores in the United States.
In times of financial emergency or life or death situation, payday loans may be one of the only places Americans have bad credit can turn to temporary financial assistance. However, due to widespread deception and predatory behavior in the payday loan industry, the CFPB, Federal Trade Commission, and other federal and state regulators have repeatedly warned Americans of the dangers of payday lending. payday and imposed restrictions on the activities of payday lenders.
A 2016 five-year study by Pew Charitable Trusts found that 12 million Americans take out payday loans each year, and those borrowers collectively pay $9 billion a year in loan fees alone.
- Speed. Payday loans are fast, and lenders often approve the same or next day.
- Ease of use. It's usually easy to get approved for a payday loan as long as the applicant has a stable source of income, a bank account in good standing, and proper identification. Borrowers can even get payday loan approval online. While some critics say payday loans are inherently predatory, there are laws in place to protect the rights of borrowers.
- Availablity. Depending on the situation, payday loans may be one of the only viable sources of emergency cash for borrowers with bad credit.
- High cost. Payday loans can come with annual interest rates of 400% or more, and finance charges can be 15% to 30% of the loan amount. These high interest rates stand out even more compared to the national average of around 16.17% credit card interest rate or the average interest rate of 4.25% over 30 years mortgage end of February 2022.
- Debt cycle. Due to interest and fees, a payday loan can easily force the borrower to put off the majority of their next paycheck, creating an opportunity for borrowers to fall into a cycle of repeat loans.
- Harassment. Payday lenders have a reputation for exploiting financially vulnerable borrowers and using aggressive and harassing collection practices.


text: wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum.


text:
A previous assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy was thwarted three years before the president was killed in Dallas. The intended assassin was an anti-Irish Catholic bigot called Richard Pavlick.
The plot to kill the president-elect was foiled by Thomas Murphy, a New Hampshire postmaster, a small-town Florida patrolman and investigative work by federal law enforcement officials,
Pavlick was virulently anti-Catholic. "When it appeared Kennedy might get elected, (Pavlick) would become very animated when he talked about the fact that Kennedy was Catholic," said Earl Sweeney, who was a police sergeant at the time in the small New Hampshire town of Belmont outside Laconia.
"Pavlick was convinced the pope would be running the government from Rome. He made comments when (Kennedy) got elected that someone should shoot him."
A documentary, "Kennedy's Suicide Bomber," on the assassination attempt is scheduled to air on the Smithsonian Channel on Nov. 17.
The arrest of would-be killer Richard Pavlick was overshadowed by the mid-air crash of two airplanes over New York City that killed 134 people.
The story received only two paragraphs in the Cape Cod Times on Dec. 16, 1960 with the headline "Man Tells Plan to Bomb Kennedy."
According to that report, Pavlick, a New Hampshire man with a history of mental illness, had "cased" both Kennedy's summer home in Hyannisport and his winter home in Palm Beach, FL. He later told authorities that security was "lousy."
Pavlick, an anti-Catholic zealot, followed Kennedy across the country. He purchased 10 sticks of dynamite from a New Hampshire hardware store to carry out his plan.
"The plane crash was a huge, huge story and that really swept, I think, a major part of this story underneath the table," said David Royle, executive producer of the documentary. "It was just one of those quirks of history and we all know from the news business how easy that can happen. You have a major story, a really significant one, and the next thing you know it's vanished. It's just pure luck the way that happened."
Pavlick's attempt on the president has largely been forgotten and is barely a footnote in history.
"I was pretty aggravated," said Robert Rust, a retired assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, of the lack of attention Pavlick's attempt garnered. "When (the Smithsonian) came to do an interview, I said, 'Where have you been for the last 50 years?'"
In "The Kennedy Detail," by former Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine, the Pavlick attempt gets two pages in a 400-plus book that is dominated by the assassination in Dallas.
Blaine was posted at the entrance to St. Edward Church in Palm Beach on Dec 11, 1960 as Pavlick approached.
"When a disheveled elderly man walked through the front door, Blaine watched him carefully. He just didn't seem to fit," the book states. "The man stood at the back of the church and looked around. When he saw president-elect Kennedy sitting in a pew about six rows back from the front, the man's eyes became transfixed, and he began walking in that direction."
The book goes on to describe how Blaine grabbed Pavlick by the elbow and escorted him to the back of the church as if he was an usher. "A few minutes passed, and finally the man turned and walked out of the church," the book states. "Blaine watched as the man got into his car and before he drove off, Blaine took note of the Buick's description and license plate."
After Blaine shared his suspicions with the agent in charge, Palm Beach Police were given notice to keep an eye out for the Pavlick's car.
At the same time,Thomas Murphy, a New Hampshire postmaster in the town of Belmont, was sharing his suspicions. Pavlick, a former postal worker, used to rant against the government, and in particular about Kennedy.
Pavlick left town after donating his property in Belmont to a program for troubled teens and Murphy noticed that Pavlick's postcards to New Hampshire were from places where Kennedy had traveled.
"If he gave a speech in St. Louis, the postcard was from St. Louis. If Kennedy was in Detroit, the postcard came from Detroit," Sweeney said. "Some of those postcards said, 'You're going to be hearing from me in a big way.'"
