Students taking Georgia Tech's online Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence course received some surprising news. Jill Watson one of the nine teaching assistants(TAs) that had helped them finish the challenging course for the past five months was not a ‘‘she'' but an “it”—an intelligent robot!

    Watson is the brainchild of Ashok Goel, who teaches the popular online course. The Professor-of Computer and Cognitive Science in the School of Interactive Computing came up with the idea as a way to deal with a number of questions posed by students in the online forums(论坛). According to Goel, every time the course is offered, the 300 or so students that enroll post over 10,000 questions which are often repetitive. This led Goel to wonder if a smart robot would handle the questions which require standard responses.

    Having worked' with IBM's Watson technology platform in the, the professor knew it would be ideal for his artificial TA: Jill Watson. The artificial intelligence system that uses natural language processing and machine learning to analyze large amounts of data has even been cleverer than human competitors on the television show. It would therefore easily be able to handle routine questions that required little “thinking”.

    The professor and his team of graduate students began by populating Jill's memory with 40,000 questions and answers from past terms. Then came the testing stage. At first, Jill was not very good and often gave strange answers. It often got stuck on certain keywords. By the end of the semester, Jill had attained enough knowledge and skills to participate in forums without any management from Goel, or the other assistants.

    Top UK Summer Camps

    Oxford Summer Academy,Oxford

    The Oxford Summer Academy is a specialized program for 16-19-year-olds who want a taste of life at one of the world's most well-known universities.Activities range from morning tutorials（辅导）to afternoon electives that are designed to broaden students' understanding of what they'll be studying and how to be excellent in their chosen fields.

    Ardmay House,Long Loch,Scotland

    Ardmay House is the sort of adventure camp that makes adults jealous.Campers are presented with Lord of The Rings type settings to feel and try new things.With activities like climbing,beach art,fashion shows and quiz nights, kids are brought closer to nature and their peers in a fun and safe environment.

    Uppingham Summer School,Uppingham

    The Uppingham Summer School offers an impressive variety of summer courses from arts and crafts to theatre, cookery and sports.It was their Creativity Technologies Powerhouse that caught our eye when researching camps for this article.The course covers everything from iPhone app and design to computer game design,film-making,robot design and music technology.It's basically a course that takes them through the most exciting technology among the modem media.It's an amazing environment for kids to learn and grow in.

    Learn and Experience,Yorkshire

    Learn and Experience focuses on giving kids from the UK and abroad a chance to interact and have a good time with one another,an experience that makes them grow as individuals.With half the campers coming from abroad,it's a golden opportunity for curious kids to put their geography classes into practice without having to leave the country.

    Maybe ten-year-old Elizabeth put it best when she said to her father, "But, Dad, you can't be healthy if you're dead."

    Dad, in a hurry to get home before dark so he could go for a run, had forgotten to wear his safety belt－a mistake 75% of US population makes every day. The big question is why.

    There have been many myths about safety belt ever since their first appearance in cars some forty years ago. The following are three of the most common.

    Myth the Number One: It's best to be "thrown clear" of a serious accident.

    Truth: Sorry, but any accident serious enough to "throw you clear" is able to be serious enough to give you a very bad landing. And chances are you'll have traveled through a windshield(挡风玻璃) or door to do it. Studies show that chances of dying after a car accident are twenty－five times in cases where people are "thrown clear".

    Myth Number Two: Safety-belts "trap" people in cars that are burning or sinking in water.

    Truth: Sorry again, but studies show that people knocked unconscious(昏迷) due to not wearing safety belts have a greater chance of dying in these accidents. People wearing safety belts are usually protected to the point of having in these accidents. People wearing safety belts are usually protected to the point of having a clear head to free themselves from such dangerous situation, not to be trapped in them.

    Myth Number Three: Safety belts aren't needed at speeds of less than 30 miles per hour(mph).

    Truth: When two cars traveling at 30 mph hit each other, an unbelted driver would meet the windshield with a force equal to diving headfirst into the ground from a height of 10 metres.

