ading SectionSection time left:
22:57
You will read a magazine article about volcanoes. volc anoes. Answer the questions based on what you have read.
Volcanoes have existed since the birth of the earth, and they have helped he lped shape the continents as we know them. The word volcano is thought to have come from Roman mythology, specifically derived from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire who was thought to be Jupiter’s blacksmith and responsible for making arrows and shields. Vulcan also had a Greek equivalent, known as Hephaestus, whose name means “burning” or “flaming.” Volcanoes were featured in ancient poetry, where they are described as the blacksmith’s workshop. When a mountain erupted, the ancients thought it was caused by smoke escaping through the chimney orkshop when he was at work. of Vulcan’s w orkshop But what are volcanoes, really? A volcano is an opening in the Earth’s surface which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from the magma chamber below the surface. Volcanic eruptions can cause destruction and consequent disaster in several different ways. One is the volcanic eruption itself, causing harm from the explosion of the volcano or the immediate fall of rock. Then there is lava - molten rock or liquid rock - that may be produced during the eruption of a volcano. As it leaves the volcano, the hot lava destroys any buildings and plants in its path. Third, there is volcanic ash, consisting of fragments of pulverized rock, minerals and volcanic glass, which may form a cloud and settle thickly in nearby locations. When volcanic ash is mixed with water it forms a concrete-like material, and in sufficient quantity, ash may cause roofs to collapse under its weight. Small quantities of volcanic ash will also harm humans if inhaled.
However, the main danger to humans in the immediate surroundings of a volcanic eruption is pyroclastic flows. These are currents of hot gas and rock which can reach speeds of up to 700 kmh (450 mph) and temperatures of about 1,000 °C (1,830 °F). It is believed that the Roman town of Pompeii near Naples was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, and that heat was the main cause of death of people and not, as previously believed, the inhalation of ash.
One recent volcanic eruption causing chaos and disaster was the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption in Chile in 2011. At least 3,500 people were evacuated from nearby areas, while the ash cloud was blown across cities all around the Southern hemisphere, creating travel chaos when airlines were forced to cancel hundreds of flights. Ash poses a threat to aircrafts because once sucked into engines, it can be transformed into molten glass by the high engine temperatures and can cause an engine to fail. Further, ski resorts in Argentina had to be closed, a nearby river was contaminated and its temperature rose to 45 °C (113 °F) and pastureland in Southern Argentina was destroyed
Computer science professor Mark Brown appreciates the power of nonverbal communication. Calling himself a human-computer interaction specialist, Brown focuses his work on replicating characteristics of human behavior in robots or animatronic characters. Brown is leading a team that is developing and creating various computer algorithms based on how people communicate without words. These algorithms are then used to program devices, like robots, to look and act more human-like, helping to bridge the gap between man and machine. A critical part of the human-robot gap centers on communication. When we talk with someone, words are not the only influence on a listener’s understanding. Other subtle factors – such as tone of voice, body language and eye contact – also have powerful communicative potential. Some robotics researchers have focused on gesture, tone of voice and facial expressions. Recently, for example, a group of researchers in Singapore released a computer program whose algorithm recognizes human gestures quickly and accurately. They tested the software by integrating it with ShapeTape, a special jacket that uses fiber optics and sensors to monitor the bending and twisting of hands and arms. In tests, five different users wore the ShapeTape jacket and used it to control a virtual robot through simple arm motions that represented commands such as forward, backward, faster or slower. The researchers found that 99.15% of gestures were correctly translated by their system. A particularly important achievement of this software is how easy it is to add new commands, by demonstrating a new control gesture just a few times. The next step in improving the gesture recognition system is to allow humans to control robots without the need to wear any special devices. Brown has focused his most recent research on human gaze, the facet of nonverbal communication he finds most intriguing. “It turns o ut that gaze tells us all sorts of things about attention, about mental states, about roles in conversations,” he says. For example, if a person focuses his or her gaze on a specific individual while talking to a group of people, it communicates that what is being said is especially relevant to that individual. Research also shows that when a person finishes saying something in a c onversation and directs his or her gaze to one particular person, that person is likely to take the next turn speaking in the discussion. These nonverbal cues tell people where our attention is focused and what we mean when we direct a question or comment in a conversation. When people really mean what they are saying, they might open up their eyes and look at the person they are talking to and really try to communicate their message or thought through facial and other cues. To convert these subtle cues of human communication into data and language that can be used by a robot, Brown’s team takes the same approach as the Singapore team. They break down each human cue or gesture into minute segments or submechanisms – such as the direction of the eyes versus the direction of the head or how the body is oriented – which can be modeled. Then certain temporal dimensions are added to the model, such as the length of time a target is looked at. When building robots for roles in teaching, for example, Brown incorporates these
nonverbal behaviors in the control software. The research team has found robot assisted learning improves when a robot teacher uses these visual cues. Brown’s goal is not to duplicate a human being in robot form, or have robots mimic people on a one-to-one basis. Instead, he seeks to find key mechanisms which help humans communicate effectively, reproduce them in many different robots and enable these systems to connect with humans as humans communicate with each other. He believes that this kind of robot development has significant potential for assistive technologies. For example, he wants to explore how a “smart” robot who communicates like a person might assist people with disabilities to lead fuller and more comfortable lives.
