Ahead of so-called Singles' Day on the 11th of this month，2013, online sales have already begun peaking.

    The leading e-business platform, tmall.com, has promoted(促销) its fifty-percent-off discount(折扣) to attract consumers. They are also trying to attract buyers through social media. Vice President of tmall.com Wang Yulei says more than 20 thousand online stores have joined the Double 11 Day sales. But this number has doubled. The final number of how many products going to be on sale has not been known yet. But so far, many more products planned to be put on shelves with discounts.

    During last year's Singles' Day, tmall.com, together with taobao.com, reached a record of 19.1 billion yuan in sales, which considered a milestone in the e-business history of China.

    Singles' Day was first started by Chinese college students in the 1990s as the opposite of Valentine's Day, a celebration for people without romantic partners. The timing was based on the date: Nov. 11—or double 11—for singles. Single young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to show love to someone and end their single status.

    But now, the Singles' Day has been promoted as a kind of grand craze just for the shopping season, thanks to thousands of discounted products being promoted online.

    Taobao.com was the first big e-retail platform which used the double 11 idea to promote sales. Taobao.com reached one million yuan worth of sales on that day in 2009, when they first promoted the Singles' Day idea. In 2010, the sales increased to 936 million yuan. The figure climbed up to 5.3 billion yuan in 2011, putting huge demand on shipping services. The figure doubled in 2012.

    E-commerce is considered to be replacing the traditional retailing industry, but the reality is that both sides are learning from each other.

    Advances in artificial intelligence and the use of big data are changing the way many large companies recruit (招募) entry level and junior management positions. These days, graduates' CVs may well have to impress an algorithm (算法) rather than an (human resources) manager.

    While algorithms supposedly treat each application equally, experts are divided about whether so-called robo-recruitment promises an end to human prejudice in the selection process —or whether it may in fact add to it.

    “AI systems are not all equal,” says Loren Larsen, chief technology officer for HireVue, which has developed an automated video interview analysis system. “I think you have to look at the science team behind the work,” says Mr Larsen.

    The problem, experts say, is that to find the best candidates an algorithm has first to be told what “good” looks like in any given organization. Even if it is not given criteria that seem discriminatory, a powerful machine-learning system will quickly be able to copy the characteristics of existing workers. If an organization has favoured white male graduates from well-known universities, the algorithm will learn to select more of the same.

    The growing dependence on automation to judge suitability for everything from a loan to a job worries Yuriy Brun, an associate professor specializing in software engineering. “It takes a lot of the time for a company to put out software but it doesn't know if it is discriminatory” he says. Prof Brun explains that, considering the use of big data, algorithms will unavoidably learn to discriminate.

    Many of those working with robo-recruiters are more optimistic. Kate Glazebrook, the leader and co-founder of Applied, a hiring platform, says her task is to encourage hiring manager to move away from such indicators of quality as schools or universities and move to more evidence-based methods. When candidates complete tests online, Applied hides their names and shows the tests the candidates have completed, question by question, to human assessors. Every stage of the process has been designed to remove prejudice.

    With the same aim, Unilever decided in 2016 to switch to a more automated process for its graduate-level entry programme. Unilever worked with HireVue, Amberjack, which provides and advises on automated recruitment processes, and Pymetrics, another high volume recruitment company, which developed a game-based test in which candidates are scored on their ability to take risks and learn from mistakes, as well as on emotional intelligence. Unilever says the process has increased the ethnic diversity of its listed candidates and has been more successful at selecting candidates who will eventually be hired.

    “The things that we can do right now are impressive, but not as impressive as we're going to be able to do next year or the year after,” says Mr Larsen.

    Still, robo-recruiters must be regularly tested in case prejudice has occurred without anyone realizing it, says Frida Polli, the leader and co-founder of Pymetrics. “The majority of algorithmic tools are most likely causing prejudice to continue existing. The good ones should be examined.”

    We would like to wish all our readers a wonderful winter break. Our January magazine is now in the shops and available digitally. We're looking forward to sharing more adventures and discoveries with you in 2018, including:

    At a crossroads in the Atlantic

    As the population of Ascension Island rises up to mark the 200th anniversary of British rule, Fred Pearce wonders what the future might have in store for this strange part of land.

    Photostory: On the road again

    A selection of images from an exhibition opening this month at the Royal Geographical Society go hand in hand with M. Aurel Stein's early 20th century photographs of the Silk Road.

    Dossier: Going underground

    Mark Rowe discusses the role that carbon storage can play in the global effort to reduce carbon dioxide emission (排放).

    Net loss

    Kit Gillet reports from the Gulf of Thailand, whose fisheries (渔场) have been almost destroyed by the commercialization of the Thai fishing industry.

    And don't forget...a round-up of the latest geographical and climate science news; a hot spot focus on Turkey; advice on taking photographs in Antarctica; an interview with Lucien Castaing-Taylor, professor of visual arts at Harvard; plus lots, lots more...

    Buy your copy now, click here and save up to 35% or call+44

    Five thousand square meters of old damaged cars, motorcycles and boats fill this junkyard. For a casual onlooker, this might be a very sad sight. But for Andy, it's a real treasure. "I've been a junk hoarder (囤积者) for my whole life and I like fixing up what shouldn't be thrown away. Around 200 old cars end up in this junkyard every week. Some of them are sold for parts, others get repaired, and still others are beyond repair."

    His father Bobby started the business some 50 years ago and still spends every morning there. The father and son have very different approaches to their work. They got a Dean cab that was getting thrown away and that was the father's project, which Andy did not want him to do. "He did basically the opposite of everything I told him and I think he did it just to make me mad. He dumped a ton of money into this car, but in the end it wouldn't run." Andy said jokingly.

    The unusual family business attracted the attention of a TV crew. That's how the show Janka Empire came to be featured on a network of the Discovery Channel. This show, five years of shooting, five seasons and 60 episodes (集), is popular. "There are hundreds of junkyards throughout the United States. I think what's interesting is that it is a family business. My father and I started the business and we joke very well back and forth and I think that's what people like. The cars that end up at the junkyard come out with endless surprises. See, this was a junk car and we restored it with a blown motor. Yet I don't get a chance to ride around it too often. Because despite its shining appearance, the noise of the engine is truly deafening and I worry my neighbors will not put up with it."

A facial expression results from one or more motions of the muscles of the face. These movements convey the emotional nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.

In the business world, much emphasis is placed on your first words, but it isn't all about what you say. You only have seconds to make a first impression that can make or break a relationship in business. Since the face is the first thing we notice about a person, it's vital to use your face to make that important connection.

Researchers have shown that 55 percent of non-verbal communication is facial. People generally try to mask negative expressions such as disappointment, fear or envy, but these feelings are often reflected in their eyes, or the downward turn of the mouth.

Genuine expressions of anger and surprise can be quite brief, lasting for only a few seconds. If an expression remains longer, it may be a sign of insincerity (不真诚). In general, a genuine expression matches the beginnings of a feeling, so watch for expressions that come after the words.

The research conducted last year by a team from Glasgow University, suggested that people from different cultures read facial expressions differently. Not only can that mean confusion in everyday life, but it can lead to confusion when conducting business.

The study found that East Asian participants tended to focus on the eyes of the other person, while Western subjects took in the whole face, including the eyes and the mouth. The work, which was published in Current Biology journal challenged the idea that facial expressions are universally understood. In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the expression for "fear" as "surprise", and "disgust "as "anger".