Mother Teresa was born on August 26^th,1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. She always wrote her birthday as 27^th of August because it was the day of her baptism(洗礼), which was always more important to her than her birthday. For her work with the poor around the world, she received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

    In 1928, she accepted a religious order and took the name Teresa. The order immediately sent her to India. A few years later, she began teaching in Calcutta. In 1948 the Catholic(天主教的) Church agreed her request and let her enter the convent(女修道院) and she began to work for the poor people. She became an Indian citizen in the following year. In 1950, she set up a religious organization in Calcutta. The organization provided food for the poor people and then she set up hospitals, schools, youth centers, and homes for the sick and the dying poor. It now has branches in 50 Indian cities and 30 other countries.

    Besides the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa has received other awards for her work with the poor people. On September 5^th,1997, Mother Teresa passed away, but she will continue to inspire people all over the world through her lasting present of love and faith.

    Most people who move to a foreign country may experience a period of time when they have a lot of stress in the new culture. This feeling is often called “culture shock” and it is important to learn how to deal with culture shock. First of all, you should know that everyone in a new situation will go through some form of culture shock. There are four general stages of cultural adjustment(适应).

    The first stage is usually referred to as the honeymoon stage. Upon arriving in a new environment, you'll be interested in the new culture. Everything will seem exciting, and everyone will seem friendly and helpful.

    The second stage is called the withdrawal stage. The excitement that you felt before changes to frustration(沮丧) as you find it difficult to deal with new problems. The language is hard to learn; friends are hard to make; simple things like shopping and going to the bank are challenges. It is at this stage that you are likely to feel anxious and homesick.

If you are one of those who manage to stick it out (坚持下来), you will enter the third stage—- the recovery stage. At this point, you'll feel more confident in the new culture. You'll start to understand and accept the way things are done and the way people behave in your new environment.

The last stage is the stability stage—- this is the point when people start to feel at home in the new culture. At this stage, you will behave well in the new culture, and prefer some aspects(方面) of the new culture to your own culture.

    There is, in a sense, a fifth stage to this process. If you decide to return home after a long period in a new culture, you may experience what is called “reverse culture shock”. This means that you may find aspects of your own culture “foreign”, because you're so used to the new culture. Reverse culture shock is usually pretty mild(温和的) and doesn't last for very long.

    With the wide, application of the Internet, Uber, a new approach to your destination instead of taking an ordinary taxi, has become more popular recently. However, benefits won't come without its fair share of drawbacks. The ride-sharing experience is about to get awkward.

    Uber drivers are a part of the so-called sharing economy: They use their own vehicles, receive customer reviews via the app's five-star rating system and make their own hours and choices. Unlike other services, Uber claimed that drivers all over the country could dearly alert customers that tipping is not included. Those drivers that expect to be tipped can make their wishes known. But the company is holding to its official no-tip-required line. “Once you arrive at your destination, your fare is automatically charged to your credit card on file－there's no need to tip.” Although drivers value the freedom to push a button rather than punch a clock like ordinary taxi drivers, lack of a clear policy leaves Uber drivers m a vulnerable (脆弱的) and awkward position: If they ask a customer for a tip or put up a sign, that customer could give the driver a low star-rating, and the driver could finally be removed from the app.

    But has the company done a good job working with customers? Some observers say that this new grey area for tipping will create awkwardness about whether they should tip or not. Providing an option to tip on an app sends a clear message to customers to reach into their pockets. According to Guinn's 2015 survey of roughly 500 people, merely 30% people would be more likely to leave a tip if they were presented with a “no tip” button.

    If the service is twice as expensive during a rain storm or public transport delay, the customer has the right not to tip, However, if the driver is extra helpful or avoids traffic to reach your destination in a more timely manner, you could give an extra tip, says Uber, who will leave tipping options in the hands of the consumer rather than the app.

