The health-care economy is filled with unusual and even unique economic relationships. One of the least understood involves the peculiar roles of producer or “provider” and purchaser or “consumer” in the typical doctor-patient relationship. In most sectors of the economy, it is the seller who attempts to attract a potential buyer with various appealing factors of price, quality, and use, and it is the buyer who makes the decision. Such condition, however, is not common in most of the health-care industry.

    In the health-care industry, the doctor-patient relationship is the mirror image of the ordinary relationship between producer and consumer. Once an individual has chosen to see a physician — and even then there may be no real choice — it is the physician who usually makes all significant purchasing decisions: whether the patient should return “next Wednesday”, whether X-rays are needed, whether drugs should be prescribed, etc. It is rare that a patient will challenge such professional decisions or raise in advance questions about price, especially when the disease is regarded as serious.

    This is particularly significant in relation to hospital care. The physician must certify the need for hospitalization, determine what procedures will be performed, and announce when the patient may be discharged. The patient may be consulted about some of the decisions, but in general it is the doctor's judgments that are final. Little wonder then that in the eye of the hospital it is the physician who is the real “consumer”. As a consequence, the medical staff represents the “power center” in hospital policy and decision-making, not the administration.

    Although usually there are in this situation four identifiable participants— the physician, the hospital, the patient, and the payer (generally an insurance carrier or government)— the physician makes the essential decisions for all of them. The hospital becomes an extension of the physician; the payer generally meets most of the bills generated by the physician/hospital, and for the most part the patient plays a passive role. We estimate that about 75-80 percent of health-care choices are determined by physicians, not patients. For this reason, the economy directed at patients or the general is relatively ineffective.

    Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest thinkers in the world, began his career as an artist. Very little is known about Leonardo's early life. He was born in 1452 in the town of Vinci. As a boy, Leonardo showed a great interest in drawing, sculpting and observing nature.

    However, because Leonardo was born to parents who were not married to each other, he was barred from some studies and professions. He trained as an artist after moving to Florence with his father in the 1460s. It was an exciting time to be in Florence, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. Leonardo trained with one of the city's very successful artists, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a painter, sculptor and gold worker. Verrocchio told his students that they needed to understand the body's bones and muscles when drawing people.

    Leonardo took the teacher's advice very seriously. He spent several periods of his life studying the human body by taking apart and examining dead bodies. While training as an artist, Leonardo also learned about and improved on relatively new painting methods at the time. One was the use of perspective(透视) to show depth. A method called “sfumato” helped to create a cloudy effect to suggest distance. “Chiaroscuro” is a method using light and shade as a painterly effect.

    Leonardo's first known portrait now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D. C. He made this painting of a young woman named Ginevra de' Benci around 1474. The woman has a pale face with dark hair. In the distance, Leonardo painted the Italian countryside.

    He soon received attention for his extraordinary artistic skills. Around 1475 he was asked to draw an angel in Verrocchio's painting “Baptism of Christ.” One story says that when Verrocchio saw Leonardo's addition to the painting, he was so amazed by his student's skill that he said he would never paint again.

Ig Nobel Prize

    Having a meal is an easy and delightful process for most people. However, for a woodpecker (啄木鸟), it's not that simple. To get dinner, a woodpecker has to hit its head against a tree numerous times per day. Yet, amazingly, it never suffers any ill effects like brain damage. According to research, it is the woodpecker's thick head bones that protect it from the impact of the blows. For explaining that, Ivan Schwab won an Ig Nobel Prize.

    Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by The Annals of Improbable Research, an American magazine that celebrates the funny side of science. Each year, ten winners are awarded prizes in honor of their “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”. Most of the award-winning research, like Schwab's, may seem unusual, but it usually grabs people's attention indeed. And no matter how ridiculous the research sounds, people can find it inspiring and amusing.

    Brian Wansink's research might interest you. He took home an Ig Nobel Prize for looking into the influence of visual factors on people's appetites. He used specially designed bowls that refilled themselves with soup while people were eating. Since these people had no idea this was happening, they just kept eating from these “bottomless bowls”. They said they didn't feel full because their bowls were not empty yet. People in this experiment ate 73 percent more soup than normal. Owing to these results, Wansink concluded that it's not people's stomachs that decide when they have eaten enough, but their eyes.

