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由于本人也参加八月初的GMAT 所以特别关注阅读的寂静，搜索了些相关内容，分享给大家：（拿了CD那么多，太惭愧了，也该分享下）
1.catastrophe security
Catastrophe bond
A high- yield debt security backed by insurance premiums. Insurance companies issue catastrophe bonds in order to raise funds for hypothetical insurance payouts resulting from one or more stated events such as floods or fires. The bondholder receives coupons from what the insurance company collects in premiums. However, if the insurance company suffers a loss from a payout of one of stated events, the obligation to repay the bond is either relaxed or forgiven. The main advantage to a catastrophe bond, despite the stated risk, is the fact that it offers a high yield without much regard for the performance of the broader economy because people and institutions will almost always set money aside for insurance premiums.
灾害险债券，用灾害险的premium来支持的债券，保险公司通过发债来筹集灾害发生时的赔偿款，平时则利用灾害险的premium来支付票息。在灾害发生时，该类债券的本金可能递延或者无法给付。他的好处是非经济周期，有利于分散风险，且高收益。
2 虚拟经济和实体经济
虚拟经济（Fictitious Economy）是相对实体经济而言的，是经济虚拟化（西方称之为“金融深化”）的必然产物。经济的本质是一套价值系统，包括物质价格系统和资产价格系统。与由成本和技术支撑定价的物质价格系统不同，资产价格系统是以资本化定价方式为基础的一套特定的价格体系，这也就是虚拟经济。由于资本化定价，人们的心理因素会对虚拟经济产生重要的影响；这也就是说，虚拟经济在运行上具有内在的波动性。广义地讲，虚拟经济除了目前研究较为集中的金融业、房地产业，还包括体育经济、博彩业、收藏业等。实体经济是指物质的、精神的产品和服务的生产、流通等经济活动。包括农业、工业、交通通信业、商业服务业、建筑业等物质生产和服务部门，也包括教育、文化、知识、信息、艺术、体育等精神产品的生产和服务部门。实体经济始终是人类社会赖以生存和发展的基础。
虚拟经济（Fictitious Economy）与实体经济的关系 （http://baike.baidu.com/view/145310.htm）虚拟经济与实体经济的关系，可以归纳为：实体经济借助于虚拟经济，虚拟经济依赖于实体经济。下面分别论述。 1、实体经济借助于虚拟经济 这表现为三点：第一，虚拟经济影响实体经济的外部宏观经营环境。实体经济要生存、要发展，除了其内部经营环境外，还必须有良好的外部宏观经营环境。这个外部宏观经营环境中，就包括全社会的资金总量状况、资金筹措状况、资金循环状况等。这些方面的情况如何，将会在很大程度上影响到实体经济的生存和发展状况，而这一切都与虚拟经济存在着直接或间接的关系。因此，虚拟经济的发展状况如何，将会在很大程度上影响到实体经济的外部宏观经营环境。第二，虚拟经济为实体经济的发展增加后劲。实体经济要运行、尤其是要发展，首要的条件就是必须有足够的资金。那么，各类实体经济用于发展的资金从哪里来呢？不外乎两条途径：一条是向以银行为主体的各类金融机构贷款；另一条则是通过发行股票、债券等各类有价证券筹措资金。从发展的趋势看，相比较而言，通过第二条途径解决实体经济发展过程中所需资金问题，会更加现实，也会更加方便、快捷。这样，虚拟经济就为实体经济的发展增加了后劲。第三，虚拟经济的发展状况制约着实体经济的发展程度。从历史上看，虚拟经济的发展过程经过了五个阶段，即闲置货币的资本化、生息资本的社会化、有价证券的市场化、金融市场的国际化、国际金融的集成化等。事实证明，虚拟经济发展的阶段不同，对实体经济发展的影响也就不同，亦即虚拟经济发展的高一级阶段对实体经济发展程度的影响，总比虚拟经济发展的低一级阶段对实体经济发展程度的影响要大一些。反之，则会小一些。 2、虚拟经济依赖于实体经济 这也表现为三点：第一，实体经济为虚拟经济的发展提供物质基础。虚拟经济不是神话，而是现实。因此，它不是吊在天上，而是立足于地下。这就从根本上决定了无论是它的产生，还是它的发展，都必须以实体经济为物质条件。否则，它就成了既不着天也不着地的空中楼阁。第二，实体经济对虚拟经济提出了新的要求。随着整体经济的进步，实体经济也必须向更高层次发展。否则，它将“消失”得更快。实体经济在其发展过程中对虚拟经济的新要求，主要表现在对有价证券的市场化程度上和金融市场的国际化程度上。也正是因为实体经济在其发展过程中，对虚拟经济提出了一系列的新要求，所以才使得它能够产生、特别是使得它能够发展。否则，虚拟经济就将会成为无根之本。第三，实体经济是检验虚拟经济发展程度的标志。虚拟经济的出发点和落脚点都是实体经济，即发展虚拟经济的初衷是为了进一步发展实体经济，而最终的结果也是为实体经济服务。因此，实体经济的发展情况如何，本身就表明了虚拟经济的发展程度。这样，实体经济就自然而然地成为了检验虚拟经济发展程度的标志。 综合上述，虚拟经济与实体经济之间，存在着极其密切的相互依存、相互促进的关系。它们谁也离不开谁，至少在相当长的一段时期内会是这样的。 3、正确处理两者之间关系的原则 既然虚拟经济与实体经济之间存在着密不可分的关系，就必须对它们进行很好的处理，不然就会影响到它们的正常发展。那么，处理虚拟经济与实体经济之间关系的原则有哪些呢？一是一视同仁原则。