Writeanessayof160~200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyontheANSWERSHEET.(20points)

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyontheANSWERSHEET.(20points)

When it comes to suing doctors, Philadelphia is hardly the city of brotherly love. A combination of sprightly lawyers and sympathetic juries has made Philadelphia a hotspot for medical-malpractice lawsuits. Since 1995, Pennsylvania state courts have awarded an average of $2m in such cases, according to Jury Verdict Research, a survey firm. Some medical specialists have seen their malpractice insurance premiums nearly double over the past year. Obstetricians are now paying up to $104,000 a year to protect themselves. The insurance industry is largely to blame. Carol Golin, the Monitor"s editor, argues that in the 1990s insurers tried to grab market share by offering artificially low rates (betting that any losses would be covered by gains on their investments). The stock-market correction, coupled with the large legal awards, has eroded the insurers" reserves. Three in Pennsylvania alone have gone bust. A few doctors—particularly older ones—will quit. The rest are adapting. Some are abandoning litigation-prone procedures, such as delivering babies. Others are moving parts of their practice to neighboring states where insurance rates are lower. Some from Pennsylvania have opened offices in New Jersey. New doctors may also be deterred from setting up shop in litigation havens, however prestigious. Despite a Republican president, tort reform has got nowhere at the federal level. Indeed doctors could get clobbered indirectly by a Patients" Bill of Rights, which would further expose managed care companies to lawsuits. This prospect has fuelled interest among doctors in Pennsylvania"s new medical malpractice reform bill, which was signed into law on March 20th. It will, among other things, give doctors $40m of state funds to offset their insurance premiums, spread the payment of awards out over time and prohibit individuals from double-dipping, that is, suing a doctor for damages that have already been paid by their health insurer. But will it really help? Randall Bovbjerg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, argues that the only proper way to slow down the litigation machine would be to limit the compensation for pain and suffering, so-called "non-monetary damages". Needless to say, a fixed cap on such awards is resisted by most trial lawyers. But Mr. Bovbjerg reckons a more nuanced approach, with a sliding scale of payments based on well-defined measures of injury, is a better way forward. In the meantime, doctors and insurers are bracing themselves for a couple more rough years before the insurance cycle turns. Nobody disputes that hospital staff make mistakes: a 1999 Institute of Medicine report claimed that errors kill at least 44,000 patients a year. But there is little evidence that malpractice lawsuits on their own will solve the problem.

Everyday some 16m barrels of oil leave the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. That is enough to fill a soft drink can for everyone on earth, or to power every motor vehicle on the planet for 25 miles (40km). Gulf oil accounts for 40% of global trade in the sticky stuff. More important, it makes up two-thirds of known deposits. Whereas at present production rates the rest of the world"s oil reserves will last for a mere 25 years, the Gulf"s will last for 100 years. In other words, the region"s strategic importance is set to grow and grow. Or at least so goes the conventional wisdom, which is usually rounded out with scary talk of unstable, spendthrift regimes and a looming fundamentalist menace. Yet all those numbers come with caveats. A great deal of oil is consumed by the countries that produce it rather than traded, so in reality the Gulf accounts for less than a quarter of the world"s daily consumption. As for reserves, the figures are as changeable as a mirage in the desert. The most comprehensive research available, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, refers to an "expected" total volume for global hydrocarbon deposits that is about double current known reserves. Using that figure, and throwing in natural gas along with oil, it appears that the Gulf contains a more moderate 30% or so of the planet"s future fossil-fuel supplies. Leaving out the two Gulf states that are not covered in this survey—Iran and Iraq the remaining six between them hold something like 20% of world hydrocarbon reserves, not much more than Russia. All the same, it is still a hefty chunk; enough, you might think, to keep the people living atop the wells in comfort for the foreseeable future. But you might be wrong. At present, the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council have a combined national income roughly equal to Switzerland"s, but a population which, at around 30m, is more than four times as big. It is also the fastest-growing on earth, having increased at nine times the Swiss rate over the past quarter-century. Meanwhile the region"s share of world oil trade has fallen, as has the average price per barrel. As a result, the income per person generated by GCC oil exports has been diminishing since the 1970s. True, surging demand from America and Asia has recently boosted the Gulf"s share of trade, but the medium-term outlook for oil pries remains weak. Combined with continued growth in oil consumption, this should create sustained upward pressure on prices. And high oil prices will speed the search for alternatives. Who knows, in 20 years" time fuel cells and hydrogen power may have started to become commercial propositions.

