单选题 For American parents, bargain prices for toys this holiday season qualify as good news: A Barbie fan who rose before dawn for Wal-Mart's Black Friday sale could secure the "Barbie Diamond Castle Princess Liana Doll" for $5-royally marked down from its regular retail price. At Target, a radiocontrolled helicopter cost a mere $15. The price wars were enough to draw consumers out of their bunkers (碉堡) for their first shopping outing in months. But wrapped up with those cheap toys are ominous economic omens for both sides of the Pacific. The rock-bottom prices show how desperate US retailers are to plump up weak consumer demand—a symptom of the ailing US economy and a serious problem for China, which makes nine of every 10 toys sold in American stores. The toy industry has played a major role in China's economic surge (猛增) over the past 30 years. But Chinese toy makers began feeling the economic squeeze well before the US recession was made official in late November. The volume of Chinese toys passing through eight major US ports was down 5.9 percent in the first nine months in 2008, compared to the same period in 2007, according to economic forecasters IHS Global Insight, which tracks the information for the National Federation of Retailers. China's new labor contract law which imposed stricter conditions and compensation for layoffs of temporary workers took effect in 2007, increasing costs for manufacturers that rely heavily on migrants on production lines, including toy makers and other labor-intensive manufacturers based mainly in southern Guangdong province. Toy makers also were hard hit by the rising price of oil, which surged to more than $140 a barrel in June, and in turn sharply increased the price of plastic. Industry sources say the toy makers saw profits squeezed to the point where many tried to renegotiate contracts with buyers—especially major US players like Wal-Mart. When they discovered the buyers wouldn't move even slightly on the purchase agreements, many simply decided to close their factories. "Over half (of the factories) that have closed had negotiated a price, then when they couldn't get the retailer to move (on the price), they wouldn't make it at a loss and closed down," said Britt Beemer, a retail strategist and founder of America's Research Group. To be sure, some of the factories that were shut down were small shops that employed only a few dozen workers. And the contraction is to some degree a natural consolidation process in an industry that is overbuilt.

单选题Warren Buffett, who on May 3rd hosts the folksy extravaganza that is Berkshire Hathaway"s annual shareholders" meeting, is an icon of American capitalism. At 83, he also embodies a striking demographic trend: for highly skilled people to go on working well into what was once thought to be old age. Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-educated well-off and the unskilled poor that is slicing through all age groups. Rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. Those at the top are working longer hours each year than those at the bottom. And the Well-qualified are extending their working lives, compared with those of less-educated people. The consequences, for individuals and society, are profound. But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce. Policy is partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Rising life expectancy, combined with the replacement of generous defined-benefit pension plans with stingier defined-contribution ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than their predecessors. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that complement computers, from management expertise to creativity, do not necessarily decline with age. This trend will benefit not just fortunate oldies but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Government budgets will be in better shape, as high earners pay taxes for longer. Rich countries with lots of well-educated older people will find the burden of ageing easier to bear than other places. At the other end of the social scale, however, things look grim. Nor are all the effects on the economy beneficial. Wealthy old people will accumulate more savings, which will weaken demand. Inequality will increase and a growing share of wealth will eventually be transferred to the next generation via inheritance, entrenching the division between winners and losers still further.

单选题The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional "paid" media-such as television commercials and print advertisements-still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers passionate about a product may create " earned media" by willingly promoting it to friends, and company may leverage "owned" media by sending E-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. In fact, the way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing's impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media. Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products. For earned media, such marketers act as the initiator for users' responses. But in some cases, one marketer's owned media become another marketer's paid media-for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend , which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has created BabyCenter, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies' marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned. The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more (and more diverse) communications choices have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways. Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media: an asset or campaign becomes hostage to consumers, other stakeholders, or activists who make negative allegations about a brand or product. Members of social networks, for instance, are learning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originally created them. If that happens, passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products, putting the reputation of the target company at risk. In such a case, the company's response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful, and the learning curve has been steep. Toyota Motor, for example, alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisis earlier this year with a relatively quick and well- orchestrated social-media response campaign, which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such as Twitter and the social-news site Digg.

