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1. World war was the watershed event for higher education in modern Western societies. (46)Those societies came out of the war with levels of enrollment that had been roughly constant at 3-5% of the relevant age groups during the decades before the war. But after the war, great social and political changes arising out of the successful war against Fascism created a growing demand in European and American economies for increasing numbers of graduates with more than a secondary school education. (47)And the demand that rose in those societies for entry to higher education extended to groups and social classes that had not thought of attending a university before the war. These demands resulted in a very rapid expansion of the systems of higher education, beginning in the 1960s and developing very rapidly (though unevenly) during the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of higher education manifests itself in at least three quite different ways, and these in turn have given rise to different sets of problems. There was first the rate of growth:(48)in many counties of Western Europe, the numbers of students in higher education doubled within five-year periods during the 1960s and doubled again in seven, eight or 10 years by the middle of the 1970s. Second growth obviously affected the absolute size both of systems and individual institutions. And third growth was reflected in changes in the proportion of the relevant age group enrolled in institutions of higher education. Each of these manifestations of growth carried its own peculiar problems in its wake/ For example, a high growth rate placed great strains on the existing structures of governance, of administration, and above all of socialization. When a faculty or department grows from, say, five to 20 members within three or four years,(49)and when the new staff predominantly young men and women fresh from postgraduate study, they largely define the norms of academic life in that faculty. And if the postgraduate student population also grows rapidly and there is loss of a close apprenticeship relationship between faculty members and students, the student culture becomes the chief socializing force for new postgraduate students, with consequences for the intellectual and academic life of the institution-this was seen in America as well as in France, Italy, West Germany, and Japan.(50)High growth rates increased the chances for academic innovation, they also weakened the forms and processes by which teachers and students are admitted into a community of scholars during periods of stability or slow growth. In the 1960s and 1970s, European universities saw marked changes in their governance arrangements, with empowerment of junior faculty and to some degree of students as well.
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2. In the movies and on television, artificial intelligence (AI) is typically depicted as something sinister that will upend our way of life. When it comes to AI in business, we often hear about it in relation to automation and the impending loss of jobs, but in what ways is AI changing companies and the larger economy that don’t involve doom-and-gloom mass unemployment predictions? A recent survey of manufacturing and service industries from Tata Consultancy Services found that companies currently use AI more often in computer-to-computer activities than in automating human activities. One common application? Preventing electronic security breaches, which, rather than eliminating IT jobs, actually makes those personnel more valuable to employers, because they help firms prevent hacking attempts. Here are a few other ways AI is aiding companies without replacing employees: Better Hiring Practices Companies are using artificial intelligence to remove some of the unconscious bias from hiring decisions. “There are experiments that show that, naturally, the results of interviews are much more biased than what AI does,” says Pedro Domingos, author of The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World and a computer science professor at the University of Washington. In addition, “ _” One company that’s doing this is called Blendoor. It uses analytics to help identify where there may be bias in the hiring process. More Effective Marketing Some AI software can analyze and optimize marketing email subject lines to increase open rates. One company in the UK, Phrasee, claims their software can outperform humans by up to 10 percent when it comes to email open rates. This can mean millions more in revenue. _ These are “tools that help people use data, not a replacement for people,” says Patrick H. Winston, a professor of artificial intelligence and computer science at MIT. Saving Customers Money Energy companies can use AI to help customers reduce their electricity bills, saving them money while helping the environment. Companies can also optimize their own energy use and cut down on the cost of electricity. Insurance companies, meanwhile, can base their premiums on AI models that more accurately access risk. _ Improved Accuracy “Machine learning often provides a more reliable form of statistics, which makes data more valuable,” says Winston. It “helps people make smarter decisions.” _ Protecting and Maintaining Infrastructure A number of companies, particularly in energy and transportation, use AI image processing technology to inspect infrastructure and prevent equipment failure or leaks before they happen. “If they fail first and then you fix them, it’s very expensive,” says Domingos. “_ ”
