人必须有自信,这是成功的秘密。今天小编给大家带来了2020下半年翻译资格考试一级笔译考试精选习题,希望能够帮助到大家,下面小编就和大家分享,来欣赏一下吧。
Love the Way You Walk
迷恋你的步伐
Listen carefully to the footsteps in the family home, especially if it has wooden floors unmuffled by carpets, and you can probably work out who it is that is walking about. The features most commonly used to identify people are faces, voices, finger prints and retinal scans. But their “behavioural biometrics”, such as the way they walk, are also giveaways.
仔细听家里的脚步声,特别是家里铺的是木地板而又没有地毯消声的话,你大概可以辨认出是谁在走动。最常用于身份识别的体征是面容、声音、指纹和视网膜扫描。但步态等“生物行为特征”也是可循之迹。
Researchers have, for several years, used video cameras and computers to analyse people’s gaits, and are now quite good at it. But translating such knowledge into a practical identification system can be tricky – especially if that system is supposed to be covert. Cameras are often visible, are fiddly to set up, require good lighting and may have their view obscured by other people. So a team led by Krikor Ozanyan of the University of Manchester, in England and Patricia Scully of the National University of Ireland, in Galway have been looking for a better way to recognise gait. Their answer: pressure-sensitive mats.
近年来,研究人员一直在用摄像机和计算机分析人的步态,目前技术已经相当成熟。但要将这些知识转化为实用的识别系统并不容易,尤其是还需要实现隐蔽性。摄像机往往容易被看到,安装也较为繁琐,又需要有足够的光线,而且镜头还可能被他人遮挡。因此,英国曼彻斯特大学的克里科尔·奥赞扬(Krikor Ozanyan)和爱尔兰国立大学戈尔韦的帕特丽夏·斯高莉(Patricia Scully)带领的团队一直在探索更好的识别步态的方法。他们的解决方案是使用压敏垫。
In themselves, such mats are nothing new. They have been part of security systems for donkeys’ years. But Dr Ozanyan and Dr Scully use a sophisticated version that can record the amount of pressure applied in different places as someone walks across it. These measurements form a pattern unique to the walker. Dr Ozanyan and Dr Scully therefore turned, as is now commonplace for anything to do with pattern recognition, to an artificial-intelligence system that uses machine learning to disentangle and recognise such patterns.
压敏垫本身并不是什么新发明,长久以来一直是安保系统的一部分。但奥赞扬和斯高莉使用的是更精密的压敏垫,可以在有人走过时记录步伐在不同位置产生的压力值。这些测量数据构成了步行者独有的步态模式。于是,两位研究人员按照如今识别模式的普遍做法,把数据输入一套人工智能系统,运用机器学习来梳理并识别这些模式。
It seems to work. In a study published earlier this year the two researchers tested their system on a database of footsteps trodden by 127 different people. They found that its error rate in identifying who was who was a mere 0.7%. And Dr Scully says that even without a database of footsteps to work with the system can determine someone’s sex (women and men, with wide and narrow pelvises respectively, walk in different ways) and guess, with reasonable accuracy, a subject’s age.
这看来行得通。在今年早前发表的一项研究中,两位研究人员运用127人的足迹数据测试了该系统。他们发现,系统识别身份的错误率仅为0.7%。斯高莉说,即使不搭配使用足迹数据库,系统也能确定受试者的性别(女性骨盆宽,男性骨盆窄,因而行走方式不同),并可以还算准确地估计出其年龄。
A mat-based gait-recognition system has the advantage that it would work in any lighting conditions – even pitch-darkness. And though it might fail to identify someone if, say, she was wearing stilettos and had been entered into the database while wearing trainers, it would be very hard to fool it by mimicking the gait of an individual who was allowed admission to a particular place.
