单选题Though experts were quick to declare that the election of Barack Obama represented the emergence of a "post-racial" America, the macro-economy has provided a corrective. During the American economy's last deep recession, in the early 1980s, black unemployment soared to twice the level among whites, passing 21% in 1983. And according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, time has changed little. The current unemployment rate among black Americans is almost 16%; among whites the figure is under 10%. The widening gap between blacks and whites persists across demographic lines. The current "mances-sion" has hit male-dominated professions hardest. But white men face a relatively mild unemployment rate of just over 10% compared with over 18% among black men. For the worst-off, the data are catastrophic. Among young black men without a high-school diploma, nearly half have no jobs. These rates are based on a labor-force number which excludes those in prison; if there were not five times as many blacks behind bars as whites, the figures would look even worse. There is no shortage of explanations for the gap. States with weaker labor markets, like South Carolina and Michigan, also tend to have larger black populations than low-unemployment states like Iowa and Montana. Predominantly black neighborhoods are often a long way from where jobs are concentrated, in largely white suburbs, so those without cars cannot get to them. Blacks are also at a disadvantage when it comes to relying on friends and family connections to find jobs; there is not the same network of family businesses that whites and Latinos have. Some studies have found that this factor may explain as much as 70% of the difference in black and white unemployment rates, and may also explain the difference between black and Latino jobless rates. Among young men, for instance, the near-20% Hispanic unemployment rate is much closer to that for whites (17%) than blacks (30%). What is clear is that the unemployment problem in black communities will not end with the recession. The employment-to-population ratio among black adults is only just above 50%, and it is closer to a shocking 40% for young black men; for adult whites it is 59%. Black workers are also unemployed for about five weeks longer, on average, than the rest of the population. Some 45% of unemployed blacks have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer, compared with just 36% of unemployed whites. That means continued loss of skills, and a longer and harder road back into the workforce.

单选题Music produces profound and lasting changes in the brain. Schools should add music classes, not cut them. Nearly 20 years ago, a small study advanced the【C1】______that listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long【C2】______trademarked "Mozart effect" products began to appeal to anxious parents aiming to put little kids【C3】______the fast track to prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale. Georgia's governor even【C4】______giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette. The evidence for Mozart therapy【C5】______to be weak, perhaps nonexistent, although the【C6】______study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect. In recent years,【C7】______, scientists have examined the benefits of a concerted【C8】______to study and practice music, as【C9】______to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based "brain fitness" game【C10】______in a while. Advanced monitoring【C11】______have enabled scientists to see what happens【C12】______your head when you listen to your mother and actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. And they have found that music【C13】______can produce profound and lasting changes that【C14】______the general ability to learn. These results should【C15】______public officials that music classes are not a mere decoration, ripe for discarding in the budget crises that constantly【C16】______public schools. Studies have shown that【C17】______instrument training from an early age can help the brain to【C18】______sounds better, making it easier to stay focused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to mathematics. Those who are good at music are better able to【C19】______a biology lesson despite the noise in the classroom【C20】______, a few years later, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the next office starts screaming at a subordinate. They can attend to several things at once in the mental scratch pad called working memory, an essential skill in this era of multitasking.

单选题While U.S. companies are worrying about how to recruit talent from abroad in the face of increasingly rigorous immigration rules, a different and far more significant challenge is quietly building. When young knowledge workers look for a job today, they seriously consider companies half a world away. Homegrown American talent is moving abroad, in what could become a huge shift in the world economic order. Early warning signs abound. Look at Singapore's success in recruiting top U.S. academics to its universities and research centers: It lured the world's leading seismologist (a geologist who studies earthquakes and the mechanical characteristics of the Earth) away from the California Institute of Technology and the number two scientist at the National Institutes of Health away from that organization. Silicon Valley expatriates have been moving to China in a small but steady stream. Farmers from the Midwest are using their high-tech methods to make a new start in Brazil, where real estate is cheap. The United States' current economic woes are accelerating this trend. The trickle that has started at the top will become a flood as mid-career executives look for new opportunities abroad. Of course, even the best manager will struggle if he or she doesn't speak the local language. But one can get by in India with English only, and Spanish is relatively easy to learn. Moreover, when the children of today's expatriates enter the workforce, they'll reap a huge advantage from knowing the second language—Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi—they learned to speak at home as youngsters. More and more parents are discovering that a multilingual education can help in guaranteeing lifelong employ ability for their offspring. Government policy will be crucial in determining how well U.S. companies respond to the increasing outflow of American talent. Lawmakers must not resort to knowledge protectionism—for instance, by requiring people who attend state-funded universities to spend a certain amount of their working life in the United States. Rather, they must ensure that America remains the most favorable place for high-tech enterprises and continues to attract foreign students to its universities and foreign workers to its companies. The U.S. monopoly on leading-edge opportunities is at an end. The world's best and brightest no longer assume that their future lies exclusively in the United States, and America's best are coming to a-gree: Their path to a dream career may well lead them overseas.

