单选题The second paragraph is meant to demonstrate that______.

单选题As to how to treat the bust businesses, America differs from the European countries in that

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Until recently, mobile radio was to wireless communications what the Yugo was to transportation. With a mixed clientele ranging from truckers using CBs to police armed with walkie-talkies to taxi drivers dispatched by radio, it was viewed as an unglamorous business and a technological backwater. But specialized mobile radio, as it is known, has been rediscovered. It is now considered one of the biggest prizes in the all-out war for the public airwaves. The reason: high-tech companies have figured out how to profitably rebuild the antiquated dispatching system into an advanced cellular-telephone network that can take on the likes of AT & T and the giant Baby Bells. Upstart Nextel Communications sent shock waves through the industry last week when it agreed to buy Motorola's SMR frequencies for $1.8 billion. That could pose a serious threat to cellular hegemony. Although both systems are based on the same basic technology, SMR systems are digital and cover almost 25 times as much area as the average cellular network. SMR handsets won't work on cellular systems and tend to be bulkier than cellular phones, though they provide more features, like a digital pager service. And while cellular growth has tripled to some 13 million subscribers since 2000, the technology has been losing ground. It is running out of channel capacity so fast, in fact, that 40% of cellular calls in high-density areas like Manhattan and Los Angeles fail to be completed. SMRs have capacity to spare, and service could eventually be priced 10% to 15% less than cellular. Dispatchers predict they will have at least 10 million subscribers by the end of the decade. There are now about 1.5 million users of SMRs. The addition of another contender to an already crowded field of telephone systems will surely multiply the confusion. By the year 2010, consumers will be able to choose from at least half a dozen vendors of a dizzying array of wireless-communications services, including pagers, voice mail answering machines and cellular phones. Phone and cable television operators, such as Bell South, MCI and Cox Enterprises, are developing so-called personal communications networks, or PCNs, a highly advanced portable-phone system that is expected to cover a wider area, connect to a greater variety of services and be cheaper to operate than conventional cellular. And many companies that have gambled on the wrong technological standards, and invested billions trying to develop the same markets, will undoubtedly lose a great deal of money before the shakeout is over. "The winners," says Nextel chairman Morgan O'Brien, "will be those who can make the choice for consumers easy." With all the anticipated confusion--mindful of the early years of personal computers--it is likely to be years before anyone calls the purchase of wireless products an "easy" choice.

单选题The Seneca Falls conference on women's right was

单选题OnthegroundflooroftheFederalReservebuildinginWashington,DC,thereisanelectronicgamewhichtestsavisitor'sskillatsettinginterestrates.Youhavetodecidehowtorespondtoeventssuchasrisinginflationorastockmarketcrash.Ifyougetalltheanswersright,themachinedeclaresyouthenextFedchairman.Inreallife,becauseofhugeuncertaintiesaboutdataandhowtheeconomyworks,thereisnoobviouslyrightanswertothequestionofwhentochangeinterestrates.NoristhereanyeasytestofwhowillmakethebestFedchairman.SowhowouldTheEconomistSelectforthejob?AlanGreenspanwillretireasFedchairmanonJanuary31st,afteramere18yearsinthejob.SoGeorgeBushneedstonominateasuccessorsoon.Mr.Bushhasapenchantforpickinghispalstofilltopjobs:lastweekhenominatedhispersonallawyerHarrietMierstotheSupremeCourt.ButhispersonalbankmanagerreallywouldnotcutthemustardasFedchairman.Thisisthemostimportanteconomic-policyjobinAmerica—indeedinthewholeworld.TheFedchairmansetsinterestrateswiththeaimofcontrollinginflation,whichinturnhelpsdeterminethevalueofthedollar,theworld'smainreservecurrency.Itishardlysurprisingthatfinancialmarketsworldwidecanriseorfallonhiseveryword.Financialmarketsaretypicallymorevolatileduringthefirstyearafterthehandovertoanewchairmanthanduringtherestofhistenure.InOctober1987,barelytwomonthsafterMr.Greenspantookoffice,thestockmarketcrashed.Currentconditionsforahandoverarehardlyideal.America'seconomyhasneverlookedsounbalanced,withanegativehouseholdsavingsrate,ahousingbubble,aheftybudgetdeficit,arecordcurrent-accountdeficitandrisinginflation.FiguresdueonOctober14thareexpectedtoshowthatthe12-monthrateofinflationhasrisenabove4%—itshighestsince1991.