单选题Reebok executives do not like to hear their stylish athletic shoes called "footwear for yuppies". They contend that Reebok shoes appeal to diverse market segments, especially now that the company offers basketball and children"s shoes for the under-18 set and walking shoes for older customers not interested in aerobics (健身操) or running. The executives also point out that through recent acquisitions they have added hiking boots, dress and casual shoes, and high-performance athletic footwear to their product lines, all of which should attract new and varied groups of customers. Still, despite its emphasis on new markets, Reebok plans few changes in the upmarket (高档消费人群的) retailing network that helped push sales to $1 billion annually, ahead of all other sports shoe marketers. Reebok shoes, which are priced from $27 to $85, will continue to be sold only in better specialty, sporting goods, and department stores, in accordance with the company"s view that consumers judge the quality of the brand by the quality of its distribution. In the past few years, the Massachusetts-based company has imposed limits on the number of its distributors (and the number of shoes supplied to stores), partly out of necessity. At times the unexpected demand for Reebok"s exceeded supply, and the company could barely keep up with orders from the dealers it already had. These fulfillment problems seem to be under control now, but the company is still selective about its distributors. At present, Reebok shoes are available in about five thousand retail stores in the United States. Reebok has already anticipated that walking shoes will be the next fitness-related craze, replacing aerobics shoes the same way its brightly colored, soft leather exercise footwear replaced conventional running shoes. Through product diversification and careful market research, Reebok hopes to avoid the distribution problems Nike came across several years ago, when Nike misjudged the strength of the aerobics shoe craze and was forced to unload huge inventories of running shoes through discount stores.

单选题Just as each wedding creates potential business for divorce lawyers, so each engagement gives insurers a chance to drum up business. Future spouses, says Alan Tuvin of Travelers, an insurer, may wish to protect themselves against something going wrong on the wedding day. It is unlikely that your intended wife will leave on horseback, as Julia Roberts did in "Runaway Bride", and most insurers wouldn"t cover that anyway. But you never know what might happen. Mr. Tuvin launched the firm"s wedding-insurance business; he and his wife were its first clients. A typical American wedding costs 25,000 or so. This has fallen a bit over the past quarter-cen-tury but still seems lavish given how tight American belts are these days. Weddings are pricey because the rich are more likely to marry than the poor, and the average age of newlyweds has gone up, so couples are more prosperous when they eventually tie the knot. High prices, and the fact that many venues require couples to take out liability insurance, feed demand for wedding insurance. A fifth of couples buy it, says the Wedding Report, a trade publication. Wedding insurance began in Britain: Cornhill, an insurer, wrote its first policy in 1988. But there were few takers. The idea only took off once transplanted to America. In the early days, says Mr. Nuccio of Robert Nuccio of Wedsure, an surer, there were incidents of couples faking engagements to collect a payout. Since then, most policies have a clause that excludes "change of heart". Wedsure does insure against cold feet, but its policy will pay out only if the wedding is cancelled more than 12 months before it is due to take place, thereby guarding against fiancés phoning the broker once the relationship is already on the rocks. This does not mean policies are useless. Common causes of payouts include the venue or caterers going bust after having taken a big deposit. Extreme weather, a spouse being deployed by the armed forces and an absent priest can all trigger payouts. Most policies will pay to re-stage the photos if the photographer fails to turn up or disappears with the pictures. For some, even a small risk of something going wrong on a day that has been planned for months is worth paying to avoid. Who says romance is dead?

