七月练习宫1(宫东风每日词汇测试7.3——7.10)

Remarks on the House Vote on Health Insurance Reform 上期答案来啦~ (1) Half a billion dollars is not to be sneezed at, even when divided 43 ways. And that, give or take a few million, was the sum at stake when a committee of the medical world’s great and good decided who will take on what have become known as the Grand Challenges in Global Health. Most of the money to meet these challenges—$450m of it—comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s richest charity. The Wellcome Trust, Britain’s richest, has chipped in $27m, and the Canadian government has added $4.5m. The 43 winners were announced on June 28th. （1）5亿美元可不是个小数目，即便是把它分成43份。当全球医学界的权威人士组成的委员会确定出了承担被称为“全球健康大挑战”的人选名单时，无论成败与否，这笔出人至多为几百万的巨资便成为资助基金。资助这些大挑战项目的大部分资金——4.5亿美元——都来自比尔和梅林达·盖茨基金这一全世界最富有的慈善基金。英国最富有的威康信托基金会拿出了2700万美元，加拿大政府也凑了450万美元。43个获得资助的项目得主于6月28日公布。 (2) The Grand Challenges are 14 serious technical obstacles to a healthier world that were picked by the committee in the autumn of 2003, after its members had gone through several thousand submissions from the world’s medical scientists. The specific challenges are, in turn, grouped under seven goals that range from the speculative (create new vaccines) to the mundane (measure health status accurately and economically in developing countries). They do not, of course, address what many might see as the biggest obstacles of all to better health-poverty and misgovernment. But they represent an imaginative approach to what medical science might do to alleviate the problem. The winning projects are all, if not entirely new, at least still in their preliminary phases, and the sponsors expect a lot of attrition along the way. Indeed, they will be leading the culling themselves, since many proposals have to meet “milestone” objectives by particular dates, otherwise they will have their funding cut off. （2）这些“大挑战”是指影响世界健康的14个重大技术障碍，它是由委员会的成员们在审查了全世界医学专家们提出的几千个课题申请之后，于2003年秋选定的。这些具体的大挑战课题又归并成7大目标，其中包括风险性目标(创制新疫苗)，也包括一些普通目标(在发展中国家准确而又经济地测量人们的健康状况)。当然，它们并没有如许多人所想的那样，去探讨改善人类健康的最大障碍——贫困和政府管理不善。但它们却为通过医学来缓解这个问题提供了一种富有创意的途径。所有获得资助的项目，即使不是全新课题，也都至少仍处于初始阶段，因此，资助方预计，在执行过程中，有些项目中途会遭到淘汰。事实上，他们会亲自主持这个优胜劣汰的过程，因为许多课题都定有“阶段性”目标，到时必须完成，否则就会被停发经费。 And the winners are... (3) Some of the winning proposals sound truly wacky. Putting bacterial spores into people to prevent disease is probably top of that list. Yet it is a clever idea. One of the biggest obstacles to a healthier world is a lack of so-called cold chains for transporting temperature-sensitive medicines. Vaccines, in particular, need to be kept refrigerated if they are to remain effective. That is not easy in places where fridges are far apart and the electricity is unreliable. 受资助项目是…… （3）有一些受资助项目听起来着实古怪。最奇怪的可能就是把细菌袍子植入人体以预防疾病。不过，这确实是个巧妙的想法。影响世界健康的最大障碍之一是，对温度敏感的药物的运输缺乏所谓的冷链。尤其是要使疫苗不失效，就必须冷藏保存。可是，在那些没有冰箱，供电也不可靠的地方，做到这一点殊非易事。 (4) Abraham Sonenshein, of Tufts University in Massachusetts, thinks that one way to overcome this problem is to incorporate vaccines into bacterial spores, which are famously resistant to changes in temperature. He proposes doing this through genetic engineering. Genes for proteins from disease organisms will be added to the bacteria in question in a way that will cause the proteins to be incorporated into the spore’s coat, so that they are visible to the immune system. The spores themselves will therefore act as the vaccine. Dr Sonenshein is one of the winners of Grand Challenge number two: “Prepare vaccines that do not require refrigeration”. If his idea works it would, as a bonus, meet challenge number three: “develop needle-free delivery systems for vaccines”, since people would get vaccinated by drinking water laced with the spores. （4）马萨诸塞州塔夫茨大学的亚伯拉罕·索南沙因认为，解决这一问题的一个办法便是把疫苗和细菌抱子结合起来。