Murphy shared his suspicions with Sweeney. They decided Murphy should contact postal inspectors and Pavlick's bizarre behavior was passed along to the Secret Service. According to "The Kennedy Detail" Pavlick was labeled a "threat."
"Thomas Murphy was a genius," said Rust, who prosecuted Pavlick.
Four days after he had approached Kennedy in the church, Pavlick, 73 at the time, was stopped by Palm Beach officer Lester Free for a marked lanes violation, said Rust.
"If he hadn't stopped him for crossing a white line, history might be very different," he said.
Rust found out that Pavlick purchased explosive materials in New Hampshire. He told special agent John Marshall, "We've got a live one."
They visited Pavlick in jail and he gave them permission to search his Buick where he had 10 sticks of dynamite rigged with a switch to set it off, according to CapeCodOnline.com.
"We made him a federal prisoner and drove to his motel room," Rust said.
In the room, Rust found binoculars that were used to watch the movement of Secret Service agents in a nearby motel and a letter written by Pavlick that he calls the man's last will and testament.
"That's where he explains why he had to kill the president," Rust said.
In the letter, Pavlick accuses the Kennedy family of buying the presidency and Catholics of failing to obey the same laws as all Americans.
"Now that the presidency has been sold to the Kennedys, they must be stopped by any and all means possible," the letter states.
"My country's best interests are, to me, greater than my own life," Pavlick wrote.
"You can see this guy was vicious, intelligent and crazy," said Rust.
In court, Pavlick was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
"(The doctor) testified that Pavlick was not mentally competent to stand trial," Rust said. "He was a functioning nut in my estimation."
Rust says Pavlick insisted he was sane, so the judge allowed the defense to hire its own psychiatrist.
After 5 to 10 visits with Pavlick in jail, that doctor was summonsed to court, but refused to give his name or testimony until Pavlick was removed from the courtroom because he was afraid of him.
"When he was out of the courtroom, (the doctor) gave his opinion that Pavlick was mentally incompetent and a homicidal maniac," Rust said.
For several years, Pavlick was moved from federal hospital to federal hospital and at one point was sent back to New Hampshire to a state facility, Rust and Sweeney said.
In 1966, three years after Kennedy was killed in Dallas, the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, led by right-leaning publisher William Loeb, wrote a series of editorials pushing for Pavlick to be released, Sweeney said.
Pavlick was released and started stalking Murphy and his family.
"He would come up periodically and park by Murphy's house," Sweeney said. "He would sit and stare at the house. I would come up and check him out and stare back at him. We had no stalking law. He wasn't disturbing the peace. He wasn't really doing anything. Murphy felt he had no protection."
Royle said there were others who didn't agree with what Kennedy stood for and who were in Dallas that day handing out leaflets that said, "Wanted for treason," and advertisements appeared in newspapers calling him soft on communism.
"You realize watching that and watching all the contemporary footage, just how much of a polarizing figure (JFK) was," Royle said. "We tend to think of the Kennedys with this Camelot glow around them. They were incredibly glamorous people, extremely intelligent and articulate, but they polarized the country. There were people who loved them and people who hated them."


text:
How To Make Perfect Pancakes
W.C. Fields once said, "The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves." This pancake recipe will make it so easy for you to flip 'em you won't need any such tricks.
Flapjacks, griddlecakes, pancakes, hot cakes—whatever you call them, they're delicious. To truly acheive pancake perfection you must make them from scratch. The boxed mixes, while useful when you're in a rush or camping in the woods, can't come close to the taste and texture of your own homemade batter. You need to know how to make these, and make them well.
Follow this perfect pancake recipe and these steps, and you'll never go hungry again. Once you've mastered these basics feel free to experiment by adding a dash of vanilla, a scoop of plain yogurt, slices of your favorite fruit, a dash of cinnamon, or just about anything else you think might turn these basic flapjacks into a work of art. Enjoy.
What you will need:
Whisk, two mixing bowls, pan, vegetable oil, ladle or measuring cup, spoon, spatula
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar: In a medium-size mixing bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients
- Mix milk, eggs, and melted butter: In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients until the egg is broken up.
- Combine the wet and dry:Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Gently stir them together until you stop seeing flour. Be careful not to over mix, that will make the batter tough. Leave a few lumps for tender pancakes.
- Preheat the pan: Place your pan over a medium-high flame and let the surface get hot. It' hot enough when you sprinkle a few droplets of water over the surface and they evaporate.
- Oil the pan: Moisten a paper towel with vegetable oil and lightly wipe the bottom of the pan. This will keep the pancakes from sticking.
- Prepare the sacrifice: It is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe that the first pancake is always a disaster. Accept it and move on to pancake number 2.
- For each pancake, gently pour 1/2 cup of batter into the pan, using a ladle or a measuring cup. Use the back of a spoon to spread the batter into a circle.
- Wait:Watch the pancakes carefully. Bubbles will form in the batter. When they begin to pop, the pancakes are ready to be flipped. Turn over gently with the spatula and cook for about one minute on the flip side.