压敏垫步态识别系统的优点是可以在任何光照条件下工作,即使一片漆黑也没问题。如果数据库之前输入的是某人穿运动鞋时的步态,当她换成穿高跟鞋走路时,系统可能就无法识别了。但是,如果想模仿某人的步态来欺骗系统以获准进入特定地点会非常困难。
The latest phase of Dr Ozanyan’s and Dr Scully’s project is a redesign of the mat. The old mats contained arrays of individual pressure sensors. The new ones contain grids of optical fibres. Light-emitting diodes distributed along two adjoining edges of a mat transmit light into the fibres. Sensors on the opposite edges (and thus the opposite ends of the optical fibres) measure how much of that light is received. Any pressure applied to part of the mat causes a distortion in the fibres and a consequent change in the amount of light transmitted. Both the location and amount of change can be plotted and analysed by the machine-learning system.
奥赞扬和斯高莉的研究项目的最新进展是经过重新设计的压敏垫。原来的垫子包含由单个压力传感器组成的阵列。新的垫子则包含多组光纤网格。分布在垫子相邻两条边上的发光二极管将光传输到光纤中。安装在对面两条边上(也就是光纤的另一端)的传感器测量接收到的光量。施加到垫子上某处的任何压力都会引起光纤变形,进而导致传输光量的变化。机器学习系统可以识别并分析变化发生的位置和变化的量。
Dr Ozanyan says that the team have built a demonstration fibre-optic mat, two metres long and a metre wide, using materials that cost £100 ($130). They are now talking to companies about commercialising it. One application might be in health care, particularly for the elderly. A fibre-optic mat installed in a nursing home or an old person’s own residence could monitor changes in an individual’s gait that presage certain illnesses. That would provide early warning of someone being at greater risk of falling over, say, or of their cognition becoming impaired.
奥赞扬说,该团队已制成了一块两米长、一米宽的演示用光纤垫,材料成本为100英镑(130美元)。他们正与多家公司洽谈,希望将其商业化。医疗保健或许会是应用领域之一,特别是在照护老年人方面。将光纤垫安装在养老院或老人自己家中,可以监测一个人步态的变化,预测某些疾病。这将提供早期预警,例如提醒某人较有可能摔倒或出现认知受损。
Gait analysis might also be used as a security measure in the workplace, monitoring access to restricted areas, such as parts of military bases, server farms or laboratories dealing with hazardous materials. In these cases, employees would need to agree to their gaits being scanned, just as they would agree to the scanning of their faces or retinas for optical security systems.
步态分析也可作为工作场所的安保措施,用于监控限制区域的人员进出,例如军事基地、服务器农场,或处理危险品的实验室。在这些情况下,员工需要同意系统扫描自己的步态,就像同意光学安保系统扫描自己的面部或视网膜那样。
Perhaps the most intriguing use of gait-recognition mats, though, would be in public places, such as airports. For that to work, the footsteps of those to be recognised would need to have been stored in a database, which would be harder to arrange than the collection of mugshots and fingerprints that existing airport security systems rely on. Some people, however, might volunteer for it. Many aircrew or preregistered frequent flyers would welcome anything that speeded up one of the most tiresome parts of modern travel.
不过,步态识别垫最吸引人的用途可能在公共场所,例如机场。要实现这一点,被识别者的步态资料需要被提前存储到数据库中,而这会比机场现有安全系统所倚赖的面部照片和指纹更难收集。但有些人可能会自愿提供。任何革新,若能加速安检这一现代出行中最烦人的环节之一,许多空勤人员或预先登记的飞行常客都会欢迎它。
Unprecedented Medical Case Shows How Cancer Spread from Organ Donor to Four Recipients
An extraordinary and terrifying medical case revealed in the July issue of the American Journal of Transplantation proves that organ transplants can pass not only certain infectious diseases to recipients, but in rare cases, also cancer.