单选题Why is it that most of us can remember our precise surroundings the moment that we first learned of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination, the Challenger explosion or the fall of the Twin Towers, but not say, what grocery aisle we were standing in when the phone call came to remind us to pick up milk? What is it about the timing—or more specifically, the coincidence with intense experience—that seals in visual memories more effectively? That's the question that a new study from psychologists at the University of Washington set out to answer. The study, published online recently in the open-access journal PLoS Biology included a series of four experiments. In each experiment, which included distinct participants, Jeffrey Y. Lin and colleagues showed study subjects 16 photographs depicting familiar landscapes. The first time, participants merely looked at the images; the second time, they were also asked to focus on a number shown in the middle of the image; the third time, they also had to make note of an auditory cue as they looked at the images; and finally, they were shown images with a number in the middle, but told to ignore the number and focus only on the scene depicted. Researchers found that, when shown an image later and asked to recall if it had been among those they'd already seen, subjects' memory formation was consistently best when they had also been trying to concentrate on another task in both the second and third experiments, which involved viewing numbers or hearing audio tones while the images were presented, subjects formed clearer memories than in the first experiment—when they were simply instructed to look at the photos—and than in the fourth experiment—when they were shown numbers in the center of photos, but told to ignore them and focus on the images themselves. The findings suggest that it isn't the novelty of what we're seeing, but the experience that we are having while we look at something, that determines how well we store it away in our memories. Or, as the authors phrase it, the study results provide "evidence of a mechanism where traces of a visual scene are automatically encoded into memory at behaviorally relevant points in time regardless of the spatial focus of attention." When it comes to making memories, timing is of the essence.

单选题Three makes a trend. The Washington Post Co. Friday announced that it would look to sell its headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C. In January, the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News announced they would put up for sale their headquarters. The same month, Frank Gannett said it will sell the building that houses the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat circulation revenues are back to where they were in 1996. The digital numbers are rising, but not fast enough. Print media is hampered by high fixed costs incurred in the pre-digital era—pensions and union contracts, equipment like printing presses, large numbers of employees, and big office buildings. Virtually every newspaper company has engaged in drastic measures—laying off experienced employees, eliminating sections, cutting back printing from daily to a few days per week. Those efforts are all meant to lower day-to-day operating costs. But we've also seen newspaper companies seek onetime injections of cash by selling off non-core assets. Increasingly, the headquarters building—typically located right in the middle of town—is falling into the non-core asset category. Traditionalists may find these sales and the continued shrinking of newspapers' real-estate footprints to be depressing. But it's actually a positive development. Call it creative destruction, or adaptive reuse. In cities around the country, investors are finding better uses for properties. In lower Manhattan, Class B office buildings that used to house financial firms have been converted into expensive separate apartments. "It's a great thing, because it drives more tax revenue to the cities. And it gives the suburbs a run for the money," said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal company MillerSamuel. In D.C, the Washington Post will likely fetch an excellent price for its headquarters because Washington is a boomtown. Throughout D.C, investors are plowing cash into housing, office, and retail developments. The building that housed the organization that exposed the Watergate scandal may become the next Watergate complex Of course, progress inevitably displaces the prior tenants. It's likely the new homes that will be occupied by newspapermen and newspaperwomen in Washington, Rochester, and Detroit will be less grand, less central, and less historic than their current homes. And the sale of these properties alone won't solve the newspapers' financial problems. But it will buy them a very valuable commodity: time.

