【每日阅读训练——速度越障6系列】【6-12】

fox0923

今天早一点哈，弄完就去做GWD去~


速度

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Hallmark Produces Greeting Cards for Jobless People

Ted Landphair | Washington, D.C.
October 03, 2011


A lot of Americans are getting what are known as "pink slips" these days.
They're losing their jobs because of plant closings, the move of operations overseas, downsizing of companies' workforces, or sometimes just because the boss decides that someone else could do a better job.
However you get the news, it hurts, especially when you see how many others are "on the street," as they say - unemployed and also looking for work.


What does one say to someone in this position? How should one express condolences, encouragement and support?


Hallmark, the nation's largest maker of greeting cards, has one answer. It has come up with a series of cards that you can send to those who have lost their jobs.
Sympathy cards of a sort.


Some of them take a lighthearted approach. "Don't think of it as losing your job," one card reads. "Think of it as a time between stupid bosses."


Others are more serious. "It's hard to know what to say at a sensitive time like this," reads one cover, beneath the illustration of an unemployment line. Inside is the message, "How about ‘I'm buying,'" as in, offering your friend a meal or a drink.


Hallmark says the cards are selling well. The owner of a gift shop in Dallas, Texas, told CBS television that "they're flying off the shelf." Someone else told the network that, in these days of impersonal email and mobile communication, getting a card in the mail is an extra touch that would be well received.


But the cards have been mocked by many online commentators. They're actually insensitive, they say, compared with in-person expressions of support.


Other observers go so far as to say that in the current economic environment, it would be better to send a suddenly unemployed person the $3 you spent on the sympathy card.


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Scientists Continue Their Search for Better Treatments for Multiple Sclerosis – and a Cure


By Christopher Cruise
2011-10-3


FAITH LAPIDUS: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I'm Christopher Cruise. Today, we tell about the disease multiple sclerosis.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: Multiple sclerosis is neither easy to say nor easy to live with. Those who have multiple sclerosis often say they live with it, instead of saying they suffer from it. American officials estimate that about four hundred thousand people in the United States have multiple sclerosis. Worldwide, more than two million people are thought to have the disease, which often is called "MS."
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Multiple sclerosis is different from many other diseases. The signs of MS are not the same in all people who have it. These symptoms may appear and then disappear for a long time. Some people who have MS do not show many symptoms of the disease at all. Their friends may not even know they have it.
But there are many symptoms. They include reduced or lost ability to move the arms and legs, and loss of feeling in one body part or another. People with MS may have muscle weakness or low energy levels. Other signs include loss of balance or eyesight, a lack of sensation and losing the ability to speak clearly. Experts say these problems could results from disorders other than MS.
FAITH LAPIDUS: The progress, severity and symptoms of MS in any one person cannot be predicted. But researchers are working on being able to do so.
Timothy Coetzee is the Chief Research Officer for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has been studying MS since nineteen ninety-three. He told VOA that there has been progress in MS research since he began working on finding a cure.


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TIMOTHY COETZEE: "When I moved into the MS community, there was one approved therapy. Today, there are eight approved therapies that are making a difference in the lives of people with MS."
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord. The nervous system is the main target of the disease. In effect, MS involves the body's own natural defenses attacking the nervous system. The cause of MS is not known, although scientists have some theories about the cause. Most forms of MS are described as progressive. This means the disease gets worse as time passes.
In MS patients, a fatty substance covering the nerves – called myelin – is destroyed. This blocks the flow of information within the brain. It can also stop the flow between the brain and the rest of the body. In most people, electric signals pass from the nerves to the muscles and back to the brain. But this does not always happen in people with MS.
FAITH LAPIDUS: The central nervous system has millions of nerve cells. They are joined by long, thin nerve fibers, called "axons." In people with the disease, these axons are cut or destroyed.
Electric signals start in nerve cells and travel along these axons to and from the brain. The myelin protects the fibers. Myelin works like protective coverings work on electric wires. It also provides nutrients and support to the axons.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: In people with MS, the myelin is infected or damaged. Sometimes this damage is healed naturally by the body. If not, it grows larger, and the myelin loses its connection with the nerve fibers. As time passes, the myelin is destroyed. Hardened scar tissue then forms over the nerve fibers. This hardening process is called sclerosis. The word comes from the Latin language. It means "scar." The many, or multiple, areas of hardened or scar tissue give the disease its name.