众所周知，细菌抱子能抵抗温度变化。他计划通过遗传来实现这一目标。把从有病机体蛋白质获取的基因加人到相关细菌，并且让蛋白质借此进人抱子壁中，以使免疫系统能够识别它们。这样一来，这些抱子本身就会起到疫苗的作用。索南沙因博士是第一个“大挑战”资助项目得主之一。该挑战是：“制备无需冷藏的疫苗”。如果他的想法获得实现，他还会额外地满足第三个大挑战的目标要求，即“开发无需注射的疫苗接种系统”，因为人们到时通过饮用加入这种袍子的水，就接种了疫苗。 (5) The actual winners of challenge number three, though, all have variants of the same idea. This is to make what is, in essence, vaccine snuff. Three of these winners cannot resist modish use of the “n” prefix in their proposals. David Edwards, of Harvard, proposes nasal sprays containing “nanoparticle aerosols” made of vaccine. James Baker, of the University of Michigan, prefers “nanoemulsions” that can be administered as nose drops. Meanwhile, Maria Alonso, of the University of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, opts for “surface-modified nanostructures”. But she, Dr Edwards, Dr Baker and, indeed, the other two winners have a common design. This is to produce something that will be absorbed by the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract. In some cases the goal is not merely to use mucous membranes as entry points, but also to stimulate an immune response in them directly. Existing vaccines work by stimulating bits of the immune system that work in the blood and the lymph. But soft, moist membranes are particularly vulnerable to bacteria and viruses, and have their own, private immune responses which might be recruited by a suitably designed vaccine. （5）说起来，第三个挑战的资助项目所有得主的想法异曲同工。实质上都是要研制鼻吸疫苗。其中有三位得主在他们的项目计划中都采用了流行的鼻饲法。哈佛大学的大卫·爱德华兹计划采用针对鼻子的喷雾剂，内中含有由疫苗制成的“纳米气雾剂”密歇根大学的詹姆斯·贝克则选择“纳米乳剂”，可作为滴鼻剂使用。与此同时，西班牙圣地亚哥大学的玛丽亚·阿隆索选择“经面处理的纳米结构”。不过，她、爱德华兹博士、贝克博士和其他两位得主实际上都有一个共同点，那就是要制出一种可被呼吸道黏膜吸收的物质。有些情况下，其目的不光是利用黏膜来作为进人通道，同时还通过刺激黏膜来直接引起免疫反应。现有的疫苗作用于血液和淋巴中的细胞来激活免疫系统。但柔软、湿润的黏膜特别容易受到细菌和病毒的侵害，因此，它们拥有自身专用的免疫反应，通过适当设计的疫苗，有可能使之得到加强。 (6) Exploiting a mucosal response is also the goal of Robin Shattock, of St George’s Hospital in London. His team proposes an AIDS vaccine that would encourage an immune response in a woman’s vagina. That would stop HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from getting into her body in the first place. And Francis Plummer of Canada’s Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control is studying AIDS, too. His group will look at the immune systems of a well-known group of Kenyan ladies of the night who, despite having lived for years with one of the biggest risks of exposure to HIV in the world, have not become infected. （6）开发利用黏膜的免疫反应也是伦软圣乔治医院罗宾·沙托克的目标。他的团队计划研制出一种艾滋病疫苗，能够增强女性阴道的免疫反应。它能够在最初便阻止导致艾滋病的HIV病毒进入妇女体内。加拿大传染病预防和控制中心的弗朗西斯·普卢歇也正在研究艾滋病。他的研究小组将考察一群为人熟知的肯尼亚妓女的免疫系统。她们虽然长年处于易感染HIV病毒的高危环境中，但却没有受到感染。 (7) There is also a long list of ideas for dealing with insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue’, from tinkering’” with mosquito genetics in order to kill infected cells within the animal, via spreading genes that make mosquitoes sterile (obviously a hard task to perform in the face of normal evolutionary pressures) to infecting mosquitoes with bacteria that let them live long enough to reproduce, but kill them before they become infectious. And, since malnourished people are more likely to become ill, there are plans to develop strains of banana, cassava and rice that have a full complement of vitamins and minerals in them. There is even a plan for a hand-held diagnostic system, shades of Dr McCoy in “Star Trek”. This idea, proposed by Paul Yager of the University of Washington, would take a drop of blood and can it over a card covered with chemicals that react characteristically with molecules produced by particular diseases. （7）还有许多对付诸如疟疾和登革热等虫媒疾病的想法。例如，通过传播使蚊子不育的基因(显然，在正常的进化压力下，这是项很难完成的任务)，打乱蚊子的遗传特性，在其体内杀灭传染细胞。