CUỐN 12 TEST 1

In public discussion of business, we take certain values for granted. Today I’m going to talk about four of them: collaboration, hard work, creativity and excellence. Most people would say they’re all ‘good things’. I’m going to suggest that’s an over-simple view.

The trouble with these values is that they’re theoretical concepts, removed from the reality of day-to-day business. Pursue values by all means, but be prepared for what may happen as a result. They can actually cause damage, which is not at all the intention. (Q31)

Business leaders generally try to do the right thing. But all too often the right thing backfires, if those leaders adopt values without understanding and managing the side effects that arise (Q32). The values can easily get in the way of what’s actually intended.

OK. So the first value I’m going to discuss is collaboration. Er, let me give you an example. On a management training course I once attended, we were put into groups and had to construct a bridge across a stream (Q33), using building blocks that we were given. The rule was that everyone in the team had to move at least one building block during the construction. This was intended to encourage teamwork.

But it was really a job best done by one person. The other teams tried to collaborate on building the structure, and descended into confusion (Q34), with everyone getting in each other’s way. Our team leader solved the challenge brilliantly. She simply asked everyone in the team to move a piece a few centimetres, to comply with the rule, and then let the person in the team with an aptitude for puzzles like this build it alone. We finished before any other team. My point is that the task wasn’t really suited to teamworking, so why make it one?

Teamwork can also lead to inconsistency – a common cause of poor sales. In the case of a smartphone that a certain company launched, one director wanted to target the business market, and another demanded it was aimed at consumers. The company wanted both directors to be involved, so gave the product a consumer-friendly name, but marketed it to companies. The result was that it met the needs of neither group. It would have been better to let one director or the other have his way, not both. (Q35)

Now industriousness, or hard work. It’s easy to mock people who say they work hard: after all, a hamster running around in a wheel is working hard – and getting nowhere. Of course hard work is valuable, but only when properly targeted. Otherwise it wastes the resources that companies value most – time and energy. And that’s bad for the organisation. (Q36)

There’s a management model that groups people according to four criteria: clever, hard-working, stupid and lazy. Here ‘lazy’ means having a rational determination not to carry out unnecessary tasks (Q37). It doesn’t mean trying to avoid work altogether. Most people display two of these characteristics, and the most valuable people are those who are both clever and lazy: they possess intellectual clarity, and they don’t rush into making decisions. They come up with solutions to save the time and energy spent by the stupid and hard-working group. Instead of throwing more man-hours at a problem, the clever and lazy group looks for a more effective solution.

Next we come to creativity. This often works well – creating an attention-grabbing TV commercial, for example, might lead to increased sales. But it isn’t always a good thing. Some advertising campaigns are remembered for their creativity, without having any effect on sales. This happened a few years ago with the launch of a chocolate bar: subsequent research showed that plenty of consumers remembered the adverts, but had no idea what was being advertised (Q38). The trouble is that the creator derives pleasure from coming up with the idea, and wrongly assumes the audience for the campaign will share that feeling.

A company that brings out thousands of new products may seem more creative than a company that only has a few, but it may be too creative, and make smaller profits. Creativity needs to be targeted, to solve a problem that the company has identified (Q39). Just coming up with more and more novel products isn’t necessarily a good thing.

And finally, excellence. We all know companies that claim they ‘strive for excellence’, but it takes a long time to achieve excellence. In business, being first with a product is more profitable than having the best product. A major study of company performance compared pioneers – that is, companies bringing out the first version of a particular product – with followers, the companies that copied and improved on that product. The study found that the pioneers commanded an average market share of 29 percent, while the followers achieved less than half that, only 13 percent (Q40) – even though their product might have been better.

Insisting on excellence in everything we do is time-consuming, wastes energy and leads to losing out on opportunities. Sometimes, second-rate work is more worthwhile than excellence. ‘Make sure it’s excellent’ sounds like a good approach to business, but the ‘just-get-started’ approach is likely to be more successful.

 CUỐN 12 TEST 2

Over the years, attitudes towards workers have changed considerably. After all, there was a time when workers had no rights at all, and laboured in appalling conditions. Conditions have improved a lot, but conflict in the workplace is still common. And human resources managers nowadays need to be able to deal with it when necessary.

What is conflict in the workplace? Definitions vary, but I’m taking it to refer to a whole range of behaviours that the victim finds unacceptable, from minor, harmless arguments to – at the opposite extreme – physical violence. Much of this is covered by the term bullying (Q31), by which I mean one or more people behaving abusively or aggressively against another who is in a weaker position. Although all behaviour like this is a form of conflict, not all conflict can be described in these terms.

As with all human behaviour, there are numerous reasons for it. But often it’s caused by someone who feels the need to show their superiority over someone else (Q32), in order to feel that they aren’t at the lowest level in a hierarchy or a group of people.

In some cases one person simply dislikes the other, on the basis that the personality of one is in some way incompatible with that of the other person (Q33). A general habit of optimism in one person could make them intolerant of a colleague who’s constantly pessimistic – not that that justifies treating them badly, of course.