text: Ryder Cup golf is matchplay all the way. Mano-a-mano for 3 days (why not four?...that's another story!). Matchplay is golf in its purest form and the way that majors like the US PGA were decided for years before the demands of TV led to 72 holes of strokeplay golf and 5 hour rounds. The question is "Does the Ryder Cup remain pure and if not when did it lose it?" I have had the good fortune to attend many Ryder Cups over the years, including being the manager for players in the team and it is fair to say that the event is unlike anything else in the world of professional golf. And most of it in a good way. The teams play a mixture of three formats over the Friday to Sunday competition - foursomes (or 'alternate shot' in dreadful US parlance), fourballs and singles matches. The tension and pressure on the players is immense and the atmosphere at the course is very special. For the most part the partisanship outside of the ropes is in good spirits and this year both captains seem to be going over the top trying to kill each other with kindness. The true test will come on Friday morning when some poor soul is the first to hit the opening tee shot. Of course the hospitality tents and overpriced souvenirs are there in force, but hey, the European Tour and the PGA of America has to pay the bills. For me the pure element that has been missing for many years has been the actual playing surface - the golf course. And once again this year we are treated to an average (ok, above average) Ryder Cup golf course. With a choice of many great golf courses the best the PGA of America can do is Medinah. Before that it was Valhalla and Oakland Hills. Still they are doing better in choosing golf courses than their European counterparts. The sorry tale of venues for the last seven European Ryder Cups reads Celtic Manor, The K Club,The Belfry, Valderrama (OK we like that one!) The Belfry, The Belfry and you guessed it, The Belfry. So, that takes us back to 1981 since the Cup was played on a classic course, Walton Heath - 31 years! We all know why and it's a great shame that pure golf is thrown out of the window for money. And the pattern continues in 2014 with the improved but still dreadful PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles, which happens to be the third best course on the property. So, the golf does remains pure and we expect to see some great matchplay, but sadly the courses chosen in the last 3 decades have lost the pure and focused on the pounds, euros and dollars, which is a real shame. What I would give to see the Ryder Cup played at a classic links golf course like St Andrews or Muirfield. Dream on!


text:
After Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, what comes next?
| Zarzis, Tunisia
The night the dictator fell, the euphoric scenes in Cairo's "Liberation" Square encapsulated like nothing else the promise of democratic change sweeping across the Arab world.
For those sweating amid the crush of the crowd during that moment of history in Egypt on Feb. 11, the monumental challenges that await were briefly subsumed by the full-blooded joy on the streets. Egyptians were in shock, as their courageous upheaval against the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak also toppled longstanding conventional wisdom of Arab politics marked by apathy and incompatible with democracy. But those blessings are not welcomed by all, as the question of "What next?" looms.
For Umm Karim – a poor mother of four whose family has been reduced to one meal a day – the unrest has meant misfortune, so far at least. Her two breadwinning sons have been jobless since the paper factory where they worked was burned down during protests, making it impossible for the family to pay for regular food, much less rent.
"I wish this revolution never happened," Umm Karim tells the Monitor, as a young neighbor boy clings to her knee, chewing on a door key. Businesses across her town of Al-Maraziq, 25 miles north of the epicenter of the uprising at Tahrir Square, have been disrupted. Confined to the family's one-room apartment, her sons now argue and fight. Even Umm Karim's small state pension of about $21 hasn't been paid.
But a neighbor takes issue with Umm Karim's pessimism: "You don't understand," says Maghdi Said, who farms and has factories. "The revolution is not for me. It's for you. In the future there will be more jobs. It's only a matter of time before it improves."
"But how long can we wait?" asks Umm Karim, her black-and-white veil fastened tightly around her face.
"No matter how long we wait, it's going to be worth it," says Mr. Said. "You will be able to raise your kids to be engineers, not mechanics. We just have to unite."
As change sweeps the Middle East, the difficulties of converting revolution into a stable and fulfilling democracy are now clearer – and more daunting. The Arab world's so-called "pro-democracy" warriors that are toppling decrepit leaders every few weeks are faced with the same uncertainties that afflicted post-Soviet nations in eastern Europe in the 1990s, and the vibrant "color" revolutions of the following decade in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and beyond.
Born in history's crucible of high expectations and unexpected popular empowerment, those examples have had mixed results – and were less afflicted by the huge income and education gaps and sectarian differences that help fuel the Middle East turmoil. The instruments of civil society, such as political parties, are weak at best, and transitional authorities are battling to grasp legitimacy.
The unprecedented demand for change here is further complicated by the lack of any previous narrative of Arab democracy.
"Arabs are not going to accept a return to authoritarianism," says Shadi Hamid, a Qatar-based analyst with the Brookings Doha Center who witnessed the peak of elation in Cairo, where he said Egyptians experienced "true, unfettered freedom for the first time in their lives."
He describes a "new protest ethic" in the Arab world. "If the Egyptian military doesn't respect their demands, or a future government doesn't respect their demands, they are going to come out onto the streets again and again and again," says Mr. Hamid. "We used to talk about Arab exceptionalism in the sense that [Arabs] are anti-democratic, but now I think we can talk about another kind of Arab exceptionalism, where Arabs seem to have really unified ... behind the vision of a democratic Arab world."
Achieving that vision may prove harder than toppling calcified sultans. Though protests are rocking regimes from Libya to Bahrain to Yemen – with the media perhaps too loosely encapsulating an array of grievances and motivations in the label "pro-democracy" – there is no one-size-fits-all template for a democratic outcome.
