Nao, the first robot able to show feelings, has been created by a European research team. When Nao is sad, he lowers his head and looks down. When he’s happy, he raises his arms for a hug. Nothing is out of the ordinary, except that Nao is a robot.
“We’re modeling the first years of life,” says Lola Canamero, a computer scientist at the University of Hertforshire. “The feelings are shown through physical gestures and body movements rather than facial or verbal(言语的) expressions.”
In the future, says the scientist, robots are likely to act as companions, provide support for old people, and help people shop online. In such uses, the display of feeling will be important in making the interactions(交往) more natural and comfortable.
Nao has been programmed to copy the emotional skills of a one-year-old child. It can memorize faces, and knows the basic rules of good and bad. Based on these it can decide how to react to what is going on. The actions going with each feeling are pre-programmed, but Nao decides for itself when to display them.
Nao is also programmed to have different personalities. A more independent robot is less likely to call for help when exploring a room, while a more fearful robot will show distress if it finds something in the room that may be harmful.
Canamero’s team will take its emotional programming forward into medical applications. Part of the project will look at ways to use robots in hospitals to support the roles of doctors, nurses and parents. Children might find that a small, friendly-looking robot that can understand their emotional states makes them less anxious. “We want to explore different roles—the robots will help the children to understand their treatment and explain what they have to do. We want to help the children to control their anxiety.” she says.
1. What can we learn from the text?| A．Scientists worked on facial and spoken expressions to create Nao’s emotions. |
| B．The time when Nao displays feelings has been pre-programmed. |
| C．Emotional programming is used in medicine production. |
| D．Robots with emotional skills can help children feel more comfortable. |
| A．displays different feelings in different situations |
| B．is able to imitate adult emotional displays |
| C．can remember people’s feelings |
| D．learns emotions from facial expressions |
| A．Courage. | B．Anxiety. |
| C．Anger. | D．Satisfaction. |
| A．The relationship between humans and robots. |
| B．The roles that robots play in different fields. |
| C．The first robot able to show feelings. |
| D．The long history of robots. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】
While the start of a new school year is always exciting, this year was even more so for some elementary school students (小学生) in Auckland, New Zealand. They became the world’s first kids to be “taught” by a digital (数字的) teacher. Before you start imagining a human-like robot walking around the classroom, Will is just an avatar (虚拟) that appears on the student’s desktop, or smart-phone screen, when ordered to come.
The autonomous animation platform (自主动画平台) has been modeled (模仿) after the human brain and nervous system, allowing it to show human-like behavior. The digital teacher is assigned to teach Vector’s “Be sustainable with energy” — a free program for Auckland elementary schools.
Just like the humans it replaced, Will is able to instantly react to the students’ responses to the topic. Thanks to a webcam and microphone, the avatar not only responds to questions the kids may have, but also picks up non-verbal cues. For instance, if a student smiles at Will, he responds by smiling back. This two-way interaction (双向互动) not only helps attract the students’ attention, but also allows the program’s developers to monitor their engagement, and make changes if needed.
The program, in place since August 2018, has been a great success thus far. Ravishankar says, “ What was fascinating to me was the reaction of the children to Will. The way they look at the world is so creative and different, and Will really captured their attention.” However, regardless of how popular it becomes, Will is unlikely to replace (取代) human educators any time soon.
1. What was special for some elementary school students in Auckland?| A．A digital teacher taught them. |
| B．They first saw something digital. |
| C．This was the start of a new school year. |
| D．They could get close to smartphone screen. |
A．It can smile back.  | B．It can use microphone. |
| C．It can change if necessary. | D．It can talk any topic for free. |
| A．Disagree | B．indifferent. | C．Unclear. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．Relationship. | B．Entertainment. | C．Travel. | D．Education. |
【推荐2】3D printing is taking home construction(建筑)to new heights. A giant printer is building what designers say is the first 3D-printed two-story house in the US.
“While construction 3D printing has been around for over ten years, the technology has only started to break ground in the US homebuilding market over the last couple of years,” said Lok, the architectural designer for the project. Several 3D-printed homes have already been built or are currently in the works across a handful of states.
Lok, who co-founded X, a design company, said, “My team aims to eventually scale up(扩大)the designs to be able to efficiently 3D print multifamily homes.” With the Houston home, the team is pushing the industrial printer to its limits to understand how it can stream-line(使效率更高)the technology, in the search of quickly building cost-effective and well-designed homes.
“In the future, it has to be fast, simple design in order to compete with other building technologies,” said Zerle, the head of structural engineering. “We are not trying to beat the clock.” “It’s a case study. We’re learning the abilities of the machine, learning the reaction of the material under different weather conditions. We’re learning how to optimize(优化)the speed of printing. When this project is completed, we should have a very good idea of how to proceed in the future,” he added.