既然虚拟经济与实体经济都有其各自独特的功能，因此，我们就应对它们坚持一视同仁的原则，而不能对任何一方采取歧视态度，以免顾此失彼。二是统筹兼顾原则。二者之间有着相互依存、相互促进的关系，因而就不应该对它们任何一方采取偏颇的态度，在宏观经济的规划上，在战略的部署上，在人才的培养上，在措施的运用上，都应统一谋划。三是均衡发展原则。事实已经证明并将继续证明，虚拟经济与实体经济都对整个市场经济有促进作用。这就决定了在它们的速度发展上，在它们的规模形成上，在它们的比例确定上，在它们的计划安排上，都应相互兼顾。四是协调一致原则。经济发展的实践已经并将还会告诉我们，虚拟经济与实体经济，毕竟是两种性质不同的经济形式或形态，它们各自的运行方式、经营特点、行为规范、内在要求、营销策略、服务对象等，都是不尽相同的。在这种情况下，两者之间就有极大的可能会出现或产生矛盾。其具体表现是，要么是实体经济脱离虚拟经济而独自发展，要么是虚拟经济超越实体经济而“突飞猛进”。事实证明，后者是主要现象，其结果就是所谓的“泡沫经济”。因此，为了防止和遏制泡沫经济的产生或出现，就必须要强调协调一致的原则。 综合上述，为了处理好虚拟经济与实体经济之间的关系，就必须坚持一视同仁原则、统筹规划原则、均衡发展原则和协调一致原则。 虚拟经济对实体经济的积极作用 1.促进社会资源优化配置 2.为实体经济提供金融支持 3.有助于分散经营风险 4. 有利于产权重组深化企业改革 虚拟经济对实体经济的负面影响 1.虚拟经济过度膨胀加大实体经济动荡的可能性 2.虚拟经济过度膨胀导致泡沫经济的形成 3.虚拟经济过度膨胀还会掩盖经济过热
3. Carbon sink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink)ForestsSee also: Biosequestration
Forests are carbon stores, and they are carbon dioxide sinks when they are increasing in density or area. In Canada's boreal forests as much as 80% of the total carbon is stored in the soils as dead organic matter.[17] A 40-year study of African, Asian, and South American tropical forests by the University of Leeds, shows tropical forests absorb about 18% of all carbon dioxide added by fossil fuels.[18] Tropical reforestation can mitigate global warming until all available land has been reforested with mature forests. Truly mature tropical forests, by definition, sequester no net carbon. growth is equal to decay and tropical soils (above 25 degrees centigrade) do not accumulate humus as do temporate forests. The global cooling effect of carbon sequestration by forests is partially counterbalanced in that reforestation can decrease the reflection of sunlight (albedo). Mid-to-high latitude forests have a much lower albedo during snow seasons than flat ground, thus contributing to warming. Modeling that compares the effects of albedo differences between forests and grasslands suggests that expanding the land area of forests in temperate zones offers only a temporary cooling benefit.[19][20][21][22]
In the United States in 2004 (the most recent year for which EPA statistics[23] are available), forests sequestered 10.6% (637 teragrams[24]) of the carbon dioxide released in the United States by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas; 5657 teragrams[25]). Urban trees sequestered another 1.5% (88teragrams[24]). To further reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 7%, as stipulated by the Kyoto Protocol, would require the planting of "an area the size of Texas [8% of the area of Brazil] every 30 years".[26] Carbon offset programs are planting millions of fast-growing trees per year to reforest tropical lands, for as little as $0.10 per tree; over their typical 40-year lifetime, one million of these trees will fix 0.9 teragrams of carbon dioxide.