单选题Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D. Have you ever wondered what our future is like? Practically all people {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}a desire to predict their future {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}. Most people seem inclined to {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}this task using causal reasoning. First we {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}recognize that future circumstances are {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}caused or conditioned by present ones. We learn that getting an education will {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}how much money we earn later and that swimming beyond the reef may bring an unhappy {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}with a shark. Second, people also learn that such {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}of cause and effect are probabilistic (可能的) in nature. That is, the effects occur more often when the causes occur than when the causes are {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}but not always. Thus, students learn that studying hard {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}good grades in most instances, but not every time. Science makes these concepts of causality and probability more {{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}and provides techniques for dealing {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}then more accurately than does causal human inquiry. In looking at ordinary human inquiry, we need to {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}between prediction and understanding. Often, even if we don't understand why, we are willing to act {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}the basis of a demonstrated predictive ability. Whatever the primitive drives {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}motivate human beings, satisfying them depends heavily on the ability to {{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}future circumstances. The attempt to predict is often played in a {{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}of knowledge and understanding. If you can understand why certain regular patterns {{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}, you can predict better than if you simply observe those patterns. Thus, human inquiry aims {{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}answering both "what" and "why" question, and we pursue these {{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}by observing and figuring out.

单选题That everyone"s too busy these days is a cliche. But one specific complaint is made especially mournfully: There"s never any time to read. What makes the problem thornier is that the usual time-management techniques don"t seem sufficient. The web"s full of articles offering tips on making time to read: "Give up TV" or "Carry a book with you at all times." But in my experience, using such methods to free up the odd 30 minutes doesn"t work. Sit down to read and the flywheel of work-related thoughts keeps spinning—or else you"re so exhausted that a challenging book"s the last thing you need. The modern mind, Tim Parks, a novelist and critic, writes, "is overwhelmingly inclined toward communication... It is not simply that one is interrupted; it is that one is actually inclined to interruption." Deep reading requires not just time, but a special kind of time which can"t be obtained merely by becoming more efficient. In fact, "becoming more efficient" is part of the problem. Thinking of time as a resource to be maximised means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal. Immersive reading, by contrast, depends on being willing to risk inefficiency, goallessness, even time-wasting. Try to slot it in as a to-do list item and you"ll manage only goal-focused reading—useful, sometimes, but not the most fulfilling kind. "The future comes at us like empty bottles along an unstoppable and nearly infinite conveyor belt," writes Gary Eberle in his book Sacred Time, and "we feel a pressure to fill these different-sized bottles (days, hours, minutes) as they pass, for if they get by without being filled, we will have wasted them." No mind-set could be worse for losing yourself in a book. So what does work? Perhaps surprisingly, scheduling regular times for reading. You"d think this might fuel the efficiency mind-set, but in fact, Eberle notes, such ritualistic behaviour helps us "step outside time"s flow" into "soul time." You could limit distractions by reading only physical books, or on single-purpose e-readers. " Carry a book with you at all times" can actually work, too—providing you dip in often enough, so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down. On a really good day, it no longer feels as if you"re "making time to read," but just reading, and making time for everything else.

单选题Thanks to closed doors and fierce gatekeepers, bosses are tricky to observe in their natural habitat. Yet it might be useful to know what they do all day, and whether any of it benefits shareholders. A new Harvard Business School working paper sheds some light. Researchers asked the chief executives of 94 Italian firms to have their assistants record their activities for a week. You may take this with a gain of salt. Is the boss' assistant a neutral observer? If the boss spends his lunch hour drinking a lot, or in a motel with his assistant, will she record this truthfully? Nonetheless, here are the results. The average Italian boss works for 48 hours a week and spends 60% of that time in meetings. The most diligent put in another 20 hours. And the longer they work, the better the company does. Less diligent chief executives are more likely to have one-to-one meetings with people from outside the company. The authors speculate that such people are trying to raise their own profile, perhaps to secure a better job. Bosses who work longer hours, by contrast, spend more of them meeting their own employees. Bosses often complain that they get bogged down in day-to-day operations, says Rajesh Chandy, a professor at the London Business School. Regulations that make them legally responsible for their underlings' wrongdoings are partly to blame. The prospect of jail is a powerful attention- grabber. Many bosses also feel they must dash around the world pitching to clients. Mr. Chandy thinks bosses should spend less time with clients and more time thinking about the future. How much time they spend thinking about anything is hard to measure. But in an experiment, Mr Chandy measured how often bosses use forward-looking words like "will" and "shall" in their public statements. He concluded that bosses spend only 3%～4% of their day thinking about long-term strategy. Brian Sullivan, the chief executive of CTPartners, a headhunting firm, says the most difficult part of his job is saying no to people who want a piece of his time. Mr. Sullivan says the only time he gets for blue-sky thinking is when he is in the sky. Bill Gates took regular "think weeks", when he would sit alone in a cabin for 18 hours a day reading and contemplating. This, it is said, led to such strategic masterstrokes as "the Internet tidal wave memo" in 1995, which shifted Microsoft's focus to the web. But not every boss thinks he needs more time for thinking. "You can hire McKinsey to do that for you." says one.

