Uncivilized behavior by passengers unacceptable

    For the first time, airline passengers have been blacklisted for uncivilized behavior. Their names will remain on the blacklist for one or two years, according to an announcement by the China Air Transport Association on Saturday. The blacklisting means they will not be able to travel by air until their names are removed from the list.

    Blacklisting passengers who disobey the rules for traveling by air and so place their own interests before everything else, including safety, has long been overdue (迟到的，延迟的).

    There have been frequent reports of passengers making a scene when their flight was delayed or when they believed that they were not treated as they should be on a flight.

    Yet it is natural for some flights to be delayed because of reasons such as bad weather or mechanical problems that need to be solved. However, some passengers seem to take it for granted that their flight must take off at the time stated on their ticket, and they even assume that the members of the cabin crew are simply there to do their bidding(吩咐).

    They forget that they should behave themselves in the first place and that respect is reciprocal (互相给与的).There is no reason for them to be respected when they do not show enough respect for others.

    Observing rules can never be over-emphasized when it comes to flight safety. No one has the right to disregard the rules for any reason. Of course, airlines should provide quality services to meet the needs of passengers. Yet, even if passengers are not satisfied with the service provided, there is still no reason for them to flout the rules that are designed for the safety of all.

    The blacklisting of these three passengers should serve for others to know they have to toe the line (顺从集体).

    Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor in the United States. Her success opened the way for other women who wanted to do more than nursing. She was born in England in 1821 and her family moved to America when she was eleven years old.

    The Blackwell girls received the same education as their brothers. This was most unusual in those days. Their father died young and they had very little money to live on. Elizabeth and her sisters taught at school. Then a woman dying of cancer urged Elizabeth to study medicine, saying that a woman doctor would have saved her from her worst sufferings. Nearly everyone said a girl should not go to medical school, but she managed to enter Geneva College in New York State. She graduated in 1849 at the head of her class and received the first medical degree ever given to a woman.

    Next, Dr. Blackwell went to Paris. Her only chance of training was in a hospital where women came to have their babies. Four months later, while she was working in the French hospital, her left eye became dangerously infected (感染). She lost the eye. She was very disappointed. But she was soon back at work again, this time in London, England. There she met many famous scientists.

    In 1859, Elizabeth Blackwell was officially recognized as a doctor in Great Britain — the first woman to be honored. She was the inspiration of Elizabeth Garrett, who began the women's medical movement in England. Florence Nightingale, founder of the practice of nursing by women, was another of her friends.

    Dr. Blackwell died in 1910 at the age of 89.

    If a woman has an extra piece of cake, don't blame it on greed, blame it on her brain.

    Scientists have found that women's brains react to food very differently—and much more strongly—than men's. Academics found that decades of dieting pressure on women and advertising have programmed certain parts of the female brain to react strongly when faced with any kind of food. Men, on the other hand, are not usually as obsessive (着迷的) about what they eat.

    Dr. Rudolf Uher and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in King's College London used brain scanning technology, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), to look at the brains of eighteen men and women.

The volunteers were given images of food to look at, as well as food to taste. Their brain reactions were observed by the scientists.

    They found that the female brains reacted much more strongly than those of males.

    The same reaction did not happen when they were shown non-food images. The team believe this means women think more about food than men tend to do.

    Dr. Uher said, “This could be related to biological differences between men and women. But the more likely explanation is that women have a more complicated reaction to food because of social pressure.

    Professor Carey Cooper, psychology and health professor at Lancaster University, said, “For centuries women have had a providing role — preparing and cooking food for their families. And it is part of that rule to make sure the food is safe. They will therefore be much more sensitive to food than men are, and I would not be surprised if that was now built into their DNA. If the female brain reacts to food because it historically has developed neural (神经的) pathways to do this, then food will be the way they express their stress. Food actually, is a comfort for women.”

    But other experts have said that more research must be done before the results can be proved. American scientist Angelo del Parigi of the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, said, “Looking at an FMRI alone cannot make sure whether the stronger reaction in women is due to innate (天生的) differences or a learned process.

    Military training has long been considered a ritual (仪式) that freshmen must go through in order to officially start their college lives. While some question the necessity of such training. Many students see military training as a campus tradition that should be maintained.

    Early in February, the Ministry of Education issued a new regulation that colleges and universities should carry out a minimum of 14 days compulsory military training for freshmen.

    In a report by Beijing Evening News, Hou Zhengfang, a Beijing-based education PhD, questioned the benefits of military training. "The training routine does little to improve students' physical fitness over only two weeks' time. Maybe some disaster prevention training, such as earthquake survival or escaping from fires would be of greater benefit."

    Meng Yang, a 19-year-old freshman at Guangxi University, fainted during training. She said that many students, especially girls, are willing to train under direct sunshine. "For me, military training is physically challenging and even damages my health."

    According to Li Jian from the student affairs office of Guangzhou University, feeling dizzy happens frequently during military training and the school has received a lot of complaints from both students and parents: "But I still think military training is a good thing. Students are easier to manage after the military training. They became more positive about their new environment after the training."

    Although autumn is fast approaching Beijing, the noon heat burns 3300 freshmen on Tsinghua University's campus. Chu Jinjing, a freshman majoring in medicine, did feel some discomfort while training in sweaty clothes in the glaring heat, the 18-year-old still enjoyed being part of group going through strict exercises. "By going through this tough training, students bond faster and a sense of belonging to the school can be formed. I've made a lot of friends already."

    According to the Ministry of Education, the purpose of military training is to teach students discipline, the spirit of teamwork and endurance. But in reality, according to Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21^stCentury Education Research Institute, the effect is not satisfying. "Such goals require long-term development. It is unrealistic to expect military training to make a difference in only 14 days." He thus suggests that it should be up to schools to conduct military training in a way that best suits their students.

    However, Wang Wenhui, an 18-year-old freshman from Xi'an Jiaotong University, sees military training as a tradition that reaches beyond character building. "From junior and senior high school to college, we join military training to start a new journey. I would feel a bit incomplete without it."

    About one million adults in the USA need someone to help them eat. Researchers at the University of Washington are working on a robotic system that can help make it easier. After identifying different food on a plate, the robot can decide how to use a fork to pick up and deliver the desired bite to a person s mouth.

    "Being dependent on a caregiver to feed every bite every day takes away a person's sense of independence," said the researcher. "Our goal with this project is to give people a bit more control over their lives the idea was to develop a feeding system that would be attached to wheelchairs and feed people whatever they wanted to eat.

    "When we started the project, we realized there are so many ways that people can eat a piece of food depending on its size, shape or consistency(坚实度)," said the researcher, "So we set up an experiment to see how humans eat common foods. "

    The researchers arranged plates with about a dozen different kinds of food, ranging in consistency from hard carrots to soft bananas. Then the team gave volunteers a fork and asked them to pick up different pieces of food and feed them to a model. The fork contained a sensor to measure how much force people used when they picked up food.

    To design a feeding strategy that changes based on the food item, the researchers combined two different algorithms (算法). First they used an object-detection algorithm called Retina Net, which scans the plate, identifies the types of food on it and places a frame around each item. Then they developed SPNet, an algorithm that examines the type of food in a specific frame and tells the robot the best way to pick up the food.

    The team is currently working with the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology to get advice from caregivers and patients on how to improve the system to meet people's need.