还有使蚊子感染某种细菌，使蚊子虽能繁殖，却能在它传播疾病之前便杀死它。还有，由于许多营养不良的人更容易患病，因此，有些研究计划是培育含有多种维生素和矿物质的香蕉、木薯和水稻品系。甚至还有一个计划，要研制一个手持诊断系统，有点儿像电影《星际迷航》里的麦科伊医生。华盛顿大学的保罗·耶格尔提出的这一想法是，取一滴血，滴在一个涂满化学试剂的卡片纸上，这些试剂就会与各种不同疾病产生的分子发生特有的化学反应。 (8) How many of these ideas will translate into lives saved is, of course, impossible to say—and that is not only because of uncertainties about which of them will work. As the quest to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to poor people with AIDS shows, implementation is everything. Such drugs have been available for almost a decade, but only now are significant numbers of those who need them actually receiving them. The Grand Challenge winners differ from anti-retrovirals in that they are being developed specifically for use in poor countries. But thinking now about how they will be delivered is just as important as getting the science right. （8）当然，很难说这些想法有多少会挽救人们的生命——这不仅是由于它们中哪些会付诸实现具有不确定性。正如寻求为感染艾滋病的穷人发放抗逆转录酶病毒药物的情况所表明的那样，实施才是最重要的。这类药物已经生产出来近十年.但直到现在，才被大量需要它们的人真正领取到“大挑战”项目不同于抗逆转录酶病毒药物的情况。因为它们是专为在贫穷国家投人使用而开发的。但是，现在就来考虑这些项目成果将来如何推广，就如使这些项目的科研工作正常进行同样重要。 练习指令：请各位同学认真阅读下列文章的每一个词和每一个句子，然后将每句话翻译成中文，并将全文读懂背熟。本文的全文翻译将在下周与新一起公布。 (1) Ten years ago, Pierre Omidyar, a software engineer working in California's Silicon Valley, began thinking about how to use the Internet for a trading system in which buyers and sellers could establish a genuine market price. Over a long holiday weekend he wrote the computer code. At first, a trickle of users arrived at his website-including his girlfriend, who traded PEZ candy dispensers. By the end of 1995, several thousand auctions had been completed and interest in eBay was growing. And it grew and grew. From this modest beginning, eBay has become a global giant, with around 150m registered users worldwide who are set to buy and sell goods worth more than $40 billion this year. (2) The remarkable tale of eBay's growth points to some important lessons for any business trying to operate online-and today that includes, one way or another, most firms. The commercial opportunities presented by an expanding global web seem almost limitless. But the pace of change is rapid, and so is the ferocity of competition. To succeed, firms need agility, an open mind and the ability to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Most of all, they need to listen carefully to their customers, paying close attention to what they do and don't want. Such qualities, of course, would be valuable in any kind of business. Yet for online firms they are not a luxury, but necessary for mere survival. This is true for a variety of reasons. The Internet is not only growing, but changing rapidly-which, in turn, changes the rules of the game for any business relying on it. The barriers to entry are still low compared with those for most offline businesses, which means that just keeping track of your existing rivals is not enough. These may not represent the greatest competitive threat tomorrow or the next day. That could come from a number of directions-a firm in a different type of online business; one that does not yet exist; or even from one of your own customers. On top of all this, the behaviour of many consumers is constantly changing as well, as individuals discover new ways to shop and interact with each other via the web. No safe havens (3) All these factors make the Internet a dangerous place to do business, as well as one full of promise. eBay's history demonstrates both of those things. It is probably safe to say that nothing like eBay could have existed without the Internet—or could have grown so fast. Even though there have been signs of the firm's blistering pace slowing a bit in America, its most "mature" market, there remain vast opportunities overseas, particularly, some argue, in China. Meg Whitman, eBay’s chief executive, believes the company is still only at the beginning of what it could achieve. (4) And yet just getting as far as it has is quite an achievement. Like the other online giants, Google, Yahoo! and Amazon, eBay is the survivor of a brutal shake-out. A decade ago, the Internet had less than 20m users. By 1999, when it had reached 150m users, dotcoms were being formed every day. But when the technology bubble burst in 2001, thousands of firms were swept away. (5) The survivors now operate in a market with close to one billion users worldwide and growing. But to flourish these firms have had to remake their businesses over and over again. eBay, for example, is no longer solely an auctioneer; Google has become more than a search engine. Yahoo! is adding yet more services to its web portal; Amazon sells a lot more than just books, and both firms now offer auctions. New features and new strategies are being embraced as these firms fight each other, and a horde of others, for the e-commerce pie. Customers behind the wheel (6) Driving the strategy of all these firms is the shifting behaviour of consumers. eBay's business, in particular, has been moulded by its users. Second-hand cars now account for 30% of sales on its sites, something that managers never expected. They discovered that it was possible to sell cars on their site only when customers started listing them on the section for toy cars. eBay has since followed its customers into lots of other areas, including new clothes, cosmetics and high-priced medical and industrial machinery. Moreover, some 30% of its sales are now at fixed prices, rather than from auctions. (7) With their ability to aggregates vast audiences, could eBay and other e-commerce giants turn into semi-mo-nopolies like Microsoft? In theory this seems possible. Network effects, for example, mean that the bigger eBay gets, the more addictive it becomes for both buyers and sellers. And much the same can be said about Google's emerging role as the online advertising agency of choice, with firms paying for search links to ensure their products can be "Googled". (8) It is not impossible that some kind of monopoly might emerge, wielding true pricing power, but right now it looks unlikely. eBay's managers, for example, admit that customers are shaping its business more than they are, and seem acutely aware that groups of customers could easily depart together to set up their own specialist auction or sales sites if eBay charges too much for its services or lets them down. This month it paid $620m to buy Shopping.com, a shopping comparison site, to help its customers offer auctioned items to an even wider audience. The fact that the biggest web firms such as eBay, Yahoo!, Google and Amazon are so keen to invade each other's turf shows that none of them feels secure in their niche, or considers the others as well-protected from new competition. (9) The relatively low barriers to entry remain one of the most alluring features of the Internet-and the greatest threat to any incumbent firm. Millions of people have already set up small web businesses, and millions more will do so, many of them using services provided by eBay, Amazon, Google and Yahoo!. A few, it seems safe to predict, will become the giant-killers of tomorrow. For managers of any business, the lessons of eBay are both exhilarating and daunting: the prizes offered by the Internet are dazzling by any measure, but only those who can satisfy the demanding and changing tastes of consumers, the Internet's true sovereigns, will survive to enjoy them. 答案请见下期