When Yoshino akira, a Japanese chemist, worked on rechargeable batteries in the 1980s, it was with a view to powering portable devices. His Nobel prize-winning research led to the first     1     lithiumion (Lion) battery. These now power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVS). But the Japanese firms that, building on Mr Yoshino's work,     2     the Lion business early on have lost their edge. CATL, China's battery giant, and the energy arm of LG, a South Korean group, have surpassed Japan's Panasonic as the world's largest     3     of EV batteries. Others are catching up in the production of materials and components.

Japanese battery-makers want to regain their rightful place at the     4     of the pack. To do so they are betting on solid-sate batteries. These still shuttle lithiunions between the anode (阳极) and the cathode (阴极) to charge and discharge, but the electrolyze (电解液) where this shutting happens is solid not liquid. That makes the batteries more stable and potentially more powerful. It also avoids the need for bulky cooling systems, required for fast-charging Lion systems. Cars equipped with solid-state batteries could be lighter, which increases     5    .

Japan     6     more battery-tech patents a year than any other country; second ranked South Korea files half as many. Japanese firms and inventors accounted for more than one in two solid-state-related patents between 2014 and 2018. More are coming. Industrial and chemicals firms, of which Japan has plenty, are preparing for the materials needed to bring the technology to market.

Murata, a big manufacturer which bought Sony's battery     7     in 2017, plans to begin mass-producing smaller solid-state batteries this autumn. Nakajima Norio, Murata's boss, sees "lots of     8     in wearables", since the batteries do not bum or get hot (which is hwy they are already used in things like pacemakers). Honda and Nissan, two other carmakers, are also eyeing the technology.

    9    , if making solid-state batteries were easy, manufacturers would be mass-producing them. It isn't. Water stains the materials, so factories must be kept ultra-day. Mitsui Kinzoku, an engineering firm, has been testing mass production of solid electrolytes and found that it is "indeed a very difficult process", in the words of Takahashi Tsukass, who is involved in the project.

Even if they can get the technology right, Japanese firms are not running     10    , as they had seen in Liion's early days. Most big carmakers, including Ford, Hyundai and Volkswagen, have solid-state cars in the works. They may want to make the batteries themselves. That's some solid competition.

The sale of The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos is just the most recent episode in the decline and fall of professional journalism. By selling out to a mega-billionaire without any newspaper experience, the Graham family has put a priceless national asset at the     1     of a single outsider. Perhaps Jeff Bezos will use his new plaything responsibly; perhaps not; if not, one of the few     2     sources of serious journalism will be lost.

The crisis in the English-speaking world will turn into a disaster in smaller language zones. The English-speaking market is so large that advertisers will pay a lot to gain access to the tens of millions of readers who     3     click onto The New York Times or The Guardian. But the Portuguese-reading public is far too small to support serious journalism on the Internet. What happens to Portuguese democracy when nobody is willing to pay for old-fashioned newspapers?

The blogosphere can’t be expected to take up the     4     of serious journalism. First-class reporting on national and international affairs isn’t for     5    . it requires lots of training and lots of contacts and lots of expenses. It also requires reporters with the well-trained capacity to write for a broad audience. The modern newspaper created the right incentives, but without a(an)     6     business model for the new technology, blogging will degenerate into a postmodern nightmare — with millions     7     without any concern for the facts.

We can’t afford to wait for the     8     hand to come up with a new way to provide economic support for serious journalism. To be sure, the financial press has proved     9     successful in persuading readers to pay for online access; and mainstream media are now trying to imitate this success. Each news article on the web will end by asking readers whether it     10     to their political understanding. If so, they can click the yes-box, and send the message to a National Endowment for Journalism — which would obtain an annual appropriation from the government. This way, serious journalism will succeed in gaining mass support.

John, an ESL tutor of a community college, moved to New York City with all the members of his family. John is a remarkable teacher, so     1     (be) his students for several years, we all missed him very much since he left. It was not long     2     John came back to North Carolina to handle some rounding-off (结束) affairs, ESL teachers and we students held a small party for him.

