单选题 The digital onslaught of e-books and Amazon-style e-tailers have put bookstores in an existential dilemma. Digital books are said to outsell print titles by 2015 in Britain, and even sooner in America. With the demise of HMV, that music-peddling giant, still fresh in everyone's minds, bricks-and-mortar bookstores appear to be on borrowed time. So, what is the future of the bookstore? This was the burning questions on everyone's lips at a recent event at Foyles's flagship bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London. For a bookstore to remain successful, it must improve "the experience of buying books," says Alex Lifschutz, an architect whose London-based practice is designing the new Foyles. He suggests an array of approaches: "small, quiet spaces cocooned with books; larger spaces where one can dwell and read; other larger but still intimate spaces where one can hear talks from authors about books, literature, science, travel and cookery." The atmosphere is vital, he adds. Exteriors must buzz with activity, entrances must be full of eye-catching presentations and a bar and cafe is essential. There are plenty of ways to delight the bookstore customer, but few are easily monetised. The consensus is that bookstores need to become cultural destinations where people are prepared to pay good money to hear a concert, see a film or attend a talk. The programming will have to be intelligent and the space comfortable. Given how common it is for shoppers to browse in shops only to buy online later, some wonder whether it makes sense to charge people for the privilege. But forcing people to pay for the privilege of potentially paying for goods could deter shoppers altogether. A more attractive idea might be a membership scheme like those offered by museums and other cultural venues. Unlike reward cards, which offer discounts and other nominal benefits, a club membership could provide priority access to events (talks, literary workshops, retreats) and a private lounge where members can eat, drink and meet authors before events. Different memberships could tailor to the needs of children and students. To survive and thrive, bookstores should celebrate the book in all its forms: rare, second-hand, digital, self-printed and so on. Digital and hybrid readers should have the option of buying e-books in- store, and budding authors should have access to self-printing book machines. The latter have been slower to take off in Britain, but in America bookstores are finding them to be an :important source of revenue. The bookstore of the future will have to work hard. Service will be knowledgeable and personalised, the inventory expertly selected, spaces well-designed and the cultural events attractive. Whether book stores, especially small independents are up to the challenge, is not clear. The fate of these stores is a cliff-hanger.

单选题Wireless technology is introduced as

单选题Historically, humans get serious about avoiding disasters only after one has just struck them. (1) that logic, 2006 should have been a breakthrough year for rational behavior. With the memory of 9/11 still (2) in their minds, Americans watched hurricane Katrina, the most expensive disaster in U.S. history, on (3) TV. Anyone who didn't know it before should have learned that bad things can happen. And they are made (4) worse by our willful blindness to risk as much as our (5) to work together before everything goes to hell. Granted, some amount of delusion is probably part of the (6) condition. In A.D. 63, Pompeii was seriously damaged by an earthquake, and the locals immediately went to work ()7 , in the same spot—until they were buried altogether by a volcano eruption 16 years later. But a (8) of the past year in disaster history suggests that modern Americans are particularly bad at (9) themselves from guaranteed threats. We know more than we (10) did about the dangers we face. But it turns (11) that in times of crisis, our greatest enemy is (12) the storm, the quake or the (13) itself. More often, it is ourselves. So what has happened in the year that (14) the disaster on the Gulf Coast. In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has worked day and night to rebuild the floodwalls. They have got the walls to (15) they were before Katrina, more or less. That's not (16) , we can now say with confidence. But it may be all (17) can be expected from one year of hustle. Meanwhile, New Orleans officials have crafted a plan to use buses and trains to (18) the sick and the disabled. The city estimates that 15,000 people will need a (19) out. However, state officials have not yet determined where these people will be taken. The (20) with neighboring communities are ongoing and difficult.