On top of that is a growing sense that, despite eye-catching gains, the transformation is far from complete in the countries that have brought down their rulers – never mind those remaining chieftains who, in a bid to preempt people power, have rushed to make reforms, pay off citizens with cash handouts, or promise not to seek yet one more term in office.
In Tunisia, a new surge of violent protests in late February – six weeks after former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled – left five dead and prompted the resignation of Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi. Protesters had demanded that he, as one of the last high-profile remnants of the old guard, step down, or their break with the past would not be complete.
"I am not ready to be the person who takes decisions that would end up causing casualties," said Mr. Ghannouchi, who had been prime minister for 11 years under Mr. Ben Ali. Yet a senior trade union leader complained that the immediate appointment of Ghannouchi's replacement – the 84-year-old former Foreign Minister Beji Caid Essebsi – was antidemocratic. How could Tunisia pull out of crisis, he asked, "if the president does not take at least 24 hours for consultations."
In Egypt, likewise, there have been moments of prerevolution déjà vu. Security forces tried to break up an overnight reform rally in Tahrir Square, truncheons flailing as if the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak weeks earlier had never occurred. A military council has taken interim control – despite some calls for a predominantly civilian five-member presidential council – but has yet to say exactly when it will end Egypt's 30-year-long state of emergency, nor offer a precise timetable for making a new constitution and electing a new parliament and president.
"Part of this moving forward is, 'Where are we, really, now?'" asks James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute (AAI) and author of "Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters." "If all that happened was Ben Ali is gone, the party is dissolved, and the military is in control of Tunisia; or Mubarak is gone, his party is hollowed out a bit, but the military is still in control – then maybe nothing happened at all."
The "Shoe-Thrower's Index" of Arab unrest, published by The Economist in February, suggests that the spread of such upheavals may have been inevitable. It weighted several factors such as prevalence of youth, years of unchanged government, and corruption and lack of democracy indices. Top of the list for "potential for unrest" was Yemen – which scored almost 90 out of 100. Libya was next with 70, Egypt slightly lower in a tie with Syria and Iraq.
People have taken to the streets to demand a say in government, for an end to state repression, and for jobs and improved living conditions that have left jobless up to one-quarter of the region's youth – a bubble of 15-to-29-year-olds that, by one count, at 100 million strong, makes up a third of the Arab population.
Those youths have been at the forefront of the fight for change, battling Egyptian police, forcing the fall of Libya's second city, Benghazi – even providing the spark for all these protests when a Tunisian college graduate set himself ablaze in mid-December after being harassed by the police over his vegetable cart.
But faced now with the most significant and abrupt transformation since Arab borders were drawn by victorious European powers after World War I, the new revolutionaries of the Middle East are pushing through the barrier of fear only to find a diverse constellation of needs, demands, and problems on the other side.
For example, episodes of continued unrest in Tunisia, the very nation that inspired the chain reaction of protests, show the enormity of what still needs to be done, says Sadok Belaid, a veteran law professor in Tunis, the capital.
"These young people are demanding things that are very simple, and I think very reasonable," says Mr. Belaid. Declaring that the interim government "will accede to the will of the people" in all matters, and speed toward an assembly, may ease opposition.
The election of a general assembly representing the whole country – not just a few political parties – to draft a new constitution is the top priority, he adds, followed by the overhaul of economic policy to address "urgent needs."
But applying such changes in Tunisia is already proving difficult.
Egypt might have an easier time forging democratic success, with its history of an organized opposition – despite tough crackdowns against the largest, the Muslim Brotherhood, among others – and an active civil society and institutions.
In Libya, by contrast, Muammar Qaddafi's repressive rule has erased any vestige of public opposition and blocked the formation of civil society groups or institutions. And yet popular committees and even military officers that defected to the antiregime side in eastern Libya very quickly set about preventing a power vacuum by engaging in self-rule.
In Bahrain, sectarian issues play a role amid the complaints against the monarchy, as the majority Shiites demand more rights from minority Sunni rulers.
The equation is different yet again in grindingly poor Yemen, where key demands center on jobs and better living conditions.
And those challenges aren't limited to the newly "free," either. In Iraq, where a US military invasion ended the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the experiment with democracy has been messy and tangled since the early years of the American presence. An inconclusive election one year ago only yielded a coalition government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki after nine months of political horse-trading. And poor services have continued to bedevil Iraqis even while their elected politicians draw salaries of tens of thousands of dollars a month and live in the fortified Green Zone.
Thousands have turned out for protests across the country, including for a proclaimed "day of rage" on Feb. 25, when several died in clashes with police.
The solution is simple – and authoritarian – for Ayad Ali, an Iraqi Ministry of Interior worker. He told the Monitor in Baghdad before those clashes: "When the Americans occupied Iraq, they should have come with someone who could rule Iraq!"
It is that regional power vacuum that frightens Wided, a college graduate in the southeastern Tunisian town of Zarzis. Flush with the optimism of youth, she is pleased with the result of fallen dictators, who had ruled since long before she was born. She has never known anything – or anyone – else at the top. She is just starting a career in the tourism industry, though the hotel where she works, with its $7-per-night charge, is a modest place to start.
