【clover】 ECO analysis by taotaole

taotaoleUID：2694983

为了区分，用不同的颜色显示不同的学习点：
好词用法
好句用法
资料解释
写作素材

2.January 26, 2010
Spending on education
Investing in brains(修辞上是synecdoche.提喻-用一部分概整体，有助于写文章的生动，避免重复。)Should the economic squeeze mean cuts, reform or more spending on education?
Jan 21st 2010 | From The Economist print edition
觉得这篇虽然不是即时的，但可以作为写作素材的话可以在多个issue里运用，就选来作分析。


IN CALIFORNIA the students are revolting—not against their teachers, but in sympathy with them. The state’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has cut $1 billion, some 20% of the University of California’s budget, as he tries to balance the state’s books. Fees may rise by a fifth, to over $10,000. Support staff are being fired; academics must take unpaid leave.
That is part of a global picture in which cash-strapped governments in the rich world are scrutinising the nearly 5% of GDP they devote to education. Those budgets may not be the top candidates for the chop--【the chop [sing] (sl 俚 esp Brit) act of dismissing or killing sb; act of discontinuing sth 辞退某人; 杀掉某人; 中止某事物--AW里是不是最好不要用俚语？】, but they cannot fully escape it.
Just before Christmas the British government said it planned to reduce spending on higher education, science and research by £600m ($980m) by 2012-13, just as a chilly job market is sending students scurrying to do more and longer courses. The trade union that represents academic staff claims that up to 30 universities could close with the loss of 14,000 jobs. A House of Commons select committee is investigating the effects on British science.
Even where education spending has not been slashed, it may face a squeeze as short-term stimulus spending ends. America’s $787 billion Recovery Act passed by Congress nearly a year ago included $100 billion for education. More than half is to be spent this year, meaning that（用来引出进一步阐释，会比that is to say好） the budget will have to be cut in 2011. A study by the Centre for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University, published on January 18th, found that half of American states will have spent all of their stimulus money for education by the end of July. Cuts will follow. Privately funded schools and colleges have seen their endowments and donors’ enthusiasm wither（词汇用法的迁移).
Elsewhere, the cuts are less severe. Japan, for example, is reducing university spending by a flat 1% over each of the next five years. In France President Nicolas Sarkozy last month announced plans to borrow money to finance a ($50 billion) spending plan, the lion’s share of which will go to universities. Though that is only a temporary boost, and the money will have to be repaid,(词的照应) it highlights（better used than “shows” or “emphasize”） the hopes that governments place in education’s role in future economic growth.
Believers in that will welcome a new study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a rich-country think-tank（智囊）. It provides new evidence of the link between educational attainment and prosperity. To be published on January 27th, the study, entitled “The high cost of low educational performance”, compares international data on 15-year-olds’ cognitive skills—how they apply their science, maths and reading abilities—with their countries’ economic growth.
Admittedly, the real picture is more complicated than some in the education lobby would concede（=admit）. The OECD study does not link education spending to economic success—or even to educational outcomes. What it does show is that good exam results tend to be followed, a few years later, by small but measurable improvements in economic growth. That does not convince sceptics such as Alison Wolf, author of a book called “Does Education Matter?”. She describes the OECD study as “ridiculously superficial”. Education may be something fun and desirable that countries spend more on as they get richer, rather than being the engine of economic growth.
Just supposing…
Assuming the relation between test scores and future growth is indeed causal, the OECD study also works out the economic benefits of improving cognitive skills by the equivalent of nine months’ worth of schooling. That is a reasonable target: Poland’s education reforms between 2000 and 2006 brought slightly more than that gain. Over many decades, the small rise in average growth rates this could bring makes a big difference—a stonking $115 trillion in extra wealth for its member countries by 2090, the OECD reckons. A more ambitious target, such as getting educational attainment up to Finland’s stellar(=excellent) levels, would mean even bigger gains.
That would require a huge and unlikely shake-up(=(also shake-out)~ (in / of sth) a situation in which a lot of changes are made to a company, an organization, etc. in order to improve the way in which it works)in school education in the rich world. And reforms are even more badly needed in poor countries (see article). But big changes are likely in higher education, which is more sensitive to market pressures.
British universities are right to be worried. Bahram Bekhradnia of the Higher Education Policy Institute, in Oxford, says they are worst-placed to cope with the cuts. Unlike their continental European competitors, they have already diversified their revenues by charging fees. Raising them further will be hard. But they could become more efficient. At Britain’s independent University of Buckingham, the vice-chancellor, Terence Kealey, cheekily welcomed the spending cuts and the two-year undergraduate degree courses that may result. His university had been teaching such courses for years, he noted.
The squeeze on state spending in higher education offers big opportunities for private-sector providers. These already compete strongly in offering professional qualifications. Colleen Graffy, a London-based law professor with Pepperdine, a not-for-profit Californian university, says the private sector is more innovative in designing courses and more flexible in providing them. Alan Jenkins of Kaplan (owned by the Washington Post group) looks forward to a “more level playing field” as the state subsidy drops. And the University of Phoenix, America’s largest private education provider, has sharply increased enrolments, from 384,000 to 455,000 in the past year. It is also talking to the Californian authorities about providing education online. The state’s ability to supply education is one thing. Demand for it is another.
本篇在对例子的阐述上值得学习。以事例引出话题，然后用对比事例拓展，引OECD的研究报告还有合理推测，对反面观点的顾及，都可以用在issue的写作中。

