阅读理解 People do not analyze every problem they meet. Sometimes they try to remember a solution from the last time they had a similar problem. They often accept the opinions or ideas of other people. Other times they begin to act without thinking; they try to find a solution by trial and error. However, when all these methods fail, the person with a problem has to start analyzing. There are six stages in analyzing a problem. First the person must recognize that there is a problem. For example, Sam' s bicycle is broken, and he cannot ride it to class as he usually does. Sam must see that there is a problem with his bicycle. Next the thinker must define tile problem. Before Sam can repair his bicycle, he must find the reason why it does not work. For instance, he must determine if the problem is with the gears, the brakes, or the frame. He must make his problem more specific. Now the person must look for information that will make the problem clearer and lead to possible solutions. For in stance, suppose Sam decided that his bike does not work because there is something wrong with the gear wheels. At this time, he can look in his bicycle repair book and read about gears. He can talk to his friends at the bike shop. He can look at his gears carefully. After studying the problem, the person should have several suggestions for a possible solution. Take Sam as an illustration. His suggestions might be: put oil on the gear wheels; buy new gear wheels and replace the old ones; tighten or loosen the gear wheels. Eventually one suggestion seems to be the solution to the problem. Sometimes the final idea comes very suddenly because the thinker suddenly sees something new or sees something in a new way. Sam, for example, suddenly sees that there is a piece of chewing gum between the gear wheels. He immediately realizes the solution to his problem: he must clean the gear wheels. Finally the solution is tested. Sam cleans the gear wheels and finds that afterwards his bicycle works perfectly. In short, he has solved the problem.

阅读理解 How did it come to this? Over the past two months some of the best-known UK charities, on the front line of environmental and social justice, have become connected to unethical fundraising practices. It's not surprising we're in a spin. How can we be sure charities we support behave ethically? The story broke after the death of an elderly charity giver. Before her death, Olive Cooke had revealed to local media that she had received 260 pieces of charity mail and would no longer answer her landline due to repeated requests for donations. Since Olive's death the near-daily bombardment and insufferable levels of 'asks' suffered by many elderly and vulnerable people from and on behalf of charities has been laid bare. Responses have varied, from Friends of the Earth immediately writing to supporters to try to gauge what they found appropriate (the irony being that this involves another mailshot) to Save the Children's promise to abandon cold calling and trading supporter data. But singling out good and bad charities is a red herring. According to the Information Commissioner's Office (the body that upholds our data privacy rights) the charity industry has collectively blurred the definition of activities like cold calling. Many charities now use third-party commercial fundraising organisations, including those that trade in our data. So it is the sector as a whole that must clean up. To that end the Fundraising Standards Board has produced eight recommendations, including limiting the number of times a charity can ask for money in one phone call, limiting the number of contacts each year with donors and doing more to ensure that fundraisers do not target elderly and vulnerable people. If you're feeling besieged by fundraising requests, you can download a firm but fair 'don't contact me' letter produced by The One Show, where I've reported on this story. It gives the charity 28 days to comply before a complaint will be lodged with the Information Commissioner's Office. In addition charities have committed to stopping their fundraisers from approaching properties displaying 'No cold calling' signs by September 1 st. We need to re-establish a proper relationship between givers and charities, and this is an opportunity to get everything in the open. Like the man said: 'Sunlight is the best of disinfectants, electric light the most efficient policeman.'