    Ig Nobel Prizes also give attention to science and technology that is a part of our daily lives. Take the karaoke machine for example. Its inventor Daisuke Inoue was employed at a nightclub, playing the piano for the customers who wanted to sing. He wasn't skillful enough to play all the songs properly. To clear up the problem, he created the karaoke machine. To Inoue's surprise, the machine caused considerable changes in entertainment worldwide. The Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to Inoue not only because his invention was entertaining, but also because it brought about “an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other”.

    These research results of Ig Nobel Prizes may not be as great as Edison's light bulb or Newton's laws of motion. However, they do show people's willingness to take action and to try new ways to solve problems. According to Marc Abrahams, a founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes. “If you win one, it means that you have done something.”

    I began cycling in 2004 when I was a poor student. It was dangerous, sure, but cycling is the fastest, cheapest point-to-point form of transport in Melbourne. I own a car now, but that's just for transporting the baby or groceries.

    I hate driving. So it's been quite encouraging watching the growth in cyclist numbers over the past decade. It is estimated that 10,000-plus cyclists enter the CBD (Central Business District) each day, taking pressure off public transport. But as more people take to cycling as a mode of transport, the number of cyclists seriously injured or killed keeps climbing. And that is a sign that our infrastructure (基础设施) is still not good enough.

    Melbourne was once a dream for cyclists-flat, long, wide roads, with plenty of paths along rivers. Now, cycling can be deadly, with roads dominated by cars. I have a friend who broke her back and was lucky to escape paralysis, and others with broken bones. In my time riding, I've been forced off the road by a truck, cut off by four-wheel drives, and told to get off the road.

    These things don't exactly happen to trams and buses, those other slow coaches on Melbourne's roads. No—drivers reserve a particular savagery (残暴行为) for cyclists. And that's a sign of exactly one thing: inadequate infrastructure.

    We shouldn't need to be taught how to coexist in the same narrow space. Drivers and cyclists should be kept apart. The present debate over how to minimize “dooring” is a distraction.

    Dooring is not a legal problem. You cannot legislate (制定法律) it away. Designing bike paths so riders are channelled between moving cars and parked cars is deadly. All it takes is one daydreaming driver to fling open the door and you are gone. That's what happened to the young university student James Cross.

    This year, there are to be new anti-dooring lanes (车道) built on Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, where Cross died in 2010. But these lanes are not safe. Cyclists must still pass between two rows of cars.

    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. Then, 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. She pushed the mop past the desk and as the nurse looked up, Mum nodded and said, “Very dirty floors.” 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 bowed politely to the nurse and said, “Thank you.”

    Outside, Mum told me, “Grandma is fine. No fever.”

    “You saw 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 such floors! A mop is not good. You need a brush.”

    Debby Harris says she would never have started going to the Glastonbury Festival if her friend who runs a food stand hadn't needed a hand a few years ago. "I thought it would just be all noise, and I never liked rock music.^" Now she says she would pay her friend to allow her to work at her stand!^" The tickets sell like hot cakes, so it's the best way of making sure I can get to the five-day festival in June." she points out.

    Nick Hendon likes going to the Cambridge Folk Festival, which takes place over a long weekend in summer at Cherry Hinton Hall. His favourite festival area is the Club Tent where members of the audience, as well as the invited artists, can get up and perform. "My wife usually takes part. She has a beautiful voice," he says proudly.

    Joan Mitchell does her best to get to the International Eisteddfod, a dance and music festival which takes place every year during the second week of July in Wales. The festival is also famous for the final Sunday Evening Gala concert which usually has some of the biggest names in opera as guest performers.

    ^“I've seen Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, James Galway and Montserrat Caballe, but no one could ever match Luciano Pavarotti. He was truly breathtaking!''

    Graham Crosby tries to get to as many concerts as possible during the eight-week summer season of the Proms festival every year. The Proms is the largest classical music festival in the world." The atmosphere (氛围)is much more relaxing than that at other classical concerts. In fact, the audience sometimes behave more like rock fans, jumping up and down to the music, which is really exciting."