单选题"Watch out, it'll hurt for a second." Not only children but also many adults get uneasy when they hear those words from their doctors. And, as soon as the needle touches their skin the piercing pain can be felt very clearly. "After such an experience it is enough to simply imagine a needle at the next vaccination appointment to activate our pain memory," knows Prof. Dr. Thomas Weiss from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. As the scientist and his team from the Deptartment of Biological and Clinical Psychology could show in a study for the first time it is not only the painful memories and associations that set our pain memory on the alert. "Even verbal stimuli lead to reactions in certain areas of the brain," claims Prof. Weiss. As soon as we hear words like "tormenting," "tiring" or "plaguing," exactly those areas in the brain are being activated which process the corresponding pain. The psychologists from Jena University were able to examine this phenomenon using functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRT). In their study they investigated how healthy subjects process words associated with experiencing pain. In order to prevent reactions based on a plain negative affect the subjects were also confronted with negatively connotated words like "tenifying," "horrible" or "disgusting" besides the proper pain words. "Subject performed two tasks," explains Maria Richter in Weiss's team. "In a first task, subjects were supposed to imagine situations which correspond to the words," the Jena psychologist says. In a second task, subjects were also reading the words but they were distracted by a puzzle. "In both cases we could observe a clear activation of the pain matrix in the brain by pain-associated words," Maria Richter states. Other negatively connotated words, however, do not activate those regions. Neither for neutrally nor for positively connotated words comparable activity patterns could be examined. "These findings show that words alone are capable of activating our pain matrix," underlines Prof. Weiss. To save painful experiences is of biological advantage since it allows us to avoid painful situations in the future which might be dangerous for our lives. "However, our results suggest as well that verbal stimuli have a more important meaning than we have thought so far." For the Jena psychologist the question remains open which role the verbal confrontation with pain plays for chronic pain patients. "They tend to speak a lot about their experiencing of pain to their physician," Maria Richter says. It is possible that those conversations intensify the activity of the pain matrix in the brain and therefore intensify the pain experience. And so far it won't do any harm not to talk too much about pain. Maybe then the next injection will be only half as painful.

单选题Fromantiquitytomoderntimes,thenationhasalwaysbeenaproductofinformationmanagement.Theabilitytoimposetaxes,proclaimlaws,countcitizensandraiseanarmyliesattheheartofstatehood.Yetsomethingnewisbeingplanned.Thesedaysdemocraticopennessmeansmorethanthatcitizenscanvoteatregularintervalsinfreeandfairelections.Theyalsoexpecttohaveaccesstogovernmentdata.Thestatehaslongbeenthebiggestgenerator,collectoranduserofdata.Itkeepsrecordsoneverybirth,marriageanddeath,compilesfiguresonallaspectsoftheeconomyandkeepsstatisticsonlicenses,lawsandtheweather.YetuntilrecentlyallthesedatahavebeenlockedtightEvenwhenpubliclyaccessibletheywerehardtofind,andcollectinglotsofprintedinformationisnotoriouslydifficult.Butnowcitizensandnon-governmentalorganizationstheworldoverarepressingtogetaccesstopublicdataatthenational,stateandmunicipallevel—andsometimesgovernmentofficialsenthusiasticallysupportthem."Governmentinformationisaformofinfrastructure,nolessimportanttoourmodernlifethanourroads,electricalnetworkorwatersystems,"saysCarlMalamud,thebossofagroupcalledPub-lic.Resource.Orgthatputsgovernmentdataonline.Americaisintheleadondataaccess.OnhisfirstfulldayinofficeBarackObamaissuedapresidentialmemorandumorderingtheheadsoffederalagenciestomakeavailableasmuchinformationaspossible,urgingthemtoact"withaclearpresumption:inthefaceofdoubt,opennessprevails".Mr.Obama'sdirectivecausedawhirlofactivity.Itisnowpossibletoobtainfiguresonjob-relateddeathsthatnameemployers,andtogetannualdataonmigrationfree.Someinformationthatwaspreviouslyavailablebuthardtogetatnowcomesinacomputer-readableformat.Itisallonapublicwebsite,data.gov.Andmoreinformationisbeingreleasedallthetime.Within48hoursofdataonflightdelaysbeingmadepublic,awebsitehadsprunguptodiffusethem.Providingaccesstodata"createsacultureofaccountability",saysVivekKundra,thefederalgovernment'sCIO.Oneofthefirstthingshedidaftertakingofficewastocreateanonline"dashboard"detailingthegovernment'sown$70billiontechnologyspending.Nowthattheinformationisfreelyavailable,Congressandthepubliccanaskquestionsoroffersuggestions.Themodelwillbeappliedtootherareas,perhapsincludinghealth-caredata,saysMrKundra—providedthatloomingprivacyissuescanberesolved.Allthishasmadeabigdifference."Thereisaculturalchangeinwhatpeopleexpectfromgovernment,fuelledbytheexperienceofshoppingontheinternetandhavingreal-timeaccesstofinancialinformation,"saysJohnWonderlichoftheSunlightFoundation,whichpromotesopengovernment.Theeconomiccrisishasspeededupthatchange,particularlyinstateandcitygovernments.ChrisVein,SanFrancisco'sCIO,insiststhatprovidingmoreinformationcanmakegovernmentmoreefficient.California'sgenerous"sunshinelaws"providethenecessarylegalbacking.Amongthefirstusersofthenewlyavailabledatawasasitecalled"SanFranciscoCrimespotting"thatlayershistoricalcrimefiguresontopofmapinformation.Peoplenowoftencometopublicmeetingsarmedwithcrimemapstodemandpolicepatrolsintheirparticulararea.