《美国移植杂志》七月刊披露的一个离奇骇人的病例证实,器官移植不但会把某些传染性疾病传给器官接受者,在极少数情况下还会把癌症传给接受者。
Patients known to have malignant tumors are often not able to donate their organs, but that was not the case of a 53-year-old woman who died of a stroke in 2007. She had no known conditions that could prevent doctors from transplanting her organs, and repeated tests revealed no sign of cancer. The woman’s kidneys, lungs, liver and heart were transplanted into donor recipients, but instead of saving their lives, they infected four of the five recipients with cancer, while the fifth died of unrelated causes shortly after the transplant.
已知患有恶性肿瘤的病人通常不能捐献自己的器官,但2007年死于中风的一名53岁女性并不属于这种情况。她没有任何已知的病症阻止医生移植她的器官,而反复的检查也没有显示出癌症的迹象。这名女性的肾、肺、肝及心脏被移植给了几个器官接受者,结果非但没有救这些人的命,反而让五个接受者中的四人都染上了癌症,而第五个人在接受器官移植后不久就因其他原因去世。
The four organ recipients had recovered well after the transplants, but 16 months later, the woman who had received the donor’s lung fell ill and was subsequently diagnosed with cancer in the lymph nodes in her chest. Unfortunately, we live in an age when someone is diagnosed with cancer every couple of minutes, but what made this case remarkable was that tests showed the cancerous cells were actually breast cancer cells. Further DNA analysis revealed that they had come from the organ donor.
四个器官接受者在接受移植后一开始都恢复得不错,但16个月之后,接受肺移植的女性就病倒了,随后被诊断出胸部的淋巴结有癌细胞。不幸的是,我们生活在一个每几分钟就有人被诊断出癌症的年代,但这个病例的离奇之处在于,测试结果显示,这些癌细胞实际上是乳腺癌细胞。进一步的DNA分析揭示,乳腺癌细胞来自器官捐赠者。
The lung recipient’s cancer spread and she died about a year after her disease was discovered. At the time, the remaining three organ recipients were notified that the deceased had become infected with cancer from the organ she had received, and advised to get themselves tested regularly just to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough…
接受肺移植女性的癌细胞扩散,并在发现癌症一年后去世。此时医院告知其余三位器官接受者,逝者的癌症来自她被移植的器官,并建议他们定期做检查,确保他们不会同样染上癌症。不幸的是,这样的防范还不够……
In 2011, four years after the transplant, the liver recipient was diagnosed with breast cancer cells in her liver. She was given the option of undergoing another transplant, but she refused for fear of potential complications. She opted for radiation treatment, which proved successful at first, but the cancer returned, and she died in 2014.
2011年,在接受器官移植四年后,接受肝移植的人被诊断出肝脏中有乳腺癌细胞。医生给她的选择是再一次接受肝移植,但她因担心出现潜在并发症拒绝了。她选择接受放射疗法,一开始还比较成功,但后来癌症复发,她于2014年去世。
The person who had received the left kidney in 2007, was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, six years after the transplant. The disease had already spread to several organs when it was discovered, and the patient passed away two months later.
2007年接受左肾移植的人于2013年,也就是移植6年后,被诊断出癌症。发现癌症时癌细胞已经扩散到几个器官,病人于两个月后离世。
The right kidney was transplanted into a 32-year-old man. In 2011, tests revealed breast cancer cells in his transplanted organ, but he underwent another surgery to have the kidney removed, underwent chemotherapy and stopped taking medicine that suppressed his immune system. He has been cancer free for 10 years.
右肾被移植到一个32岁的男子身上。2011年,检查结果显示,在他被移植的器官内发现了乳腺癌细胞,但他做了一个摘除肾脏的手术,接受了化疗,并停服抑制免疫系统的药物。如今距离他癌症痊愈已有十年。
“Many reports have shown that cancer transmission can occur in solid organ transplantation,” the authors of the recently published case note wrote. “However, this is the first report describing breast cancer transmission after a multi-organ procedure from one donor to four recipients.”