单选题Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal—due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward. Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can't stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at NCAR. One group, led by Gerald Meehl at NCAR, used two state-of-the-art climate models to explore what could happen if the world had held atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases steady since 2000. The results: Even if the world had slammed on the brakes five years ago, global average temperatures would rise by about 1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Sea levels would rise by another 4 inches over 20th-century increases. Rising sea-levels would continue well beyond 2100, even without adding water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The rise highlights the oceans' enormous capacity to absorb heat and its slow reaction to changes in atmospheric conditions. The team ran each model several times with a range of "what if" concentrations, as well as observed concentrations, for comparison. Temperatures eventually level out, Dr. Meehl says in reviewing his team's results. "But sea-level increases keep ongoing. The relentless nature of sea-level rise is pretty daunting." Dr. Wigley took a slightly different approach with a simpler model. He ran simulations that capped concentrations, at 2000 levels. If concentrations are held constant, warming could exceed 1.8 degrees F. by 2400. The two researchers add that far from holding steady, concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise. Thus, at best, the results point to the least change people can expect, they say. The idea that some level of global climate change from human activities is inevitable is not new. But the word has been slow to make its way into the broader debate. "Many people don't realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea-level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future," Meehl says. While the concept of climate-change commitment isn't new, these fresh results "tell us what's possible and what's realistic" and that for the immediate future, "prevention is not on the table," says Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. To Pielke and others, this means adaptation should be given a much higher priority that it's received to date. "There's a cultural bias in favor of prevention," he says. But any sound policy includes preparation as well, he adds. "We have the scientific and technological knowledge we need to improve adaptation and apply that knowledge globally./

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} The function of the office is to perform administrative work. First, it must provide the necessary communications with customers, banks, government departments, and other outside organizations. Second, it must service the information requirements within the company itself. In order to meet these needs efficiently, the Office Manager must employ the most appropriate business methods, systems and equipment. In an efficient administrative structure, clerical operations are organized so that they add to the profitability of the business. However, in many countries the number of clerical staff has increased while the total number of workers employed in production has fallen. In Britain, for example, the total workforce in the years 1919-1976 went up by 25%, while the number of people who were employed in clerical work increased by 150%. For a country such as Britain, which depends on a manufacturing base, that can mean inefficiency. To ensure that office services run smoothly, there must be the means to check, sort, copy and file correspondence and other paperwork. Today there is a growing range of machines that can be used to do such jobs. The size and resources of a company will determine how mechanized or computerized its office systems are. The office must give maximum service at minimum cost. A balance must be kept between production, marketing, and administration. As a company develops and grows, the contribution of administration will vary in kind and in value. The most important objective in modern offices is the processing of data in order to provide a means of business control, but in many companies there are weaknesses in the ability to manage communications efficiently. For example, some data are often used only by individual managers, and different departments in the same company may use different data processing systems. In order to contribute to business efficiency, however, data processing must be a centralized service, The system which is required is one that looks at the total needs of a business and therefore assists management in making appropriate decisions quickly.

单选题The number of names on the no-fly list increases rapidly from 16 to 20,000 most probably because

单选题Education should be various because______.

单选题The energy crisis, which is being felt around the world, has dramatized how the careless use of the earth's resources has brought the whole world to the brink of disaster. The over-development of motor transport, with its increase of more cars, more highways, more pollution, more suburbs, more commuting, has contributed to the near-destruction of our cities, the broke up of the family, and the pollution not only of local air but also of the earth's atmosphere. The disaster has arrived in the form of the energy crisis. Our present situation is unlike war, revolution or depression. It is also unlike the great natural disasters of the past. Worldwide resources exploitation and energy use have brought us to a state where long-range planning is essential. What we need is not a continuation of our present serious state, which endangers the future of our country, our children, and our earth, but a movement forward to a new norm in order to work rapidly and effectively on planetary problems. This country has been falling back under the continuing exposures of loss morality and the revelation that lawbreaking has reached into the highest places in the land. There is a strong demand for moral revival and for some devotion that is vast enough and yet personal enough to enlist the devotion of all. In the past it has been only in a way in defense of their own country and their own ideals that and people have been able to devote themselves wholeheartedly. This is the first time that we have been asked to defend ourselves and what we hold dear in cooperation with all the other inhabitants of this planet, who share with us the same endangered air and the same endangered oceans. There is a common need to reassess our present course, to change that course and to devise new methods through which the world can survive. This is a priceless opportunity. To grasp it we need a widespread understanding of nature in the crisis confronting us—and the world—a crisis that is no passing inconvenience, no byproduct of the ambitions of the oil-producing countries, no environmentalists' mere fears, no by-product of any present system of government. What we face is the outcome of the invention of the last four hundred years. What we need is a transformed life style. This new life style can flow directly from science and technology, but its acceptance depends on a sincere devotion to finding a higher quality of life for the world' s children and future generation.