At the party,     3    people walked around and talked with each other cheerfully, I certainly would not lightly give up that good opportunity to learn English. Then I tried to think of all sorts of topics to converse with Monica, another ESL teacher.

Just before I was about     4     (run) out of my topics of conversation when I heard John said to others loudly, “I dig New York!” I immediately asked Monica seriously, “Is it really difficult to find a job in New York? Why does John, such     5     outstanding ESL teacher, have to do laborious work?”

Looking puzzled, Monica asked, “Why do you have such a feeling?”

“Haven’t you heard him say that he     6     (dig) New York? Is he building a tunnel?” I replied. When she finally understood     7     I said, Monica laughed so hard as to narrowly escape spewing (喷出) her food in her mouth. Wearing a broad smile, she gestured to us to stop talking, and then asked us, the ESL students,     8     we knew the meaning of “I dig New York.” All of us shook our heads and said no. Monica then requested John to explain it to us.

    9     turns out that, in American slang, “I dig New York” means, “I love New York.” Though few people say like that nowadays, we can still find it     10     (use) in literary works.

Seniority in Promotion Is Not a Wise Business Practice

It's not always an easy decision for companies when it comes to filling managerial spots. In the past promoting an employee has been popularly handled by means of basic analysis of the employees' past performance nod seniority, In some cases, the individual's performance has been considered more important while in others the amount of time they have been with the company has been the deciding factor. Nevertheless, seniority is a standard that has never been left out, However, in the contemporary business world, the importance of seniority in promotion is being destroyed as a growing number of companies look outside of their organizations when trying to fill top managerial spots.

Unlike experienced employees who have been with the company for a long time, new people are mare likely generate creative ideas. In rapidly changing markets, innovative and creative talents are sought by many companies in order to adapt to the market. To meet their needs, companies have more to gain by selecting outside employees since they are more willing to try new techniques and less afraid of breaking tradition when introducing new ideas. Thus, rather than promoting existing employees, it might be a wiser management decision to bring in outside talent.

An additional advantage to this new system is that it prevents employees from feeling that they only need to wait for their seniority to provide them with a promotion. Simply put no matter how long they have been with the company, employees have to contribute diligently to the organization if they want to move up the career ladder, As soon as people realize that the company could just as easily bring in a new person, employees will stop judging themselves against each other because they are no longer competing against their colleagues but everyone in the entire industry. As a result, they will begin to show more effort to bring the level of their work up to what they imagine is a much higher standard.

8 . Social Integration — Welcoming the Newcomers

Social integration is the process through which minority groups interact, come together or are incorporated within a community, Increased social integration helps reduce conflict and tension in society, and it can help the new migrants feel more connected to their new community. How do different groups remain relatively cohesive in society?

A few countries around the world have adopted integrated frameworks for their economic, social, political and cultural policies with regard to accepting these migrants into the local society.     1    . This is to allow them to achieve their full potential in life. There are still ongoing efforts to integrate different cultures and races, and the governments have encouraged their immigrants to take an active part in social, cultural, economic and political activities.

Integration takes place in neighbourhoods. work places, schools and public places where people from diverse backgrounds spend most of their time.     2     Especially among the younger children, being in the same class as their foreign counterparts will teach the local children the meaning of tolerance and empathy. Participation in sports, community engagement and volunteer work are also other possible ways that eliminate discrimination and other forms of intolerance. From participating in arts programmes to being parent volunteers in schools, these platforms provide opportunities for people to interact and work towards a common cause. Sports programmes have also been used to encourage social integration. In fact, sport can strengthen social networks and promote non - violence and respect. In these ways, meaningful relationships among those of different ages, racial groups or faiths are built on the basis of common interests.

    3     still, countries have also acknowledged that human movement across borders cannot be stopped. Instead, it should be better managed so that migration is safe, legal and beneficial for everyone.     4     Indeed, the government and local communities play a key role in integrating these newcomers and empowering them to contribute to their new communities, while maintaining their identities.