单选题The technology revolution may be coming to poor countries via the mobile phone, not the personal computer, as it did in rich ones. And just as the Internet encouraged an entrepreneurial philosophy, and with it the creation of a few too many dotcom firms, Africa's surge in mobile-phone use may unleash the same sort of business energy, but tailored to local needs. One such initiative is about to begin. TradeNet, a software company based in Accra, Ghana, will unveil a simple sort of eBay for agricultural products across a dozen countries in West Africa. It lets buyers and sellers indicate what they are after and their contact information, which is sent to all relevant subscribers as an SMS text message in one of four languages. Interested parties can then reach others directly to do a deal. Listing offers is free, as is receiving the texts. TradeNet plans to earn revenue by putting advertisements in the messages, though it hopes the service will become so useful that recipients will eventually want to pay. For the moment, though, the company is busy signing up users and swallowing the cost of sending the messages. Mobile-phone use in sub-Saharan Africa is soaring. Whereas only 10% of the population had network coverage in 1999, today more than 60% have it, a figure expected to exceed 85% in the coming year, according to the GSM Association, an industry trade group. This provides the infrastructure for businesses like TradeNet to function. TradeNet is the brainchild of Mark Davies, a British dotcom tycoon who gave up the rat race and went to Africa in 2000. In 2005, he started the prototype for TradeNet using around $600,000 of his own money and about $200,000 from aid agencies. An early set of trials last year generated a surplus of trades, such as a sale of organic fertilizer between a person in Yemen and another in Nigeria. A number of other mobile-phone market-places taking shape also started as aid projects. For example, Trade at Hand, a project funded by the UN's International Trade Centre in Geneva, provides daily price information for fruit and vegetable exports in Burkina Faso and Mali, with plans to add more countries. And Manobi, a telecoms firm based in Senegal, providing real-time agricultural and fish prices to fee-paying subscribers, is also backed by aid money. But TradeNet's approach is unique so far because it collects valuable economic data—names, locations, business interests and telephone numbers—and then sells them to advertisers. The price of economic development may be junk mail by mobile phone.

单选题American presidents seem to age before our eyes. But the common belief that high-office stress grays our leaders faster than【C1】______may be a myth, new research finds. In fact, the majority of American presidents have lived longer than【C2】______men of their times. That's not to【C3】______that chronic stress has no effect on a person's lifespan, but【C4】______does high social standing. The findings【C5】______a body of research linking high status to better health:【C6】______, Oscar winners live longer than those who were only【C7】______; and the long life effect is also seen in Nobel Prize winners. The new study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,【C8】______the dates of birth, inauguration and death of all 34 past presidents who died of natural causes. The【C9】______lifespan for these men should have been 68 years,【C10】______they'd aged twice as fast during their years in【C11】______as the popular wisdom suggests they do. 【C12】______, the study found, these presidents lived an average 73 years. And indeed, 23 of the 34 presidents who died of natural causes lived longer than【C13】______, compared with other men their age during their lifetimes. Some presidents【C14】______an exceptionally long time: Gerald Ford died at 93.5 years, AND Ronald Reagan at 93.3. All【C15】______living presidents have already exceeded their life【C16】______, or are likely to do so. So why do people【C17】______the top of the hierarchy fare better than those below?【C18】______to wealth, education and the best health care of their times would seem to be obvious factors【C19】______medical attention seems to have actually killed President Garfield, who died from a fatal【C20】______introduced by his doctors' unclean treatment techniques after he was shot by an assassin.

单选题The simple act of hand-washing has been shown to help clear a guilty conscience and even make you more forgiving of the moral mistakes of others. It's known as the Macbeth principle of morality: we make a fundamental, psychological association between physical purity and moral purity, which lets us literally wash away our sins. The trick even works in the opposite direction, with cleanliness prompting moral behavior in one study, people exposed to a clean-smelling environment were induced to act more fairly and charitably toward strangers than people in a neutral-smelling place. Now a new study published in Science asks whether hand-washing can wipe the slate clean of any past behavior—even everyday decisions, like, say, choosing Paris over Rome for vacation. When people make choices, especially between two similarly attractive options, they tend to go to great lengths to justify them as psychological assurance they've made the right decision. The mental exercise reduces post-decisional doubt and the authors of the new study found that handwashing eliminated people's need to do it. As part of an alleged consumer survey, 40 undergraduates browsed 30 CD covers as if they were in a music store. They selected 10 CDs they would like to own and ranked them by preference. Later, the experimenter offered them a choice between their fifth- and sixth-ranked CDs as a token of appreciation from the sponsor. After the choice, participants completed an seemingly unrelated product survey that asked for evaluations of a liquid soap; half merely examined the bottle before answering, whereas others tested the soap by washing their hands. After a filler task, participants ranked the 10 CDs again. "People who merely examined the soap bottle dealt with their doubts about their decision by changing how they saw the CDs: as in hundreds of earlier studies, once they had made a choice, they saw the chosen CD as much more attractive than before, and the rejected CD as much less attractive," said study co-author Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at University of Michigan. "But hand-washing eliminated this classic effect. Once participants had washed their hands, they no longer needed to justify their choice when they ranked the CDs the second time around." The researchers repeated the experiment, this time asking participants to rank the desirability of four kinds of fruit jam. Once again, volunteers who wiped their hands clean after choosing showed the kind of satisfaction with their decision that the non-wipers lacked. Still, there's no guarantee that a bout of handwashing will avoid post-decision remorse in the long run. As far as those big decisions go, however, you're probably best off engaging in good old-fashioned justification.