阅读理解 Just how much does the Constitution protect your digital data? The Supreme Court will now consider whether police can search the contents of a mobile phone without a warrant if the phone is on or around a person during an arrest. California has asked the justices to refrain from a sweeping ruling, particularly one that upsets the old assumptions that authorities may search through the possessions of suspects at the time of their arrest. It is hard, the state argues, for judges to assess the implications of new and rapidly changing technologies. The court would be recklessly modest if it followed California's advice. Enough of the implications are discernable, even obvious, so that the justice can and should provide updated guidelines to police, lawyers and defendants. They should start by discarding California's lame argument that exploring the contents of a smart phone—a vast storehouse of digital information—is similar to, say, going through a suspect's purse. The court has ruled that police don't violate the Fourth Amendment when they go through the wallet or pocket book of an arrestee without a warrant. But exploring one's smartphone is more like entering his or her home. A smartphone may contain an arrestee's reading history, financial history, medical history and comprehensive records of recent correspondence. The development of 'cloud computing,' meanwhile, has made that exploration so much the easier. Americans should take steps to protect their digital privacy. But keeping sensitive information on these devices is increasingly a requirement of normal life. Citizens still have a right to expect private documents to remain private and protected by the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches. As so often is the case, stating that principle doesn't ease the challenge of line-drawing. In many cases, it would not be overly onerous for authorities to obtain a warrant to search through phone contents. They could still trump Fourth Amendment protections when facing severe, exigent circumstances, such as the threat of immediate harm, and they could take reasonable measures to ensure that phone data are not erased or altered while a warrant is pending. The court, though, may want to allow room for police to cite situations where they are entitled to more leeway. But the justices should not swallow California's argument whole. New, disruptive technology sometimes demands novel applications of the Constitution's protections. Orin Kerr, a law professor, compares the explosion and accessibility of digital information in the 21st century with the establishment of automobile use as a virtual necessity of life in the 20th: The justices had to specify novel rules for the new personal domain of the passenger car then; they must sort out how the Fourth Amendment applies to digital information now.

阅读理解The author's attitude towards what Brendon Lynch said in his blog is one of:

阅读理解 In 1956, when the cold war was at its peak, America deployed a 'secret sonic weapon', as a newspaper headline put it at the time. That weapon was Dizzy Gillespie, a famed jazz musician, who was given the task of changing the world's view of American culture through rhythm and beat. Crowds poured into the street to dance. Cultural diplomacy died down after the cold war ended. But the attacks of September 11th 2001 convinced the State Department to send out America's musicians once again to woo hearts and minds with melody. Rhythm Road, a program run by the State Department and a non-profit organization, Jazz at Lincoln Centre, has made informal diplomats out of both musicians and audiences. Since it began in 2005, musicians have travelled to 96 countries. One band went to Mauritania, a country in northwestern Africa, after last year's coup; many depart for countries that have strained relationships with America. The musicians travel to places where some people have never seen an American. Jazz, so participants in the program, is well-suited to diplomacy. It is collaborative, allowing individuals both to harmonize and play solo—much like a democracy, says Ari Roland, who plays bass for a band that left New York to tour the Middle East on March 31st. Jazz is also a reminder of music's power. It helped break down racial barriers, as enthusiasts of all colors gathered to listen to jazz when segregation was still the law of the land. The State Department spent 10 million U.S. dollars on cultural diplomacy programs in the year to September 30th 2008. But most expect funding for the initiative to increase under Barack Obama, who pledged his support for cultural diplomacy during his campaign. Rhythm Road now sends out hip-hop and bluegrass bands as well. There are some dissenters. Nick Cull, the director of the Public Diplomacy Program at the University of Southern California, thinks that these diplomatic projects would be more productive if they were not administered by the same agency that oversees the country's foreign-policy agenda. And there is also clamor for Mr. Obama to appoint a secretary of culture in his cabinet. What good, they ask, is sending American culture abroad, when the country is not giving it proper attention at home?

阅读理解Everybody loves a fat pay rise. Yet pleasure at your own can vanish if you learn that a colleague has been given a bigger one. Indeed, if he has a reputation for slacking, you might even be outraged. Such behaviour is regarded as" all too human", with the underlying assumption that other animals would not be capable of this finely developed sense of grievance. But a study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it is all too monkey, as well. The researchers studied the behaviour of female brown capuchin monkeys. They look cute. They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food readily. Above all, like their female human counterparts, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of "goods and services" than males. Such characteristics make them perfect candidates for Dr. Brosnan''s and Dr. de Waal''s study. The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens for food. Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for slices of cucumber. However, when two monkeys were placed in separate but adjoining chambers, so that each could observe what the other was getting in return for its rock, their behaviour became markedly different. In the world of capuchins, grapes are luxury goods (and much preferable to cucumbers). So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token, the second was reluctant to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber. And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all, the other either tossed her own token at the researcher or out of the chamber, or refused to accept the slice of cucumber. Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other chamber (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to induce resentment in a female capuchin. The researchers suggest that capuchin monkeys, like humans, are guided by social emotions. In the wild, they are a co-operative, group-living species. Such co-operation is likely to be stable only when each animal feels it is not being cheated. Feelings of righteous ndignation, it seems, are not the preserve of people alone. Refusing a lesser reward completely makes these feelings abundantly clear to other members of the group. However, whether such a sense of fairness evolved independently in capuchins and humans, or whether it stems from the common ancestor that the species had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.