"We are happy they are gone, this is good," she says, as she asks for extra hot sauce on her sandwich in a local shop. "But everyone is scared. They don't know what will come next, or what will happen."
Partly that is because dictatorial rulers imposed from outside – with policies aimed at winning US or European support in exchange for stability – is precisely the grating template now being broken underfoot.
"When these [Arab] countries were created, the people – the citizens – never really had a chance to define their countries or their ideologies," says Rami Khouri, the Lebanon-based director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. "These decisions were made by retreating, half-drunk colonial powers with handpicked local emirs or colonels or notables that they just picked and said: 'You're going to run Iraq,' 'You're going to run Jordan,' " he says about the West's partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. "There was no consent of the governed."
Nearly a century later, shifting to more democratic systems will require finding a careful balance between proclaimed ideals like freedom and dignity, and concrete demands for jobs and better services – a tall order for street opposition movements that have largely been leaderless and disparate.
"There are two kinds of demands people have: One is material and practical, like jobs and higher incomes, more water, electricity, telephones, schools. The other is more intangible: being treated with dignity, with equality, being respected as a citizen with rights by your own government," says Mr. Khouri.
"The biggest challenge is ... to make sufficient progress on two fronts simultaneously that keep people satisfied."
The result, he concludes, could be diverse government systems: "Some [will be] more explicitly democratic, pluralist and electoral. Others will be more designed according to traditional tribal, Arab, collective-identity type institutions, and less Jeffersonian/Westminster parliamentary [styles]."
Few expert observers expect instant gratification. Creating jobs and a culture of accountable government while bureaucratic systems often remain will not be easy. Who – in the opposition, or any other sector – can take or provide effective leadership in such uncertain times is not clear.
"Political space has been pried open to a degree unprecedented in the lifetimes of those who took to the streets," concludes a late-February analysis by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).
"Should Egypt experience a difficult, painful or unstable phase, or the socioeconomic grievances that fueled much discontent remain unaddressed, many in the region could take a second – far less favorable – look at what just occurred," notes ICG. "Disillusionment, too, can be infectious."
For those who embrace participation, expectations can spiral out of control. Any collapse of hope was the last thing on the mind of Iraqi voter Vian Othman, who in February 2005 showed the visceral power of casting her ballot in Iraq's first post-Saddam election, under the careful watch of the US military and an American-engineered transitional authority.
"We want to live," Ms. Othman told the Monitor after emerging from a polling station with tears rolling down her face. She said she avenged the death of her father at the hands of the former regime by casting her single ballot. The act was so important that she – like millions of Iraqis – braved suicide bombings, mortar attacks, and insurgent threats to kill every voter.
"Freedom and happiness and victory," Othman sobbed. "We were a little bit afraid [before coming], but we put courage in our hearts."
And yet there are cautionary tales of such enthusiasm and the risks of popular revolt that emerged from such places as post-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.
In November 2003, Georgians protesting a rigged election took to the streets in their "Rose Revolution," and – while hoisting a model of the Statue of Liberty and holding American flags – brought to power the US-educated opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili. Despite his democratic credentials and economic reforms, by 2007 Mr. Saakashvili was declaring a state of emergency and closing down independent media to stamp out opposition protests.
The "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004, likewise, swept opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko into power, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets to protest a rigged election victory of the despised Russian-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovich. Bitter infighting among opposition leaders, though, disgusted Ukrainians to the point where they dumped the opposition in February 2010, electing Mr. Yanukovich president.
"This is what happens in all revolutions: Great expectations are followed by disappointment and disillusion," says the Qatar-based analyst Hamid. Democratic euphoria can have authoritarian reversals, he warns: "Egyptians and Tunisians have to be vigilant ... that the military ... respects the demands of the people."
But who is to be entrusted by "the people" with accurately reading and satisfying every demand? Leadership, and who has the right to assume such a role, is wide open in the Arab revolts. In Egypt, for example, is it the well-known global bureaucrat Mohamed ElBaradei, who led the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency for years, but who was filmed during the protests being interviewed in plush gardens while antiregime activists were being killed in the streets during clashes? Could it be popular former Foreign Minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who says he will run for president? Or the Google executive imprisoned by the regime who, upon his release, galvanized the protesters at a critical time? Or is leadership to be found in the "Coalition of Young Revolutionaries" which gave a list of demands to Egypt's military council in late February – several of them acted upon?
Democratic episodes are not unheard-of in the Arab world, and have generated their share of heart-stopping, tear-jerking excitement.
While Iraq has had the most recent experiences (despite unsatisfactory results for many), similar enthusiasm could be found in Algeria during the 1991 elections – the first multiparty vote since independence in 1962. The Islamic Salvation Front swept the first round, prompting a military coup supported by Western nations, which resulted in a radicalization of Islamists and vicious civil war.
In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections fair and square, only to have the United States and European nations – along with Israel – refuse to accept the result, and impose sanctions to prevent Hamas from ruling.
"It's funny to hear senior Western officials wax rhetorical about [today's] emerging democratic movement in the region, when in fact they were the ones working against it for so long," says Hamid from Brookings.