单选题Why does a tuner often stand in the wings?

单选题 Entire cities and counties have banned them. McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken have declared to give them up-as have Starbucks, Ruby Tuesday, and a host of other former sources of sinful pleasures. In response to the 2006 Food and Drug Administration requirement that trans fats be listed on nutrition labels, makers of packaged goods have brought their totals down to zero. Last month, Frito-Lay even got the FDA's blessing to put a claim on products loaded with healthy, unsaturated fats that replacing bad fats with good ones may protect against heart disease. Does this mean that junk food is now the new health food? "No!" says Robert Eckel. immediate past president of the American Heart Association, whose "Face the Fats" education campaign points out that a "zero trans fats" label doesn't tell the whole story. "People know trans fats are not good for them," says Eckel. "But they do not understand that replacing them with saturated fat is not a good option." And that, in some cases, is what's happening. Yes, the food industry is experimenting with ways to keep the saturated fat content low-by using unsaturated options such as canola and sunflower oils, for example. But some manufacturers, unwilling to sacrifice taste and texture, are turning back to less-than-healthful choices such as palm oil and butter. Baked goods have proved particularly unwilling to change. The solid fats that provide their light texture and flakiness as well as the rich flavor typically are either highly saturated or are "partially hydrogenated" oils that contain trans fats. Makers of fried foods have had an easier task, since certain liquid unsaturated oils can do as tasty a job. Snack makers, too, have found the switch to be relatively manageable. Manufacturers are raising nutrition experts' eyebrows with other tricks, too. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard whose research showed that trans fats promote heart disease, says that some companies now are fully, rather than partially, hydrogenating vegetable oil. Full hydrogenation doesn't create trans fats as it solidifies the oil, but it does produce an acid; a saturated fat which seems in preliminary research to promote inflammation, thus contributing to heart disease. "I'm not in favor of using totally hydrogenated oil until more is known," he says. A recent study by the International Food Information Council Foundation shows that about 42 percent of Americans-a 9 percent increase over last year-are trying to cut back on certain healthy tats along with trans fats. "All people hear is that fat is bad, bad, bad," says Susan Borra, president of the foundation. In fact, most people need more of the good kind.

单选题Sport psychology research has documented the important rote of significant adults such as parents and coaches in youth participants' psychosocial development and achievement motivation. However, the situation concerning parents and coaches in youth sport is somewhat of a conundrum—the roles of coach and parent are often synonymous, suggesting not simply an independent relationship with the child participant. In recent years, a growing body of literature has emerged on parent influence in youth sport based on these and other theories. First, research shows that parents who are more supportive and less pressuring of their children are associated with youth participants who report higher perceived competence, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation toward sport. Second, parents who encourage their child's participation and exhibit enjoyment of physical activity are related to children who report higher perceived competence and attraction toward physical activity. Finally, parents who hold stronger positive beliefs about their child's physical competence are associated with children who report higher self-perceptions, value toward sport, and physical activity levels. A prevalent phenomenon of North American culture is the parent-coach dual role. Most coaches in competitive youth sport are parents of one or more of their players. Brown estimated that about 90% of the volunteer coaches in a given community are a parent of one or more team members. Although one can forward several positive aspects of the parent-coach phenomenon, there is also the potential for youth to perceive stress from this parent-child relationship. Several researchers reported that adolescent athletes felt pressure from their coaches and parents to perform well, and desired that parents be sources of social support and leave skill and strategy instruction to the coach's domain. Collectively, anecdotal accounts and empirical data suggest that exploring the benefits and costs of parents coaching their children is a worthy topic from both theoretical and applied perspectives. Therefore, based on previous research on the role of parents and coaches in youth development, the purpose of the present study was to gain knowledge about the parent-coach phenomenon in competitive youth sport. We accomplished this purpose by interviewing youth soccer players who were coached by their parent, the child's teammates, and the parent-coach. We expect that child participants would identify both positive and negative aspects of having a parent as their coach, in line with previous research, but we were most curious to know if different issues would be raised about the unique parent-coach/child-athlete relationship.