[27] In Canada, reducing timber harvesting would have very little impact on carbon dioxide emissions because of the combination of harvest and stored carbon in manufactured wood products along with the regrowth of the harvested forests. Additionally, the amount of carbon released from harvesting is small compared to the amount of carbon lost each year to forest fires and other natural disturbances.[17]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that "a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit".[28] Sustainable management practices keep forests growing at a higher rate over a potentially longer period of time, thus providing net sequestration benefits in addition to those of unmanaged forests.[29]
Life expectancy of forests varies throughout the world, influenced by tree species, site conditions and natural disturbance patterns. In some forests carbon may be stored for centuries, while in other forests carbon is released with frequent stand replacing fires. Forests that are harvested prior to stand replacing events allow for the retention of carbon in manufactured forest products such as lumber.[30] However, only a portion of the carbon removed from logged forests ends up as durable goods and buildings. The remainder ends up as sawmill by-products such as pulp, paper and pallets, which often end with incineration (resulting in carbon release into the atmosphere) at the end of their lifecycle. For instance, of the 1,692 teragrams of carbon harvested from forests in Oregon and Washington (U.S) from 1900 to 1992, only 23% is in long-term storage in forest products.[31]
还找到一个相关CR题Source : LSAT Question Bank .1000CR
Logging industry official: Harvesting trees from old-growth forests for use in manufacture can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, since when large old trees die in the forest they decompose, releasing their stored carbon dioxide. Harvesting old-growth forests would, moreover, make room for rapidly growing young trees, which absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than do trees in old-growth forests.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the official’s argument?
(A) Many old-growth forests are the home of thousands of animal species that would be endangered if the forests were to be destroyed.
(B) Much of the organic matter from old-growth trees, unusable as lumber, is made into products that decompose rapidly.
(C) A young tree contains less than half the amount of carbon dioxide that is stored in an old tree of the same species.
(D) Much of the carbon dioxide present in forests is eventually released when wood and other organic debris found on the forest floor decompose.
