It is pretty much a one-way street. While it may be common for university researchers to try their luck in the commercial world, there is very little traffic in the opposite direction. Pay has always been the biggest deterrent, as people with families often feel they cannot afford the drop in salary when moving to a university job. For some industrial scientists, however, the attractions of academia outweigh any financial considerations. Helen Lee took a 70% cut in salary when she moved from a senior post in Abbott Laboratories to a medical department at the University of Cambridge. Her main reason for returning to academia mid-career was to take advantage of the greater freedom to choose research questions. Some areas of inquiry have few prospects of a commercial return, and Lee's is one of them. The impact of a salary cut is probably less severe for a scientist in the early stages of a career. Guy Grant, now a research associate at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics at the University of Cambridge, spent two years working for a pharmaceutical company before returning to university as a post-doctoral researcher. He took a 30% salary cut but felt it worthwhile for the greater intellectual opportunities. Higher up the ladder, where a pay cut is usually more significant, the demand for scientists with a wealth of experience in industry is forcing universities to make the transition to academia more attractive, according to Lee. Industrial scientists tend to receive training that academics do not, such as how to build a multidisciplinary team, manage budgets and negotiate contracts. They are also well placed to bring something extra to the teaching side of an academic role that will help students get a job when they graduate, says Lee, perhaps experience in manufacturing practice or product development. "Only a small number of undergraduates will continue in an academic career. So someone leaving university who already has the skills needed to work in an industrial lab has far more potential in the... What was Helen Lee's major consideration when she changed her job in the middle of her career? A) Flexible work hours. B) Her research interests. C) Her preference for the lifestyle on campus. D) Prospects of academic accomplishments.
B
(Question)
Barcodes aren't given much thought by the majority of consumers, but these codes were fairly recently applied in a working fashion in 1970. A small food store owner decided one day that keeping records of the inventory of his stock and the associated prices were an extremely laborious process, and so, in 1948, he contacted The Drexel Institute of Technology in a bid to work towards a solution. Bernard Sliver rose to the challenge and set out to study the problem and began working on a solution involving an automatic way of keeping track of items that had been sold. Sliver and a group of students from the institute realized their answer in the form of ultraviolet light , ink and a scanner. The system worked initially, but possessed some negatives. It was incredibly costly to carry out on a large scale and the system was also unstable. If the invention was to become commonplace in grocery stores, these two problems had to be solved. The patent for the bar code system was filed by Sliver and one of his students, Woodland. The patent was not granted immediately; in fact, it took three years for the patent agency to grant their invention patent for the barcode, occurring on 7thOctober, 1952. Despite the patent being issued, the system was still not welcomed by the majority of store owners. It was not until 1966 that the system began moving its way into more and more grocery stores. This system was soon criticized, as there was no central mechanism for controlling uniformly coded items. In 1970, Logicom developed the Universal Grocery Products Identification code( UGOIC), soon shortened to Universal Identification Number (UPC). It was Marsh's superstore, in Troy, which was the very first store to install this complex barcode reading system, and its popularity has soared ever since, and is obviously now commonplace in all types of stores worldwide. Which of the following was NOT a drawback of Sliver's system? A) It was expensive to be applied on a large scale. B) It was a laborious process. C) The system was not stable. D) It lacked a central mechanism.
(Answer)
B
Ques: From the jagged peaks of the Himalayas to the powerful Yangtze River that flows into the Pacific, China's vast terrain and varied climate make it the sixth most biologically diverse nation on the planet. Since 1998, The Nature Conservancy has been working in China's northwest Yunnan Province to protect some of the amazing natural and cultural diversity unique to this country for its future generations. In cooperation with Chinese local and state government agencies, the Conservancy established the Yunnan Great Rivers Project, which protects an area about the size of West Virginia. Did you know? *China contains 10% of the world's total species. *At least 15% of China's mammal species and 8% of its bird species are found nowhere else on Earth. *Nearly 15,000 plant species are native to Yunnan Province. *Yunnan is home to 75% of Tibetan medicinal herbs and 30 endangered species. What is the Nature Conservancy trying to do? Education for Sustainability The Nature Conservancy recognizes that environmental education is an important element of working closely with local communities to achieve sustainable conservation results. In response, the Conservancy launched a new program called Education for Sustainability which tests means of teaching and learning that combine conservation goals, social justice, and appropriate development and participation in a vision and mission for personal and social change. Promoting Green Tourism Tourism is both an environmental threat and an economic opportunity, with the potential to provide extremely needed income to northwest Yunnan. The Conservancy is working with local communities, government agencies, and tourism enterprises to develop strategies for "green" tourism which will limit the footprint of mass tourism while generating income for local people. In addition to combining tourism development and management at our five action sites, we assisted with regional marketing efforts to promote eco-tourism opportunities. Among the most biologically diverse nations on the planet, China ranks _ . A) tenth B) sixth C) fifteenth D) eighth
Ans: B
BELJLNG-Eating at a Beijing restaurant is usually an adventure for foreigners, and particularly when they get the chance to order "chicken without sex life" or "red burned lion head". Sometimes excited but mostly confused, embarrassed or even terrified, many foreigners have long complained about mistranslations of Chinese dishes. And their complaints are often valid, but such an experience at Beijing's restaurants will apparently soon be history. Foreign visitors will no longer, hopefully, be confused by oddly worded restaurant menus in the capital if the government's plan to correctly translate 3,000 Chinese dishes is a success and the translations are generally adopted. The municipal office of foreign affairs has published a book to recommend English translations of Chinese dishes, which aims to help restaurants avoid bizarre translations. It provides the names of main dishes of famous Chinese cuisines in plain English, "an official with the city's Foreign Affairs office said ." Restaurants are encouraged to use the proposed translations, but it will not be compulsory ." It's the city's latest effort to bridge the culture gap for foreign travelers in China. Coming up with precise translations is a task, as some Chinese culinary techniques are untranslatable and many Chinese dishes have no English-language equivalent.The translators, after conducting a study of Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries, divided the dish names into four categories: ingredients, cooking method, taste and name of a person or a place. For some traditional dishes, pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, is used, such as mapo tofu(previously often literally translated as "beancurd made by woman with freckles"), baozi(steamed stuffed bun ) and jiaozi (dumplings) to "reflect the Chinese cuisine culture," according to the book. "The book is a blessing to tourist guides like me. Having it, I don't have to rack my brains trying to explain Chinese dishes to foreign travellers," said Zheng Xiaodong, a 31- year - old employe with a... What's the attitude of most people to the book according to the passage? A) not clear B) excited C) favorable D) divided
C