单选题In most parts of the world, climate change is a worrying subject. Not so in California. At a recent gathering of green luminaries--in a film star's house, naturally, for that is how seriousness is often established in Los Angeles--the dominant note was self-satisfaction at what the state has already achieved. And perhaps nobody is more complacent than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unlike A1 Gore, a presidential candidate turned prophet of environmental doom, California's governor sounds cheerful when talking about climate change. As well he might: it has made his political career. Although California has long been an environmentally-conscious state, until recently greens were concerned above all with smog and redwood trees. "Coast of Dreams", Kevin Starr's authoritative history of contemporary California, published in 2004, does not mention climate change. In that year, though, the newly-elected Mr. Schwarzenegger made his first tentative call for western states to seek alternatives to fossil fuels. Gradually he noticed that his efforts to tackle climate change met with less resistance, and more acclaim, than just about all his other policies. These days it can seem as though he works on nothing else. Mr. Schwarzenegger's transformation from screen warrior to eco-warrior was completed last year when he signed a bill imposing legally-enforceable limits on greenhouse--gas emissions--a first for America. Thanks mostly to its lack of coal and heavy industry, California is a relatively clean state. If it were a country it would be the world's eighth- biggest economy, but only its 16th-biggest polluter. Its big problem is transport--meaning, mostly, cars and trucks, which account for more than 40% of its greenhouse-gas emissions compared with 32% in America as a whole. The state wants to ratchet down emissions limits on new vehicles, beginning in 2009. Mr. Schwarzenegger has also ordered that, by 2020, vehicle fuel must produce 10% less carbon: in the production as well as the burning, so a simple switch to corn-based ethanol is probably out. Thanks in part to California's example, most of the western states have adopted climate action plans. When it comes to setting emission targets, the scene can resemble a posedown at a Mr. Olympia contest. Arizona's climate-change scholars decided to set a target of cutting the state's emissions to 2000 levels by 2020. But Janet Napolitano, the governor, was determined not to be out-muscled by California. She has declared that Arizona will try to return to 2000 emission levels by 2012. California has not just inspired other states; it has created a vanguard that ought to be able to prod the federal government into stronger national standards than it would otherwise consider. But California is finding it easier to export its policies than to put them into practice at home. In one way, California's self-confidence is fully justified. It has done more than any other state--let alone the federal government--to fix America's attention on climate change. It has also made it seem as though the problem can be solved. Which is why failure would be such bad news. At the moment California is a beacon to other states. If it fails, it will become an excuse for inaction.

单选题{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Henric Ibsen, author of the play “ A Doll’s House” , in which a pretty, helpless housewife abandons her husband and children to seek a more serious life, would surely have approved. From January 1st, 2008, all public companies in Norway are obliged to ensure that at least 40% of their board directors are women. Most firms have obeyed the law, which was passed in 2003. But about 75 out of the 480 or so companies it affects are still too male for the government’s liking. They will shortly receive a letter informing them that they have until the end of February to act, or face the legal consequences — which could include being dissolved. Before the law was proposed, about 7% of board members in Norway were female, according to the Centre for Corporate Diversity. The number has since jumped to 36%. That is far higher than the average of 9% for big companies across Europe or America’s 15% for the Fortune 500. Norway’s stock exchange and its main business lobby oppose the law, as do many businessmen.” I am against quotas for women or men as a matter of principle,” says Sverre Munck, head of international operations at a media firm. “ Board members of public companies should be chosen solely on the basis of merit and experience,” he says. Several firms have even given up their public status in order to escape the new law. Companies have had to recruit about 1,000 women in four years. Many complain that it has been difficult to find experienced candidates. Because of this, some of the best women have collected as many as 25-35 directorships each, and are known in Norwegian business circles as the “ golden skirts” . One reason for the scarcity is that there are fairly few women in management in Norwegian companies — they occupy around 15% of senior positions. It has been particularly hard for firms in the oil, technology and financial industries to find women with enough experience. Some people worry that their relative lack of experience may keep women quiet on boards, and that in turn could mean that boards might become less able to hold managers to account. Recent history in Norway, however, suggests that the right women can make strong directors. “Women feel more compelled than men to do their homework,” says Ms. Reksten Skaugen, who was voted Norway’s chairman of the year for 2007.