Nothing can be done without money.

Several years into a campaign to get kids to eat better and exercise more, child obesity rates have appeared to stabilize, and might be poised for a reversal. But a study published Monday in the journal PNAS suggests that among adolescents, the【C1】______ signs are limited to those from better-educated, more【C2】______families. Among teens from poorer, less well-educated families, obesity has【C3】______to rise. That class-gap was not【C4】______in younger children. But as children neared【C5】______, the class differences became increasingly obvious. 【C6】______between rich and poor in obesity rates are not new, and they are only one of many health gaps that make poor patients sicker and more likely to die【C7】______than richer ones. But if the public health message on obesity "has not diffused【C8】______across the population," this gap could【C9】______efforts to stem a tidal wave of【C10】______obesity-related diseases in the years ahead. Researchers from Harvard University"s Kennedy School of Government found that【C11】______ activity may account largely for the【C12】______ trend in obesity between rich and poor. If public health experts are to prevent childhood obesity and【C13】______drive down future obesity among adults, they"ll have to figure out【C14】______less advantaged kids don"t get as much exercise, the authors of the latest study say. Yes, lack of【C15】______centers, playgrounds, and streets and sidewalks that【C16】______walking, biking and playing are important, they wrote. But, they added, "this is not the whole story." Among children with parents who【C17】______high on the socioeconomic scale, participation in high school sports and clubs has increased. But among their【C18】______from families of lower educational【C19】______and income, such participation has【C20】______.

Suppose you are Li Ming, a freshman on the campus. You are eager to obtain the membership of any club at the university, so you decide to write a letter to President of Student Union to 1) ask for relevant information, 2) express your strong desire, and 3) give some closing remarks. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. You are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A—G. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you.A. A machine has been developed that pulps paper and then processes it into packaging, e.g. egg-boxes and cartons. This could be easily adapted for local authorities use. It would mean that people would have to separate their refuse into paper and non-paper, with a different dustbin for each. Paper is, in fact, probably the material that can be most easily recycled; and now, with massive increases in paper prices, the time has come at which collection by local authorities could be profitable.B. Recycling of this kind is already happening with milk bottles, which are returned to the dairies, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More and more dairies are experimenting with plastic bottles, and it has been estimated that if all the milk bottles necessary were made of plastic, then British dairies would be producing the equivalent of enough plastic tubing to encircle the earth every five or six days!C. The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. Useless wrapping accounts for much of the refuse put out by the average London household each week. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment.D. The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever growing mounds of plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufacturers who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs.E. Little research, however, is being carried out on the costs of alternative types of packaging. Just how possible is it, for instance, for local authorities to salvage paper, pulp it and recycle it as egg-boxes? Would it be cheaper to plant another forest? Paper is the material most used for packaging—20 million paper bags are apparently used in Great Britain each day—but very little is salvaged.F. It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and re-use of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and making things look better so that more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it sensibly. What is needed now is a more sophisticated approach to using scarce resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.G. To get a chocolate out of a box requires a considerable amount of unpacking, the box has to be taken out of the paper bag in which it arrived; the cellophane wrapper has to be torn off, the lid opened and the paper removed; the chocolate itself then has to be unwrapped from its own piece of paper. But this insane amount of wrapping is not confined to luxuries. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in cellophane, polythene or paper.Order: G is the first paragraph and F is the last.Notes:cellophane(包装用的)玻璃纸。do up 打包，装饰。polythene 聚乙烯。refuse n.废料，废物。mess up 型脏，弄乱。salvage 回收利用。pulp 使…成为浆状。carton 纸板盒。encircle 环绕。mound 小丘，小堆。do away with 处理掉。as opposed to与…对照。not so much...as与其…倒不如…。

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingbarchart.Inyouressay,youshouldfirstdescribethebarchart,theninterpretitsmeaning,andgiveyourcommentonit.