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为什么还有一大半的文章和我的总结不见了！！！

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1# taotaole
wokao!又写了一遍，又没显示出来！！! 人生啊！

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Elsewhere(表转折的词), the cuts are less severe. Japan, for example, is reducing university spending by a flat 1% over each of the next five years. In France President Nicolas Sarkozy last month announced plans to borrow money to finance a

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实在是无奈了……

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不能正常显示的原因是对欧元符号无法识别……略去之后就可以了……经验啊……

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把之前自己做的再补上吧，昨天折腾太多回不让发帖了……为什么组长都不来评论下我的作业呢，刚上手还需要指正啊！先谢谢了！

1.

25 January 2010
China's assertiveness at sea
Choppy waters
East and south, China makes a splash
Jan 21st 2010 | BEIJING | From The Economist print edition
“SEA of peace” is the title China has bestowed on its adjacent oceans. But sovereignty disputes between China and its neighbours still roil the waters. In recent weeks, Japan and Vietnam have complained about what they allege to be Chinese encroachments(=to gradually take more of someone's time, possessions, rights etc than you should). Attaching blame is difficult. But at a time of a growing perception in the West that China is flexing its muscles (see article), countries closer to China’s shores also worry that it might be getting more assertive. Their squabbles are often aggravated by rivalry over undersea oil and gas.
Less than two years ago, Japan and China reached an accord on their rival claims in the East China Sea that made it seem as if a long-running war of words might at last be at an end. Now the two countries are at it again. Japan’s press reported that the foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, on January 17th warned his visiting Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, that Japan might take “measures” should China go ahead unilaterally with development of the Chunxiao gasfield (Shirakaba in Japanese).
Chunxiao lies just to the Chinese side of what Japan claims as the line, halfway between the two countries, dividing their exclusive economic zones （地理上的术语，叫专属经济区）in the East China Sea. Japan’s fear is that gas extraction in Chunxiao could siphon off虹吸 gas from Japan’s side of the field. The agreement reached in June 2008 was supposed to allow joint exploitation of the field. But last year Japan noticed activity suggesting that China was moving in drilling equipment and preparing to go ahead on its own. China said it was just conducting maintenance. Japan had expected a detailed agreement on how it might take part to be reached soon after the 2008 accord. China has stonewalled. Only after heated debate did Mr Yang tell Mr Okada that he still “cherished” the pact.
On January 19th the Chinese foreign ministry, in language that recalled frostier times in bilateral relations, said a “proper” handling of the dispute was crucial to relations between China and Japan as well as to regional stability. For good measure, it also weighed in on a more arcane（mysterious） dispute about a tiny Japanese atoll环状珊瑚岛, 环礁 in the Pacific, Okinotorishima. China suspects Japan of trying to build up what China dismisses as “merely a rock” into a proper island. This could reinforce Japanese claims to an exclusive economic zone stretching 200 nautical miles (370km) from the atoll, which happens to lie on a militarily important route between the American island of Guam and Taiwan. Such claims would gravely damage the interests of the international community, said a Chinese spokesman. (And perhaps, he omitted to say, complicate China’s naval activities.)
China is doing some beefing up of its own in the Paracels, an archipelago in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam (and, half-heartedly, by Taiwan). In December, to Vietnam’s outrage, China included the Paracels in its plans for promoting tourism in its island-province of Hainan. The Paracels boast fine beaches, but are wholly peopled by that uninviting body, the People’s Liberation Army.
Worries in the region about China’s ambitions have grown since tense encounters in the South China Sea early last year between Chinese vessels and American surveillance(careful watch kept on sb suspected of doing wrong （对涉嫌者的）监视) ships. In testimony to Congress on January 13th the American armed forces’ Pacific commander, Admiral Robert Willard, said the Chinese navy had increased its patrols in the South China Sea and had “shown an increased willingness to confront regional nations on the high seas and within the contested island chains.” China bristles(show anger, indignation, etc 显出愤怒﹑
愤慨) at any suggestion that it can be a prickly((infml 口) (of a person) easily angered; irritable; touchy （指人）易怒的, 脾气暴躁的, 动辄发火的:) neighbour.
本篇站在一个不客观的角度上来论证中国面对领海问题的强硬态度。用词上都显示了作者的偏见。在展开论证上可以学习其对引言的使用，如claim……对quotation的paraphrase等。还有就是一些知识性的信息。

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3January 27, 2010
这是今天做的，也有一些问题……盼解答……

