单选题 When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming "I wanted to spend more time with my family. " Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term "downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of "having it all", preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the pages of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything. I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of "juggling your life", and making the alternative move into "downshifting" brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed. 12-hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on "quality time". In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting--also known in America as "voluntary simplicity"--has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of best-selling down-shifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives; there are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their cling-film to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid-equivalent of dropping out. While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline--after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late 80s--and is still linked to the politics of thrift. In Britain, at least among the middle-class down shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives. For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the 80s, down shifting in the mid-90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life--growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one--as a personal recognition of your limitations.

单选题In the expression "an immense body of literature", the word "literature" is nearest in meaning to ______.

单选题It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following aspects can be the biggest weak point of Mann's theory?

单选题 A newly published AIDS study could open another front in the battle against HIV infection by showing that gene therapy can be used to stop infected cells from spreading the deadly virus, researchers said. In a test-tube experiment believed to be the first of its kind, researchers based at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were able to block the operation of the "tat" gene that allows HIV to spread throughout the body from infected cells. Up to now, genetic AIDS research has concentrated on finding ways to help healthy cells withstand the ravages of the HIV virus that infects an estimated 16,000 new victims a day, mainly in the developing world. But by working with human cells already infected with HIV, the team was able to reduce the tat gene's virus-replicating functions by 80 percent to 90 percent, according to findings published in the journal Gene Therapy. That, researchers said, raises the possibility of a new gene therapy approach capable of supplementing the current drug-based treatment known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, which is used to stop HIV infection from becoming full-blown AIDS. In recent studies, HAART has proved to be a costly drug regimen that poses serious side effects for HIV patients while delivering questionable results. "This is proof of the concept that HIV replication could be inhibited by a genetic approach, though we're not at 100 percent yet," said Dr. Stuart Starr, a study coauthor and chief of immunologic infectious diseases at Children's Hospital. "Everyone thinks of an antiviral approach, or an immunologic approach (to HIV). This adds another option into the equation that could become more important as other options prove not to be totally successful." Key to the study was an artificially produced "antitat" gene provided by the Washingtonbased Research Institute for Genetic and Human Therapy. Children's Hospital researchers used a mouse retrovirus to deliver the antitat gene into HIV-infected U-1 and ACH-2 cells, which were developed in the lab from the tissues of living HIV patients. They found that when the antitat protein combined with the tat gene, it successfully inhibited the gene's operation without disturbing healthy cells or causing toxic side-effects. The study, funded by a private foundation, also found that the introduction of the antitat gene prolonged the survival of immune-system cells called CD4+T lymphocytes. Starr said researchers have entered preliminary discussions with a New England-based primate center, where animal experiments could be carried out on infected macaque monkeys. If animal experiments proved successful, the Children's Hospital team would hope to have a gene therapy treatment ready for human clinical trials in three to four years.

单选题Man has been storing up useful knowledge about himself and the universe at the rate which has been spiraling upward for 10,000 years. The 1 took a sharp upward leap with the invention of writing, but even 2 it remained painfully slow for several centuries. In Europe the next great leap forward 3 knowledge acquisition did not occur 4 the invention of movable type in the 15th century by Gutenberg and others. 5 to 1,500, by the most optimistic 6 , Europe was producing books at a rate of 1,000 titles per year. This means that it 7 a full century to produce a library of 100,000 tides. By 1950, four and a half 8 later, the rate had accelerated so sharply that Europe was producing 120,000 titles a year. 9 once took a century now took only ten months. By 1960, a 10 decade later, the rate had made another significant jump, 11 a century"s work could be finished in seven and a half months. 12 , by the mid-sixties, the output of books on a world 13 , Europe included, approached the prodigious figure of 900 tides per day. One can 14 argue that every book is a net gain for the advancement of knowledge. Nevertheless we find that the accelerative 15 in book publication does, in fact, crudely 16 the rate at which man discovered new knowledge. For example, prior to Gutenberg 17 11 chemical elements were known. Antimony, the 12th, was discovered 18 about the time he was working on his invention. It was fully 200 years since the 11th, arsenic, had been discovered. 19 the same rate of discovery continued, we would by now have added only two or three additional elements to the periodic table since Gutenberg. 20 , in the 450 years after his time, certain people discovered some seventy additional elements. And since 1900 we have been isolating the remaining elements not at a rate of one every two centuries, but of one every three years.