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In MS patients, when nerve signals reach a damaged area, some signals are blocked or delayed as they travel to or from the brain. This results in problems in different parts of the body. These problems may appear and then disappear. Sometimes there are long periods of time when there are no problems at all. Or, they may happen more often and become worse. Doctors do not know what causes this process.
FAITH LAPIDUS: MS affects women at least two times as often as men. The average age of people diagnosed with – or found to have the disease – is between twenty and fifty years old.
Thirty-five year old Amy Jo Rowell has MS. She had planned to be a teacher before doctors announced she had MS four years ago. She says she had signs of the disease at least six years before that.
AMY JO ROWELL: "My coordination was quite incompatible with what I had intended my body to do. I was having a hard time navigating through doorways. I would see the doorway, I would know what I needed to do, but, more often than not, I would graze the side of the doorway and my shoulders were becoming bruised. When I would be brushing my teeth I would miss my mouth, or if I'd be eating I would, I would miss with my fork, and had a lot of weakness, especially in my right arm, was tripping quite a bit."
FAITH LAPIDUS: Still, only her friends and family know that Amy Jo Rowell has MS. Ms. Rowell lives in Wisconsin. She operates an animal shelter. People who come to the shelter do not know she has MS. They cannot tell by looking at her.
Ms. Rowell told VOA her symptoms were not noteworthy by themselves. But, she says, when she put all the pieces together, it was clear that she had the disease.


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CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: As we have noted, no one knows what causes MS. For years, doctors believed where a person lived or travelled might influence development of the disease. Now, studies support the theory that it is not just the environment but a person's genes and even viruses that may influence whether a person will develop MS. The disease may affect one or more family members. A cousin of Ms. Rowell's mother had it.
FAITH LAPIDUS: Researchers have yet to identify which virus or viruses might cause MS. Many believe there may be events known as triggers that take place when a person's natural defenses misunderstand signals and attack the body.
Dr. Coetzee says researchers are studying several hundred drugs that could help people with MS. He says some of the drugs could protect the brain from damage. One day, he says, damaged nerves may be rebuilt, and existing damage repaired.
TIMOTHY COETZEE: "I'm quite optimistic that in the next five years we'll start to see a whole next generation of therapies that both will be restorative, protective and that will stop disease progression."
FAITH LAPIDUS: One study showed that women who get plenty of Vitamin D during pregnancy may be protecting their babies from developing MS later in life. Vitamin D is found in fortified milk and fatty fish like salmon. The human body also produces the vitamin after contact between the skin and sunlight.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Doctors who suspect someone has MS must perform tests and study the patient's history of health problems. MS symptoms can depend on where the nerve scars are in the central nervous system. And some of these signs are not always easy to see.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging – or MRI – is one way to tell if someone has multiple sclerosis. The test involves studying the magnetic signals from tissues in the brain or spinal cord. An MRI can show if there are scars from MS along a patient's nerves, or there is disease activity. A doctor can use this test as one way to tell if the person might have the disease.
FAITH LAPIDUS: As we have seen, there is no cure for MS, but scientists are developing a better understanding of it. This is leading to better treatments and a better quality of life for those who live with the disease.


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Amy Jo Rowell says she takes medicines daily, takes good care of herself and asks for help when she needs it. She changes her activities, listens to her body and slows down when she needs to. But most of the time she says, she just keeps moving.
AMY JO ROWELL: "Despite a diagnosis of something, whether it's MS or, or any other ailment that it could be, uh, an indicator to somebody that they don't have to give up their dreams. There was a period of time that I thought that I might have to stop working. And I'm really glad that I, I didn't listen to that inner fear, and that I just kept going."
FAITH LAPIDUS: Ms. Rowell says she feels empowered by small improvements in her health and in MS research. She says she has strong support from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and, most importantly, from her family.
(MUSIC)
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The National Multiple Sclerosis Society provides financial support for research on the disease. The Society has created a website that tells about progress in the fight against MS. The website has the latest news on research and treatment that can change and improve the lives of people living with MS. And it has information about help available to patients, their families and doctors.
The Multiple Sclerosis International Federation has created a website where you can learn about the disease in at least fifteen languages. On that website, you can learn about services available for MS sufferers in many countries. We have placed links to those websites on our website - VOA Special English dot com.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Christopher Cruise. Our producer was June Simms. I'm Faith Lapidus.
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: And I'm Christopher Cruise. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.








越障


The public domain
The ivory tower opens its treasure chest
Jun 1st 2011, 20:28 by G.F. | SEATTLE