The British economy
Stuck in the mud
The British economy is struggling to get out of the mire(泥沼, 泥泞)
Jan 26th 2010 | From The Economist online
Getty Images
BRITAIN’S long-awaited exit from recession has moved from thwarted(to stop something from happening) prediction to firm fact. 意思的对仗But the welcome news came with a painful sting. The economy barely crawled forward, (用现在分词替代从句)expanding by just 0.1% between the third and the fourth quarters of 2009, according to（用在资料引用前，算signpost吧） the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday January 26th. This was much feebler than the median forecast among City economists for an increase of 0.4%.
The recession lasted a year and a half and was both the longest and deepest since the mid-1940s (when national output fell in the aftermath（consequence） of the second world war). Indeed the slump of 4.8% in GDP last year was the steepest since 1931, when national output fell by 5.1%.
以上客观概述了英国经济低谷情况。以数据等资料居多。
Britain’s recession was the longest among the G7 economies, which typically had downturns lasting a year, although Italy’s lasted for five quarters. It was not the most severe, measured from the pre-recession peak to the trough（low area between two waves or ridges 波谷; 低谷）. That unfortunate accolade went to Japan (8.6%) followed by Germany (6.7%) and then Italy (6.5%). Their earlier recovery meant, however, that Britain’s 6.0% fall in output between early 2008 and the third quarter of 2009 was surpassed only by Japan (7.7%)(see daily chart). 用比较的方法说明情况恶劣。
All these figures will be revised in due course. Usually this is a routine matter but in the run-up to a general election, which must be held by June 3rd at the latest, but is widely expected to be on May 6th, any changes will be politically potent. In Britain, the ONS has already moderated its initial estimate of a fall in GDP of 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009, to 0.2%. Gordon Brown, the prime minister, will be hoping that the meagre不足的 increase in national output for the fourth quarter may be pushed up when the official number-crunchers, armed with more information, revisit the figures on February 26th and March 30th. Business surveys have suggested （此词有虚拟语气用法，但这不是，因为意思是“表明”）a more robust upturn and the labour market has been more resilient迅速恢复的 than expected.
But there is a potential pitfall（unsuspected danger or difficulty 意想不到的危险或困难） for Mr Brown. The ONS will unveil（生动的用法） its initial estimate of GDP in the first quarter on April 23rd. If this were to show a return to recession the news would torpedo（wreck or ruin (a policy, an event, an institution, etc) 破坏（政策﹑
事情﹑
制度等）Labour’s already slender hopes of averting a Conservative victory. 此句话是对将来的虚拟语气 Such a relapse could happen because the main rate of VAT, a consumption tax charged on most goods and services, went up to 17.5% on January 1st, （两逗号间的是一句同位语从句）following 13 months when it had been lowered to 15% in order to combat the recession. Since consumers brought purchases forward in late 2009 to dodge the impending increase/ they are likely to cut back now, hindering a further expansion in national output.发现这文章的作者喜欢不从句放句首而且不加标点，同时用分词结构（ving/ved）代替多个从句，避免句子结构过于冗长及复杂。还有用虚拟语气来论证的方法也值得借鉴。
Looking longer ahead, the outlook is for a pretty modest recovery this year. GDP will increase by 1.4% in 2010 according to the average of 28 independent forecasts in early January assembled by the Treasury (which itself predicted 1.25% in December). Much of the recovery will come from a turnaround in the stockbuilding cycle, as inventories are run down far less than before.
分词短语做主语Ensuring that this fragile upturn is sustained will require some skill from policymakers. The recovery has been helped by an extraordinary stimulus, both fiscal and monetary. The budget deficit has burgeoned（begin to grow rapidly; flourish 开始迅速成长; 茂盛:） to a post-war record, the base rate is at a 300-year low and the policy of “quantitative easing” has been vigorously pursued.【
As Britain belatedly leaves recession behind, so the Treasury and the Bank of England will want to execute their own “exit strategies”.？？疑问，这句话没主句啊，2transitions？】 Co-ordination will be vital. The tougher the fiscal tightening, the easier monetary policy can remain.（句型：越……越……）
But none of these crucial decisions will be made until Britain has a new government after the general election.结尾是总结归纳，然后结论还是改变现状的政策还要静观其变（等普选结束才知道）。