单选题 Often referred to as "the heart of a factoring organization", the credit department is responsible for granting credit to clients' customers and for collecting the accounts receivable purchased by the factor. When factored clients submit customer orders for credit approval, the credit department analyzes the financial condition and credit worthiness of the customer, and then makes a decision to approve or decline the order. The department must then monitor the condition of approved customers and collect all due receivables. Careful credit checking and effective collection procedures in this department can greatly reduce the risks inherent in factoring. As the head of the credit department, the credit manager is responsible for seeing that the department operates effectively. He must develop the factor's credit policies in consultation with senior factoring associates, and he is in overall command of everything from credit and collections to bankruptcy and liquidations. If the factor is a commercial bank division, the credit manager is a bank's vice president, and credit policy must also be approved by top management of the bank. Assisting the credit manager may be several supervisors who have credit responsibilities of their own and who also oversee the analysis and approval of customer orders by the credit specialists. Credit supervisors typically spend about eighty percent of their time handling large customer orders. If a customer order exceeds a supervisor's credit authority, he is responsible for making recommendations to the credit manager. A supervisor also reviews a subordinate's credit decision if the subordinate is unsure of the extent of the credit risk or if a client questions a particular credit decision. In extremely large credit exposures, supervisors bear the responsibility for analyzing the credit position of the customers and deciding on credit limits. To do this, they must regularly obtain current data from various credit information sources. They must also have extensive contact with each customer to determine operational performance and progress. Frequently, supervisors are called upon to give advice on what should be done to improve a company's financial condition. Meeting all these responsibilities requires that each supervisor continuously observe and study the industries with which he is concerned, so that he is capable of anticipating market changes which may affect his accounts. A supervisor's major challenge is to maintain a fine balance between the demands of clients that all their customer orders be approved and the questionable financial position of some of the customers. In reviewing any credit decision, a supervisor must be capable of weighing a variety of elements, including the possibility of losing the client, the customer's credit position, and the extent of any possible loss.

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单选题El Nino is the term used for the period when sea surface temperatures are above normal off the South American coast along the equatorial Pacific, sometimes called the Earth's heartbeat, and is a dramatic but mysterious climate system that periodically rages across the Pacific. El Nino means "the little boy" or "the Christ child" in Spanish, and is so called because its warm current is felt along coastal Peru and Ecuador around Christmas. But the local warming is just part of an intricate set of changes in the ocean and atmosphere across the tropical Pacific, which covers a third of the Earth's circumference. Its intensity is such that it affects temperatures, storm tracks and rainfall around the world. Droughts in Africa and Australia tropical storms in the Pacific, torrential rains along the Californian coast and the Peruvian deserts have all been ascribed to the whim of El Nino. This at least is the theory, and it has worked pretty well over the past century, with El Nino occurring about every three to five years and La Nina in between. But there have been some baffling developments in recent years. For one thing, El Nino has returned three times in the past four years. For another, since 1976 El Nino has dominated relative to the cooler phase (La Nina). There has been only one significant La Nina, but five El Ninos, including an extremely severe one in 1982—1983 that caused damage costing 8 billion dollars. Moreover a huge pool of warm water has settled down near the dateline in the central Pacific. Yet it is important to understand the changes if scientists are to be able to forecast the climatic effects of El Ninos with any degree of accuracy. This is not just an academic task— accurate forecasts can spell out feast or famine in many tropical countries around the world. Forecasting efforts have focused on El Nino, whose effects are generally more severe than those of La Nina. A worrying possibility is that the changes maybe due to greenhouse warming. If so, the recent fluctuations may be an early glimpse of worse things to come.

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单选题What does the phrase "from various comers of this country" probably mean?

单选题The following are all optimum conditions except