单选题Ten years ago, I got a call from a reporter at a big-city daily paper. "I'm writing a story on communication skills," she said. "Are communication skills important in business?" I assumed I had misheard her question, and after she repeated it for me I still didn't know how to respond. Are communication skills important? "Er, they are very important," I managed to squeak out. My brain said: Are breathing skills important? The reporter explained: "The people I've spoken with so far have been mixed on the subject." Ten years ago, we were trapped even deeper in the Age of Left-Brain Business. We were way into Six Sigma and ISO 9000 and spreadsheets and regulations and policies. We thought we could line-item budget our way to greatness, create shareholder value by tracking our employees' every keystroke, and employ a dress-code policy to win in the marketplace. And lots of us believed that order and uniformity could save the world—the business world, anyway. We had to go pretty far down that path before we caught onto the limits of process, technology, and linear thinking. The right brain is coming back into style in the business world, and not a moment too soon. Smart salespeople say, "We've got compelling story that accords with our customer's values and history." Strong leaders say, "We're creating a context for our team members that weaves their passions into ours." Consultants get big money for providing perspective on the "user experience." That's not a linear, analytical process. These days, we're talking about emotion again, and context and meaning. Thank goodness we are. I was about to choke on the death-by-spreadsheet diet, and I wasn't the only one. Job seekers get great jobs today by avoiding the Black Hole of Keyword-Searching and going straight to a human decision-maker to share a story that links the job seeker's powerful history with the decisionmaker's present pain. Leadership teams spend their off-site weekends talking about not the next 400 strategic initiatives on somebody's list but rather a story-type road map to keep the troops philosophically on board while they take the next hill. The right brain's return is coming just at the right time, when employees are sick of not only their jobs but also the cynical, hypocritical, and obsessively left-brain behaviors they see all around them in corporate life. Smart employers will grab this opportunity to lose the three-inch-thick policy manuals and enforcement mentality. There's no leverage in those, no spark, and no aha. We've seen where the left-brain mentality has gotten us: to the land of spreadsheets, with PowerPoints and burned-out shells where our workforce used to be.

单选题That a lack of wealth all too often translates into poor health may seem painfully obvious. But now a review of health inequalities in England reveals that such inequalities don't just disadvantage the least well-off. The review also suggests some strategies to tackle the inequalities. These remedies should apply the world over, including in the US, where health and wealth inequalities can be especially severe. Commissioned by the UK government, the review was headed by Michael Marmot of University College London. Marmot, in his latest work, uses census data from across England to show that these health inequalities don't just exist between the richest and the poorest. He says action to reduce health inequalities should take place right across society, not focus solely on the poor. "It's not rich versus poor, because it's a social grade," he says. What's more, the most productive time to intervene to create a healthier society is childhood, Marmot says. That children who start out with well-off, well-educated parents are likely to be healthier would seem to be something of a no-brainer. But the fates of 17,200 UK babies monitored since they were born in the same week in April 1970, and highlighted in Marmot's review, make compelling evidence. It turns out that babies who had low IQs at 22 months and were born to richer, better educated parents caught up by the age of 6 with children who started with high IQs but whose parents were poorer and less educated. "It shows that the social is exceeding the biological," says Marmot. "We can change that, and that's why I'm optimistic." He also finds that children in poorer families miss out on pre-school reading, socialising and physical exercise. This disadvantage leaves them trailing far behind when they start school and they seldom recover. Such inequalities are not confined to the UK. A US report in April 2009 concluded that interventions most likely to improve the health of all Americans were "programs that promote early childhood development and that support children and families". A report from Brazil recommended prioritising "actions related to health promotion of children and adolescents". "We look forward to assessing how to adapt the policy recommendations for England to the rest of the world," says Rudiger Krech, director of the WHO's department of ethics, equity, trade and human rights. He agrees that giving every child the best start in life "is critical in setting the foundation for a lifetime of health and successful contribution to society". What can be done to ensure this? One option is to extend maternity or paternity leave. Another is to help struggling parents by providing extra services and information.