最近这篇病例解析报告的作者写道:“许多报告显示,癌症传播可能在实体器官移植中发生。不过,这是首份描述一对四多器官移植中乳腺癌传播的病例报告。”
It’s worth pointing out that while terrifying, this case is incredibly rare. Dr. Lewis Teperman, director of organ transplantation at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York, writes that passing cancer through organ donation is “very uncommon”, with chances varying between 0.01 and 0.05 percent.
值得指出的是,尽管很骇人,这种情况还是十分罕见的。位于纽约新海德公园的诺斯维尔保健集团器官移植中心主任路易斯·塔伯曼医生写道,通过器官移植传播癌症“很不寻常”,几率只有0.01%到0.05%之间。
It’s not clear exactly how the breast cancer remained undetected during the screening performed before the transplants, or how it was able to grow in each of the four patients. Researchers believe that the donor may have had “micro metastases”, groups of cells too small to be detected by imaging tests, and that immunosuppressant drugs played a part in helping the cancer spread. Such drugs are taken by organ recipients so that their bodies don’t reject the new organs, but that means that the cancer cells aren’t rejected either.
目前还不清楚为什么器官移植前的筛查没有检测出乳腺癌细胞,以及癌细胞为什么会在四个接受者体内生长。研究人员认为,捐赠者身上的癌细胞也许有过“微转移”,只是细胞群太小,影像学检查检测不到。此外,器官接受者服用的免疫抑制剂也有助于癌细胞扩散。接受者服用这种药物是为了让身体不排斥新器官,不过这意味着癌细胞也不受排斥。
“This extraordinary case points out the often fatal consequences of donor-derived breast cancer,” researchers concluded, “and suggests that removal of the donor organ and restoration of immunity can induce complete remission.”
研究人员得出结论说:“这个离奇病例说明,源于捐赠者的乳腺癌通常是致命的,并指出,摘除捐赠移植的器官、恢复免疫系统的正常运转可以免受其害。”
How to Make College Cheaper
Better management would allow American universities to do more with less
Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard, once observed that “universities share one characteristic with compulsive gamblers and exiled royalty: there is never enough money to satisfy their desires.” This is a bit hard on compulsive gamblers and exiled royals. America’s universities have raised their fees five times as fast as inflation over the past 30 years. Student debt in America exceeds credit-card debt. Yet still the universities keep sending begging letters to alumni and philanthropists.
哈佛前校长德里克·博克曾经注意到,“大学与病态性赌徒和流亡皇族们有一个共同特征:永远没有足够的钱来满足他们的欲望。”这对于病态性赌徒和流亡皇族们未免有些刻薄。在过去30年中,美国大学提高费用的速度是通货膨胀速度的5倍。在美国的学生债务超过信用卡债务。然而,大学依然向校友们和慈善家们发募捐信。
This insatiable appetite for money was bad enough during the boom years. It is truly irritating now that middle-class incomes are stagnant and students are struggling to find good jobs. Hence a flurry of new thinking about higher education. Are universities inevitably expensive? Vance Fried, of Oklahoma State University, recently conducted a fascinating thought experiment, backed up by detailed calculations. Is it possible to provide a first-class undergraduate education for $6,700 a year rather than the $25,900 charged by public research universities or the $51,500 charged by their private peers? He concluded that it is.
在经济景气的年份,这种对金钱贪得无厌的胃口让人厌烦。而在目前中产阶级收入缩水、学生为找一份好工作绞尽脑汁之际,这种胃口简直是让人愤怒。因此也就有了一阵对高等教育的重新思考。大学是不是非要如此昂贵呢?最近,俄克拉荷马州立大学的Vance Fried完成了一个迷人的思维实验(有详细计算支持)。提供第一流的本科教育仅花费6700美元,而非公立研究型大学收取的25900美元或私立研究型大学收取的51500美元,这是否可能?Vance Fried认为答案是肯定的。
Mr Fried shunned easy solutions. He insisted that students should live in residential colleges, just as they do at Harvard and Yale. He did not suggest getting rid of football stadiums (which usually pay for themselves) or scrimping on bed-and-board.
