A new book called “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua has caused a debate (争论) about cultural differences in parenting. Amy Chua is a teacher in an American university and both of her parents are Chinese. In the book, Ms. Chua writes about how she taught her daughters. She told NBC television that she had a clear list of what her daughters were not allowed to do, such as having a play date, watching TV or playing computer games and getting any grade less than an A.

    Many people are against Amy Chua's parenting style (风格), even her husband, who is American. They say it is rude and unfair to children. But she says her parents raised her and her three sisters in that way.

    Ms. Chua says after her younger daughter shouted “I hate my life! I hate you!” she decided to retreat because she was afraid of losing her daughter. But she also says American parents often have low expectations of their children's abilities.

    “The debate is about what it means to be a successful parent and what it means to be a successful child,” said Stacy DeBroff, who has written four books on parenting. She says Amy Chua's parenting style is not limited to Chinese families. It is a traditional way of parenting among immigrants (移民). They hope to get a better future for their children.

    She also sees a risk (风险). When children have no time to be social or to develop their own interests, they might not develop other skills that they need to succeed in life. DeBroff advises parents to develop their own style of parenting and not just repeat the way they were raised.

    Congratulations on having been offered, and accepting, a place to study at Cambridge! This page offers some tips that will hopefully make your arrival at Cambridge as stress-free as possible.

    Before you arrive

    Your College or Department will send you all the information you need to prepare yourself for your time in Cambridge, including College information, for example, accommodation, course information, and similar related details. You will be sent an email asking you to complete the University's Student Registration exercise. It will only take a few minutes.

    Pre-arrival Freshers' Events this summer

    Around the world in August and September, Cambridge Alumni（毕业生）Groups will be hosting pre-arrival Freshers' Events for new students coming to Cambridge this autumn. These events are a great opportunity to prepare for university and make some friends before you arrive. There will be the chance to meet current students and alumni from whom you can get tips and advice for living and studying in Cambridge.

    Arrival and registration

    Most courses start in October. The term between October and December is known as Michaelmas Term in Cambridge. Officially, the first day of the Michaelmas Term is 1 October and this date will be shown on your offer letter. Your College or your Department will advise you about when to arrive. Ceremony activities begin around 1 October for most students. When you arrive in Cambridge, you should go first to your College. They will be glad to know that you have arrived safely and will advise you on what to do next.

    Matriculation

    Matriculation marks the formal admission of a student to membership of the University, and a College may not normally allow an unmatriculatied student to be a resident member of the College. Every freshman for matriculation must agree with the following belief by signing the Matriculation Registration Form:

    I promise to observe the Statutes and Ordinances of the University as far as they concern me, and to pay due respect and obedience to the Chancellor and other officers of the University.

    On a hill 600 feet above the surrounding land, we watch the lines of rain move across the scene, the moon rise over the hills, and the stars appear in the sky. The views invite a long look from a comfortable chair in front of the wooden house.

    Every window in our wooden house has a view, and the forest and lakes seldom look the same as the hour before. Each look reminds us where we are.

    There is space for our three boys to play outside, to shoot arrows, collect tree seeds, build earth houses and climb trees.

    Our kids have learned the names of the trees, and with the names have come familiarity and appreciation. As they tell all who show even a passing interest, maple（枫树）makes the best fighting sticks and white pines are the best climbing trees.

    The air is clean and fresh. The water from the well has a pleasant taste, and it is perhaps the healthiest water our kids will ever drink. Though they have one glass a day of juice and the rest is water, they never say anything against that.

    The seasons change just outside the door. We watch the maples turn every shade of yellow and red in the fall and note the poplars'（杨树）putting out the first green leaves of spring. The rainbow smelt fills the local steam as the ice gradually disappears, and the wood frogs start to sing in pools after being frozen for the winter. A family of birds rules our skies and flies over the lake.

    Robots and humans will soon be living in harmony(和睦).A singing robot is being taught to create jazz with a human in a project.

    Antonio Chella from Italy is working with a Telenoid robot. To start with, the Telenoid will be trained to follow the movements and simple sounds made by a human singer, and to connect music with different emotional states. Chella then plans to see if the robot can use these connections to create music.

    Intelligence is often regarded as the ability to find connections between the existing things. But Chella suggests that a conscious(有意识的) creature should be able to go a step further and introduce new connections that result in the creation of something new.

    Some jazz musicians say that they should have a mental library of musical phrases so that they are able to combine them in new ways. More importantly, however, this combination happens in a state that is similar in a sense to dreaming. Chella wants to copy these states in a machine.

    “This work raises interesting questions about the link between consciousness and music making,” says Philippe Pasquier, a musician and computer scientist. But he is skeptical about whether a robot musician needs a physical body.

    Pasquier argues that the robots are faced with two challenges(挑战). Software that can copy Bach has already been developed. But interpretation（演绎）includes human's different tastes and judgments. “What made the Beatles famous was not so much their works, but the fact that the interpretations of the works were wonderful,” he says.

    It is not yet clear how a robot would go about interpreting music in a new way. But by copying humans and then learning to sing, Chella's robot could provide clues.

    What seems to be important is that human composers often listen to lots of music made by others. So Chella's robot had better listen to those jazz standards first.

    It's common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.

    A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that's 15.4 degrees off to the observer's right­well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, "She's not looking at you." This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person's gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the "Mona Lisa effect" . That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person's gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.

    This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don't cut the gaze of the character to that side­surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn't looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.

    Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars(虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the "Mona Lisa" and realized she wasn't looking at him.

    To make sure it wasn't just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the "Mona Lisa" on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected Mona Lisa's gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa's gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the "Mona Lisa" portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.

    So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn't sure. It's possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term "Mona Lisa effect" just thought it was a cool name.

Dear Students,

    I am delighted to be your guest.

    I would like to tell you about myself. I have been a news reporter for the past fifteen years. I chose this job so I could travel the world, but the job has taught me many unforgettable lessons. The work is sometimes difficult. I have seen famines, wars, earthquakes, poverty and death. But I have also seen courage, hope and happiness.

    In India, I visited a city where there were many homeless children. Some were as young as four years old. They lived in the streets and survived by begging or stealing. But then a wonderful lady called Rosa opened a home for them. Within one year, she was looking after two hundred children. She clothed them, fed them, and taught them. She gave them hope.

    Another time, I was in Turkey after a terrible earthquake, in one place. I found an old lady whose house was in ruins, her son was missing and rescuer workers said there was no chance that he was still alive. But the old lady did not give up hope. For four days, she moved heavy stones one at a time by herself. She did not stop until she found her son. He was alive.

    Here in China, I met a young boy with a serious condition. He had undergone twenty operations and spent nearly his whole life in hospital. I thought he would be sad, but when I met him, his smile was so warm and welcoming.

    In life, we need role models that we can admire and learn from. When my life is difficult, I try to remember the courage and goodness of these three people.