【推荐2】Fatima Bushin was losing her sight and was scared. She said what worried her most wasn’t the fear of a long, painful journey to blindness. She feared being unable to feed her family because blindness would keep her from working, as mothers do. The tragedy is that Bushin’s condition was preventable and, if caught in time, stoppable. She was among thousands of women in Tanzania who suffered from trachoma (沙眼), an infectious disease affecting largely poor communities in developing countries. Trachoma is one of neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs, so named because they receive less attention than other tropical diseases.

All NTDs can be controlled or cured entirely with known public health approaches and interventions. Improved sanitation (环境卫生), medicines and medical procedures have produced truly remarkable results in preventing and controlling NTDs, including trachoma, in some of the world’s poorest communities. Preventing, controlling and curing these diseases puts out poverty’s fire at its base.

We know it can be done. Through long-term efforts, several of these NTDs have been stamped out in some countries such as Laos. To wipe out extreme poverty around the world. many countries continue to invest in what is one of the most successful foreign assistance programs. For example, U.S. Agency for International Development programs to combat NTDs have reached nearly 300 million people affected by diseases that can spoil the patients’ appearance or weaken the patients physically.

For Bushin, the story ends well. Through foreign assistance program, she was able to lave the surgery needed to treat trachoma and save her eyesight. The surgery is relatively simple, performed in an hour at an outpatient clinic, and costs less than $300. In return, Bushin avoided a lifelong disability that would have recondemned her family to poverty with little hope for escape.

Jan. 30 marks the World NTD Day, a day that global public health experts say is needed to focus attention on the fight against tropical diseases. The success of the global fight against NTDs is good news for millions of people. It has been life-changing for a mother in Tanzania who continues to be able to provide for her family thanks to the constant efforts being made that kept her family out of poverty by saving her eyesight.

【推荐1】Commuting to and from work can be a nightmare. Cars advance slowly in stop and go traffic, crawling from one traffic jam at stoplights to the next. At peak rush hour especially, there is no chance of sailing through a series of green lights. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, German researchers have found a way to reduce time spent at the crossroads.

Called the KI4LSA project and funded by the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the innovation is being tested. Scientists first studied algorithms taken from a busy intersection to learn about traffic patterns and where improvements were most needed. Then, the technology, using high-resolution cameras and radar sensors, more precisely captured the actual traffic situation and detected the average speed of the cars and their waiting times. Finally, the AI uses deep enhanced learning algorithms to calculate the best switching behaviour for the traffic lights and determine the best phase sequence to shorten waiting times at the crossroads.

The results are encouraging when it is being tried out at a busy intersection in Lemgo, Germany. The intelligent lights are said to improve traffic flow by 10 to 15 percent, which results in money saved; the EU estimates that traffic jams create economic damage that adds up to 100 billion euros a year. Aside from reducing commuting time, these traffic lights will reduce noise and CO2 emissions from cars waiting at the crossroads.

Another exciting development in this research is the K14PED project, which studies pedestrians crossing the crossroads. Using AI as well as a 3D points cloud, researchers can identify how many people are waiting at a pedestrian crossing and whether some of the disabled or elder people will need extra time to cross the street. Such a needs-based system could reduce pedestrian waiting time by 30 percent, which could then decrease jaywalking (乱穿马路) by 25 percent.

Researchers are optimistic that it will be adopted by many countries after the tests in the German towns of Lemgo and Bielefeld. This technology is exciting news for pedestrians and drivers alike. It encourages safety, protects the environment, and may even give you more time to enjoy your morning coffee before heading off to work!

【推荐2】Around the world COVID-19 has messed up children’s education. They began to be shut out of classrooms. Even in countries where schools have stayed open, lessons and tests have been interrupted. Some countries pressed ahead with national exams this year. A few others, including Britain, France and Ireland, cancelled them all. They came up with new ways of awarding grades instead. The fact that big exams have proved so vulnerable to interruption has led to new questions about their usefulness. Are there better ways of measuring what children have learned?

Exams have plenty of problems. They are often unreliable; a study in Israel found that test-takers’ performance can be affected by smog. Many children find them stressful. Plenty of places run them badly. Poorly written test papers in developing countries lead to wild swings in pass rates. Countries, including Algeria and Ethiopia, have shut down the Internet at exam time to prevent cheating.

Yet most of the world’s best-performing school systems keep some kind of important tests, and for good reason. Other kinds of assessments are rarely better and many are worse. For example, if teachers are responsible for assessing their pupils, they may strengthen their own biases. Studies have caught them giving lower grades to students from ethnic minority or those who are fat. Giving up exams does not always ease pupils’ anxiety. Some would rather be tested at the end of their course than have their work constantly assessed. Coursework can waste students’ efforts by encouraging them to make slight changes to a few projects endlessly. That leaves less time for other kinds of learning.

Governments may need to adjust next year’s tests. That could mean cutting the amount of material to be tested. Exam boards may also have to increase the grades of pupils who have spent the most time out of the classroom. Many pupils have studied harder throughout this difficult year. They should have the chance to sit exams to earn the grades they deserve.

【推荐3】You’re out to dinner. The food is delicious and the service is fine. You decide to leave a big fat tip. Why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.

Tipping, psychologists have found, is not just about service. Instead, studies have shown that tipping can be affected by psychological reactions to a series of different factors from the waiter’s choice of words, to how they carry themselves while taking orders, to the bill’s total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.

“Studies before have shown that mimicry(模仿) brings into positive feelings for the mimicker,” wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor. “These studies show that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person who mimics them.”

So Rick van Baaren divided 59 waiters into two groups. He requested that half serve with a phrase such as. “ Coming up !” Those in the other hall were instructed to repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Rick van Baaren then compared their take-home pay. ’The results were clear—it pays to mimic your customer. The copycat(模仿者) waiters earned almost double the amount of tips to the other group.

Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, found the generosity of a tipper maybe limited by his bill. After research on the1,000 tips left for waiters, cabdrivers, hair stylists, they found tip percentages in these three areas dropped as customers’ bills went up. In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau(稳定期) when bills topped $100 and a bill for $200 made the worker gain no bigger percentage tip than a bill for $100.

“That’s also a point of tipping,” Green says. “You have to give a little extra to the cabdriver for being there to pick you up and something to the waiter for being there to serve you. If they weren’t there, you’d never get any service. So part of the idea of a tip is for just being there.”