Vance Fried回避了简单的解决方案。他认为学生应当在寄宿制大学学习生活——正如哈佛和耶鲁现在那样。他并没有建议去掉足球场(足球场可以自给自足)或者节省膳宿费用。
His cost-cutting strategies were as follows. First, separate the funding of teaching and research. Research is a public good, he reasoned, but there is no reason why undergraduates should pay for it. Second, increase the student-teacher ratio. Business and law schools achieve good results with big classes. Why not other colleges? Mr Fried thinks that universities will be able to mix some small classes with big ones even if they have fewer teachers. Third, eliminate or consolidate programmes that attract few students. Fourth, puncture administrative bloat. The cost of administration per student soared by 61% in real terms between 1993 and 2007. Private research universities spend $7,000 a year per student on “administrative support”: not only deans and department heads but also psychologists, counsellors, human-resources implementation managers and so on. That is more than the entire cost of educating a student under Mr Fried’s scheme.
他削减开支的策略如下。第一,将教学和学术研究的资金分离开来。他认为,学术研究是一种公益,不过大学生就应当为此买单毫无道理可言。第二,增加学生与老师人数的比率。商学院和法学院上的是大课,但是收效更佳。其他学院为什么就不能呢?Vance Fried认为,即便学校的老师再少一些,大学也能够将许多小班跟大班混在一起。第三,剔除或者加强那些不能很好吸引学生的课程。第四,削弱行政膨胀。实际上,行政管理的费用在1993年至2007年之间上涨了61%。私立研究型大学一年在每位学生“行政支持”上要花掉7000美元。所谓行政支持,对象不仅有院长、系主任,还有心理学家、辅导员、人事科的执行人员等等。这比Vance Fried方案下培养一位学生的全部费用都要多。
Veteran university-watchers may dismiss Mr Fried’s ideas as pie in the sky. (“The only part of college not mired in tradition is the price,” grumbles Ben Wildavsky, a co-editor of “Reinventing Higher Education”.) Yet some universities are beginning to squeeze costs. The University of Minnesota’s new campus in Rochester has defined teaching as “job one”. The Harrisburg University of Science and Technology has abolished tenure and merged academic departments. Regents at the University of Texas are talking about a $10,000 undergraduate degree.
资深大学观察家或许会对Vance Fried的主意不屑一顾,认为那是天方夜谭。(《重塑高等教育》的合著者Ben Wildavsky批评说,大学价钱飙升,其余的东西保持传统,改革阻力很大)。不过,一些大学正在开始挤压成本。明尼苏达州大学在罗切斯特市的新校区已经将教学定义为“第一工作”。哈里斯堡科技大学已经废除了终身职位并合并了学术部门。德克萨斯大学的校董们开始谈论10000美元的本科学位。
Mr Fried fails to mention an obvious source of savings. Americans could complete their undergraduate degrees in three years (as is normal elsewhere), instead of four. In practice, most American students take even longer than four years, not least because so many work to pay their tuition. Surprisingly, America’s future chainsaw-wielding corporate titans take a leisurely two years to complete their MBAs; most Europeans need only one.
Vance Fried忘了提及一种显而易见的节省开支的渠道。美国人可以用3年取得本科学位,而不是4年。(在其他国家也很正常)。实际上,许多美国人取得学位的时间都要超过4年——尤其是因为要做许多工作来支付学费。奇怪的是,美国未来的企业巨头需两年,方可从容完成MBA学位,大多数欧洲人只需要1年。
Shai Reshef, an educational entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist, is pioneering an even more radical idea. His University of the People offers free higher education (not counting the few hundred dollars it costs to process applications and mark exams), pitching itself to poor people in America and the rest of the world. The university does this by exploiting three resources: the goodwill of academic volunteers who want to help the poor, the availability of free “courseware” on the internet and the power of social networking. Some 2,000 academic volunteers have designed the courses and given the university some credibility. Tutors direct the students, who so far number 1,000 or so and hail from around the world, to the online courses. They also help to organise them into study groups, and then supervise from afar, dropping in on discussions and marking tests. Mr Reshef pays for incidental expenses with $2m of his own money and donations.