On the design side, Lok sees opportunity to one day offer customized features at a mass scale, without excessive labor costs. “The printer doesn’t care if you print the same chair 100 times or you print 100 different chairs,” she said. “This opens up the possibility of how we can actually offer customized design for the users, whether it’s a single-family house or whether it’s a multifamily building or apartment.”
1. What can we learn about 3D printing?| A．It is applied to two fields in the US. |
| B．It is widely used in homebuilding market. |
| C．It has been applied to building in a few states. |
| D．It has been used in construction for less than ten years. |
| A．To satisfy any customer’s need. |
| B．To increase the size of their designs. |
| C．To use the technology in other fields. |
| D．To understand what the technology can do |
| A．To show his advantages. |
| B．To state the purpose of the study. |
| C．To describe the process of the study. |
| D．To tell others how the technology works. |
| A．3D-Printed Homes Hopefully Come True |
| B．3D-Printed Houses Are Perfect For Living |
| C．3D Printing Levels Up Home Construction |
| D．3D Printing 1s Speeding Up High-rise Buildings |
【推荐3】Have you ever lost something in a hard-to-reach space, like behind a couch or a cupboard? Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to squeeze (挤) in and out? New innovations in the field of robotics will soon be able to make this nice idea into a reality.
In a study published on Jan 25 in the science journal Matter, engineers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Carnegie Mellon University in the US have developed small robots that can quickly change back and forth from liquid to solid states.
According to the website Mashable, the scientists were inspired by sea cucumbers (海参). They are able to change the stiffness (僵硬度) of their body or reduce the potential for physical damage. The robots in the study were made from gallium, a soft metal with a low melting point of 30℃. The scientists then used changes in the magnetic field to control the magnetic particles (粒子) inside the gallium material to provide heat. This heat then allowed the robots to change between solid and liquid states as well as to move around.
As the website Tech Xplore pointed out, other similar materials require external heat sources such as heat guns and electrical currents to induce (触发) a change of states; but now, the robots can use a heat source inside itself to change states independently.
During the robots’ experimental trials, the scientists conducted a number of tests. These tests included having the robots melt into liquid and reform to escape a prison-like cage. The robot is also able to build and repair hard-to-reach circuits (电路). The robots’ ability to switch between states of matter allows for a number of possible uses and advancements in different fields, such as he biomedical and circuit assembly (组装) industries.
Still, in the words of senior author Carmel Majidi at Carnegie Mellon University, for now these are all just “proofs of concept” which show the abilities of these new kinds of robots.
1. What can we learn about the small robots?| A．Chinese and British scientists co-produced them. |
| B．Sea cucumbers provided inspiration for them. |
| C．They were made from a newly invented material. |
| D．They can switch between three states of matter. |
| A．By using heat guns. | B．By employing a heat source. |
| C．By using electrical currents. | D．By controlling the magnetic particles. |
| A．The features of the robots. | B．The limitations of the robots. |
| C．The applications of the robots. | D．The challenges of testing the robots. |
| A．They have great market potential. |
| B．Their abilities are overstated. |
| C．More proof is needed for their abilities. |
| D．It will take more time for them to be widely used. |
【推荐1】Considered the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author, Isabel Allende is known for her many novels including “Eva Luna”, “Of Love and Shadows” and “A Long Petal of the Sea”. With “The Wind Knows My Name”, Allende has added a new dimension to her already varied works.
She skillfully creates and twists the unfortunate stories of two apocryphal children in her newest novel. They are fictionally named Samuel Adler and Anita Diaz, aged 5 and 7 respectively. Both of them are left alone, torn from their families by war or immigration as we witness the dramatic sacrifices parents sometimes must make to protect their sons and daughters and give them the best lives possible.
Early on in this work, a Nazi mob (暴徒) attacks the Jewish (犹太的) neighborhood where Samuel lives with his parents. Afterwards the father turns up in a hospital, but then is taken to a concentration camp and the mother sends the boy to safety in England. Samuel never sees his parents again. Decades later on the U.S.-Mexico border, Anita Diaz, 7, is separated by her mother under the U.S. government’s previous no tolerance policy that tore child migrants from their parents. The little girl is sent to live in a group home for children while her mother keeps missing. Through a series of circumstances, Samuel and Anita eventually meet through Leticia, a woman who migrated to the U.S. as a child herself after losing most of her family in El Salvador.
Allende moves the story back and forth between Europe and the United States, switches between the past and present, as two very different children in very different places and circumstances search for the safety of home and family. It’s a very different kind of book for Allende, who often places her stories in her native Latin America.