单选题The author would be most likely to agree that

单选题European farm ministers have ended three weeks of negotiations with a deal which they claim represents genuine reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP). Will it be enough to kick off the Doha world trade negotiations? On the face of it, the deal agreed in the early hours of Thursday June 26th looks promising. Most subsidies linked to specific farm products are, at last, to be broken--the idea is to replace these with a direct payment to farmers, .unconnected to particular products. Support prices for several key products, including milk and butter, are to be cut-that should mean European prices eventually falling towards the world market level. Cut-ting the link between subsidy and production was the main objective of proposals put forward by Mr. Fischler, which had formed the starting point for the negotiations. The CAP is hugely unpopular around the world. It subsidizes European farmers to such an extent that they can undercut farmers from poor countries, who also face trade barriers that largely exclude them from the potentially lucrative European market. Farm trade is also a key feature of the Doha round of trade talks, launched under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001. Developing countries have lined up alongside a number of industrial countries to demand an end to the massive subsidies Europe pays its farmers. Several Doha deadlines have already been missed because of the EU's intransigence, and the survival of the talks will be at risk if no progress is made by September, when the world's trade ministers meet in Cancun, Mexico. But now even the French seem to have gone along with the deal hammered out in Luxembourg. Up to a point, anyway. The package of measures gives the green light for the most eager reformers to move fast to implement the changes within their own countries. But there is an escape clause of sorts for the French and other reform-averse nations. They can delay implementation for up to two years. There is also a suggestion that the reforms might not apply where there is a chance that they would lead to a reduction in land under cultivation. These 1et-outs are potentially damaging for Europe's negotiators in the Doha round. They could significantly reduce the cost savings that the reforms might otherwise generate and, in turn, keep European expenditure on farm support unacceptably high by world standards. Mote generally, the escape clauses could undermine the reforms by encouraging the suspicion that the new package will not deliver the changes that its supporters claim Close analysis of what is inevitably a very complicated package might confirm the sceptics' fears.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} "Worse than useless," fumed Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, on March 19th, when the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Terrible, and getting worse," added Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic colleague who has kept a watchful eye on the INS for ten years. Committee members lined up to take swings at James Ziglar, the head of the INS. He explained, somewhat pathetically, that "outdated procedures" had kept the visa-processing wheels grinding slowly through a backlog of applications. He also had some new rules in mind to tighten up visas. Speeding up the paperwork and getting more of it on to computers--is vital, but the September attacks have exposed the tension, between the agency's two jobs: on the one hand enforcing the security of America's borders, and on the other granting privileges such as work permits to foreigners. But other people want more radical changes. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, wants to split the INS into two separate bodies, one dealing with border security and the other with handling benefits to immigrants. The other approach, favored in the White House, is to treat the two functions as complementary, and to give the INS even more responsibility for security. Under that plan, the INS would merge with the Customs Service, which monitors the 20m shipments of goods brought into America every year, as well as the bags carried in by some 500m visitors. The two agencies would form one large body within the Department of Justice, the current home of the INS. This would cut out some of the duplicated effort at borders, where customs officers and agents from the INS's Border Patrol often rub shoulders but do not work together. Mr Bush--who has said that the news of the visa approvals left him "plenty hot" --was expected to give his approval. The senate, however, may not be quite so keen. The Justice Department could have trouble handling such a merger, let alone taking on the considerable economic responsibilities of the Customs Service, which is currently part of the Treasury. The senate prefers yet another set of security recommendations, including links between the databases of different agencies that hold security and immigration information, and scanners at ports of entry to check biometric data recorded on immigration documents. These ideas are embodied in a bill sponsored by members of both parties, but are currently held up by Robert Byrd, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who worries that there has not been enough debate on the subject. Mr Ziglar, poor chap, may feel there has been more than enough.

单选题Last summer, some twenty-eight thousand homeless people were afforded shelter by the city of New York. Of this number, twelve thou sand were children and six thousand were parents living together in families. The average child was six years old, the average parent twenty seven. A typical homeless family included a mother with two or three children, but in about one-fifth of these families two parents were present. Roughly ten thousand single persons, then, made up the remainder of the population of the city' s shelter. These proportions vary somewhat from one area of the nation to another. In all areas, however, families are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population, and in the Northeast they are by far the largest sector already. In Massachusetts, three-fourths of the homeless now are families with children; in certain parts of Massachusetts-Attleboro and Northampton, for example-the proportion reaches 90percent. Two thirds of the homeless children studied recently in Boston were less than five years old. Of the estimated two to three million homeless people nationwide, about 500,000 are dependent children, according to Robert Hayes, counsel to the National Coalition for the homeless. Including their parents, at least 750,000 homeless people in America are family members. What is to be made, then, of the supposition that the homeless are primarily the former residents of mental hospitals, persons who were carelessly released during the 1970s? Many of them are, to be sure. Among the older men and women in the streets and shelters, as many as one-third ( some believe as many as one-half) may be chronically disturbed, and a number of these people left mental hospitals during the 1970s. But in a city like New York, where nearly half the homeless are small children with an average of six, to operate on the basis of such a supposition makes no sense. Their parents, with an average age of twenty-seven, are not likely to have been hospitalized in the 1970s, either.

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Scientists have for the first time used cloning to create human embryos that live long enough in a laboratory dish to have their stem cells harvested. The feat could set the stage for physicians to produce cells and tissues, tailored to a patient's genetic identity that can treat a wide variety of human illnesses. The accomplishment also provides a road map for how to clone a person, an even more divisive undertaking. The new work, performed in South Korea, represents "a major advance in stem cell research. It could help spur a medical revolution as important as antibiotics and vaccines", says Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a company in Worcester, Mass., that's also investigating the promising stem cell strategy called therapeutic cloning. "However, now that the methodology is publicly available", Lanza adds, "I think it is absolutely imperative that we pass laws worldwide to prevent the technology from being abused for reproductive-cloning purposes." While some fertility doctors and a religious cult have claimed success at creating a pregnancy via cloning, they've offered no convincing proof. In contrast, the South Korean research is being reported at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle and will appear in an upcoming Science. "This is reality," says stem cell researcher John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University. "He4'e is a bona fide, refereed journal saying that a human embryo has been cloned and a cell line derived from it." Although ACT has not yet published a report of a cloned human blastocyst, Lanza says that the South Korean success is "consistent with our own results." Therapeutic cloning appeals to Lanza and physicians because cells made this way could have the same DNA as a patient's cells do and thus avoid rejection after they're transplanted. Seeking a compromise that would permit this strategy to be pursued, many scientists have called for legislation that would ban cloning to produce a baby but allow the creation of cloned embryos to generate stem cells for research or therapies. "The debate has been very polarized," notes bio-ethicist Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University in Evanston.

单选题It is only in recent years that we have recognized that

单选题If one travels on the Mediterranean cruise in the future,