If you don't think technology can improve your trip better, meet Judy. When she recently checked into the Biu Hotel in Zurich, a clerk asked her to pay hundreds of dollars higher than the online offer. It was not a cheap stay, but it became more of one after she fired up the Booking. Com app she'd used to purchase her room on her smartphone. “As soon as I showed him the rate, he honored it,” Judy says.

    Technology may create challenges for travelers-indeed, it may have led to Judy's rate confusion in the first place-but it can also solve them. The solutions go beyond making sure of a hotel rate. The latest version of Booking.com is among the most feature-rich booking programs. Users can select hotels by location, make a secure booking and view the confirmed rate.

    Another pain point for travelers is traffic that eats away precious vacation time. There's a new app for that, called Commute. As the name implies, it's aimed at users who have to make the same trip every day. Just input basic information about your destination and expected leaving time, and the app will start sending you traffic data 15 minutes before you leave.

    Another source of travel-related conflict and confusion is money. That's particularly true when you're dealing with a foreign currency. The latest version of Travel Money Tracker helps travelers prevent currency mix-ups. It instantly converts(兑换) a country's native currency to yours, so you know exactly how much that Espresso(浓咖啡) in Milan costs in dollars. One extra feature is the ability to set up an alert that tells you when you're overspending, which can sometimes be a problem when you're on vacation. The only catch, of course, is that you have to remember to record all your purchases.

    Dec.11 marked the 15th anniversary of China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). On that day in 2001, China formally became a member of the WTO. Now the country has grown into the world's second-largest economy and the largest trading country, while millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty. And 15 years on, it's evident that being a WTO member has transformed the nation's everyday lives for the better.

    Imports are now a common sight in Chinese stores and supermarkets, while they were previously rarely seen on shelves. The Chinese now have access to many imports varying from luxury goods like high-end cars and famous brand watches, to daily necessities. China's WTO membership has also made imports less expensive for the Chinese public.

    For instance, since 2005, no tariffs (关税) have been imposed (施加) on Chinese imports of digital cameras and other devices.

    Our education industry has also benefited from China's WTO membership. Many top global universities have joined forces with Chinese ones to establish cooperative education institutions, bringing foreign teaching concepts to Chinese students. For example, New York University Shanghai was jointly founded by New York University and East China Normal University. In addition, an increasing number of Chinese students are furthering their studies abroad, while many foreign students are coming to China to carry out their higher education. According to the Ministry of Education, 523,700 students studied overseas last year, and the number is expected to keep growing this year.

    China's WTO entry has brought benefit not only to the country's people, but also for the rest of the world.

    There are good reasons to value our friendships.Some years ago a public-opinion research firm,Roper Starch Worldwide,asked 2007 people to name one or two things that said the most about themselves.Friends far outranked homes jobs, clothes and cars.

    “Ironically,” says Brant R.Burleson, professor of communication at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., “the better friends you are, the more likely you'll face conflicts.” And the outcome can be what you don't want—an end to the relationship.

    The good news is that most troubled friendships can be mended.

    Swallow your pride. It wasn't easy, but that's what Denise Moreland of Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii did when a friendship turned sour.For nearly four months,Moreland,45,had watched over Nora Huizenga's two young daughters, who were living with their father on the base,while Huizenga,40,completed training as a dental hygienist in Nevada.“I felt honored to be asked to step in,” Moreland says.

    “When Huizenga returned at Christmas,” Moreland recalls,“I had so much to tell her, but she never called.”

    One daughter had a birthday party, but Moreland wasn't invited. “I felt like I'd been used,” she says.At first, Moreland swore to avoid Huizenga.Then she decided to swallow her pride and let her friend know how she felt. Huizenga admitted that she'd been so worried about being separated from her family that she'd been blind to what her friend had done to help her. Today she says, “I would never have figured out what happened if Denise hadn't called me on it.”

    When a friend hurts you, your instinct is to protect yourself.But that makes it harder to solve problems,explains William Wilmot,author of Relational Communication.“Most of us are relieved when differences are brought out in the open.”