(E) It can take many years for the trees of a newly planted forest to reach the size of those found in existing old-growth forests.答案好像是B
4. pulsar 脉冲星 http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%84%89%E5%86%B2%E6%98%9F脉冲星，就是变星的一种。脉冲星是在1967年首次被发现的。是中子星的一种，为会周期性发射脉冲信号的星体，直径大多为20千米左右，自转极快。经过几位天文学家一年的努力，终于证实，脉冲星就是正在快速自转的中子星。而且，正是由于它的快速自转而发出射电脉冲。要发出像脉冲星那样的射电信号，需要很强的磁场。而只有体积越小、质量越大的恒星，它的磁场才越强。而中子星正是这样高密度的恒星。 另一方面，当恒星体积越大、质量越大，它的自转周期就越长。我们很熟悉的地球自转一周要二十四小时。而脉冲星的自转周期竟然小到0.0014秒！要达到这个速度，连白矮星都不行。这同样说明，只有高速旋转的中子星，才可能扮演脉冲星的角色。脉冲星有个奇异的特性——短而稳的脉冲周期。所谓脉冲就是像人的脉搏一样，一下一下出现短促的无线电讯号,原理就像我们乘坐轮船在海里航行，看到过的灯塔一样。设想一座灯塔总是亮着且在不停地有规则运动，灯塔每转一圈，由它窗口射出的灯光就射到我们的船上一次。不断旋转，在我们看来，灯塔的光就连续地一明一灭。脉冲星也是一样，当它每自转一周，我们就接收到一次它辐射的电磁波，于是就形成一断一续的脉冲。脉冲这种现象，也就叫“灯塔效应”。脉冲的周期其实就是脉冲星的自转周期。然而灯塔的光只能从窗口射出来，是不是说脉冲星也只能从某个“窗口”射出来呢？正是这样，脉冲星就是中子星，而中子星与其他星体（如太阳）发光不一样，太阳表面到处发亮，中子星则只有两个相对着的小区域才能辐射出来，其他地方辐射是跑不出来的。即是说中子星表面只有两个亮斑，别处都是暗的。这是什么原因呢？原来，中子星本身存在着极大的磁场，强磁场把辐射封闭起来，使中子星辐射只能沿着磁轴方向，从两个磁极区出来，这两磁极区就是中子星的“窗口”。中子星的辐射从两个“窗口”出来后，在空中传播，形成两个圆锥形的辐射束。若地球刚好在这束辐射的方向上，我们就能接收到辐射，且每转一圈，这束辐射就扫过地球一次，也就形成我们接收到的有规则的脉冲信号。 双脉冲星PSRJ0737-3039A/B的发现，让人们欣喜若狂。它是由两个脉冲星形成的双星系统。能够发现双脉冲星系统，确实是非常幸运的事情。对PSRJ0737-3039A进行计算以后，科学家预言它的脉冲轮廓形状会发生较快的演化，甚至预言在2020年左右，它的光束会由于轴线进动而从我们的视线中消失，但是，仔细的观测结果显示，预期的脉冲轮廓形状根本就没有发生变化，这对科学家的打击可是不小。预言的失败让我们感到，脉冲星的灯塔模型似乎存在着问题。（新老观点？）
毫秒脉冲星(寂静来看是否是这个？Millisecond pulsar)
20世纪80年代，由发现了一类所谓的毫秒脉冲星，它们的周期太短了，只有毫秒量级，之前的仪器虽然能探测到，但是很难将脉冲分辨出来。研究发现毫秒脉冲星并不年轻，这就对传统的“周期越短越年轻”的理论提出了挑战。进一步的研究发现毫秒脉冲星与密近双星有关。
A millisecond pulsar (MSP) is a pulsar with a rotational period in the range of about 1-10 milliseconds. Millisecond pulsars have been detected in the radio,X-ray, and gamma ray portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The origin of millisecond pulsars is still unknown. The leading theory is that they begin life as longer period pulsars but are spun up or "recycled" through accretion. For this reason, millisecond pulsars are often called recycled pulsars.
Millisecond pulsars are thought to be related to low-mass X-ray binary systems. It is thought that the X-rays in these systems are emitted by the accretion diskof a neutron star produced by the outer layers of a companion star that has overflowed its Roche lobe. The transfer of angular momentum(角动量) from this accretion event can theoretically increase the rotation rate of the pulsar to hundreds of times a second,（角动量增加旋转率） as is observed in millisecond pulsars.
