Approved and Prohibited Items

     The following items are approved for use in residential (住宿的) rooms: electric blankets, hair dryers, personal computers, radios, televisions and DVD players. Items that are not allowed in student rooms include: candles, ceiling fans, fireworks, waterbeds, sun lamps and wireless routers. Please note that any prohibited items will be taken away by the Office of Residence Life.

Access to Residential Rooms

     Students are provided with a combination (组合密码) for their room door locks upon check-in. Do not share your room door lock combination with anyone. The Office of Residence Life may change the door lock combination at any time at the expense of the resident if it is found that the student has shared the combination with others. The fee is $25 to change a room combination.

Cooking Policy

     Students living in buildings that have kitchens are only permitted to cook in the kitchen. Students must clean up after cooking. This is not the responsibility of housekeeping staff. Kitchens that are not kept clean may be closed for use. With the exception of using a small microwave oven (微波炉) to heat food, students are not permitted to cook in their rooms.

Pet Policy

    No pets except fish are permitted in student rooms. Students who are found with pets, whether visiting or owned by the student, are subject to an initial fine of $100 and a continuing fine of $50 a day per pet. Students receive written notice when the fine goes into effect. If, one week from the date of written notice, the pet is not removed, the student is referred to the Student Court.

Quiet Hours

     Residential buildings must maintain an atmosphere that supports the academic mission of the University. Minimum quiet hours in all campus residences are 11:00 pm to 8:00 am Sunday through Thursday. Quiet hours on Friday and Saturday nights are 1:00 am to 8:00 am. Students who violate quiet hours are subject to a fine of $25.

    One day, Mr. Arnold was teaching a lesson, and things were going as normally as ever. He was explaining the story of human being to his pupils. He told them that, in the beginning, men were nomads (游牧); they never stayed in the same place for very long. Instead, they would travel about, here and there, in search of food, wherever it was to be found. And when the food ran out, they would move off somewhere else.

    He taught them about the invention of farming and keeping animals. This was an important discovery, because by learning to cultivate (耕作) the land, and care for animals, mankind would always have food steadily. It also meant that people could remain living in one place, and this made it easier to set about tasks that would take a long while to finish, like building towns, cities, and all that were in them. All the children were listening attracted by this story, until Lucy jumped up:

    “And if that was so important and improved everything so much, why are we nomads all over again, Mr. Arnold?”

    Mr. Arnold didn't know what to say. Lucy was a very clever girl. He knew that she lived with her parents in a house, so she must know that her family were not nomads; so what did she mean?

    “We have all become nomads again,” continued Lucy, “The other day, outside the city, they were cutting the forest down. A while ago a fisherman told me how they fish. It's the same with everyone: when there's no more forest left the foresters go elsewhere, and when the fish run out the fishermen move on. That's what the nomads did, isn't it?

    The teacher nodded, thoughtfully. Really, Lucy was right. Mankind had turned into nomads. Instead of looking after the land in a way that we could be sure it would keep supplying our needs, we kept developing it until the land was bare. And then off we would go to the next place! The class spent the rest of the afternoon talking about what they could do to show how to be more civilized (文明的).

    The next day everyone attended class wearing a green T-shirt, with a message that said “I am not a nomad!”

    And, from then on, they set about showing that indeed they were not. Every time they knew they needed something, they made sure that they would get it using care and control. If they needed wood or paper, they would make sure that they got the recycled kind. They ordered their fish from fish farms, making sure that the fish they received were not too young and too small. They only used animals that were well cared for, and brought up on farms.

    And so, from their little town, those children managed to give up being nomads again, just as prehistoric men had done, so many thousands of years ago.

    When we think someone is smart，we say they have a big brain．But are there any facts to prove that statement？

    Yes! In a new study done by Michael McDaniel, a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University，bigger does mean smarter. "For all ages and sex groups，"he says，"it is now very clear that intelligence has something to do with brain volume（容量）．"

    McDaniel reached his conclusion after measuring the size and volume of 26 brains with the help of some instruments. He then used standard IQ tests to measure the intelligence of the owners of these brains.

    But do IQ tests really reveal intelligence？McDaniel believes that they do，and here are other studies to backup that point of view．One study last year found that IQ is related to the amount and distribution（分布） of gray matter in the brain．The study showed that the amount of gray matter in certain places was strongly related to high IQ．The distribution of gray matter in the brain，which is different for different people，could explain why one person with a high IQ is good at math but poor at spelling，while someone else with the same IQ has just the opposite ability．

    Yet another recent study found that women have more gray matter（compared with white matter） than men！However，the study also showed that in the areas of the brain specifically（特别地） related to intelligence，men had much more gray matter，which is needed for some tasks，such as doing a math problem. Women, on the other hand, had more white matter, which is necessary for collecting information．And the point is that intelligence can be influenced in different ways．

    "On average，"McDaniel says，"smarter people learn more quickly，make fewer mistakes，and are more productive．"He believes in the use of IQ tests to examine those who want to find a job. So, be well, do good work, and…exercise that brain!