    Apologize when you're wrong—even if you've also been wronged.But over the course of a friendship, even the best people make mistakes. “We don't think clearly when we're arguing,” says Michael Lang,a professional mediator (调解人) in Pittsburgh. Instead, says Lang, ask: “What's going on? This doesn't make sense.”

    See things from your friend's point of view. Sociologists Rebecca Adams Rosemary and Blieszner interviewed 53 adults who each had many friendships lasting decades. “We were curious how these people managed to sustain strong friendships for so long,” says Blieszner. Tolerance is key, the researchers learned.” It's surprising how often a dispute results from a simple misunderstanding,” adds psychotherapist Anne Frenkel.

    Accept that friendships change. “Friendships change as our needs and lifestyles change,” Wilmot observes.

    Making friends can sometimes seem easy,says Yager.The hard part is keeping the connections strong during the natural ups and downs that affect all relationships.Her suggestion: Consider friendship an honor and a gift,and worth the effort to treasure and nurture.

    Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of parental involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.

    The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting where schools expect them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.

    Keith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was their parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the tasks."They may either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice.

    Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically insignificant.

    Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved parents", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success. "A big surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

    Mid-afternoon on a particularly busy Tuesday, I took leave of my desk at work and walked into a local Starbucks only to find a space where neither my clients nor my children would ask me to do something.

    Inside, I ran into Kate, a co-worker of mine. The topic of parenthood came up. I complained about how packed my schedule was. From the minute I woke up to the minute I fell asleep, I was constantly in demand and always had someone knocking at the door. But a bit of sadness seemed to come over Kate's face.

    "Well, my daughter's in San Francisco and she doesn't seem to need me at all these days," Kate said. It was in that moment that I realized although I might often feel in high demand, there will come a day when I will actually miss that same stress I then complained about.

    And as our conversation continued, it turned to our children's younger years, with Kate smiling proudly, thinking of the little boy and girl she raised who are now a man and a woman. But I noticed her smile was marked with regret. She explained that she often wondered about what she could have done differently when her children were in their earlier years.

    This got me thinking. Is regret an unfortunate footnote (注脚) to parenthood? With that in mind, I asked six older parents one question: What is your biggest regret from your early days as a parent?

    It turned out that all of them thought they could have done it better. But, each of them also has a strong, healthy relationship with their kids. Whatever regrets their parents might have had about their upbringing, one thing is clear —— it didn't affect them in a meaningful way.

    The bottom line is, we all feel like we could be doing this parenting thing better. And quite clearly, years later, we're still going to look back and wish we tried things differently. But the past can't be changed, and neither should it.

    Why are people interested in eating raw foods or whole foods? One reason is that eating these types of food reduces the risk of acid accumulation in your body.

    Raw and whole foods are usually digested more efficiently than cooked and refined foods. When we cook foods, we destroy the natural enzymes (酶) that are part of the food in its raw form. These enzymes were intended by nature to help us digest the food. When we consume food without these natural enzymes, our bodies either digest the food improperly or allow too many nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream. In both instances, the result is obesity. When too many nutrients are absorbed at once, the body grows fat. Improperly digested food moves slowly through the digestive tract, where it becomes increasingly acidic. To protect its vital organs from this acidic waste, the body changes the acid into fat and stores it safely away from the organs.

    Processed foods contain chemical elements, which might confuse the appetite mechanism that tells us when we've had enough to eat; as a result, people often overeat. Processed foods also upset the digestive cycle. The body will either identify these foods as allergens and then store them safely away from the organs as fat, or the remains of undigested food will become acidic and enter the bloodstream as acid waste, which will stick to the blood vessel walls and block the passage of vital oxygen and nutrients heading for the body's cells. The body's metabolism (新陈代谢) becomes inactive, and the result is weight gain and obesity.

    The accumulation of acid in the digestive tract makes digestion increasingly inefficient. When that happens, even healthy foods can become acidic and the food allergies will become more common.

    To stop this vicious circle in its tracks, people need to consume food and supplements that will neutralize the acid already accumulated in body. Eating the right types of raw and whole foods can help. It's also important to restore your enzyme balance. You need to identify and avoid the foods that cause acid accumulation and consume the foods that increase enzyme production. If you truly want to change and help your body heal itself, you need to take an active approach.