阅读理解 In the longest-term study of its kind, researchers pitted two popular diets head to head—a low-fat American Heart Association-style diet and a carb-controlled Mediterranean diet, each combined with regular physical activity—in a population of overweight patients who had Type 2 diabetes. Researchers found that over the four-year study, patients who adhered to the Mediterranean-style eating plan maintained lower blood-sugar levels for a longer time than those in the low-fat-diet group. The Mediterranean dieters were also able to maintain slightly more weight loss than the low-fat group and showed small improvements in triglyceride and HDL cholesterol levels, both risk factors for heart disease. On the basis of their finding, the study's authors suggest that some diabetes patients may be able to substitute diet and exercise for blood-sugar-lowering medications. 'A Mediterranean-style diet is a very important part in the treatment of diabetes. We knew that, ' says Dr. Loren Greene, a New York University Medical Center endocrinologist, who was not involved in the study. 'But there just hasn't been a good study to confirm this before.' The current study does not make clear, however, whether diet alone can reduce blood sugar enough to eliminate the use of diabetes medication or whether it is even advisable to forgo medication at all. Participants in the new study were kept off drugs when their AIC levels—a measurement that indicates a patient's blood-sugar levels over the previous three months—were below 7%, the standard cutoff for what is considered controlled blood sugar. But 'we don't know for sure if people with AIC levels under 7% still need to be on drugs, ' says Greene. 'The research just hasn't answered that question yet.' Recent studies suggest that using blood-sugar-controlling medication even among the 57 million Americans who have pre-diabetes—meaning they have elevated, but not dangerously high blood sugar and are at very high risk of developing diabetes— may prevent the development of heart disease an stroke. While diabetes doctors generally agree that the first line of defense against Type 2 diabetes should always be exercise and diet, many recommend also using drugs. For its part, the American Diabetes Association advises patients with Type 2 diabetes to make appropriate lifestyle changes and to start a drug regimen immediately upon diagnosis. Still, many doctors acknowledge patients' aversion to chronic drug-taking.' Almost universally, people don't want to take medicine if they can avoid it, ' says Greene. And physicians point out that the direct and indirect costs associated with taking a drug—even one as widely prescribed as the generic diabetes medication metformin(二甲双胍，一种抗糖尿病和降血糖药)—can serve as a barrier for many patients, especially among disadvantaged populations and those without health insurance. Whether avoidance of medication in certain cases proves to be reasonable, for now it can at least be used as an effective incentive to improve lifestyle habits, says Greene: 'If you are told, 'If you don't want to go on medicine, stick to this diet, ' then that's a pretty valuable tool at least for patient compliance.'