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3. From the early days of broadband, advocates for consumers and web-based companies worried that the cable and phone companies selling broadband connections had the power and incentive to favor their own or their partners’ websites and services over those of their rivals. That’s why there has been such a strong demand for rules that would prevent broadband providers from picking winners and losers online, preserving the freedom and innovation that have been the lifeblood of the internet. Yet that demand has been almost impossible to fill — in part because of pushback from broadband providers, anti-regulatory conservatives and the courts. A federal appeals court weighed in again Tuesday, but instead of providing a badly needed resolution, it only prolonged the fight. At issue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was the latest take of the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality, adopted on a party-line vote in 2017. The Republican-penned order not only eliminated the strict net neutrality rules the FCC had adopted when it had a Democratic majority in 2015, but rejected the commission’s authority to require broadband providers to do much of anything. The order also declared that state and local governments couldn’t regulate broadband providers either. The commission argued that other agencies would protect against anti-competitive behavior, such as a broadband-providing conglomerate like AT&T favoring its own video-streaming service at the expense of Netflix and Apple TV. Yet the FCC also ended the investigations of broadband providers that imposed data caps on their rivals’ streaming services but not their own. On Tuesday, the appeals court unanimously upheld the 2017order deregulating broadband providers, citing a Supreme Court ruling from 2005that upheld a similarly deregulatory move. But Judge Patricia Millett rightly argued in a concurring opinion that "the result is unhinged from the realities of modern broadband service," and said Congress or the Supreme Court could intervene to "avoid trapping Internet regulation in technological anachronism." In the meantime, the court threw out the FCC’s attempt to block all state rules on net neutrality, while preserving the commission’s power to pre-empt individual state laws that undermine its order. That means more battles like the one now going on between the Justice Department and California, which enacted a tough net neutrality law in the wake of the FCC’s abdication. The endless legal battles and back-and-forth at the FCC cry out for Congress to act. It needs to give the commission explicit authority once and for all to bar broadband providers from meddling in the traffic on their network and to create clear rules protecting openness and innovation online.
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4. As a historian, who’s always searching for the text or the image that makes us re-evaluate the past. I’ve become preoccupied with looking for photographs that show our Victorian ancestors smiling (what better way to shatter the image of 19th-century prudery?). I’ve found quite a few, and—since I started posting them on Twitter—they have been causing quite a stir. People have been surprised to see evidence that Victorians had fun and could, and did, laugh. They are noting that the Victorians suddenly seem to become more human as the hundred-or-so years that separate us fade away through our common experience of laughter. Of course, I need to concede that my collection of “Smiling Victorians” makes up only a tiny percentage of the vast catalogue of photographic portraiture created between 1840and 1900, the majority of which show sitters posing miserably and stiffly in front of painted backdrops, or staring absently into the middle distance. How do we explain this trend? During the 1840s and 1850s, in the early days of photography, exposure times were notoriously long: the daguerreotype photographic method (producing an image on a silvered copper plate) could take several minutes to complete, resulting in blurred images as sitters shifted position or adjusted their limbs. The thought of holding a fixed grin as the camera performed its magical duties was too much to contemplate, and so a non-committal blank stare became the norm. But exposure times were much quicker by the 1880s, and the introduction of the Box Brownie and other portable cameras meant that, though slow by today’s digital standards, the exposure was almost instantaneous. Spontaneous smiles were relatively easy to capture by the 1890s, so we must look elsewhere for an explanation of why Victorians still hesitated to smile. One explanation might be the loss of dignity displayed through a cheesy grin. “Nature gave us lips to conceal our teeth,” ran one popular Victorian maxim, alluding to the fact that before the birth of proper dentistry, mouths were often in a shocking state of hygiene. A flashing set of healthy and clean, regular “pearly whites” was a rare sight in Victorian society, the preserve of the super-rich (and even then, dental hygiene was not guaranteed). A toothy grin (especially when there were gaps or blackened gnashers) lacked class: drunks, tramps, prostitutes and buffoonish music hall performers might gurn and grin with a smile as wide as Lewis Carroll’s gum-exposing Cheshire Cat, but it was not a becoming look for properly bred persons. Even Mark Twain, a man who enjoyed a hearty laugh, said that when it came to photographic portraits there could be “nothing more damning than a silly, foolish smile fixed forever”.