Alison Preston of the University of Texas at Austin"s Center for Learning and Memory explains:A short-term memory"s conversion to a long-term memory requires changes within the brain that protect the memory from interference from competing stimuli or disruption from injury or disease. This time-dependent process of stabilization, whereby our experiences achieve a permanent record in ourmemory, is referred to as "consolidation". Memory consolidation can occur at many organizational levels in the brain. The cellular and molecular portions of memory consolidation typically take place within the first minutes or hours of learning and result in changes to neurons (nerve cells) or sets of neurons. Systems-level consolidation, involving the reorganization of brain networks that handle the processing of individual memories can then happen on a much slower time frame of days or even years. The consolidation process that affects declarative memories-recollections of general facts and specific events—relies on the function of some specific structures in the brain. At the cellular level, memory is expressed as changes to the structure and function of neurons. For example, new synapses—the connections between neurons through which they exchange information—can form to allow for communication between new networks of neurons. Alternatively, existing synapses can be strengthened to allow for increased sensitivity in the communication between two neurons.Consolidating such synaptic changes requires the synthesis of new RNA and proteins in the structures, which transform temporary alterations in synaptic transmission into persistent modifications of synaptic architecture. With time, the brain systems also change. Initially, the specific structure works in concert with sensory-processing regions distributed in the neo-cortex (the outermost layer of the brain) to form the new memories. Within the neo-cortex, representations of the elements that constitute an event in our life are distributed across multiple brain regions according to their content. When a memory is first formed, the specific structure rapidly combines this distributed information into a single memory, thus acting as an index of representations in the sensory-processing regions. As time passes, cellular and molecular changes allow for the strengthening of direct connections among the neocortical regions, enabling access to the memory independent of the structure. Thus, while damage to the structure from injury or particular disorder hampers the ability to form new declarative memories, such a disruption may not impair memories for facts and events that have already been consolidated. Thus, an amnesiac with hippocampal damage would not be able to learn the names of current presidential candidates but would be able to recall the identity of our 16th president.

In September, more than a dozen whales beached themselves in the Canary Islands. Rescuers tried to water down the whales and keep them cool. But all of them【C1】______died. Nearby, NATO naval forces were【C2】______echo sounding devices meant to【C3】______an enemy's submarines, and public【C4】______of the deaths ultimately came to【C5】______suspicions of a link between whale distress and loud ocean noises. The theory is that the mammals seek to【C6】______the roar of the deep, rush toward the surface and in some cases end up going【C7】______. For decades, environmentalists have worked to reduce the undersea noise—usually with【C8】______success, given the growing industrialization and militarization of the oceans. They have【C9】______suits and waged letter-writing campaigns,【C10】______a recent petition that asks the United States Navy to【C11】______its testing of underwater sound equipment The discovery by biologists in Hawaii that whales can【C12】______the sensitivity of their hearing to protect their ears from loud noise adds another dimension to the【C13】______. Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst, called the research fascinating and said he hoped it would prove【C14】______in protecting whale hearing from these threats. But he【C15】______the finding as a work in【C16】______that posed many unanswered questions. "A lot more work needs【C17】______," he said. "Could it be replicated in the wild? It's a huge question." 【C18】______whales could learn to decrease the sensitivity of their hearing, Mr. Jasny said, that would【C19】______only a relatively small part of the oceanic noise problem. "It's important to understand that it's【C20】______," he said of the proposed method. "It won't be a silver bullet."