单选题The usual arguments for adding women directors are that diverse boards are more creative and innovative, less inclined to "groupthink" and likely to be more independent from senior management. Numerous studies show that high proportions of women directors coincide with superior corporate performance. But there is little academically accepted evidence of a causal relationship. It may be that thriving firms allow themselves the luxury of attending to social issues such as board diversity, whereas poorly performing ones batten down the hatches. Women do seem to be particularly effective board members at companies where things are going wrong. A 2008 paper on the impact of female directors by Renee Adams and Daniel Ferreira of the University of Queensland and the London School of Economics found that bosses of American firms whose shares perform poorly are more likely to be fired if the firm has a relatively high number of women directors. On average, however, the paper concluded that firms perform worse as the proportion of women on the board increases. There is certainly no shortage of companies capable of producing outstanding results with few or no women on the board. Nor is there any doubt that in many cases low female representation also reflects a lack of meritocracy (rule by merit) in corporate culture. In France, for instance, interlocking board memberships are common. Women, and many other deserving businesspeople, are excluded from the system. But what most prevents women from reaching the boardroom, say bosses and headhunters, is lack of hands-on experience of a firm's core business. Too many women go into functional roles such as accounting, marketing or human resources early in their careers rather than staying in the mainstream, driving profits. Getting men to show up at every board meeting—an effect of having more women on boards—is all very well, but what firms really need is savvy business advice. Yet according to EPWN, the pipeline of female executives is "almost empty": women occupy only 3% of executive roles on boards, compared with 12% of non-executive ones. That suggests that the best way to increase the number of women on boards is to ensure that more women gain the right experience further down the corporate hierarchy. That may be a slower process than imposing a quota, but it is also likely to be a more meaningful and effective one.

单选题Hope may be the lovely, lyrical, inspiring thing many people believe it is—"the thing with feathers," as Emily Dickinson called it. But to scientists, it's also a more dull thing as well: a skill, a tool, a simple choice that is a lot less accidental or lucky. As psychologist Shane Lopez, a senior scientist at the Gallup organization argues in his new book, Making Hope Happen, it's also much more attainable than it seems. In both children and adults, there can be a hard-to-deny link between a robust sense of hope and either work productivity or academic achievement. In studies of this idea, hope is measured by a widely accepted psychological survey and productivity is measured by grades earned, sales made, equipment manufactured etc. When Lopez and his colleagues recently gathered up a large body of this research and subjected it all to a meta-analysis, they came up with what they believe are very solid numbers. "Our finding was that hope accounts for about 14% of work productivity and 12% of academic achievement," he said. Hoping, Lopez stresses, is a lot different from wishing, though the two are often mixed. The super-bestseller The Secret is based on the vaguely defined and not-exactly peer-reviewed "law of attraction," which in this case means that just having positive thoughts about wealth, love, success and more can draw all of those things to you. "This wonderful future will happen for you if you just sit back and wish hard enough," Lopez says. But wishing, he explains is only an element of hope—it is, in a sense, hope without a plan. And that often leads nowhere. Effective hoping, Lopez says, is a very deliberate, three-step process. First there is selecting a goal, whether short-term or long term. Then you have to consider the gap between where you are now and where you will be when you achieve the goal, and lay out a series of sequential, short-term goals that will allow you to close that gap. Finally, there is the execution, establishing a plan for when you will begin to implement those steps and where and how you will execute them. It's far too much to say that effective hoping is the only—or even the biggest—part of what it takes to succeed. If 14% of business productivity can be attributed to hope, that means 86% is dependent on raw talent, unpredictable business cycles, the quality of the product you're selling, and often pure luck. But even if hope is just one ingredient in all of that, it's a stimulating, energizing one—the gas in the tank, the fuel rod in the reactor, the Mentos in the Pepsi. Hope may be the thing with feathers—but it's also the thing with power.

