Surfing the Internet for fun will make you a better employee, according to an Australian study.

    The University of Melbourne study shows that people who use the Internet for their own reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive(具有创造性的) than those who do not. Study author Brent Coker said, “Surfing the Internet at times helps increase workers' attention.”

    “People need to relax for a bit to get back their attention,” Coker said on the university's website. “Having a short break, such as a quick surfing of the Internet, helps the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total Internet attention for a day's work, and as a result, increases productivity (生产效率),” he said.

    According to the study of 300 workers, 70 percent of people who use the Internet at work surf the Internet for their own reasons during office hours. Among the most popular surfing activities are searching for information about products, reading online news, playing online games and watching videos. “Firms spend a lot of money on software to block their workers from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online,” said Coker. “That's not always a good idea.”

    However, Coker said the study looked at people who surfed the Internet in moderation(适度), or were on the Internet for less than 20 percent of their total time in the office. “Those who spend too much time surfing the Internet will have a lower productivity than those without.” he said.

    In the professional or career world, a gap year is when one stops their formal work life to pursue other interests. However, today gap year refers mostly to a year taken between high school and college.

    During this gap year, American students engage in advanced academic courses, extra-academic courses and non-academic courses, such as yearlong pre-college math courses, language studies, learning a trade, art studies, volunteer work, travel, internships(实习), sports and more.

    British and European students, however, take a much more vacation style approach to the “Gap Year” by generally working for 3-6 months and then traveling throughout the globe for the remaining time before college begins. This is intended to expand the mind, personal confidence, experiences, and interests before college.

    Let's look at the gap year in the following countries:

Denmark

    Denmark has tried to limit the number of students who take a year out, punishing students who delay their education to travel abroad or work full-time. In 2015, it was announced that fewer students than before had taken a year out.

India

    In India, the practice of taking time out after high school education, popularly called a drop year, has been on a quick rise in recent years, primarily students deciding to enroll in coaching institutions to prepare themselves for rigorous(严格的)college entrance examinations. However, using that year for travel is still not common.

Republic of Korea

     In republic of Korea, gap year is defined as time for the youth to think about directions of their lives by going through gap year programs such as voluntary activity, career exploration, education, having a relationship, internship and enterprise while he/she pauses studying.

United Kingdom

    In the United Kingdom a year out is a common choice before university, again to travel or volunteer, gaining life experience. All universities seem to welcome gap year applicants, no different from going straight to university from previous education.

    Computers have beaten human world champions at chess and, earlier this year, the board game Go(围棋). So far, though, they have struggled at the card table. So we challenged one AI(artificial intelligence) to a game.

Why is poker so difficult? Chess and Go are “information complete” games where all players can see all the relevant information. In poker, other players' cards are hidden, making it an “information incomplete” game. Players have to guess opponents' hands from their actions—-tricky for computers. Solving poker could lead to many breakthroughs, from cyber security to driverless cars.

    Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before AI once again vanquishes humans, so our human-machine match comes up in a game of Texas Hold's Em Limit Poker. The AI was developed by Johannes Heinrich, a researcher studying machine learning at UCL. It combines two techniques: neural(神经的)networks and reinforcement learning(强化学习).

    Neural networks, to some degree, copy the structure of human brains: their processors are highly interconnected and work at the same time to solve problems. They are good at spotting patterns in huge amounts of data. Reinforcement learning is when a machine, given a task, carries it out, learning from mistakes it makes. In this case, it means playing poker against itself billions of times to get better.

    Mr Heinrich told Sky News: “Today we are presenting a new procedure that has learned in a different way, more similar to how humans learn. In particular, it is able to learn abstract patterns, represented by its neural network, which allow it to deal with new and unseen situations.”

    After two hours of quite defensive play, from the computer at least, we called it a draw.

    Electronic book publishing has many of the same risks and opportunities as electronic music publishing. By delivering text direct to the reader's computer screen, the e-book could cut down costs, and allow creators to deal directly with their audience, by passing (绕开) traditional publishers and traders. But it also raises the possibility of mass piracy (盗版). Phil Rance, founder and managing director of Online Originals, a London-based e-book publisher, sums it up, "No one wants Napster (在线音乐服务) to happen to books."

    Indeed, the most popular MP3may have put the frighteners on an industry that generally operates some way behind the "bleeding edge". The Meta Group, a leading US-based market researcher, says publishers are far too concerned about protecting their rights, "We believe all the recent legal control over Napster is like putting a finger in a river that is already overflowing. Publishers need to deal with reality and come up with new ways to develop wide electronic distribution, asking the question: How can we use the certainty of wide distribution to our advantage."

    At the moment, most publishers would like to limit the use of e-books to the person who bought them, or to the computer used to download them. If that can be done, e-books become just an extra income stream in a publishing industry that would continue to operate the way it does today, according to Terry Robinson, business manager for Adobe's e-paper group. "If you've cracked the digital rights aspect, you've cracked the market." He says.

    Robert Nichols, Books Director at BOL agrees, "Rights management is absolutely important. Publishers just say that 'until copyright is secure, we are not going to talk'."

Comparing college entrance exams, there are different needs for admission. The national college entrance examination, or gaokao, is known as the most competitive test for Chinese students. Do students in other countries also need to take a standardized test to get into university?

South Korea holds the College Scholastic Ability Test（CSAT） in November each year. The CSAT plays an important role in the country's education. On test day, bus and subway frequency increases to make sure that students can get to the test sites in time.

Japan is trying to reform its standardized national college entrance exam. In January 2022, Common Test for University Admissions took the place of the National Center Test for University Admissions, which had been adopted since 1990. The new exam aims to put emphasis on the ability of students to discover and solve problems by themselves.

The American College Test（ACT） and Scholastic Assessment Test（SAT） are the two main college entrance exams taken by students in the US. While SAT tests a student's ability to learn, the ACT tests a student's educational development. Both tests normally take place seven times throughout the year. Students can retake the exams for a better score.

In the UK, there's no standardized test for college admission. Instead, each college has their own admission criteria. These criteria often onlyinclude submission of transcripts（成绩单） and participation in an interview. Yet, there are subject-specific exams used by some colleges.