阅读理解The point of the restorationist critique of preservationism is the claim that it rests on an unhealthy dualism that conceives nature and humankind as radically distinct and opposed to each other. Dissatisfaction with dualism has for some time figured prominently in the unhappiness of environmentalists with mainstream industrial society. However, the writings of the restorationists themselves―particularly, William Jordan and Frederick Turner―offer little evidence to support this accusation. In their view, preservationists are filled with the same basic mind-set as the industrial mainstream, the only difference being that the latter ranks humans over nature while the former elevates nature over humans. While it is perhaps puzzling that Jordan and Turner do not see that there is no logic that requires dualism as a philosophical basis for preservation, more puzzling is the sharpness and ruthlessness of their attack on preservationists, reinforced by the fact that they offer little, if any, criticism of those who have robbed the natural world. 　　The crucial question, however, about the restorationist outlook has to do with the degree to which the restorationist program is itself faithful to the first principle of restoration: that nature and humanity are fundamentally united rather than separate. Rejecting the old domination model, which sees humans as over nature, restoration theory supports a model of community participation. Yet some of the descriptions that Jordan and Turner give of what restorationists are actually up to--for example , Turner''s description of humans as "the lords of creation", or Jordan''s statement that "the fate and well being of the biosphere depend ultimately on us and our relationship with it"--are not consistent well with the community-participation model. 　　Another holistic model―namely, that of nature as an organism―might be more serviceable to the restorationists. As with the community model, the "organic" model pictures nature as a system of interconnected parts. A fundamental difference, however, is that in an organism the parts are wholly useful to the life of the organism. If we could think of the biosphere as a single living organism and could identify humans with the brain (or the DNA), or control center, we would have a model that more closely fits the restorationists'' view. 　　However, to consider humans as the control center of the living earth is to attribute to them a dominating role in nature. Is this significantly different from the old-fashioned domination model? In both systems humans hold the place of highest authority and power in the world. Also neither view recognizes any limits to the scope and range of reasonable human manipulation in the world. This does not mean that there are no restrictions, only beneficial manipulation should be undertaken. But it does not mean that nothing is off-limits. A further parallel is that, because the fate of the world rests on humans, they must have a clear idea of what needs to be done. There are also important differences between the two theories. For example, restorationists no longer view the world in the old dominationist way as a passive object. And though both assign to humans a controlling role in the world, dominationists conceive this in terms of conquest while restorationists conceive it in terms of healing. Also, restorationists insist that the ideas which must serve to guide our work in the world are drawn not solely from a consideration of human needs and purposes but from an understanding of the biosphere; as a result, they are more conscious than dominationists of our capacity to human nature.

阅读理解 The question of whether war is inevitable is one which has concerned many of the world's great writers. Before considering this question, it will be useful to introduce some related concepts. Conflict, defined as opposition among social entities directed against one another, is distinguished from competition, defined as opposition among social entities independently striving for something which is in inadequate supply. Competitors may not be aware of one another, while the parties to a conflict are. Conflict and competition are both categories of opposition, which has been defined as a process by which social entities function in the disservice of one another. Opposition is thus contrasted with cooperation, the process by which social entities function in the service of one another. These definitions are necessary because it is important to emphasize that competition between individuals or groups is inevitable in a world of limited resources, but conflict is not. Conflict, nevertheless, is very likely to occur, and is probably an essential and desirable element of human societies. Many authors have argued for the inevitability of war from the premise that in the struggle for existence among animal species, only the fittest survive. In general, however, this struggle in nature is competition, not conflict. Social animals, such as monkeys and cattle, fight to win or maintain leadership of the group. The struggle for existence occurs not in such fights, but in the competition for limited feeding areas and for occupancy of areas free from meat-eating animals. Those who fail in this competition starve to death or become victims to other species. This struggle for existence does not resemble human war, but rather the competition of individuals for jobs, markets, and materials. The essence of the struggle is the competition for the necessities of life that are insufficient to satisfy all. Among nations there is competition in developing resources, trades, skills, and a satisfactory way of life. The successful nations grow and prosper; the unsuccessful decline. While it is true that this competition may induce efforts to expand territory at the expense of others, and thus lead to conflict, it cannot be said that war-like conflict among nations is inevitable, although competition is.

阅读理解Text 1 A group of labour MPs, among them Yvette Cooper, are bringing in the new year with a call to institute a UK town of culture award

阅读理解 Bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles in public. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch. Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be unknowable, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult. After a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid assets and more flexibility in recognizing losses on long-term assets in their income statement. Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, cried out against those who 'question our motives.' Yet bank shares rose and the changes enhance what one lobby group politely calls 'the use of judgment by management.' European ministers instantly demanded that the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) do likewise. The IASB says it does not want to act without overall planning, but the pressure to fold when it completes its reconstruction of rules later this year is strong. Charlie McCreevy, a European commissioner, warned the IASB that it did 'not live in a political vacuum' but 'in the real world' and that Europe could yet develop different rules. It was banks that were on the wrong planet, with accounts that vastly overvalued assets. Today they argue that market prices overstate losses, because they largely reflect the temporary illiquidity of markets, not the likely extent of bad debts. The truth will not be known for years. But bank's shares trade below their book value, suggesting that investors are skeptical. And dead markets partly reflect the paralysis of banks which will not sell assets for fear of booking losses, yet are reluctant to buy all those supposed bargains. To get the system working again, losses must be recognized and dealt with. America's new plan to buy up toxic assets will not work unless banks mark assets to levels which buyers find attractive. Successful markets require independent and even combative standard-setters. The FASB and IASB have been exactly that, cleaning up rules on stock options and pensions, for example, against hostility from special interests. But by giving in to critics now they are inviting pressure to make more concessions.