"WORKS in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner," the United States Copyright Office (USCO) asserts on this website. It then goes on to explain that the public domain is "not a place". So, what is it?
Whatever it is, it seems to contain likenesses of things in two or three dimensions which, once in it, can be reproduced and fiddled with at will. (Nearly all sound recordings and most film in the US, reliant as they are on the fourth dimension of time, remain locked away due to vagaries of copyright and common law.) However, in order to have a likeness, one needs access to the original.
Until relatively recently, all work whose copyright protection expired existed physically in one way or another, either as a unique creation, like a sculpture, or an instantiation of a mass-produced item, such as a book. If it still exists, it must be in someone's hands. That someone could be a person, a government, academic institution, foundation or business.
However, although institutions allow researchers to view manuscripts, paintings, etc, on site, nowhere are they obliged to do so. True, since the early days of the internet in the mid-1990s museums have tended to provide glimpses of otherwise hidden parts of their collections online. But these typically came in low resolution and with restricted rights. To obtain a high-quality scan or photograph of an item, institutions have hitherto tended to charge fees and impose additional restrictions on usage. The copyright may have expired, but the property rights have not.
Now Yale University aims to change all that. In an announcement on May 10th, the university says its libraries, museums and archives will provide free universal access to high-resolution digitisations of holdings in the public domain. A teaser in the shape of 250,000 images (in low resolution) from its central catalog of 1.5m is already available. More content is on the way, as are high-resolution versions. (The Yale Centre for British Art has its high-resolution scans online at its website already, and will add them to the central catalog this summer.) "We are simply abiding by the spirit of what the public domain was intended to do," explains Meg Bellinger, the director of Yale's Office of Digital Assets and Infrastructure.
Allowing free, unlicensed access will, of course, require additional server resources and bandwidth, yet the cost of these should be modest. Especially in light of the fact that, as many institutions have found, the costs of managing usage licences match or exceed the revenue from them, while effectively discouraging scholarship. Costs of fulfillment for public-domain works disappear in this approach.
Yale boasts some 10m volumes and innumerable other documents across 18 libraries. Its natural-history museum alone holds 12m specimens. The university has not yet calculated what portion of this has, in fact, entered the public domain, and is bound by access-limiting covenants agreed on with donors or at the time of purchase. Even so, the ultimate open trove is bound to be vast.
Digital copies of Yale's public-domain works are not released purely into the public domain. Rather, Yale has opted for the Creative Commons "CCBY" model terms, which allow distribution and modification, while politely asking users to acknowledge the source. The license is binding, but not heavy handed.
This is a big practical step to freeing institutional holdings which are, in theory, already freely accessible. But it is not the first. In 2008 the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, began posting high-quality images with "no known copyright restrictions" on Flickr, a photo-sharing site. So far, it has made 2,200 images available in this way. Since 2009 Cornell University has granted free access to a substantial chunk of its book collections (though not museum pieces), says Peter Hirtle, the university library's expert on intellectual property. (For the most part these come in low-resolution form; higher-quality images are available without license at cost.) Google's ongoing effort to scan libraries' holdings is only controversial for in-copyright works. There is no dispute over the one million or so public-domain titles it has already made available online, to view or download.
Ms Bellinger admits her university's policy raises deeper concerns. Most controversially, without legal recourse museum pieces and specimens from an earlier age risk being travestied in unseemly ways. Yet she appears unfazed by such imponderables. "There are legitimate uses that we recognise culturally, and there may be other uses," she quips. In other words, offensive use of a work reflects badly on the offender, not the work.

抓抓sandra

沙发~最近抓比较少去困境版转悠了，在这里给狐狐加油下~hoho~~

fox0923

没关系哈，有抓的心思，狐狐很开心了！
抓抓换头像了?还是很怀念抓的美女头像阿！

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bananazoo

美抓，美狐~
1‘20
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diyangyang

啦啦啦~羊羊占座~
好几天没来了。。。自抽。。。

fox0923

6‘30”
- The public domain has no copyright, the public domain is not "a place", then what is the public domain?
1. The public domain seems that it can be reproduced, when we trace back to the origins of its copyright, it can be one person, a government, an institution or a business.
2. Many information can be viewed online, etc without making a payment, but if people want to get a digital copy,then they would be charged from the institutions or museums.
- However, Yell university totally changes the way that it will offer free access to these information on the public domain. They have put 250K images out of 12M open to public now, and others are still on their way.
- Such new stride of Yell University needs more server and additional cost for maintaining such free resources. AND this cost can exceed the revenue of the institution. but Yell claimed that they have 10M specimen.
- Yell University would not post these information purely on the public domain. They also use a common "啥东西来着~~失忆了“ and also asking the original sources of these info. For example, the flicker website, a website contains 20000images there....失忆~
- Although Yell's new plan still involved a lot controversial since there will be no copyright if everything is free, Ms. B said there wouldn't be harm on the work itself, but only harm on the offenders.

南瓜0729

1'30
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南瓜0729

哈哈 今天的越障看懂了
5'35''
先去吃饭，一会儿再写

balapupu

1.1‘44’
2.1‘11’
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4.1‘31’
5.1‘45’

bananazoo

最近阅读看超过300个字就困。。。好囧。。。。
看了7‘40s~
简单说下~看完就把细节忘差不多的。。
。
USCO assert there is no copyright in public domain, but what is public domain?
Public domain seems like sth that can be duplicated once it come out.
an copyright maybe expired, but il will still existe. someone will own it , such a government.
we can view some painting on the website,  but if we want to see a high quality of these painting on the web, we need to pay~
......不写啦~憋不出。。。