一位受过教育的企业家出身的慈善家Shai Reshef提出了更为激进的观点。他的人民大学提供免费高等教育(过程应用和改卷子的数百美元不算在内),向美国和世界其他地方的穷人推销自己的学校。这所大学利用三种资源来运转:想要帮助穷人的学术志愿者的善意、互联网上可获得的免费“课件”和社交网络。约2000个学术志愿者设计了课程,使大学有了一些信誉。指导老师们将那些迄今已有1000左右来自世界各地的学生带到网络课程。老师们同样帮助学生组织学习小组,在远方监督他们,不时加入探讨、进行考试。Shai Reshef额外支付200万的花费,这些钱来自自己的腰包或者募捐。
There are plenty of questions about Mr Reshef’s project. Can you really build a university on volunteerism and goodwill? Can students really be relied upon to do most of the teaching themselves? Will free courseware remain free? (Newspapers that used to give away content online are now putting up pay barriers.)
关于Shai Reshef的项目有诸多疑问。大学能真正地建立在志愿者服务和善意上吗?学生们是否真正能够自己完成那些教学?免费的课件会一直免费吗?(过去其内容在网上免费派送的报纸现在纷纷设置支付障碍)
Mr Reshef’s university has yet to win accreditation, which could take years. But he can take comfort from Clayton Christensen’s classic book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Mr Christensen points out that innovators often start by offering products that are cheaper, but markedly inferior. Quickly, however, they learn how to improve their offerings. Even if Mr Reshef fails, there are plenty of other disruptive innovators around. In America, one tertiary student in ten already studies exclusively online. One in four does so at least some of the time, and a growing number of bodies, including elite universities, think-tanks, governments and international organisations, are putting first-rate material online.
Shai Reshef的大学目前还在资格鉴定中,这可能会耗时数年。不过,他能够从克莱顿·克里斯坦森的经典大作《创新者的窘境》中获取慰藉。克里斯坦森指出,创新者经常从提供价廉物不美的产品起步。不过,很快他们就学会改进他们的产品。即便Shai Reshef失败了,依然存在许多有破坏性的创新者。在美国,十分之一的受高等教育学生已经完全通过网络学习。四分之一的学生至少在某段时间通过网络学习。不断增加的实体,如精英大学、智囊、政府和国际组织将一流的资料放到网上。
The coming campus rumpus
即将到来的大学争吵
Sometimes when academics grouse that there is “never enough money”, they are justified – big science costs big bucks. But higher education is nevertheless marred by inefficiencies and skewed incentives. Students pay to be taught, but their professors are rewarded almost entirely for research. Mr Fried’s calculations suggest that one can slash costs without sacrificing much that students value. Mr Reshef’s experiment may fail, but there is no doubt that universities need more experimenters. The cost of tuition cannot forever rise faster than students’ ability to pay. Industries that cease to offer value for money sooner or later get shaken up. American universities are ripe for shaking.
有些时候,当一些学者抱怨说“钱总是不够”时,他们是情有可原的——科学研究耗资巨大。然而,高等教育还是陷入了低效率和刺激不当的泥淖。学生们为受教育而掏腰包,而他们的教授却几乎完全从科研中得到回报。Fried的计算表明,可以削减成本,同时不牺牲学生所珍视的那些东西。Reshef的实验或许会失败,不过大学毫无疑问需要更多的实验者。学费的增长不能一直超过学生的支付能力。不再能为(消费者花的)钱提供价值的行业一定迟早面临巨变。美国大学作出改变的时机已经成熟。