Some conflicts arise when people are more interested in promoting themselves and their team than in the company as a whole. These conflicts are called ‘structural’ (Q34), and could come about, for example, when a sales team believe they are the only people in the business who do any useful work, and look down on behind-the-scenes administrators.

Conflict obviously affects the individuals concerned – the situation is likely to be very stressful for victims, resulting in their absence from work, possibly for months (Q35). For the company, if no effort is made to deal with conflict, it can spiral out of control, and even lead to the breakdown of the business.

Some interesting work with chief executives – CEOs – has uncovered some of the reasons why they may treat colleagues badly. Many CEOs combine two opposing characteristics: confidence – that is, the belief that they’re capable of great achievements – with a high level of anxiety (Q36), a fear of missing targets, whether set by themselves or by the directors of the company. This combination can make them respond badly to anyone who questions their decisions.

In a high pressure work environment, such characteristics become problematic. And it’s particularly difficult to tackle the situation where colleagues, managers and board members are all trying to achieve their own visions. When they can’t agree on strategic issues and on where they see the business going, there are real problems. (Q37)

For managers at lower levels within the organisation, it might seem that an autocratic form of management – where the chief executive gives orders and everyone else has to obey – would see more conflict than others. Interestingly, though, a company with a more democratic business model, can suffer more, when uncertainly about who to report to leads to conflicting demands. (Q38)

Now I’ll say a little about dealing with the type of conflict that has harmful effects. Of course the ideal is to prevent it arising in the first place. A good manager, at any level, will make efforts to earn the respect of the people they work with (Q39), particularly those who report to them. That will involve politeness in all communications, and treating them as equals who happen to have a different role within the organisation.

Sometimes, of course, conflict does occur, and can get out of hand. In such cases the human resources department often gets involved. However, if one of the parties in a conflict sees human resources as simply a mouthpiece for the chief executive, then an external mediator might be able to help (Q40). By talking to both sides, and trying to find the truth of what’s been happening, they can build a clear picture of the situation, and give feedback that both sides will accept, precisely because they’re independent.

CUỐN 12 TEST 3

OK, so we’ve been looking at how man-made changes in our environment can affect wildlife. Now I’ll discuss a particular example. Let’s take a look at mercury. Mercury’s one of the 120 or so elements that make up all matter, and it has the symbol Hg. It’s a shiny, silvery substance. You may have seen it in old-fashioned thermometers, but it’s not used much for domestic purposes now because it’s highly toxic.

But the problem is that the amount of mercury in the environment’s increasing. The main reason for this is the power plants used to produce electricity. The main source of energy that most of them use is still coal, and when it’s burned it releases mercury into the atmosphere. Some of this gets deposited into lakes and rivers, and if it’s ingested by a fish it’s not excreted, it stays in the fish’s body and it enters the food chain. So it’s been known for some time that birds which eat fish may be affected, but what wasn’t known until quite recently is that those that eat insects can also be affected. (Q31)

So a woman called Claire Varian-Ramos is doing some research on how this is affecting birds.

And rather than looking at how many birds are actually killed by mercury poisoning, she’s looking for more subtle sub-effects. And these may be to do with the behaviour of the birds, or with the effect of mercury on the way their brain works, so whether it leads to problems with memory, for example (Q32). And she’s particularly focusing on the effects of mercury on bird song. Now, the process of song learning happens at a particular stage in the birds’ development, and what you may not know is that a young bird seems to acquire this skill by listening to the songs produced by its father (Q33), rather than by any other bird.

And Varian-Ramos has already found in her research that if young male birds are exposed to mercury, if they eat food contaminated with mercury, then the songs they produce aren’t as complex as those produced by other birds (Q34). So quite low-level exposure to mercury is likely to have an impact on male birds in a natural situation, because it can mean that they’re less attractive to female birds, and so it can affect their chances of reproduction. (Q35)

Now the way she’s carrying out this research is worth thinking about. She’s using a mixture of studies using birds kept in laboratories, and studies carried out outdoors in the wild. The lab-based studies have the advantage that you don’t get all the variables you would in a natural setting, so the experimenter has a much higher level of control (Q36), and that means they can be more confident about their results in some ways. And of course they don’t have to worry about going out and finding the birds in order to observe them.

So what are the implications here for humans? Well, because many birds are migratory, they may be transporting mercury far from contaminated sites. For example, it’s been found that ducks who’d been feeding at a contaminated site were later shot by hunters over a thousand kilometres away, and presumably eaten (Q37). But these birds likely had mercury levels high enough to warrant concern for human consumption.

In addition, going back to song learning by birds, we saw that this may be affected by mercury contamination. Well, we also know that in humans, mercury causes developmental delays in the acquisition of language (Q38), and in fact this process is very similar in the brain regions it involves and even the genes that are involved. But mercury contamination has other important implication for humans as well. It’s now known that an unborn child can be affected if the food eaten by its mother contains high levels of mercury (Q39), and these effects can be quite substantial.