Declining a Job Offer Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You have received a job offer from the ABC Company. However, you are not going to work in that company. Write a letter to decline the offer and explain your reasons. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

【F1】 Proponents of different jazz styles have always argued that their predecessor's musical style did not include essential characteristics that define jazz as jazz. Thus, 1940's swing was belittled by beboppers of the 1950 's who were themselves attacked by free jazzes of the 1960 's. The neoboppers of the 1980's and 1990 's attacked almost everybody else. The titanic figure of Black saxophonist John Coltrane has complicated the arguments made by proponents of styles from bebop through neobop because in his own musical journey he drew from all those styles. His influence on all types of jazz was immeasurable. At the height of his popularity, Coltrane largely abandoned playing bebop, the style that had brought him fame, to explore the outer reaches of jazz. Coltrane himself probably believed that the only essential characteristic of jazz was improvisation, the one constant in his journey from bebop to open-ended improvisations on modal, Indian, and African melodies.【F2】 On the other hand, this dogged student and prodigious technician —who insisted on spending hours each day practicing scales from theory books—was never able to jettison completely the influence of bebop, with its fast and elaborate chains of notes and ornaments on melody. Two stylistic characteristics shaped the way Coltrane played the tenor saxophone: he favored playing fast runs of notes built on a melody and depended on heavy, regularly accented beats.【F3】 The first led Coltrane to sheets of sound where he raced faster and faster, pile-driving notes into each other to suggest stacked harmonies; the second meant that his sense of rhythm was almost as close to rock as to bebop. Three recordings illustrate Coltrane's energizing explorations. Recording Kind of Blue with Miles Davis, Coltrane found himself outside bop, exploring modal melodies. Here he played surging, lengthy solos built largely around repeated motifs—an organizing principle unlike that of free jazz saxophone player Ornette Coleman, who modulated or altered melodies in his solos. On Giant Steps, Coltrane debuted as leader, introducing his own compositions.【F4】 Here the sheets of sound, downbeat accents, repetitions, and great speed are part of each solo, and the variety of the shapes of his phrases is unique. Coltrane's searching explorations produced solid achievement. My Favorite Things was another kind of watershed. Here Coltrane played the soprano saxophone, an instrument seldom used by jazz musicians. Musically, the results were astounding.【F5】 With the soprano's piping sound, ideas that had sounded dark and brooding acquired a feeling of giddy fantasy.

Coinciding with the groundbreaking theory of biological evolution proposed by British naturalist Charles Darwin in the 1860s, British social philosopher Herbert Spencer put forward his own theory of biological and cultural evolution. Spencer argued that all worldly phenomena, including human societies, changed over time, advancing toward perfection.【C1】______. American social scientist Lewis Henry Morgan introduced another theory of cultural evolution in the late 1800s. Morgan helped found modern anthropology—the scientific study of human societies, customs and beliefs—thus becoming one of the earliest anthropologists. In his work, he attempted to show how all aspects of culture changed together in the evolution of societies.【C2】______. In the early 1900s in North America, German-born American anthropologist Franz Boas developed a new theory of culture known as Historical particularism, which emphasized the uniqueness of all cultures, gave new direction to anthropology.【C3】______. Boas felt that the culture of any society must be understood as the result of a unique history and not as one of many cultures belonging to a broader evolutionary stage or type of culture . 【C4】______. Historical particularism became a dominant approach to the study of culture in American anthropology, largely through the influence of many students of Boas. But a number of anthropologists in the early 1900s also rejected the particularist theory of culture in favor of diffusionism. Some attributed virtually every important cultural achievement to the inventions of a few, especially gifted peoples that, according to diffusionists, then spread to other cultures.【C5】______. Also in the early 1900s, French sociologist Emile Durkheim developed a theory of culture that would greatly influence anthropology. Durkheim proposed that religious beliefs functioned to reinforce social solidarity. An interest in the relationship between the function of society and culture became a major theme in European, and especially British, anthropology. [A]Other anthropologists believed that cultural innovations, such as inventions, had a single origin and passed from society to society. This theory was known as diffusionism. [B]In order to study particular cultures as completely as possible, he became skilled in linguistics, the study of languages, and in physical anthropology, the study of human biology and anatomy. [C]He argued that human evolution was characterized by a struggle he called the "survival of the fittest," in which weaker races and societies must eventually be replaced by stronger, more advanced races and societies. [D]They also focused on important rituals that appeared to preserve a people' s social structure, such as initiation ceremonies that formally signify children' s entrance into adulthood. [E]Thus, in his view, diverse aspects of culture, such as the structure of families, forms of marriage, categories of kinship, ownership of property, forms of government, technology, and systems of food production, all changed as societies evolved. [F]Supporters of the theory viewed culture as a collection of integrated parts that work together to keep a society functioning. [G]For example, British anthropologists Grafton Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry incorrectly suggested, on the basis of inadequate information, that farming, pottery making, and metallurgy all originated in ancient Egypt and diffused throughout the world. In fact, all of these cultural developments occurred separately at different times in many parts of the world.

