单选题You slip the key into the ignition and crank the engine to life. But before you put the car into gear, you tap a key on the keyboard mounted by the steering wheel, and your newest e-mail flashes up on the windscreen. This seductive satyr is what you get when you cross a car and a computer. Dubbed the "network vehicle", or net-mobile, it may soon come to a driveway near you (probably the one belonging to your rich neighbor). In a net-mobile, a motorist could tap into a regional road system but also to map out a route around rush-hour traffic snags. Drivers and passengers will be able to send and receive e-mail, track the latest sports scores or stock quotes, surf the Web, and even play video games. Or so, at least, say a number of computer-industry firms such as Microsoft, Sun, IBM and Netscape. The modern car is already an electronic showcase on wheels. On-board microcomputers improve fuel economy and reduce emissions. They operate anti-lock brake systems, and on some cars even regulate the firmness of the shock absorbers. But much of the technology needed to add extra is available now. A prototype network vehicle, produced by a consortium of Netscape, Sun, IBM and Delco (an automotive-electronics firm based in Michigan), was introduced at the recent annual computer-industry show in Las Vegas. It not only offered such desktop-computer-like services as e-mail, but allowed a driver to use them without looking away from the road. It was operated by voice commands and projected its data on to the windscreen, using the same sort of head-up display system found in modern fighter jets. Members of the consortium think a real-world network vehicle could be in production in as little as four years. Car makers have already begun rolling out some of the features found on these prototype net- mobiles. If the driver of a General Motors car equipped with its On-Star system locks his key in the car, for example, an emergency centre can transmit a digital signal to unlock the doors. On-Star also calls automatically for help if an accident triggers the airbags. Toyota and General Motors are among a growing list of firms offering in-car navigation systems. And in Europe, BMW and Mercedes-Benz recently introduced navigation hardware that can not only plot out a route, but alert a driver to traffic jams.

单选题The collapse of Enron, the largest bankruptcy in American history, has rung out a banner year for American business failures. In Europe, the fallout from the Swissair and Sabena insolvencies continues. In the current global slump, more companies are likely to go under. Now is a perfect time to reconsider how to handle such failures: let them sink, or give them a chance to swim? In America, bankruptcy has come to mean a second chance for bust businesses. The famous "Chapter 11" law aims to give a company time to get back on its feet, by shielding it from debt payments and prodding banks to negotiate with their debtor. It even allows an insolvent company to receive fresh finance after it goes bust. On the other side of the Atlantic, when companies stumble, almost as much effort is spent in fingering the guilty as in trying to salvage a viable business. British and French laws, for example, can make a failing company's directors face criminal penalties and personal liability. Moreover, bankers have the power, at the first sign of trouble, to push a company into the arms of the receivers. Some modest changes are afoot, however. Britain is considering moves that would bring its rules closer to America's. New laws in Germany should also make it easier to revive sick companies, although trade unions still have their say. But even with the arrival of the euro and moves towards a single financial market, going bust in Europe is a strictly local affair. Long before America had a single currency, the American constitution provided uniform bankruptcy laws, observes Elizabeth Warren of the Harvard Law School. Europe's patchwork of national laws, according to Bill Brandt of " Development Specialists", a consultancy, inhibits lending and makes it difficult to fix ailing firms. Transatlantic insolvencies are even harder, as a Belgian-based software company, Lernout and Hauspie, discovered this year. Its American reorganization plan was thwarted by a Belgian judge, who ordered a sale of the firm's assets. As the European Union inches toward greater harmonization, should it try to mimic America? Critics of Chapter 11 think not. They argue that America's bankruptcy system is wasteful, lets failed managers go unpunished, and gives some companies an unfair advantage. In Chapter 11, admittedly, lawyers and advisers gobble up fees, but a recent study argues that the fees are no larger than those for most mergers and acquisitions. One common complaint, that managers enjoy the high life while creditors go begging, fails to stand up to the data from America's previous wave of bankruptcies in the early 1990s. Stuart Gilson of the Harvard Business School found that more than two-thirds of top managers were ousted within two years of a bankruptcy filing. More troubling is that some American firms seem to enjoy second and third trips to bankruptcy court, cheekily termed Chapters 22 and 33. Some see this as evidence that, ton often, they use Chapter 11 to keep running. But there is more to the story.