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Britain's Iraq war inquiry
Tony Blair's 2010 vision
The prime minister who took Britain into Iraq defends his record
Jan 29th 2010 | From The Economist online
(AP---Associated Press??)
TONY BLAIR arrived early to give his much-anticipated evidence to Britain’s Iraq inquiry on Friday January 29th, avoiding the small band of protesters who braved the drizzle outside, waving placards(标语牌;) proclaiming “Jail Tony” and the now-traditional “Bliar”.(用连续的现在分词把情形刻画的生动具体) The relatives of British servicemen killed in Iraq who had been allocated seats at the hearing were mostly respectful. And Mr Blair was rarely discomforted （双重否定的用法，强调作用）during six hours of questioning from the panel, chaired by Sir John Chilcot—even if he was not always entirely convincing.开头简单介绍情况
In recent weeks, questioning other ministers who were involved in Iraq policy in 2002-03 (it has become clear that not very many of them really were), Sir John and his colleagues have become increasingly aggressive. But over what, in Britain, is the most controversial aspect of the build-up to the invasion of March 2003—the case Mr Blair’s government mounted over Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD（大规模杀伤性武器）—Mr Blair got a soft ride.渐入正题，结尾的mount和ride对应的很巧妙，有些中文里骑虎难下的意思。
Asked why, in his foreword to the government’s dossier档案; 卷宗 on WMD of September 2002, Mr Blair wrote that the case had been made “beyond doubt”, despite the limitations of the available intelligence, he explained that he himself had felt no doubt. Asked about the claim that some of Saddam’s WMD could be used within 45 minutes of an order to do so—an assertion that was widely misinterpreted to refer to long-range weapons远程武器 rather than battlefield munitionsn. 军火，军需品—Mr Blair, like Alastair Campbell, his former spin doctor, implied that the issue had only become controversial because of a subsequent row with the media over its provenance. 对Blair辩驳之词的质疑，划出的句子能用在argument里。
But the questionable involvement of Mr Blair’s own aides in the preparation of the dossier went largely unexplored. 布莱尔的副官在卷宗准备过程的有疑问的参与未被主要调查。（对上文的进一步质疑）He maintained that he would have wanted to confront Saddam even if he had known the Iraqi dictator had only an intent to acquire WMD, rather than the things themselves: “The decision I took—and frankly would take again—was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction we should stop him.” That, of course, was not the case he made, and it would have been a tough one to sell.
Mr Blair’s explanation of his world view hinged on（depend on sth 依赖某事物:） the terror attacks of September 11th 2001. This, he said (as he has done previously), created a “different calculus of risk”, in which the possible collusion共谋; 勾结 of rogue states such as Iraq and terrorists could not be tolerated.
The trouble with that argument, as Mr Blair’s questioners gently pointed out, is that there was and is
(强调过去和现在)no proven link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and indeed many reasons to doubt that such a link, between religious fundamentalists and a Baathist tyrant, was even feasible. Unlike the Americans, the British acknowledged as much before the war, and Mr Blair did so again at the inquiry. He filled the gap in his argument by waffling about the risk posed today by Iran, also roping in Yemen and Somalia. It sounded like a distraction.
His greatest distraction, or deflection, however, was what he termed the “2010 question”: “What’s important is not to ask the March 2003 question [ie, whether it was right to wage war], but to ask the 2010 question.” Mr Blair speculated that, had Saddam not been deposed, with the oil price at $100 a barrel, “he would have had the intent and he would have had the means [to produce WMD], and we would have lost our nerve（失去勇气）.” In other words, it would have been worse if America and its allies hadn’t acted. That, of course, will never be known.
Otherwise, Mr Blair’s answers—to questions he has faced many times before—were mostly predictable. He denied that there had been insufficient planning for the post-war occupation, saying only that different “eventualities” had arisen than those the government anticipated; in particular, he stressed the meddling influence of Iran. He defended Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney-general, who dramatically changed his view on the legality of the war soon before it started (and who appeared at the inquiry earlier this week). If Lord Goldsmith had said the war could not be justified legally, Mr Blair said, Britain would not have participated.
As for至于the controversial meeting with George Bush at Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, Mr Blair said he had been determined “to stand shoulder to shoulder” with America, but had made no covert deal that committed his country to the war. Britain’s former ambassador to Washington told the inquiry that such a deal had been “signed in blood” at Crawford.
Mr Blair looked tense at the beginning. And he struggled to explain a recent interview in which he seemed to suggest that he would have favoured invading Iraq even in the absence of a WMD threat—a compromising remark that he repudiated（refuse to have any more to do with (sb); disown 与（某人）断绝来往; 否认...是自己的）, attempting to laugh it off as naivety in the face of an interviewer. The old charm fell flat at that point. He conceded that Britain’s military planning could have been more open at an earlier stage, and said that intelligence assessments (on WMD) could have been published raw, rather than assembled in a government dossier.
But Mr Blair evinced（show clearly that one has (a feeling, quality, etc); exhibit 表现出（感情﹑
特性等）表明;） no real contrition完全悔悟, 悔罪, 悔改. He blamed the subsequent deaths in Iraq squarely on the terrorists and insurgents: “Nobody,” he said, “would want to go back to the days when they had no freedom, no opportunity and no hope.” The lesson, he said, was “to stick it through until the end”. Finally he said he felt “responsibility, but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein…I genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result.”