The 1st Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, takes the view that the people should dictate to the government, not the other way around. But no one told a group of 32 state attorneys general, who have taken it upon themselves to instruct the film industry on the appropriate content of movies. This time, the cause is not raunchy sex, foul language or blood-spattering violence. It"s cigarettes. Many experts think that when actors puff away, they cause teenagers to do likewise. One study went so far as to say that 38 percent of all the kids who acquire the habit do so because of the influence of films. So all these state government officials want filmmakers to stop depicting tobacco use. It"s hard to fully credit the notion that kids start smoking just because they see Scarlett Johansson doing it. If movies exert such a mammoth influence on impressionable youngsters, shouldn"t teen tobacco use be on the rise? The studies themselves are not as damning as they purport to be. They indicate that kids who watch more movies with smoking are more likely to smoke. But a correlation does not necessarily show a cause: Just because there is lots of beer drinking at baseball games doesn"t mean beer drinking causes baseball. It may be that kids see a star light up and rush out to imitate him. Or it may be that teens who are inclined to smoke anyway are also inclined to see the sort of movies that feature smoking. Michael Siegel, a physician and professor, believes the studies greatly exaggerate the impact of tobacco in films. "It is simply one of a large number of ways in which youths are exposed to positive images of smoking(which includes advertisements, television movies, television shows, DVDs, Internet, music videos, and a variety of other sources)," he told me in an e-mail interview. "To single out smoking in movies as THE cause of youth smoking initiation for a large percentage of kids is ridiculous. Putting an R rating on smoky movies probably wouldn"t do much to reduce teenagers" exposure. Some 75 percent of new releases that feature smoking are already rated R and a lot of them are accessible even to preteens. Siegel points out that applying R ratings to films just because they feature full-frontal shots of cigarettes may backfire. Parents anxious about sex and violence may stop paying attention to the rating system once it factors in smoking. " So you could actually end up with more kids seeing films with smoking.

The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the New World are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was "So much importance attached to intellectual pursuits. " According to many books and articles, New England's leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life. To take this approach to the New Englanders normally mean to start with the Puritans' theological innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church—important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New world circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity. The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts churches in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston. These men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New England an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness. We should not forget, however, that most New Englanders were less well educated. While few craftsmen or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed, it is obvious that their views were less fully intellectualized. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitious quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations, and religious hope—all came together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: "come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people." One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in puritan churches. Meanwhile, many settles had slighter religious commitments than Dane' s, as one clergyman learned in confronting folk along the coast who mocked that they had not come to the New world for religion. "Our main end was to catch fish. "

