European Languages In Danger of Digital Extinction - Greek Included!

Editor's Note - Before reading this article it would be wise to reflect to what Henry Kissinger had said in September 1974:

     "The Greek people are anarchic and difficult to tame. For this reason we must strike deep into their cultural roots: Perhaps then we can force them to conform. I mean, of course, to strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and historical reserves, so that we can neutralize their ability to develop, to distinguish themselves, or to prevail; thereby removing them as an obstacle to our strategically vital plans in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. (Henry Kissinger while addressing a group of Washington, D.C. businessmen in Sept.1974 - As reported in the popular Greek magazine, Oikonomikos Tachydromos on 14 Aug. l997)

If science can send a man to the moon, and if it can create robots to do the jobs of men then there is no doubt that the digital world has the knowledge and the know-how to solve this new techie problem. The question is... Is there a will?

Scientists from The University of Manchester were part of a European team of researchers who concluded that digital assistance for 21 of the 30 languages investigated is "non-existent" or "weak" at best. Languages spoken by a small number of people could be at risk because they do not have technological support, the report by META-NET, a European network of excellence that consists of 60 research centres in 34 countries, including the University of Manchester's National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM), found.

Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Maltese are at the highest risk of disappearing, while other languages such as Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian and Polish are also at risk. The researchers claim that 21 out of 30 European languages could become extinct in the digital world.

The study, prepared by more than 200 experts and documented in 30 volumes of the META-NET White Paper Series, assessed language technology support for each language in four different areas: automatic translation, speech interaction, text analysis and the availability of language resources.

Several languages, for example Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Maltese, receive this lowest score in all four areas.

While English has the best language technology support amongst all European languages, it can still not be considered as "excellent support", but rather only "good support", the University of Manchester researchers found in the White Paper for English.

Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish are considered to have "moderate support". Languages such as Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Hungarian and Polish exhibit "fragmentary support", which also places them in the set of high-risk languages.

Language technology software is used to process spoken or written human language. Well-known examples include spelling and grammar checkers, interactive personal assistants on smartphones (such as Siri on the iPhone), dialogue systems that work over the phone, automatic translation systems and web search engines.

The lack of available software for the high-risk languages means that without drastic action, they will be unable to survive in today's digital world.

Language technology systems primarily rely on statistical methods that require incredibly large amounts of written or spoken data - difficult to acquire for languages with relatively few speakers.

Furthermore, statistical language technology systems have inherent limits on their quality, as can be seen, for example, in the often amusing incorrect translations produced by online machine translation systems.

The report concludes that a coordinated, large-scale effort has to be made in Europe to create the missing technologies and transfer this technology to the languages faced with digital extinction .

Professor Sophia Ananiadou, director of NaCTeM, said: "In the UK, most of us use software that incorporates language technology without even realising it.

     "Language technology already makes our lives easier and has huge potential to help us in many different ways. As digital information and communication is becoming increasingly dominant, it is vital that sophisticated language technology support is available for a wider range of languages, otherwise collaboration with our European neighbours will become more difficult."

Professor Hans Uszkoreit, coordinator of META-NET, said:

     "The results of our study are most alarming. The majority of European languages are severely under-resourced and some are almost completely neglected. In this sense, many of our languages are not yet future-proof."

Forget Junk Food It Damages Health - Choose Mediterranean Diet

If you like to eat out once in a while (meaning every second or third week) then this article is not for you, but if you are a busy professional who eats out at least once a week then you definitely need to check out this information. The Greek cuisine (and specifically the cuisine of Crete), otherwise known as the Mediterranean diet, is the healthiest and most beneficial diet in the world. A single junk food meal from your local burger joint, is probably composed of saturated fat. This is detrimental to the health of the arteries, while no damage occurs after consuming a Mediterranean meal which is rich in good fats such as mono-and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Besides, it tastes better!

According to researchers at the University of Montreal-affiliated ÉPIC Center of the Montreal Heart Institute. The Mediterranean meal may even have a positive effect on the arteries. The findings were presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, by the head of the study, Dr. Anil Nigam, Director of Research at the Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre (ÉPIC) and associate professor at the university's Faculty of Medicine.

Bad fat vs. good fat

Dr. Nigam undertook the study to compare the effects of junk food and typical Mediterranean meal on the vascular endothelium: the inner lining of the blood vessels. By measuring endothelial function, it is possible to determine how easily the arteries will dilate after a temporary, five-minute occlusion, following the consumption of the two types of meals. This is a very interesting analysis for researchers to perform as endothelial function is closely linked to the long-term risk of developing coronary artery disease.

The study also revealed that participants with higher blood triglyceride levels seemed to benefit more from the healthy meals. Their arteries responded better to the Mediterranean meal compared to people with low triglyceride levels.

    "We believe that a Mediterranean-type diet may be particularly beneficial for individuals with high triglyceride levels, such as patients with metabolic syndrome, precisely because it could help keep arteries healthy," Dr. Nigam said.