单选题The simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may not seem harmful—so much so that many consumers do it with no questions asked. Yet that one action can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on your privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you surrendered. If you doubt the multiplier effect, consider your E-mail inbox. If it's loaded with spam, it's undoubtedly because at some point in time you unknowingly surrendered your E-mail to the wrong Web site. Do you think your telephone number or address is handled differently? A cottage industry of small companies with names you've probably never heard of—like Acxiom or Merlin—buy and sell your personal information the way other commodities like corn or cattle futures are bartered. You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if you've ever ordered a pizza, it might not be. Merlin is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled from various sources— including pizza delivery companies. These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues difficult to grasp, and grapple with. In a larger sense, privacy also is often cast as a tale of "Big Brother" —the government is watching you or a big corporation is watching you. But privacy issues don't necessarily involve large faceless institutions: A spouse takes a casual glance at her husband's Blackberry, a co-worker looks at E-mail over your shoulder or a friend glances at a cell phone text message from the next seat on the bus. While very little of this is news to anyone—people are now well aware there are video cameras and Internet cookies everywhere—there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy, people write E-mails and type instant messages they never expect anyone to see. Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose E-mails were a cornerstone of the Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft. And polls and studies have repeatedly shown that Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns. The general defense for such indifference is summed up a single phrase: "I have nothing to hide." If you have nothing to hide, why shouldn't the government be able to peek at your phone records, your wife see your E-mails or a company send you junk mails? It's a powerful argument, one that privacy advocates spend considerable time discussing and strategizing over. It is hard to deny, however, that people behave differently when they're being watched. And it is also impossible to deny that Americans are now being watched more than at any time in history.

单选题The country"s inadequate mental health system gets the most attention after instances of mass violence that the nation has seen repeatedly over the past few months. Not all who 1 these sorts of cruelties are mentally ill, but 2 have been. After each, the national discussion quickly, but temporarily, turns toward the mental health services that may have 3 to prevent another attack. Mental illness usually is not as dangerous or dramatic. 4 23 million Americans live with mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Very few of these men and women are 5 mass-murderers; they need help for their own well-being and for that of their 6 . The Affordable Care Act has significantly increased insurance coverage 7 mental health care. But that may not be enough to expand 8 to insufficient mental-health-care resources. Rep. Tim Murphy has a bill that would do so. The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act is more 8 than other recent efforts to reform the system and perhaps has the brightest prospects in a divided Congress. The 9 would reorganize the billions the federal government pours into mental health services. It would 10 the way Medicaid pays for certain mental health treatments. It would fund mental health clinics that 11 certain medical standards. And it would 12 states to adopt policies that allow judges to order some severely mentally ill people to undergo treatment. Not everyone is satisfied. Some patients" advocates have 13 Mr. Murphy"s approach as coercive and 14 to those who need help. The government should not be expanding the system"s capability to hospitalize or impose treatment on those 15 severe episodes, they say. It should instead be investing in community care that 16 the need for more serious treatment. 17 , for a small class who will not accept treatment between hospital visits or repeat arrests, they say, states have good reason to 18 them to accept care, under judicial supervision. Mr. Murphy"s reform package may not prevent the next Sandy Hook. 19 the changes would help relieve a lot of suffering that does not make the front page.