单选题What's the engine that drives American business? Innovation? Sweat? Capital? Try coffee. From the shop floor to the boardroom, Java—and I don't mean the soft ware—fuels workers and shapes office culture. What's more, a steaming cup of coffee may be as good for your health as it is for the bottom line. Many people take their coffee with a small dose of guilt, worried that it isn't good for the body. That's a misunderstanding from studies done in the 1950s and 1960s showing that coffee drinkers were prone to heart disease and other sufferings. These studies failed to account for cigarette smoking, which once went hand in cup with coffee drinking. Since then, the medical community has done a gradual turn on the health effects of coffee. Large, long-term studies show that coffee doesn't promote cancer and may even protect against some types. It's safe for the heart—so safe that the American Heart Association says it's OK for heart attack survivors to have a cup or two a day even as they recover in the coronary care unit. Results from the long-running Health Professionals Follow-Up and Nurses' Health studies show that drinking coffee cuts the risk of dying early from a heart attack or stroke. It's possible that the bean improves productivity, too. A bit of caffeine wakes up millions of workers in the morning. Controlled laboratory experiments indicate that it causes feelings of well-being and increases energy, alertness, and motivation. Functional MRI scans show that coffee activates parts of the brain involved in short-term memory, the kind that helps focus attention on tasks at hand. For all that, a word of warning is in order. The average cup of coffee serves up about 100 milligrams of caffeine, and a large specialty coffee can deliver five times that much. If you aren't used to caffeine, it can make you restless, boost your blood pressure, and dehydrate you. But the biggest health hazard is the extra stuff that drinkers add to coffee. Taken black, coffee is a nearly calorie-free beverage full of antioxidants and other vegetable nutrients. Add cream, sugar, fresh cream, and flavorings, and it turns into a fat- and calorie-laden dessert, which can add pounds that offset any possible health benefits. For most people, though, the health and social benefits of coffee outweigh the hazards, and the daily grind keeps American business spreading.

单选题Two of the most common rumors about immigrant families are that they don't really want to become American and that they're a drag on the rest of us. But a fascinating new Pew report gives lie to both fears. In the process, it reminds us why immigration matters. The study shows first of all that Americanization is proceeding as inevitably now as during previous great waves of migration. Yes, today's immigrants are Hispanic and Asian rather than European. But that has not made a difference. Today's 20 million adult sons and daughters of immigrants have learned English, advanced economically, and intermarried far more than their parents did and no more slowly than the Italians or Irish or Poles did a century ago. Nearly six in ten—almost double the percentage of their parents—consider themselves "typical Americans." As for whether immigrant families are a drag on society, the facts are clear. Second-generation Americans—the children of immigrants—are not just doing better than their parents. Their educational attainment and income are actually above the national average. They are contributors. If anything, as other research has shown, it is America that can be harmful to immigrant families: obesity and criminality increase from the first to the second generation. So the question should not be how to keep newcomers from diluting America but how to keep America from diluting the newcomers. This presents a challenge to both native-born Americans and today's immigrants. The Pew report notes that Americans who are of foreign birth or parentage, so-called "immigrant stock," will constitute a record 37% of the population by 2050. This frightens many white Americans to the core, especially those who are older and live in communities only recently touched by immigration. But for today's "immigrant stock," this moment creates an opportunity. Immigrants of earlier centuries proved that every kind of European could become simply white; today's immigrants prove that every kind of human can become simply American. But this means encouraging them to strive not only for their own families but also for the nation, through service and civic participation. We should bear in mind that whether we are native-born or newcomer, our task now, then, is to apply an immigrant's ingenuity, optimism, and perseverance to the systematic expansion of opportunity in America, To do that, as history shows and recent studies confirm, it'll help to have more immigrants around.

单选题Transatlantic friction between companies and regulators has grown as Europe's data guardians have become more assertive. Francesca Bignami, a professor at George Washington University's law school, says that the explosion of digital technologies has made it impossible for watchdogs to keep a close eye on every web company operating in their backyard. So instead they are relying more on scapegoating prominent wrongdoers in the hope that this will deter others. But regulators such as Peter Schaar, who heads Germany's federal data-protection agency, say the gulf is exaggerated. Some European countries, he points out, now have rules that make companies who suffer big losses of customer data to report these to the authorities. The inspiration for these measures comes from America. Yet even Mr. Schaar admits that the internet's global scale means that there will need to be changes on both sides of the Atlantic. He hints that Europe might adopt a more flexible regulatory stance if America were to create what amounts to an independent data-protection body along European lines. In Europe, where the flagship Data Protection Directive came into effect in 1995, the European Commission is conducting a review of its privacy policies. In America Congress has begun debating a new privacy bill and the Federal Trade Commission is considering an overhaul of its rules. Even if America and Europe do narrow their differences, internet firms will still have to struggle with other data watchdogs. In Asia countries that belong to APEC are trying to develop a set of regional guidelines for privacy rules under an initiative known as the Data Privacy Pathfinder. Some countries such as Australia and New Zealand have longstanding privacy laws, but many emerging nations have yet to roll out fully fledged versions of their own. Mr. Polonetsky sees Asia as "a new privacy battleground", with America and Europe both keen to tempt countries towards their own regulatory model. Canada already has something of a hybrid privacy regime, which may explain why its data-protection commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has been so influential on the international stage. She marshaled the signatories of the Google Buzz letter and took Facebook to task last year for breaching Canada's data privacy laws, which led the company to change its policies. Ms Stoddart argues that American companies often trip up on data-privacy issues because of "their brimming optimism that the whole world wants what they have rolled out in America." Yet the same optimism has helped to create global companies that have brought huge benefits to consumers, while also presenting privacy regulators with tough choices. Shoehorning such firms into old privacy frameworks will not benefit either them or their users.