1. What can be learned about Allende?| A．She has traveled around the world. | B．She is a productive writer. |
| C．She reads works written in Spanish. | D．She creates novels of the same style. |
| A．Not real. | B．Not happy. | C．Not perfect. | D．Not lucky. |
| A．They grow up together in the US. | B．They make sacrifices for their parents. |
| C．They meet each other through a women. | D．They live unhappily with their families. |
| A．By placing background in Latin America. | B．By setting in different times and places. |
| C．By following hero and heroine’s search. | D．By discussing children’s circumstances. |
【推荐2】Western conservation groups are seeking stricter laws to deal with trade in endangered wildlife, but Dr. Paul Jepson warns that this isn’t the best solution. He highlights the case of the Bali starling (八哥). Bringing in tougher laws created unexpected outcomes, which contributed to the bird’s extinction in the wild in 2006.
He said that the traditional law enforcement (执行) approach that outlawed (宣布……非法) ownership of the Bali starling in the 1980s and 1990s increased rather than reduced the demand for wild-caught Bali starlings. The bird has become a popular gift among the rich of Indonesia, who can gain more status by owning one.
Instead, a case-by-case analysis might be needed. Last year, he said, a bird association set up a network of breeders (饲养者) among the owners of Bali starling on the island of Java. By introducing a “crowd-breeding” model, it transformed the bird into a species whose price and source of supply were publicly known. This lessened the status of keeping such birds and thereby reduced their profitability to black market suppliers.
Another case was on Nusa Penida, an island southeast of Bali. A Balinese conservation group planned to release starlings on the island. Critics tried to block the plan, saying the island was outside the birds’ native zone. Eventually, the Governor of Bali came up with a proposal. The starlings were given to a local temple as a ceremonial offering before they were released. This gave the Bali starling status as a “sacred bird”, giving them protection under customary laws. Now the released starlings established a breeding population on Nusa Penida.
Dr. Jepson commented, “I do not want to criticize the international approach seeking tighter law enforcement, but this case study shows we should not oversimplify how we respond to the problem of the wildlife trade. There is a growing body of evidence that shows more different approaches are sometimes needed to fit with the local social and political realities. We should tailor solutions on more of a case-by-case basis.”
1. What might speed up the wild Bali starling’s extinction in 2006?| A．The bad natural environment. |
| B．The side effect of strict protection laws. |
| C．The debate over the wildlife trade. |
| D．The popularity of the bird in the world. |
| A．To block the strict laws passed by the government. |
| B．To cut off the supply to the black market. |
| C．To make the Bali starling less profitable. |
| D．To increase the demand for the Bali starling. |
| A．It implies there’s more than one way to solve a problem. |
| B．It advocates stricter law enforcement. |
| C．It has attracted close attention of conservation groups. |
| D．It is acknowledged as the best solution to illegal wildlife trade. |
| A．Stricter enforcement is needed for the biodiversity of Indonesia |
| B．The Bali starling comes back to Nusa Penida |
| C．Cutting off the market for the illegal wildlife trade |
| D．Tougher laws to reduce wildlife trade are not enough |
【推荐3】Home Laundry Automatic Dryer Product
Full Two Year Warranty (保修)
Limited Five Year Warranty on Cabinet (机箱)
Warranty Provides for:
FIRST TWO YEARS Amana will repair or replace any faulty part free of charge.
THIRD THRU FIFTH YEARS Amana will provide a free replacement part for any cabinet which proves faulty due to rust.
Warranty Limitations:
Warranty begins at date of original purchase.
Applies only to product used within the United States or in Canada if product is approved by Canadian Standards Association when shipped from factory.
Products used on a commercial or rental basis not covered by this warranty.
Service must be performed by an Amana servicer.
Adjustments covered during first year only.
Warranty Does Not Cover It If:
Product has damage due to product change, connection to an improper electrical supply, shipping and handling, accident, fire, floods, lightning or other conditions beyond the control of Amana.
Product is improperly installed or applied.
Owner’s Responsibilities:
Provide sales receipt.
Normal care and repair.
Having the product reasonably accessible for service.
Pay for service calls related to product installation or usage instructions.
Pay for extra service costs, over normal service charges, if servicer is requested to perform service outside servicer’s normal business hours.
* In no event shall Amana be responsible for consequential damages (间接损坏)
* This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may have others which vary from state to consequential damages, so this exclusion may not apply to you.
1. According to Warranty Limitations, a product can be under warranty if ________.| A．used in the U.S.A. |
| B．rented for home use |
| C．repaired by the user himself |
| D．shipped from a Canadian factory |
| A．the product installation |
| B．a servicer’s overtime work |
| C．the loss of the sales receipt |
| D．a mechanic’s transportation |
| A．Consequential damages are excluded across America. |
| B．A product damaged in a natural disaster is covered by the warranty. |
| C．A faulty cabinet due to rust can be replaced free in the second year. |
| D．Free repair is available for a product used improperly in the first year. |
