大学生英语口语交流障碍的心理因素及克服办法

目前大学生的英语口语表达能力总体很差,在口语交流上也出现各种障碍,其原因除学生英语学习能力较差以外,态度问题、动机偏差、缺乏自信、不耐挫折、缺乏热情、过于紧张、性格内向等心理因素也起着关键的作用。对于大学生英语口语交流存在的障碍,可以通过激发兴趣、心理暗示、教师鼓励、减少心理压力、结交外国朋友等有效方法,指导学生进行口语训练,提高学生口语水平。     

The British road to post war planning: the forty‐year journey to the 1947 town & country planning act

This paper analyses the currents which gave rise to the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act. It describes the main statutory events in the first half of the 20th century and considers the progress made in implementing the legislation. It is argued that, while the 1947 Act was a major advance on what went before, it is not a significant departure.     

Salvaging Wilderness from the Tomb of History: A Response to The National Parks: America's Best Idea

In the age of industrialism, wilderness is the counterbalance to human excesses and the inspiration for environmental activists. Today, wilderness is even more important and contested as people face multiple environmental crises on a planet with an exploding human population and voracious consumer appetite. Too often obscured by the technosphere that engulfs us, wilderness awaits its ecoteur filmmakers to give it greater presence on the public screens of the technoscape. After The National Parks: America's Best Idea, wilderness still waits. By treating wilderness as an historical relic and vacation spot, the film saps it of its vital relevance and political power. Audiences must understand the foundational role of wilderness in their lives, instead of being pacified with an history drained of color that disconnects them from wilderness. As people wonder if there is a future for industrial civilization, wilderness provides the last best hope for rethinking our place on earth.     

User experience and operational feasibility of four point-of-collection oral fluid drug-testing devices according to Brazilian traffic agents

Objective: Traffic fatalities in Brazil still rank among the highest worldwide, with an overall rate of 23.4 deaths/100,000 inhabitants/year. Although alcohol and drug use play an important role in traffic accidents, national data about their relative influence are scarce. Drug screening is not routinely performed by traffic agents because alcohol is the only substance regularly investigated in roadblocks. Therefore, we aimed to describe the initial traffic agent user experience for 4 handheld point-of-collection oral fluid drug testing devices used in routine roadblocks in Brazil, focusing on usage perceptions in hopes of generalizing this approach for other developing countries.

Methods: Four different oral fluid collection devices were evaluated: The DDS2, the DOA MultiScreen, the Dräger DrugTest 5000, and the Multi-Drug Multi-Line Twist Screen Device. Fourteen trained traffic agents obtained oral fluid from 164 drivers and performed 37 qualitative evaluations of the devices. Traffic agents filled out a questionnaire focusing on 9 feasibility criteria: Overall simplicity for roadside operation; operational success; saliva sample collection time; sample analysis time; ease of sample preparation and analysis; agreement with observed clinical signs; overall hygiene and safety; sufficient operating instructions; and hygiene of saliva collection. These were weighted based on an expert panel and yielded an overall composite device experience score that ranged from 1 (poor) to 100 (excellent).

Results: Ease of use, operational success, and acceptable collection and analysis time were considered the most important criteria by the expert panel. The results ranged from 27.3 to 88.9% for simplicity of use; 45.5 to 100.0% for operational success; 27.3 to 100% for acceptable collection time; and 36.4 to 100.0% for acceptable analysis time. The final device scores, based on the agents’ user experiences, ranked as follows: DOA MultiScreen: 49.3/100; Dräger DrugTest 5000: 82.4/100; Multi-Drug Multi-Line Twist Screen Device: 84.3/100; DDS2: 88.4/100.

Conclusion: Based on the selected criteria, 3 of the 4 devices were considered useful by traffic agents in routine roadblock operations. The weighted evaluations suggest that their ease of use (handling, sampling analysis, and reliability), as well as their agreement with findings obtained by other means, defined their utility to traffic agents, although such appraisals must be further analyzed in future studies.     