单选题The topic of virtual violence in video games resulting in real life aggression has long been controversial—and many courts have tested the limits of the "video games made me do it" defense. Now a new study published this week in the March issue of the Psychological Bulletin adds to the debate with findings suggesting that, while exposure to violence in video games may not have huge consequences, they have very real implications. In a review of 130 studies including more than 130,000 subjects, researchers found that, regardless of age group, gender or culture, violent video games increased the likelihood of aggression and decreased empathy in kids. The studies, whose subjects ranged from elementary school students to college undergraduates, were conducted in the U.S., Europe and Japan and included both genders. Lead author, Craig Anderson, a psychology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University, argues that these findings indicate that exposure to virtual brutality increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior, both in the short- and long-term. Anderson believes that this latest research, adding to earlier inquiries, points to the need to move beyond the question of whether or not exposure to virtual violence can have negative consequences. Now, he says, it is time to work toward creating public policies and promoting in-home approaches that will better enable parents to cultivate environments for children that incorporate video games as a healthy component. Speaking with USA Today he pointed out that: "The rating itself does not tell you whether it is a healthy or unhealthy game. Any game that involves killing or harming another character in order to advance is likely to be teaching inappropriate lessons to whoever is playing it." An accompanying critique of the research, written by Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor at Texas A&M International University, suggested that Anderson and colleagues' findings overestimated the influence of video games. Ferguson pointed to his own research published earlier in the Journal of Pediatrics indicating that "delinquent peer influences, anti-social personality traits, depression, and parents/ guardians who use psychological abuse" were strong risk factors for aggressive and violent behavior in youths, while things like neighborhood quality, parents' domestic violence and violent video games "were not predictive of youth violence and aggression". Anderson responded to the critique by acknowledging that the effect of video games on risk for later aggression was small and the aggression risk posed by video game violence should certainly be considered within the context of other risk factors. But, he also argued, exposure to video game violence is one risk factor for aggression that parents can readily do something about.

单选题McDonald's, Greggs, KFC and Subway are today named as the most littered brands in England as Keep Britain Tidy【C1】______fast-food companies to do more to tackle customers who drop their wrappers and beverage boxes in the streets. Phil Barton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy,【C2】______its new Dirty Pig campaign, said it was the first time it had investigated which【C3】______made up "littered England" and the same names appeared again and again. "We【C4】______litterers for dropping this fast food litter【C5】______the first place but also believe the results have relevant messages for the fast food【C6】______. McDonald's, Greggs, KFC and Subway need to do more to【C7】______littering by their customers." He recognised efforts made by McDonald's,【C8】______placing litter bins and increasing litter patrols, but its litter remained "all too prevalent". All fast food chains should reduce【C9】______packaging, he added. Companies could also reduce prices【C10】______those who stayed to eat food on their premises, offer money-off cash coupons or other【C11】______for those who returned packaging and put more bins at【C12】______points in local streets, not just outside their premises. A spokesman for McDonald's said: "We do our best.【C13】______we ask all our customers to dispose of litter responsibly." Trials of more extensive, all-day litter patrols were【C14】______in Manchester and Birmingham. KFC said it took its【C15】______for Utter management "very seriously", and would introduce a programme to reduce packaging on many products. Subway said that it worked hard to【C16】______the impact of litter on communities,【C17】______it was "still down to the【C18】______customer to dispose of their litter responsibly". Greggs said it recognised the "continuing challenge for us all",【C19】______having already taken measures to help【C20】______the issue.

单选题College students are more stressed out than ever before—at least according to the latest findings of a large, national survey. The study found that the way people tend to conceal their negative emotions while broadcasting their happy ones makes the rest of us feel somehow "less than"—as though all our friends and neighbors have better lives than we do. This phenomenon might tie into why students are feeling less confident about their level of emotional and mental stability. If all the students around you are desperately trying to put on a happy face—and you perceive that face as a true reflection of their inner selves, even as you work to hide your own sadness —well, it's not surprising that so many students might be getting a bit stressed out. Instead, if students were encouraged to feel safe expressing their honest emotions, even about their fears and failures, everyone might feel more connected, happier—and, yes, healthier.