阅读理解Tight-lipped elders used to say," It''s not what you want in this world, but what you get." 　　Psychology teaches that you do get what you want if you know what you want and want the right things. 　　You can make a mental blueprint of a desire as you would make a blueprint of a house, and each of us is continually making these blueprints in the general routine of everyday living. If we intend to have friends to dinner, we plan the menu, make a shopping list, decide which food to cook first, and such planning is an essential for any type of meal to be served. 　　Likewise, if you want to find a job, take a sheet of paper, and write a brief account of yourself. In making a blueprint for a job, begin with yourself, for when you know exactly what you have to offer, you can intelligently plan where to sell your services. 　　This account of yourself is actually a sketch of your working life and should include education, experience and references. Such an account is valuable. It can be referred to in filling out standard application blanks and is extremely helpful in personal interviews. While talking to you ,your could-be employer is deciding whether your education, your experience, and other qualifications, will pay him to employ you and your" wares" and abilities must be displayed in an orderly and reasonably connected manner. 　　When you have carefully prepared a blueprint of your abilities and desires, you have something tangible to sell. Then you are ready to hunt for a job. Get all the possible information about your could be job. Make inquiries as to the details regarding the job and the firm. Keep your eyes and ears open, and use your own judgement. Spend a certain amount of time each day seeking the employment you wish for, and keep in mind: Securing a job is your job now.

阅读理解 The first clue came when I got my hair cut. The stylist offered a complimentary nail-polish change while I waited for my hair to dry. Maybe she hoped this little amenity would slow the growing inclination of women to stretch each haircut to last four months. Suddenly everything is on sale. The upside to the economic downturn is the immense incentive it gives retailers to treat you like a queen for a day. But now the customer rules, just for showing up. Finger the scarf, then start to walk away, and its price floats silkily downward. When the mechanic calls to tell you that brakes and a timing belt and other services will run close to $ 2,000, it's time to break out the newly perfected art of the considered pause. You really don't even have to say anything pitiful before he'll offer to knock a few hundred dollars off. Restaurants are also caught in a fit of ardent hospitality, especially around Wall Street. New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni characterizes the new restaurant demeanor as 'extreme solicitousness tinged with outright desperation'. Now everyone is hoping to restart the economy. But human nature is funny that way. In dangerous times, we clench and squint at the deal that looks too good to miss, suspecting that it must be too good to be true. Store owners will tell you horror stories about shoppers with attitude, who walk in demanding discounts and flaunt their new power at every turn. These store owners wince as they sense bad habit forming: Will people expect discounts forever? Will their hard-won brand luster be forever cheapened, especially for items whose allure depends on their being ridiculously priced? There will surely come a day when things go back to 'normal'; retail sales even inched up in January after sinking for the previous six months. Bargain-hunting can be addictive regardless of the state of the markets, and haggling is a low-risk, high-value contact sport. Trauma digs deep into habit, like my 85-year-old mother still calling her canned-goods cabinet 'the bomb shelter.' The children of the First Depression were saving string and preaching sacrifice long after the skies cleared. They came to be called the 'greatest generation.' As we learn to be decent stewards of our resources, who knows what might come of it? We have lived in an age of wanton waste, and there is value in practicing conservation that goes far beyond our own bottom line.

