The darker the blue the higher the fraction of foreign Facebook connections with the imperial power in question. (Facebook has not shared the underlying percentage data, just the ranking.) These closely correspond to countries or territories which were, whether wholly or in part, at one point under British, French, Spanish or Portuguese rule, as seen in the bottom set of maps.

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To date, only a few of America's largest companies have adopted the policy of treating stock options as a normal business expense, despite the fact that for many, the rule would have a minimal effect on their bottom lines.

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Mr Skinner said the argument was about class and that it was "one rule for those at the top and another for those at the bottom".

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"The bottom line is that we want to bring forward across all levels of competition an objective rule through use of technology to make it much easier for athletes and chair umpires, " she said.

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Dr Ambady and Mr Rule showed 100 undergraduates the faces of the chief executives of the top 25 and the bottom 25 companies in the Fortune 1, 000 list.

ECONOMIST: Physiognomy and success: Face value | The

This rule (which went into effect near the 2007 market top and was suspended near the 2009 bottom) vastly magnified subprime mortgage weakness, effectively forcing banks into near self-perpetuating rounds of asset writedowns, putting pressure on bank balance sheets until they had to sell more liquid assets to meet capital requirements.

FORBES: Sue S&P, Sue Everybody