    Why we cry with happiness show: Responding with a negative reaction helps us deal with extreme joy. If you cry with happiness at weddings, you are responding to a happy experience with a negative reaction. The researchers believe the unusual reaction may help renew emotional balance in us and keep extreme emotions under control. The findings make it clear how people express and control their emotions, which could help improve their understanding of people's mental(精神的) health.

    Dr Oriana Aragon set out to explore the phrase “tears of joy”, which she said never made sense to her. But after studying a series of incongruous(不和谐的) expressions, she now understands better why people cry when they are happy. “People may be renewing emotional balance with these expressions,” she explained. “They seem to take place when people are struck by strong positive emotions. People, who do this, seem to recover better from those strong emotions.”

    The report show various examples of responding to a positive experience with a negative emotion, such as, a crying wife seeing the husband returning from war again, and teenage girls screaming at a Justin Bieber concert. Examples also include a baseball player who hits a home run, only to be slapped(拍) on the back by teammates, as well as when people cannot help kissing babies' faces who they consider lovely.

    Dr Aragon and her team discovered that people, who expressed negative reactions to positive news, were able to moderate(缓和) strong emotions more quickly. There is also some evidence that strong negative feelings may provoke positive expressions. For example, nervous laughter often happens when people are faced with a hard situation. We've seen people smiling during times of extreme sadness.

    “The findings affect our knowledge of how people express and control their emotions, which is importantly related to mental and physical health, the quality of relationships with others, and even how well people work together,” Dr Aragon said.

    Educators across the US are calling for major changes to the admissions process in higher education. The Harvard school of Greduate Education, along with 80 other schools and organizations, released a report called "Turning the Tide Making Caring Common” in January, 2016. The report argues that the process schools use to choose students causes major problems.

    David Hawkins is the Executive Director for Educational Content and Policy at the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. Hawkins told Voice of America that most colleges and universities require many things from students when they apply. Schools usually ask for an essay describing a student's interests or why they want to study at that school. The schools also ask for letters from teachers or other responsible adults describing why a student is a good candidate. But, Hawkins says, the area that schools are most concerned about is a student's high school grades and standardized test results.

    The report suggests that paying attention to academic success over other qualities works well for some students but hurts others. In addition, academic success is not the most important quality a student should have. More attention should be paid to showing whether or not a student wants to do well in the world, according to the report.

    The report goes on to state that the best way to change the admissions process is by changing college applications. It suggests that schools should ask for evidence that students care about other people. But the report does have its critics. Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, said that every few years, someone makes the same argument for changes, but no real change has happed yet. Even many of the schools that agree with the report still make no changes.

    Lloyd Thacker, Executive Director of the Education Conservancy, said that until a majority of schools agree to make the changes, there will still be problems. However, he said, the admissions process was better in the past. If bad changes can affect the process, so can good ones.

    From childhood, Moira loved to write. Throughout school she enjoyed writing, but pursuing it professionally was never a possibility. Her father was a doctor, her mother a nurse. “Medicine was a fairly safe choice,” Moira says, “and writing was a career where it wasn't a certainty that you'd have high income.”

    She became a doctor but still wanted to write something. However, being a doctor was so demanding that she didn't take up writing until her thirties. She produced a novel—a fictionalized version of her travel in China after university. She got excellent reviews. Moira sent it off to as many agents as she could find, and found one who wanted to represent her. Suddenly, it seemed she was on her way as an author.

    “I had one lengthy phone call with the agent where we went through all possible areas that she thought needed polishing. I worked on those and sent it back to her but didn't hear anything.” It wasn't long before Moira found another agent who was interested if she was willing to rewrite it from the first person to the third person. She did the hard work and sent it off again. “I got back a really brief letter: 'Thank you, I'm no longer interested.' It was really disappointing.”

    A decade went by, and Moira found herself eager to write again, this time purely for her own enjoyment. She set herself the challenge of creating a thriller and chose Western Australia as her setting.

    As she was writing just for herself, something surprising began to happen. “The characters took on a life of their own; they started doing things I hadn't thought about. It just flew.” One day, an agent called from Australia. Three weeks later, Moira had a publication deal. Her novel, Cicada, was published in March.

    “Even if it hadn't been published I still gained so much from the process,” says Moira.