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01-31选的是新闻集锦，评论比较少~
The coming days
The week ahead
Talk of a European bail-out for Greece
Jan 31st 2010 | From The Economist online
• JUDGMENT will be passed on the Greek government's budget-cutting plans by the European Commission on Wednesday February 3rd. The country's public finances are in a parlous（
full of danger or uncertainty; dangerous; very bad 充满危险或不定因素的; 危险的; 恶劣的）state and fears that the markets may lose faith in Greece altogether were only partly allayed when it recently raised ($11 billion) in the bond market. Amid fears that Greece may not present a credible plan for fiscal austerity财政紧缩, talk is circulating of a bail-out, perhaps through a big fund underwritten by the commission or France and Germany, that could offer loans, albeit at punitive rates, to see Greece past this tight spot. And Greece is not the only member of the euro-zone with wobbly public finances.
• AN EXTENDED period of belt-tightening is likely to be the theme when Barack Obama presents his fiscal budget for 2011 on Monday February 1st. To cope with a growing deficit the president is set to propose a three-year freeze on some domestic spending programmes, as he trues to save some $20 billion in 2011. Spending on national security, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be excluded from any freeze. Mr Obama is also poised（[Ipr, Ip, Tn.pr, Tn.p] be or keep (sth) balanced or suspended 处於平衡或悬起状态; 使（某物）平衡或悬起；此处意为准备） to stop tax cuts for oil companies, investment-fund managers and anyone earning over $250,000 a year, although families earning less than that will have tax cuts extended. Mr Obama has threatened to veto spending that would increase the deficit.
• AS THE sci-fi spectacular, “Avatar”, sweeps all previous box-office records票房纪录aside an indication of its artistic merit will come on Tuesday February 2nd when the Oscar nominations are announced. “Avatar” has already earned more than “Titanic”, also directed by James Cameron, after six weeks on the big screen. But adjusted for inflation it lags some way behind.通货膨胀率是票房缩水……可以运用到A里。 And Hollywood seems less inclined to lavish it with nominations and Oscars. “Titanic” garnered（collect sth in and (usu) store it 收集并（通常）贮藏某物） 14 nods and 11 statuettes. “Avatar” may pick up less-prestigious awards for technical achievement but not the big acting or directing prizes.
• THE two front-runners for the presidency of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich and Yulia Tymoshenko, compete in a run-off election on Sunday February 7th. Ukraine is divided between the industrialised, Russian-speaking east and south which backs Mr Yanukovich and the centre and west supporting Ms Tymoshenko. Mr Yanukovich won the most votes in the first round yet the wily and more appealing Ms Tymoshenko could yet snatch victory. Some fear that she seeks to maximise her power and may, if elected, not push through reforms that Ukraine desperately needs. （又是一句不完整的句子~）The parlous state of the economy 两次出现means that the winner will need to raise heavily subsidised gas prices and cut public spending with a vengeance（to a greater degree than is normal, expected or desired （比正常的﹑
预期的或想要的）程度更深或更甚）.

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02-01一篇科技小品新闻，主要是词汇提取~
Green energy
Smarting from the wind
Turbines can now “see” the wind before it arrives, and take appropriate action
Jan 26th 2010 | From The Economist online
GATHERING energy from the wind may seem a straightforward process. Air whips past the blades of a turbine, forcing it to spin. The turbine turns a generator. The generator turns out electricity. Yet in practice things are not so simple. Wind generators are, necessarily, erected in places where powerful winds are common. If they are not properly angled towards the more howling of these gales, they can be damaged or destroyed. Tweaking（pinch and twist (sth) sharply 拧, 扭（某物）） and adjusting turbines so that their blades can harness the strongest air currents rather than be harmed by them is a normal part of turbine management. But technology being developed by Torben Mikkelsen, of Risoe DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in Denmark, and his colleagues looks set to make the process easier. Dr Mikkelsen is working on a way for individual generators to scan the air upwind and adjust the position of their blades in anticipation.
The basic technology, called lidar (short for light detection and ranging) has been around since the 1970s. It is similar to radar in that it sends out electromagnetic waves and then analyses those waves that bounce back, to determine what they bounced off. The difference is that radar depends on radio waves. These have long wavelengths and therefore bounce only off large things. Lidar uses light waves. Light has a much shorter wavelength and is readily reflected from small objects—one reason that human vision relies on it. Crucially, the light waves used in wind lidar are reflected by tiny, naturally occurring particles like water droplets, dust, pollen and salt crystals that drift along at the precise speed of the wind.
Dr Mikkelsen and his colleagues worked out that they could use lidar to scan incoming wind and determine how it was behaving before it struck the turbine. To try this idea out, they first placed lidar devices at the base of 120-metre-tall wind turbines at Hovsore, the Danish test site for such devices. The lidars scanned the approaching winds with a laser that produced infra-red light（=ultraviolet） with a wavelength of 1.55 microns. Reflected light was detected by a device so sensitive that it could pick up one returning photon (the quantum-mechanical particles of which light is composed) out of every thousand billion fired by the laser. The device measured wind movement at 40, 60, 80, and 100 metres above the ground, and 100-200 metres in front of the turbine. The data it collected were then compared with wind measurements taken by cup anemometers (the sort that spin when struck by wind, to record its speed) in order to calibrate(v.  测定口径, 查看刻度, 校准)
the lidar. That done, the computer which analyses the lidar data can be connected to the motors that adjust the pitch of the turbine blades, in order to maximise energy production and reduce damage.很详细的解释了lidar的工作原理，有些专业词汇~

The team found they were able to get accurate measurements at all heights around the turbine, but realised that installing the device on the ground was far from ideal. By shining the lasers into the air from below they were analysing a cone that had its point at the base of the turbine. This gave them an understanding of wind speeds, but little sense of how winds were changing as they closed the 200-metre distance to the turbine. To capture this important information, the laser-created cone of the lidar needed to be sent out from the centre of the turbine itself.
Placing a lidar in the centre of a turbine proved difficult, because of the centrifugal force（离心力） generated by the turbine’s rotation. To help the lidar cop, the researchers replaced their classic lidar device, which used mirrors to direct the light, with a newly developed fibre-optic system. As Michael Harris of Natural Power, a British wind-energy company that is collaborating with Dr Mikkelsen, puts it, the centre of a turbine is like a tumble drier（滚筒式烘干机）. Because the light is travelling through cables, the new device is much less likely to go out of alignment.
Another problem that the team ran into with central-turbine installation was electrical interference from the generator. The detector in the lidar is extremely sensitive and is easily upset by spurious currents. The solution, the researchers realised, was to wrap the lidar in shielding material that conducts surplus electricity to earth.
The result is a system than can improve electricity production by 5%. This may not sound much, but for a single 4-megawatt turbine it is worth around $38,000 a year. Further economic benefits come from lengthening the life of the blades and the generator itself.