Culture and the environment in Italy

This essay evaluates the historical development and current background of human-environment relationships in Italy. The Italian landscape consists of very varied terrain, and periodically suffers from all kinds of natural hazard, especially earthquakes, landslides, floods, and accelerated soil erosion. Some measure of environmental conservation was achieved by the Etruscans and Romans, but the Classical period also marked the beginning of serious lowland waterlogging, malarial infestation, upland soil erosion, and deforestation, which all increased during the Middle Ages. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, there was a diffusion of planned landscapes and carefully managed estates; but by the 20th century, many rural areas could not support growing populations and much land was in need of improvement. Underdevelopment and latifundium agriculture increased the vulnerability to environmental hazards of the Mezzogiorno (Italian South), while the subsequent disappearance of the peasant culture seems not to have led to greatly improved conservation or land management. Poorly farmed or managed landscapes and poorly maintained historic towns have undergone some virtually irreversible degradation, especially with respect to landslides and earthquake damage. Elsewhere in Italy, unchecked urbanization, weak planning laws, and their inadequate enforcement have helped both to reduce environmental quality, by overdevelopment of valued landscapes, and to increase natural disaster vulnerability, by encouraging occupance of natural hazard zones. Although there are signs that the government is beginning to respond to the cumulative effect of environmental degradation, the measures are insufficient to reverse the overall trend toward decadence that characterizes human-land relationships in Italy.     

Natural disasters in Australia

The history of natural hazards in Australia and their physical, economic and social consequences are discussed in this paper. The lack of any national programme for hazard mitigation is identified, alongside an overview of Australia as a country where major disasters are accepted as a part of everyday life.     

基于IPA分析的陕西历史博物馆游客满意度研究

以陕西历史博物馆为例,调查了博物馆免费制度执行后的游客满意度,通过IPA法分析了游客对博物馆满意度指标的预期与实际感受的差异.结果显示：游客对展品质量、展品数量、基础设施、志愿服务和公共休息点等较满意;讲解服务、参观秩序、展览说明牌和信息咨询服务为重点改进对象;停车位、纪念品和高科技的应用属低优先发展;建筑特色和展出形式需重点控制和优化.     

Choice of chelating antidotes for acute cadmium intoxication∗

During acute oral intoxication by cadmium compounds, gastrointestinal epithelial damage contributes to immediate toxicity. However, secondary systemic toxicity may develop due to intestinal uptake of cadmium. This review presents an evaluation of the effects of chelators on the acute toxicity of cadmium after parenteral or oral exposure and on the intestinal uptake of cadmium. This review shows:

1. Chelating agents may affect the acute toxicity of cadmium in a variety of ways depending on the exposure route for cadmium and administration route for the chelator.

2. With regard to survival, systemic toxicity of absorbed cadmium is of major importance, as intraperitoneal administration of chelators could eliminate or reduce mortality due to orally administered cadmium chloride.

3. Lipophilicity of chelators and their cadmium complexes may result in extensively augmented intestinal uptake. However, hydrophilic chelators may efficiently reduce the intestinal cadmium uptake.

4. For hydrophilic chelators, the stability of the cadmium complex is an important determining factor of efficacy.

5. The optimal oral antidote towards orally administered cadmium are the BAL analogs, especially DMSA, while the optimal intraperitoneal antidotes towards orally or intraperitoneally administered cadmium are the higher members of the polyaminopolycarboxylate family, especially TTHA.

6. When administered simultaneously (DMSA orally and TTHA intraperitoneally), these chelators synergistically reduce the whole‐body retention of cadmium.

In conclusion, chelation treatment in acute oral cadmium intoxication should first prevent/reduce intestinal damage and uptake by rapid oral administration of a chelating antidote and then alleviate systemic toxicity due to absorbed cadmium and enhance renal/biliary cadmium excretion by parenteral administration of a chelating antidote.     

The secret history of natural disaster

Abstract

This paper explores the failure of historians to properly engage the study of natural hazards. It argues that by focusing mainly on individual calamities, historians have overlooked the larger social and economic forces that have shaped the response to natural disaster over the last century. Two important trends, real estate capitalism and the entry of the state into the political economy of hazards after World War II, are singled out as crucial for understanding US society's response to natural disaster. As a result of these historical forces, risk became a commodity, with harmful environmental consequences.