In the end, it comes down to whether more value is placed on human economic wellbeing or environmental wellbeing. It’s true there are new regulations for mercury emissions from power plants, but these will need billions of dollars to implement, and increase costs for everyone (Q40). Some argue that’s too much to pay to protect wildlife. But as we’ve seen, the issues go beyond that, and I think it’s an issue we need to consider very carefully.

CUỐN 12 TEST 4

This lecture will be about the science of acoustics, the study of sound, in relation to urban environments such as cities. As an acoustic engineer myself, I think this is an area where we’re likely to see great changes. In the past, researching urban soundscapes was simple. We measured levels of sound in decibels, so I used to take my sound meter and I measured the noise somewhere, and then I might ask a sample of people to say at what level the sound became annoying.

With data like this, acoustic engineers have been able to build up what we call noise maps, maps of the sound environment. But actually these aren’t a lot of use. What they do show is that the highest noise levels are generally on roads – well, that’s not really very surprising. But there’s quite a lot going on that these maps don’t show, because they can’t capture the complex way that sound varies over time. So they ignore important issues such as the noise someone might hear from the open windows or gardens of their neighbours (Q31), and this sort of noise can be quite significant in summer. We don’t have any databases on this sort of information. As well as that, these records of sound levels take no account of the fact that people vary in their perceptions of noise – so someone like me with years of working in acoustics might be very different from you in that regard.

But anyway, even though these noise maps are fairly crude, they’ve been useful in providing information and raising awareness that noise matters, we need to deal with it and so it’s a political matter (Q32). And that’s important – we need rules and regulation because noise can cause all sorts of problems.

Those of you who are city-dwellers know that things go on 24 hours a day, so city-dwellers often suffer from interrupted sleep. It’s also known that noise can lead to a rise in levels of stress, due to physical changes in the body affecting the composition of the blood. And there are other problems as well, for instance if schoolchildren don’t have a quiet place to study, their work will suffer. (Q33)

Now, one problem with decibel measurement is that it doesn’t differentiate between different types of noise. Some types of sounds that most people would probably think of as nice and relaxing might well score quite highly in decibel levels – think of the sound made by a fountain in a town square, for example (Q34). That’s not necessarily something that we’d want to control or reduce. So maybe researchers should consider these sorts of sounds in urban design. This is going to be tricky because just measuring decibel levels isn’t going to help us here. Instead, many researchers are using social science techniques, studying people’s emotional response to sound by using questionnaires and so on. (Q35)

So what exactly do people want to hear in an urban environment? Some recent interdisciplinary research has come out with results that at first sight seem contradictory – a city needs to have a sense of activity, so it needs to be lively, with sounds like the clack of high heels on a pavement or the hiss of a coffee machine, but these mustn’t be too intrusive, because at the same time we need to be able to relax. (Q36)

One of the major problems in achieving this will be getting architects and town planners to use the research. Apart from studying the basics of acoustics, these people receive very little training in this area (Q37). But in fact they should be regarding sound as an opportunity to add to the experience of urban living, whereas at present they tend to see it as something to be avoided or reduced as far as possible, or something that’s just a job for engineers like the street drainage system.

 What’s needed is for noise in cities to be regarded as an aesthetic quality, as something that has the qualities of an art form. If we acknowledge this, then we urgently need to know what governs it and how designers can work with it. We need to develop a complex understanding of many factors. What is the relationship between sound and culture? (Q38) What can we learn from disciplines such as psychology about the way that sound interacts with human development and social relationships, and the way that sound affects our thought and feelings? Can we learn anything from physics about the nature of sound itself? (Q39)

Today’s powerful technologies can also help us. To show us their ideas and help us to imagine the effect their buildings will have, architects and town planners already use virtual reality – but these programs are silent (Q40). In the future such programs could use realistic sounds, meaning that soundscapes could be explored before being built. So hopefully, using the best technology we can lay our hands on, the city of the future will be a pleasure to the ears as well as the eyes.

CUỐN 13 TEST 1

Hi. Today we’re going to be looking at animals in urban environments and I’m going to be telling you about some research on how they’re affected by these environments.

Now, in evolutionary terms, urban environments represent huge upheavals, the sorts of massive changes that usually happen over millions of years. And we used to think that only a few species could adapt to this new environment. One species which is well known as being highly adaptable is the crow, and there’ve been various studies about how they manage to learn new skills (Q31). Another successful species is the pigeon, because they’re able to perch on ledges on the walls of city buildings, just like they once perched on cliffs by the sea. (Q32).