阅读理解 It's generally been said that history is written by the winners. This was never more true than on March 12, when the Texas board of education voted 10-5 in favour of curriculum standards that would promote conservative takes on controversial issues in the pages of the state's textbooks. The changes, expected to win final approval in May, include an increased emphasis on and sympathetic treatment of such Republican standards as the National Rifle Association and the Moral Majority. They also boast the advantage of capitalism and the role of Christianity in the nation's founding. Even Thomas Jefferson's profile will be reduced; some board members were less than fond of his ideas about the division of church and state. This is not Texas' first such skirmish. Since the 1970s, the state has tried to drop books that were seen as too liberal or anti-Christian, to omit passages on the gay-rights movement and to tone down global-warming arguments. But the nation's battle over textbooks stretches back almost half a century earlier. In 1925, Tennessee's Butler Act(which was abolished in 1967) made it illegal to teach 'any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.' The Scopes 'monkey trial' famously followed. In 1974, a clash erupted in Kanawha County, West Virginia, over the controversial writings of such authors as George Orwell, Arthur Miller and Allen Ginsberg. Opposition was so heated that some schools were firebombed. As one of America's largest textbook buyers, the Longhorn State has a good deal of sway over what is sold to schools nationwide. And while Napoleon may have maintained that 'history is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon,' getting Texans to come together on the past may prove to be their Waterloo.

阅读理解We have to realise how old, how very old, we are. Nations are classified as "aged" when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged 65 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this. Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above 65, all are in Northwestern Europe. We know that we are getting even older, and that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be-- at least, for any future that concerns us now. 　　To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added, some of them only recently recognised. There is the apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths. There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio-- the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can--is more advantageous in older societies like ours than in the younger societies of the developing world, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged. There is the appreciation of the historical truth that the aging of advanced societies has been a sudden change. 　　If "revolution" is a rapid resettlement of the social structure, and if the age composition of the society counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European society within the lifetime of everyone over 50. Taken together, these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged. These facts and circumstances had a leading position at a world gathering about aging as a challenge to science and to policy, held at Vichy in France. 　　There is often resistance to the idea that it is because the birth rate fell earlier in Western and Northwestern Europe than elsewhere, rather than because of any change in the death rate, that we have grown so old. Long life is altering our society, of course, but in experiential terms. We have among us a very much greater experience of continued living than any society that has ever preceded us anywhere, and this will continue. But too much of that lengthened experience, even in the wealthy West, will be experience of poverty and neglect, unless we do something about it. 　　If you are in your thirties, you ought to be aware that you can expect to live nearly one third of the rest of your life after the age of 60. The older you are now, of course, the greater this proportion will be, and greater still if you are a woman.

阅读理解The world is going through the biggest wave of mergers and acquisitions ever witnessed. The process sweeps from hyperactive America to Europe and reaches the emerging countries with unsurpassed might. Many in these countries are looking at this process and worrying: "Won'' t the wave of business concentration turn into an uncontrollable anti-competitive force?" There''s no question that the big are getting bigger and more powerful. Multinational corporations accounted for less than 20% of international trade in 1982. Today the figure is more than 25% and growing rapidly. International affiliates account for a fast-growing segment of production in economies that open up and welcome foreign investment. In Argentina, for instance, after the reforms of the early 1990s, multinationals went from 43% to almost 70% of the industrial production of the 200 largest firms. This phenomenon has created serious concerns over the role of smaller economic firms, of national businessmen and over the ultimate stability of the world economy. I believe that the most important forces behind the massive M&A wave are the same that underlie the globalization process: falling transportation and communication costs, lower trade and investment barriers and enlarged markets that require enlarged operations capable of meeting customers'' demands. All these are beneficial, not detrimental, to consumers. As productivity grows, the world '' s wealth increases. Examples of benefits or costs of the current concentration wave are scanty. Yet it is hard to imagine that the merger of a few oil firms today could re-create the same threats to competition that were feared nearly a century ago in the U. S. , when the Standard Oil trust was broken up. The mergers of telecom companies, such as WorldCom, hardly seem bring higher prices for consumers or a reduction in the pace of technical progress. On the contrary, the price of communications is coming down fast. In cars, too, concentration is increasing--witness Daimler and Chrysler, Remault and Nissan--but it does not appear that consumers are being hurt. Yet the fact remains that the merger movement must be watched. A few weeks ago, Alan Greenspan warned against the megamergers in the banking industry. Who is going to supervise, regulate and operate as lender of last resort with the gigantic banks that are being created.''? Won''t multinationals shift production from one place to another when a nation gets too strict about infringements to fair competition.''? And should one country take upon itself the role of "defending competition" on issues that affect many other nations, as in the U. S. vs. Microsoft case7