单选题 When it comes to the slowing economy, Ellen Spero isn't biting her nails just yet. But the 47-year-old manicurist isn't cutting, filling or polishing as many nails as she'd like to, either. Most of her clients spend $12 to $50 weekly, hut last month two longtime customers suddenly stopped showing up. Spero blames the softening economy. "I'm a good economic indicator," she says. "I provide a service that people can do without when they're concerned about saving some dollars. " So Spero is downscaling, shopping at middle-brow Dillard's department store near her suburban Cleveland home, instead of Neiman Marcus. "I don't know if other clients are going to abandon me, too" , she says. Even before Alan Greenspan's admission that America's red-hot economy is cooling, lots of working folks had already seen signs of the slowdown themselves. From car dealerships to Gap outlets, sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending. For retailers, who last year took in 24 percent of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the cautious approach is coming at a crucial time. Already, experts say, holiday sales are off 7 percent from last year's pace. But don't sound any alarms just yet. Consumers seem only concerned, not panicked, and many say they remain optimistic about the economy's long-term prospects, even as they do some modest belt-tightening. Consumers say they're not in despair because, despite the dreadful headlines, their own fortunes still feel pretty good. Home prices are holding steady in most regions. In Manhattan, "there's a new gold rush happening in the $4 million to $10 million range, predominantly fed by Wall Street bonuses, " says broker Barbara Corcoran. In San Francisco, prices are still rising even as frenzied overbidding quiets. "Instead of 20 to 30 offers, now maybe you only get two or three," says john Deadly, a Bay Area real-estate broker. And most folks still feel pretty comfortable about their ability to find and keep a job. Many folks see silver linings to this slowdown. Potential home buyers would cheer for lower interest rates. Employers wouldn't mind a little fewer bubbles in the job market. Many consumers seem to have been influenced by stock-market swings, which investors now view as a necessary ingredient to a sustained boom. Diners might see an upside, too. Getting a table at Manhattan's hot new Alain Ducasse restaurant need to be impossible. Not anymore. For that, Greenspan & Co. may still be worth toasting.

单选题Parenthood isn"t a career-killer. In fact, economists with two or more kids tend to produce more research, not less, than their one-child or childless colleagues. But female economists 1 can pay a price in terms of productivity after becoming mothers, especially 2 they"re young or unmarried. That"s according to a new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. There is widespread 3 that motherhood is 4 costly in terms of professional career advancement. "In particular, it is often 5 that the only way for young women to 6 a challenging career is to remain childless," they wrote. Our study of the academic labor market arrives at a somewhat less 7 picture: We do not observe a family gap in research productivity among female academic economists. 8 , motherhood-induced decreases in research productivity are less pronounced than usually purported. The authors in early 2012 9 about 10,000 economists through the Research Papers in Economics online platform, 10 the academics" answers with their publication records. They gauged an economist"s productivity 11 looking at their output: published research, weighted by journal 12 . Among their findings: Mothers of at least two children are, 13 , more productive than mothers of only one child, and mothers in general are more 14 than childless women. Fathers of 15 two children are also more productive than fathers of one child and childless men. Toward the end of their careers, however, childless men appear to be somewhat more productive than fathers of one child. Parenthood does appear linked to 16 productivity while the children are 12 and younger: mothers average a 17.4% loss, while fathers average a 5% loss. A female economist with three children, on average, 17 the equivalent of four years of research 18 by the time her kids become teenagers. Women who are married or in a 19 relationship do not have any drop in research productivity in the three years following childbirth. For single mothers, research output drops by roughly a third 20 the same period.