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5. Last year marked the third year in a row of when Indonesia’s bleak rate of deforestation has slowed in pace. One reason for the turnaround may be the country’s antipoverty program. In 2007, Indonesia started phasing in a program that gives money to its poorest residents under certain conditions, such as requiring people to keep kids in school or get regular medical care. Called conditional cash transfers or CCTs, these social assistance programs are designed to reduce inequality and break the cycle of poverty. They’re already used in dozens of countries worldwide. In Indonesia, the program has provided enough food and medicine to substantially reduce severe growth problems among children. But CCT programs don’t generally consider effects on the environment. In fact, poverty alleviation and environmental protection are often viewed as conflicting goals, says Paul Ferraro, an economist at Johns Hopkins University. That’s because economic growth can be correlated with environmental degradation, while protecting the environment is sometimes correlated with greater poverty. However, those correlations don’t prove cause and effect. The only previous study analyzing causality, based on an area in Mexico that had instituted CCTs, supported the traditional view. There, as people got more money, some of them may have more cleared land for cattle to raise for meat, Ferraro says. Such programs do not have to negatively affect the environment, though. Ferraro wanted to see if Indonesia’s poverty-alleviation program was affecting deforestation. Indonesia has the third- largest area of tropical forest in the world and one of the highest deforestation rates. Ferraro analyzed satellite data showing annual forest loss from 2008to 2012—including during Indonesia’s phase-in of the antipoverty program—in 7,468forested villages across 15 provinces and multiple islands. The duo separated the effects of the CCT program on forest loss from other factors, like weather and macroeconomic changes, which were also affecting forest loss. With that, “we see that the program is associated with a 30percent reduction in deforestation,” Ferraro says. That’s likely because the rural poor are using the money as makeshift insurance policies against inclement weather, Ferraro says. Typically, if rains are delayed, people may clear land to plant more rice to supplement their harvests. With the CCTs, individuals instead can use the money to supplement their harvests. Whether this research translates elsewhere is anybody’s guess. Ferraro suggests the results may transfer to other parts of Asia, due to commonalities such as the importance of growing rice and market access. And regardless of transferability, the study shows that what’s good for people may also be good for the environment. Even if this program didn’t reduce poverty. Ferraro says, “the value of the avoided deforestation just for carbon dioxide emissions alone is more than the program costs.”
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6. How can the train operators possibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become a grimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by train rises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but to use the rail network to get to work or otherwise. This year’s rise, an average of 2.7 percent, may be a fraction lower than last year’s, but it is still well above the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation. Successive governments have permitted such increases on the grounds that the cost of investing in and running the rail network should be borne by those who use it, rather than the general taxpayer. Why, the argument goes, should a car-driving pensioner from Lincolnshire have to subsidise the daily commute of a stockbroker from Surrey? Equally, there is a sense that the travails of commuters in the South East, many of whom will face among the biggest rises, have received too much attention compared to those who must endure the relatively poor infrastructure of the Midlands and the North. However, over the past 12months, those commuters have also experienced some of the worst rail strikes in years. It is all very well train operators trumpeting the improvements they are making to the network, but passengers should be able to expect a basic level of service for the substantial sums they are now paying to travel. The responsibility for the latest wave of strikes rests on the unions. However, there is a strong case that those who have been worst affected by industrial action should receive compensation for the disruption they have suffered. The Government has pledged to change the law to introduce a minimum service requirement so that, even when strikes occur, services can continue to operate. This should form part of a wider package of measures to address the long-running problems on Britain’s railways. Yes, more investment is needed, but passengers will not be willing to pay more indefinitely if they must also endure cramped, unreliable services, punctuated by regular chaos when timetables are changed, or planned maintenance is managed incompetently. The threat of nationalisation may have been seen off for now, but it will return with a vengeance if the justified anger of passengers is not addressed in short order.