    A new report says living in a city makes it harder for people to concentrate(集中) on some tasks. The research found that people who live in rural areas can focus better than people in urban areas. The study is from Goldsmiths College, which is part of the University of London. Head researcher Dr. Karina Linnell and her team made great contributions. They studied how two groups of people did the same "thinking tasks". The team went to a remote(偏远的) part of Namibia, southwest Africa, to study the Himba tribe. Himba people live a very basic life in the desert. They are still doing traditional farming. The team also studied members of the same tribe who had moved to the nearest town. Dr. Linnell said the tribe who lived in the desert did much better on the tests than those in the town. It's really interesting and shocking.

    Dr. Linnell said their research may lead to changes in the way companies operate. In the future, workers may move from cities to live and work in the countryside. Linnell said there are too many things around us in the city that stop us from thinking about one thing for a long time. This means we do not work at our best. She asked, "What if, for example, companies realized certain tasks would be better carried out by employees based outside of the urban environment? There their concentration ability is better. "The past century has seen billions of people move from the countryside to big cities. In the future, the trend may not continue. If Dr. Linnell's research is true, this century might see many of those people return to the great outdoors. Let's wait to see what will happen.

    Why don't quiet carriages work, and how might they be make to? Quiet carriages on trains are a nice idea: travelers voluntarily make their phones silent, turn stereos off and keep chatter to a minimum. However, in reality, there is usually at least one silly babbler (喋喋不休的人) to break the silence.

    A couple of problems prevent peaceful trips. First, there is a sorting problem: some passengers end up in the quiet carriage by accident and are not aware of the rules. Second, there is a commitment problem: noise is sometimes made by travelers who choose the quiet carriage but find an important call hard to ignore.

    The train operators are trying to find answers. Trains in Queensland Australia, are having permanent signs added to show exactly what is expected; a British operator has invested in some technology to prevent phone calls.

    Microeconomics suggests another approach. Fining people for making a noise would surely dissuade (劝阻) the polluter and is a neat solution in theory, but it requires costly monitoring and enforcement. Another way would be to use prices to separate quiet and noisy passengers—in effect, creating a market for silence. A simple idea would be to sell access to the quiet carriage as an optional extra when the ticket is bought. Making the quiet coach both an active choice and a costly one would dissuade many of those who don't value a peaceful ride.

    Charging may also solve the commitment problem. This is particularly tricky, as attitudes to noise can change during the journey. Some passengers would pay the quiet premium but still chatter away when some vital news arrives. Schemes that reward the silent—a rating system among fellow passengers, for example—could help. The idea is that losing your hard-won reputation offsets the short-term gain from using the phone. But such a system also fails the simplicity test.

    A 2010 book by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton argues that "norms"—feelings about how everyone should behave—also play a role in decision-making. Charging a price, even if just a token amount, means the quiet carriage becomes a service that fellow passengers have bought, not just a preference they have expressed. Perhaps different norms would come into play, encouraging calm. If not, a personal bubble is always an option: noise-canceling headphones start at around $50.

    Garbage sorting has become a hot issue around China, especially after Shanghai began carrying out a regulation on July 1.

    Beijing, as a forerunner in environmental protection, has thus been expected to follow suit. The capital of the country has long been campaigning for sorting and recycling household waste, as part of its environmental drive for sustainable growth, local media reported.

    The current regulation gives garbage sorting responsibilities to government departments, property management groups and other organizations. It also gives rules for companies, outlining how they're responsible for waste collection, transportation and treatment. Only individuals are not subject to responsibilities.

    The long-awaited revision will soon change the situation, "Taking out the trash without sorting it properly will be illegal," said Sun Xinjun, director of the Beijing Commission of Urban Management. In Shanghai, violators are now fined up to 200 yuan ($30)for trash-sorting violations. The maximum fine in Beijing will not be less than that, he said.

    The Beijing city government first set out to promote garbage sorting in 2009. Authorities have since called on citizens to sort their household waste into four types-recyclable waste, kitchen trash, dangerous waste and others-and leave it in a corresponding dustbin or trash can. Blue-colored dustbins signify items within are recyclable, green represents kitchen trash, red corresponds to dangerous materials and grey to other waste.

    To promote the awareness of garbage sorting and expand the base of participants, authorities have employed workers to help residents on the spot. With intelligent devices, those who throw in recyclable waste at given sites will be rewarded with bonus points, which can be used to buy daily goods. At some communities, there are no color-coded dustbins. Instead, a scheduled garbage collection service is offered to help improve the environment. In other communities, workers offer a door-to-door service to collect recyclables or kitchen waste.

    Beijing Environmental Sanitation Engineering Group has been promoting new garbage sorting facilities such as recycling cabinets and smart kitchen waste trash cans since 2016, Xinhua News Agency reported. Nearly 26,000 metric tons of household waste is generated across Beijing on a daily basis and 29 terminal garbage disposal facilities are working at full capacity. Nearly 9.3 million tons of household waste was processed in the city last year.