But in fact, we’re now finding that these early immigrants were just the start of a more general movement of animals into cities, and of adaptation by these animals to city life. And one thing that researchers are finding especially interesting is the speed with which they’re doing this – we’re not talking about gradual evolution here – these animals are changing fast. (Q33)

Let me tell you about some of the studies that have been carried out in this area. So, in the University of Minnesota, a biologist called Emilie Snell-Rood and her colleagues looked at specimens of urbanised small mammals such as mice and gophers that had been collected in Minnesota, and that are now kept in museums there. And she looked at specimens that had been collected over the last hundred years, which is a very short time in evolutionary terms. And she found that during that time, these small mammals had experienced a jump in brain size when compared to rural mammals (Q34). Now, we can’t be sure this means they’re more intelligent, but since the sizes of other parts of the body didn’t change, it does suggest that something cognitive was going on. And Snell-Rood thinks that this change might reflect the cognitive demands of adjusting to city life – having to look in different places to find food, for example, and coping with a whole new set of dangers. (Q35)

Then over in Germany at the Max Planck Institute, there’s another biologist called Catarina Miranda who’s done some experiments with blackbirds living in urban and rural areas. And she’s been looking not at their anatomy but at their behaviour (Q36). So as you might expect, she’s found that the urban blackbirds tend to be quite bold – they’re prepared to face up to a lot of threats that would frighten away their country counterparts. But there’s one type of situation that does seem to frighten the urban blackbirds, and that’s anything new – anything they haven’t experienced before (Q37). And if you think about it, that’s quite sensible for a bird living in the city.

——————

Jonathan Atwell, in Indiana University, is looking at how a range of animals respond to urban environments. He’s found that when they’re under stress, their endocrine systems react by reducing the amount of hormones such as corticosterone into their blood (Q38). It’s a sensible-seeming adaptation. A rat that gets scared every time a subway train rolls past won’t be very successful.

There’s just one more study I’d like to mention which is by Sarah Partan and her team, and they’ve been looking at how squirrels communicate in an urban environment, and they’ve found that a routine part of their communication is carried out by waving their tails (Q39). You do also see this in the country, but it’s much more prevalent in cities, possibly because it’s effective in a noisy environment.

So what are the long-term implications of this? One possibility is that we may see completely new species developing in cities. But on the other hand, it’s possible that not all of these adaptations will be permanent (Q40). Once the animal’s got accustomed to its new environment, it may no longer need the features it’s developed.

So, now we’ve had a look…

CUỐN 13 TEST 2

Today, we’ll be continuing the series of lectures on memory by focusing on what is called episodic memory and what can happen if this is not working properly.

Episodic memory refers to the memory of an event or ‘episode’. Episodic memories allow us to mentally travel back in time to an event from the past. Episodic memories include various details about these events, for example, when an event happened and other information such as the location (Q31). To help understand this concept, try to remember the last time you ate dinner at a restaurant. The ability to remember where you ate, who you were with and the items you ordered are all features of an episodic memory.

Episodic memory is distinct from another type of memory called semantic memory. This is the type of factual memory that we have in common with everyone else – that is your general knowledge of the world (Q32). To build upon a previous example, remembering where you parked your car is an example of episodic memory, but your understanding of what a car is and how an engine works are examples of sematic memory. Unlike episodic memory, semantic memory isn’t dependent on recalling personal experiences. (Q33)

Episodic memory can be thought of as a process with several different steps of memory processing: encoding, consolidation and retrieval.

The initial step is called encoding. This involves the process of receiving and registering information, which is necessary for creating memories of information or events that you experience. The degree to which you can successfully encode information depends on the level of attention you give to an event while it’s actually happening (Q34). Being distracted can make effective encoding very difficult. Encoding of episodic memories is also influenced by how you process the event. For example, if you were introduced to someone called Charlie, you might make the connection that your uncle has the same name. Future recollection of Charlie’s name is much easier if you have a strategy to help you encode it. (Q35)

Memory consolidation, the next step in forming an episodic memory, is the process by which memories of encoded information are strengthened, stabilised and stored to facilitate later retrieval. Consolidation is most effective when the information being stored can be linked to an existing network of information (Q36). Consolidation makes it possible for you to store memories for later retrieval indefinitely. Forming strong memories depends on the frequency with which you try to retrieve them (Q37). Memories can fade or become harder to retrieve if they aren’t used very often.

The last step in forming episodic memories is called retrieval, which is the conscious recollection of encoded information. Retrieving information from episodic memory depends upon semantic, olfactory, auditory and visual factors. These help episodic memory retrieval by acting as a prompt. For example, when recalling where you parked your car you may use the colour of a sign close to where you parked (Q38). You actually have to mentally travel back to the moment you parked.

——————

There are a wide range of neurological diseases and conditions that can affect episodic memory. These range from Alzheimer’s to schizophrenia to autism. An impairment of episodic memory can have a profound effect on individuals’ lives. For example, the symptoms of schizophrenia can be reasonably well controlled by medication; however, patients’ episodic memory may still be impaired and so they are often unable to return to university or work. Recent studies have shown that computer- assisted games designed to keep the brain active can help improve their episodic memory. (Q39)

Episodic memories can help people connect with others, for instance by sharing intimate details about their past; something individuals with autism often have problems with. This may be caused by an absence of a sense of self (Q40). This is essential for the storage of episodic memory, and has been found to be impaired in children with autism. Research has shown that treatments that improve memory may also have a positive impact on children’s social development.

One study looked at a …

CUỐN 13 TEST 3

Last week, we started looking at reptiles, including crocodiles and snakes. Today, I’d like us to have a look at another reptile – the lizard – and in particular, at some studies that have been done on a particular type of lizard whose Latin name is tiliqua rugosa. This is commonly known as the sleepy lizard, because it’s quite slow in its movements and spends quite a lot of its time dozing under rocks or lying in the sun.