Algeria "could have been a promising model" for the region, and American dismissal of the Hamas victory was "another example of the US wanting democracy, but not wanting its outcomes," adds Hamid. "This has been America's dilemma in the region for decades. And I think we are finally getting to a point that we can solve it."
But there's anger in the Arab street about US policies still in the way – such as blanket support for Israel, the Iraq invasion, and support for undemocratic regimes.
President Obama said during a landmark speech in Cairo in June 2009 that he wanted to transform that anger and seek a "new beginning" based on "mutual respect" between the US and Muslims around the world.
The foundation of that respect he described this way: "I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed ... the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere."
Indeed, polling over the past decade, says Mr. Zogby of the AAI, consistently finds that "[Arabs] like America, the American people and culture." But what hasn't changed on the ground is that "they hate [US] policy and they hate the fact that their governments are supporting these policies."
The result has been greater distance between rulers seen to support US policy, and the ruled who resent it. In 1979 for example, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David peace accord with Israel, the subsequent protests and crackdown against it eventually led to some 24,000 arrests, says Zogby. And militant anger eventually led to the assassination of Mr. Sadat – the event that brought then-Vice President Mubarak to power in 1981.
Current protests have changed US fortunes yet again.
"I think it's a different game out there. Leaders are going to get closer to the people, because they realize that, frankly, it hasn't paid – the security that they sought from the US has only made them less secure," says Zogby.
The demands on the streets could not be more insistent, nor the expectations greater among the angry legions who have seen fit – after decades of subservience to authoritarian leadership – to collectively reach for a new and democratic future. What is meant by the word "democracy" will be grappled with – because after all the buildup of slogans, for some it will mean a roads-paved-with-gold sense that every desire will now to be fulfilled.
Despite the inevitable comedown, these changes are probably the most significant development in the Arab world in nearly a century, though the outcome remains uncertain – and the timeline will extend for many years.
"It's a process. Remember it took the Europeans 500 years to get from the Magna Carta to the French Revolution. These things don't happen overnight," says Khouri.
And there are unexpected signs of hope. After decades under the suffocating one-man rule of Saddam Hussein, for example, Iraqis quite easily found the ability to conduct elections – even if their elected politicians couldn't keep from bickering over the results.
In Egypt, even during the uprising, when police disappeared from the streets, volunteer Egyptians directed traffic, formed ad hoc neighborhood protection committees, and sought to keep essential services running.
In Libya, despite four decades under Mr. Qaddafi, when the east of the country fell to antiregime forces, volunteers stepped up to do everything from scrubbing courthouse toilets to protecting banks.
Former Libyan officials and military officers who defected early to the opposition had, by the end of February, declared an interim government to rule until Qaddafi's remaining strongholds and the capital Tripoli might fall.
"I'm very optimistic. These Arab societies have somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 years of history governing themselves and their societies," notes Khouri. "So it's not as if we are teaching them new skills. We're just trying to give them the opportunity to show us what they know."
• Sarah Lynch contributed to this report from Al Maraziq, Egypt.


text:
I'm moving my blog and EVERYTHING over to Squarespace. If you have a link to dblogala.typepad.com, you will need to change it to either www.dblogala.com or www.dawndsokol.squarespace.com or www.dawndsokol.com. If you are linked to www.dblogala.com already, no worries.
At the new spot, you'll find my professional, as well as my personal work. Details about my new book and my professional, as well as journal portfolios, are available!


text:
Love and War
Find Your Way to Something Beautiful in Your Marriage
May 17, 2011 | 240 Pages
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
- Books A Million
- ChristianBook.com
- Cokesbury
- Indiebound
- Mardel
- Parable
- Powell's
- Target
- Walmart
Dec 15, 2009 | 240 Pages
About Love and War
John and Stasi begin Love & War with an obvious confession: Marriage is fabulously hard. But beneath and behind the inevitable tensions a man and woman "locked in the same submarine" are going to have, the real battle is against the work of the Enemy, who plots and schemes to tear love apart. The Eldredges show how couples can win "by fighting for each other, instead of against each other." As they say, "We live in a great love story, set in the midst of war."
"This is a book of wisdom and hope…a beautiful labor that will move your marriage to far deeper joy." Dan. B. Allender, author of The Wounded Heart
Love & War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of
The Eldredges' newest book has bestseller written all over it. The pair addressed men and women separately in Wild at Heart (John) and Captivating (Stasi) and now put that knowledge together in a book on marriage. Christianity, they say, is a love story set amid war, with marriage "a living, breathing portrait laid out before the eyes of the world so that they might see the story of the ages."
For them, marriage is the perfect storm that brings together basic differences in men and women, individual styles of relating, sin, and brokenness. The Eldredges offer sound advice on topics such as the delights of companionship, understanding the enemy is Satan and not your spouse, finding your marriage's mission, taboo topics, and, yes, sex. They are honest and forthright, never skirting a difficult issue; instead, they offer hope, insight, and their own lives as examples of what God can accomplish. Their summation of marriage: "It can be done. And it is worth it." So is this book.
--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"John and Stasi nailed it. This book opens to an untouched snapshot of a real, live redeemed marriage and closes with hope and hunger for our own. These two have proved again and again that they're willing to put themselves out there for somebody else's sake. Is it any wonder God uses them like He does? The moment we decide to throw more energy into fighting for our mate than with him, the crack of a fist on the enemy's jaw splits the ears of angels."