单选题A new economics paper has some old-fashioned advice for people navigating the stresses of life: Find a spouse who is also your best friend. Social scientists have long known that 1 people tend to be happier, but they debate whether that is because marriage causes happiness or simply because happier people are more 2 to get married. The new paper, 3 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, controlled for pre-marriage happiness levels. It 4 that being married makes people happier and more satisfied 5 their lives than those who remain single—particularly during the most stressful periods, like 6 crises. Even as fewer people are marrying, the disadvantages of remaining single have broad 7 . It"s important 8 marriage is increasingly a force behind inequality. 9 marriages are more common among educated, high-income people, and increasingly out of reach for those who are not. That divide appears to 10 not just people"s income and family stability, but also their happiness and stress levels. A quarter of today"s young adults will have never married by 2030, which would be the highest 11 in modern history, according to Pew Research Center. 12 both remaining unmarried and divorcing are more common among less-educated, lower-income people. 13 , high-income people still marry at high rates and are less likely to divorce. Those whose lives are most difficult could 14 most from marriage, according to the economists who wrote the new paper, John Helliwell and Shawn Grover. "Marriage may be most important when there is that stress in life and when things are going 15 ," Mr. Grover said. 16 marital happiness long outlasted the honeymoon period. 17 some social scientists have argued that happiness levels are innate, so people return to their natural level of well-being 18 joyful or upsetting events, the researchers found that the benefits of marriage persist. One 19 for that might be the role of friendship within marriage. Those who 20 their spouse or partner to be their best friend get about twice as much life satisfaction from marriage as others, the study found.

单选题Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C, or D. Want a glimpse of the future of health care? Take a look at the way the various networks of people involved in patient care are being connected to one another, and how this new connectivity is being exploited to deliver medicine to the patient-no matter where he or she may be. Online doctors offering advice based on standardized symptoms are the most obvious example. Increasingly, however, remote diagnosis (telemedicine) will be based on real physiological data from the actual patient. A group from the university of Kentucky has shown that by using an off-the shelf (现成的) PDA (personal data assistance) such as a Palm Pilot plus a mobile phone, it is perfectly feasible to transmit a patient's vital signs over the telephone. With this kind of equipment in a first-aid kit (急救包), the cry asking whether there was a doctor in the house could well be a thing of the past. Other medical technology groups are working on applying telemedicine to rural care. And at least one team wants to use telemedicine as a tool for disaster response-especially after earthquakes. Overall, the trend is towards providing global access to medical data and expertise. But there is one problem. Bandwidth is the limiting factor for transmitting complex medical images around the world-CT scans being one of the biggest bandwidth consumers. Communications satellites may be able to cope with the short-term needs during disasters such as earthquakes, wars or famines. But medicine is looking towards both the second-generation internet and third-generation mobile phones for the future of distributed medical intelligence. Doctors have met to discuss computer-based tools for medical diagnosis, training and telemedicine. With the falling price of broadband communications, the new technologies should usher in (迎来) an era when telemedicine and the sharing of medical information, expert opinion and diagnosis are common.

单选题It is no longer particularly rare for women to be the main breadwinner—in the US a quarter of wives now earn more than their husbands—but what is rarer is for such a relationship to work. A book published last week by the journalist Farnoosh Torabi draws together data showing just how hard it is: high-earning women have difficulty finding a husband, and when they do, he is five times as likely to be unfaithful as other husbands. The woman will probably do more than her share of chores; though in the unusual event that he starts ironing and cooking, he is likely to end his marriage. Either way, divorce beckons. The majority of people, even very young couples, still seem to be in relationships where the man makes more. One fiercely clever young man says his equally clever feminist girlfriend has told him she could never marry a man who earned less as she didn"t fancy a life spent propping up his ego. One male colleague says his wife"s habit of making a lot was a godsend for him as he loves money but is too lazy to make much himself. More commonly it comes when the man"s professional ego is not measured in money. Various men at the FT (Financial Times) have wives earning a fortune in the city, freeing them to be relatively poorly paid hacks. Within the marriage there is the understanding that his career matters as much—if not more—than hers. In the same way, some female journalists support men who are musicians and designers, who love what they do, and (in the best cases) are also happy to take the lead in bringing up the children. The most interesting cases are when both started together in a similar industry but over the years the woman has overtaken the man. Most of these seem to end badly. But one successful male journalist explained how he had overcome the problem of having an even more successful wife. "It"s the Piketty debate, isn"t it? What matters most—inequality, or overall living standards?" In the interests of the latter, he has wisely refused to feel any resentment and instead declares himself utterly proud of his wife.