taotaoleUID：2694983

02-02 很热点的新闻，对想法上有点冲击……
China and America
Blowing hot and cold
What to make of the latest row between China and America over Taiwan?
Feb 2nd 2010 | WASHINGTON, DC | From The Economist online
IS IT a crisis or just (show) business as usual? With China and America, it can be hard to tell. Almost immediately after the United States said that it intended to sell more than $6 billion-worth of arms to Taiwan, the Chinese went into a spin(in a (flat) `spin in a state of panic or confusion 惊慌失措; 晕头转向). They summoned the American ambassador to denounce this interference in China’s “internal affairs” (Taiwan is part of the mainland, says the government in Beijing), threatened to cut off military ties with the United States and said they would impose sanctions on American firms involved in the Taiwan deal.
None of this looks good for the world’s most consequential relationship. From global warming to the sickly world economy to stopping nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran(从……到……到……), co-operation between the established superpower and the rising one is vital to world stability. Why should either want to jeopardise（cause (sth) to be harmed, lost or destroyed; put in danger 使（某事物）受到伤害﹑
损失或破坏; 使陷於险境） this relationship?
That question has produced several theories. One is that China’s spritely economy is making it less afraid of conflict with a tiring America, especially when it thinks that “core” interests such as its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan or Tibet are at stake. The other is that America timed the Taiwan arms sale in part to punish China—（for its shabby treatment？（这是哪来的看法……） of Barack Obama during last November’s presidential visit to Beijing, for its foot-dragging at December’s Copenhagen climate summit and for its reluctance to support new United Nations sanctions on Iran.看了好无语的原因啊~） Of course, neither theory excludes the other and bits of both may be true. But a third possibility is that there is in fact less to this “crisis” than meets the eye（meet the `eye/`ear be seen/heard 被看见[听见）.
America is obliged under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to provide the island with the arms it needs to defend itself. America and China both knew that the United States would announce the package at some time and that China would vehemently(showing or caused by strong feeling; passionate 感情强烈的; 热情的) oppose it, as it always does. The package includes some sophisticated weapons, such as Black Hawk helicopters and Harpoon missiles, but it does not include F-16 fighters that the Taiwanese would dearly like. As to the timing, says a senior administration official, “this is one of those issues where the timing is never right.” It certainly would not have been clever to announce the sale immediately before or after last year’s presidential goodwill visit to China.
If America’s announcement was expected, so was the indignant Chinese response. Denunciation and the cancellation of some military-co-operation meetings is in keeping with previous Chinese reactions. A new element this time was the public threat of Chinese sanctions against American firms involved in the Taiwan deal, but most of these have little or no business in China. One big exception is Boeing, which is huge in China. But for that reason it is unlikely that the Chinese will follow up on this particular threat.
If the Taiwan weapons spat blows over, American officials will hail what they nowadays call the more “mature” relationship they have nurtured with China during Mr Obama’s first year. But many tests lie ahead. Some are mainly symbolic, such as a forthcoming meeting between Mr Obama and Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, which the Americans postponed last year to prevent it souring the president’s China trip. Others are more concrete, such as China’s reluctance to go along with new sanctions on Iran or to respond to America’s pleas to revalue the yuan. A world-shaking falling-out between China and America is always possible. But the falling-out over the Taiwan arms package is probably not it.