Mediterranean Meal vs. Junk Food Meal

The results were established in 28 non-smoking men, who ate the Mediterranean-type meal first and then the junk food-type meal one week later. Before beginning, the men underwent an ultrasound of the antecubital artery at the elbow crease after fasting for 12-hours to assess their baseline endothelial function. The researchers then tested the effects of each meal.

The first was composed of salmon, almonds, and vegetables cooked in olive oil, of which 51% of total calories came from fat (mostly monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fats.)

The second meal consisted of a sandwich made of a sausage, an egg, and a slice of cheese, and three hash browns, for a total of 58% of total calories from fat: extremely rich in saturated fatty acids and containing no omega-3s.

At two hours and four hours after each meal, participants underwent further ultrasounds to assess how the food had impacted their endothelial function.

Dr. Nigam and his team found that after eating the junk food meal, the arteries of the study participants dilated 24% less than they did when in the fasting state. In contrast, the arteries were found to dilate normally and maintain good blood flow after the Mediterranean-type meal.

     "These results will positively alter how we eat on a daily basis. Poor endothelial function is one of the most significant precursors of atherosclerosis. It is now something to think about at every meal," Dr. Nigam said.

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SHOCK - Forget Usernames & Passwords, Motorola Invents Chip-Pill Turning Body Into A Password!

Regina Dugan, former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and current head of Google-owned Motorola’s research division, introduced a prototype “vitamin authentication” tablet which turns your entire body into a walking authentication token.

     “We got to do a lot of epic shit when I was at DARPA,” Dugan said.

Indeed, DARPA has been involved in everything from weaponized hallucinations to tiny spy computers to military human enhancements to automated drone-borne targeting and tracking systems to linking rat brains over the Internet and much more.

Forget traditional usernames and passwords, this technology unveiled at D11 uses a tiny stomach acid-powered tablet to produce an 18-bit signal which can be detected by outside devices and used for authentication. Dugan also showed off wearable electronic tattoos produced by a company called MC10, in partnership with Motorola, which serve a similar function.

The rationale behind these technologies, according to Dugan, is the annoyances caused by traditional authentication.

     “Authentication is irritating,” Dugan said. “After 40 years of advances in computation, we’re still authenticating basically the same way we did years ago.”

The tablet, made by Proteus Digital Health, has already been approved by the FDA, according to Popular Science.

     “The tablets contain a small chip with a switch and something that amounts to an inside-out potato battery,” Wired UK explains. “After swallowing it the acids in your stomach act as electrolytes, which power the battery and turn the switch on and off in a sequence.”

This produces an 18-bit ECG-like signal, turning the entire person into an “authentication token,” which Dugan called “vitamin authentication,” according to the Verge.

     “This isn’t stuff that is going to ship anytime soon. But it is a sign of the new boldness inside Motorola,” said Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola.

However, Woodside did successfully complete a demonstration of the tablet authenticating a phone.

     “The authentication could be activated by touch, since the human body conducts electricity — touch your phone or laptop and you’re in,” according to Discovery.
     “Google won’t be force feeding you these pills like this is some kind of a twisted, science-fiction movie,” Tech2 reports.

Yet the attraction is obvious. If people could protect their computers, phones, homes, businesses, etc. without having to constantly type long, complex passwords it’s not difficult to see them wanting to do so.

That’s especially true when one would only have to take a pill regularly and in doing so would provide an authentication method that is more secure than one could imagine in times past. Wired UK states that the development of this type of technology shows “that hacking is a major concern as we conduct more and more of our business online.”

Given the clear benefits of a technology like this, it’s not hard to see companies requiring their employees to use a tablet like this, especially among companies that are especially concerned about security.

Just as some companies have required fingerprint scanners, iris scanners or other biometric identification methods, it’s not hard to imagine some companies jumping on this “vitamin authentication” technology.

Madison Ruppert via Activist Post - Email author at Admin@EndtheLie.com. This article first appeared at End the Lie.

References

• (1) http://icsr.info/2013/04/icsr-insight-european-foreign-fighters-in-syria-2/
• (2) http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/syrie-face-solution-russe-ou-retour-case-depart-alexandre-del-valle-731987.html
• (3) http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/syrie-face-solution-russe-ou-retour-case-depart-alexandre-del-valle-731987.html
• (4) http://www.dailystar.com.lb/#axzz2UHWdKDba
• (5) http://9tv.co.il/news/2013/04/23/149667-print.html

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Russian Patriarch Kirill In Greece For official Visit

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia arrived in Athens on Saturday afternoon for an official visit. Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece together with members of the Holy Synod greeted the Patriarch at the Athens' “Eleftherios Venizelos” International Airport as he began his short stay.

On Sunday it is expected that the two patriarchs will jointly officiate at the church of Agios Panteleimon, Acharnon and on Monday Patriarch Kirill is scheduled to meet separately with President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias as well as with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. He will then fly off to Thessaloniki and commute to Mt Athos where he will remain until June 7.