However, there has been recent evidence that the standard evolutionary model fails to explain the evolution of all millisecond pulsars, especially young millisecond pulsars with relatively high magnetic fields, e.g. PSR B1937+21. K?z?ltan & Thorsett showed that different millisecond pulsars must form by at least two distinct processes.[1] But the nature of the other process remains a mystery.
Many millisecond pulsars are found in globular clusters. This is consistent with the spin-up theory of their formation, as the extremely high stellar density of these clusters implies a much higher likelihood of a pulsar having (or capturing) a giant companion star. Currently there are approximately 130 millisecond pulsars known in globular clusters.[3] The globular cluster Terzan 5 alone contains 33 of these, followed by 47 Tucanae with 22 and M28 and M15 with 8 pulsars each.
Millisecond pulsars, which can be timed with high precision, are better clocks than the best atomic clocks. This also makes them very sensitive probes of their environments. For example, anything placed in orbit around them causes periodic Doppler shifts in their pulses' arrival times on Earth, which can then be analyzed to reveal the presence of the companion and, with enough data, provide precise measurements of the orbit and the object's mass. The technique is so sensitive that even objects as small as asteroids can be detected if they happen to orbit a millisecond pulsar. The first confirmed exoplanets discovered several years before the first detections of exoplanets around “normal” solar-like stars, were found in orbit around a millisecond pulsar, PSR B1257+12. These planets remained for many years the only Earth-mass objects known outside our solar system. And one of them, with an even smaller mass, comparable to that of our Moon, is still today the smallest-mass object known beyond the solar system.[4]
脉冲星行星（或者是这个？）“
脉冲星行星”是围绕脉冲星公转的行星，而脉冲星即高速自转的中子星。脉冲星的行星通常以脉冲计时来倾测，因脉冲星的自转速度几乎不变，因此人们透过精密的仪器来侦测脉冲的变化，较易便可推断到该脉冲星是否有行星存在，并可透过变化的出现计算行星公转周期。
5. 美国房市政策 (http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/the-mortgage-interest-income-tax-deduction/)好类似？
At first blush, the mortgage interest income tax deduction seems like a great thing. You get to deduct your mortgage interest from your income. This saves you money and encourages homeownership nationwide (believed to produce positive externalities such as crime reduction, community, etc.).
But beneath the surface, the mortgage tax deduction disproportionately benefits the wealthy and creates perverse incentives and market distortions that are plainly bad for America. I deal with these issues one by one:
(1) Good for the rich: since the US tax code allows the deduction of mortgage interest directly from your income, those that benefit the most are those with the most income. The very poor cannot afford to buy a home, so they do not benefit at all. Poor homeowners benefit very little because they do not pay much in income taxes. But the wealthy receive huge tax breaks from the interest on their jumbo McMansion mortgages.
(2) Perverse incentives: because of the huge mortgage interest tax break, high income earners are then encouraged (and subsidized) to buy ever more expensive mansions and borrow even more money through ever larger jumbo mortgages.
What to Do Next
The rational policy choice would be to eliminate the mortgage tax deduction. The federal government can still encourage homeownership (distinguished from mansion-buying) by instituting a Housing Tax Credit. The credit could be cost-neutral and take the average cost per family of the current deduction, and give that amount out as a tax credit to any family or individual who wishes to purchase a home. A standard credit would make sure that regardless of a family's income they would receive the same nominal incentive. This would provide more incentive for poor people to buy a home (the credit would likely be worth more to them than the current deduction) and waste less taxpayer money on subsidizing the mansions of the wealthy. Moreover, such a policy could potentially spur homeownership among lower-income families which could help us dig our way out of the housing crisis. Let's hope the next president has the foresight to do something about this
另外 阅读寂静里的11 12 好像在xa81里有现成的 。
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