taotaoleUID：2694983

02-03又是介绍科技的，文章不是太难，但是行文思路很清晰。
Computer etiquette礼仪, 成规, 礼节
Nods and winks
How to teach computers to make appropriate gestures
Feb 2nd 2010 | From The Economist online
EVEN when one person is doing all the talking, a conversation is an interactive process. The listener participates through expression, posture and movement, and the speaker interprets what he sees to determine what the listener does and does not understand. Computers, however, cannot make such interpretations. Or, at least, they have not been able to do so until now. But a study by Louis-Philippe Morency of the University of Southern California and his colleagues may change that. In the latest edition of the Journal of Alternative Agent and Multiagent Systems they demonstrated that a computer can be given the ability to understand at least one significant human gesture: the nod.开头介绍的方式，是用现实生活中的情形与要讨论的电脑来类比，由此入题。
The nod is one of the most important signals a person can send. When made at the right time, it means “I am engaged in what you are saying” or “I understand”. For computer programs and robots that are designed to interact with people, being able to notice nods and respond with nods of their own (through an on-screen avatar in the case of a computer, and with actual nods in the case of robots) would be a boon
恩惠; 利益. Unfortunately, nobody has yet been able to get it right. 解释用点头作为研究典型的原因
Psychologists have spent years analysing human interactions to try to work out what it is that makes someone nod. The results have been poor. Studying interactions is gruelling（severe; exhausting 严厉的; 使人筋疲力竭的） and time-consuming work. The rule of thumb（a rule of `thumb rough practical method of assessing or measuring sth, usu based on past experience rather than on exact measurement, etc (and therefore not completely reliable in every case or in every detail) （对事物）粗略但实用的估计方法（通常指凭经验而不作精确的计量等, 故并非时时处处均可靠）） in the field is that each recorded minute of interaction takes an hour to analyse. Moreover, many social cues are subtle, and not easily noticed by even the most attentive psychologists.普遍研究不力的情况
Dr Morency therefore set out to develop a computer system that can automate the process. It is able to analyse video and audio recordings in order to recognise gestures of both posture (moving the head in particular ways, for example) and voice (such as changes in pitch). The system logs the sequence of these cues, and then compares sequences from different speakers to see which combinations routinely lead to a listener nodding, and which do not. The result is a “cookbook” detailing which recipes (combinations of cues) are most likely to make listeners nod.本次研究的方法和原理
To try the system out, the team established an experiment with 100 participants, all of whom were asked either to watch a short video and describe what they saw, or to listen to the description and describe what they heard. Dr Morency knew from past experiments that lowering of vocal pitch and pausing were both cues likely to draw a nod from a listener, so these were things that he programmed the system to look out for. He and his colleagues suspected, however, that the cues for nodding were far more complicated than the past studies had indicated. They therefore programmed their system to look at a great many other characteristics, including body posture, direction of gaze and even the specific words that were being spoken.研究的具体实践及拓展
Their paper reveals that there is much more to eliciting （draw (facts, a response, etc) from sb, sometimes with difficulty 从某人处诱出, 探出（事实﹑
反应等））a nod than simply lowering the pitch of the voice and pausing. While these two things are certainly relevant, the new system also picked up two more cues that nobody had noticed before. One was that speakers frequently make a gaze shift towards a listener just before a nod is given. The other is that they often use the word “and” to generate a responsive nod.直接展示研究结果。
These findings, Dr Morency hopes, are only the beginning. Although nods are important, they are but a small part of human social interaction. He now plans to use the technology to analyse more subtle patterns of human interaction, some of which may—like the gazing and “anding” that trigger nods, not yet be known about.关于进一步研究的方向
Even just with nodding, though, the new system should have applications. Added to teaching programs it will be able to help such software work out whether the lessons being proferred？
have been learned. The armed forces, too, hope to benefit. America’s army is already using the technology to analyse interactions between people in other countries, with a view to including this information in programs designed to teach cultural differences to soldiers stationed in foreign lands. For once, then, the politics of gesture may be positive rather than negative.整个研究的意义。


觉得有必要哪天对做过的新闻整理一下了。

taotaoleUID：2694983

2-4 不少句子值得借鉴
France's judicial system
Clear as mud
The Clearstream case raises anew questions of judicial independence
Feb 4th 2010 | PARIS | From The Economist print edition
HOW independent is the French judicial system? That question has been thrown into sharp relief by the public prosecutor’s decision to appeal against the acquittal on January 28th of Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister, in the “Clearstream” smear-campaign trial. One of the civil plaintiffs起诉人; 原告in the case was Nicolas Sarkozy, who has long claimed that Mr de Villepin was out to thwart his political career. Mr de Villepin evidently failed. Mr Sarkozy claimed soon after the acquittal that he accepted the verdict—and yet the public prosecutor promptly decided to appeal. Ever since, rumours have swirled of plots and counter-plots.
Mr de Villepin was quick to cry foul. The decision to appeal, he claimed, had been taken “during a meeting at the Elysée”, Mr Sarkozy’s official residence. He knew, he told French television breezily, because he had himself served there for seven years as chief of staff to President Jacques Chirac. “I know the state, I know the public service,” he said. “There isn’t a shadow of a doubt.”
This week Jean-Claude Marin, the Paris public prosecutor, struck back. He had received no instruction from the Elysée, he insisted. His appeal was a matter of “conscience”, based on a close reading of the 327-page judgment. The judges had not only found the other two main suspects guilty, but also sentenced them to jail terms. It remains unclear who orchestrated their actions. For his part, Claude Guéant, Mr Sarkozy’s chief of staff, said that Mr Marin had neither asked for advice from the Elysée nor received any instruction.
Yet many rum（bizaar）
elements to the affair remain. Why did Mr Sarkozy say that he would not appeal, when in criminal trials it is up to the public prosecutor? Why, if not for effect, did Mr Marin announce his appeal on live breakfast radio? (He said, deadpan, that this was because the appeals office closed at 5pm the previous day.) Why did public prosecutors in 2008 consider that there was not enough evidence to send Mr de Villepin to court, only to change their minds a few months later? As Le Monde, a leftish newspaper, said, it all leaves “the suspicion of manipulation”, whatever the reality.从细节来反问，还有让步分析。
The suspicion hangs in particular over the public prosecutors, who report directly to the justice ministry. The role of the Paris public prosecutor, who is appointed by presidential decree and is in charge of the biggest affairs of state, is considered to be highly political. The incumbent（现任者） tends to change with the party in power. Nominees often have links to political parties. When the Gaullist Mr Chirac was first elected in 1995, for instance, he dismissed the Paris public prosecutor appointed by the Socialists. Influence is usually subtle and deniable. “The political authorities’ great trick, in affairs of crucial concern to them, is to give a trusted judiciary the illusion of freedom, even while ‘prompting’ the right answer,” says Philippe Bilger, the advocate-general in Paris.
Such worries also explain the unease over Mr Sarkozy’s plan to abolish investigating judges, who have sweeping powers to collect evidence, question witnesses and decide to send suspects for trial. Their robust independence has led to a few miscarriages of justice, but it has also exposed murky dealings among the political and business elite. The government wants to transfer investigative powers to the public prosecutors and turn investigative judges into supervisors, with powers to block or authorise an investigation.
The danger is that this will strengthen the powers of the prosecutors but do nothing to reinforce their independence. Even Mr Marin has argued that there may be a problem. “If appearances are against us to this degree, we need to look again at the status of the prosecution,” he said this week. Outsiders have similar reservations. In a parliamentary resolution last year, the Council of Europe declared that the abolition of French investigative judges was “widely suspected of being part of an attempt by the political authorities to increase their influence on the handling of sensitive cases.”