(46) Today, there"s scarcely an aspect of our life that isn"t being upended by the torrent of information available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not to mention its ability to keep us in constant touch with each other via electronic mail. "If the automobile and aerospace technology had exploded at the same pace as computer and information technology," says Microsoft, "a new car would cost about $2 and go 600 miles on a thimble of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 for the cost of a pizza." Probably the biggest payoff, however, is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companies in producing goods and serving the needs of their customers. (47) Nothing like it has been seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when power-driven machines began producing more in a day than men could turn out in nearly a year. All the time spent online has left many young infotech workers without much time for life—or love—offline. (48) The U.S. free enterprise system, which reaches a frenzy in Silicon Valley, has recognized that the local love boat is taking on water and is rushing in to save the day. Dating services are approaching overload. Seminars and love doctors are teaching these rich, busy young singles how to find and capture their heart"s desire in this romantic wasteland. And dot-com facilitators such as Matchmaker.com are struggling to bring the sexes together online. One reality that losers in this love bazaar must face is that they weren"t picked because they were out of shape. But not to worry since the Cyber Age has the answer to this one, too. Computerized fitness programs with audio, visual, and cyber personal trainers are ready to turn your home and treadmill into your own personal health club. Turn on iFit.com"s "One On-One Training" audio workouts and you can bend and stretch to your favorite music. (49) Its "Adventure" series video workouts will automatically adjust the speed and incline of your iFit-compatible treadmill as you gaze into your TV screen and experience the "beautiful rock formations of Utah"s Red Rock" or "the tropical paradise of Hawaii". (50) Americans spend more on entertainment than on clothing or health care, and the convergence of computers and telecommunications is generating new ways to amuse ourselves undreamed of until now. The Internet is a land of endless amusements, and among the wildest is the Sims—simulations. These are about creating, managing, and controlling the lives of tiny computerized people.

You are planning to invite Professor Lee to give students a lecture on English literature. Write a letter to him which should include: 1) sending your invitations to him, 2) giving the detailed information, 3) expressing your expectance and thanks. You should write 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write your address.

It never rains but it pours . Just as bosses and boards have finally sorted out their worst accounting and compliance troubles, and improved their feeble corporation governance, a new problem threatens to earn them—especially in America—the sort of nasty headlines that inevitably lead to heads rolling in the executive suite: data insecurity. Left, until now, to odd, low-level IT staff to put right, and seen as a concern only of data-rich industries such as banking, telecoms and air travel, information protection is now high on the boss' s agenda in businesses of every variety. Several massive leakages of customer and employee data this year—from organizations as diverse as Time Warner, the American defense contractor Science Applications International Corp and even the University of California, Berkeley—have left managers hurriedly peering into their intricate IT systems and business processes in search of potential vulnerabilities. "Data is becoming an asset which needs to be guarded as much as any other asset," says Haim Mendel-son of Stanford University' s business school. "The ability to guard customer data is the key to market value, which the board is responsible for on behalf of shareholders." Indeed, just as there is the concept of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles(GAAP), perhaps it is time for GASP, Generally Accepted Security Practices , suggested Eli Noam of New York' s Columbia Business School. "Setting the proper investment level for security, redundancy, and recovery is a management issue, not a technical one," he says. The mystery is that this should come as a surprise to any boss. Surely it should be obvious to the dimmest executive that trust, that most valuable of economic assets, is easily destroyed and hugely expensive to restore—and that few things are more likely to destroy trust than a company letting sensitive personal data get into the wrong hands. The current state of affairs may have been encouraged—though not justified—by the lack of legal penalty(in America, but not Europe)for data leakage. Until California recently passed a law, American firms did not have to tell anyone, even the victim, when data went astray. That may change fast: lots of proposed data-security legislation is now doing the rounds in Washington, D.C.Meanwhile, the theft of information about some 40 million credit-card accounts in America, disclosed on June 17th, overshadowed a hugely important decision a day earlier by America's Federal Trade Commission(FTC)that puts corporate America on notice that regulators will act if firms fail to provide adequate data security.

Studythefollowingcartooncarefullyandwriteanessayof160—200words.Youressayshouldcoveralltheinformationprovidedandmeettherequirementsbelow:1)interpretthefollowingcartoon.2)possiblereasonsforthephenomenon.3)yourcomments.