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The idea of humanoid robots is not new, of course. They have been part of the imaginative landscape ever since Karl Capek, a Czech writer, first dreamed them up for his 1921 play "Rossum’s Universal Robots". (The word "robot" comes from the Czech word for drudgery, robota. )Since then, Hollywood has produced countless variations on the theme, from the sultry False Maria in Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece "Metropolis" to the wittering C-3PO in "Star Wars" and the ruthless assassin of "Terminator". Humanoid robots have walked into our collective subconscious, colouring our views of the future. But now Japan’s industrial giants are spending billions of yen to make such robots a reality. Their new humanoids represent impressive feats of engineering: when Honda introduced Asimo, a four-foot robot that had been in development for some 15 years, it walked so fluidly that its white, articulated exterior seemed to conceal a human. Honda continues to make the machine faster, friendlier and more agile. Last October, when Asimo was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, it walked on to the stage and accepted its own plaque. At two and a half feet tall, Sony’s QRIO is smaller and more toy-like than Asimo. It walks, understands a small number of voice commands, and can navigate on its own. If it falls over, it gets up and resumes where it left off. It can even connect wirelessly to the internet and broadcast what its camera eyes can see. In 2003, Sony demonstrated an upgraded QRIO that could run. Honda responded last December with a version of Asimo that runs at twice the speed. In 2004, Toyota joined the fray with its own family of robots, called Partner, one of which is a four-foot humanoid that plays the trumpet. Its fingers work the instrument’s valves, and it has mechanical lungs and artificial lips. Toyota hopes to offer a commercial version of the robot by 2010. This month, 50 Partner robots will act as guides at Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. Despite their sudden proliferation, however, humanoids are still a mechanical minority. Most of the world’s robots are faceless, footless and mute. They are bolted to the floors of factories, stamping out car parts or welding pieces of metal, machines making more machines. According to the United Nations, business orders for industrial robots jumped 18% in the first half of 2004. They may soon be outnumbered by domestic robots, such as self-navigating vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and window washers, which are selling fast. But neither industrial nor domestic robots are humanoid. From the passage we may infer that the Toyota’s Partner ______.
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Questions 11 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
How many different kinds of emotions do you feel You may be (21) to find that it is very hard to specify all of them. Not only (22) hard to describe in words, they are difficult to (23) . As a result, two people rarely (24) all of them. However, there are a number of (25) emotions that most people experience. When we receive something that we want, or something happens (26) we like, we usually feel joy or happiness. Joy is a positive and powerful emotion, (27) for which we all strive. It is natural to want to be happy, and all of us (28) happiness. As a general (29) , joy occurs when we reach a (30) goal or obtain a desired object. (31) people often desire different goals and objects, it is (32) that one person may find joy in repairing an automobile, (33) another may find joy in solving a math problem. Of course, we often share (34) goals or interests, and therefore we can experience joy together. This may be in sports, in the arts, in learning, in raising a family, or in (35) being together. When we have difficulty (36) desired objects or reaching desired goals we experience (37) emotions such as anger and grief. When little things get in our way, we experience (38) frustrations or tensions. For example, if you are dressing to go out (39) a date, you may feel frustration when a zipper breaks or a button fails off. If you really want something to happen, and you feel it (40) happen, but someone or something stops it, you may become quite angry.
Well, he made it up. All of it, apparently. According to a report published on December 29th by Seoul National University in South Korea, its erstwhile employee Hwang Woo-suk, who had tendered his resignation six days earlier, deliberately falsified his data in the paper on human embryonic stem cells that he and 24 colleagues published in Science in May 2005. In particular, Dr Hwang claimed he had created 11 colonies of human embryonic stem ceils genetically matched to specific patients. He had already admitted that nine of these were bogus, but had said that this was the result of an honest mistake, and that the other two were still the real McCoy. A panel of experts appointed by the university to investigate the matter, however, disagreed. They found that DNA fingerprint traces conducted on the stem-cell lines reported in the paper had been manipulated to make it seem as if all 11 lines were tailored to specific patients. In fact, none of them matched the volunteers with spinal-cord injuries and diabetes who had donated skin cells for the work. To obtain his promising "results", Dr Hwang had sent for testing two samples from each donor, rather than a sample from the donor and a sample of the cells into which the donor’s DNA had supposedly been transplanted. The panel also found that a second claim in the paper — that only 185 eggs were used to create the 11 stem cell lines — was false. The investigators said the actual number of eggs used was far larger, in the thousands, although they were unable to determine an exact figure. The reason this double fraud is such a blow is that human embryonic stem-cell research has great expectations. Stem cells, which have not yet been programmed to specialise and can thus, in principle, grow into any tissue or organ, could be used to treat illnesses ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease. They might even be able to fix spinal-cord injuries. And stem cells cloned from a patient would not be rejected as foreign by his immune system. Dr Hwang’s reputation, of course, is in tatters. The university is now investigating two other groundbreaking experiments he claims to have conducted — the creation of the world’s first cloned human embryo and the extraction of stem cells from it, and the creation of the world’s first cloned dog. He is also in trouble for breaching ethical guidelines by using eggs donated by members of his research team. And it is even possible that the whole farce may have been for nothing. Cloned embryos might be the ideal source of stem cells intended to treat disease, but if it proves too difficult to create them, a rough-and-ready alternative may suffice. According to the panel of experts appointed by the university, Hwang’s case is ______.
All great writers express their ideas in an individual way.. it is often possible to determine the authorship of a literary passage from the style in which it is written. 61) Many authors feel that the conventions of the written language hamper them and they use words freely, with little observance of accepted grammar and sentence structure, in order to convey vividly their feelings, beliefs and fantasies. Others with a deep respect for traditional usage achieve a style of classical clearness and perfection or achieve effects of visual or musical beauty by their mastery of existing forms enriched by a sensitive and adventurous vocabulary, vivid imagery and a blending of evocative vowels and consonants. Young people often feel the need to experiment and. as a result, to break away from the traditions they have been taught. In dealing with a foreign language, however, they have to bear in mind two conditions for experiment. 62) Any great experimental artist is fully familiar with the conventions from which he wishes to break free., he is capable of achievement in established forms but feels these are inadequate for the expression of his ideas. In the second place, he is indisputably an outstanding artist who has something original to express; otherwise the experiments will appear pretentious, even childish. Few students can achieve so intimate an understanding of a foreign language that they can explore its resources freely and experimentally. Not all feel the need to do so. 63) And in any case examination candidates need to become thoroughly acquainted with conventional usage as it is a sure knowledge of accepted forms that examiners look for. The student undertaking a proficiency course should have the ability to use simple English correctly to express everyday facts and ideas. 64) This ability to express oneself in a foreign language on a basis of thinking in that language without reference to one’s own is essential at all stages of learning. Students with extensive experience in translation who have had little practice in using the foreign language directly must, above all, write very simply at first, using only easy constructions which they are convinced are correct, forgetting for the time being their own language and rigorously avoiding translating from it. More complex forms, more varied vocabulary and sentence structure should evolve naturally in step with the student’s increasing knowledge of the language. The student introduces a certain form of construction only when he is thoroughly familiar with it and is certain that it is normally used in this way. As he achieves additional confidence, he can begin to take an interest in use of the language to create diverse effects. He may want to convey impressions of suspense, calm, dignity, humor, of music or poetry. 65) He will master the art of logical explanation, of exact letter writing, of formal speeches and natural conversation and of vivid impressionistic description. But he will still write within the limits of his ability and knowledge. And, as a learner, he will still be studying and observing conventional English usage in all that he writes.
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