单选题 Come on-Everybody's doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing, is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure. It usually leads to no good-drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book Join the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the word. Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of example of the social cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking program called Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, an HIV-prevention initiative known as LoveLife recruits young people to promote safe sex among their peers. The idea seems promising, and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many pubic-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology. " Dare to be different, please don't smoke!" pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers-teenagers, who desire nothing more than fitting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure. But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as it's presented here is that it doesn't work very well for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the LoveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed. There's no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits-as well as negative ones-spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure : we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day. Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. It's like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And that's the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on choosing our own friends.

单选题Bill Gates was 20 years old. Steve Jobs was 21. Warren Buffett was 26. Ralph Lauren was 28. Estée Lauder was 29. These now iconic names were all 20-somethings when they started their companies that would throw them, and their enterprises, into some of the biggest successes ever known. Consider this: many of the truly remarkable innovations of the latest generation—a list that includes Google, Face- book and Twitter—were all founded by people under 30. The number of people in their mid-20s disrupting entire industries, taking on jobs usually reserved for people twice their age and doing it in the glare of millions of social media "followers" seems to be growing very rapidly. So what is it about that youthful decade after those awkward teenage years that inspires such shoot-for-the-moon success? Does age really have something to do with it? It does . Young people bring fresh eyes to confronting problems and challenges that others have given up on. 20-something entrepreneurs see no boundaries and see no limits. And they can make change happen. Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, has another, colder theory that may explain it: Ultimately, it"s about money. In other words, it"s the young people who have nothing to lose, with no mortgage and, frankly, with nothing to do on a Friday night except work, who are the ones often willing to take the biggest risks. Sure, they are talented. But it"s their persistence and zeal, the desire to stay up until 6 a.m. chugging Red Bull, that is the difference between being a salaried employee and an entrepreneur. That"s not to say that most 20-somethings are finding success. They"re not. The latest crop of fiber-successful young entrepreneurs, designers and authors are far, far from the norm. In truth, unemployment for workers age 16 to 24 is double the national average. One of the biggest challenges facing this next generation—and one that may prevent more visionary entrepreneurs from succeeding—is the staggering rise in the level of debt college students have been left with. If Peter Thiel"s theory is right, it is going to be harder and harder for young people to take big risks because they will be crushed with obligations before they even begin. If you"re over 29 years old and still haven"t made your world-changing mark, don"t despair. Some older people have had big breakthroughs, too. Thomas Edison didn"t invent the phonograph until he was 30.

单选题For most of the 20th century, Asia asked itself what it could learn from the modern, innovating West. Now the question must be reversed. What can the West's overly indebted and sluggish (经济滞涨的) nations learn from a nourishing Asia? Just a few decades ago, Asia's two giants were stagnating (停滞不前) under faulty economic ideologies. However, once China began embracing market economy reforms in the 1980s, followed by India in the 1990s, both countries achieved rapid growth. Crucially, as they opened up their markets, they balanced market economy with sensible government direction. As the Indian economist Amartya Sen has wisely said, "The invisible hand of the market has often relied heavily on the visible hand of government." Contrast this middle path with America and Europe, which have each gone ideologically over-board in their own ways. Since the 1980s, America has been increasingly clinging to the ideology of uncontrolled free markets and dismissing the role of government—following Ronald Regan's idea that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". Of course, when the markets came crashing down in 2007, it was decisive government intervention that saved the day. Despite this fact, many Americans are still strongly opposed to "big government". If Americans could only free themselves from their antigovernment doctrine, they would begin to see that the America's problems are not insoluble. A few sensible federal measures could put the country back on the right path. A simple consumption tax of, say, 5% would significantly reduce the country's huge government deficit without damaging productivity. A small gasoline tax would help free America from its dependence on oil imports and create incentives for green energy development. In the same way, a significant reduction of wasteful agricultural subsidies could also lower the deficit. But in order to take advantage of these common-sense solutions, Americans will have to put aside their own attachment to the idea of smaller government and less regulation. American politicians will have to develop the courage to follow what is taught in all American public-policy schools: that there are good taxes and bad taxes. Asian countries have embraced this wisdom, and have built sound long-term fiscal (财政的) policies as a result. Meanwhile, Europe has fallen prey to a different ideological trap: the belief that European governments would always have infinite resources and could continue borrowing as if there were no tomorrow. Unlike the Americans, who felt that the markets knew best, the Europeans failed to anticipate how the markets would react to their endless borrowing. Today, the European Union is creating a $580 billion fund to ward off sovereign collapse. This will buy the EU time, but it will not solve the bloc's larger problem.