I’ll start with a general description. Sleepy lizards live in Western and South Australia, where they’re quite common. Unlike European lizards, which are mostly small, green and fast-moving, sleepy lizards are brown, but what’s particularly distinctive about them is the colour of their tongue, which is dark blue (Q31), in contrast with the lining of their mouth which is bright pink. And they’re much bigger than most European lizards. They have quite a varied diet, including insects and even small animals, but they mostly eat plants of varying kinds. (Q32)

Even though they’re quite large and powerful, with strong jaws that can crush beetles and snail shells, they still have quite a few predators. Large birds like cassowaries were one of the main ones in the past, but nowadays they’re more likely to be caught and killed by snakes (Q33). Actually, another threat to their survival isn’t a predator at all, but is man-made – quite a large number of sleepy lizards are killed by cars when they’re trying to cross highways.

One study carried out by Michael Freake at Flinders University investigated the methods of navigation of these lizards. Though they move slowly, they can travel quite long distances. And he found that even if they were taken some distance away from their home territory, they could usually find their way back home as long as they could see the sky – they didn’t need any other landmarks on the ground. (Q34)

———————

Observations of these lizards in the wild have also revealed that their mating habits are quite unusual. Unlike most animals, it seems that they’re relatively monogamous, returning to the same partner year after year (Q35). And the male and female also stay together for a long time, both before and after the birth of their young.

It’s quite interesting to think about the possible reasons for this. It could be that it’s to do with protecting their young – you’d expect them to have a much better chance of survival if they have both parents around. But in fact observers have noted that once the babies have hatched out of their eggs, they have hardly any contact with their parents (Q36). So, there’s not really any evidence to support that idea.

Another suggestion’s based on the observation that male lizards in monogamous relationships tend to be bigger and stronger than other males. So maybe the male lizards stay around so they can give the female lizards protection from other males (Q37). But again, we’re not really sure.

Finally, I’d like to mention another study that involved collecting data by tracking the lizards. I was actually involved in this myself. So we caught some lizards in the wild and we developed a tiny GPS system that would allow us to track them, and we fixed this onto their tails (Q38). Then we set the lizards free again, and we were able to track them for twelve days and gather data, not just about their location, but even about how many steps they took during this period. (Q39)

One surprising thing we discovered from this is that there were far fewer meetings between lizards than we expected – it seems that they were actually trying to avoid one another. So why would that be? Well, again we have no clear evidence, but one hypothesis is that male lizards can cause quite serious injuries to one another, so maybe this avoidance is a way of preventing this (Q40) – of self-preservation, if you like. But we need to collect a lot more data before we can be sure of any of this.

CUỐN 13 TEST 4

In my presentation, I’m going to talk about coffee, and its importance both in economic and social terms. We think it was first drunk in the Arab world, but there’s hardly any documentary evidence of it before the 1500s, although of course that doesn’t mean that people didn’t know about it before then.

However, there is evidence that coffee was originally gathered from bushes growing wild in Ethiopia, in the northeast of Africa. In the early sixteenth century, it was being bought by traders, and gradually its use as a drink spread throughout the Middle East. It’s also known that in 1522, in the Turkish city of Constantinople, which was the centre of the Ottoman Empire, the court physician approved its use as a medicine.

By the mid-1500s, coffee bushes were being cultivated in the Yemen and for the next hundred years this region produced most of the coffee drunk in Africa and the Arab world. What’s particularly interesting about coffee is its effect on social life. It was rarely drunk at home, but instead people went to coffee houses to drink it. These people, usually men, would meet to drink coffee and chat about issues of the day. But at the time, this chance to share ideas and opinions was seen as something that was potentially dangerous, and in 1623 the ruler of Constantinople demanded the destruction of all the coffee houses in the city (Q31), although after his death many new ones opened, and coffee consumption continued. In the seventeenth century, coffee drinking spread to Europe, and here too coffee shops became places where ordinary people, nearly always men, could meet to exchange ideas. Because of this, some people said that these places performed a similar function to universities (Q32). The opportunity they provided for people to meet together outside their own homes and to discuss the topics of the day had an enormous impact on social life, and many social movements and political developments had their origins in coffee house discussions. (Q33)

——————–

In the late 1600s, the Yemeni monopoly on coffee production broke down and coffee production started to spread around the world, helped by European colonization. Europeans set up coffee plantations in Indonesia and the Caribbean and production of coffee in the colonies skyrocketed. Different types of coffee were produced in different areas, and it’s interesting that the names given to these different types, like Mocha or Java coffee, were often taken from the port they were shipped to Europe from (Q34). But if you look at the labour system in the different colonies, there were some significant differences.