—Beth Moore
Author of Get Out of That Pit and Breaking Free
"John and Stasi Eldredge lead us into the heart of marriage...not as we always dreamed it would be, but as it really is... a relationship between two flawed individuals who are discovering together that marriage is difficult. Their willingness to speak honestly about their relationship proves their point... that "loving costs everything but loving is always worth it." If you are willing to fight for the love and happiness God intended your marriage to provide, every chapter of Love & War will cheer you on!"
—Dr. David Jeremiah
Senior Pastor, Shadow Mountain Community Church
Founder & CEO, Turning Point
"I need help to grow as a husband. I have written a few books on marriage, but I am never done reading, reflecting or wrestling with the issues that keep my marriage from being sweeter and deeper. John and Stasi offer a courageous, honest, and compelling picture of what is involved in growing beyond one's initial commitment and desire for intimacy. This is a book of wisdom and hope for those who want more than mere complacency or convenience. It is a beautiful labor that will move your marriage to far deeper joy."
—Dan B. Allender
Professor of Counseling Psychology, Mars Hill Graduate School
Author, Intimate Allies and To Be Told
About John Eldredge
John Eldredge is the founder and director of Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a fellowship devoted to helping people discover the heart of God. John is the author of numerous books, including Wild at Heart, Waking the Dead, Desire and Epic, and the coauthor of Captivating and The Sacred Romance. He and his wife, Stasi, have three fabulous sons.About Stasi Eldredge
Stasi Eldredge is the coauthor of Captivating and the Sacred Romance; she leads the women's events of Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a fellowship devoted to helping people discover the heart of God. Stasi longs to see lives transformed by the love of Jesus and the beauty of the Gospel. Stasi and her husband, John, have three fabulous sons.
Product Details
240 pages | Published by WaterBrook
On Sale Date: May 17, 2011
Trim Size: 5-1/2 x 8-1/4
Carton Quantity: 24
Sneak Peek
Marriage is fabulously hard.
Click here to download chapter one of Love and War.
With astonishing vulnerability that engages readers from the first page, John and Stasi Eldredge openly discuss their own marriage and the breakthroughs they have won from the challenges theyve faced.
Click here to download chapter one of Love and War.


text:
I'm trying to describe a desirable behaviour in user-interfaces (computer interfaces and machine interfaces) such that if you do the action and its opposite action once or more than once (assuming you don't reach an edge/limit) you should end up in the same state.
For example:
Pressing right moves the cursor right one character and pressing left moves the cursor left one character. If you press right five times then left five times the cursor will be in the same place, because right and left are
.Undo and Redo are
. If you Undo 3 times then Redo 3 times you should be back to the same state.Of a tool where the effect of one control depends on the current value of another control:
The length and radius controls are NOT
when used together. Length is______
while radius remains fixed and radius is______
while length remains fixed, but adjusting either breaks the______ity
of the other one.
Answers to this question offer some good hints, but I don't think any of those are quite right. "Commutative" and "Associative" seem somehow appropriate, but are clearly specific to mathematics.


text:
When the Java ME version of the Opera Mini Browser is running on many touch screen phones, an unnecessary virtual keypad appears at the bottom of the screen (image above left). The keypad wastes space, looks ugly and isn't needed with touch aware apps like Opera Mini. The keypad is not part of Opera Mini. It's something your phone adds because it doesn't recognize that Opera Mini is optimized for touch.
There are several ways to get rid of the virtual keypad so your Opera Mini looks like the right hand image above.
I. By using the phone's menu
Some phones have a menu option for getting rid of the keypad. I've only seen it on Samsungs but it may be an option on other brands as well.
- Open the folder or menu where you launch Opera Mini. On my Samsung Wave it's called "Games and more".
- Look for and tap a button named "Options", "Menu" or something similar or has an icon that looks like a menu, stack of papers or three dots. On the Wave it's the middle button with the three dots in the left hand screenshot below.
- In the Options menu (image below, center) look for and tap a button labeled "Use virtual keypad"
- On the next screen tap the check mark next to Opera Mini (image below, right) to remove it and then tap the Save button. Now launch Opera Mini and the virtual keypad should be gone
If your phone doesn't have a menu option to remove the keypad continue reading to see if Opera Mini has a fix for your phone.
II. By using an official version of Mini customized for your phone to remove the virtual keypad.
If Opera recognizes and officially supports your phone it should deliver a modified version of Opera Mini that has code telling your phone to remove the keypad. Opera can only recognize your phone if you download Mini from m.opera.com using the phone's built-in browser. If you download Opera Mini from an unofficial source or downloaded it with your PC and copied to the phone using Bluetooth or a cable you have a generic version that's not optimized for your phone.
If you download Mini from m.opera.com with your phone's built-in browser and you still get the virtual keypad, let Opera know so they can fix it in a future release. File a bug report at mini.bugs.opera.com. Also visit m.opera.com/detect with your phone's built-in browser and fill in the form listing the phone make and model.
If you still have the virtual keypad after downloading from m.opera.com with your phone browser and you don't want to wait for Opera to get around to fixing it, which can take months, it's easy to fix it yourself. Read on for instructions.