单选题The purpose of the author in writing the text is that

单选题The word "gusto" (Line 2, Paragraph 5) may probably mean

单选题Short of money? Need an instant loan? Since the early 1990s your best bet has been to go to the low-rent end of town and find an appointed loan-shop. There you can borrow money in small amounts, generally not much more than $500, against your post-dated pay-cheque. You will be charged around $15 interest for every $100 you borrow--and that is per month. For many people, there is no alternative. Banks refuse to make small loans because there is no money in it, and completely unregulated lending, via the internet or loan sharks, is too alarming. According to the Community Financial Services Association, an advocacy group for the industry, most borrowers are responsible and pay off their loans in a timely manner. But some don't. The Centre for Responsible Lending, a consumer group, says that many borrowers routinely roll over their loans. This quickly brings them into debt traps. A typical borrower may end up paying $793 for a $325 loan. The centre estimates that payday loans cost Americans $4.2 billion a year in interest and fees. The industry thrives, in large part, because it operates mostly outside state usury laws that prohibit excessive interest rates. Its spokesmen say lenders need such exemptions to make a profit on their basic service, small loans. Lenders say that their returns would amount to pennies on the dollar if interest rates were capped. In fact, they say, such restrictions would put them out of business. And that is exactly what many of their opponents would like to see--particularly when it comes to loans made to the families of soldiers. In one of the last acts of the Republican Congress, payday lenders were restricted to interest rates of 36% on loans to military personnel and their spouses. The Pentagon is worried that uniformed personnel, especially those serving in Iraq, have been losing their security clearances because of excessive debt at home. This, among other things, was leading to the costly reassignment of highly trained troops, such as communications experts, to ordinary low-skill jobs. Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University, wrote recently in the New York Times that the industry -- not unlike the sub-prime mortgage sector -- is a beneficiary of the sweeping deregulation of the financial-services industry that has made credit more accessible. Its adverse consequences, he says, were" completely predictable". Once poor people get in over their heads, they will borrow themselves into bankruptcy if the law permits; and" if we are unhappy about that, the only solution is to change the rules./

单选题The general argument against naturalism focuses on its

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Technologists aren' t usually known for their sense of humor, but last week Scott McNealy, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, was working hard to come up with the Quip of the Day. For four contentious hours, he and another casualty of the software wars, Netscape's Jim Barksdale, took turns before the Senate Judiciary committee slamming their nemesis, Bill Gates. They called him a predator, a monopolist, the "most dangerous and powerful industrialist of our age!. Microsoft's Windows operating systems, driving 90 percent of the computers across the land, are the railroads of our dawning Information Age. No one person should be allowed to control them, they argued. Cyberspace should be open to all, Gates insisted it still was. He's no monopolist, he told the senators. Windows is vulnerable. So is his company. "Technology is ever-changing," Gates retorted. Who knows what new wave will come along and sweep even mighty Microsoft into the dustbin of history? To many that sounded a bit disingenuous, given Microsoft's dominance, and the lawmakers were skeptical, to say the least. But might Gates be right? Last week's other big tech news gave just such a hint. First, Intel announced a surprise drop in first-quarter earnings. That was followed late Friday by report that Compaq's financials would also be disappointing. Demand for computers seems to be slowing, analyst suggested--a trend due in part to a range of short-term factors, including Asia's economic crisis. "I don' t think we have clear date either as a company or an industry as to what these numbers mean," says Intel spokesman Howard High, True enough. But the slowdown is a sharp reminder that consumer demand for computers has fallen short of the hype surrounding the Info Revolution. Three years ago, 31 percent of U.S. house holds owned a computer. Today, 40 percent do. "We should be at 60 to 65 percent," says Nick Donatiello, president of Odyssey Communications, a San Francisco market-research firm. For most Americans, he suggests, the personal computer is not yet the indispensable tool that digital enthusiasts think it is. Today, new products are coming out that resemble computers but aren't, and they may eventually appeal to frustrated consumers more than hard-to-use PCs. The computer "is a technology-driven device made by technologists for technologists who don't know any better," says Donald Norman, senior technical adviser to Hewlett Packard. At the same time, new alliances between companies and industries are aiming to dash in on the Internet of tomorrow--without partnering with the titans of today. If all this poses a challenge for Intel, it portends even greater difficulties for Microsoft. All the challenges and threats pose a compelling question: if Microsoft enjoys the monopoly critics say it has, how long will it last?