阅读理解 They may not be the richest, but Africans remain the world's staunchest optimists. An annual survey by Gallup International, a research outfit, shows that, when asked whether this year will be better than last, Africa once again comes out on top. Out of 52,000 people interviewed all over the world, under half believe that things are looking up. But in Africa the proportion is close to 60%—almost twice as much as in Europe. Africans have some reasons to be cheerful. The continent's economy has been doing fairly well with South Africa, the economic powerhouse, growing steadily over the past few years. Some of Africa's long-running conflicts, such as the war between the north and south in Sudan and the civil war in Congo, have ended. Africa even has its first elected female head of state, in Liberia. Yet there is no shortage of downers too. Most of Africa remains dirt poor. Crises in places like Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are far from solved. And the democratic credentials of Ethiopia and Uganda, once the darlings of western donors, have taken a bad knock. AIDS killed over 2 million Africans in 2005, and will kill more this year. So is it all just a case of irrational exuberance ? Meril James of Gallup argues that there is, in fact, usually very little relation between the survey's optimism rankings and reality. Africans, this year led by Nigerians, are consistently the most upbeat, whether their lot gets better or not. On the other hand, Greece— hardly the worst place on earth—tops the gloom-and-doom chart, followed closely by Portugal and France. Ms James speculates that religion may have a lot to do with it. Nine out of ten Africans are religious, the highest proportion in the world. But cynics argue that most Africans believe that 2006 will be golden because things have been so bad that it is hard to imagine how they could possibly get worse. This may help explain why places that have suffered recent misfortunes, such as Kosovo and Afghanistan, rank among the top five optimists. Moussaka for thought for those depressed Greeks.

阅读理解Among the many other things it is, a portrait is always a record of the personal and artistic encounter that produced it. It is possible for artists to produce portraits of individuals who have not sat for them, but the portrait that finally emerges normally betrays the restrictions under which the artist has been forced to labor. Even when an artist''s portrait is simply a copy of someone else''s work-as in the many portraits of Queen Elizabeth I that were produced during her lifetime-the never-changing features of a ruler who refused to sit for her court painters reflect not only the supposed powers of an ever-youthful queen but the remoteness of those attempting to depict her as well. 　　Portraits are "occasional" not only in the sense that they are closely tied to particular events in the lives of their subjects but in the sense that there is usually an occasion-however brief, uncomfortable, artificial, or unsatisfactory it may prove to be-in which the artist and subject directly confront each other;and thus the encounter a portrait records is most really the sitting itself. The sitting may be brief or extended, collegial or confrontational. Cartier-Bresson has expressed his passion for portrait photography by characterizing it as "a duel without rules". While Cartier-Bresson reveals himself as an interloper and opportunist, Richard Avedon confesses to a role as diagnostician and psychic healer: not as someone who necessarily transforms his subjects, but as someone who reveals their essential nature. Both photographers appear to agree on one basis, however, which is that the fundamental dynamic in this process lies squarely in the hands of the artist. 　　A quite-different example has its roots not in confrontation or consultation but in active collaboration between the artist and sitter. This very different kind of relationship was formulated most vividly by William Hazlitt in his essay entitled "On Sitting for One''s Picture". To Hazlitt, the "bond of connection" between painter and sitter is most like the relationship between two lovers: "They are always thinking and talking of the same thing, in which their self love finds an equal counterpart." Hazlitt flashes out his thesis by recounting particular episodes from the career of Sir Joshua Reynolds. According to Hazlitt, Reynolds'' sitters, accompanied by their friends, were meant to enjoy an atmosphere that was both comfortable for them and conductive to the enterprise of the portrait painter, who was simultaneously their host and their contractual employee. In the case of artists like Reynolds, no fundamental difference exists between the artist''s studio and all those other rooms in which the sitters spin out the days of their lives. The act of entering Reynolds'' studio did not necessarily transform those who sat for him. Collaboration in portraiture such as Reynolds'' is based on the sitter''s comfort and security as well as on his or her desire to experiment with something new, and it is in this "creation of another self", as Hazlitt put it, that the painter''s subjects may properly see themselves for the first time.