In Brazil and the various Caribbean colonies, coffee was grown in huge plantations and the workers there were almost all slaves (Q35). But this wasn’t the same in all colonies; for example in Java, which had been colonized by the Dutch, the peasants grew coffee and passed a proportion of this on to the Dutch, so it was used as a means of taxation (Q36). But whatever system was used, under the European powers of the eighteenth century, coffee production was very closely linked to colonisation. Coffee was grown in ever-increasing quantities to satisfy the growing demand from Europe, and it became nearly as important as sugar production (Q37), which was grown under very similar conditions. However, coffee prices were not yet low enough for people to drink it regularly at home, so most coffee consumption still took place in public coffee houses and it still remained something of a luxury item. In Britain, however, a new drink was introduced from China, and started to become popular, gradually taking over from coffee, although at first it was so expensive that only the upper classes could afford it. This was tea, and by the late 1700s it was being widely drunk. However, when the USA gained independence from Britain in 1766, they identified this drink with Britain, and coffee remained the preferred drink in the USA (Q38), as it still is today.

So, by the early nineteenth century, coffee was already being widely produced and consumed. But during this century, production boomed and coffee prices started to fall. This was partly because new types of transportation had been developed which were cheaper and more efficient (Q39). So now, working people could afford to buy coffee – it wasn’t just a drink for the middle classes. And this was at a time when large parts of Europe were starting to work in industries. And sometimes this meant their work didn’t stop when it got dark; they might have to continue throughout the night (Q40). So, the use of coffee as a stimulant became important – it wasn’t just a drink people drank in the morning, for breakfast.

There were also changes in cultivation … 

CUỐN 14 TEST 1

Producing enough energy to meet our needs has become a serious problem. Demand is rising rapidly, because of the world’s increasing population and expanding (Q31) industry. Burning fossil fuels, like gas, coal and oil, seriously damages the environment and they’ll eventually run out. For a number of years now, scientists have been working out how we can derive energy from renewable sources, such as the sun and wind, without causing pollution. Today I’ll outline marine renewable energy – also called ocean energy – which harnesses the movement of the oceans.

Marine renewable energy can be divided into three main categories: wave energy, tidal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion, and I’ll say a few words about each one.

First, wave energy. Numerous devices have been invented to harvest wave energy, with names such as Wave Dragon, the Penguin and Mighty Whale, and research is going on to try and come up with a really efficient method. This form of energy has plenty of potential, as the source is (Q32) constant, and there’s no danger of waves coming to s standstill. Electricity can be generated using onshore systems, using a reservoir, or offshore systems. But the problem with ocean waves is that they’re erratic, with the wind making them travel in every (Q33) direction. This adds to the difficulty of creating efficient technology: ideally all the waves would travel smoothly and regularly along the same straight line. Another drawback is that sand and other sediment on the ocean (Q34) floor might be stopped from flowing normally, which can lead to environmental problems.

——————————–

The second category of marine energy that I’ll mention is tidal energy. One major advantage of using the tide, rather than waves, as a source of energy is that it’s (Q35) predictable: we know the exact time of high and low tides for years to come.

For tidal energy to be effective, the difference between high and low tides needs to be at least five metres, and this occurs naturally in only about forty places on Earth. But the right conditions can be created by constructing a tidal lagoon, an area of sea water separated from the sea.

One current plan is to create a tidal lagoon on the coast of Wales. This will be an area of water within a (Q36) bay at Swansea, sheltered by a U-shaped breakwater, or dam, built out from the coast. The breakwater will contain sixteen hydro turbines, and as the tide rises, water rushes through the breakwater, activating the turbines, which turn a generator to produce electricity. Then, for three hours as the tide goes out, the water is held back within the breakwater, increasing the difference in water level, until it’s several metres higher within the lagoon than in the open sea. Then, in order to release the stored water, (Q37) gates in the breakwater are opened. It pours powerfully out of the lagoon, driving the turbines in the breakwater in the opposite direction and again generating thousands of megawatts of electricity. As there are two high tides a day, this lagoon scheme would generate electricity four times a day, every day, for a total of around 14 hours in every 24 – and enough electricity for over 150,000 homes.

This system has quite a lot in its favour: unlike solar and wind energy it doesn’t depend on the weather; the turbines are operated without the need for (Q38) fuel, so it doesn’t create any greenhouse gas emissions; and very little maintenance is needed. It’s estimated that electricity generated in this way will be relatively cheap, and that manufacturing the components would create than 2,000 (Q39) jobs, a big boost to the local economy.

On the other hand, there are fears that lagoons might harm both fish and birds, for example by disturbing (Q40) migration patterns, and causing a build-up of silt, affecting local ecosystems.

There are other forms of tidal energy, but I’ll go on to the third category of marine energy: ocean thermal energy conversion. This depends on there being a big difference in temperature between surface water and the water a couple of kilometres below the surface, and this occurs in tropical coastal areas. The idea is to bring cold water up to the surface using a submerged pipe. The concept dates back to 1881, when …

CUỐN 14 TEST 2

In this series of lectures about the history of weather forecasting, I’ll start by examining its early history – that’ll be the subject of today’s talk.