单选题It can be inferred from the passage that, in the course of a heating season, the heatingcapacity of h heat pump is greatest When______

单选题The amount of greenhouse gases we"ve already pumped into the atmosphere has irreversibly bound us to a certain amount of warming over the next several decades. That means climate change isn"t a problem for tomorrow—the effects are happening now. Already raining patterns seem to be changing, making some drier areas even drier, and rainy regions even wetter. As warmer temperatures creep northward, so do insects and other pests that are adapted to the heat. The population of the tiny mountain pine beetle, which infests pine trees in the Rocky Mountain region, used to be controlled by freezing winters. But as temperatures have warmed over the past decade, the mountain pine beetle"s territory has spread, destroying millions of acres of Canadian pines. The pine beetle infestation represents the unique challenges that warming will pose for land conservation managers on the front lines of the battle against it. Generations of American conservationists have fought to preserve wildlife and to keep nature pure in the face of a growing population and pollution. But global warming threatens to change all that, by altering the very foundation on which the conservation movement was built. What good is a wildlife reserve if the protected animals can"t live there, because climate change pushes them out? What difference does it make to defend trees from logging, if global warming will allow a new pest to ruin the whole forests? The answer is to adapt the way we practice wildlife and land conservation to climate change. There"s a term for this—adaptive management. We need to begin making moves today to adapt to changes that warming will bring decades hence. "Climate change will affect anything, you name it," said Lara Hansen of EcoAdapt. "We need to change the way we allocate resources and protect livelihoods." That means that the way we"ve been carrying out conservation—picking the right land spaces and playing goalie—won"t work anymore, as climate change keeps moving the target. Conservationists will have to work even harder, trying to minimize non-climate-related threats to land and species even as the human population grows by billions. Regardless of what we do, the changes will be coming fast and the future will bring increased drought, heat waves, rainstorms, extinctions and more. We need to begin cutting our carbon immediately, but we need to adapt now as well. The world is changing because of us; to save what"s left, we"ll have to change too.

单选题According to the passage, a Veblen model of conspicuous consumption has been used to _______.

单选题In the rarefied world of the corporate board, a good network matters. 1 often involves word-of-mouth recommendations: getting on a 2 is easier if you have the right connections. New research suggests men use 3 better than women. Marie Lalanne and Paul Seabright of the Toulouse School of Economics 4 the effect of a network on 5 using a database of board members in Europe and America. They find that if you were to compare two executive directors, 6 in every way except that one had 200 ex-colleagues now 7 boards and the other 400, the latter, 8 , would be paid 6% more. For non-executives the gap is 14%. The really 9 finding concerns the difference between the sexes. Among executive-board members, women earn 17% less than their male 10 . There are plenty of plausible explanations for this 11 , from interruptions to women"s careers to old-fashioned 12 . But the authors find that this pay gap can be fully 13 by the effect of executives" networks. Men can leverage a large network into more senior positions or a seat on a more 14 board; women don"t seem to be able to. Women could just have 15 connections with members of their networks. "Women seem more inclined to build and rely on only a few strong relationships," says Mr. Seabright. Men are better at developing 16 acquaintances into a network, and better at maintaining a high personal 17 through these contacts. Women may, of course, also be hurt by the existing 18 of men on boards and a male 19 for filling executive positions with other men. But a tendency to think of other men first will be 20 if talented women don"t stay on the radar.

单选题The author implies by bringing do his lack of education that Benjamin Franklin______.

单选题Despite their many differences of temperament and of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman share certain beliefs. Common to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual center of the universe and that in them alone is the clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos itself. Without completely denying the existence either of a deity (the God) or of irrational matter, this perspective nevertheless rejects them as exclusive principles of interpretation and prefers to explain humans and the world in terms of humanity itself. This preference is expressed most clearly in the transcendentalist principle that the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self; therefore, all knowledge begins with self-knowledge. This common perspective is almost always universalized. Its emphasis is not upon the individual as a particular European or American, but upon the human as universal, freed from the accidents of time, space, birth, and talent. Thus, for Emerson, the "American Scholar" turns out to be simply "Man Thinking"; while, for Whitman, the "Song of Myself" merges imperceptibly into a song of all the " children of Adam", where " every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. " Also common to all five writers is the belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization, which, in turn, depends upon the harmonious reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies: first, the self-asserting impulse of the individual to withdraw, to remain unique and separate, and to be responsible only to himself or herself and second, the self-transcending impulse of the individual to embrace the whole world in the experience of a single moment and to know and become one with that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates individualism, the preservation of the individual"s freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity. A third assumption common to the five writers is that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection their belief that the clue to external nature is to be found in the inner world of individual psychology--and by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic relationship between the self and the cosmos, of which only intuition and imagination can properly take account. These writers" faith in the imagination and in themselves as practitioners of imagination led them to conceive of the writer as a seer and enabled them to achieve supreme confidence in their own moral and metaphysical insights.