单选题 You hear the refrain all the time: the U. S. economy looks good statistically, but it doesn't feel good. Why doesn't ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Affluent (富裕的) Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97. The Affluent Society is a modern classic because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, "hunger, sickness, and cold" threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. "Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours. " After World War Ⅱ, the dread of another Great Depression gave way to an economic boom. In the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4. 5 percent. To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would breed discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn' t really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unfulfilling. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people instinctively—and wrongly—labeled government only as "a necessary evil" It's often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving rich—overpaid chief executives, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people's incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted average family income rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200. People feel "squeezed" because their rising incomes often don't satisfy their rising wants—for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections. The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fear they've become "the disposable American," as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name. Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the arrival of widespread affluence suggested utopian (乌托邦式的) possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much less physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions. Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the quest for growth lets loose new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Affluence liberates the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-fulfillment. But the promise is so extravagant that it predestines many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown and obesity (肥胖症). Statistical indicators of happiness have not risen with incomes. Should we be surprised? Not really. We've simply reaffirmed an old truth: the pursuit of affluence does not always end with happiness.

单选题Some chief executives say they are unplugging as best they can, when they can. Baratunde Thurston, CEO of humor company Cultivated Wit, braved a 25-day Internet detox last year and now settles for what he calls "micro-disconnecting". For example, not checking Twitter at a meeting. And Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of online real estate center Zillow, turns off his company email for a 24-hour stretch every week. Internet sabbaticals is popular recently, but those at the helm of companies aren"t usually able to completely cut the wire. Still, many CEOs say they want to find a balance, suspecting it might actually help their work. "I am constantly thinking about Zillow, even when I"m sleeping," Mr. Rascoff says. "Without technology, I can think about it more thoughtfully without interruptions." Leslie Perlow, a Harvard Business School professor, says time away from technology can make people more creative, innovative and productive. "Everybody is bombarded all the time these days," she says. "The more senior you are, the more you perceive, there"s nobody but me." Jim Moffatt, CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP, finds that occasionally turning out helps him cut through the "fog" and "clutter" of the day-to-day grind, making it easier to solve big problems. While "recharging" on a recent summer vacation he caught a movie with his 14 year-old son. As the credits rolled, he had an epiphany about who the elusive, missing employee should be for a team he was putting together. During fireworks this past Fourth of July, he mapped out global strategy in his head. Recent research from the University of Glasgow and UK-based Modeuro Consulting showed that executive email habits can be contagious; when the leadership team at a London-based power company decreased their email output, employees followed suit. Mr. Moffatt says one of the reasons he"s so public about his unplugging is to show his employees that it is important to have a life outside of work. Plus, his occasional absences give colleagues the chance to exercise more power. "It sends a pretty strong signal to your team: I don"t have to be there all the time," he says. Handing over the reins does occasionally come with growing pains. Mr. Thurston of Cultivated Wit eschewed everything from work email to Facebook to Instagram last December and found it to be a "humbling" experience.