The phrase “free trade” is a flashpoint for many people, particularly those involved in government, international commerce or the media. Proponents perpetuate the view that foreign investment in developing countries is so helpful to those countries that it’s practically philanthropy. Those on the other side of the debate say that in reality, free trade and foreign investment are euphemisms, pretty-sounding names for a nasty business, namely, the exploitation of developing countries by powerful international corporations.
What are the basic arguments people use to attack and defend free trade? The attackers cite three primary arguments against free trade. First, developed countries benefit by investment in countries in which basic human rights violations are a fundamental part of the culture. Indeed, those violations often make the free trade investment extremely profitable, with the result that f ree trade investment tacitly encourages anti-democratic governments in countries in which workers suffering under corrupt regimes are voiceless and desperate. Low wages and long hours for low-skilled work make global companies financially viable. Profit-makers have little or no regard for human rights or social cost. Second, say the attackers, the environmental damage caused to developing coun tries by Western corporations’ resource extraction, ranging from guano in the Pacific Islands in the 19th century to oil in Nigeria today, is appalling. Local populations don’t benefit from the financial windfall created by the free trade inspired investment; the resources and the profits all go offshore. Most of the skilled labor is brought in from outside the country, leaving only the low-skilled jobs. After a few years only the mess is left behind, along with a profoundly disrupted society. Third, free trade is far from being the inter-governmental cooperative endeavor it may appear to be. Indeed, the heads of government in powerful Western nations, who espouse free trade and foreign investment as pillars of democracy, are indebted to business interests. International corporations demand direct access to international markets and property in developing countries from their governments, while at the same time demanding protection of their interests in the form of trade barriers from their own governments. The defenders, however, flatly reject the charge of economic exploitation — all benefits accruing to the investor and none to the object of investment. Nearly two hundred years ago, they contend, renowned British economist and stockbroker David Ricardo proved definitively in his law of “comparative advantage” that free trade benefits both parties despite disparities in wealth and power. Defenders often point out that in developing countries, the so- called “exploitative” wages international companies pay local workers are typically 50%-75% above prevailing rates in the host countries – and the work is almost always safer to boot. The workers are worth the premium paid above local wages because the investing corporation has already made them more valuable as a result of their employment and training in new industries. And new infrastructure built by international companies in order to do business does not disappear; the roads, the
telecommunication networks, the sewers and clean water supply are permanent assets. They enable the country to support more new industry employing local people at still higher salary levels. Hong Kong is the classic modern example of this cycle. Fifty years ago it was one of the poorest places on the globe. Yet, by dint of hard work and by embracing free trade and foreign investment, the peo ple have lifted themselves out of their poverty to such a point that today th ey are, by some measures, the richest on Earth. As to the issue of environmental damage as a result of free trade, defenders say that this is pure and simple nonsense. The simple fact is, they argue, that rich nations have clean environments and poor nations do not. As countries get rich, they clean up their backyards. Poor countries will clean themselves up if given a chance to become rich enough to afford the luxury of doing so. Concern for the environment is a polemical dodge: wealthy is healthy. The real question is how best to bring wealth to poor countries, and if rich countries also benefit by making that shift possible, what is the harm in that?