Evening Workshops

    Optional evening workshops will be held at small restaurants or other meeting places near the conference hotel. Meals and other costs are not included but are also optional. Locations will be announced at the conference site. Workshops are very loosely organized and most represent discussions that have been held at Society for Economic Botany (SEB) meetings over a series of years.

    Workshop 1: Student Network

    Date: Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th

    Chairs: Hugo de Boer and Arika Virapongse Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: Student members of the SEB hold a networking mixer each year in order to meet each other and to become familiar with a variety of educational programs and faculty advisors(大学指导老师). Faculty members who are part of training programs are encouraged to join the mixer to meet and talk with students.
     Workshop 2: Botanical Film Making
    Date : Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th Chair : David Strauch

    Sponsor : University of Hawaii

    Description : Digit al film making is a particularly useful tool of linking cultural information to recognizable plants. This workshop is aimed towards increasing the quality of material recorded by giving participants greater control over the medium. We will cover technical aspects (e.g. camera settings, audio), technical aspects (framing, lighting, focus), and some ways of presenting the material. Experienced filmmakers are encouraged to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their own camera equipment.

    Workshop 3: Collections for Botany

    — Collections Development and Management Date: Friday evening, Feb. 7^th

    Chair: Jan Salick

    Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: SEB is a network of researchers who have been developing standards for the development of collections of artifacts, plant samples and related materials. Participants discuss successes, problems, and funding sources for solving management issues.

    A study showed that the experiences children have in their first few years are important. These experiences affect the development of the brain. When children receive more attention, they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion(万亿)connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.

    Researcher Judit Gervain tested how good newborns are at distinguishing different sound patterns. Her researchers produced images of the brains of babies as they heard different sound patterns. For example, one order was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern"A-B-B". Another order was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern “A-B-C”. The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the" A-B-B" pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. They also were sensitive to where it occurred in the order.

    Gervain is excited by these findings because the order of sounds is the building block of words and grammar." Position is key to language," she says. "If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference: John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.'”

    Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books, the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn't appear to be enough for children's brain development. They carried out a study of nine-month-old American babies. They expected the first group who'd watched videos in Chinese to show the same kind of learning as the second group who were brought face-to-face with the same sounds. Instead they found a huge difference. The babies in the second group were able to distinguish between similar Chinese sounds as well as native listeners. But the other babies－regardless of whether they had watched the video or listened to the audio－learned nothing.

    Here are some great people and their achievements.

    Mary Anderson ­ windscreen wiper.

    Back on a freezing winter's day in 1902, Mary Anderson was travelling by train through New York City. Snow was falling, forcing the driver to stop repeatedly and get out to clear it. Each time the door opened, Mary suffered a gust of sub-zero air. She had an idea: why not make some kind of a rubber blade that could be operated from inside the vehicle? And that's exactly what she did.

    Josephine Cochrane ­ dishwasher

    The dishwasher dates back even earlier to the 19th century, and to the dinner parties thrown by a lady called Josephine Cochrane. As a frequent host, she wanted a machine that could wash dishes faster than people. Her response was to develop what was to become the first commercially successful dishwasher. Interestingly, innovation was in her blood: her grandfather had invented the steamboat.

    Stephanie Kwolek ­ Kevlar

    Kevlar is the lightweight fibre used in bulletproof vests. The material is used by millions every day and has saved countless lives. The super tough fabric is also used in objects ranging from gloves to airplanes. Incredibly, its strength-to-weight ratio(比强度) is five times higher than steel. Again, it was invented by a woman, the American chemist Stephanie Kwolek, in 1964.

    Grace Hopper ­ first compiler(编译程序)

    One of the most important inventions of the 20th century must surely be the computer programme. The world of programming is unbalanced in terms of gender. Men vastly outnumber women, and take home around 30% more pay than their female counterparts on average. But back in the 1940s and 1950s, women were at the forefront of this new field. Grace Hopper is credited with inventing the first compiler in 1952, which serves as the bridge between code and the binary(二进制的) ones and zeros understood by computers.