III. By modifying the Opera Mini jad file to remove the virtual keypad
You will need a PC, some patience and the ability to follow directions to modify Opera Mini. If you lack any of those or want someone else to do the work, skip to the end of this post for a link to an already modified version of Opera Mini.
Obtain an official copy of the Opera Mini jad file. You can download the unsigned versions of Opera Mini directly to your PC from www.opera.com/mobile/download/versions/
The trouble with unsigned apps is that on most phones you will get annoying pop-up messages asking you to allow Opera Mini to connect. On some phones you only get one pop-up when you first start Opera Mini but on others you get pop-ups every time you click a link which makes Opera Mini almost unusable. A few phones won't allow unsigned apps to connect at all.
Opera will only let you download the signed versions of Opera Mini using a mobile browser. So to download the signed jad file to a PC we have to fool the Opera site into thinking we are using a mobile browser. The easiest way to do that is with the Firefox browser and the User Agent Switcher extension.
- Launch the Firefox browser
- Click the Tools menu and Add-on > Extensions. Search for "User Agent Switcher"
- Install the User Agent Switcher extension by chrispederick
- Restart Firefox
- Open the Tools Menu and choose "Default User Agent > Edit User Agents"
- Click the "New" button and Choose "New User Agent"
- Enter "Mobile User Agent" in the "Description" field
- In the User Agent field, enter you phone's built-in browser's user agent. You can find it by visiting ua.yeswap.com with the phone browser which lets you email your browser's user agent and other headers to yourself.
- Blank out all the other fields, press the OK button to save.
- Go to the Tools Menu and choose "Default User Agent >"Mobile User Agent"
- Go to m.opera.com using the Firefox browser
- Click "Other Download Options"
- Click "Select Code-Signing Certificate" under "Options for Opera Mini 7.1:" (or under "Options for Opera Mini 4.5:" if you prefer that version)
- Click "All Certificates" (works on most phones. If it doesn't on yours try repeating this process with one of the other signed options)
- Click "Download Opera Mini 7.1 (or 4.5)" and save the file (named mini.jad) somewhere where you can find it later
- Open the downloaded mini.jad with a text editor or Windows Wordpad
- Scroll to the bottom of the file and paste in the following lines:
MIDlet-Touch-Support: true
UseNativeTextButtons: hide
ReverseSoftkeys: hide
UseNativeCommands: hide
Navi-Key-Hidden: true
Nokia-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
MIDlet-ScreenMode: ROTATE
MIDlet-Landscape-Support: true
LGE-MIDlet-Width: 240
LGE-MIDlet-Height: 400
LGE-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
LGE-MIDlet-Display-Mode: both
Upload the file to Dropbox.com or another file sharing service that is easy to use in your phone browser. Click here to get a free 2GB Dropbox account (by using this referral link I get an extra 250 MB of storage in my Dropbox which I thank you for).
Visit Dropbox with your phone browser and click the modified mini.jad link to download it on your phone.
If that didn't work or you don't have a PC or are just in a hurry, here's are links my modified signed jad files for various Opera Mini versions:
Updated 8-Apr-2014 with new signing certificates as the ones had expired: Opera Mini 8.0, released 12-Mar-2014, is the latest "full" version of Opera Mini. Changes in this release include:
- A new minimalist "flat" design
- Night Mode
- You can now adjust image quality on the data savings page
- Private mode
Here's a modified version without the virtual keypad
https://wapreview.com/dwnld/mini8t.jad or http://is.gd/mini8t
Updated 8-Apr-2014 with new signing certificates as the ones had expired: Opera Mini 4.5, which was released 6-Aug-2013, is latest "lite" version of Opera Mini for phones with limited memory Here's a modified version without the virtual keypad
https://wapreview.com/dwnld/mini45.jad or http://is.gd/mini45t
Older Versions:
Update 6-Apr-2014: The certificates have expired on all the files below. It's not possible for me to update the certificates on these files. They will give an error installing. On some phones it may be possible to install these apps by temporarily setting the phone's date back to 2/1/2013 or earlier. After the app installs you can (and should) set the phone's date back to the current date and the app will still work.
Updated 25-Jan-2012: Here's a modified version of the Opera Mini 6.5:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4637247/mini.jad or http://is.gd/mini65
Updated 7-Jun-2012: Here's a modified version of the Opera Mini 7.0:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4637247/mini7.jad or http://is.gd/mini7
Updated 20-Sept-2012: If you get out of memory errors installing Opera Mini 7, here's the smaller but less capable Opera Mini 4.4.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4637247/mini44.jad or http://is.gd/mini44
Updated 26-Nov-2012: Here's a modified version of Opera Mini 7.1:
https://wapreview.com/dwnld/mini71.jad or http://is.gd/mini71t
Click any of the above links in your phone browser to install Opera Mini 4.4, 4.5 or 7.0, 7.1 or 8.0 with the virtual keypad disabled.


text:
understood not
Mark 9:32
9:32 understood not. Jesus could hardly have spoken more plainly than in what He said, but the disciples did not understand, basically because they were "afraid" that He meant what He said. Similarly, many today have difficulty in understanding God's Word, primarily because they don't want to believe that God actually means what He says. This is especially true in connection with His record of creation and other miracles.