阅读理解 What really works to make sustainable changes in diet and lifestyle? It's probably not what you think. Years of clinical research proves that the real keys are pleasure, joy and freedom, not our power of will or austerity (苦行). Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not. Why? Because life is to be enjoyed. There's no point in giving up something you enjoy unless you get something back that's even better, and quickly. When people eat more healthfully, exercise, quit smoking, manage stress better, and love more, they find that they feel so much better, so quickly, it reconstruct the reason for making these changes from fear of dying to joy of living. Fortunately, the latest studies show how dynamic and powerful are the mechanisms that control our health and well-being. When you exercise and eat right: Your brain receives more blood flow and oxygen, so you become smarter, think more clearly, have more energy, and need less sleep. Two studies showed that just walking for three hours per week for only three months caused so many new nerve cells to grow that it actually increased the size of people's brains! Your face receives more blood flow, so your skin glows more and wrinkles less. You look younger and more attractive. In contrast, an unhealthy diet, lasting emotional stress and smoking reduce blood flow to your face so you age more quickly. Smoking accelerate aging because nicotine (尼古丁) causes your blood vessel to become narrower, which decreases blood flow to your face and makes it wrinkle prematurely. This is why smokers look years older than they really are. One of the most interesting findings in this study was that the mothers' perceptions of stress were more important than what was objectively occurring in their lives. The researchers made a survey among women and asked them to rate on a three-point scale how stressed they felt each day, and how out of control their lives felt to them. The women who perceived that they were under heavy stress had significantly shortened and damaged telomeres (染色体端粒) compared with those who felt more relaxed. Conversely, some of the women who felt relaxed despite raising a disabled child had more normal-appearing telomeres. In other words, if you feel stressed, you are stressed.

阅读理解 Fat: what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, or so you might think. But obesity seems to protect mice against a fatal form of malaria-cerebral malaria. Working out how it has this effect might lead to new treatments for people. Although obesity is now on the rise in the developing world, it has traditionally been seen as a malaise of the rich. In contrast, malaria tends to be regarded as a disease of the poor, so few people have studied how the two conditions affect each other. In mice meanwhile, there are signs that diabetes, which often affects obese people, might offer some protection against malaria. To find out more about how obesity affects malaria in mice, Vincent Robert at the Institute for Development Research (IRD) in Paris, France, and colleagues injected 14 obese and 14 non-obese mice with the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei. After six days, eight of the non-obese mice died from cerebral malaria, which causes coma and death in humans, and the rest died about two weeks later from severe anemia because the parasite had destroyed their red blood cells. In contrast, none of the obese mice showed signs of cerebral malaria. Although they all eventually succumbed to severe anemia and died 18 to 25 days after infection, anemia can be treated-so obesity did seem to offer mice some useful protection. Exactly how the obese mice resist malaria is not clear, says Delphine Depoix from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, but there are several possibilities. One clue lies in a mutation in the gene coding for the leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells, which makes the mice obese, but also controls the immune response. Previous research has shown that obese mice with the leptin mutation often react to infections with a 'Th2' rather than 'Th1' response. As Th1 in mice is thought to trigger the inflammation that helps cerebral malaria to kill its victims, Depoix speculates that the Th2 response might be protecting the obese mice. Another possible explanation is that the abnormally high blood sugar associated with obesity in both mice and people 'might compensate' for the low blood sugar caused by severe malaria, says Depoix, allowing the mice to better cope with parasite infection. Andrew Prentice of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says that figuring out how the mice resist malaria will be crucial to developing new treatments for people with malaria. His colleague Christopher Whitty warns that any insights drawn from these results are preliminary: 'Mouse models are always useful in raising hypotheses but cannot settle them as far as cerebral malaria is concerned.'