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7. Fluid intelligence is the type of intelligence that has to do with short-term memory and the ability to think quickly, logically, and abstractly in order to solve new problems. It _ in young adulthood, levels out for a period of time, and then _ starts to slowly decline as we age. But _ aging is inevitable, scientists are finding that certain changes in brain function may not be. One study found that muscle loss and the _ of body fat around the abdomen are associated with a decline in fluid intelligence. This suggests the _ that lifestyle factors might help prevent or _ this type of decline. The researchers looked at data that _ measurements of lean muscle and abdominal fat from more than 4,000middle-to-older-aged men and women and _ that data to reported changes in fluid intelligence over a six-year period. They found that middle-aged people _ higher measures of abdominal fat _ worse on measures of fluid intelligence as the years _ . For women, the association may be _ to changes in immunity that resulted from excess abdominal fat; in men, the immune system did not appear to be _ . It is hoped that future studies could _ these differences and perhaps lead to different _ for men and women. _ , there are steps you can _ to help reduce abdominal fat and maintain lean muscle mass as you age in order to protect both your physical and mental _ . The two highly recommended lifestyle approaches are maintaining or increasing your _ of aerobic exercise and following a Mediterranean-style _ that is high in fiber and eliminates highly processed foods.
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8. Ecotourism is commonly regarded as low impact (影响)travel to undisturbed places. It is different from traditional tourism because it allows the traveler to become _ (educate) about the areas - both in terms of geographical conditions and cultural characteristics, and often provides money for conservation and benefits the _ (develop) of the local areas. Ecotourism has _ (it) origin with the environmental movement of the 1970s. It was not widely accepted as a travel concept _ the late 1980s. During that time, increasing environmental awareness made it desirable. Due to _ growing popularity of environmentally-related and adventure travel, various types _ trips are now being classified as ecotourism. Actually, a true eco-friendly trip must meet the following principles: • Minimize the impact of _ (visit) the place. • Build respect for and awareness of the environment and cultural practices. • Provide _ (finance) aid and other benefits for local peoples. • Make sure that the tourism provides positive experiences for both the visitors and the hosts. Komodo National Park, officially recognized in 1980, is popular for ecotourism because of its unique biodiversity. _ (activity) there range from whale watching to hiking (远足) and accommodations aim _ (have) a low impact on the natural environment.
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9. Simply saying thank you doesn't seem enough in certain situations. I was considering this while working as a _ Just a few weeks ago. And it came to me then how much easier it would be if we had a range of words that express different _ of gratitude (感谢). My thoughts were soon _ . We had a woman patient who was _ from a knee replacement operation. One afternoon, while _ to get into bed she collapsed (倒下) from what was _ discovered to be a heart attack. The collapse was disastrous, _ the emergency medical team and good teamwork. But she recovered, though _ ,and was ready for discharge (出 院)after four weeks. She was _ for everything that the medical and nursing team had done for her. On her day of discharge, we shared in her _ at her recovery. As she was _ she was eager to say _ to each of us in the nursing team. When she _ one nurse, she tried to press a five-pound note into her hand. My colleague _ to accept it, saying that we were all just _ our job. The patient looked puzzled, and then _ : "Oh this isn't for the _ I had. I take that as a _ . No, this is for setting my hair yesterday.'' And there you have it. To many people, _ lives is part of the job but styling hair is an _ and should be rewarded.
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10. According to Jessica Hagy, author of How to Be Interesting, it's not difficult to make yourself interesting at a dinner party. _, if you're out of your comfort zone or if you're wandering into somebody's house for the first time. So the main thing is just to show up and be adventurous, trying different foods and talking to strangers. People love to talk about themselves. If you can start the conversation with a question other than “What do you do for a living?", you'll be able to get a lot more interesting conversation out of whomever it is you're talking to. _. it can bring in "I have this old, broken-down vehicle" or "I rode the bus with these crazy people who were laughing at silly jokes in the back." It just opens up conversation. _? If you can't take their wine away, you should certainly try to take away their soapbox （讲台）.If you're the host, you can ask them to help you in the kitchen with something and just remove them from the situation. _. And what about that other dinner-party killer: awkward silence? If you're faced with an awkward silence at a dinner party, the only thing that always gets everyone talking again is to give the host a compliment (赞扬). _. Just quickly tun around and say, "This cake is extremely delicious and you have to tell me all about it.” So being interesting at a dinner party isn’t that hard.
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