Ok, so we’ll start by going back thousands of years. Most ancient cultures had weather gods, and weather catastrophes, such as floods, played an important role in many creation myths. Generally, weather was attributed to the whims of the gods, as the wide range of weather gods in various cultures shows. For instance, there’s the Egyptian sun god Ra, and Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning. Many ancient civilisations developed rites such as (Q31) dances in order to make the weather gods look kindly on them.

But the weather was of daily importance: observing the skies and drawing the correct conclusions from these observations was really important, in fact their (Q32) survival depended on it. It isn’t known when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 BC, the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of (Q33) clouds and other phenomena. The Chinese also recognised weather patterns, and by 300 BC, astronomers had developed a calendar which divided the year into 24 (Q34) festivals, each associated with a different weather phenomenon.

The ancient Greeks were the first to develop a more scientific approach to explaining the weather. The work of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle, in the fourth century BC, is especially noteworthy, as his ideas held sway for nearly 2,000 years. In 340 BC, he wrote a book in which he attempted to account for the formation of rain, clouds, wind and storms. He also described celestial phenomena such as haloes – that is, bright circles of light around the sun, the moon and bright stars – and (Q35) comets. Many of his observations were surprisingly accurate. For example, he believed that heat could cause water to evaporate. But he also jumped to quite a few wrong conclusions, such as that winds are breathed out by the Earth. Errors like this were rectified from the Renaissance onwards.

———————–

For nearly 2,000 years, Aristotle’s work was accepted as the chief authority on weather theory. Alongside this, though, in the Middle Ages weather observations were passed on in the form of proverbs, such as ‘Red (Q36) sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’. Many of these are based on very good observations and are accurate, as contemporary meteorologists have discovered.

For centuries, any attempt to forecast the weather could only be based on personal observation, but in the fifteenth century scientists began to see the need for (Q37) instruments. Until then, the only ones available were weather vanes – to determine the wind direction – and early versions of rain gauges. One of the first, invented in the fifteenth century, was a hygrometer, which measured humidity. This was one of many inventions that contributed to the development of weather forecasting.

In 1592, the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo developed the world’s first (Q38) thermometer. His student Torricelli later invented the barometer, which allowed people to measure atmospheric pressure. In 1648, the French philosopher Pascal proved that pressure decreases with altitude. This discovery was verified by English astronomer Halley in 1686, and Halley was also the first person to map trade winds.

This increasing ability to measure factors related to weather helped scientists to understand the atmosphere and its processes better, and they started collecting weather observation data systematically. In the eighteenth century, the scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin carried out work on electricity and lightning in particular, but he was also very interested in weather and studied it throughout most of his life. It was Franklin who discovered that (Q39) storms generally travel from west to east.

In addition to new meteorological instruments, other developments contributed to our understanding of the atmosphere. People in different locations began to keep records, and in the mid-nineteenth century, the invention of the (Q40) telegraph made it possible for these records to be collated. This led, by the end of the nineteenth century, to the first weather services.

It was not until the early twentieth century that mathematics and physics became part of meteorology, and we’ll continue from that point next week.

CUỐN 14 TEST 3

As you all know, the university is planning an arts festival for later this year, and here in the music department we’ve planned three concerts. These will be public performances, and the programme has just been finalised. The theme of the festival is links between the UK and Australia, and this is reflected in the music: each concert will feature both British and Australian composers. I’ll tell you briefly about the Australian music, as you probably won’t be familiar with that.

The first concert will include music by Liza Lim, who was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1966. As a child, Lim originally learned to play the piano – like so many children – and also the (Q31) violin. But when she was 11 her teachers encouraged her to start composing. She found this was her real strength, and she studied and later taught composition, both in Australia and in other countries. As a composer, she has received commissions from numerous orchestras, other performers and festivals in several countries.

Liza Lim’s compositions are vibrant and full of (Q32) energy, and she often explores Asian and Australian Aboriginal cultural sources, including the native instrument, the didgeridoo: this is featured in a work called The Compass. Her music is very expressive, so although it is (Q33) complex, it has the power of connecting with audiences and performers alike.

In the festival we’re going to give a semi-staged performance of The Oresteia. This is an (Q34) opera in seven parts, based on the trilogy of ancient Greek tragedies by Aeschylus. Lim composed this when she was in her mid-20s, and she also wrote the text, along with Barrie Kosky. It’s performed by six singers, a dancer, and an orchestra that, as well as standard orchestral instruments, includes electric guitar, and a traditional Turkish stringed instrument. Lim wrote that because the stories in the tragedies are not easy to tell, the sounds she creates are also (Q35) disturbing, and they include breathing, sobbing, laughing and whistling. The work lasts around 75 minutes, and the rest of the concert will consist of orchestral works by the British composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius.

——————————-

Moving on now to our second concert, this will begin with instrumental music by British composers – Benjamin Britten and Judith Weir. After the interval we’ll go to Australia for a piece by Ross Edwards: The Tower of Remoteness. According to Edwards, the inspiration for this piece came from nature, when he was sitting alone in the dry bed of a creek, overshadowed by the leaves of palm trees, listening to the birds and insects. The Tower of Remoteness is scored for piano and (Q36) clarinet. Edwards says he realised years after writing the piece that he had subconsciously modelled its opening phrase on a bird call.