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2-5关于经济形势的分析
Buttonwood
Stimulating debate
The markets, and developed economies, are too dependent on government action
Feb 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
AS JANUARY goes, so goes the year.（小倒装啊~） That old stockmarket saying does not augur预示 well for 2010, given that the MSCI World index fell by 4.2% in the month, the biggest decline since February 2009, and emerging markets dropped by 5.6%.
Although markets rallied a bit in early February on better-than-expected economic data, the poor start to the year reflected an inherent contradiction to the rebound of 2009. That rally seemed to be dependent both on extraordinary stimulus measures by governments and central banks, and on a vigorous economic recovery. But both cannot co-exist for long: either the recovery will not last or, if it does, the stimulus will be taken away.
In addition, governments’ ability to provide that stimulus is dependent on the markets’ own willingness to fund huge deficits at very low yields. But why would investors accept meagre（small in quantity and poor in quality 少量的; 劣质的; 贫乏的; 不足的） yields if they expected a vigorous recovery? In a sense, the market seemed to be hauling itself up by its own bootstraps.
Sure enough, the bullish story has started to unravel, if only at the edges. In the developing world China has attempted to tighten monetary policy. That has caused some alarm because China was acting as the engine of global growth.
And in the developed world investors have started to question the ability of governments to keep financing their deficits. The obvious example is in Greece, where ten-year bond yields reached 7% late last month. At that level, which is well above likely Greek GDP growth, the country’s indebtedness would grow very rapidly. However unpopular it may prove to be, an austerity package is needed to prevent Greece from falling into this debt trap (see article).
So even in places where governments may wish to maintain fiscal stimulus, the markets may force them into corrective action. Britain, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and others have all indicated their determination to keep deficits under control, with varying degrees of conviction.
But withdrawal of even small parts of the stimulus packages can send an economy back into the doldrums. As an example, American new-home sales slowed sharply after an initial end-of-November deadline for the expiry of a buyers’ tax credit. Although the credit has since been extended until April, December’s sales were just 342,000, compared with 329,000 in January 2009, at the height of the crisis.
The stimulus may have prevented the global economy from slipping into depression. In the medium term, however, academic studies suggest that higher government spending leads to slower economic growth. A 2008 paper by Antonio Afonso of the European Central Bank and Davide Furceri of the University of Palermo calculates that for every one-percentage-point rise in government spending as a proportion of GDP, the growth rate falls by 0.12-0.13 percentage points.
What’s more, the packages have not really dealt with the problem of excessive debt, but merely transferred it from the private to the public sector. This buys time, but is akin （血族的, 同种的, 同族的）to those debt-consolidation plans that are sold to consumers on TV. The pain is spread out over a longer period. But pain there will be, in the form of higher taxes, higher bond yields, slower growth or a combination of all three.
The authorities face a dilemma. Reduce the stimulus now and they risk plunging the economy back into recession, as happened in America in 1937 and Japan in 1997. But leave the stimulus in place for too long, and they risk damaging long-term growth prospects.
The bulls hope that the economy can escape from this trap by the simple expedient of private-sector growth. That is why they welcomed the rise in manufacturing activity signalled in this week’s latest purchasing managers’ indices. If the private sector rebounds of its own accord, unemployment will fall and budget deficits will decline.
But hopes for a strong private-sector recovery are undermined by the data on credit growth. In the year to December, the broad measure of money supply fell by 0.2% in the euro zone and grew by just 3.4% in America. In Britain the annual growth rate is higher (6.4% in December), but David Owen, an economist at Jefferies International, estimates that quantitative easing (QE), whereby central banks create money to buy assets, has been boosting the figure by an annualised rate of 10%. If the Bank of England stops QE entirely, the credit-growth rate could collapse. For the stockmarket rally to resume properly in 2010, economies in the developed world need to show they can stand on their own two feet.