Self-driving vehicles will rely on cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence（AI）to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions, but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car's environment will be caught by the vehicle's camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision （碰撞）track might not be visible until it's too late. This is why vehicle-to-vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road, although the technical challenges are considerable.

    Applications for vehicle-to-vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row, to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers-by and bicycles.

    From as far as several hundred metres away, vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside units（RSUs）about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network A high level of A1 seems required for such vehicles, not only to self-drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviours. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crowding ahead.

    Further applications of vehicle-to-vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behaviour.

    We walked in so quietly that the nurse at the desk didn't even lift her eyes from the book. Mum pointed at a big chair by the door and I knew she wanted me to sit down. While I watched, mouth open in surprise, Mum took off her hat and coat and gave them to me to hold. She walked quietly to the small room by the lift and took out a wet mop (拖把). She pushed the mop past the desk and as the nurse looked up, Mum nodded and said, "Very dirty floors."

    "Yes, I'm glad they've finally decided to clean them," the nurse answered. She looked at Mum strangely and said, "But aren't you working late?"

    Mum just pushed harder, each swipe of the mop taking her farther and farther down the hall. I watched until she was out of sight and the nurse had turned back to writing in the big book.

    After a long time Mum came back. Her eyes were shining. She quickly put the mop back and took my hand. As we turned to go out of the door, Mum nodded politely to the nurse and said, "Thank you."

    Outside, Mum told me, "Dagma is fine. No fever. "

    "You see her, Mum?"

    "Of course. I told her about the hospital rules, and she will not expect us until tomorrow. Dad will stop worrying as well. It's a fine hospital. But the floors! A mop is no good. You need a brush. "

    After the examination, the doctor told my parents my sight would get worse and that I would lose my sight finally. On the way home from hospital, no one said a word. One day, would I only imagine the scenery beyond the glass rather than see it?

    That September, I entered middle school. Most nights I had homework that included an armful of books to read. To keep up with other children, I took great trouble to finish the task. With my nose a couple of inches from the page, I was tired easily. What's worse, after I had read several pages on my own, the words slipped off the page into inky pools.

    However, then I did not have audio books and electric devices like kids do now. Instead, Mum volunteered to read out loud. Mum worked part-time, cleaned the house, cooked and spent time with Grandma. In spite of being so busy, she showed up in my room like clockwork. She put on her reading glasses. Mum always thought those glasses made her look old. To me, she looked like a teacher.

    In my room, Mum's voice raced with the ticking of the clock. Being forced to focus on listening, I found a way to keep my marks up and compete with the other kids. When the teacher asked a question, I raised my hand with confidence. Teachers praised me for having a good memory. Reading removed my fear for my failing sight, reading also made me curious about other people's challenges and how they managed. Though I could not use my eyes to fix on each passage, my mind lit up with every new book.

    True to what the doctor said, the worst came, but thanks to Mum, my sense of hearing now allows me to “see”. This was the most precious gift from a mother to her child.

When David Carter started to study art at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 1971, he had big dreams of becoming an artist or a writer. But his study came to a stop at 23 after he hurt his hand in an unpleasant event. He developed schizophrenia(精神分裂症) later and spent many years without a home.

Carter liked to spend time around UT, because he dreamt of being able to continue his study in the university and becoming a writer. After running into Carter many times, UT student Ryan Chandler decided to interview him for a project for the Daily Texan, the student newspaper of UT.

"I interviewed him on Austin's homeless problems. After I heard his story, we kept in touch and really became friends. I learned he wanted to get back to UT, so I decided to help him," said Chandler. "He had got 87 hours, very close to a degree. Now, with changing degree requirements, he only has 64 hours to go."

With the help of Chandler, who worked with the university office, Carter was assigned an adviser by UT's College of Fine Arts. "It' s the greatest gift I've ever received," Carter said. "He did what had to be done to get me back to school, and I couldn't have done it without him"

After seeing a magazine article about Carter, a UT schoolmate decided to pay his tuition fees (学费)without telling Chandler his name.

Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said in a statement, "David Carter's decision to complete his degree is a testament (证明) to finishing well what was started, and stopped, even many years earlier. We welcome him back as we do many students each year whose education could not be completed easily. We're going to help him through his remaining course work."

 Sino-Korean art exhibition kicks off in Shanghai

Born in 1992, an exhibition featuring artworks from 30 Chinese and Korean artists born in the year 1992, opened in Shanghai on Thursday.

Kim Seung-ho, Republic of Korea consul general（总领事）in Shanghai, said at the opening ceremony that the exhibition is meant {#blank#}1{#/blank#}( commemorate) the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea.

"As the Chinese idiom {#blank#}2{#/blank#}( go): A man should be independent in society at 30. In the past 30 years, a generation of Chinese and Korean people have worked hard and made excellent achievements in {#blank#}3{#/blank#}( develop) the bilateral（双边的）relations," said Kim.

Divided into three sections, the exhibition features 30 artworks that include paintings, photographs, installations（装置艺术）, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} videos.

Shanghai-based artist Zheng Yiran created the installation Living Room just for {#blank#}5{#/blank#} exhibition. One of the objects within this installation {#blank#}6{#/blank#} drew the attention of many visitors is a photo album. "As I {#blank#}7{#/blank#}( inspire) by the theme of this exhibition, I created this album by getting each of the participating artists to send me a childhood photo of themselves. I then put all these {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(image) in one album so that it looks like one person," said Zheng. "It seems as if we share a common memory of the past 30 years, and I invite everyone to come to sit in this {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(relax) living room and have a look at the growing-up process of this person," she added.

The exhibition is located {#blank#}10{#/blank#} Bund 18 Art Space and runs through Aug 28.

Tourists cautioned of flood dangers in wake of tragedy.

Landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom has designed a new green roof on the Rangsit Campus of Thammasat University, about 25 miles north of central Bangkok, Thailand. Her imaginative work challenges the common thinking that urbanization has a negative impact on the planet, whether flooding, excess（过度的） energy use, disrupted biodiversity or the heat island effect.

The 236,806-square-foot structure, which opened in December 2019, includes a flood water management system and Asia's largest rooftop organic farm. It combines modern landscape architecture with traditional agricultural knowledge, creating a green and friendly environment.

The green roof, containing an H-shaped landscape, looks like a futuristic hill with a brick building beneath it. The hill features a complex pattern of zigzagging terraces（之字形梯田） of planted beds, leading all the way down to the bottom. When rainwater hits the roof, it flows down the zigzags while being absorbed by the soil in the beds. The excess water is directed into four storage ponds—with a capacity of up to 3 million gallons. The process slows down the flow speed of rainwater runoff compared to a normal concrete rooftop. This keeps the area from flooding during heavy rains.

The roof's terraces are filled with organically grown crops, including a drought tolerant variety of rice, many local vegetables and herbs. The farm can supply the canteens on campus with a large amount of rice, herbs and vegetables a year. The food waste is composted （把……制成堆肥） to make the soil of the farm richer, and water from the storage ponds is used to water plants, creating an entirely localized and circular system.

 The farm serves as an outdoor classroom and a source of local jobs, too. Farmers offer workshops on sustainable agriculture and nutrition as part of the university's sustainability course. "Students and community members are invited to participate in seasonal seeding, harvesting, and soon," says Voraakhom. "The urban farm is training a new generation of organic farmers with real-world skills. It also promotes a sense of community."