Ross Edwards was born in 1943 in Sydney, Australia, and studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the universities of Adelaide and Sydney. He’s well known in Australia, and in fact he’s one of the country’s most performed composers. He’s written a wide range of music, from symphonies and concertos to some composed specifically for children. Edward’s music has been described as being ‘deeply connected to Australia’, and it can be regarded as a celebration of the (Q37) diversity of cultures that Australia can be proud of.

The last of the three Australian composers to be represented in our festival is Carl Vine. Born in 1954, Vine, like Liza Lim, comes from Perth, Western Australia. He took up the cornet at the age of five, switching to the piano five years later. However, he went to university to study (Q38) physics, before changing to composition. After graduating he moved to Sydney and worked as a freelance pianist and composer. Before long he had become prominent in Australia as a composer for (Q39) dance, and in fact has written 25 scores of that type.

In our third concert, Vine will be represented by his music for the flag hand-over ceremony of the (Q40) Olympics held in 1996. This seven-minute orchestral piece was of course heard by millions of people worldwide, and we’ll hear it alongside works written by British composers Edward Elgar and, more recently, Thomas Adès.

CUỐN 14 TEST 4

In today’s class I’m going to talk about marine archaeology, the branch of archaeology focusing on human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers. It’s the study of ships, cargoes, shipping facilities, and other physical remains. I’ll give you an example, then go on to show how this type of research is being transformed by the use of the latest technology.

Atlit-Yam was a village on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, which seems to have been thriving until around 7,000 BC. The residents kept cattle, caught fish and stored grain. They had wells for fresh water, many of their houses were built around a courtyard and were constructed of stone. The village contained an impressive monument: seven half-tonne stones standing in a semicircle around a (Q31) spring, that might have been used for ceremonial purposes.

Atlit-Yam may have been destroyed swiftly by a tsunami, or climate change may have caused glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding the village gradually. Whatever the cause, it now lies ten metres below the surface of the Mediterranean, buried under sand at the bottom of the sea. It’s been described as the largest and best preserved prehistoric settlement ever found on the seabed.

For marine archaeologists, Atlit-Yam is a treasure trove. Research on the buildings, (Q32) tools and the human remains has revealed how the bustling village once functioned, and even what diseases some of its residents suffered from. But of course this is only one small village, one window into a lost world. For a fuller picture, researchers need more sunken settlements, but the hard part is finding them.

Underwater research used to require divers to find shipwrecks or artefacts, but in the second half of the twentieth century, various types of underwater vehicles were developed, some controlled from a ship on the surface, and some of them autonomous, which means they don’t need to be operated by a person.

Autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, are used in the oil industry, for instance, to create (Q33) maps of the seabed before rigs and pipelines are installed. To navigate they use sensors, such as compasses and sonar. Until relatively recently they were very expensive, and so (Q34) heavy that they had to be launched from a large vessel with a winch.

————————

But the latest AUVs are much easier to manoeuvre – they can be launched from the shore or a small ship. And they’re much cheaper, which makes them more accessible to research teams. They’re also very sophisticated. They can communicate with each other and, for example, work out the most efficient way to survey a site, or to find particular objects on the seabed.

Field tests show the approach can work. For example, in a trial in 2015, three AUVs searched for wrecks at Marzamemi, off the coast of Sicily. The site is the final resting place of an ancient Roman ship, which sank in the sixth century AD while ferrying prefabricated (Q35) marble elements for the construction of an early church. The AUVs mapped the area in detail, finding other ships carrying columns of the same material.

Creating an internet in the sea for AUVs to communicate is no easy matter. Wifi networks on land use electromagnetic waves, but in water these will only travel a few centimetres. Instead, a more complex mix of technologies is required. For short distances, AUVs can share date using (Q36) light, while acoustic waves are used to communicate over long distances. But more creative solutions are also being developed, where an AUV working on the seabed offloads data to a second AUV, which then surfaces and beams the data home to the research team using a satellite.

There’s also a system that enables AUVs to share information from seabed scans, and other data. So if an AUV surveying the seabed finds an intriguing object, it can share the coordinates of the object – that is, its position – with a nearby AUV that carries superior (Q37) cameras, and arrange for that AUV to make a closer inspection of the object.

Marine archaeologists are excited about the huge potential of these AUVs for their discipline. One site where they’re going to be deployed is the Gulf of Baratti, off the Italian coast. In 1974, a 2,000-year-old Roman vessel was discovered here, in 18 metres of water. When it sank, it was carrying (Q38) medical goods, in wooden or tin receptacles. Its cargo gives us insight into the treatments available all those years ago, including tablets that are thought to have been dissolved to form a cleansing liquid for the (Q39) eyes.

Other Roman ships went down nearby, taking their cargoes with them. Some held huge pots made of terracotta. Some were used for transporting cargoes of olive oil, and others held (Q40) wine. In many cases it’s only these containers that remain, while the wooden ships have been buried under silt on the seabed.

Another project that’s about to …