9 . This era of “Industry 4. 0” is being driven by the same technological advances that enable the capabilities of the smartphones in our pockets. It is a mix of low-cost and high-power computers, high-speed communication and artificial intelligence. This will produce smarter robots with better sensing and communication abilities that can _________ different tasks, and even adjust their work to meet demand without the input of humans.

In the manufacturing industry, where robots have arguably made the most headway of any division, this will mean a(n) _________ shift from centralized to decentralized cooperative production. _________ robots focused on single, fixed, high - speed operations and required a highly skilled human workforce to operate and maintain them. Industry 4. 0 machines are flexible, cooperative and can operate more independently which _________ removes the need for a highly skilled workforce.

For large-scale manufacturers, Industry 4. 0 means their robots will be able to sense their environment and communicate in an industrial network that can be run and _________ remotely. Each machine will produce large amounts of data that can be _________ studied using what is known as “big data” analysis. This will help _________ ways to improve operating performance and production quality across the whole plat, for example by better predicting when repairing is needed and automatically _________ it.

For _________ manufacturing businesses, Industry 4. 0 will make it cheaper and easier to use robots. It will create machines that can be rearranged to perform __________ jobs and adjusted to work on a more diverse product range and different production volumes. This part is already beginning to benefit from robots designed to cooperate with human workers and analyse their own work to look for __________.

While these machines are getting smarter, they are still not as smart as us. Today's industrial artificial intelligence operates at a __________ level, which gives the appearance of human intelligence exhibited by machines, but designed by humans.

What's coming next is known as “deep learning”. Similar to big data analysis, it involves processing large quantities of data in real time to __________ what is the best action to take, The __________ is that the machine learns from the data so it can improve its decision making. A perfect example of deep learning was __________   by Google's Alpha Go software, which taught itself to beat the world's greatest Go players.

10 . Chances are you’re quite bored of your home by now. Oh sure, you know how lucky you are, if you have a warm and comfortable place to live when so many don’t. But a person could live in a full-on palace and still, at this point in a generation-defining global pandemic, think, “If I have to spend one more day looking at this cornicing (榐板) and those enormous wall sconces (壁式烛台), I will genuinely hurl myself off the balcony.” So allow me to share the greatest tip of all time for making your home more fun: get some wallpaper.

People are very cautious about wallpaper, especially the patterned type. I didn’t fully understand this until my partner and I were house–hunting half a decade ago, after we found out I was expecting twins. Off we went to look at family houses and, while the prices were horrific, the houses were, to my mind, even worse. That’s not fair: they were perfectly fine, but there was something about them that sent me plunging into a low-grade depression. I tried to explain it to the increasingly frustrated estate agents: maybe they were dark? Or they just had a bad atmosphere? Were the ceilings too low? At last, I understood: every house I looked at was painted all white or–worse!–dull grey. Literally, every single one, and I assume the people who lived in them thought they looked fashionable and safely neutral. To me they brought back memories of teenage years spent in a psychiatric unit (精神病病房).

“Safely neutral”: has there ever been a more depressing template (样板) for a home? “Safely neutral” is timidity, the decorating equivalent of a fear of letting yourself have fun in case people laugh at you, or a refusal to state an opinion in case you get it wrong. How so many people can bear to live like that is beyond my comprehension. I know not everyone is a maximalist, but I find it puzzling that people won’t commit to patterned wallpaper because they worry they’ll get tired of it, yet paint their home in the most boring shades possible. Be your fearless self! Make your stamp! If not on the world, then at least on your walls.

By the time we moved into our (entirely white, God help me) house, I was a month away from giving birth to two surprisingly big boys. I could no longer walk, but this in no way broke my stride when it came to sorting out the wallpaper. This was a home I hoped to live in for the next two decades, so I went all out and spent so much on wallpaper that we couldn’t really afford furniture for a while.